Talk:Point

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Wouldn't the reference to typographic points be better linked to Typographic_unit than to Typography?


Where would I find an article to the military / infantry concept of "point man", or someone "taking point" when covering ground in formation? Other than movies, I have no clue what this all means, but would like to know. --Seer 07:09, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Organization of sections

Dweller, I would like to repectfully disagree with your recent reorganization of the sections on this page; I don't see any great advantage to the reader in having them arranged alphabetically. Could you explain why you think it is better this way? I'd really like to hear your opinions.

I thought long and hard about sorting it the way I did, based on the frequency of incoming links. I believe a mathematical point is by far the most common usage, and the others were arranged in (IMHO) decreasing order of significance after that. Thanks, — Catherine\talk 10:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Now there's a fair point, well-argued. It's probably fairly obvious why I did it (!), for ease of use. I take your point about most frequent usage, but I'd suggest that putting it in that order is only helpful for those visiting for the #1 most popular usage. Anyone else visiting would need to scour the list to find the appropriate category, because s/he doesn't know that their particular query is the 2nd or 4th most common.
NB I'm a bit of a noob still, so I'm not sure when you say you "believe" you know the most common usage whether or not that's based on a tool that exists, or a hunch?
Anyway, I'm happy to be swayed. What do others think? Dweller 11:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
My "belief" was based on a lot of hard work I and others have done over time, cleaning up links which pointed to this page. If you look at "What links here" now, there are only a few articles in the mainspace that "point" here (grin), since all the articles have been changed to link to point (geometry) or some other specific meaning.
I also think we need to take into account the (necessarily) vague nature of some of the section headers. "Point" itself is so broad that grouping its potential meanings with any sort of logic required using broad terms like "aim", "location", etc. Alphabetizing makes much more sense when the section headers are more concrete. In this case, I think having the most common meanings in the top third of the page (so the majority of users don't have to scroll at all) makes the most sense. Your suggestion that it "is only helpful for those visiting for the #1 most popular usage" argues against itself -- would you rather be immediately helpful to 20 out of 19 users, and inconvenience one, or arrange it "for ease of use" and inconvenience the 19?
I've worked fairly extensively on long disambiguation pages, (knot (disambiguation), star (disambiguation), ring, iris, etc.) and -- again, in my opinion -- I've rarely seen a case where alphabetizing actually aids "ease of use". I really prefer not to use it as an organizing principle at all except in short lists where there aren't clear primary meanings.
Thanks for the rational discussion! — Catherine\talk 11:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


It's a nice debate, and I'll refer again to the fact that I'm a noob. You're almost certainly right, based on experience, but I'll try arguing with logic a bit longer before I roll over to have my tummy tickled. I'll number the points, so it's easier for you to knock em down (!):

  1. I couldn't get your What links here link to work. Or was that exactly the point (sorry, couldn't help that) that you were making?
  2. If it doesn't make sense to section the topics, they shouldn't be sectioned? I don't really understand this argument either. As it happens, I think you (and/or others?) have done a brilliant job of putting mostly intangible concepts into usable sections.
  3. Your 1 vs 19 comment only holds true if you maintain that the vast majority of users are all after mathematical concepts. It's true that there are loads of concepts listed under maths, but to take just one example, there's a similar number of Sport and Leisure references.

Your turn ;-) Dweller 11:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

  1. Sorry, try this link, or click "What links here" from the toolbox on the article page.  :)
  2. Guess I didn't explain clearly. It makes sense (to me) to section them into "Extremity", etc. however, I don't necessarily think that the word "extremity" is necessarily what's going to leap off the Table of Contents for someone who's looking for, say, Point (coat color). (Hm, perhaps I am arguing against my own sectioning here....back to that in a moment.) My "point" being, having "Extremity" early in an alphabetical list is only going to be frustrating for the larger number of people looking for Maths or Measurement, because it doesn't tell them immediately whether their information is there or not.
  3. I meant majority of users in terms of incoming links, not number of meanings. When the average user who doesn't know about disambiguation pages writes an article, he may decide to write "a sentence that includes the word point, like this," without thinking that there are many different meanings. People periodically use "What links here" to clean up these incoming links, and when I've done it here there have been many, many links which should have gone to point (geometry), point (mortgage), point (typography), and a non-existent generic point (scoring), and very few for anything else on the list -- which means the vast majority of users who ever see this page are going to want one of those notions. Remember one of the prime ideas behind disambiguation cleanup -- that generally, anyone who actually sees a disambiguation page is getting there by mistake.
Now, since you've made me analyze this some more, I'll concede that I'm not making much sense by saying "don't alphabetize because they're vague", since if the section titles are so vague that they're not useful to the reader, they shouldn't be there at all. I'm open to suggestions on renaming the sections, and even a different organization scheme, but this is the best I could come up with on my own. (As a friend of mine once said, most toungly-in-cheek, "if I think your opinion is better, I'll change mine. I haven't changed mine." But I promise to listen to reason.) However, I would still argue for retaining the most common meanings at the top.
Looking at this in more depth, I also think that many of these meanings could be trimmed -- I doubt anyone is going to be accidentally coming here looking for point and figure chart or point-to-point construction.... Back to you. — Catherine\talk 12:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh heck, you argue so humbly/politely that it takes all the fun out of being an obstinate pedant. Happy for you to revise as you wish. I'd suggest humbly that the Sport and Leisure section stays as one, even if its components could be scattered to other sections, as I'm 100% sure that people looking for, say, the fielding position in cricket wouldn't choose to look under Location as a first option. Dweller 12:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

PS - Happy to help if/when you're ready. Dweller 12:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Stock market

Please link to a page that answers what does it mean when the stock market is "up 3 points."

I second this comment. I think there are many meanings within finance, even. Basis point doesn't seem to be it. There's also the Fed which recently "dropped rates by three quarters of a point" meaning "by 0.75%". I gather that an individual stock being "up three points" means "up three dollars per share", but like you, I came to this page wondering what it means for the Dow to be up three points. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 23:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Here's a reference: [1] with some answers. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 00:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)