Talk:Turian

Requested move 1 April 2026

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. Moved as proposed. After much-extended time for discussion, there is no clear shift away from the early-established consensus in favor of the proposed move. BD2412 T 17:35, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

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• Turian (Mass Effect) → Turian
• Turian → Turian (disambiguation)

– No other believable primary topic. The people with Turian in their name are not known mononymously as it. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 15:11, 1 April 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. 1isall (talk | contribs) 17:37, 8 April 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 01:00, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:06, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Support: I agree that nothing on that disambiguation page could warrant displacing the Mass Effect article from being primary topic. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 10:25, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Support: Agreed, similarly to what happened with Geth (albeit to a lesser extent), the elements currently mentioned in the disambiguation page are insufficient to stop Turian from being the primary topic. Oreun ^💬Talk 10:48, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

• The proposal doesn't actually state why the Mass Effect race is a believable primary topic. Per WP:DPT, there are some standard checks to do on usage:

• Google Books search for Turian shows me 10 pages of results. 1 result for Mass Effect on the first page. Books Ngrams searches for related words indicate no particular relation to Mass Effect. It's actually more common to see the word wrap effects than actual words in there, so this seems really niche.
• All-time mass views for all items linked from here - this was titled heavily in favor of what should be a mention, but this is hard to quantify, and I can't actually verify it in the linked article, so I removed that. The proposed primary topic gets 16 views/day on average, all other non-see also items amount to about 3 or so. That's a good ratio, but not a generally impressive viewership. With such a low volume, it's not clear that there's many readers this move would really be helping - people who are aware of niche topics are probably able to navigate short lists.
• WikiNav view of clickstreams - in favor of the proposed primary topic, with 17 identifiable clicks there, 3 filtered. At the same time, only 38 total views in the same month (Feb '26), so that's ~45% clicks on the first item. Even with such a small readership, why didn't the remaining ~55% of readers do the same?

Sadly, with statistical indicators for usage so small and moot at best, and no actual argument on long-term significance, I think there's too big of a risk that some readers might be surprised if we pick a primary topic. (Oppose)

With readership so tiny overall, this sort of a thing is way too close to bikeshedding - something that makes us editors happy (myself included!), but doesn't really do much to improve reader navigation, which is supposed to be the point. Just leaving it alone seems like a far safer way to go. --Joy (talk) 21:02, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

With this few views on something WikiNav month to month becomes a bit prone to variance, and I think it's worth noting that "other-empty" is pulling down the percentage quite a bit here and there is no good way to know how many of those were actually people trying to get somewhere (see mw:Research:Wikipedia clickstream#Data preparation). I think it's very likely that a majority of people who search "Turian" wish to get to the Mass Effect article, and in that case it does improve reader navigation as we are saving our readers clicks. Also its' the only article that is actually just called "Turian"; I feel its' a strecht to say any of the other articles challenge it for PTOPIC on simply "Turian", especially considering the total views on each article.
⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 01:06, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

other-empty just means no Referer - it could be anything. We observe similar amounts of empty referer traffic elsewhere, and the pattern is still problematic - there are still cases where proposed primary topics get far more than ~45% in the same comparison. Still, this would be missing the forest from the trees - there's so few views overall, that any of our assessments are micro-optimizing.

I disagree with the idea that non-mononymous uses don't challenge primary topic status at all. There is no evidence to suggest that user navigation is ever that strict. --Joy (talk) 05:27, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

I didn't mean that they don't challenge PTOPIC at all, there absolutely are cases where they do, but in a situation where they are the minority of uses and not really the term you "should" be searching to get to the article I don't think they should take priority over the thing that is simply known as that. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 05:48, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

This sounds like "they picked a niche term for a mononymous usage, so they should get to keep it". I see the logic, but I don't think it reflects the nature of the general encyclopedia well. Per WP:DPT, A topic may have principal relevance for a specific group of people (for example, as the name of a local place, or software), but not be the primary meaning among a general audience. --Joy (talk) 10:17, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose. Tourian is very often written Turian, and the patriarch in particular is pretty notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:33, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

