Talk:John Conway (disambiguation)

Untitled

I think it would be better to redirect this to John Horton Conway, and just have a note on that page about John B. The asymmetry is quite big. Charles Matthews 19:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. John Horton Conway used to be here at John Conway and is the John Conway intended by nearly all links that used to link here. It is unfortunate that there are two mathematicians with similar names, but primary topic disambiguation should still apply. -- Solipsist 20:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I have no real objection to the current situation, except to say that it is really inconvenient and liable to cause confusion not avoid it. I've already ran into this a couple times and I know who John B. is! (even had a chat with him at an NSF thing) --C S (Talk) 15:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

As I said on Charles Matthews' talk page, it's OK with me if people want to put a dab line at the top of John Horton Conway and make John Conway a redirect. I'd raise a little note of caution, though; would someone writing an article on functional analysis, and needing to reference one of John B's contributions, think of John H when writing? If not, then maybe the disambig page is the best solution—it shouldn't usually be hard to figure out which one is being referenced. I have to admit I don't know much about John B's contributions, not being a functional analyst myself. But he has a very extensive publication list (check it out on MathSciNet), so I assume the issue could come up. --Trovatore 18:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

John B is a real mathematician; John H has a high profile with the non-mathematical public (readers of Martin Gardner, games theorists, and so on). That settles it for me - lay persons are probably looking for John H. Charles Matthews 19:10, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Mike, I know where you are coming from, since I also had similar thoughts myself. But it's important to take into account: 1) John Conway is a very common name, so any mathematician with that name or looking for someone with such a common name would usually make sure to get his full name. 2) John H. initially wrote papers under "J. H. Conway", I'm sure partially because of point #1. However, the only hits given on MathSciNet for "John Conway" are in fact for John H., since he has recently started publishing papers under that name. 3) John B. has always been careful to write his papers under "John B. Conway". I suspect this is partly because of disambiguation reasons but also partly because he is well aware of the other John Conway. 4) I'm sure mathematicians in general, including functional analysts, know of John H. Those that don't, will probably because of points #1 and #3, look for John B. 5) Amusingly enough, there is now a John T. on the scene. It may be his fame will surpass John H. Who knows? But at this point in time, John H. is undoubtedly the most famous by far and I'm certain almost (if not all) searches for John Conway on Wikipedia are for John H. --C S (Talk) 07:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, since I think everyone is in agreement here, I will do as suggested and make the main page on John H. with a dab note at the top. C S (Talk) 07:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Bravery Keyboardist

Hmm... There's no mention here of the keyboardist from the band The Bravery, who is also called John Conway. Beno1000 17:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Requested move 14 April 2020

The following is a closed 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved per application of both criteria of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, including the 2019 pageviews provided, showing more than all other topics combined. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

