Talk:Fatima/Archive 5

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: not moved. No consensus to moved as proposed. There is some support to move to Fatima, currently a dab page, but that will require a new move request. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 20:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Fatimah → Fatima bint Muhammad – Per Albertatiran and Iskandar323 above: though WP:MOSAR allows both "-a" and "-ah" for ta' marbuta, "-a" is used more often both in reliable sources and on Wikipedia. I also think that with very few exceptions such as Muhammad or Ibn Khaldun, WP:SINGLENAME does not apply for articles on historical Arabic figures, whose names are often carried by a large number of famous people with WP articles (unlike, e.g., Aristotles or Ibn Khalduns, there are many famous Fatimas; Muhammad is an exception all of his own in that other parts of his name are rarely ever mentioned: he is rather commonly disambiguated as 'the prophet Muhammad'). Articles like that should rather follow WP:CONCISE, which recommends that for biographical articles, neither a given name nor a family name is usually omitted or abbreviated for concision. Arabic names consist of more than two parts, but I think that WP articles on most Arabic figures should also at least contain a two-part name (kunya + given name, kunya + nisba, given name + nisba, nasab + nisba, given name + nasab, etc., whichever is most commonly used in sources). Given name + nasab sounds about right here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:04, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Apaugasma! Just voicing my support here again. Albertatiran (talk) 18:15, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

• We discussed this move in the here which ended with no consensus. --Mhhossein ^talk 10:39, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

  Hi Mhhossein! This is very good to know, thanks. There is also a subtle (but potentially key) difference this time: The proposal is to change the title to Fatima bint Muhammad (and not Fatimah bint Muhammad which, as suggested by some in the discussion you linked, might be a worse title than the current title Fatimah). Ideally, I would have liked to propose Fatimah-->Fatima but, as noted by Apaugasma, there are many famous Fatimas and such a proposal would have definitely failed. The new proposal Fatimah-->Fatima bint Muhammad is primarily for the sake of consistency with the (arguably) more common transliteration Fatima (rather than Fatimah). Albertatiran (talk) 11:32, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

  Good explanations, but then you are ignoring WP:CONCISE for the sake of consistency which is disputable. --Mhhossein ^talk 11:42, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

  One thing that was discussed in the 2017 RM and that is important here is that Fatima and Fatimah are two variant transliterations of the same name, which means that they should actually redirect to each other. If this page isn't moved to Fatima bint Muhammad but stays at Fatimah, Fatima should in fact be moved to Fatimah (disambiguation), with the resulting redirect Fatima being retargeted to Fatimah. It just doesn't make sense that readers looking for 'Fatimah' land here but readers looking for 'Fatima' land at a disambiguation page.

  The real question though is whether readers looking for Fatima/Fatimah should immediately land at this page or first be redirected to a disambiguation page (which obviously would feature 'Fatima bint Muhammad, daughter of the prophet Muhammad' prominently). Given what is found now at Fatima (people could well be looking for Fátima, Portugal, to give only one example, or one of the many people who have Fatima as a given name), I think it should be the disambiguation page.

  To me, this is also an expression of my broader belief that, per the exception at WP:CONCISE noted in my OP, most biographical articles should feature at least a two-part name. This means that I also believe that we should have Umar ibn al-Khattab rather than Umar, and Ali ibn Abi Talib rather than Ali. We already have Khadija bint Khuwaylid rather than Khadija (see also the poorly attended RMs proposing to move it to Khadija, here and here). If a two-part name is somewhat common (see, e.g., [1] [2] [3] [4], even though there's equally [5] [6] [7]), my belief is that we should use that, even if referring to the same person with a one-part name is also common and even 'canonical'. Having two-part names is more instructive (readers will learn that Ali ibn Abi Talib is 'the' Ali), and it allows for the one-part name to lead to a disambiguation page, which is of enormous help to readers who are looking for other people or subjects with that name. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:02, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

