Talk:IPA (disambiguation)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus for moving (only 58% support). --Dijxtra 19:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested change in redirect for IPA from International Phonetic Alphabet to IPA (disambiguation)

[edit] Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support.. A count of google hits show that a majority of pages with "IPA" refer to something other than the alphabet. --Karnesky 15:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose—some good points are made for the change, but I still think the linguistic application is much more broadly useful. It is practically part of Wikipedia's infrastructure, as the International Phonetic Alphabet is widely used and the article widely referred to.  —Michael Z. 2006-09-13 16:02 Z
• Oppose for the same reasons as presented by Mzajac. The vast majority of incoming links to IPA are in fact links to International Phonetic Alphabet. Nohat 16:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC) (See also my comment below).
• Support--when a disambiguation page offers some 16 alternatives, singling out one to be the primary page is rarely a good idea. In response to Nohat: Since IPA redirects to International Phonetic Alphabet, it's unsurprising that the vast majority of links are not mistakenly trying to get to another page instead. Nareek 17:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

  I can't agree with the principal you state: singling out the primary page is a very good idea in a great many cases where there are many disambiguated articles, as in the diverse examples beaver (34 dabs),Sheffield (24), EU (17), spoon (17), GPA (12), and DOD (11). —Michael Z. 2006-09-13 18:50 Z

  Comment I disagree with both of you. The number of disambiguated articles has absolutley no bearing on whether it should be the primary page. The primary test should be: If someone was performing a search for a term, is it more or less likely that they landed on the page they expected to. All the articles you linked to pass that test. IPA does not. --Karnesky 19:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

  I didn't say that it's never a good idea--just that as the number of possible searches increases, so do the chances that people will be looking for something other than the most commonly used term. It is true that you can guess without looking what you'll get if you click on any of Mzajac's examples--which the average Wikipedia user probably would not, confronted with "IPA". Nareek 19:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

  Okay, maybe IPA is not as cut-and-dried as every single example I gave, but what evidence do we have that International Phonetic Alphabet is less likely to be intended by an editor linking the abbreviation IPA than any of the other alternatives? (what a reader expects is moot, because they are clicking a link with a predetermined target, not deciding they want to read about the Independent Pilots Association when they click a link in an article about beer) —Michael Z. 2006-09-15 01:05 Z

What a reader expects is not moot & it is arrogance to assume so. Readers may search for IPA & may be led to the wrong page by an editor who used the link to refer to something other than the alphabet. While MOST editors do check that their links go where they think they go, not all do (and "readers" may be "novice editors" who would make that mistake) & we should make it easy for those editors. Disambiguation isn't that hard & there are editors and bots that do it for us. --Karnesky 12:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Indeed IPA most commonly refers to other things. Voortle 19:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support per Karnesky & Nareek. It may be handy for editors to be able to use IPA like this, but not for readers. To readers, IPA may have multiple meanings depending on context like most TLAs and unlike, for example, BBC which is extraordinarily unambiguous. The same convenience to editors might be better provided using a template that extends the existing {{IPA}} to include a link to International Phonetic Alphabet. --Cedders^tk 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support Disambiguation for an abbreviation should be dealt with by a dedicated page that comes up when you type in the abbreviation, rather than have it redirect to one particular meaning that then has a dedicated link to the disambiguation page. The exception would be if one particular meaning was so prevalent that the vast majority of users would be looking for it. British Broadcasting Corporation satisfies this criteria for BBC, whereas International Phonetic Alphabet does not for IPA. --Cuddlyopedia 06:19 UTC, 14 September 2006
• Oppose per Mzajac. I didn't find any other decidedly important item in IPA (disambiguation) which would justify the change. Who of the supporters will volunteer to fix all the links to IPA if the change is accepted? Don't fix if ain't broken. Duja 06:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• oppose per Duja, bad idea. dab (ᛏ) 13:31, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• oppose, per Michael. Stefán 15:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. At first, this looks like it might be a reader/editor distinction, but I actually think that this change will indirectly hurt readers. For the readers, India Pale Ale is the most common option:
  • Google: ipa, "pale ale" - 509,000
  • ipa, "international phonetic alphabet" - 171,000
  • ipa, "isopropyl alcohol" - 110,000

But within Wikipedia, nearly all the links go to IPA:

• • Inbound links to "India Pale Ale" on Wikipedia: 132, including links to redirects.
  • Inbound links to "International Phonetic Alpahet": I gave up counting after several thousand.

