Talk:Ford/Archive 1

2004 page move

 * Transcluded from 

Untitled
Why is the article on the Ford Motor Company here? "Ford Motor Company" is hardly an obscure name, especially since it disambiguates between the brand "Ford" and the company. Any thoughts? john k 07:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree and have restored it, fixing the double redirects and incorrect links as well. Now Ford redirects to Ford Motor Company and that article mentions the disambiguation page. Rmhermen 16:36, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

WP:POINT
Before you consider redirected this page to Ford disambiguation, please check the What links here and change the many, many pages that link to Ford Motor Company to the correct target. Please don't make Wikipedia harder to use by sending people to a page that they don't want to see. Rmhermen 14:32, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

You have also to think twice before redirecting a former President of the United States to a car company. Cities were not built where the roads are crossing a river at a car company, and I am unaware of city named OxMotor. If you consider the minority of links to be not to Ford Motor Company, fix them! I'll fix the rest with a bot. This page has to be listed as unresolved disambiguation problem and you should not showel that problem under the carpet. -- Goldie (tell me) 16:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I do fix them about twice a year. Please help. Rmhermen 17:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . 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. 

don't move. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 12:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Request to move this page was filed at WP:RM:
 * Ford (disambiguation) → Ford … Rationale: dab-page with many many meanings was moved and edit-warred. -- Goldie (tell me) 17:39, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Survey

 * Support as requester. Goldie (tell me) 17:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose this is a prima facie case of a primary topic. While there are many other meanings for the word Ford, these are addressed by the disambiguation page. The principle of least surprise suggests that if 99% of the time people are looking for the company, then the link should go to the company. older ≠ wiser 18:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Bkonrad's reasoning was the same reasoning I used when I set up the disambiguation. Rmhermen 18:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Citation from above: "I know I created this page but I don't remember why." Don't you think that by keeping the page redirected to the company you are making a self-fulfilling prophecy? Goldie (tell me) 21:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * That was a comment placed on the Ford page before it was moved to Ford (disambiguation). Rmhermen 17:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. This is simply to remove the redirect to the Dab page.  There is no reason not to do that.  I'm not sure there is any data to support a claim that 99% of the useage is for the auto company.  Vegaswikian 18:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose - the car company is obviously the primary topic. john k 15:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose - leave the diambig page the way it is, make Ford redirect to Ford Motor Company Karrmann 15:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose, the car is the primary topic by far. —BorgHunter (talk) 02:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose "Ford" should redirect to "Ford Motor Company" --Philip Baird Shearer 23:08, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

 * The meaning of Ford (crossing) is a name or part of the name of way too many places centuries before any man have founded a car company. Many more people are bearing the name Ford without being relatives to the company founder or otherwise related to the company. -- Goldie (tell me) 17:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I think a partial relief would be a section or a separate disambiguation page for the company with divisions and car models. The page as it is now does not list them, and a visitor following a link to the dab-page does not know where to direct it. That way the burden of disambiguation would be distributed. -- Goldie (tell me) 18:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I have also to point that actually rather small number of links are aimed towards the company but many of them are targeting particular models. Goldie (tell me) 11:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Ford (crossing) is not a particularly encyclopedic topic. It is a dictionary word. john k 15:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * For clarity -- this is not only about a simple move. A support vote is that the disambiguation page should reside at Ford. An oppose vote is that Ford should be a redirect to Ford Motor Company. If there is no consensus to move the disambiguation page to "Ford", then Ford should be a redirect to the company. older ≠ wiser 13:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I've moved your comment as it changes the topic. How should one vote if he/she opposes the move but prefers Ford to redirect to something else? Maybe you would prefer to ignore the opinions of VampWillow & Nate Silva (expressed above) because they do not support your POV. -- Goldie (tell me) 15:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * These questions are intrinsically linked. If this requested move does not have consensus support, do you agree that Ford by implication should not be a redirect to the disambiguation page? The comments of VampWillow & Nate Silva above have no direct bearing on the current survey as it occured almost two years ago and it would be presumptuous to attribute interpretations to them without further clarification. (BTW I see that you have already invited them to participate.) older ≠ wiser 17:34, 29 May 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.

Redirect to disambiguation page
Bkonrad reverted my change to redirect Ford to a disambiguation page following WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, as there's no argument to support that the car company is a primary topic (the number of visits for Henry Ford and Gerald Ford are higher than visits to the company, and of similar historical and educational value).