• A notification of this RM has been posted at WT:ISLAM. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:07, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Apaugasma The point is that the exception at WP:CONCISE prohibits from omitting or abbreviating a given name or a family name while in Arabic there's actually no family name rather the father's name is used. For instance, Ali ibn Abi Talib means Ali, the son of Abi Talib. Also, your examples like Ali, Khadija and Umar correctly shows the current title, i.e. Fatimah, is consistent with similar pages. So 'Fatimah' is both concise and consistent. --Mhhossein ^talk 13:03, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Michael Jackson is also Michael, the son of Jack.   We have no literal rule about this, but in my view the spirit of WP:CONCISE is that abbreviating to only a given name is only appropriate in circumstances where mentioning other parts of the subject's name is very uncommon and where other subjects with the same name are only very marginally notable (Moses, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etc.: you can ask, "what other Aristotle or Cicero would there be? I don't know any", but not really "what other Fatima would there be? I don't know any"). We don't abbreviate simply because mentioning only one name is common (William Shakespeare not Shakespeare, Ludwig van Beethoven not Beethoven, etc., even though people more often speak of 'Shakespeare' and 'Beethoven'). It largely comes down to preference though, so there's much room for editorial disagreement.

But if you prefer the given name only, which certainly is a legitimate position to take, you really ought to comment on the inane situation of having Fatima as a DAB page and having the exact same name Fatimah with a slightly less common transliteration as an article. Also having Fatimah with "-ah" for ta' marbuta and Khadija bint Khuwaylid with "-a" for ta' marbuta is not really consistent. At the very least, we should either move to Fatima and move the latter to Fatima (disambiguation), or move Fatima to Fatimah (disambiguation) and redirect Fatima here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:40, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd also support Fatimah --> Fatima and Fatima --> Fatima (disambiguation) if that's likely to lead to a consensus. (Going back to good old rivalries, this would also parallel Aisha and Aisha (disambiguation).) Albertatiran (talk) 16:00, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I would agree that there is a reasonably strong case to be made that the Fatima here is The preeminent Fatima (even the town in Portugal is named after her). The current name of this page, however, which disambiguates by using the less common spelling, is altogether the most confusion-sowing and least useful route possible. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:19, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

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.

It was proposed in this section that multiple pages be renamed and moved. result: Moved per consensus garnered below. Thanks and kudos to editors for your input; good health to all! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 04:14, 2 August 2022 (UTC) The MRV has determined that this closing statement is too brief to be acceptable for this move request. So to be more precise there is consensus seen below even though it is a tough call. The no PTOPIC arguments made by the opposers were compelling; however, the supporters' arguments and rebuttals were strong enough to establish consensus to move these pages. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 11:25, 6 August 2022 (UTC) Move logs: source title · target title This is template {{subst:Requested move/end}}

Result:
Moved per consensus garnered below. Thanks and kudos to editors for your input; good health to all! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 04:14, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

The MRV has determined that this closing statement is too brief to be acceptable for this move request. So to be more precise there is consensus seen below even though it is a tough call. The no PTOPIC arguments made by the opposers were compelling; however, the supporters' arguments and rebuttals were strong enough to establish consensus to move these pages. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 11:25, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

---

• Fatimah → Fatima
• Fatima → Fatima (disambiguation)

