Talk:John Kennedy (disambiguation)

(Primary topic?)

True or false: this article belongs at John Kennedy (disambiguation) with John Kennedy being a re-direct to John F. Kennedy. 66.245.106.170 19:54, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

True: It's done. Matt Yeager 00:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Categorisation

Perhaps this list should be split into categories, given the number of entries. Possible Politics, Sportsmen, Other? Timb0h 13:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Birth years and death years

It helps greatly to include more information with each entry, especially the YOB, the YOD (if any), and the middle name. The entries will be automatically kept separated by the inclusion of more simple and pertinent information. Superslum 14:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

John Kennedy (MOH)

(Added section head Hult041956 (talk) 01:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC))

Since John Kennedy (MOH), (American Civil War soldier and Medal of Honor) recipient is not yet created, we are free to name it something else. Wouldn't John Kennedy (American soldier) be a more natural name? Hult041956 (talk) 01:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, but John Kennedy (soldier) would so far suffice, and is likely to if & when he gets a bio article.
  --Jerzy•t 22:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  
  • Actually (and this presumably applies for many other recipients) he has existing lks under John Kennedy (Medal of Honor recipient), which is silly once the article exists: "soldier" (or, in the general case, "sailor", or "Civil War", etc.) will almost always suffice. (But such names are immensely practical when creating lists of recipients, as a means of leaving to other editors the research needed to identify the names of existing articles on the recipients.) I'm not undertaking the task of changing the multiple lks to this one, including the one at List of American Civil War Medal of Honor recipients: G–L, but i'll take the step most valuable to users, of having a usable Dab entry. (Note that the decision to create Rdr's from the various possibilities should not be made until there is a consensus that he will always be an entry, and never an article: the Rdr would defeat the red-lks' function of soliciting creation of an article.)
    The new entry will be a red-blue-pair one, with the blue lk going directly to his entry on the page i mentioned.
    --Jerzy•t 00:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
    

Primary topic???

I think the above consensus from circa 2004/2005 about the 35th President being the primary topic of "John Kennedy" is no longer true, given the subsequent election and rise in prominence of the junior Senator from Louisiana. John Kennedy of Louisiana now comes up first in a google search for "John Kennedy."

As such, people who stumble upon the John Kennedy page may have in fact been looking for the Louisiana senator, so perhaps this page should be move to John Kennedy to reflect that.

Thoughts? Peter L Griffin (talk) 20:49, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

No, JFK still is the primary topic, and trying to make a case for anybody else is WP:Recentism at best unless they minimally run for POTUS. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 22:23, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

You seemed awfully self-assured of this, but I fail to see why you assert this so confidently. Running for POTUS is minimally required...why? Says who? Only you?

WP:Recentism is an explanatory essay which highlights positives and negatives of so-called "recentism"...could you specify to which part of it you are referring?

If a Google search for "John Kennedy" turns up Louisiana's Senator first, with some JFK links strewn in there, it's clear that "John Kennedy" is an ambiguous title, which should be disambiguated right then and there. Someone who runs across this page looking to read up on their senator will surely be confused by the fact that they have to scroll past 27 irrelevant John Kennedys to find the man who is the #1 google hit for "John Kennedy", and apparently, we can't put Kennedy of Louisiana in a more prominent position without removing JFK as the primary topic. Peter L Griffin (talk) 00:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

If we look at the outgoing traffic from this page (https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=John_Kennedy_%28disambiguation%29) we can see that a whopping 42% of outgoing traffic from this page goes to the Louisiana Senator's page, compared to a sizable but significantly lesser 18% to JFK's page -- and this is from before I moved him up top, and he was still link #28.

