Talk:RCA

Requested move 7 October 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. Consensus supports moving per WP:NOPRIMARY and evidence of ambiguity among several well-known RCA topics. (closed by non-admin page mover) --Warm Regards, Abhiimanyu7 talk  09:56, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

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• RCA (disambiguation) → RCA
• RCA → RCA Corporation

– I was very surprised when I pointed to RCA and landed at the article about a former RCA Corporation instead of root cause analysis. Given the large amount of articles at this DAB page, I'm not sure if root cause analysis is indeed the primary topic. I am however very sure that RCA Corporation is not - this sounds like a case of WP:NWFCTM. So I suggest to move the corporation to the natural full title of RCA Corporation and move the disambiguation page to the root. Raladic (talk) 19:26, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose Unquestionable notability, justified primary topic. 162 etc. (talk) 05:31, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Support: while "RCA" Corporation gives 12.800.000 results on Google, "Root cause analysis" gives 7.850.000 results, which is too close to call the former unquestionably notable. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 07:57, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Britannica also titles its article "RCA Corporation". ―Howard • 🌽³³ 07:57, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Comment Wanted to oppose this, but wikinav shows us that Revolutionary Communists of America is actually the primary topic from that DAB at about 55%, with RCA Records and root cause analysis tied in the teens. Most of the incoming (80%) is from RCA, suggesting that some users are seeking another topic. It might be worth doing this move, and then reevaluating the primary topic sometime next year to see if there is a primary topic when RCA is the dab. Also, consider the hundreds of links incoming to RCA that will need to be fixed. Metallurgist (talk) 09:21, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Also RCA Corporation is redundant. Metallurgist (talk) 09:23, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

A lot of companies do this, for example DC Comics (see also RAS syndrome). ―Howard • 🌽³³ 09:25, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

• WikiNav for RCA shows the trademark, which is in the hatnote, is the most common outgoing clickstream (~977 clicks). It's also in the infobox, so there's a possibility of a topical overlap there. Likewise, #6 outgoing clickstream is RCA Records (~441), which also seems ambiguous, even if related. #9 is the connector (~278), which is in the hatnote, and #11 is the generic disambiguation page with ~260 identified clicks.

Even if a relatively small portion of these ~1956 clicks a month is based on ambiguity, that could still be say a thousand readers per month confused to some extent.

1987 is indicated as the final year for this company, and that's already 38 years ago. Is it likely that the younger readers or readers who haven't paid attention to American electronics four decades ago strongly identify this term with this specific topic?

Especially as it's a three-letter acronym - the threshold for primary topics with those is inherently pretty high.

WikiNav for RCA (disambiguation) explains a bit about those ~260 clicks above, possibly up to 300+ these days. We again see the Records and the connector, which may indicate some readers might not like the current hatnote format. We also see the aforementioned engineering topic, as well as the aforementioned political organization topic.

Per WP:DPT we can also try to look at other sources, but this already indicates to me a level of general ambiguity that we should address.

We should find a more precise title for the historical company, and start moving it away. We can disambiguate fully and format a common section at the top, or we can also keep a primary redirect from RCA to there for now, and then compare the stats after a few months, because primary redirects are already a better option for measurability. (Support) --Joy (talk) 10:07, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Wait, I thought they still existed. And I was born after they ceased operations. Metallurgist (talk) 01:15, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Interesting, so you thought about RCA (trademark) then? Does the organization of these articles in this way make sense? --Joy (talk) 07:13, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps that article should be merged. Metallurgist (talk) 02:09, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

A possibly comparable example is AEG, which we disambiguated in early 2024 largely after American users said this company and brand aren't well known outside of Europe. In the case of RCA, that company and brand aren't well known outside of the US? And there's likewise a separate article for the company and the brand. The clickstreams over there indicate that about one half the readers continue to read about the company. --Joy (talk) 13:57, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I dont see that as anything other than a DAB in the history. Could you point the diff? Metallurgist (talk) 02:11, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Please see Talk:AEG#Requested move: January 2024 etc. --Joy (talk) 08:00, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