– Dropping the 'h' in Fatimah: Quoting Apaugasma, "though WP:MOSAR allows both "-a" and "-ah" for ta' marbuta, '-a' is used more often both in reliable sources and on Wikipedia." Moreover, this change would address the inconsistency on the disambiguation page Fatima, on which Fatimah appears currently. Fatima--->Fatima (disambiguation): As noted by Iskandar323, Fatima bint Muhammad is the preeminent Fatima which justifies this move. This move would in turn enable us to change Fatimah--->Fatima, which follows WP:CONCISE, as noted by Mhhossein, and matches the pages of other prominent early Muslims, including Muhammad, Ali, Abu Bakr, Umar, Aisha, etc. Albertatiran (talk) 17:31, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support - As explained in the RM above, my personal preference would be to adopt the two-part name Fatima bint Muhammad, but Fatima certainly is an improvement over Fatimah, and in any case the DAB page must move to either Fatima (disambiguation) or Fatimah (disambiguation), since 'Fatimah' (simply being a less common transliteration of the exact same name فاطمة) doesn't disambiguate from 'Fatima'. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  "Fatimah" does disambiguate: almost none of the other entries on the dab page can be spelt with an h. Uanfala (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Support: Per above, and I've only become more convinced of the primacy of this topic since the discussion above. All "Fatimas" seem to uniformly lead back to this Fatima. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:58, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. It has been proposed several times in the past that the daughter of Muhammad should be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Fatima (see Talk:Fatima). But it has never garnered enough consensus. If this request is going to succeed it will require much more evidence of why this article is the primary topic. Vpab15 (talk) 18:29, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Vpab15: by naming the article Fatimah, it already is the primary topic for Fatima. That's because Fatimah and Fatima are exactly the same name, just using a slightly different transliteration. Please see WP:MOSAR for how we normally do this. It's like Muhammad or Mohammad or Muhamad. Just imagine that one of those would be a DAB page: that would be weird, because most people looking for Muhammad and most people looking for Mohammad are both looking for the exact same subject, i.e., the Islamic prophet, or at least they are both looking for someone with the given name 'Muhammad'/'Mohammad'. Likewise, most people looking for Fatima and most people looking for Fatimah are both looking for the daughter of the prophet, or at least they are both looking for someone with the given name 'Fatima(h)'. This is not a question of evidence, it's a question of understanding how we name articles of Arabic historical figures on Wikipedia. The only real question posed by this RM is whether transliterating ta' marbuta with "-a" or transliterating it with "-ah" is more common. I suggest that editors who don't know about how transliteration works just refrain from !voting here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:08, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC you need to explain, backing it up with evidence, why this article is the primary topic over the other articles at Fatima. For example, does it have greater long-term significance than Fátima, Portugal, a place known all over the world for its Marian apparitions? A lot of people will disagree with that. Vpab15 (talk) 19:17, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  Apaugasma is absolutely correct: the two spellings are in effect just a POVFORK that has been created along transliteration lines. But for some first pieces of rudimentary evidence, I present the results for Fatima here's traffic being more than triple that of Fatima, Portugal, which seems to be the closest rival, and even though it is already naturally disambiguated. (Leaving aside the etymological origins in the Fatima here.) As to the lady of Fatima phenomenon, it is incidentally a lesser literary presence than even Fatima bint Muhammad written out in full, which is actually fairly incredible. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:26, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for providing some specific evidence. Regarding ngrams, I get more views for "Fatima apparitions" than Fatima bint Muhammad. ([8]). Vpab15 (talk) 19:35, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  There's also Fatima Zahra that goes somewhat higher still - note also how the 'h'-less Fatima variants consistently poll higher than the 'h'-ended variants. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:49, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think Vpab15 may be right: from both Google scholar (filtering out authors with the name 'Fatima') and Google Books, it would seem that there are enough Our Lady of Fátima-related results (as well as result pertaining to Fatima Mernissi) to conclude that the daughter of the prophet Muhammad is not the primary topic. It would have helped if someone would have pointed this out in the previous RM though, because I think we all agree that Fatimah is an arbitrary, confusing, and unprofessional-looking way to disambiguate from Fatima (we write about her as [[Fatimah|Fatima]] on most other articles, because we simply use -a more often than -ah). If the daughter of the prophet is not the primary topic, we still need to move to either Fatima bint Muhammad or Fatimah bint Muhammad. But let's first decide here whether the daughter of the prophet is the primary topic for Fatima or not. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:54, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: "Our lady of Fatima" should not really be a serious contender here, since "Fatima" is just the place name and the "Our lady of" component is indispensable: one cannot say Fatima to mean "Our lady of Fatima". It is really the town in Portugal or other individuals who really contest the space. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  To be the wp:primarytopic it needs to be more likely than all the other topics combined to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. Are you confident that this is the case here? Not just the most likely, but more likely than all other topics taken together? Furthermore, please consider that readers looking for Our Lady of Fátima or the Sanctuary of Fátima are likely to just type in "Fatima". ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:26, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

