Talk:String

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Article instead of disambiguation page

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(This thread was copied and continued from Talk:String (disambiguation) as of 1/13/2017)

It's kind of disappointing that we don't have an article on string (cord) instead of just a disambiguation page, as it seems like there is enough information for an article (history, how it's made, uses). If someone were to write one, I would support moving this page to string (disambiguation) with a link to it at the top of the new article. -- Kjkolb 11:57, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As long as the article is encyclopedic and not dictionaric (is that a word?), that would be fine. If/when an appropriate article is created, it would certainly be the primary article. -- Natalya 12:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How would such an article be different than the rope article? -- Mikeblas 01:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It probably wouldn't. :) -- Natalya 03:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation pages have "(disambiguation)" after the title. This one doesn't. Can someone fix that?Yanwen 22:31, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation pages only have "(disambiguation)" if there is a primary article for the term being disambiguated. Since there is no primary article for this term, any search for "String" goes directly to this page, which is a disambiguation page. -- Natalya 23:53, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"String", "twine" and "cord" are all pretty similar?? Unless someone is aware of a clear distinction between them, the article on twine probably covers them all - with some appropriate links. Natural fibre (talk) 13:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is already a small amount of “article content” at the top of the page, with a definition, list of application and a picture. I suggest:
  • this article content be split from the disambiguation content
  • the article content perhaps be merged into another existing article
  • the title String be blessed as a primary topic and redirected to the new or merged article, leaving String (disambiguation) for the disambiguation content
The Rope article differentiates rope from string by saying that rope is thicker and stronger, so perhaps they should be separate articles. Twine is a rather short article. I don’t really use the term twine, but it seems my definition of string might be broader than the definition given for twine. Maybe twine is a subtopic, and could be a subsection of a String article? Vadmium (talk, contribs) 04:41, 25 October 2011 (UTC).[reply]

User BD2412 created a draft for this topic in 2015. Today, I moved it to article space and began expanding it. The Transhumanist 14:31, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say I object to the way this stub was moved to the unsuffixed String title, displacing the long-established disambiguation page (now moved to String (disambiguation)). To my mind, this fails our standards of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC treatment by far. Of course I do realize that the generic notion of "string" (as in "cord") has linguistic primacy over the other meanings, in that it is the basic literal meaning from which the others are metaphorically derived or of which they are specialized subsets. However, that is not really among the prime criteria we use for determining primacy in disambiguation. Far more important is encyclopedic/educational value and reader interest. Now, currently, the new "cord" stub is not even strictly speaking a legitimate article yet, as it is a mere dictionary definition plus a list of what are essentially "see also" links. However, even if it can be expanded into something legitimate and moderately interesting, I expect that it will still lag far behind, in terms of educational value and reader interest, compared to at least three of the other disambiguation entries: String (computer science) (c. 600 views a day), String (music) (c. 200 views), and String (physics) (c. 100 views plus a whopping 3,000 for String theory). Each of these is a topic of high, lasting notability; each is a well-developed article with lots of high-level academic content, and has a far higher likelihood of meeting the expectations of a reader searching for the term than an explanation of textile cords ever will. There just isn't that much interesting stuff to say about cords, is there. The fact that User:BD2412 created this draft a year ago but then left it sitting there without a follow-up may well suggest he came to realize exactly this.
I propose moving this stub article to String (cord) or any other appropriate title for the time being (or back into draft space), and return the disambiguation page here. If and when the new article has been expanded and can reasonably be assessed for its potential to readers, we can re-consider primacy status through a standard RM procedure, but I don't really expect it will fare well against so many strong contenders. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:51, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue that the stuff used to tie things up since close to the dawn of man is the clear primary topic by historical significance, but would also agree that the current article should be much better developed before it takes that spot. bd2412 T 01:45, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with BD2412, and have been busy expanding the article. It is way past the stub stage now. I believe that a consensus has been established to keep this root article. Speaking of articles, it is important to realize that we are speaking of the primacy of topics rather than that of articles (which are merely the treatment of topics). As a thing, generic string is in far wider use than the other concepts, and has far greater familiarity. More people know what string is compared to the other uses of the term, more people use string, and being a basic topic, it is most likely the first context of the term "string" that a person learns. More people use strings to tie their shoes than study string theory, for example. It is also the first context posed in dictionary entries.
