Talk:DNS (disambiguation)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move. There is substantial support for this move, with evidence (both empirical and anecdotal) that Domain Name System is the primary meaning of this initialism. That DNS might only be understood or known to mean "Domain Name System" by some segment of the population is irrelevant... unless there's evidence that the rest of the population is looking for something else when they think of this initialism, and, more importantly, looking for this initialism with greater frequency. -- tariqabjotu 22:06, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• By article popularity, Domain Name System is more popular than all the others combined (Stats DNS has been viewed 4358 times in 201307.)
  • Domain Name System has been viewed 76489 times in 201307
  • Direct numerical simulation has been viewed 805 times in 201307.
  • Dragon NaturallySpeaking has been viewed 2967 times in 201307.Widefox; talk 17:46, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Google "DNS" -> all hits in (at least) first page are this topic with this article #1
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System‎
• A redirect to the primary is not a factor in determining per
  WP:PRIMARYTOPICWidefox; talk 09:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• I fixed all the incoming links - all were about Domain Name System
• Page history shows it used to be the primary topic, and there's been some differing opinions. Widefox; talk 10:20, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose – Ambiguous acronyms should not have primarytopics known only by nerds. Dicklyon (talk) 23:47, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - To match such obscure and "ambiguous" acronyms such as
  USMC (known only by Gomer Pyle fan-nerds) and DNA or RNA (known only by genetics nerds). Woodshed (talk) 00:28, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]

I think the general public would recognize most of those; but not DNS unless they're into Internet internals. Dicklyon (talk) 04:25, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon you sound quite certain of that, and it's an interesting point. Can you point out something similar? Have you seen DHCP (disambiguation)? My understanding (of the not well defined) primarytopic is that is only about relative likelihood of the ambiguous terms, not about absolute awareness of the primary topic term. Domain Name System is notable, and arguably nerdy, but just because it is seemingly obscure under the hood to us nerds, that shouldn't make us force users to actively select it when it is the most likely thing they want. I don't consider initialisms any different to other terms. To users it's all mumbo-jumbo anyhow. Germans plus others (like me) know the term "Danzig" in the primarytopic example, but that shouldn't influence me. On the contrary, the more obscure, pervasive, and exposed "DNS" is to end users (at least Chrome exposes the term on Internet connection failure, so I'm guessing everyone with a smartphone/tablet/PC will be exposed to it), the more important it is to make it accessible. But that's my motivation rather than my reasoning for the primary, as all that matters for primary selection is relative likelihood. If there were no other uses of "DNS" (so no DAB), it would simply redirect (the other likelihoods being 0). Widefox; talk 08:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, DHCP should be fixed. UDP and TCP are the first two similarly-used internet-underware TLAs that I checked. Both are disambig pages, even though they dominate at abbreviations.com. Dicklyon (talk) 15:53, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's consensus for DHCP, and been there for 7 years. What's your understanding of primary topic? e.g. does it involve easter egg? sorry, I should add I'm assuming something big - correlation between initialism and full title. Sorry I should have said that. There's HP (disambiguation) and quite some comment on its talk page as there's a strong horsepower. There's nothing statistically as likely as horsepower here. UDP has some well known political parties at least this side of the pond (I haven't checked the stats), and looking at TCP, I will propose as primary - the strongest being a factor 20 less viewed. Widefox; talk 09:41, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Dicklyon TCP, and TLS are now up for primary topics / requested move, but not UDP. Widefox; talk 22:46, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Dicklyon. I can't support this without some evidence. I consider myself a nerd and wouldn't've been able to tell you what DNS stood for offhand. --BDD (talk) 15:21, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Evidence is above - I moved it down in case others aren't seeing it.) If there were no other DHCPs or DNSs would you oppose redirecting? "The fact that an article has a different title is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary" - this applies to initialisms like any redirect. Widefox; talk 08:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I misread the request, and my pride prevented me from admitting this earlier. Sorry. --BDD (talk) 21:32, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per actual guidelines at
  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I am unaware of WP:NOTFORNERDS. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support per
  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Virtually all top Google results for DNS are related to Domain Name System. All other entries are relatively obscure. -Zanhe (talk) 17:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support due to lack of competition for primary topic. Even something that has a tenuous grasp on relevance, as long as it could pass WP:AFD, has a shot at being the primary topic as long as it is significantly more likely to be the result of a search than the "competitors". And there is no viable competitor. People who type in
  DNS works better as a redirect. Red Slash 00:16, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose per BDD. This primary topic thing is meant to be useful for readers, not to create chaos and walled gardens. The proposal would make reader searchers more difficult (irritating, even). Tony (talk) 04:50, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon,

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC already. While WP:NOTFORNERDS isn't (and WP hasn't chaotically collapsed under primarytopic :) it would be useful if you could expand your reasoning. Widefox; talk 07:05, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply

]

Sure. It's as simple as

WP:ACRONYMTITLE. While I do think DNS is "known primarily by its abbreviation," I don't think it's well known or unambiguous enough to just have the acronym title. --BDD (talk) 15:33, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply

]

