Talk:Prime (disambiguation)

message: Prime is an alternative term for the Golden Number.
For proof, read the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (preface, Easter part), or the Annexe to the Calendar Act 1750, or the Statute Law Database (when corrected); or Google for "Golden Number, or Prime".
82.163.24.100 21:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Disambiguation pages are not intended for every connection the term might appear in. They are an aid to locate the right Wikipedia article and finding beef should not require a link from here. PrimeHunter 23:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: Shouldn't there be an entry for prime in the context, for example, of being "in one's prime"?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.71.245.81 (talk) 02:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is not a dictionary and disambiguation pages are not intended for every connection the term might appear in. They are an aid to locate the right Wikipedia article and I don't think there is a meaningful article to link to, or that people will search on "prime" when they are looking for information about that meaning. PrimeHunter 03:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Prime contractor already redirects to General contractor where the meaning is explained. Copying from my reply above, Wikipedia is not a dictionary and disambiguation pages are not intended for every connection the term might appear in. They are an aid to locate the right Wikipedia article and I don't think people would search for "prime" alone when they want information about prime contractors. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal prime? 

message: :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. 
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:Prime (disambiguation) →  – Starting the conversation here (WP:DR)
My original argument goes: "Given the increased awareness of Amazon Prime, Prime (drink), and other Primes - this article should redirect to Prime (disambiguation) rather than Prime number as it's no longer the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Prime")
I believe that this is still the case.  --- Tbf69 P • T 08:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: I converted this to a true RM since there was a bit of edit warring over the title about a day ago, and this needs to be listed at WP:RM or WP:RFD to form consensus, and the former is more appropriate with this request. Steel1943 (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks 👍  --- Tbf69 P • T 14:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

text: On further consideration, taking into account what other contributors have said, Support, on the basis that there are other legitimate major topics, disregarding the ridiculous assertions about the drink. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

text: You may never have come across the use of the word "prime" alone to mean "prime number", but in number theory the use of just "prime" is certainly far more common than "prime number", and I think the same is almost certainly true in other branches of mathematics where the concept of primality of numbers is relevant. JBW (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Most Google results are for Amazon though that is probably also a PTM. While technically correct I don't see the number being primary. Crouch, Swale (talk)  21:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

text: The key phrase in the comment above by JBW is the one that frames the context i.e., "in number theory". It may be sad to say, but the percentage of people who focus on number theory is tiny. In fact the percentage of people who focus on mathematics is also pretty small. Even within the context of mathematics, most areas of study don't involve prime numbers. Practically nobody studying calculus or probability or differential equations or numerical analysis cares about prime numbers. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 04:27, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  – on what basis do you make this claim? It seems self-evidently false to me. –jacobolus (t) 03:29, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should [[Prime]] be a [[WP:D]] page ([[Prime (disambiguation)]]), or be a redirect to [[Prime number]]? 

message: https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2015-07&end=2023-11&pages=Prime_number|Prime_(disambiguation)|Prime indicates that the readership of the disambiguation page mostly tracks the readership of the Prime redirect:
* August 1925 / 1365
* September 1557 / 1308
* October 1406 / 1243
It also -- in logarithmic scale view -- does not match the pattern of organic prime number traffic.
A look into the clickstream archive (the underpinning of WikiNav) says a lot of it comes from the hatnotes:
August:
* clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Prime_number     Prime_(disambiguation)  link    821
* clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Prime_number     Prime_(drink)   other   187
September:
* clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Prime_number     Prime_(drink)   other   153
* clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Prime_number     Prime_(disambiguation)  link    732
October:
* clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Prime_number     Prime_(disambiguation)  link    657
* clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Prime_number     Prime_(drink)   other   145
If we compare the number of hatnote clicks with the traffic for the redirect, it's:
* August 821/1365 = ~60%
* September 732/1308 = ~56%
* October 657/1243 = ~53%
This calculation might not be accurate because there could well be organic traffic that landed at Prime number but still wanted to click the hatnote, just like there's more traffic at the disambiguation page than it comes through this particular hatnote.
https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Prime_%28disambiguation%29 shows a spread of traffic, quite a bit to the drink, but also to a dozen other topics.
It does seem like the case against the term "prime" being a primary redirect is strong, because it seems likely that most of the readers looking for just "prime" are having to use navigation aids to find what they're looking for elsewhere. There's some value in directing readers to the number meaning as it certainly has significance, but this looks like we're pushing into the force-feeding territory. --Joy (talk) 20:34, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  followup to move discussion