The context is presented as the primary topic on the disambiguation page itself, a position it has held for many years. The lead states "String or strings may also refer to". So, community consensus has been strongly established that this context is the main meaning of the term. That is, the context with the strongest claim to the topic name.
In the guideline Is there a primary topic?, it states that there are "two major aspects that are commonly discussed in connection with primary topics". One of them is long-term significance. In the example given in the guideline, the guideline favors apple over Apple, Inc. Apples have been around a lot longer. The same thing applies with string. It has the longest lasting notability of all the contexts for the term. They've discovered archeological evidence that string may have been in use as early as 90,000 years ago. And it has been a part of culture ever since. When speaking the word "string", people are more likely to mean the cord context than the others. Otherwise, it wouldn't be presented as the primary topic on the disambiguation page.
String is a root topic. There is a great deal of coverage on strings and their various applications on Wikipedia. It would be nice to have a root article where to tie them all together. It was not hard finding material to flesh out the subject past the stub stage, and I'm sure the article will grow over the years to come.
Based on these reasons, I respectfully request that you reconsider your position. Sincerely, The Transhumanist 04:34, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
P.S.: Take a look at the article now, and let me know what you think. -TT
Can you provide the source for the 90,000 years? I added one for 30,000 years. bd2412 T 05:05, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
oldest string found at French Neanderthal site The Transhumanist 07:33, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Primacy" is not an issue of what is most "familiar" and most widely used (WP:PRIMARYTOPIC explicitly warns that it is not about "what first comes to mind"; read that section). It is about what topic a Wikipedia user is most likely to be in need of encyclopedic information about. Trivial everyday objects like cords certainly have higher "familiarity", but that doesn't mean there will necessarily be an equally high need of looking them up in an encyclopedia. In any case, decisions like this should be made after proper discussion, not before, and they can only be made after the article is properly developed and after we've had a chance of observing reader interest via pageview counts (and for that observation the candidate has to be at a title different from the base title, so that we can distinguish actual interest in the topic from mere disambiguation searches). I'm therefore moving things back. Please conduct a proper WP:RM if and when the article is ready for it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:14, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(BTW, Thread is a good example of a very similar case showing how such things are properly handled. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:34, 14 January 2017 (UTC))[reply]
Rope (disambiguation) is a closer match to this case, and shows there is another way to properly handle cases like this. The Transhumanist 13:38, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fut.Perf., you've just used admin powers to override consensus and other editors in a debate in which you are a party. That violates WP:INVOLVED, and is an abuse of admin tools. You should not be using your admin powers to force your will upon other editors who you are in debate with concerning an editorial issue. This page was moved from Draft:String to String based upon the discussion above. And you've moved it to String (cord), where it has never been before. You did this without consensus and without leaving a redirect using Page mover, while we were in the middle of a discussion to keep it at String, even though you held the minority position in the discussion. You are not behaving impartially, or fairly. You shouldn't simply ignore everyone else and do what you want. You really should move it back until a new consensus is reached.
