Raising Perl awareness on Tiobe + Wikipedia, etc.

Richard Foley richard.foley at rfi.net
Wed Mar 20 12:08:58 GMT 2013


I understand what you mean here, but there is room to wriggle. Firstly is
Wikipedia's own "rulings" on disambiguation and page titles:

There are generally three methods employed to avoid using an ambiguous title:

    Natural disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the
    subject is also commonly called in English, albeit not as commonly as the
    preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up
    names.

        Example: The word "English" commonly refers to either the people or the
        language. Because of the ambiguity, we use the alternative but still
        common titles, English language and English people, allowing natural
        disambiguation. In a similar vein, mechanical fan and hand fan are
        preferable to fan (mechanical) and fan (implement).

    Parenthetical disambiguation: If natural disambiguation is not possible,
    add a disambiguating term in parentheses, after the ambiguous name.

        Example: The word "mercury" has distinct meanings that do not have
        sufficiently common alternative names, so we use instead parenthetical
        disambiguation: Mercury (element), Mercury (mythology), and Mercury
        (planet).

    Comma-separated disambiguation. With place names, if the disambiguating
    term is a higher-level administrative division, it is often separated using
    a comma instead of parentheses, as in Windsor, Berkshire (see Geographic
    names). Comma-separated disambiguation is sometimes also used in other
    contexts (e.g., Diana, Princess of Wales; see Names of royals and nobles).
    However, titles such as Tony Blair and Battle of Waterloo are preferred
    over alternatives such as "Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton" and "Waterloo,
    Battle of", in which a comma is used to change the natural ordering of the
    words.

Secondly, I don't think anyone was suggesting we remove the Perl page from WP,
rather that we make one the main page and the other point to it. In effect
having both pages/solutions at once and having our cake and eating it too.

-- 
Ciao

Richard Foley

http://www.rfi.net/books.html

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:42:45AM +0000, Dave Cross wrote:
> Quoting Richard Foley <richard.foley at rfi.net>:
> 
> >Looking down our noses and saying "WE don't need to disambiguate because WE
> >know what we mean", (capitals are mine), is all very well, and I for one
> >understand that there is no NEED for us to disambiguate Perl the programming
> >language. However, the question is probably better put as to whether we would
> >like to explicitly associate "Perl" and "programming language" whenever
> >Wikipedia and Google and Yahoo and Facebook and blablabla are
> >searched, perhaps by stupid robots, or even by blissfully ignorant
> >people.
> >
> >It's not about what we deem necessary to our usage of what is
> >clearly the best programming language on the planet, it's about
> >what we can do to raise Perl's profile "out there", right now, and
> >for future generations.
> 
> I understand all of that. But you're asking Wikipedia to break its
> own rules on naming pages in order to suit you. I don't agree with
> that.
> 
> In English, there is one meaning of the word "Perl" that stands head
> and shoulders above any others. Therefore, under Wikipedia's rules,
> the page about that meaning should simply be called "Perl".
> 
> No matter what SEO benefits we might get, the Perl community should
> respect Wikipedia's rules on this.
> 
> Dave...


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