Talk:Milošević (surname)

primary topic or disambiguation

Please see Talk:Milošević. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:34, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 25 March 2022

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 for a move. There are two - maybe three - competing arguments here, and this is no "simple" move request but rather a discussion about whether Milošević should be a stand-alone page, redirect to the (surname) page, or redirect to Slobodan Milošević. Note that based on how moves, redirects, and BRDs have worked in the past decade, at the time of closing, Milosevic redirects to Slobodan Milošević and Milošević redirects to the surname page. Based on the discussion, there's roughly equal support for each position, and both arguments are valid, i.e. it's difficult to weight one over the other. Therefore, there's no consensus for a move, meaning the status quo would remain at this point.

However, what is the status quo is also an excellent question. Milošević pointed to Slobodan Milošević from 2006 to 2012, when it became the primary page for the surname. In 2018, the page was briefly redirected back to Slobodan Milošević, but the redirect to Milošević (surname) was created instead of reverting the redirect. While there's been some to-and-fro since then, that redirect has been basically stable for almost four years now. The same history applies to Milosevic, except that currently redirects to Slobodan Milošević only after some recent back-and-forth.

Since this is primarily a move request, I cannot find any consensus for a move from the page's current title. While there is a legitimate question about whether the redirects should point to the surname page or to Slobodan Milošević, I decline to extend this discussion to either redirect. The lone exception: I will restore Milosevic to the surname page in order to restore the four-year status quo, and to ensure both Milosevic and Milošević point to the same place, as this redirect was only re-targeted on 24 March 2022. Applying this exception should not be read as an endorsement of a particular side in this discussion. I encourage further discussion or RfC about where the redirects should redirect while keeping this page's current title stable. (non-admin closure) SportingFlyer T·C 09:49, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

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Milošević (surname) → Milošević – I've tried to discuss this previously at Talk:Milošević#primary topic?, but nobody seems to have cared enough to respond, instead people just occasionally came in and asserted a contrary position without much of a rationale, sigh.

The basic contention for the other side seems rather obvious - the Serbian president who became infamous in the 1990s is the primary topic, e.g. if we just look at https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/massviews/?platform=all-access&agent=user&source=wikilinks&range=latest-20&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&target=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87%20(surname) where we can see that they are way up there on top of the list (disregarding the cruft).

However, he still had a very generic Serbian surname, and he doesn't necessarily have that much of an edge in long-term significance compared to all the other holders of this common Serbian surname.

If we look at the analysis of traffic coming to these terms (Milošević and Milosevic) compared to Slobodan Milošević, at e.g. https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2018-07-01&end=2022-03-24&pages=Milosevic%7CMilo%C5%A1evi%C4%87%7CMilo%C5%A1evi%C4%87_(surname) the graphs are still all over the place, but clearly the level of interest seems to be entirely equivalent. More recently there's a spike, probably because of another war in eastern Europe where people mention Slobodan Milošević more - that too will pass, though.

That's why I'd continue to advocate the position that using the anthroponymy article as the navigational aid here is appropriate, because, simply put, I don't see any value in short-circuiting navigation for the reader - I don't see how anyone who strongly associates the term Milošević with Slobodan Milošević would ever not be served well with his listing on the surname article, which is a very straightforward concept. (Who is this reader who would be really unhappy that they were forced to open a page with a modicum amount of info about a surname while navigating to a surname holder? It's almost as if the purpose of an encyclopedia is to have people learn things!) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 06:54, 25 March 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 20:06, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support. It's among the most common surnames in Serbia, and apart from Slobodan, very famous bearers include Savo Milošević, Boki Milošević and Slađana Milošević. Pageviews analysis do not seem to favor the politician. No such user (talk) 08:35, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support As the page says it is the 10th most common surname in Serbia. Gusfriend (talk) 10:47, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The second pageviews link above isn't useful as it compares traffic for articles and for redirects, which aren't commensurable (articles get at least an order of magnitude more views than their redirects: WP:PPT). Actual usage can be seen in the Wikinav graph for the surname article (which is where Milošević redirects) [1]. Over 80% of its outgoing traffic goes to Slobodan (which may easily represent 100% of the onward clicks for those who arrived there following the Milošević redirect). I've had a look at the data for January as well (in the clickstream dataset, which is what Wikinav visualises), and there the percentage is even higher: the surname page got a total of 348 viesws for that month, whereas its link to Slobodan was clicked 330 times. This is a pretty strong case for a primary redirect. And it's not surprising: no matter how common the surname may be in Serbia, Slobodan Milošević is by far the most well known bearer internationally, and probably the only one who is commonly referred to in English by his surname alone. – Uanfala (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Given overall page views, I don't think anyone would assume anything other than a preponderance of the outgoing traffic would go there. The contention isn't that this is untrue, but that it's irrelevant, because, again, it's not like any of those users has had any problems navigating to Slobodan from the surname article.

