Talk:Carl Jacobi

Question about disambiguation

A user in the Teahouse asked why Carl Jacobi is disambiguated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse#Carl_Jacobi:_why_disambiguated?

This seems like a useful topic to elaborate on a bit, and maybe start a discussion. The question and discussion seem to revolve around whether there is a "primary topic" for Carl Jacobi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary_topic

An argument was made that Carl Jacobi the mathematician is a primary topic, and not Carl Jacobi the author, and that the disambiguation should redirect to Carl Jacobi the mathematician. As evidence traffic to the two pages was compared, which shows that Carl Jacobi the mathematician receives around 34 times more page views.

While it may seem to outsiders like Wikipedia navel-gazing to ask "What ratio of page views makes a topic primary?", it is worth revisiting the definition of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and seeing whether Carl Jacobi the mathematician meets the standard. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC defines a primary topic this way:

"While Wikipedia has no single criterion for defining a primary topic, two major aspects that editors commonly consider are these:

• A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
• A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term."

As to the first point, one page having 34 times the page views of another page isn't definitive - it doesn't take into account volume of views - so it provides weak evidence to support making Carl Jacobi the mathematician the primary topic.

But the second point leads to a rock-solid argument to make Carl Jacobi the mathematician the primary topic, instead of leading to a disambiguation page: Carl Jacobi the mathematician was influential in the field of mathematics, science, and engineering (don't believe me? check out the list of things named after him). In 100 years, will anyone remember Carl Jacobi the mathematician? Absolutely, assuming mathematics is still around - the mathematics he created enabled a substantial amount of technological progress, and will continue to do so. In 100 years, will anyone remember Carl Jacobi the pulp novelist? Who knows.

The only other reason to keep a disambiguation page around is in case a third Carl Jacobi, equal to Carl Jacobi the mathematician in long-term significance, comes along and makes the disambiguation page necessary. That seems extremely unlikely.

Therefore, I propose that Carl Jacobi should be moved to Carl Jacobi (disambiguation), Carl Jacobi should redirect to Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi as the primary topic, and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi page should provide a disambiguation message at the top of that page using {{For}} or {{Other people}} pointing to Carl Jacobi (disambiguation) to redirect confused novel-readers to Carl Richard Jacobi.

-- Charlesreid1 (talk) 00:50, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

@Charlesreid1 I agree with you, but I am confused by "one page having 34 times the page views of another page isn't definitive - it doesn't take into account volume of views". Isn't "34 times the views" counting the number of views? Doesn't "volume of views" also mean number of views? Or do views have some other volume that I am not aware of? 71.228.112.175 (talk) 04:11, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

"34 times the views" counts the ratio of the two views. If the total number of views of Page A is 34 and the number of views of Page B is 1, then the ratio can instantaneously drop by half if one person views Page B one time (a small volume of views means a small number of views can change the ratio drastically, so the ratio means very little). Compare with if the total number of views of Page A is 34,000,000 and the number of views of Page B is 1,000,000, then the ratio will not change with a small number of views, so it is more meaningful. -- 05:23, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

One more follow-up observation: the Manual of Style specifically addresses disambiguation pages with only two entries here: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages#Disambiguation_pages_with_only_two_entries

"A disambiguation page with only two meanings is not necessary if one of them is the primary topic for that term. The recommended practice in these situations is to place a hatnote on the primary topic article to link directly to the secondary topic."

-- Charlesreid1 (talk) 06:54, 28 June 2022 (UTC)