  If a reader searches for an entirely wrong term, that is somewhat the problem of the reader. There was a discussion on the disambiguation page on specifically this issue, and the consensus was that "Our lady of Fatima" was only a partial title match WP:PTM and better as a 'see also'. It's worth noting that an entire Our Lady of Fátima (disambiguation) page exists in its own right. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support per propose Deloar Akram (Talk • Contribute) 20:19, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support per those above. Common spelling of the common name, with sufficient evidence of primacy as to the topic for the name taken alone. BD2412 T 00:38, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose no primary topic per views[[9]] no problem with moving to a qualified title though but the DAB at Fatima should stay at the base name. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Crouch, Swale: Our Lady of Fatima was actually removed from the disambiguation page by consensus back in 2018, before being re-introduced, without consensus, on 10 July - a date that your sample spans. Full month June showed quite a different picture. Though overall, I don't even know how to make sense of the results. Is this tool even accurate? Why would so many people be clicking on Help:Disambiguation? Then we have a huge amount of hits to Fatimid Caliphate, as well as Bluebeard - the latter being a trivial mention of a woman named Fatima being Bluebeard's wife. Bloody readers ... Iskandar323 (talk) 10:55, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  Google shows Our Lady of Fátima first along with Fátima, Portugal and Our Lady of Fátima has 23,978 views compared with 25,707 for Fatimah. 87,456 v 37,163 is also not a large margin given the place in Portugal had 10,613. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  How are you doing that analysis? Honestly asking, because I'd like to be using more empirical tools. At the same time, I'm not convinced Google is a reliable way of looking at this particular topic, because it's only natural that the modern place name is going to have an outsized general search footprint due to the proliferation of geography-linked meta material on the internet - travel websites, guides, blogs, etc. etc., presumably also true to some extent for the miracle lady too. Doesn't really help us with reliable source analysis. Also, again, there are actually some disambiguation guideline-based arguments, as well as the 2018 consensus, for not treating 'Our Lady of Fátima' as a valid entry. While people may be lazily searching for this by typing in Fatima, Fatima is not in fact short for 'Our Lady of Fátima'. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:15, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'd add that Our Lady of Fatima also seems to be a WP:PTM to me. Quoting from that page, a disambiguation page is not a search index. A link to an article title that merely contains part of the disambiguation page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion between them, is considered a partial title match, and should not be included. As Iskandar323 noted, Our Lady of Fátima (disambiguation) already exists, which supports the WP:PTM view above. Albertatiran (talk) 11:59, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think a better link is Sanctuary of Fátima, which is widely known as just Fatima. I have updated the dab page. Vpab15 (talk) 12:46, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support per those above. M.Nadian (talk) 10:55, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per wikinav ([10]) the number of clicks from Fatima to this article and the place in Portugal are similar for June. Note that for May the number of clicks to the place in Portugal is more than twice higher (see [11] "Outgoing Pageviews"). Unfortunately wikinav doesn't show older data. All in all, it seems there is no primary topic. Vpab15 (talk) 12:44, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  Wikinav data is certainly valuable but is limited to the traffic through the disambiguation page (if I understand this correctly). On the other hand, the traffic statistics seem to be giving a different picture here for this month. The number of page views for Fatimah is significantly more than Sanctuary of Fátima and Fatima, Portugal combined (roughly four times more). There is a similar pattern for this year here. Albertatiran (talk) Albertatiran (talk) 14:03, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Albertatiran beat me to it, but yes, @Vpab15: It is worth bearing in mind that this is only a reflection of the division of hits arriving at this disambiguation page, not of overall prevalence under the given names. In the WikiNav analysis you provide, it is also shown that the traffic from this page makes up only 1% of the overall pageviews at Fatimah, while the lesser volume of traffic to the town in Portugal makes up 6% of the traffic to that page. I can't say how accurate the WikiNav numbers are, but assuming they are roughly correct, they reflect a huge differential in readership interest between Fatimah the person and Fátima the Portuguese town. Or here, we have an estimate of 1,224 views a day landing at and adhering to the Fatimah page, compared to less than 1,000 per month coming through this disambiguation page. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term..

  Wikinav shows the page that those who search for "Fatima" are really looking for. The conclusion is clear: there is no primary topic. I don't know of a better way to determine primary topic with respect to usage. Maybe those looking for this page are searching "Fatimah"?

