Talk:Borodin (disambiguation)

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Question - the link to Alexei Borodin refers to a Soviet-era pilot, yet the article it points to refers to a modern mathematician. Are we missing an article? --lglassy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.198.94 (talk) 02:07, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Is Alexander the only Borodin to be included?

I'm not sure if there is policy, but is there some way of sourcing if Alexander is "the most often" refered to Borodin?

The N-gram Borodin Alexander, Borodin Michael, Borodin Mikail" shows them pretty close in 2009 Google Books. Michael + Mikail ahead of Alexander in British English 2009 and American English 2009. ch (talk) 05:29, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Alexander Borodin is currently being treated as primary topic hence the term "Borodin" redirects to that article. The lede on the dab page was wrong and I have now fixed it. If he shouldn't be considered primary topic then a requested move would be the correct avenue. —Xezbeth (talk) 10:28, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 20 July 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. Cúchullain ^t/c 14:49, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

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Borodin (disambiguation) → Borodin – If there's one Borodin who should be the primary topic, it's probably Mikhail Borodin (or Michael), not Alexander Borodin which Borodin currently redirects to. I've adjusted the Ngram CWH made above, which shows that Michael Borodin was far more prominent during WWII and the Cold War than Alexander, but interest in him has receded in recent decades. On balance, I think Borodin should be a disambiguation page, with Borodin (surname) merged into it. Zanhe (talk) 19:14, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support Zanhe's well put proposal.ch (talk) 20:29, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

@CWH: I'm guessing you're more familiar with Chinese history than classical music :) but have you tried this of Borodin search: " Borodin's early advice was the need to revitalize the Kuomintang and to develop a clear anti- imperialist stance" is the only hit which isn't about the composer. Borodin as a mononym means Borodin. This spy in China is only referred to by surname if already introduced in a previous sentence. That isn't a mononym. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:08, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm familiar with both, thank you very much. In fact, Borodin's Polovtsian Dances came on the radio just yestrday afternoon -- I turned it off, as I don't care for Romantic schmaltz.ch (talk) 15:54, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose no one refers to Mikhail Gruzenberg the Comintern agent by just "Borodin". This is a case of Mozart or Haydn type mononyms. It just isn't conceivable that the agent has ever been remotely as well known as the composer. The search appears to be based on only searching for one variant of the composer's first name and is therefore wrong. What are page views between the spy and the composer? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:39, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Sorry no. The composer is sailing along with 6x the views of the spy And many of those will have got there by the surname only. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:42, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Not a fair comparison. Since Borodin currently redirects to Alexander Borodin, users looking for any of the dozens of entries on Borodin (surname) and Borodin (disambiguation) would be automatically redirected to Alexander Borodin. -Zanhe (talk) 22:05, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

• "No one refers to Mikhail Gruzenberg the Comintern agent by just Borodin" - with all due respect, that's a ridiculous statement. A la Lenin and Stalin, his pseudonym Borodin is far better known than his real name Gruzenberg. His biography by Dan Norman Jacobs is simply entitled Borodin, Stalin's man in China (Harvard Univ Press, 1981).
• "It just isn't conceivable that the agent has ever been remotely as well known as the composer" - also wrong. Michael Borodin was responsible for securing the Soviet Union's support for Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang and was the architect of the CPC-KMT alliance. His support of Chiang Kai-shek was responsible for Chiang's rise after Sun's death and ultimately took the blame for Chiang's betrayal of the Communists. This is a person who influenced the course of history of modern China and hence the world. He's far more historically significant than the composer, which is reflected in the Google Ngram. -Zanhe (talk) 22:00, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

"No one refers to Mikhail Gruzenberg the Comintern agent by just Borodin", I see no evidence in the first three books I checked for mononym status. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:03, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Why do you keep ignoring the most obvious book, the authoritative academic biography of him: Borodin, Stalin's Man in China, with the mononym "Borodin" in huge font? -Zanhe (talk) 22:34, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose – I looked at the first 100 Google search results; not one of them referred to Mikhail. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:59, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

If you look at the first 100 Google books results, many will be about Michael/Mikhail, as well as a few other Borodins. -Zanhe (talk) 05:39, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

• Suggestion Zanhe, In ictu oculi, and Michael Bednarek make solid points, so let's move back to the question of how to make the page most useful and what Wikipedia Primary Topic policy is. WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY says

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

WP:NWFCTM says the Primary Topic is not "what first comes to your mind."

N-grams show that none of the Borodins is more likely than all of the others combined, nor does a "mononym" Google search appear to be the best way to determine how serve our readers.

BTW, another useful measure is the number of "What Links Here" links: A. Borodin and M. Borodin seem roughly the same (some of the links are to Talk Pages etc.).

The present page requires two redirects (from a "borodin" search, to this page, to "Borodin (surname)" to the article in question). The long standing Disambig page had the virtue of requiring only one.

So why not go back to the basic content before the undiscussed and unexplained edits of February? That is, a Disambig page that includes the Russian surnames? Wouldn't this meet all of our needs?

Cheers to all in any case, ch (talk) 16:19, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - I just realized that the disambiguation page was located at Borodin for more than a decade until User:Damianmx (a sock of User:Satt 2 who's been banned for long-term abuse) unilaterally moved it last year, without even an edit comment to justify the action. So this should be considered a technical request to undo an edit by a banned user and restore the longstanding original title. -Zanhe (talk) 18:37, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't think a single link to "Borodin" in article space refers to anybody else but the composer. Another measure to determine a primary topic is page views. Monthly average for July 2016 to June 2017: Mikhail 1284, Alexander 8843. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:05, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Apologies -- I'm not clear on the relevance of the "link to 'Borodin' in article space", which I don't see reference to as a measure in WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY, which is clear that the "topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term..." Why should we not restore the long-standing information? This would not change the redirect of "Borodin" to A. Borodin, only cut out the extra click. ch (talk) 05:12, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

You wrote: "another useful measure is the number of "What Links Here" links". I agree as far as links from article space are concerned; links from talk pages are generally less well chosen. All links from article space refer to Alexander. WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY also mentions page views – which are clearly in favour of the composer. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:24, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Again, these are meaningless metrics as Borodin has been a redirect to the composer, which prevents editors from using the link for any other Borodin, and increases traffic to the composer article. This is not a level ground for comparison. -Zanhe (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Question Michael Bednarek, you make solid points, though it doesn't seem that A. Borodin meets the test "more likely than all of the others combined." Do you have any objection to going back to the longstanding form of the page? This would not affect readers looking for A. Borodin, but would simplify things for ones looking for M.ch (talk) 21:35, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

The test you mention is not absolute – it's an aspect to consider, among others. Still, in some respects Borodin meets that test, e.g. in page views and incoming links. I don't see any need to change the current arrangement. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:04, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.