I feel confident in saying JFK is definitely not the primary topic for "John Kennedy" and moving this DAB page to "John Kennedy" is in order. Peter L Griffin (talk) 01:29, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I brought up POTUS because that's a more prominent office than running for Senator. Furthermore, how many people can you name that have heard of the Louisiana Senator but not the President (who also was previously a Massachusetts Senator)? It's unlikely that number is even half as much as the reverse scenario. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

JFK is the more famous "John Kennedy, but "John Kennedy" too is clearly an ambiguous term. Alas, Wikipedians have quite the unique outlook on the world so it appears I have lost this battle for now. Peter L Griffin (talk) 23:02, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Please see WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:Wikipedia is not about winning, and WP:Don't bludgeon the process. Rehashing your middle name/initial argument didn't make that any more convincing than it was the first time you brought it up, and you shouldn't treat this as some sort of "battle" to begin with. Throwing shade at other Wikipedians with the mocking use of "unique" is also inappropriate and completely unnecessary. Even when you disagree with someone, please don't patronize them. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 17:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 25 March 2024

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: not moved. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

---

John Kennedy (disambiguation) → John Kennedy – Since the election and rise in prominence of U.S. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana -- who is known nationally as "John Kennedy" without any clarifying middle initial -- I argue that the title "John Kennedy" is a case of WP:NOPRIMARY.

Consider the following evidence:

• 40% of outgoing traffic from this page goes to Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana's page -- and this is from when he was the 27th John Kennedy mentioned on the page, before I moved him above the fold. Only 20% goes to JFK, and 10% goes to JFK Jr. (who was in the middle of the other section before I moved him above the fold as well).[1]
• When you google "John Kennedy," the first search result, most of the first page results, and the infobox refer to Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana. [2]

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC tells us we should principally consider usage and long-term significance. Kennedy of Louisiana wins the former, JFK wins the latter. This conflict makes a compelling argument that there is no primary topic.

For those who have never heard of Kennedy of Louisiana, don't like him, or think he isn't important, please refer to WP:BUTIKNOWABOUTIT -- Kennedy of Louisiana gets more than double the outgoing traffic from this page than JFK!

Another thing I'll note: part of the reason why "John Kennedy" is so ambiguous is because the 35th President's common name is John F. Kennedy; almost everyone calls him this, JFK, or Kennedy, but rarely John Kennedy. The omission of the middle initial is therefore perhaps more indicative that maybe the person searching this term isn't looking for the 35th president than in an alternate scenario where the president also went primarily by "John Kennedy". Peter L Griffin (talk) 02:06, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per my comments above, and the initial (or lack thereof) is not enough to change how the President still has more long-term significance and statistically the name "John Kennedy" (along with "Jack Kennedy") mainly has been used to discuss him. Recentism might skew google search results somewhat with election headlines, but when looking at incoming page views and reader navigation mentioned in that link, most traffic still goes to JFK. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  Of course incoming page views would come primarily from JFK -- "John Kennedy" redirects there, and so people looking for Louisiana Kennedy would go from there to this page, since this page is linked in that one's hatnote. Seems to further my point that a lot of people who search for "John Kennedy" and end up at the JFK page aren't actually looking for JFK.

  I know you seem to be heavily focused on long-term historical significance, but per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC usage is an equally important consideration. People looking for Louisiana Kennedy -- who would be reasonably searching John Kennedy since that's what he's called -- shouldn't have to click through a gazillion hatnotes and DAB pages to find their guy. We should also be trying to make Wikipedia minimally cumbersome for people looking to read up on their senator. Peter L Griffin (talk) 02:29, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  @SNUGGUMS we should actually try to find those statistics. For example, when I try to search for the phrase on Google Books, https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q="John+Kennedy"&pws=0 - I get a book about JFK calling him that, a book calling him mostly not that but also that, some work by a John Kennedy from 1818, a book about John Kennedy Toole, a book referring to JFK as JK, a weird conspiracy theory book saying "John Kennedy (JFK)", a book from 1832, another one from 1775, and then a couple with John F. Kennedy in the title and a mention of this term inside. Obviously this search algorithm's output isn't conclusive, but it does indicate that there is at least some amount of ambiguity out there that merits discussion. --Joy (talk) 20:32, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Regardless of how often "John Kennedy" has been used to describe anybody other than JFK or even his namesake son, I wouldn't count Toole in that tally when he's just a partial title match. It should focus more on people named "John _____ Kennedy". I still doubt "Fitzgerald" or the initial "F" aren't the most common among those who do have middle names. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:37, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

You say this as though the "John Kennedy" moniker is commonly used to describe JFK. Is it? Where's your evidence? It seems like reference to him in this way seems rather unusual.

