Talk:Major (rank)

Requested move 25 December 2019

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: No consensus to move. (non-admin closure) Surachit (talk) 01:03, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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• Major → Major (military rank)
• Major (disambiguation) → Major

Not primary topic. Interstellarity (talk) 21:56, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

• Here's a search query for mainspace [[major]] wikilinks, ordered randomly. I checked 60, and found 0 that were mistargeted. Bad ptopics usually come with a pretty high rate of mistargeted links. Since I'm not seeing it here, I'm inclined to think the current ptopic is appropriate. @Interstellarity: What are the principal other meanings that you see as competing with the military rank for primary topic? Colin M (talk) 16:59, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  @Colin M: Other meanings can be a college major, there is also major and minor in music. Also, Minor is a disambiguation page and has a similar meanings to major. Interstellarity (talk) 17:26, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

  erm... Because there is no minor in military? —usernamekiran(talk) 23:02, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  I fixed all I found, out of 5,500 hits there were: 8 articles referring to academic major, 3 to major scale, 3 to "big", and 1 to tennis. – Thjarkur (talk) 02:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Colin M's check just confirms what I suspected from a glance at the dab page. There is no problem in need of a fix. Srnec (talk) 01:39, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• The military rank will always have the most incoming links, but I imagine a significant number of our readers will be looking for majors in colleges and music. I've added them to the hatnote to make navigation easier. This page has 20,000 monthly views while the disambiguation page has only 650, so my intuition may be incorrect (do we have numbers on whether readers actually click on disambiguation pages?). Incoming links were almost all correct as above, would require a bot to fix those 5,000 links. I do think this move would be somewhat helpful to readers but it's maybe enough to have the other common targets in the hatnote. – Thjarkur (talk) 02:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support per Minor. Hyperbolick (talk) 19:45, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  With all due respect, I think this is a facile argument. Orange doesn't have a primary topic. Does that mean that Red, Green and Purple should all be dab pages as well? Each case is different because each term has a different set of ambiguous terms of varying significance. Colin M (talk) 19:54, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  • Major is more like Orange. Much more, and clearly. Hyperbolick (talk) 21:59, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Strong support There is no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for this word._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 07:03, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Not seen greatly more than Major scale. So I don't see a problem with this proposal. --Quiz shows 09:49, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• This page has been at this place since 2003. I'm pretty sure it is older than any policy suggesting it should be moved. We should therefore ignore such policies and leave it as is, especially when the evidence suggests that nobody is the worse for it. Srnec (talk) 17:50, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. There is no convincing reason to change the long-standing status quo. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 12:57, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per arguments listed above. Garuda28 (talk) 14:27, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
• Strong support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:05, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. No evidence presented that any other topic is a contender for the primary. The status quo is correct.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• oppose major is definitely primary topic. Also per Colin M's check, and per Amakuru. —usernamekiran(talk) 22:59, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose A solution in search of a problem. --rogerd (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

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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.

police rank

Police forces in the US and UAE often have the rank Major. The page on Captain includes the police rank. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.242.173 (talk) 20:12, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Etymology of 'major' as a stand-alone rank name

Currently, the text of the article seems to imply that the rank of 'major' derives from 'sergeant major' ("Historically, the rank designation develops in English in the 1640s, taken from French majeur, in turn a shortening of sergent-majeur, which at the time designated a higher rank than at present.[citation needed]"). That is, quite frankly, nonsense. As a stand-alone rank name, it is shortened from 'captain major' (capitanus maior), meaning, approximately, "most important captain". It was historically applied to the most senior captain when multiple captains had their forces combined into a unit of sorts. 82.176.221.176 (talk) 10:58, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Whoever you are thank you! The article and the publication referenced {Cipra, Dave (7 June 1985). "A History of Ranks & Titles – Final episode: The Landlubbers". Commandant's Bulletin. 12: 13–16.} are completely wrong. Your explaination is correct. 2A00:23C8:1B24:C801:61E2:558B:E5B0:4EBC (talk) 13:59, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I have undone the change to remove sourced content and adding unsourced content per Wikipedia:Reliable sources: "Wikipedia requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations". If there are any sources to support the above statement, please feel free to change back with the sources. Skjoldbro (talk) 08:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• Vietnam People's Air Force SubLieutenant.jpg
• Vietnam People's Army Major.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:48, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 21 October 2023

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. Consensus to move Major to Major (rank) and Major (disambiguation) to Major. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 17:56, 28 October 2023 (UTC) - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 17:56, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

