Talk:Biocentrism

About the move

Sorry about doing the move improperly, I didn't realize that I couldn't do copy/paste -- I have read page move guidelines now, and know what I need to do.

As far as my reasoning though, Lanza's use of the term biocentrism is both far less common and newer. For example, if you look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Biocentrism, you'll see that an extremely large majority of the Wikipedia articles (e.g., anthropocentrism, Murray Bookchin, Eco-terrorism, etc) that link to biocentrism are talking about it in the ethical sense, not in Lanza's cosmological/spiritual sense. Likewise, if you do a google search for "biocentrism", then you get 142,000 results, "biocentrism -lanza" gives 99,000 results -- that is, Lanza's use of the term makes up a minority of the uses. The word biocentrism has been used for decades to refer to the ethical/political sense.

As far as the page use statistics for biocentrism vs. biocentrism (ethics) -- of course biocentrism has more traffic than biocentrism (ethics). When people search for "biocentrism]] on google, they are going to end up at biocentrism, regardless of which one it points to. And all of the articles which wiki-link to biocentrism (thinking that they are linking to the ethical/political sense, probably having never heard of Lanza) will point people to biocentrism, regardless of which one it points to. That doesn't mean that Lanza's sense is the most common (it's not) -- it simply means that Lanza's sense is (inappropriately) what is represented in the article which is most commonly linked to. If anything, the page use statistics represent the problem that I am talking about -- i.e. people are hearing a word used in the ethical/political sense in many books, Wikipedia articles, etc., and when they come to look it up on Wikipedia, they get an incorrect definition (in the sense, that it is not what the author they are reading intended) of the term. The only thing that the page use statistics show is that Lanza fans are misleading thousands of people per month.

Biocentrism should point to the most common use of the term (the ethical one), so I support moving Lanza's version to Biocentrism (cosmology, and making Biocentrism (ethics) --> Biocentrism. Anyhow, sorry again about the improper page move -- I'm still learning, and it won't happen again! Jrtayloriv (talk) 19:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I think that biocentrism should be a disambiguation page, and that that dab page should link to the ethical and the philosophical articles. I don't think at this time that either usage is dominating. However, I am willing to be convinced otherwise with the use of reliable sources or of Google Scholar/Google Books search results. — goethean ॐ 20:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree with having it be a disambiguation page. Lanza's sense is far less common, and much more recent. I think we should just have a disambiguation link at the top of biocentrism pointing to Biocentrism (cosmology).

As far as Google Scholar and Google Books, both (like the Google search results -- more so in fact) support my statement that Lanza's sense is less common:

Google Scholar

• biocentrism -- 6880 results
• biocentrism -lanza -- 6760 results

That is, in scholarly papers, Lanza's sense is 67 times less common.

Google Books

• biocentrism -- 818 results
• biocentrism -lanza -- 813 results

That is, in searchable books on Google Books, Lanza's use is over 100 times less common

Google (web search)

• biocentrism -- 142,000 results
• biocentrism -lanza -- 99,100 results

Again Lanza's sense is in the minority, and only makes up a larger portion here due to WP:Recentism and marketing. As you can see from scholarly treatments, Lanza's sense is basically never used by anyone but Lanza and Lanza fans.

Given this, I am going to go ahead and do the move (properly this time... ) Jrtayloriv (talk) 20:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate your resarch. However, given that four editors above plus myself appear to oppose the move at this time, I request that you gain consensus befor moving the page again. — goethean ॐ 20:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I realize that I can't move it anyway. So, I am going to request a page move from an admin. Given that Lanza's sense is far less common by all measures, and that most articles on Wikipedia are attempting to link to biocentrism (ethics) when they link to biocentrism, do you have any reason why it should not be moved? That is, why do you oppose such a move? Jrtayloriv (talk) 20:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

Note: multiple contributions by sockpuppet accounts and IPs in the poll below have been stricken. --Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

SPI results

Here, it appears some accounts contributing should not have been. I don't think these contributions would have affected the final wp:consensus, but might be worth noting.- Sinneed 03:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Sinneed -- I agree that even without the sockpuppets, the discussion still would have been more weighted towards the "mild oppose, do a disambiguation page" solution. I am willing to compromise on this temporarily, until we have new traffic statistics (i.e. now that most of the intra-wiki links aren't pointing to the wrong article -- see admin discussion below). Perhaps in a month or two, we can start a new discussion about whether to make the ethical sense the primary topic, after we monitor how the traffic statistics have changed due to the links being pointed to the proper location (34 to the ethical sense, and 4 to the cosmological sense -- see "admin" section below). I think that the discussion might have gone very differently without the sockpuppets involved, but for now, I would be willing to accept a (possibly temporary) decision to create a disambiguation page, pending further review after we've seen how the new link structure changes traffic statistics. Are you OK with that? ---Jrtayloriv (talk) 20:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I will add my reply as a comment under my !vote. This section really is superseded by the more-robust admin note below, as I see it, sorry to duplicate. - Sinneed 21:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Admin notes

1. The following accounts have all been identified and blocked as sockpuppets of a single user:
   • Regener (talk · contribs)
   • Reviewer4 (talk · contribs)
   • Staff3 (talk · contribs)
   • WikiWatch31 (talk · contribs)
   • Prosody31 (talk · contribs)
   • Actioncat3 (talk · contribs)

   All their contributions to the above straw poll, and those of anon IPs that appear to be related, have been struck out and will be discounted in evaluating the consensus.

