Talk:Still (disambiguation)

Requested move 14 March 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: no consensus. Editors opposing this move argue that there are only two primary topics to choose between, and that of those two this is clear primary, and further that it makes sense to chose one in a style similar to WP:ONEOTHER.

Those supporting the move argue that there is no primary, and thus the dab page should be at the primary topic.

Overall, no consensus can be found for either position, and after an extended discussion and one relist a consensus is unlikely to be found through further discussion at this time. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 22:06, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

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• Still (disambiguation) → Still
• Still → Still (distillation)

– No clear primary topic even ignoring the dictionary definition. By usage the Joy Division album has 3,405 views, the 2014 TV episode has 2,721 and Film still has 1,674 compared with only 2,660 for this one[[1]]. By long-term significance Film still may also have enough to mean there is no primary topic by long-term significance. Still (chemistry) is another target like Residue (chemistry). Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:21, 14 March 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 19:57, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

• Support WP:NOPRIMARY between Film still and Still for pageviews and longterm significance, and there are other potential primary topics besides. I would, however, suggest Still (device) or Still (apparatus) as a move target instead. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:22, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Looking over the DAB page, I think the current article is the primary topic. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:27, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
• Support per nomination or per alternative qualifiers proposed by ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ. There are 55 entries listed upon the Still (disambiguation) page, with no indication that the relatively brief article delineating the distillation apparatus connotes such overwhelming significance as to dwarf the combined notability of the remaining 54 entries. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 03:43, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
• https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Still says the hatnote gets clicked 115 times out of ~3400 views (~3%), which is moot, but it is indicative that it's the third most clicked link on this article. Since it's such a common English word, it makes sense to give full disambiguation a shot, and then we track the same statistics for a couple of months (definitely wait until the search engines settle again for directing distillation topic to its new location) to see if the organic reader navigation pattern has changed for the better. --Joy (talk) 11:28, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:IAR of WP:NOPRIMARY. There is very little benefit in sending all users searching with “still” to a dab page cluttered with obscure uses of the term. At least the way it is those searching for the distillation apparatus are where they are, and, per historical significance, some of the others may learn something. This is especially true since I added an About template to this article listing the most likely alternatives, so those seeking those topics are just as few clicks (one) from their sought topic as they would be if sent to a dab page. Better off in my view considering the dab age clutter. WP is better without making this proposed change. —-В²C ☎ 13:58, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  The 2 generic meanings would be at the top but per the views there are other uses that have more usage so I don't see how leaving as is helps our readers, there isn't clearly a primary topic by either criteria and there are lots of competing uses. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:04, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  Well, I guess that depends on your definition of obscure uses of the term. What proof do we have that the average English reader is significantly more aware of distillation compared to the common adjective which is the probable eponym of a majority of the listed meanings? Concepts of calm and quiet seem like way less obscure in comparison. Certainly the liquid processing topic is one of the most coherent single topics about the word, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's overall the primary one to the extent that the average reader needs to get a short-circuited navigation to it. --Joy (talk) 19:33, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  So send EVERYONE searching with “still” to the dab page riddled with uses they’re definitely not seeking? How is that better? В²C ☎ 00:15, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  This argument makes little sense. The most common uses are generally clustered at the top; it is not confusing or difficult to understand for anyone. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 04:51, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  We don't know that they're definitely not seeking that. I'm not sure if anyone posted the mass views link, but here we go - mass views for still (disambiguation) - if we just look at in title matches, the Walking Dead episode and the Joy Division albums each have more views than the distillation concept already. This is also an interesting case for the spirit of WP:NOTDICT - if we choose to prefer either of these options it sounds like we're preferring a dictionary meaning. I'd still advise trying full disambiguation to be able to examine how it affects the usage pattern. --Joy (talk) 08:07, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

  Note also how all of these are ambiguous: calm, quiet, silent, soft, gentle, low, inert, ... --Joy (talk) 20:57, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Note how none of those terms have encyclopedic topics even remotely like the usage here. В²C ☎ 02:54, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

