Talk:Bic

Requested move 29 September 2022

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Per consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 02:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

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Société Bic → Bic (company)Bic (company) – In common parlance, the company in the U.S. is referred to as simply "Bic", as opposed to its French name "Société Bic". This move would make it a bit easier for readers to find the article and read more about the company if they so wish.

Further, the new title better obeys WP:COMMONNAME and is more precise (WP:PRECISE). Thanks, and let me know what you think. :) — That Coptic Guy (talk) 00:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nom. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:58, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom as likely to be little known by its official corporate name. BD2412 T 03:17, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 04:19, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BIC Products

After Owning this company, now has added new production line after year 2021. Now, you can see better quality. E. K. 46.100.39.243 (talk) 16:45, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 10 August 2025

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Bensci54 (talk) 16:40, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

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• Bic (company) → Bic
• BIC → Bic (disambiguation)

– Primary topic per pageviews, and with nearly 100 years of history, long-term notability as well. The all-caps BIC should also become a primary redirect. 162 etc. (talk) 19:07, 10 August 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 12:35, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

• Support 1st per nom. Oppose 2nd per WP:DIFFCAPS. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:29, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

  The Bic company uses the all-caps stylized "BIC" when referring to itself. This article is therefore also primary for BIC.

  Note also that BIC as the title of the dabpage is incorrect, per WP:DABNAME: "A word is preferred to an abbreviation". 162 etc. (talk) 15:23, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Support both. Most people that visit BIC go for the company, as well. See: https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=BIC Ladtrack (talk) 20:50, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

These clickstreams from July '25 are indicative of that. The first link about the company is #1 at 440/654, which is already ~67% (over two thirds). The second two links about the company products are #2 and #4, contributing another 116. If these were not duplicated (clicked by the same people), that would mean 556/654 = ~85%. No clickstreams are listed as filtered, which could be a tad odd, but we've seen it happen elsewhere, too.

The trend at monthly page views doesn't indicate a very recent spike, so it doesn't look like recentism.

There could be some ambiguity with regard to redirects, as the 654 is only the baseline, while the redirects add up to 963. Special:WhatLinksHere/BIC doesn't show much other than this word vs. acronym distinction.

Is there a long-term significance argument for Bayesian information criterion, Business Identifier Code in ISO 9362, Bic Camera? --Joy (talk) 07:41, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think so. This company was founded in 1942 and started producing pens in 1950. All three of those other uses are newer, dated to the 1970s, 1980s, and 1960s respectively. Ladtrack (talk) 20:36, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Well, that's not exactly a huge spread. They probably didn't have a huge reach as soon as they started production, it probably took them a while to achieve some level of long-term significance. A head start of a few decades doesn't have to mean much, it would be better if we had something more concrete here.

I was reminded of this when I noticed we decided to move at Talk:Udo. There we erred on the side of caution given that it's a three letter combination, despite the fact that the given name has probably about a dozen centuries of head start. --Joy (talk) 20:03, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't mean that the pen company is the primary topic by long-term significance, but it does mean that those uses probably aren't. That was the thought process I had in mind. Given the obvious usage claim and that nothing else has long-term significance, this seems like a pretty clear-cut primary topic case to me. Ladtrack (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's this easy to say that the statistics topic or the banking topic don't have long-term significance. They don't need to be older than the other topic, rather we need to weigh these according to their long-term significance.

For example, it seems perfectly plausible that there's a sizable contingent within the group of average readers who never used this company's products, but do regularly interact with BIC codes for bank transactions.

In turn, some of the readers might be surprised to see a lookup of a three-letter acronym end up at an article for what seems to be just another big French company. --Joy (talk) 21:18, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

That's true, but ultimately because the usage statistics are so clear the case has to be made that one of the other uses has substantially higher long-term significance, and I just don't see that.

Just for the record, here's the pen company's case for significance: as of 2008 (unfortunately up-to-date sources on pen sales are difficult to find), the Bic pen had sold over 100 billion ballpoint pens, and sells an additional 15 million every day. It's easily the best-selling pen of all time, and is probably the most iconic pen ever. They're absolutely ubiquitous, and I doubt there is an office in the world that doesn't have them. The Bic lighter, according to the company, is the best-selling lighter in the world, and is probably second only to Zippo in terms of cultural significance. They also own Wite-Out, which is so popular that it is a borderline generic trademark for correction fluid.

Do you see any of the others as having so much more long-term significance than that to the point where we should disregard our usage statistics and conclude that there is no primary topic? Ladtrack (talk) 23:51, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't know, but we need someone to examine that, beyond examining just the proposed primary topic. --Joy (talk) 14:29, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

While is seems a bit of a stretch that there's a sizable contingent [...] who never used this company's products, BIC codes are also used by billions (to SWIFT trillions) every day, and it does seem plausible that a sizeable contingent of these folks haven't a clue what ISO 9362 means. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. That list entry was pretty arcane, I've reformatted it now to be hopefully less weird.

While we're at it, I also learned that BIC code is ambiguous. --Joy (talk) 20:14, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Brands, WikiProject France, and WikiProject Companies have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 12:37, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Clear primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:11, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BIC Sport

Under the section Products, under subtitle "Razors" it's stated: "In 1981, Bic began a subsidiary called Bic Sport, which manufactured and sold water sports products. Bic announced the sale of Bic Sport to the Estonian company Tahe Outdoor in 2019." Although this is interesting information, it seems out of place in this subsection. Could this be moved to the history section? Or its own product subsection? 85.235.1.10 (talk) 11:56, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

 Done -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 15:33, 22 September 2025 (UTC)