If we move IPA to International Phonetic Alphabet--and update all existing links with bots--we'll still have editors making new links directly to IPA. So we'll wind up with thousands of articles linking to the disambiguation page, unless somebody keeps a "no direct links to IPA"-bot running. Thinking it over, this seems like a net loss to readers and huge pain for editors. -emk (talk) 00:34, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

However with the templates updated, this should no longer be an issue. Use the template and get the entire entry formatted in the correct manner. Vegaswikian 21:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• Support - I see the difficulty as it is used as part of the structure of Wikipedia, but I agree with the previous suggestion that that usage should be dealt with in a template or some similar means, and we stick to what the user expects for IPA, at least a disambiguation page as opposed to a fairly obscure subject. Spalding 23:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support, the dabpage should be at IPA (rather than IPA redirecting to IPA (disambiguation)). International Phonetic Alphabet is clearly not a primary topic is this regard, however much it might be the most used in Wikiland - think about anonymous readers - when they type in "IPA" do the vast majority expect to end up at "International Phonetic Alphabet", or another of the numerous meanings? Thanks/wangi 11:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support. I suspect that most editors would use Phonetic Alphabet anyway. This is clearly not a case where IPA has a use that is clearly primary. So moving IPA (disambiguation) to IPA seems to be the correct move. The number of links should not be an issue. If something is needs to be changed you do it and fix the redirects that need to be changed. The amount of work is not the issue, the correct article in the name space is. Actually after looking at the linked articles and removing the duplicate links, there are virtually no articles that link to IPA so moving the DAB should be obvious. Vegaswikian 17:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Link to the most common usage. emk nailed it. jgp ^T_C 03:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

  And what evidence is there that the alphabet is the most common usage? Indeed--the beer seems to be the most common usage. --75.32.36.25 03:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Not when that would cause a significant number of users to be directed to the wrong article. Also links are rather bad to base a decision on in this case since most of them are there for technical pronication reasons and are not really there as a normal article link. Vegaswikian 20:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Wikipedia is here to help readers, not editors. --Mais oui! 21:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• Weak support - having several significant acronyms makes this a look like a swap to me, as prodecuralistic as it is likely to be. This will also make monitoring Special:Whatlinkshere\IPA much easier in the future. -- nae'blis 00:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Bolivian Unicyclist 14:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is a special case where incoming links matter. -  AjaxSmack  02:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Which incoming links would those be?

The ones I'm going to type in the future. -  AjaxSmack  07:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

Has Wikipedia yet prepared a page similar to WP:RM called WP:RFCR?? Georgia guy 15:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I looked & didn't see anything. I figured that the process should be roughly the same. WP:RM has occasionally been used for change of redirects, so I think I'll list it according to those guidelines. --Karnesky 15:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I want to add that if this change is made, then the vast majority of people who click on an "IPA" link next to a pronunciation in an article will get to the disambiguation page, and have no idea what they were really looking for. The vast majority of incoming "IPA" links are links next to pronunciations: there are thousands of such links spread all throughout Wikipedia. In my estimation, most people who come to the IPA page have no idea what it is that they are going to be looking at other than it may begin to explain the pronunciation they were looking at. If they come to a disambiguation page, they will almost certainly NOT find what they are looking for. So, whoever makes this change should also be willing to back to every incoming IPA link and pipe it to International Phonetic Alphabet, as appropriate, and there are thousands. I think, in this case, the practical disadvantages of a move outweigh any theoretical advantages. Nohat 01:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that what bots are for? --Karnesky 01:54, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