2. I intend to close this move request in a couple of days, hoping that a consensus solidly based on policy has been arrived at by then. Participants should please familiarise themselves with the guidelines at WP:DAB, especially the sections about WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and the following one about "Disambiguation page or disambiguation links?" Evaluation of consensus will be made on the basis of strength of argument and conformance to these guidelines, not on the basis of a vote count.
3. Before any outcome can be implemented, it would be good if all incoming links to biocentrism would be cleaned up and sorted. I suspect that many of the links currently seen here are actually wrong, in that they mean the ethical rather than the cosmological concept to which they are now pointing. I recommend that all links should be unambiguously sorted to either [[biocentrism (ethics)|biocentrism]] or [[biocentrism (cosmology)|biocentrism]]. This will not prejudice the final outcome, since these links will always work, no matter if either of the two targets will end up redirecting to the simple title.
4. Participants in the discussion might also want to consider if these wrong links might not also have affected the distribution of apparent reader interest as documented in page hit statistics. In general, to assess page hit statistics, we should gain some reasonable idea to what extent the data are in fact the result of the present arrangement of links and titles, rather than an independently given value that could serve as justification for it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I have started to go through the list and make the changes recommended in #3 above. I could not change the link on Reality because the page is protected (I think that goes back to when Stephen Colbert asked people to change the page to just read "Reality is a state of mind", but I digress...). Anyway, one of you registered users will need to get that one. It should be a cosmology link. 99.192.84.90 (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC) (aka 142.68.40.117)

UPDATE: I have finished going through the list. If I counted right and did not make any errors or omissions, of the pages with links to "biocentrism" or "biocentric" 33 of them were changed to links to the ethics page and 5 were changed to links to the cosmology page (that includes the Reality page, which I could not do because of the protection). So for what it is worth to the discussion, there are far more Wikipedia pages that reference the ethical concept. But someone should certainly check my work before taking this to be a definitive conclusion. 99.192.84.90 (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE 2: Ford, I see you removed the link altogether from the Reality page. I would suggest that since the cosmological idea of biocentrism is a theory about the nature of reality that it is appropriate to have a link to that page. Just thought I'd pitch in my 2 cents. 99.192.84.90 (talk) 17:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, if you want it back, no problem with me. I wasn't intending to take a stance in any content dispute here anyway. Feel free to restore it. Thanks for fixing the links, in any case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Restored. (Sorry, should have remembered the semiprot.) So, we have 4 article space wikilinks to cosmology and about 35 or so to ethics now, correct? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

No worries. I just did a quick recount and got 34-4 (not counting redirect pages). Since those numbers include the fact that the cosmology page links to the ethics page and vice versa, the more realistic numbers for comparison are 33 pages with links to ethics and 3 pages with links to cosmology. 99.192.84.90 (talk) 18:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This is what I was trying to point out earlier (albeit with too much anger, due to sockpuppetry, that I should have managed better) -- namely that the link structure was the cause of the high traffic to the cosmology page, and not that more people were looking for the cosmology page. it seems to me that not only on Wikipedia, but just about everywhere else, the statistics point to the fact that the ethical sense is the far more common usage. I have mentioned above, in my response to Sinneed, that I am willing to accept a temporary switch to a disambiguation page, even though I feel that I have made a clear case for biocentrism (ethics) being the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC -- but I am willing to compromise, if need be, until we have updated article traffic statistics in a month or two, at which time we can consider making biocentrism (ethics) the primary topic, with a hatnote pointing to biocentrism (cosmology) ... anyhow, thanks to the admin for slaying the puppets, and sorry to everyone for letting my anger get out of hand, rather than dealing with the situation calmly. Jrtayloriv (talk) 20:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thank you guys. I think going for the disambig page solution is a reasonable outcome for the moment, given the opinions and arguments above, and I'm glad we've arrived at it in a spirit of good cooperation. The way I read the discussion, a reasonable case can be made for either solution, and it's basically a judgment call (given that the guidelines don't actually define how much "primary" something needs to be to be "primary"). So, I think the best way will be to follow the majority opinion, while acknowledging that Jrtayloriv also made quite a well-argued case for the alternative. I agree we might revisit the decision after a few months, if clearer data about reader preferences can be found by then. (I have a small technical idea about how to gain some too.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Implementation notes

Okay, I've implemented the move and sketched out a new dab page.

1. There are a few loose ends to be tied up, I think: disambiguation hatnotes at the top of the two articles may have to be adapted or removed, and maybe a couple more similar things.
2. I'm not quite sure where to put this talkpage. Basically, it seems to have started out at a time when there was only one page, right? Much of its contents refers to both concepts at once, or to the question of factoring them out, or to the question of these page moves. So, should we just leave it here as the talkpage of the new dab page? In that case, somebody might want to move the various wikiproject banners to the correct new places.
3. I've included a little technical trick in the dab page, by piping the links through two new specially made redirect pages. These can serve to measure reader traffic, for those who might still be interested in reviewing the situation later. Page hits on Biocentrism will reflect readers coming here through a simple search; page hits on Biocentrism (ethics) and Biocentrism (cosmology) will reflect readers coming in through direct wikilinks; and page hits on Biocentrism (e) and Biocentrism (c) will reflect how traffic through the dab page is divided up across the two targets. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your work. Much appreciated! Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)