A requested move as Bkonrad suggested is not adequate, since no move was proposed - just a change to a different redirect target. I'm requesting a third opinion on htis. Diego (talk) 16:54, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You are right that a move is not required for this and I rather sympathise with your desire to have this point to a disambiguation page. But there are practical difficulties: there are at least 500 links to this page which would need to be changed and nearly all of these are pointing to the company/car. So it does have implications. Chris55 (talk) 17:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the opinion. I'll start a Request for comment to see if there's a strong consensus to have Ford as disambiguation. Diego (talk) 17:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Changing the target of the redirect would result in a malplaced disambiguation page and would if that were updated, effect a page move of Ford (disambiguation) to Ford. This move has been proposed unsuccessfully before Talk:Ford (disambiguation). As such, this is not uncontroversial and a requested move discussion is the best way to establish consensus for such as change. older ≠ wiser 17:45, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * MALPLACED is not a guideline, and no move is being requested here. I'll do a Request for Comments instead to assess consensus for the community's desired outcome. Diego (talk) 17:49, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * MALPLACED is enforced in practice and is the accepted standard given by WP:DAB. The result would be a malplaced disambiguation page and would remain on the malplaced pages report until it is fixed -- either by moving the page or by reverting the edit to the redirect. older ≠ wiser 17:56, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:DAB has nothing to say at all about WP:MALPLACED, and recent consensus made it clear that guidelines by Wikiprojects are not binding to the whole community. In any case, let's first decide if there's a primary topic, and with that outcome it will be easy to decide if a move is required; we should take one decision at a time to avoid mudding the waters with conflicting discussions about different concerns. Diego (talk) 18:05, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No, actually it does. You know this, although you deny it as you have been discussing it at WT:DAB. For the benefit of others: WP:DAB says If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated). There are not multiple terms being disambiguated here. older ≠ wiser 18:16, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Now you've lost me. What do you mean by "there are not multiple terms being disambiguated here"? The disambiguation page lists about 50 disambiguated terms. What I'm requesting is a redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated, which is the exact wording of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Diego (talk) 18:20, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The term being disambiguated is "Ford". There are multiple topics for the one term, which makes the term ambiguous. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Is Ford Motor Company a primary topic for the term Ford?
The page at Ford has been for a long time a redirect to Ford Motor Company giving as motivation that it was considered a primary topic. Discussions about the title were held here (2009) and Talk:Ford (disambiguation) (2006). Since then, the guideline WP:PRIMARYTOPIC has been updated to reflect usage, historical relevance and educational value as reasons to determine a primary topic. The number of visits for topics Henry Ford and Gerald Ford, listed from the disambiguation page, are higher than the visits to the company article. With this in mind, what should be the article that readers find when looking for the term Ford? Diego (talk) 18:00, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * This question is a different question than that in the previous section, although it appears that this RFC is a direct result of that discussion. Changing a longstanding redirect is an improper way to in effect rename the disambiguation page, especially when the same question has been proposed unsuccessfully in the past. That is what is actually being proposed here and it should properly be discussed as a requested move. If the motor company is not the primary topic, then the Ford (disambiguation) page should be moved to Ford. older ≠ wiser 18:11, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * But do you support or oppose the placement of the car company as a primary topic? This is what the RfC should decide, as it's a simpler and more basic question. Diego (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * At this point, I don't have a strong opinion. In the past, I felt the motor company was clearly the primary topic for the simple term "Ford" as both "Henry Ford" and "Gerald Ford" are partial title matches. I still think the car company is the more likely target for someone searching on the simple term "Ford", but at the same time, there is a reasonable case for the disambiguation page to be at the base name. older ≠ wiser 18:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The two surname-holders are partial title matches. Even though their traffic is higher, it's unclear that that traffic is coming from readers who expected to find those topics under the title "Ford" in an encyclopedia. One experiment we ran for a similar situation on "Lincoln" was to create the redirect Lincoln (president) for use solely on the disambiguation page; here we could create Ford (president) and Ford (industrialist), pipelink them from the dab, let them sit, and then check their traffic. But at first glance, they don't appear to be topics that readers would expect to find under the single name in an encyclopedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Strictly speaking, Ford Motor Company is also a partial title match, so no difference there with the presidents. The entries that aren't PTMs are the common name for a shallow river crossing (which holds long-term significance), the surname, the mango, and arguably the various places. When so many topics hold reasonable claims to be identified by the base name, it's best to have internal wikilinks point to the desired meaning at each case, and have a disambiguation page for readers entering the plain term to locate the meaning they intended by themselves. Diego (talk) 22:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It is misleading to