Talk:Bay (disambiguation)

Clean up

I cleaned the page, using Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). Some entires I removed, citing relevency were:

• The Bay Area is an area of California.
• The Aberdeen & Commonwealth Line named its ships after bays.
• Bay is also a module in classical or Gothic architecture, the distance between two supports of a vault or the unit of an opening and its framing on a façade.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Commander Keane (talk • contribs) 05:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

"The Bay" redirect

Currently "The Bay" redirects to Hudson's Bay (retailer). It would be better if it redirected here, to the disambiguation page. Any thoughts on this? —RedScrees (talk) 13:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

• Redirect now done. ▲RedScrees (talk) 18:54, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 22 December 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. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

---

• Bay (disambiguation) → Bay
• Bay → Bay (landform)

– No clear primary topic, the landform has 8,321 views but the horse has 4,287, the place in Laguna has 1,154, the architecture has 1,143, the chancellor has 445, the place in Somalia has 397, the shelving has 137, the place in Arkansas has 107, the surname has 74, the cloth has 49, the place in Springfield, Massachusetts has 38, the place in Missouri has 32 and the place in Haute-Saône has 4. EBay has 88,974, Bay leaf has 26,955, the TV series has 19,263, Laurus nobilis has 16,678, the web series has 5,561, the film has 5,128, Loading dock has 1,453, Bay Trading Company has 238, Bay River has 21, Bays, Kentucky has 12 and Bays, Ohio has 6[[1]]. Links for the architecture and horse are commonly made here, see User:Certes/misdirected links. Although the landform is probably the most common use its not primary by usage and some of the other things like the trees, horse and architecture also have long-term significance. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:39, 22 December 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 07:34, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

