User talk:Andrewa/Larry Sanger on Primary Topic

Why this page
I'm interested in exactly where the Wikipedia concept of Primary Topic came from. Andrewa (talk) 05:38, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sanger's very next line, perhaps? The part you conveniently left out. Here's the line with more context:


 * The essence of primary topics was recognized at the very beginning, as demonstrated by the phrase: "not in all cases, but in many". That makes the case for The Americans as well as Paris, and countless others. --В²C ☎ 19:37, 22 January 2020 (UTC)


 * And here is the first reference about the concept added to WP:D, on April 5, 2002, by :


 * Worth noting: we do have a Fire iron article today, created in 2006, listed among about a dozen uses of "poker" at Poker (disambiguation), and to which Fireplace poker redirects. But the card game remains the primary topic of Poker. And rightfully so. --В²C ☎ 20:15, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Also worth noting is that the reason for putting primary topics at base names was not explained until years later. Oh, and the earliest expression of an argument against primary topics that I can find is also from 2002, in Archive 2 of WT:D at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation/Archive_2:

--В²C ☎ 20:48, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Previous posts
I did a brief description of the history of the term both in Wikipedia and in Linguistics, not sure quite where. Watch this space. Andrewa (talk) 05:38, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The concept usually if not always arises before the term. I wouldn't get too hung up on the term primary topic itself. It's the idea that's important. The idea that many ambiguous names each usually refer to one particular topic, and anyone searching or linking with that name is most likely looking for or intending to refer to that topic. For lack of a better term, we refer to such topics as primary topics. But, again, it's the concept that's important, not the imperfect term we use to refer to it. --В²C ☎ 19:42, 22 January 2020 (UTC)