How are bots supposed to differentiate whether this is supposed to be a link to International Phonetic Alphabet or something else? Nohat 04:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Since IPA currently points to the alphabet, if we change ALL occurrences, there'd be no more mistaken links than there are now. A lot of the occurrences are in a predictable pattern such as "[[IPA]]: {{IPA|text}}." A regex bot can replace this to use "{{IPA2|text}}." This would be a good idea even if there was no consensus for the change. --Karnesky 05:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I would be much less hesitant to change it if there weren't already thousands of incoming links. If all incoming links to IPA can be fixed, then I would not oppose the move anymore. But my opposition remains as long as there are incoming links to IPA. Nohat 06:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Since entering "[[IPA]]" in an article puts in a link that currently re-directs to International Phonetic Alphabet, anyone who intended a link to some other page, for example the Insolvency Practitioners Association, would have entered, in this case, [[Insolvency Practitioners Association|IPA]]. Thus a simple automatic replacement of [[IPA]] with [[IPA|International Phonetic Alphabet]] should correct all the links without introducing other errors (or am I missing something?). --Cuddlyopedia 06:35 UTC, 14 September 2006

I analysed the "What links here" (WLH) for most of the articles listed here. Discounting the Pale Ale (which has plenty of links, but is unlikely to be searched using "IPA", only the Institute of Public Affairs has a dozen; others are almost orphaned. While I'm aware that the supposed measure of relevance is Average Joe's expectation rather than WLH count, I fail to see the so significant importance of other items that would warrant the change. I do foresee, though, the technical difficulties for Wikipedia editors. At the risk of violating WP:AGF, is perhaps this entire deal the result of someone's mislinking of IPA expecting to find something else, and then coming here to prove a point? Duja 13:51, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is it unlikely to search for the Pale Ale by typing IPA? (At the risk of thinking you do violate WP:AGF:) What point to you think is trying to be proven? The fact that you were able to analyze the links suggests that someone with a manual disambiguation-assistance bot (which shows context & displays options of what to disambiguate to) should be able to fix things. Also: If there are currently a significant number of articles which link to IPA which DON'T refer to the alphabet, I think that would be a very strong argument to redirect IPA to a disambiguation page rather than to the wrong term. --Karnesky 14:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of accusing myself even further :-), I meant the point of "I'm lazy to type Pale Ale, let's try just IPA. Whoa, this is something Greek to me! I have to read the dab notice and click twice more! Oh my, oh my, it shouldn't be like that!". Doesn't using "IPA" when searching for "Indian Pale Ale" look a bit too ignorant optimistic that there ain't more important things in the Universe than beer? If e.g. a lazy Australian wants to shorthand University of South Australia, should he bitch about USA redirecting to...?
As for the suspected mis-links to IPA when the phonetics is not intended, point taken. We might never know though... — it's not exactly a simple thing to check. Duja 15:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's not build a straw man here. Of the first hundred google hits for "USA," every single one is referring to the country. A similar search for IPA shows a roughly equal number referring to the beer and the alphabet. This isn't meant to be an objective measure of your subjective relative "importance" of beers and alphabets, but is meant to demonstrate that there is more than sufficient use of the acronym referring to other things. I don't have an opinion of the ignorance/optimism of our users, but will note that people HAVE "incorrectly" searched for & have even incorrectly linked to "IPA" when referring to something other than the alphabet. --Karnesky 17:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

If indeed the phonetic alphabet and the beer style are equal in prominence, then the use of IPA in so many convenience links as part of the encyclopedia's infrastructure helps tip the balance for the status quo. —Michael Z. 2006-09-15 01:10 Z

If I was arguing to point IPA to the beer rather than the alphabet, this might be a good argument. But the fact that they are equal in prominence & the fact that there are other not insignificant expansions suggests a disambiguation page is the right thing to do (see AA or AAA or numerous other short acronyms). --Karnesky 13:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's another reason for using a bot to switch IPA tags to International Phonetic Alphabet and then making IPA redirect to the disamb page: I have no doubt that there are a good number of people who have no idea what those glyphs are that sometimes appear that are labeled "IPA." If those links all went to International Phonetic Alphabet, they could mouse over the link and their question would be answered. As it is, they have to click on the link and then click back to get a basic explanation. Nareek 18:51, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

There have been several arguments here that IPA should redirect to what a reader expects it to stand for, and others that it should redirect to the most common expansion. I think the correct answer isn't exactly either of those. Links to IPA are created by editors, who typically have a little knowledge of Wikipedia. It's also relevant that incorrect links are likely to be corrected pretty quickly, so a novice editor watching the page will learn that IPA doesn't point to something else. So it's not worth putting too much energy into arguing the finer principals of where the abbreviation "should" redirect.