• Support per nom and Joy. WikiNav shows that ≈80% of the dab page's traffic comes from RCA. This and other evidence presented supports the conclusion that there is no primary topic by usage and that the proposal will likely serve readers better. Long-term significance (WP:PT2) is more difficult to determine, but RCA Corporation has not owned the RCA trademark for almost half of its existence. There is fairly longstanding ambiguity even among the related subset of RCAs. All this plus the number of entries on the dab page and the high bar for assigning primary topic to a three-letter abbreviation supports the proposed move.--MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 15:57, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

  Do note that it's fairly normal that 80% of a dab page's traffic comes from the place where it's in the hatnote. It would actually be more curious if it had more readership from the outside, because that would mean the search engines are leading people to our navigation element, which they don't usually tend to do. --Joy (talk) 07:17, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Comment (dang, can't vote) ... wow, has the audio/video company really lost that much notability compared to other topics during the past 1–2 decades? That's quite astonishing. Steel1943 (talk) 19:17, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm very doubtful about this too. RCA was a very famous company. Unfortunately I'm having some trouble using Google Advanced Search right now because I'm traveling, so it is showing me the advanced search interface in a different language that I don't understand, and I see no option to switch it to English. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:12, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

It's hard to tell whether our articles are organized well because Google Trends show a single topic called RCA of the type 'company', they don't seem to split the historical one. The topic of "Radio Corporation of America" doesn't seem to exist per se, I could find some similar ones using the dropdown search but with no traffic whatsoever for some reason. And the one thing they do identify has a consistently dropping interest, except for a period between Nov '16 and Jun '19 . Was RCA (trademark) in the news during this time? --Joy (talk) 07:21, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

• After giving this some thought, support "RCA to RCA Corporation" as the probable current-day WP:COMMONNAME. I must oppose "RCA (disambiguation) to RCA" since I believe that RCA (trademark) should be moved to RCA. Steel1943 (talk) 01:42, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

  To clarify, if there is no consensus to move RCA (trademark) to RCA, then RCA should either remain the title of or point towards the subject currently at RCA. Steel1943 (talk) 13:04, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

  RCA (trademark) is not nominated here and should not be moved unless another discussion is opened. 162 etc. (talk) 18:04, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

  ...WP:BURO and all that jazz... Steel1943 (talk) 20:04, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

  RCA (trademark) has persisted as a separate article since 2008 (17 years ago) seemingly without any discussion about this split, but in retrospect we find it relevant to this discussion of primary topic. This indicates to me that we don't have enough information to figure out what do readers really want with any certainty.

  If we present a list at RCA, with both of these at the top of course, it'll become possible to measure where the reader interest really lies. --Joy (talk) 20:34, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

  It just blatantly seems though that the trademark is at the minimum more "primary" than the former company, considering one is currently in use and one hasn't existed for almost 40 years. But meh, I'd at the minimum claim that the acronym is not the common name for the company. (It's whatever when it comes to this discussion, just not a fan of a WP:BURO statement they could potentially result in more time spent discussion when, say, a relister could add RCA (trademark) to this move request [hint, hint].) Steel1943 (talk) 21:14, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

  "It just blatantly seems though that the trademark is at the minimum more "primary" than the former company"

  I don't think this is as much of a slam-dunk as you seem to think it is. I, for one, would object to it. As mentioned above, RCA (trademark) is a longstanding stable title, and moving the article is potentially controversial. A discussion is necessary. See WP:EXPLICIT and WP:PCM. 162 etc. (talk) 23:00, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