  Yeghishe Tourian of Jerusalem does not appear to be referred to mononymously. It would fall under WP:PTM. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 00:01, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  It's a surname, and that biography refers to him that way already in places. It's a completely normal thing. It's absolutely plausible that there will be readers looking for an Armenian cleric named Tourian or Turian or something like that, and these might well be surprised if they're thrown into an article about an unrelated fictional universe. --Joy (talk) 05:30, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  If anyone ends up being surprised that's what hatnotes are for. They will be alright. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 05:47, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  As stated above, I am not opposed in the slightest to a hatnote pointing to Tourian as well as Turian (disambiguation). But unless you can prove that Yeghishe Tourian of Jerusalem is consistently called simply "Turian" this appears to be WP:OR. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 06:30, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  Claims of original research are quite weird given that I've already pointed to a search of books showing the proposed primary topic comes up as 1 item out of 10. The idea that there's a primary topic here is pretty much an allegation and idea for which no reliable source has ever been published by definition :) --Joy (talk) 08:25, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  The fact that something is uncommon in books does not automatically mean it's not a primary topic. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 08:46, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  But this is an encyclopedia. It's supposed to be based on reliable sources. Books are our bread and butter. The idea that we disregard the apparent state of publishing in favor of other concerns of unclear importance just seems strange. --Joy (talk) 08:52, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah for article content, not for determining disambiguation. We are allowed to do a bit of what would otherwise be considered WP:OR, such as analysing click statistics, when it's not about article content but rather about meta stuff like this. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 09:17, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  Well, I would not say that is accurate - WP:DPT has referred to usage in reliable sources since at least 2013. The interpretation of various statistics is meant as a proxy for reliable sources, not as the source of truth itself. --Joy (talk) 09:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

  I'm not following. I think we might be misunderstanding or talking past each other. I'm not saying WP:RS do not matter, but I'm saying it's not the same situation as for article content. RS are not the "bread and butter" in the same way, and are not the end-goal we are trying to get to by using proxies. RS in this context are one part, usually the most important part, for determining WP:PT1 and WP:PT2, it's not the same "bread and butter" deal that says we have to go off only RS. We are allowed to use tools in a manner that would not be normally permitted, as it would be WP:OR, to help us evaluate PT1 and PT2. In this they're not acting as a proxy for RS. The way I interpret it is that it would be more accurate to say that both tools and RS are proxies for PT1 and PT2.

  While it is true that RS matter the most, they are not the only things that matter, and they can be outweighed if other considerations for PT1 and PT2 point towards another result strongly enough. Also, books are not the only RS. They are some of the most R of the RS, but when it comes to DAB the volume is more important than the level of reliability, and stuff related to video games tends to get most usage in low-end RS rather than high-end RS, which leads to a bias against them if one only goes off books to establish usage.

  I think that the books, which in an article content context would win out easily due to their reliability, are not the best indicators of PT1 and PT2 for this particular topic. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 12:45, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

  Much of what you've said I agree with, but there's another part in that where I wouldn't - volume isn't more important in the consideration of primary topics, because the usage criterion isn't necessarily more important than the long-term significance criterion.

  I don't think we should only go off books to establish usage, but an apparent lack of usage in books is a data point that shouldn't be dismissed. It doesn't automatically eliminate a proposed primary topic from consideration, but it does weigh against it.

  I think the best counterweight to the implicit biases of book publishing would be a demonstration of other reliable sources that treat one meaning of this term as a primary topic, maybe in mainstream news sources, or some standard outlets with broad appeal that we may use for game-related content, etc. For example, if there's articles out there discussing some major awards won by Mass Effect, and pointing out the Turian race as a significant contribution, an argument could be made that the relative significance of the award-winning topic 'rubs off' on this topic, too, and we should for example consider the usage numbers more broadly, in a more flexible manner. --Joy (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

  As no new evidence has materialized in the last few weeks, I think it's time to call it a day. --Joy (talk) 08:27, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  Yes, I think we have both made our arguments clear and have nothing further to come with. It's just taking some time for a closer to get here, but it shouldn't take much longer hopefully. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 14:33, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

  Just like Mass Effect fans will be alright by continuing to pick the first item from the short list that clearly identifies that topic? --Joy (talk) 08:22, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

  Yeghishe Tourian of Jerusalem does not appear to be referred to mononymously. On the contrary, he is almost always referred to as Patriarch Tourian or Turian in contemporary sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:53, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Science Fiction, WikiProject Video games/Video game characters, WikiProject Video games, and WikiProject Fictional characters have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 01:00, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. --PoliticalPoint (talk) 19:15, 25 April 2026 (UTC) —  Blocked sockpuppet of Justthefacts, see investigation. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 14:56, 28 April 2026 (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.