Talk:Broken

Requested move

I proposed the move. In my view, none of the entries on the page constitutes a primary topic, but I am interested in others' opinions. --Paul Erik 04:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've tagged the target with {{db-move}}; the move is in accord with naming convention. --Piet Delport 05:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

• I claim that the Nine Inch Nails EP dwarfs the others as a search term and a link. The Broken (Nine Inch Nails EP) article isn't looking very good, but it can be heavily sourced. It went Platinum in 3 months, has a Grammy-winning single, and a companion article at Broken (film).
• Broken (Seether song) got heavy airplay, but has little influence or controversy on its genre. It can be linked from the top of Broken (Nine Inch Nails EP) along with this dabpage
• Broken 2006 Film About a guy who aducts people and totures them then treats them as slaves —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heffabb (talk • contribs) 10:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
• Broken (The Berzerker EP) - new article, little content
• Broken (12 Stones song) - no chart positions
• Broken (and other rogue states) - popularity seems confined to one country
• Broken (demo) is an obscure release that's known under another name
• Broken Records is more likely searched for by its full name
• Broken (novel) is the 6th book in an 8+ book series. Readers may look for the series name first.
• Broken (CSI episode) - it's questionable whether people know episodes by name and search with them rather than lists. Also, episode articles have been getting redirected to said lists
• Broken River is a dabpage with only indirect relevance. –Pomte 05:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"Primary" does not mean "popular": Rome is a primary topic, but Broken is a generic topic, like Table.

See the naming convention for more. --Piet Delport 05:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It says a topic is primary if it is "much more used than any other". There are at least two everyday meanings of table. Broken here is not a generic topic as there is no article for things being broken in general (only one article, bunk, links to an intended dicdef). Only two incoming links (from Live and Loud at the Wormy Dog Saloon and Women of the Otherworld) are intended to target one of the other Broken articles. I Want You is a generic name with multiple contenders; Broken is less so. –Pomte 06:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Broken is an everyday English word with more than a dozen independently notable meanings: it's about as clear-cut a generic topic as you can get. There is no reason to believe that the NIN EP is the majority usage (a quick Google test places it behind the Seether song and the (non-NIN) movie); let alone that it is clearly dominant over the others.

Remember that Wikipedia aims for a general audience: things that are prominent in the self-selecting editor demographic (such as NIN) can be much more obscure outside of it. Would you expect the average person to be looking for the NIN EP? (Would you expect them to even know who NIN is?) --Piet Delport 08:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect the average person to be searching for "broken" at all. If they don't know NIN, they are as likely to not know any of the other items (all of the other articles named "Broken" with the exception of one are generic pages with no independent assertion of notability). Google results for a single word contain a bunch of extraneous terms and factors; people don't search Google like that either, or at least I hope not. The Seether song is listed above due to an automatic suggestion for song lyrics. The move may be intuitive by principle, but unintuitive by practice. –Pomte 10:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

For the most part I agree with Pomte's reasoning here, and I think that most people entering "Broken" in the search box would be looking for the NIN EP. Yet, I think a sizeable minority would be looking for the Seether song (a fairly big international hit, was it not? That article needs some more work), hence my opinion that the NIN EP not be the Primary topic. If the NIN EP is made Primary, then yes (as Pomte suggested) the Seether song ought to be linked from the top of the page along with the dab page.--Paul Erik 15:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

As the linked guidelines explain, a primary topic is not just the most popular entry: it's one that is "clearly dominant" over the others, like Rome or School. For "Broken", there are a dozen similarly notable articles with independent claims to the name.

In other words, the argument that the NIN EP is the most common search (to be weighed against systemic bias) is an argument to have it near the top of the disambiguation page, not an argument that it's a primary topic. --Piet Delport 20:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)