  Er, are we looking at the same list? Several of them have "big" noun meanings that are at the top of the respective list. --Joy (talk) 08:06, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

  Please identify a use of any of those terms with page views comparable to those of this page. —В²C ☎ 21:48, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

  What sort of comparability are you looking for in page views exactly? --Joy (talk) 07:36, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Not comparability. Comparable. Of approximately equal (or greater) page view numbers. В²C ☎ 08:11, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Well, I don't think that's important, but here, an easy example is mass views for silent vs mass views for still. Silence at 124/day, Still (distillation) at 133/day. Still album at 161/day, Still episode at 157/day. Silent Generation at 3k/day, Silent film at 855/day. Silent has been disambiguated since 2008 or so? --Joy (talk) 15:44, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• Still oppose - this is still the primary topic. The idea of an album or TV episode even remotely approaching the long-term educational significance of a still for distillery is insultingly ludicrous, so it's really only between this and film stills, and the distillery still wins even there, still on long-term significance but now also on pageviews. I hope those who are considering to close the request for Still still still the article's title right here. Red Slash 20:28, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Film stills have a large amount of long term significance, and are a pop culture icon. This seems to be a WP:NWFCTM situation. One has to actually look objectively at the two subjects. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 22:06, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  That's a fair assessment; you could, however, also view it in terms of pageviews. I'm sure that liquor lovers do indeed think of "still" as equipment for distilling, and I'm sure film geeks first think of film stills. I am neither, and would've probably assumed still was a disambiguation page. But (once the trivial topics are discarded) pageviews make clear which one of the two main topics is primary, and it's not that close. So, while I respect your position, I still oppose. Red Slash 16:31, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

  This sounds like you're reading the statistics and feeling obliged to choose a primary topic based on that, while also making judgement calls about comparative long-term significance that then contradict these statistics. All that is not actually necessary, per primary topic guidelines. It's completely fine to present real-world ambiguity to the readers. In fact, if we short-circuit the readers and cause some of them to be astonished, that's explicitly documented as bad. Presenting a disambiguation list that clearly lists generic, popular meanings at the top is perfectly in line with the guidelines. --Joy (talk) 07:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• Support per nom. The word just has too many common meanings to have a primary topic. BD2412 T 19:59, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
• Support – I somewhat get the IAR arguments here that an album/TV episode aren't the primary topic and shouldn't come into play, but considering that and then taking into account that there are 52 other topics on the DAB page, including Film still which is an argument towards there not being a primary topic by historical significance (and which is somewhat close on pageviews), I really see no way you can argue there's a true primary topic with the distillation apparatus here. In terms of where to target the article currently at Still, I don't have much of a preference between the one proposed in the nom and the ones proposed by Zxcvbnm. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 17:06, 29 March 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.

followup to previous move discussion

https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Still indicates that in April '23, there were 3.2k incoming links and the hatnote was #1 outgoing link at 215 recorded clickstreams (~7%). The outgoing percentage graph indicates a significant fluctuation on the hatnote clicks between March and April, ~11% and ~23%.

This really reminds me of the recent change at Talk:Julia. If we disambiguate still, we'd likely see a non-trivial difference in navigation outcomes. --Joy (talk) 19:06, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

In May '23, it was 3.7k incoming, hatnote #1 at 404 (~11%), pot still 104 and another 21 smaller destinations. --Joy (talk) 07:17, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

In June '23, it was 3.1k incoming, hatnote #1 at 147 (~4.75%), pot still 120 and another 17 smaller destinations. --Joy (talk) 19:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

In September '23, it was 3.4k incoming, hatnote #2 at 117 (~3.4%), distillation 175, pot still 99, column still 56 and another 15 smaller destinations. NB: distillation is the first link in the article as the verb 'distill'. --Joy (talk) 19:06, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

In October '23, it was 3.3k incoming, hatnote #3 at 80 (~2.4%), distillation 150, pot still 125, column still 51 and another 16 smaller destinations. NB: pot still and column still are linked from image captions (the latter only from there). --Joy (talk) 14:18, 14 November 2023 (UTC)