  The only way wikinav results would be misleading is when the incoming links mostly come from one page. But the stats show similar numbers for both articles Vpab15 (talk) 14:18, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  It seems to me that Wikinav gives an incomplete picture and is not a decisive factor for a couple of reasons: 1) It's listed alongside two other factors on WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for deciding whether something is the primary topic, 2) the technical reason explained by Iskandar323 above. To that I can add that Google's suggestions and its history of the user's personal preferences often help the user "disambiguate" his/her search without going to Wikipedia's disambiguation page. Albertatiran (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, internal data is of very limited value, because the great majority of readers come in directly via Google or other search engines. I would rather look at what one gets when typing in "Fatima" in search engines themselves, like Google Books or Google Scholar. I'm still not very sure what these are saying though... ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:00, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  In terms of long-term significance factor in the primary topic criteria, I think there's a fairly strong argument to be made for the figure over the city based on the much higher reader pageviews, as shown best by Albertatiran here; the person having major religious significance dating back to the 7th century AD, versus a 16th-century Parish of still just 13,000 people to this day, and only indirect religious significance by way of the separately named associated miracle phenomena; and, finally, that all related names, including the Portugese Parish, owe their naming to the person. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:43, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  I think it is quite simple really. For Muslims, this article will be the obvious primary topic. For Christians, it will be either the Sanctuary or Our Lady of Fatima since the city itself would have no major relevance otherwise. From the article Fátima, Portugal: The city has become an important international destination for religious tourists, receiving between 6 and 8 million pilgrims yearly. That makes it a major pilgrimage site. The only option is to be impartial and keep the dab page. Regarding historical age and the source of the name, PRIMARYTOPIC makes it explicitly clear neither is a determinative factor. Vpab15 (talk) 18:00, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Vpab15: Yes, but "Fatima" alone is not a stand-in name for either "Our Lady of Fatima" or the "Sanctuary of Fatima" - in both, the "Fatima" part is just derived from the Portuguese place, and only forms part of the name, making them just partial title matches WP:PTM. You've suggested "Sanctuary of Fatima" might differ, but this is not clear from its page. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  The pageviews show you how many visits each article has receieved, but only a small fraction (typically much less than 10%) of these are due to readers searching directly for the article on Wikipedia (the rest arrive via wikipedia links or from external sources). The total views don't tell you much about usage. They were commonly used until the recent past because we didn't have anything better to go by (the Wikinav has only recently been developed); they can still be useful (and so are still listed in the guidelines) but only for cases where Wikinav data isn't applicable (e.g. when the primary title isn't occupied by a dab page). As for the readers who arrive directly at the articles from Google, we can't do anything about them: we don't know what search strings they used ("Fatima"? "Fatimah"? "Fatima Islam"? "Portuguese Fatima"?, etc.), and they're irrelevant for deciding what to do with the dab page because they already bypass that dab page and will be neither helped nor hindered by any move we make. Wikinav gives us the most reliable and relevant indicator of usage, and pageviews will only be relevant in the context of an argument that popular articles have greater long-term notability (that argument is valid, but weak). Uanfala (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Khestwol (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support. The current implicit distinction of some sort between Fatima and Fatimah is misleading. I do think the word "Fatima(h)" on its own has a primary meaning, although it is a close call. I would support a link to either Sanctuary of Fátima or Our Lady of Fátima in the hatnote after the move. I missed the last RM, but I would have supported it and it is a good compromise that avoids the primary topic issue altogether. Srnec (talk) 23:13, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 01:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support - think its pretty clear that a. Fatima is much more commonly used in scholarly sources than Fatimah for the subject of this article (see for example scholar results for "fatimah" muhammad daughter -"fatima" with ~3450 results vs [12] 14,800 for the fatima -fatimah. And b. that the primary target for Fatima is the subject of this aeticle. A hatnote for Sanctuary of Fátima or Our Lady of Fátima would be fine. Id also have been fine with the prior move request. nableezy - 03:42, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support per what said above. Ghazaalch (talk) 13:32, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. As mentioned above, it needs to be shown that this article is the primary topic for "Fatima" to be able to take the place of the dab page. There have been many assertions that this is the case, but very little evidence to support it. Wikinav shows similar numbers for this article and Fatima, Portugal ([13]). Google books shows eight results related to the Marian apparitions in Portugal in the first page compared to only one for this article ([14]). Pageviews show similar numbers for this article and Our Lady of Fátima. Even if we were to discount pageviews for Our Lady of Fátima because of partial title match, that still leaves wikinav and google books results. All things considered, there is not enough evidence this article is the primary topic. Vpab15 (talk) 20:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I see a third more for Fatimah than Fatima, Portugal, and that is dwarfed by the pageviews. As you just said we can disregard the views of Our Lady of Fátima, and that isnt even a target at Fatima. nableezy - 20:49, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

One third more is not enough. If we are taking about wikinav, the results for May for the Portuguese city are more than twice that of Fatimah. And you can't just focus on pageviews that exclude Our Lady of Fátima and basically ignore all the evidence (like wikinav and google books) that contradict your position. That is blatant cherry picking. Vpab15 (talk) 20:59, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@Vpab15: Yeah, you can't just focus on pageviews, but you also can't ignore it when the gulf in pageviews is as dramatic as it is in this instance - it's night and day. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