As WP:D says, we want to apply the principle of least astonishment, and I don't see how any reader would be anywhere near astonished by the concept of looking up a person based on their surname and then having to note the existence of the surname. Maybe there's readers out there who see the word "Milosevic" and think this is not necessarily a surname, but maybe some sort of a pseudonym? But if so, how did they all successfully go from there to Slobodan Milosevic's article over the last few years? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, it seems that what you're arguing for is essentially the suspension, for surnames, of the existing guidelines on primary topics. Would you also consider promoting to the primary topic Stalin (name) or Putin (surname)? – Uanfala (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

No, I'm not, I'm saying there needs to be a more coherent rationale for the application of the popularity argument in WP:DPT - for example, "Stalin" can point to a single person because they are often mononymously referred to like that and they had a profound world-wide impact that is typically obvious to most readers with any knowledge of history, for example? And also there's a more convoluted situation with both Stalin (name) and Stalin (disambiguation) existing, which may mean we could actually lose some of the reader interest through extra complexity? None of these apply to Slobodan Milošević. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:45, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, there are two aspects of primary topics: usage and long-term significance. You're completely discarding usage without making any argument that the surname has greater long-term significance than the politician. That's why it seemed, and still seems, to me that your argument is against the existing guidelines. – Uanfala (talk) 15:38, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

The existing guidelines exist not because they are magical, but because they make sense - if we do a disservice to a lot of readers by not short-circuiting, then we should absolutely do so. But if we look at the history of this matter, I don't see any evidence anyone's being done a disservice. For example - in the histories of Milosevic and Milošević redirects we see that an anonymous user pointed the diacriticless version to Slobodan in 2003‎, and the one with diacritics was pointed there in 2006 by a registered user. In the history of "Milošević (surname)" we see how another registered user created a disambiguation page for the surname in 2006, and then I re-pointed it to the surname in 2012. In 2018 it's changed back, I revert it and explain on Talk, and then another registered edit-wars about it this year. So the matter spent 3 years with Slobodan presumed PT before someone noticed other surname holders, then another 6 years before the PT presumption was challenged, then another 6 years before another challenge in turn, and now another 4 years again. It has consistently kept spending years in either state before anyone bothered to edit. Perhaps the web interface for editing redirects is a non-trivial burden to the interested readers, but perhaps it's just fine either way and the popularity argument isn't actually an overriding one. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:16, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:Uanfala, this is a justified primary redirect. 162 etc. (talk) 16:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Uanfala and 162 etc. Although this surname is a common one in its native region, as far as the English-speaking world is concerned, anyone who would simply type "Milosevic" or, even more specifically, cut and paste the form with the diacritics — "Milošević" — is researching Slobodan Milošević, whose entry should carry the hatnote, "Milosevic" and "Milošević" redirect here. For other uses, see Milošević (surname). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 17:32, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Uanfala and my Google Books search which indicates that all or nearly all of the top 30 Google Books results for "Milošević" are about Slobodan. (t · c) buidhe 17:52, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

As I mentioned already on your talk page in an earlier discussion, I can't confirm that claim - for me the search at https://www.google.com/search?q=Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87&pws=0&tbm=bks is indeed littered with Slobodan but there's also a mention of a Bosiljka Bosa Milošević, a book from 1969, a book from 1975, a 1986 book by a Nikola Milošević within the top 30 results. As neither of those two people are actually listed as notable at Milošević (surname), it's doubtful that we can consider Google Books' algorithm as something very authoritative. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:03, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

If four results are not about the president, then almost 90% of them would be about him, right? That's why I said "almost all". (t · c) buidhe 23:08, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

My point was mostly that this specific set of results make it evident that the engine recognizes the fact it's a very generic search term by giving us apparent arbitrary stuff in the output. I.e. it didn't show us 90% Slobodan, 5% Savo, 3% some other notable person and so on, so we can't say that it's actually properly sorting output for us and giving us a truly meaningful assessment of this matter. We can only see that it functioned as a search engine in identifying the most likely search result early, and rest is largely meaningless, because the former part is what search engine users expect. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:58, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:59, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Uanfala. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 19:04, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom. MrKeefeJohn (talk) 08:35, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Slobodan is the clear primary redirect. If the surname is mentioned without a clarifier most people would think of him. Maybe not in Serbia itself, but almost everywhere else. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:51, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

There's a section in the disambiguation guideline about "most people would think of him" - WP:NWFCTM. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm aware of that. But it's not just what comes to my mind. He was regularly referred to by his surname alone in the English-language media. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:19, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

As is any other politician? Should encyclopedia navigation be used to continue to elevate them in public conciousness because of media coverage? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:45, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Not the same. Politicians are usually referred to by their surname only after the first mention of their full name. But some, including him (and others such as Churchill, Thatcher, Reagan, Hitler, Putin, etc), can just be referred to by their surname without any previous mention of their full name and it is immediately apparent who is being referred to. Maybe not so much in his own country where it is a common name, but certainly in English-speaking countries (and we must remember that this is English Wikipedia) where it is not: most English-speaking people will not have heard of anyone else called Milošević, no matter how common a name it is in Serbia. But note that Churchill, for instance, is a relatively common name in English-speaking countries, and we would still commonly refer to him mononymously without any chance of ambiguity. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:35, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

There's a bit of an implication here that most English-speaking people will have heard of Slobodan Milošević, but that'd be quite dubious. What we know is that we have a gigantic difference between the lookups of Slobodan and his surname, and only some vague occasional correlation between these two kinds of lookups, and in turn we see most of the lookups of the surname go to him, and zero complaints saying e.g. "I was looking for Slobodan but this surname page made me click once again", so there's no apparent proof that any relevant amount of English readers are somehow adversely affected by the redirect not going to him. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

• Relisting Comment there is a counter-proposal that the primary topic for Milošević is Slobodan Milošević. And some editors prefer the status quo ante. Consensus is still unclear between the three options. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 20:06, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

  That's sort of the implicit point of this discussion: Milošević (and its diacriticless version Milosevic) will be kept or retargeted depending on whether the conclusion is for or against this primary topic. – Uanfala (talk) 21:22, 2 April 2022 (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.