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• Major → ?
• Major (disambiguation) → Major

– IMO the military rank does not seem to be the primary topic. Academic major is a very common term, and the DAB page should be moved to Major. I think there is no primary topic (see WP:PTOPIC). I know there was a move discussion earlier but it was over 4 years ago. TheLatinNerd (talk) 17:29, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support, move first to Major (rank). Based on pageviews, as well as long-term significance, the rank does not seem to outperform the combination of the all the other entries at the dab page that may be referred to as simply "major". Mdewman6 (talk) 18:06, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support per nom. The page should be at "Major (rank)", and the disambiguation page should be at the basename. Paintspot Infez (talk) 18:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support move to Major (rank) for consistency with similar articles like Private (rank). General (disambiguation) should also be moved to General. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:15, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support move to Major (rank), and disambiguation of the base page name, per those above. BD2412 T 23:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
• Weak support the term is rather generic and there are several uses. Academic major has 3,463 views compared with 13,068 for this one but the film has 25,797 and the dog has 19,050[[1]]. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  That query does betray a bit of obvious recentism, though. If we extend the time period in that query to all time - like this - the picture is quite a bit different, yet it still clearly indicates that there are quite a few other meanings the interest in which is at least comparable to the military rank meaning. So the argument for keeping the military rank as primary topic would really need to be fleshed out to keep the status quo. WikiNav does not indicate a lot of interest in the hatnote, but with so much organic interest in the military rank topic just the appearance of the hatnote in the top 10 of outgoing clickstreams is suspicious enough. (Support) --Joy (talk) 18:12, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. The military rank is a clear primary topic here. It has a clear longterm significance compared with the film and dog, and academic major isn't really a big deal. Absolutely no reason to change the longterm status quo here.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:20, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not sure how you judge big deals, but the academic, sports and musical majors on the whole sure seem to be at least comparable with regard to long-term significance. Looking at usage, there's also the matter of numerous popular fictional characters, the overall interest in which easily compares to the interest in the military rank. A whole other matter is WP:NAMELIST which hides away the people named this way, and there is substantial long-term significance and usage overall there, too. --Joy (talk) 06:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support move to Major (rank) per above, and move DAB to base name.--Ortizesp (talk) 23:58, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose A solution in search of a problem. 178.222.110.110 (talk) 16:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support "Major" has way too many meanings, with several being quite prominent, for any one of them to be primary. There is also the music sense (which can be a noun, not just an adjective). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The rank is used across the world and is the clear primary topic for the noun (and is linked on thousands of pages, all of which will need changing if this goes ahead). The academic term is an Americanism. The film is little known outside India and is so named because its subject was a major. The dogs are nowhere near primary and were also named after the rank. Solution in search of a problem, per above. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:56, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Necrothesp I noticed you addressed a number of issues, but not sports, musical majors and surnames. I'm also not sure that we should be dismissing the Americanism out of hand - if a substantial portion of the population of average English readers aren't going to be primarily associating this word with the military rank, then it's hardly a clear primary topic. --Joy (talk) 17:27, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

  The point is that the military rank is heavily used and understood in America as well. It's not like one meaning is primary in America and the other is primary elsewhere. On a world scale, the rank is clearly overwhelmingly primary. In America it is probably equally primary. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:27, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  Well, that assertion seems a bit too bold on a world scale, given how many Brits and others remember the PM John Major, or how many Canadians and others remember Leo Major, or how many people worldwide follow the Tennis Majors or the Golf Majors, or how many people know about major and minor in music. Just because the singular noun often refers to the military rank that doesn't have to mean that every people looking for "major" in the encyclopedia needs to be short-circuited to that one meaning, even if it's one of the common ones. If we aim to have a compendium of knowledge here, presenting information in a way that hides away N-1 topics of common knowledge doesn't really make sense. --Joy (talk) 16:16, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think a couple of people called Major (and yes, as a Brit of course I remember John Major) are relevant. The rank has been around for centuries and is used by numerous countries. Your argument seems to be opposing the whole concept of a primary topic. That's a discussion for elsewhere. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:53, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

  No, I'm just not seeing the criteria of WP:PTOPIC met here - the military rank does not appear to be 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, nor does it have substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term. --Joy (talk) 13:24, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