First, you have the wrong link for Fátima, Portugal. Second, it seems to me I am the only one here suggesting not to ignore evidence. Vpab15 (talk) 21:11, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Youre the one that admitted that the pageviews for Our Lady of Fatima are not relevant. That isnt even a dab target from Fatima. Of the options there the data shows that this article is the primary target. The results in May are skewed by May 13 being the anniversary of the Marian apparitions. But even with that, looking at it from April 1 till now, there is exactly one day where the city in Portugal had more views, 5/13. It had 1722 views as opposed to 1060 for this article. Every single other day the numbers are reversed. And some days dramatically so. On 6/8 for example, this article had 14,213 views as opposed to 529 for Fátima, Portugal. Whats that about cherry picking? nableezy - 21:15, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nom's sound rationale. - LouisAragon (talk) 22:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
• Support the move. It seems that 'Fatima' is a primary topic. --Mhhossein ^talk 05:20, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
• No primary topic. This is clearly not the primary topic with regard to usage (only gets 33%), and no-one has made a convincing argument that it should be the primary topic with respect to long-term significance. I don't have an opinion on the spelling, but in the discussion so far there seems to be a preference for dropping the "h". If that happens, the article will need to be moved to a disambiguated title. Uanfala (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  Hey, Uanfala! Thanks for your input. Could you be more specific about your 33% figure and where it comes from? Albertatiran (talk) 13:22, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  That's the Wikinav data discussed at length further up in this thread. Uanfala (talk) 13:23, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  Also discussed earlier were multiple reasons as to why the Wikinav argument is flawed, which I'll summarize here for convenience in no particular order:

  1. Wikinav is just one of the three factors listed in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to determine whether something is the primary topic.
  2. Quoting Apaugasma, "internal data [like Wikinav] is of very limited value, because the great majority of readers come in directly via Google or other search engines." For example, Google often uses the search history to help the user "disambiguate" his/her search without going to Wikipedia's disambiguation page.
  3. As noted by Iskandar323, even though their traffic through the disambiguation page is comparable as shown by the Wikinav data, this accounts for ~1% of Fatimah's pages views and ~6% of Fátima, Portugal's views (the 2nd place). That's a >6 fold difference in favor of Fatimah.
  4. Not surprisingly, last month's page views for Fatimah is 7 times the page views of Fátima, Portugal and Sanctuary of Fátima combined, as seen here.
  5. Iskandar323 also noted that there was a consensus earlier that "Our lady of Fatima" (and perhaps its variations too) are just a partial title match which again paves the way for the primacy of Fatimah; see WP:PTM.

  There are probably other arguments above in favor of the move that I missed. You also noted that there hasn't been a convincing argument about the long-term significance of Fatimah. I think there was an attempt above but it quickly turned into a Christian-Muslim dispute, which is maybe why people have avoided the topic. Suffices to say that the place is named after the figure which certainly does not weaken our proposal. Albertatiran (talk) 16:05, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  I believe I already addressed those points when they were initially made above. I'm not going to repeat that, but I'll just note that #3 is part of the reason why pageviews are of marginal use and why #1-2 and #4 are irrelevant when we have Wikinav data; point #5 is about an article that doesn't enter the equation. Uanfala (talk) 16:19, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  There's another key point, and that is that internal search traffic to Fatimah is currently being split between Fatima and Fatimah, i.e.: when readers type 'Fatima' into search, they are currently forced into the choice of clicking either one or the other, and for users looking for the subject of this page, that means guessing which spelling is correct. Now, of the users clicking on Fatima, 50% more still want this page compared to the town (the next ranked entry on Wikinav), and, at the same time, the large majority of users clicking on Fatimah also only want this page. So the overall picture that we see, appreciating both sides of the currently split traffic, is a very dominant primary topic demand for this page. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:25, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I can see the point your're trying to make. The question is whether there is a primary topic for the term "Fatima". The fact that one of the topics with that name can also be referred to by another name is irrelevant here. Also, for a topic to be primary wrt to usage, it's not enough for it to get more traffic than the next most popular article, it needs to get more than all the other articles combined. Uanfala (talk) 18:20, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  No, the fact that one of the topics with that name can also be referred to by another name with a slightly different spelling is relevant, because the amount of traffic the alternative spelling gets (either here or elsewhere) should be counted for determining whether it's the primary topic. Note that I'm not saying that Fatima+Fatimah results for the daughter of the prophet do have more traffic than all other topics combined (I'm undecided on that), just that both 'Fatima' and 'Fatimah' should be counted if one wants to determine the primary topic. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:22, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  What you say would make sense if translated into a long-term notability question: when comparing the significance of two topics, you would look at how they're treated in sources regardless of how each source happens to spell their name. But we're not doing that here. A primary topic on Wikipedia is the primary topic for a term. When trying to determine what readers want when searching for one term, you're obviously not going to look at what readers want when they search for a different term, even if the two are similar. Uanfala (talk) 21:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  Compare the following hypothetical situation: Harbor, Oregon would not just be wiki-notable (like it apparently is in reality), but outright famous for hosting the first ever post office on the Western shore of the United States. Many people looking for the term 'Harbor' may be looking for Harbor, Oregon rather than for the general concept of a Harbor or Harbour, even if more people are clearly still looking for the latter. In trying to determine whether Harbor/Harbour is still to be considered the primary topic for the term 'Harbor', would we dismiss the pageviews, outgoing clicks, incoming wikilinks, and external search engine results (both amount and ranking) for 'Harbour'? Would we, because Harbor alone doesn't get sufficient clicks, turn it into a DAB page and move the page on Harbors/Harbours to Harbour?