Otherwise, why would Google, a private company that wants it's product to be as easy for people to use, have the Louisiana senator come up first, if JFK is really, as you claim, the first thing that comes to mind for "John Kennedy"?

And, it's not like all presidents have Firstname_Lastname redirect to their page. William Harrison is a disambiguation page, not a redirect to William Henry Harrison -- justifiably so, since just because the 9th President's first name is William and last name is Harrison doesn't mean that "William Harrison" unambiguously refers to him, especially since he is rarely talked about with that terminology. Peter L Griffin (talk) 21:54, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@SNUGGUMS the trick here is to identify not just whether it's most common, but whether there's a single primary topic, and that's a substantially higher standard. If there's known ambiguity between the former president, his son, and a number of other notable people, it's plausible that the average English reader (a much wider audience than e.g. an average person with knowledge of 20th-century American politics) does not identify this term so strongly with JFK that they'd be astonished to see a list presented to them (with JFK on top, followed by his son and others). --Joy (talk) 07:57, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, he does come up within a bunch of things found under Google Scholar, which gives books such as John Kennedy: A political profile (along with the title there's a line reading "What about John Kennedy on this score?") and A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House ("A question remains about John Kennedy and women"). While the search results admittedly aren't exclusive to things on the president (partially due to it containing works authored by other individuals with Kennedy as a surname), this does show he isn't always referred to with his middle name or even initial. On another note, what other pages do or don't use for DAB titles is irrelevant here per WP:OTHERCONTENT, contrary to what Peter L Griffin seems to think. That user's middle name/initial argument also is still not convincing no matter how often it gets repeated in the thread. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit: I just noticed how Estar8806 already linked to Google Scholar and more, though somehow that other scholar link provided far fewer search results. Not sure what filter(s) got applied to affect such numbers. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:39, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Quotation marks will provide fewer results as they generally return exact matches only. Though it looks like the scholar results I linked for some reason didn't. estar8806 (talk) ★ 03:34, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Yep, there is definitely some volume of references to JFK as just "John Kennedy", but the volume of these doesn't seem to be overwhelming - they're often paired with references to the more disambiguated name (with the F) often within the same paragraph. Often times I find myself at the other side of this kind of a dispute, for example when people say a surname lookup doesn't have to allow for easy navigation to all the biographies of people with that surname. In this case, I also recognize that it's completely legitimate to talk about JFK as "John Kennedy", and he is indeed probably the most notable of them all, but by redirecting we elevate this status a tad too much compared to the observable reader interest. --Joy (talk) 12:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Ridiculous proposal. Kennedy of Louisiana gets more than double the outgoing traffic from this page than JFK! because most people looking for John F. Kennedy won't have ended on the disambiguation page in the first place. The fact that neither disambiguation page nor the Louisiana politician shows up in the Wikinav results for outgoing clicks from John F. Kennedy so it's clear that a large number of people aren't ending up there looking for the Louisiana politician. Which may well be because they know about the existence of the president and are expecting the article they are searching for to not be the primary topic. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:38, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Pppery The problem here is that the topic of JFK commands such huge organic interest that trying to measure redirect traffic through WikiNav is inherently impossible - with 510k incoming monthly views, and >500 outgoing clickstream destinations, any comparison of a minor redirect's traffic to that will look trivial. Please see below for what I believe are more pertinent statistics. --Joy (talk) 20:13, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

• The way this traffic for the primary redirect shows up in the clickstreams is suboptimal, but we can read the leaves like this, using monthly page view statistics and meta:Research:Wikipedia clickstream archive data (WikiNav only renders a single month):

December: 611 views of John Kennedy, 1406 of John Kennedy (disambiguation)

clickstream-enwiki-2023-12.tsv:

• John_F._Kennedy John_Kennedy_(Louisiana_politician) other 31
• John_F._Kennedy John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) link 559
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Louisiana_politician) link 336
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy link 124
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Brazilian_footballer) link 115
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy_(Georgia_politician) link 65
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Pennsylvania_politician) link 45
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_M._Kennedy_Jr. link 30
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Francis_Kennedy_(politician) link 18
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Utah_politician) link 16
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Australian_musician) link 14
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) List_of_The_Inbetweeners_characters link 13
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Irish_celebrity) link 12
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(American_musician) link 12
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_B._Kennedy_(politician) link 11
• total: 811

So 611 readers visited the "John Kennedy" redirect, and we could identify 590 clickstreams indicating ambiguity - this could mean ~97% of those readers used the navigation aids. At the same time, the navigation aids are visible to all the readers who come across this article, regardless of how they got there, and sit at the very top in a very visible place either way, so this is very imperfect math.