But my point is that IPA should point to what an editor is most likely to assume it points to, when he is creating a link. At this time, I would submit that the only significant minority who is likely to mis-link IPA is novice Wikipedia editors writing about beer. There will always be a number of random "IPA" links created which intend to link to one of the other sixteen disambiguated articles, and this will never change, no matter what IPA redirects to. But the majority of knowledgeable editors now know that IPA redirects to International Phonetic Alphabet, so there is no problem with the current situation, and furthermore it is extremely handy for the creation of hundreds of links there.

What a reader expects "IPA" to point to is only relevant when they type a URL (not, in this case, when they perform a search). I believe typing a URL is unusual for a reader new to Wikipedia, and the top-of-the-page disambiguation link is there to work around this potential pitfall.  —Michael Z. 2006-09-15 01:00 Z

If the editor has knowledge of WP, the IPA2 template will work be preferable in 99% of cases & the editors should be sophisticated enough to make the correct expansion in other cases. Editors only assume IPA points to the alphabet because it does so now. And not all editors assume that anyway! Disambiguation is easy. Much easier than fixing links that redirect to the wrong thing. I'm really not seeing the downside of the change, save for a one time cost of disambiguating ~1800 pages. --Karnesky 13:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

That search link is somewhat misleading. If they type "IPA" in the search box & press "go" (or enter, as it is the default submit action), they are taken to the alphabet page. --Karnesky 14:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Surely what a reader expects to find when they type "IPA" into the search box and press "go" is relevant. The disambiguation rules are designed to prevent people from often having to click through a number of screens to get to where they are going. If there's an obvious meaning for an acronym, like BBC or USA, even people who are looking for something else are unlikely to get the wrong page by mistake, but IPA is far from being so universally known that that's not going to happen. In my everyday world, if you say "IPA", people are likely to ask if you mean Institute for Public Accuracy or the Independent Press Association--neither beer nor alphabets will even occur to them. Nareek 15:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

And now, some more wikilawyering on my part (gosh, I'll get myself disgussed):

From WP:DAB#Primary topic (emphasis mine of course):

When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase (indicated by a majority of links in existing articles and consensus of the editors of those articles that it will be significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that topic may be used for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top. Where there is no such clearly dominant usage there is no primary topic page.

Duja 15:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Consensus is the very thing we're attempting to gather now. Others might place the emphasis this way:

When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase (indicated by a majority of links in existing articles and consensus of the editors of those articles that it will be significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings)....

Which is to say that "reader" trumps "editor." (despite Michael assertions to the contrary. Still others may place the emphasis thusly:

Where there is no such clearly dominant usage there is no primary topic page.

The alphabet is not the clearly dominant expansion of IPA. --Karnesky 16:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Are there objections to immediately beginning to "disambiguate" (for lack of a better term) articles that link to IPA to the intended expansion? This isn't intended to be a WP:POINT (which is why I want to check first), but especially to fix pages that are incorrectly linked to the alphabet.--Karnesky 13:28, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I've disambiguated ~1700 links to IPA. This process wasn't that bad & I think WP is better for it. In most cases, I was able to use Template:IPA2, which improves readability and consistency. There were a couple dozen or so links (~1%) which pointed to something other than the alphabet (mostly the beer, but not always). I don't think this number is that low, given that IPA currently redirects to the alphabet. I am still very much in favor of changing the redirect. The only disadvantage that I see is the quick and dirty use of the TLA on talk pages--in actual articles, templates take care of the heavy lifting. The advantages are that there'd be 0% misdirected pages & that it would be consistent with the relative infrequency with which the expansion is to the alphabet outside of Wikipedia. --Karnesky 20:25, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.