Talk:John McGraw (baseball)

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 move —Mets501 (talk) 18:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

John McGraw (baseball) → John McGraw — Baseball Hall of Famer is easily most recognizable. Disambiguation page can be moved to John McGraw (disambiguation) but it only has one other blue link so it could be turned into a dablink instead. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

• Oppose - there would need to be an over-riding reason for this move and I don't see it. The existing arrangements are perfectly clear. There is no reason why the red link might not be blued in the future. BlueValour 04:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support, most common name rule and primary topic rule are satisfied. Move disambiguation page to John McGraw (disambiguation). The Cornell McGraw is an importnat topic but somewhat obscure. --Dhartung | Talk 11:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose. Given that we have a founder of Cornell University and a Governor of Washington, I'm not convinced that moving the dab is the correct action. Vegaswikian 19:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose. A google search for ""John McGraw" governor washington -giants" gives about 500 hits. Googling ""John McGraw" cornell -giants" gives 1270 hits. A google search for ""John McGraw" brigadier -giants" gives 269 hits. There is also an artist in Colorado, a Physics Prof in NM, and an author that might get pages at some point. McGraw Hall is a beautiful old building on the main quad at Cornell; McGraw Tower is the main clock tower (I just updated John McGraw (merchant)). Brholden 21:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Response to BlueValour (talk • contribs): per WP:D#Deciding to disambiguate, the most common target for a "John McGraw" search should be at John McGraw. According to Google, the Cornell founder only gets 1,480 hits, of which few appear to actually be for the Cornell founder. A search for the baseball player gets 64,700 hits, even if I include both "baseball" and "Giants" in the crteria. It's not even close. The red link doesn't count IMHO since it's a red link. If the governor article is created and appears to be more likely a target, then move this back. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Number of hits should not be in and of itself the deciding factor here. There is a built in bias based on a wikipedia entry and its links which tend to inflate the number of hits. Both from the entries here and the many shadows. I'm not convinced that moving the dab is the right ting to do. The page now has three articles linked. I suspect that one of those was a result of this discusion. Vegaswikian 21:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I would agree with you except the numbers are overwhelming. The Google hits for the new entry are only at 930 - even less than the Cornell guy - and still quite a few of them are for the baseball player/manager. The most likely search target is pretty much the only thing to weigh and a 40-1 disparity is pretty hard to ignore IMHO. The number of entries in the dab page alone should also not be an indicator, as per John Adams. —Wknight94 (talk) 21:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
    • The problem is that you simply cannot use Ghits to compare the importance of a sportsman with the other two. There is such a systemic bias in favour of sportsmen, pop stars etc that a 19th centuary governor is always going to lose out big time, as here. BlueValour 23:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Do you have an alternative? To me, the merchant would probably get a few delete votes at an WP:AFD and the governor's level of notability can be determined by the fact that, without this move request, he may have never had an article. But that's the last I'll say on the subject. Maybe I'm way off and I'm in a few too many simultaneous holy wars at the moment! :) —Wknight94 (talk) 00:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick reminder that folks seem to be focusing more on the quantity of other John McGraw's but not the likelihood of anyone searching for them. That latter criteria is supposed to take precedence according to WP:D#Deciding to disambiguate. It's fine if you think a search for "John McGraw" is just as likely to be for the Washington governor as opposed to the baseball player but, given the fact that the governor didn't even have an article when I started this move request, that seems unlikely. Bringing up John McGraws that aren't even listed in the current disambiguation page is even worse IMHO. There are tons of other Dick Clarks in the world and two others in Dick Clark (disambiguation) but Dick Clark still goes to the entertainer (yes, as a redirect but that's because of a bad move done nine months ago which I'm also trying to rectify). —Wknight94 (talk) 22:45, 9 November 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.