This traffic in turn is examined together with all other traffic at the disambiguation page - it constitutes at best only ~44% of the latter. From there we can then identify clickstreams outwards, and some of it goes to JFK or in turn back to JFK - that's impossible to distinguish here. It could be that all of those 124 clickstreams are from people who land on the list from some other source, from the other ~56%, or it could be mixed.

Regardless, the ratio of identified traffic from the list towards non-JFK topics is 811-124 = 687 / 1406 = ~49% compared to total traffic, and 687 / 811 = ~85% compared to total identified outgoing clickstreams. Note that clickstreams are filtered, so all source-destination pairs with less than 10 do not appear here - there can well be a long tail that we can't see.

January: 511, 1232

clickstream-enwiki-2024-01.tsv:

• John_F._Kennedy John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) link 443
• John_F._Kennedy John_Kennedy_(Louisiana_politician) other 25
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Louisiana_politician) link 240
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy link 139
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy_(Georgia_politician) link 63
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Brazilian_footballer) link 62
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Pennsylvania_politician) link 47
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_M._Kennedy_Jr. link 26
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Francis_Kennedy_(politician) link 19
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy_(disambiguation) link 14
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_P._Kennedy link 12
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Scottish_footballer) link 11
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Utah_politician) link 10
• total: 643

So the aforementioned ratios for this month would be ~92%, ~50%, ~41%, ~78%

February: 440, 1585

clickstream-enwiki-2024-02.tsv:

• John_F._Kennedy John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) link 526
• John_F._Kennedy John_Kennedy_(Louisiana_politician) other 23
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Louisiana_politician) link 261
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy link 142
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy_(Georgia_politician) link 68
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Pennsylvania_politician) link 34
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_M._Kennedy_Jr. link 31
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Brazilian_footballer) link 24
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_F._Kennedy_(disambiguation) link 16
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Australian_musician) link 15
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Francis_Kennedy_(politician) link 15
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(puppeteer) link 12
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(Irish_celebrity) link 11
• John_Kennedy_(disambiguation) John_Kennedy_(American_musician) link 11
• total: 640

So the aforementioned ratios for this month would be ~125%, ~28%, ~31%, ~78%. With the first ratio going over 100%, it's clear that at least some of that traffic isn't from the primary redirect.

Another thing that's pretty clear is that the long tail has to exist, with such obvious convergence towards the cutoff point. So the latter two percentages are most likely higher in reality, since the undercount affects the JFK topic the least (since it's the largest one and so much over 10 in total, it's least likely any source-destination pair is undercounted for it).

It's hard to say much, but based on comparisons with previous primary redirect discussions (some of which I've documented at WT:D), I'd say this is a good candidate for voiding the presumption of primary redirect - not because of this specific recent senator, but because the overall inability to say something like - "of the readers that visit 'John Kennedy', we know that over 90% don't navigate further and are happy to stay here". Rather, it looks that there's a clear reason why the F. part became an integral part of references to President Kennedy - because the name was quite ambiguous otherwise.

We should try this move, gather these same statistics for a couple of months, and see if the navigation outcomes have improved. The previous primary topic is definitely popular and should remain at the top of the list per MOS:DABCOMMON. Worst case, we actually measure that >90% of readers in that layout go for the first entry, and then we go back to the redirect, but then we'll actually know that we did it based on something objective. --Joy (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Absolutely, 100% clear primary redirect. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:41, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  At there very least, there should be consitency between John Kennedy and William Harrison. Would you also approve redirecting William Harrison and moving the DAB page? Peter L Griffin (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per others. President Kennedy is undoubtedly & unambiguously the primary topic, and any readers who are looking for a different John Kennedy are served by the hatnote at the top of President Kennedy's article. I don't see a need to change what isn't broken. Bandit Heeler (talk) 18:08, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Whoever is the closer should note that most of the "oppose" replies here are not based in policy and rather seem to be variations of WP:BUTIKNOWABOUTIT and should be disregarded for the purpose of determining consensus. Several individual editors feeling in their own personal opinion that President Kennedy is "obviously" or "clearly" or "undoubtedly" the unambiguous primary topic for "John Kennedy" and that those on the support side are being "ridiculous" is not a policy-based rationale backed by any sort of evidence.