  John Major is unlikely to be just called Major by itself, however much people may remember him (probably only people above a certain age at this point I'd imagine). The musical topic may be used a lot in day to day life, but as an encyclopedic topic there's very little to say about it. The same goes for the dictionary definition of major. And as noted, academic majors aren't a thing in much of the world. As something encyclopedic, found everywhere and enduring, the military rank is the clear encyclopedic primary topic, and our Wiki forebears had this one correct when they set it up this way.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  @Amakuru can you please open the Major page right now and find the encyclopedic content of enduring educational value that is substantially greater than that of all of those other topics? :) What we have here is three paragraphs of text, one of which is currently marred with some sort of a dispute tag, a list of half a dozen more specific major articles none of which are particularly great either, and then an apparent gallery of links to country-specific variants that takes up most of the space, which probably isn't great vis a vis WP:GALLERY guidelines. Overall, this sounds to me like our forebears merely went with what first came to mind and then it stuck :) I'd also be happy if someone demonstrates the potential of this topic, but so far we seem to have a lot of assertions that do not appear to be supported by facts.

  (I also disagree that there are no references to John Major with just the surname, referring to people using just their surname is pretty common, and doubly so for such public figures. We should settle that perhaps with a review of sources, as opposed to more assertions, though.)

  --Joy (talk) 11:39, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

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.

Cleanup

Any help with fixing the 6,544 broken articles which now link to disambiguation page Major would be greatly appreciated. Certes (talk) 11:08, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with @Certes above. Either the move needs to be reversed (reasonable, given that all but one link out of the hundreds of links I've fixed so far have been to Major (rank)), or we're going to need some help. I can't do this very quickly even with autowikibrowser, a semi-automatic editing program that can go through up to four or five pages per minute while disambiguating. It's been a couple hours going through an alphabetized list, and I just got through the numbers and into the "a" section. I dream of horses ^{(Contribs) (Talk)} 16:01, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

If you think there's reason to reverse the move, the instructions are laid out above, but I don't think we should do this automatically just because there's a cost. We already knew from WikiNav statistics that there were probably more than six thousand organic views a month for "major" (other-search and other-empty), and a total of three times that. With the old assumed primary topic at the very top of the newly shown list, I don't think the average reader is horribly adversely affected as we go through the process of disambiguating the links. Judging from previous experiences with page moves, the traffic patterns should largely stabilize over a period of a couple of months as the search engines also pick up on the change. With only 33 identified sources in WikiNav, and 20 of them shown to us, we should be able to cover most of the affected reader cohorts quickly, and work on the long tail without much pressure. Would be nice if someone could extract the entire list of 33 from the clickstream. --Joy (talk) 16:20, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

WikiNav is valuable but a perfect triumph of style over substance. The page titles can't be copied from the screen and aren't present in the HTML source. After excluding views from off-wiki and switching to top-20, I "printed" the web page to a PDF then extracted its text. 19 of the 20 were already fixed. I've alerted WT:DPWL. Certes (talk) 17:51, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Yep, it's so annoying, I went through them manually, and found that some needed fixing while some were already fixed by Onel5969 - thanks! --Joy (talk) 18:03, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

@Certes, @Joy If you have access to WP:AWB, you can find links to "major" pretty quickly (just populate a list with a source of "what links here", typing in "major"), and disambiguate with the 'disambig' tab, which is in the middle panel, in between "more..." and "skip." Also, WPCleaner is also good at disambiguation.

The primary topic being at the very top helps tremendously; however, an internal link pointing to a disambiguation page still adds unneeded friction to the intended target (people need to click twice instead of once), so we still need to clean this up ASAP. People can be surprising in how easily inconvenienced they can be sometimes, so best not to let this linger for weeks.

The AWB list I just re-generated is down to 1,986, though, so it isn't lingering. I dream of horses ^{(Contribs) (Talk)} 22:46, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

I've been using JWB, which has similar features to AWB. I added an insource: check to avoid anything that links to Major in a way that the regexps (piped and plain) couldn't fix, such as via a template. Those will need manual attention later. DisamAssist is another good option. Certes (talk) 22:59, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I've been watching the stats and the numbers have been dropping at a staggering rate, we're already down to just ~600, which should be easy enough to mop up. --Joy (talk) 08:58, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

post-move

Cf. Talk:Major#post-move. --Joy (talk) 19:00, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Origin of rank name

The article currently says: "The rank can be traced back to the rank of sergeant major general, which was shortened to sergeant major, and subsequently shortened to major."

The source is commandant's bulletin, which, while a military publication, seems very light-weight. Historically, the rank of major is derived from "capitanus maior", which would translate to something like "greater headman" - it meant the most senior captain. I'll see if I can rustle up some good sources. 62.45.38.184 (talk) 08:16, 7 November 2024 (UTC)