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John Conway → John Conway (disambiguation) – I believe that John Horton Conway is the primary topic, as he is far more well-known than any of the others on the page, holding an 85% share of 2019 pageviews. As the discussion from 2005 above indicates, it appears that John B. Conway (the second most important John Conway) was careful to always include his middle initial, whereas John Horton Conway was frequently known simply as the John Conway. Assuming that John Horton Conway is the primary topic, we can discuss whether to move his page here or leave this a primary redirect to his page, but for now let's focus solely on whether he is the primary topic and worry about the optimal title in a later discussion if this succeeds. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:45, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support + also support moving John Horton Conway → John Conway per nom, clear primary topic. Iffy★Chat -- 19:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. As has been pointed out on December 13, 2005, under section header "Untitled" above, "John Conway" is a very common name that is shared by 18 men listed at the John Conway disambiguation page, including two mathematicians. The late English mathematician used the pen name "John H. Conway" and has always been referenced as "John H. Conway" or "John Horton Conway". The sole references to him as "John Conway" appear to be in articles that have initially introduced him as "John H." or "John Horton" and only subsequently reduce the name to simply John. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  John Adams is even more common, with more than 50 people bearing that name. But do we care? What matters is that one of them completely dominates the rest - and if 85% isn't domination, I don't know what is. The assertion that he is never referred to solely as John Conway is patently false: [1], [2], [3] just from the first page of Google News. I see a good balance between articles including and excluding his middle name. But we're not trying to determine the best title for his article; we're trying to determine primary topic, and as long as "John Conway" is a common way to refer to him (regardless of whether "John Horton Conway" is more common), he is a valid candidate for primary topic of "John Conway". (By the way, that's why his own son John Quincy Adams does not result in disambiguation of "John Adams" - because this is someone who actually is never referred to without his middle name.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - one of the sillier RMs currently listed. Page views are not everything - long-term significance holds weight, and when several topics have long-term significance, it is best to disambiguate for the benefit of accurate internal wikilinking. In this case, John Conway would be a disruptive if made into a primaryredirect to John Horton Conway, and would not help even 1% of readers. On balance, a bad suggestion. -- Netoholic @ 05:50, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • "and when several topics have long-term significance", but there are not several topics with close to the same long term significance as John Horton Conway. 2001:464F:201D:0:40F8:E24:ADBD:AD75 (talk) 10:06, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • As for disrupting wikilinks; Have you actually looked at the wikilinking? The ones from articles are explicitly to disambig. As for Talk: starting from top; Talk:Eulers number - should be linked to Horton. Talk:4-polytope - Should be Horton. Talk:Philosophy of mathematics/Archive 2 - Probably Horton, although I have not ruled out Blight, but see discussion above for why this is unlikely. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (theorems) -Horton. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography,Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/Deletions, where to build pages and evolution of conventions, Talk:Adjoint functors - The disambig page. Talk:Knot polynomial - Horton, Talk:Group_representation - Horton . I see no reason to assume that this does not continue in the same vein. 2001:464F:201D:0:40F8:E24:ADBD:AD75 (talk) 10:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
    • When something is mistakenly linking to a DAB we have bots to notify editors, and also its easy to clean up. When we have multiple persons with that name and one "primary", finding mistaken wikilinks is much harder. This is a strong argument in favor of keeping all disambiguated and WP:NOPRIMARY. -- Netoholic @ 14:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
      • You could make that argument regardless of the page we're talking about, and yet we do end up making judgment calls regarding the primary topic of personal names. Several topics having long-term significance is not a reason for WP:NOPRIMARY if one of them exceeds the others by a wide margin. Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) has enough long-term significance that we still remember enough of her 400 years later to produce a 28,000-byte article, and yet it is not enough to prevent the actress Anne Hathaway from being primary topic. Numbers are not the be-all and end-all, fine. But I have at least provided evidence relevant to this specific case. What arguments do you have that cannot be similarly applied to John Adams and/or Anne Hathaway? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
        • I oppose those being at primary as well. -- Netoholic @ 19:41, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
          • Just to clarify your views: 1) Which of the John Conways in particular do you consider significant enough to pose a challenge to any one of them being primary? (Surely it can't be all of them, or you'd be arguing for a blanket ban on primary topics for personal names.) What are your criteria for reaching this threshold of significance? 2) If John Horton Conway were President of the United States, would you support him being primary? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm prepared to accept that John H. Conway is the most notable of the John Conways, but I think interest in the others together outweighs interest in John H., so that most visitors probably want the dab page (especially since it's so easy to confuse John Conway the mathematician born in America with John Conway the mathematician who lived in America, and a hatnote that properly clarified things would be too clumsy). Incidentally, this week is a poor time to make a proposal like this, because there's a spike of interest in John H. that's not really indicative of long-term trends. -- Netwalker3 (talk) 12:12, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support WP:PRIMARYTOPIC – definitely by usage (even prior to his death) and likely by long-term significance (owing to Conway's Game of Life) as well. I find the analogies with John Adams and Anne Hathaway pretty persuasive. TompaDompa (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• Meh John B. Conway (another mathematician) is pretty well known too, and for non-math people, the best known John Conway is probably the character from the Terminator movies. 2601:648:8202:96B0:E0CB:579B:1F5:84ED (talk) 04:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

  You mean John Connor? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:53, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.