In fact, evidence seems to indicate the contrary position, and none of it has been countered by those on the oppose side which should lead to a support ruling by summary judgement.

• Why one earth is John Kennedy (Louisiana politician) the top Google result for "John Kennedy" if such phraseology unambiguously refers to JFK? The bar to meet here is not merely that this refers to JFK more (which is also in question given this) but that it refers to JFK unambiguously. The fact that JFK is not even the first result or the person featured in the infobox shows that there is indeed ambiguity which ought to be disambiguated. While we can't exactly parse the true meaning of the Wikipedia traffic, this Google ranking is very strong evidence that Google's algorithm has determined that most people searching for the query "John Kennedy" are not looking for JFK.
• What makes JFK's claim to "John Kennedy" so strong, if he is rarely referred to in this way in academia or literature as a quick search of Google Books will indicate? Is the 35th President really frequently called "John Kennedy"? Where's the evidence?
• What is the downside of moving this page to John Kennedy? The president is still at the top, just one click away. All this does is clear up an ambiguity that clearly exists.

Peter L Griffin (talk) 18:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per above. Obvious primary redirect. estar8806 (talk) ★ 20:42, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

another appeal to "obviousness" which should be disregarded Peter L Griffin (talk) 20:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The president gets over 10x the pageviews of the senator [3]. Almost nobody navigates from John F. Kennedy (the target of the primary redirect). The first several pages of results in Google Books are also in regards to the President [4] The first few Scholar results also refer to the President [5] (though admittedly there were several others listed). estar8806 (talk) ★ 23:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean almost nobody navigates from there? We know that they do, in the amount that is actually comparable to the traffic of the primary redirect itself, please see the stats I had extracted above.

The question here isn't what's the most popular topic referred to as "John Kennedy", but rather is the association of "John Kennedy" with John F. Kennedy so strong that we risk astonishing readers if we stop short-circuiting. --Joy (talk) 00:15, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I mean that almost nobody goes to the disambiguation page from the target of the primary redirect (ie. very few people go from John F. Kennedy to John Kennedy (disambiguation) via the whatnot). I forgot to link the WikiNav above (my bad, I apologize).[6] estar8806 (talk) ★ 00:26, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Please try to consider all of the statistics, not just the cherry-picked ones which support your conclusion.

You conveniently omit the other key fact that almost nobody winds up at John F. Kennedy through the John Kennedy redirect, which tells us two things:

1) Most people don't seek out the president through the search query "John Kennedy", and so a change here would be minimally disruptive for the odd few that do.

2) The (small relative to total page views) number of people who get to John F. Kennedy through the redirect is similar in magnitude to the (small relative to total page views) number of people who go to the disambiguation page. This is because there is likely an extremely large overlap between people who are redirected from John Kennedy and those who go the the disambiguation page, because a sizable portion (potentially a majority) of people who search for "John Kennedy" are not looking for the president. Peter L Griffin (talk) 00:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

"Cherry picking" is very different than providing resources that were conveniently ignored by a nom. estar8806 (talk) ★ 01:12, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Nobody disputes that only a small handful of the people on the John F. Kennedy page go to the disambiguation page. But you take this singular data point out of context to paint a false narrative. I notice the substance of my above comment is unaddressed. Peter L Griffin (talk) 01:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I also provided evidence that searches of "John Kennedy" generally lead to results referring to the President. estar8806 (talk) ★ 02:19, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