As an editor, you properly started the consensus building process by making a proposal above. But then you forced your proposal on us, instead of waiting for consensus about your proposal to emerge. That's not right. The Transhumanist 11:50, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No. You initiated a move that you should have known would be potentially controversial. You talked an administrator into performing it under the mistaken assumption that it was uncontroversial, without even knowing the situation. That initial move should never have been performed without discussion. Reverting such a move to the status quo ante is not a controversial action but simple cleanup. In the absence of consensus about a move, pages stay at the status quo ante until a discussion has produced a consensus. If I hadn't been an administrator, I could have filed my request for reversion at WP:RM#Requests to revert undiscussed moves, where it would have been processed as a "speedy" admin action as a matter of course. Or I could have simply asked Dweller to revert it himself, which he would likewise have been obliged to do as a matter of course. I simply spared my colleagues the trouble by performing it myself instead. This being an uncontroversial, "speedy" cleanup action, "involved" status doesn't enter the picture here. The articles are back at where they belong; the person who wants to change the status quo is you, so now is the time to gain that consensus. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Future Perfect is correct about the procedure involved. If the initial move is contested, it must be reverted for discussion. At this stage, of course, it would be silly to move this article back to draft, but had it been moved back to draft, any editor could have boldly moved it from Draft:String to String (cord). bd2412 T 16:03, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not if the initial move had consensus, which based on the discussion above, prior to FPAS' post, it did. Based on that discussion, and the fact that this context has been acknowledged as the main use of the term for years, there was no reason to expect that there would be controversy. Even with FPAS's objections, which aren't strong enough to override the all the other positions posted in the discussion, consensus is still quite clear. What we have here is one editor overriding all those who have weighed in above. The Transhumanist 01:56, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that it certainly would have had consensus in 2006. I would question whether that was still valid after eleven years of the disambiguation page existing at this title. Not to say that there shouldn't be an article there (I would not have created the draft if I didn't think that), but there should probably be a new discussion before making that move. bd2412 T 02:01, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. Let me know when you do. The Transhumanist 08:19, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is string made of?

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Requested move 9 November 2025

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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) --Warm Regards, Abhiimanyu7 talk  14:08, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– The structure is one of the most basic and important of human tools from prehistory to today, and therefore should be considered the overwhelming primary topic of the term by long-term historical importance. It notably encompasses many of the other meanings (e.g., a string instrument is an instrument working via some kind of string; a Brock string is a string with certain things attached). Furthermore, about half the senses on the disambiguation page are obligate plurals and can not be referred to by the singular "String" and many of them (String bikini, String cheese, Cosmic string) would rarely be referred to just as "String". BD2412 T 17:40, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At the same time, the destination article is a Start-class article that isn't well-sourced, and it doesn't seem to cover the broad concept all too well.
Per WP:DPT, let's look at the standard stats:
  1. Views of String that probably correspond to a click towards the structure article 160 (18.2%)
  2. Clicks from String to something that we can't identify (anonymized) 165 (18.8%)
  3. Views of String that probably correspond to a click towards other identifiable articles 283 (32.3%)
  4. Views of String that can't be assumed to correspond to any outgoing clicks 269 (30.7%)
Compared to total monthly viewership, we could only identify about a fifth of clicks going to the structure article. Pie chart to the right clarifies further.
I think this is a problem. When only a small minority of readers follows our top-placement hint, this indicates something isn't right. We need to make sure that we don't override reader interests entirely here.
So let's look at the next topics of interest based on the clickstreams. I'll combine a bit for brevity:
I don't think we should move until the navigation to these top three items is rectified in some way, because it means either an unwieldy hatnote and/or too many readers having to click twice to get to what they're after.
I'm especially worried about this after the recent example of moving deadlock. In that case we also had a reasonable argument for ambiguity based on conventionally common meanings. (I agreed with it at the time, too.)
But, what we observed in readership statistics, before and after, indicates that the science topic is a consistent matter of reader interest, by far the most among the scholarly topics, as opposed to the more mundane meanings. (Instead, there it was an entertainment topic that really tips the usage scale, so it's moot.)