  I'm really trying to WP:DROPTHESTICK here since it's whatever. Steel1943 (talk) 23:26, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose I think the company remains unquestionably the primary topic. I don't oppose adding root cause analysis to the hatnote given it's the 2nd most major topic, but it's certainly not something I'd say there is WP:NOPRIMARY due to. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:18, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose RCA's legacy still looms large and IME the name still has currency among average people, at least here in the States, if for no other reason than the existence of RCA cables, RCA Records, and the various other RCA trademarks and spinoffs that still exist. Not opposed to putting Root cause analysis in the hatnote. DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:10, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
• I am leaning oppose for now. The difference between the corporation and trademark (brand?) is a bit confusing. Perhaps the trademark should be merged into the corporation article as I think almost everyone associates the two anyway. I know brands have been sold off like this before, but nothing comes to mind of a defunct brand doing so, altho I am sure they exist.←Metallurgist (talk) 18:56, 31 October 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.

post-move

After the move, the situation in the clickstreams has been like this:

snapshot of clickstream data from the last 3 months

From meta:Research:Wikipedia clickstream:

clickstream-enwiki-2025-12.tsv:

• RCA RCA_Corporation link 2967
• RCA RCA_(trademark) link 451
• RCA RCA_Records link 350
• RCA RCA_connector link 158
• RCA Revolutionary_Communist_International link 97
• RCA RCA_Victrola link 38
• RCA Reformed_Church_in_America link 31
• RCA Root-cause_analysis link 25
• RCA RCA_Camden link 24
• RCA Royal_College_of_Art link 17
• RCA Main_Page other 17
• RCA RCA_Studio_B link 14
• RCA RCA/Jive_Label_Group link 13
• RCA RCA_Dome link 11
• RCA Japan_Electronic_Industries_Development_Association link 11
• RCA RCA_Red_Seal_Records link 10
• total: 4234 to 16 identified destinations
• total: 6539 from 6 identified sources

clickstream-enwiki-2026-01.tsv:

• RCA RCA_Corporation link 2310
• RCA RCA_(trademark) link 406
• RCA RCA_Records link 232
• RCA Revolutionary_Communist_International link 229
• RCA RCA_connector link 141
• RCA Root-cause_analysis link 50
• RCA RCA_Victrola link 26
• RCA RCA_Camden link 26
• RCA Main_Page other 21
• RCA Japan_Electronic_Industries_Development_Association link 21
• RCA Reformed_Church_in_America link 19
• RCA RCA/Jive_Label_Group link 17
• RCA Royal_Regiment_of_Canadian_Artillery link 14
• RCA Rabbinical_Council_of_America link 13
• RCA Royal_College_of_Art link 12
• RCA RCA_clean link 11
• RCA Reverse_mathematics link 10
• total: 3558 to 17 identified destinations
• total: 5519 from 7 identified sources

clickstream-enwiki-2026-02.tsv:

• RCA RCA_Corporation link 1501
• RCA RCA_(trademark) link 230
• RCA RCA_Records link 155
• RCA Revolutionary_Communists_of_America link 95
• RCA RCA_connector link 87
• RCA Root-cause_analysis link 34
• RCA RCA_Victrola link 27
• RCA Main_Page other 21
• RCA Reformed_Church_in_America link 19
• RCA RCA_Camden link 14
• RCA Revolutionary_Communist_International other 10
• total: 2193 to 11 identified destinations
• total: 4143 from 6 identified sources

The top outgoing destinations views look like this:

• Monthly page views graph

The number of filtered clickstreams was:

• Dec '25: 6770 - 6539 = 231
• Jan '26: 5707 - 5519 = 188
• Feb '26: 4288 - 4143 = 145

The ratio of incoming views to known clickstreams to the previously presumed primary topic has been:

• Dec '25: 6770 vs 2967 =~ ~44%
• Jan '26: 5707 vs 2310 =~ 40%
• Feb '26: 4288 vs 1501 =~ ~35%

This may be organic movement, but it may also be search engines recalibrating over time to filter readers themselves. --Joy (talk) 17:43, 8 March 2026 (UTC)