say that Ford Motor Company is a partial title match. If there were no other naming considerations, the company article would be located at Ford, similar to Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Chrysler, or Volkswagen (and likely others). Ford Motor Company is natural language disambiguation for the maker of cars, most of which are most branded as "Ford". But like I said, there may be a reasonable case for disambiguation, but please don't muddy the waters by making misleading claims. older ≠ wiser 23:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not just misleading, it's wrong. Strictly speaking, Ford Motor Company is not a partial title match, because the topic is often referred to by the name "Ford" alone.. The other entries that aren't PTMs are also much less visited than the company. The claim that "there are so many topics that there can't be a primary topic" is also wrong -- it is perfectly possible to have dozens of topics and still have one primary; see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with JHunter that the number of visits to the specific pages is not really evidentiary to the question of what people are looking for when searching for "Ford". Certainly in common parlance, the word Ford on its own almost invariably refers to a Ford car or the Ford Motor Company, while referring to any of the famous individuals surnamed Ford (Henry Ford, Gerald Ford, John Ford-- actually a couple dozen of these guys have risen to notability--, Harold Ford-- and son, &c.) is always done with a full name, probably in no small part due to the commonality of the surname itself. siafu (talk) 22:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Humorous sidenote: in looking over the list at Ford (surname) I came across an American author with the name "G. M. Ford". Hmm. siafu (talk) 22:33, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to give another pov than siafu: ford is also a common noun and hence it is strange that a proper noun takes precedence in this case. Then one might be referring to the company or to a car made by the company, not the same at all. It's common for (car) to point to the company but sometimes it points to a list of models. Maybe not being American gives a different point of view. Chris55 (talk) 23:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Possible that it's an American English issue, but the common noun ford is not very commonly used anymore, except when discussing historical occasions, as the major rivers of the world have been, by and large, tamed by bridges. siafu (talk) 23:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This is also a difference between dictionaries and encyclopedias. The most common topic looked up in a dictionary under "ford" might be the common noun while the most common topic looked up in an encyclopedia might not be the common noun. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't have strong feelings about this. Nor am I sure of the protocol for redirects. But in case it's helpful I'll share my thoughts. If you ask me to draw a ford my response is likely to be what kind, or I don't do cars. I am aware of the people mentioned but probably would not search for them by the last name only since it's a common last name. Similarly, I don't usually think of the place to cross a river unless the context is specifically historic or fantasy, and I actually spend more time in those contexts than many North Americans. I guess if it were up to me I'd be inclined to go with a disambiguation age rather than a redirect though. Assuming it's the car does seem a bit -- American. On the other hand, I am guessing that Americans outnumber english-speaking wipikedia users from other countries. For the record, I am a Canadian who lives in the US. Elinruby (talk) 18:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I am satisfied that the 'Ford motor company' should not be the primary topic, when there is a more popular one 'Gerald Ford'. However I am not satisfied that 'Gerald ford' should be primary topic when the difference in the second most popular search is 13%, in accordance to the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC policy it requires the primary topic to be ' more likely than all the other topics combined '. I Strongly support de-listing 'Ford motor company' as the primary topic Eng.Bandara (talk) 08:42, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * If I typed in "Ford" into the WP Search, I would expect to go to the Ford Motor Company. I have seldom heard Ford Motor Company called Ford Motor Company. It has always been called Ford around my American ears. If I wanted to research Gerald Ford, I would type in Gerald Ford. Markewilliams (talk) 11:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * As per the above, it seems having Ford redirect to Ford Motor Company with the hatnote seems the best option. --LukeSurlt c 17:36, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Closing
I have read this discussion, and the result should be the status quo: Ford redirects to Ford Motor Company which is the primary topic. There is really no other result that makes sense for the millions of anonymous users of this site. Most of them will want to type "Ford" for the car company, and if they want something else they would go to the disambiguation page. Making Ford a disambiguation portal would burden a tremendous number of users who will have to click an extra link to get to the car company article. I am American so I do have that bias, but I think the majority (or at least, plurality) of the readership is also American and shares that bias. It is immaterial whether Gerald Ford has more hits than Ford Motor Company, because someone searching for Gerald Ford will usually type his full name. Chutznik (talk) 02:25, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Base name link
The disambiguation guidelines allow for (and encourage) using redirects when they match the ambiguous title, and it is common to lede with the base name link, even when a redirect, when linking to the primary topic. See WP:MOSDAB. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Fictional Characters
Why are there two overlapping and slightly differently-named sections of fictional characters on this page? Is it just oversight, or was there a reason? IAmNitpicking (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:02, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:00, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ford Motor Company which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:59, 1 August 2016 (UTC)