• Weak oppose based on WP:RECENTISM and the fact that the the things that score highly in that list are not generally known as simply 'bay'. YorkshireExpat (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• oppose of the things know just as 'bay' the land form is the clear primary topic—blindlynx 21:17, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• Comment – I regularly fix bad incoming links to Bay. 90% of offenders are for Bay, Somalia; next most popular target is Bay (horse). Certes (talk) 22:38, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support per nomination and comment by Certes. There are 52 entries (plus 11 related dab pages under "See also") listed upon the Bay (disambiguation) page, with little indication that the descriptive name for the landform holds such overwhelming prominence that it dwarfs the combined notability of the remaining 51 entries. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:10, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The horse color is not very likely to be sought with just “bay”, and even if the landform usage didn’t exist the horse would still not be at Bay, while the landform is only called “bay”. So we can’t weigh the page views equally. Discounting the horse page views accordingly even by just a conservative 25% leaves the landform more likely to be sought than all the others combined… clear PRIMARYTOPIC. —В²C ☎ 07:17, 23 December 2023 (UTC) minor corrections/clarifications --В²C ☎ 23:46, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Born2cycle: The horse is at Bay (horse), how else would you expect readers to search for that article? Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:22, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  Per Google they search for bay horse color. —В²C ☎ 14:53, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  The lead starts with "Bay is a hair coat color of horses" so that article would be at "Bay" if the landform didn't exist. Why would someone search for Bay horse color when the article has a qualifier? Even if its sometimes called "Bay horse color" it must still be mainly known as "Bay" otherwise it would be at a longer title rather than a qualified one. Yes there are pubs called the "Bay Horse" but when you refer to the colour it is just "Bay" even though you may describe a horse as being bay. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:57, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  I think that article should be at Bay horse color anyway, but that discussion is for another day. Here, I just wouldn't put much weight on the horse color's claim for "Bay" as the current title might suggest. В²C ☎ 22:12, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  Given that in almost 23 years of Wikipedia Bay horse color was a red link and Bay horse colour still is I doubt that is the common name or at least the term most readers will use. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:31, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  "Bay horse color" is clearly not the WP:COMMONNAME. In the absence of conflicting claims on the title, the equine article would be called simply "Bay". Similarly, we don't have articles called Chestnut horse colour, Grey horse colour or their American spellings. Certes (talk) 20:44, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• Let me start by mentioning the relevant classics: WikiNav for Bay WikiNav for Bay (disambiguation) All time mass views for Bay (disambiguation) This is another place where people named this way are relegated to the bottom, the People section is #7 and the last one before Other uses on the disambiguation page, and then it's a section in the name page... WP:NAMELIST FTW. All time mass views for Bay (surname) show that Michael Bay and James Bay are clearly the topics of most interest named this way and we make the readers click and scroll multiple times to get to them, sigh. --Joy (talk) 10:03, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  What makes you think people commonly search for either Michael or James by only "Bay"? There might be a very few, but unless a person is commonly known by the surname only, I think most people would know to search using both names. older ≠ wiser 15:44, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  Since we're so actively discouraging them from doing that, we couldn't tell how common it is even if we tried. --Joy (talk) 20:28, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  We're not discouraging anyone from how they search. It's a matter of common usage in English. Relatively very few persons are commonly known by their surname alone and very few would think it sensible to search for a person with a common word for their surname by that alone. Granted, if that's all you have to go on, then that's were you'd start and the disambiguation page will get you there, but I think few would be surprised to find people by surname indexed separately from topics ambiguous with the term by itself. And it shouldn't be considered a factor in determining primary topic without strong evidence. older ≠ wiser 22:29, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  Well, I beg to differ. If navigation is made onerous for a type of search, then readers will necessarily be using other means to get to where they're headed, and there's no way to see from the plain navigation statistics that anyone thinks it sensible to search for a person with a common word for their surname. Thankfully if one enters e.g. "director bay" or "singer bay" in the search, they are navigated well enough, but that necessarily means that traffic stays there, and in turn outside of the stats we typically rely on in our determinations of primary topics. The fact that we're missing all such traffic in our process makes the process less evidence-based, not more. It's interesting how many times we have to have discussions that go back to a simple I know that I know nothing... --Joy (talk) 09:46, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Note also that this line of reasoning has another logical corollary that doesn't seem to be discussed much - how many times a reader will encounter the term "bay" or "bay of" in other article titles meaning the land forms, and how this body of work weighs into the determination of primary topic. --Joy (talk) 09:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  We'll have to disagree then. In the absence of any evidence, I think any reasonable person would not be surprised in the least that an index of people with a common word for their surname is separate from a listing of topics ambiguous with that term alone. It's only as a last resort if one literally knows nothing other than the surname to start with that. older ≠ wiser 13:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  It's usual to have a separate name list if many people have the name or there is significant etymological content, but to combine names into the dab if there are few people with that name. That's true even for common words,, e.g. Peter Have on Have. Names always raise the problem of not knowing how many readers search simply with the surname (or given name): it may be few, even if a person's article titled by full name has many page views. Certes (talk) 14:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  In this case even the full list of people is just 11 entries, so the standard rationale of making Bay (disambiguation) not go too long is just silly. --Joy (talk) 20:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Not silly at all. Bay (surname) is an article about the surname and its origins. It makes complete sense to include the list of people with the surname there rather than stuffing the only partially ambiguous list into an already fairly sizable disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 20:46, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  If we have a (surname) page then the people should be listed there and not on the main dab. There are two usual justifications for having a (surname) page. The first is that the dab would otherwise be too long; that argument would be at best marginal here. The second is that we want to show etymology or anthroponymy which would be inappropriate for a general dab. The second reason certainly applies here, so we should keep the surname page and list the people there rather than the dab. (We might duplicate a mononym or one exceptionally famous person on the dab, but that doesn't apply here.) Certes (talk) 20:56, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Because our indices always include some basic captions, they actually help with less-than-last-resort searches, such as the examples like surname + profession that I mentioned before. --Joy (talk) 20:29, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Why would a caption for a surname + profession search make the least bit of difference in whether the persons are included in the disambiguation page or not? The basic caption for a disambiguation page isn't going to be of much help. older ≠ wiser 20:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  OK, so I'm not really sure if I'm being repetitive here, sorry about that if so. Readers often look up terms that they need more information about; and the exact title of the topic that they're looking for can well be one of those things that they need more information about, so for example someone remembers a singer or a songwriter called John Bay or Jim Bayh or James Bae or something, and then they take what they know about the name and look that up, and have an expectation that the system will help them get to where they were indending. Next time they look it up they may well know more about the topic name and completely avoid this part of the system, but that doesn't negate the value of the system for people who still need that help. When we set up roadblocks in the system to make this path of learning harder, it's just not helpful. --Joy (talk) 07:56, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Ok, though I'm not sure what that has to do with whether an index of partially ambiguous names are included here or there or whether there is a primary topic for this term. older ≠ wiser 09:28, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  The ways to present information and the amount of reader actions needed are elements of web navigation that are conventionally analyzed to figure out whether it is well set up. --Joy (talk) 11:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Surnames seem to be exempt from WP:PTM, probably because they are used alone to refer to the person when it's obvious whom we are discussing. We use them regularly in our articles (Bay was born in Los Angeles). They differ in that respect from normal PTMs such as Hudson Bay which definitely don't belong on the Bay dab. Certes (talk) 11:48, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  They aren't completely exempt, but they have an exception as described at WP:NAMELIST and MOS:DABNAME. Basically, they are special case of PTM that is OK in small quantities and where the person is widely known by the surname only. older ≠ wiser 18:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Never heard of either of 'em... YorkshireExpat (talk) 06:35, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Right, and that's also why we have the WP:BUTIKNOWABOUTIT guideline. --Joy (talk) 09:47, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  We also have WP:SURPRISE. I don't think that anyone, on reflection, would be surprised at seeing the subject matter presented at "bay" if that's what they happened to search. YorkshireExpat (talk) 23:32, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  It depends what they are thinking of. Several editors have wikilinked Bay from Somalia-related articles, presumably because Bay, Somalia is the only meaning of the word that entered their mind at the time and they would have been surprised to learn that the article was about something else. Certes (talk) 23:53, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Speaking generally this isn't an unusual mistake for editors to make. I would imagine it depends how fastidious they're being at checking their work before publishing, how familiar they are with Wikipedia generally, and their working level of English. It's not good enough evidence to base a move on. What you probably don't see is all the editors who got it right. YorkshireExpat (talk) 10:32, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  I do see all the editors who get it right, because I work through a daily report of new links to ambiguous terms such as Bay. There are certainly more good links about bays than Somalia links, because most editors check their work (or get lucky). What I don't see is the Somalia edits which are previewed with a wrong link to Bay, fixed by a conscientious editor, then saved. Certes (talk) 11:51, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Fair enough. YorkshireExpat (talk) 12:47, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  The place in Somalia may not have much significance in English but it has a population of 1,967,345 which is huge. Also the likes of Bay trees/leaves are common in English both in terms of usage and long-term significance. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support per nomination – no clear primary topic. (Having commented, I suppose I should formally !vote.) Certes (talk) 20:02, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The landform has the most longterm significance here and is the primary topic when WP:PTM is factored in. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:43, 2 January 2024 (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.