  It's this absurd situation we're in with the Fatima/Fatimah thing here. Yes, the alternative spelling mainly comes into play in the various ways in which one can look for long-term significance, one of the two PTOPIC criteria. But why wouldn't we be doing that here, look for long-term significance? Why just throw away one of the two criteria? Throw away, moreover, what is arguably the criterion that can be established more securely? Why, less importantly but still pertinently, ignore the effect that the existence of two prominent spellings can have even on usage analysis (outgoing links on a DAB page are less representative if 30% of the people looking for the term already clicked on an alternative spelling and so bypassed the DAB page entirely; the first results one gets when searching Google for "Fatima" would be very different if 40% of the sources wouldn't be arbitrarily adding an "h" to the end of the word, a situation which makes topics that never use the alternative spelling relatively more looked-for than they really are).

  Above, you seem to agree that if this article is not found to be the primary topic, it should still be moved to a disambiguated title. And with reason: what should readers who type in "Fatim" and see both Fatima and Fatimah appear, click on? What should readers who see both Harbor and Harbour appear click on? Sure, those looking for Fatima, Portugal or Harbor, Oregon will likely click on the former. Those looking for the ship-haven or the daughter of the prophet may just be lucky or experienced enough to click on the latter. But there's no way that this situation isn't going to confuse people. Only if we would already have articles that sat for a long time on Harbor (ship haven) and Fatima bint Muhammad could we hope to look at the traffic of these pages and usefully compare it with Harbor, Oregon and Fatima, Portugal. As for external sources, ever the most important, alternative spellings will always have to be accounted for. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:08, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Uanfala: Your point in the earlier exchanges seems to be that the Wikinav data is the main factor for deciding primacy (feel free to correct me) but that might be an interpretation of the guidelines in WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY that is not clearly reflected in the text (which also lists other factors without weighting them). Another factor listed there is the number of page views which decisively supports the move as discussed above. Another factor listed there is the number of incoming Wikilinks (1326 for Fatimah, (oddly) 326 for Fátima, Portugal, 192 for Sanctuary of Fátima) which again favors Fatimah by a landslide. Albertatiran (talk) 17:28, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  What the guidelines say is the following:

  A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.

  What readers seek on Wikipedia when searching for a given term – for the cases where that term leads to a disambiguation page – can be determined from the clickthroughs for the various links on that dab page, and that's what Wikinav shows. That's an obvious point. The guidelines don't need to spell everything out, or spoon-feed editors with detailed recipes for all situations. Uanfala (talk) 18:20, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  Simply rehearsing policy that has already been quoted multiple times here won't help. You seem to ignore the argument that wikinav data is of very limited value because most people come in through external search engines. It is true though that a satisfactory analysis of such external data has been missing here. I don't think anyone has even tried to quantify the first n (say, 100?) Google Books/Google Scholar results, nor to determine how results for 'Fatimah' should be taken into account. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:22, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  You seem to be insisting on several misconceoptions that I belive have already been clarified above. As for results on Google Books, they could tell us about the relative prominence of different topics in sources (and so possibly feed into an argument about long-term notability), but (and I'm surprised that this point needs stating) they contain zero information about what readers seek on Wikipedia. Uanfala (talk) 21:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry, I missed your reply above. But there too, you seem to just dismiss the argument that WikiNav data is of very limited value because most people come in through external search engines. Someone even wrote a whole essay about this: Wikipedia:Pageviews and primary topics. Perhaps it depends on the type of articles one usually edits, but in my experience, external data (Ngrams, Google Books, Google Scholar, etc.) is given a lot more weight in move discussions than internal data, per the sound reasons given in this essay.