• Comment Thanks.
  WP:R#DELETE. I do consider WP:ACRONYMTITLE a possible threshold that could arguably be considered for primary topic selection, but that isn't mentioned in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC yet, it is not the guideline, so please make the case. Widefox; talk 20:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Exactly. The question of disambiguation is "What is the topic for this Title?" The question for

  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is satisfied. The two are not in conflict. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:09, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Exactly, ACRONYMTITLE can be satisfied once, while at the same time as PRIMARYTOPIC is separately satisfied in several DABs (be it for acronyms or any alternative title). There's no 1:1 mapping, and imposing one (so we never have primary topic redirects) is a constriction that isn't helpful to readers. Widefox; talk 12:21, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose There seems to be a growing consensus in the 'pedia that simple terms (see '
  WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but is completely wide of the mark. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 07:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Longevity argument is important, although DNS has been around decades, is likely to be, and users are exposed to the term now, although I cannot predict the future usage. A Google books search "DNS" gives only

Brand new was over 13K words. I plead ignorance/otherstuff/offtopic for now. I don't have an opinion on whether I agree with removing the primary there. I do know that PRIMARYTOPIC is what I go by. Widefox; talk 12:29, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply

]

There's DHCP (disambiguation), ITN (disambiguation), there may be much variety/inconsistency AD (disambiguation) vs BC, each to its own merits. Yes it's about one namespace so we only need to consider real (not potential) namespace clashes, ultimately pairwise comparisons for this term DNS. What is the pair to compare for DNS? Simply put, by trying to tackle systemic bias, we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot. The merits of each case should be used. Ultimately, "properly disambiguated" must be balanced against "most likely inconvenienced". Widefox; talk 12:29, 19 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support move of DNS to DNS (disambiguation) as Domain Name System is clearly the primary topic for the three letter sequence DNS. However I don't think the Domain Name System should be moved, rather DNS should redirect there and a {{redirect|DNS}} hatnote added to the target page. Hatnotes avoid any need for anyone to be thinking about walled gardens or hindering people finding less-sought articles. Thryduulf (talk) 13:36, 20 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - I made it more clear above - this isn't about moving the article. Tony1 Readers coming from Googling DNS go straight to the article now anyhow bypassing this DAB, making this discussion moot in some way - I added a hatnote to Domain Name System in the meantime as we did have a walled garden from that route until now. Obviously primary topic redirects always get a redirect hatnote. Widefox; talk 20:39, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support moving disambiguation page to
  DNS to Domain Name System. It is abundantly clear that this is the primary use of the term. There is no need for a person to understand in advance what the three-letters mean. What is important is the likelihood that anyone searching for "DNS" is highly likely to be looking for the networking usage. older ≠ wiser 12:14, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support moving disambiguation page to
  DNS to Domain Name System
  , as proposed. I've reviewed the opposition arguments:
  • "Ambiguous acronyms should not have primarytopics known only by nerds."
    • This is an opinion - no basis in policy so far as I can tell.
  • "I consider myself a nerd and wouldn't've been able to tell you what DNS stood for offhand."
    • This seems purely JDLI, certainly not policy based. Besides, many people are familiar with "DNS" but not what it stands for. That's the point. People searching for the article at Domain Name System are likely to search with "DNS" and should be taken there.
  • "This primary topic thing is meant to be useful for readers, not to create chaos and walled gardens. The proposal would make reader searchers more difficult (irritating, even)."
    • No explanation for how this proposal would make "searchers (searches?) more difficult" (or irritating). No basis in policy.
  • "There seems to be a growing consensus in the 'pedia that simple terms (see 'Big' and 'Brand new') ought to be properly disambiguated at its first landing point and not usurp a potentially ambiguous or other artificial (read "parenthetical") namespace, and I see this as no exception. "
    • At least this one appeals to an alleged shift in convention. But the examples given are for commonly known household terms - this is not that. Anyway, no policy basis.

  On the other side, the support argument is solidly supported by

  DNS to Domain Name System. --B2C 19:48, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply

  ]

I deleted WP:NOTFORNERDS as an implausible name for a redirect. Also, please scan for the word "support" above before declaring how roundly opposed these RMs are. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:04, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Current !votes 5 to 4 supporting this primarytopic isn't consensus so far, and especially not for changing the guideline. I undid the addition as not even a LOCALCONSENSUS at this RM. (To me feels a bit early and circular to cite a guideline at the start of consensus building, then create it in the middle). The other two RMs are not as strong candidates anyway (I wouldn't have started them if I'd anticipated such opposition to this stronger candidate). I'm hoping you participate in the existing discussion Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Primary topic which I have moved to Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Primary topics - acronyms Widefox; talk 11:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was aggregating your other two nerd acronym RMs when I said "these RMs are so roundly opposed". It's unclear to me why you're seeing some support here for DNS, or why you think it's a better case. Dicklyon (talk) 19:47, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"!votes 5 7 to 4 supporting" might not be a

community consensus as reflected in policy, which is what matters here. See my full analysis above. --B2C 19:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply

]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a

requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review

. No further edits should be made to this section.