In that case, the middle ground was chosen, but in this case the proposal is to move off the middle ground and make the science topics harder to find. That would be a bad thing. (Oppose) --Joy (talk) 08:34, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Analysis of "clicks" is irrelevant to the question of primacy by long-term historical importance. If you think that the current article is deficient in lacking reference to items of clothing or conceptual uses, the solution is to improve the article itself. I may work on it to this effect. BD2412 T 17:55, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But the scientific topics that attract these readers do have long-term historical importance. For example the computer science topic is about as old as World War II. Would we call major topics of military history that date to that time lacking in long-term historical significance? --Joy (talk) 21:04, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In comparison to basic tools that have played a key role in the advance of human civilization for thousands of years, yes, absolutely. String has obviously also played a much bigger role in military history. Compare Drill, Wedge, Screw. BD2412 T 21:13, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't quite see how those examples are comparable - what other fundamental scientific topics are associated with those names? --Joy (talk) 08:39, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that is not a relevant inquiry. "String theory" has "String" as an aspect, but the theory itself is never referred to just as "String", and the "String" in the theory is an allusion to the structure of ancient and continuing importance discussed in this article. The "String" in computing is an allusion to the structure discussed in this article. These are not unrelated uses. BD2412 T 16:40, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, and that is why the proposed broad-concept article which fails to cover these related uses which garner significant reader interest is insufficient. --Joy (talk) 20:19, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have now made some improvements to the article to this end, and will continue working on it. You are equally welcome to do so. BD2412 T 20:46, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, those changes are still horrible for navigation. The scientific topics are now mentioned in the summary, but not linked. The reader can't easily find them in the table of contents. In the end they're relegated to literally the very end of the article, and in that text they're also not prominently linked. I couldn't even find the computer science meaning at all. The second most commonly read topic - no mention or link at all. This is genuinely bizarre. --Joy (talk) 06:14, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure this was meant to be a broad concept article covering all extended meanings. That said, I think it is a reasonable direction for the article to take. Such improvements can be made now or discussed further outside this RM. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:59, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
✓ Agreed. The edits made by @BD2412 were a major step into covering the more broader concept of strings and their usages. Thanks, 1isall (he/him) (talk | contribs) 20:18, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thankfully it's moot after edits such as this one, where the lack of coverage was addressed, but we shouldn't advocate for doing it outside of the RM process, because that would mean we're chill with the obvious risks of negatively affecting navigation, contrary to the guideline. --Joy (talk) 06:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom and Zxcvbnm. The 'structure' (awkward descriptor, that) is unquestionably the primary topic by long-term significance. Yes, other topics have also been notable for decades but at no point have they usurped the 'structure' which is a basic and universally-known subject. Additionally, this is a case where clicks and pageviews are a poor proxy for usage in reliable sources or among the general public. I'm not suggesting that a couple Ngrams are comprehensive here, but by way of example, "string of" sees way more use than a selection of other topics per this Ngram. We can break this down a bit here and see that a variety of different uses related to the 'structure' are common. I'm not surprised that people are less interested in reading about strings than string theory but certainly no reader will be WP:ASTONISHed to land here if they just search "string". —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 23:02, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well said. Thanks, 1isall (he/him) (talk | contribs) 01:40, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So the response to people being less interested in reading about something is... to force them to read about something? :) This is an encyclopedia, it's supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. I don't like the idea of us editors acting so much like we're the infallible editors-in-chief. WP:Readers first, anyone? If a word is substantially ambiguous, and readers don't care all that much about the dictionary definitions we aren't supposed to bend over backwards to make it seem like this isn't so. --Joy (talk) 06:10, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't find it ambiguous; string has a clear primary topic by usage and long-term significance. Popularity and PT1 aren't always 1:1. And anyway, most of the popular pages on the dab page aren't referred to as string unqualified. And more readers click through to this article than any other destination on the dab page so we'll save them a click. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 02:22, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As it was proposed, this would have saved that click to one quarter of readers, and added a new click to three quarters of them. It won't end up that way after yesterday's edits, but let's not advocate for that shoddy of a rationale. --Joy (talk) 05:59, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Forget clicks! WP:PT1 and WP:PT2 are more relevant here, which this topic clearly meets. Thanks, 1isall (he/him) (talk | contribs) 06:41, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's hard to disregard data on usage in favor of assertions about usage - claims need to be backed by some form of evidence. Otherwise we're down to vibes, and that's a slippery slope :) --Joy (talk) 07:14, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:32, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.