  Yes, external data is doubtlessly the crucial factor for one of the two main PTOPIC criteria, long-term significance. But in many cases it's also a more reliable metric for the other main PTOPIC criterion, usage. That's because what people are looking for on Wikipedia is likely to be similar to what people are looking for on external search engines, who in turn rank higher what people are more often looking for: while the amount of results for each separate topic says something about long-term significance, the order in which they appear may tell something about usage. Rankings in external research engines are often not very clear, but looking at that will still be much more helpful than looking at what the small percentage of people working their way through DAB pages and other intra-wiki links are clicking on.

  In any case, trying to determine usage is somewhat of a black magic game (and oft-repeated mantra is what people click on is not necessarily what people are actually looking for), and unless the data is really clear, it's much safer to try and establish long-term significance. I agree with your assessment above that until now one has yet made a convincing argument for a primary topic on this basis. I just don't agree with the apparent corollary that this wouldn't be a good basis to make the argument upon in the first place, and that we should rather look the WikiNav results, which in this case (especially due to the Fatima/Fatimah situation) are even less helpful than usual, to the point of being completely useless. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:08, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

  That essay on pageviews (to which I happen to be the main contribution) was written before the Wikinav tool had been developed. I probably wouldn't have bothered writing it if Wikinav was around at the time, because that tool rendered many of those old-school pageviews analyses irrelevant. I think we need an essay about the Wikinav too (I've got an off-wiki draft, but it focuses mostly on the pitfalls and edge cases: it hasn't been necessary to expound on its basic relevance for primary topic decisions because that has been obvious to RM participants so far).

  I don't know what missing common assumption is getting in the way of achieving mutual understanding here. You know, dab pages don't normally have incoming links (the Fatima dab has a few links from hatnotes and the like, but they account for a negligible fraction of its visitors). This means that the readers who land on a dab page are those who seek one or another of the topics referred to by the term(s) being disambiguated on that dab page. What those readers click on reflects what they seek, and that's precisely the usage referred to in the guidelines. You don't need to make roundabout inferences about it based on the presumed behaviour of visitors on other websites: we have direct data about this usage already.

  In the month of June, when Fatimah was apparently all over in the media, it accounted for 1/3 of the relevant usage on Wikipedia. And as Vpab15's data shows below, in a normal month it gets probably less than 1/6 of that usage. Of course, we can't claim all that with absolute certainty as there are complicating considerations (e.g. readers not always clicking on what they originally intended to). But to suggest that an article is sought by the majority of readers despite getting only one out of six clickthroughs would require the extremely unrealisic scenario where the vast majority of readers who land on the dab page forget what they came for and instead click on something totally unrelated. I don't believe anyone has given reasons to accept such explanations. Uanfala (talk) 09:44, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. I checked historical wikinav data from clickstream for April and it shows 744 clicks from the dab page to the Portuguese city vs 348 to this page. I also checked July and August for 2021 (I had downloaded those files last year for other purposes). They show the Portuguese city gets more clicks from the dab page (553 vs 270 in July and 544 vs 405 in August). I can only speculate, but I suspect the controversy around the film The Lady of Heaven, which happened in June skewed the wikinav stats for that month. Anecdotal evidence come from pageviews, which show a clear spike for the film in June ([15]). The point to take is that in general the Portuguese city gets more clicks from the dab page, usually twice as many as this article. Very difficult to argue this article should be the primary topic based on that evidence. Vpab15 (talk) 18:55, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
• Comment: There have been some problems with some of the pageview analyses up to this point, caused by the accent on the first 'a' in 'Fatima, Portugal' - I've pulled up the accurate picture with the right spelling, and the real picture is anything from an 8:1 to a 2:1 pageviews ratio (average 5:1) in terms of hits between this page and the town in any given month. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:16, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
• Partial Support I support moving the title to the simpler, more modern, and more common transliteration as 'Fatima'. Leaning support on primary topic, but waiting for further discussion and evidence before pulling trigger on this part of the proposal. Al Ameer (talk) 15:47, 1 August 2022 (UTC)