Talk:Curl

Main Curl article should be this page

Any particular reason Curl points to the vector calculus article instead of the dab page? I'm not convinced this is the primary topic for the word 'curl'. MFNickster (talk) 03:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, since nobody has addressed this issue, I'm going to be bold and move the page. MFNickster (talk) 03:08, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, just look at what links to Curl. All the links I've seen refer to the math meaning, so that's the primary one. I undid your move. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 14:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. Read the section on primary topics. I don't think the number of links to the mathematical topic is an indication that it is 'much more used than any other' meaning. For example, the weight-lifting term is probably far more commonly used in everyday conversation than the math term. MFNickster (talk) 15:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to pull a deus ex google, curl (math) is far from the primary meaning. Also, the fact that the largest number of wikipedia links point here means nothing for common usage, which is how articles are named. Wikipedia is far heavier in math and physics than common usage.--Loodog (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

And google is heavily biased towards computer terms. :) I find it hard to believe that "the command line tool for transferring files" or the "programming language" is more notable or more used than the mathematical curl which is taught in any college class on vector calculus and is used a lot in scientific applications.

Moving curl to curl (mathematics) means that the hundred or so links to the mathematical term need to be fixed, and it has to be made sure that in the future all the links point to the correct direction. It is much simpler to leave things the way they are now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not the point. Google's algorithm returns what's most relevant to the most people for a search phrase e.g. "curl". The fact that the first page results aren't entirely curl (math) shows there's no primary meaning.--Loodog (talk) 17:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Point of interest: Googling "curl vector" returns 2,010,000 results, and "curl weights" returns 4,940,000 results. MFNickster (talk) 20:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

At the end of the day, probably curl (mathematics) could serve just as well as curl, as long as somebody is willing to fix the several tens of disambiguation links to point to the new page. Any takers? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

No, that idea has been rejected with evidence to the contrary. All evidence that's been presented, accroding to Disambiguation#Primary_topic, points to a dab page. You essentialy need to establish that if we interviewed all English speakers in the world, 95% of them would first think of curl (math) when asked. Though google is not definitive, it can be very strong evidence, and as MFNickster points out, curl (math) is not only not 95% of the results, it's not even the most popular one.--Loodog (talk) 13:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I asked that if you move curl to curl (mathematics), then you should also fix the links which point to the mathematical term to go to the new location. That's per policy, ambiguous links should be taken care of. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a list of all pages that would need to be fixed? 168.7.214.111 (talk) 17:37, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. I'm new at this. It would be that thing, "What links here" in the toolbox, wouldn't it? -168.7.214.111 (talk) 19:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll make you a deal, Oleg - if you re-do the move, I will take care of fixing the links. MFNickster (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)