They generally do that, but that's not actually necessarily indicative of primary redirect status. It's like the difference between a supermajority, a majority and a plurality. We don't really know whether our readers are navigated in the best possible way by this redirect, nor do we have the tools to find out as it is now - the best tool we could have right now is to present these (relatively few) readers a list, sorted by what our best guess is, and then measure if this matched their expectations. Best case we learn something and improve navigation, worst case we revert after slightly inconveniencing (these relatively few) readers looking for JFK. --Joy (talk) 10:59, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, relatively very few people compared to overall JFK traffic click the hatnote, but that's also because relatively very few people visit the John Kennedy redirect in the first place. The main drivers of traffic to the JFK article are external search engines and various links from within Wikipedia. We can't tell how many links in text omitted the 'F' without manually checking, but overall count of links via the redirect is only 165, which is also minute compared to the overall JFK traffic. --Joy (talk) 12:03, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

With such conflicting data on usage by readers, I don't think we should burden the discussion closer with bare assertions. (Same goes for similar comments above.) --Joy (talk) 23:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, per long-term historical significance the American president lands on primary. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  This is 100% true. But we're not trying to make John Kennedy go the the Louisiana senator either; we just want it to be a disambiguation page because is it clearly an ambiguous term.

  The main question here is about usage of the phrase "John Kennedy". Do people really commonly call the president "John Kennedy"? I'd reckon that's rather unusual. Peter L Griffin (talk) 19:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose – Overall, for most people the term John Kennedy refers to John F. Kennedy or places named after him. The senator from Lousiana has no compared historical relevance. Svartner (talk) 14:17, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  HUGE citation needed. How can you speak for anyone but yourself? Peter L Griffin (talk) 18:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Google is probably the best judge here -- they're a for-profit company trying to make it as easy as possible for people to find what they're looking for.

  If they put John Kennedy (Louisiana politician) as the first result, and the featured person in the infobox, perhaps this indicates that many people who search "John Kennedy" are actually looking for him.

  See above thread for evidence on why your claim is dubious. Peter L Griffin (talk) 19:00, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  I figure the results are skewed a bit depending on location, but when I search "John Kennedy" on Google, President Kennedy appears first, followed by the Louisiana politician, so it's not strictly the case that Louisiana Kennedy is ahead in Google. Bandit Heeler (talk) 20:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Intriguing. I'm based in Rhode Island, no where near Louisiana. Are you in the United States? -- I could see how the ranking might be different internationally. Peter L Griffin (talk) 20:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  Google uses your location and past search history to predict what you may be searching for. Some people will get the President, some may get the Senator, some could theoretically get someone else. That's the reason we generally ignore simple Google results in these discussions, because they can vary from person to person. estar8806 (talk) ★ 20:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'm outside the United States, so that's probably a contributing factor. I agree with estar that Google results aren't really a reliable determiner, since they're dependent on previous searches and location. As with other users, I've found that the first few pages for Google Books, up until about 7 or 8, refer strictly to the President, so you'd have to look quite deep before the results become a bit unclear. On top of what Snuggums found on Google Scholar, I also found a few mentions on Google Books, such as this book, which refers to President Kennedy as "John Kennedy" several times, alongside here, which refers to President Kennedy as just "John Kennedy". It may be that he is being discussed moreso alongside his family, but this does indicate that it's not strictly the case that President Kennedy is referred to solely as "John F. Kennedy" or "JFK". With regards to your argument about page views, I think your argument there is a little flawed, primarily because page views for the Louisiana politician will be potentially skewed in favour, since this is a presidential election year, and, last time I checked, JFK isn't a current incumbent. On top of JFK's obvious long term significance over the Senator, the book and scholar indicates that there's no reason to change things as it is. I'm personally fine with making Louisiana Kennedy featured at the top of the hatnote, though I don't know if any editors disagree. Bandit Heeler (talk) 20:56, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  So despite us both being outside the US, the ordering of these hits is different, because I get another John Kennedy in the Google Books search at #3 (as mentioned above). At Google Scholar, the #5 hit is a "John F. Kennedy" publication from 1969[7], and at #6 some newer article from a J. J. Kennedy, and two more non-JFK references in the top 10.

  I don't think it's anyone's contention that JFK is referred to solely as such, rather that these are far more common than not, and in turn that plain "John Kennedy" references aren't overwhelmingly in his favor. --Joy (talk) 10:52, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Google Books results are also presumably different based on country, too, since I'm guessing you're in Croatia, but that's beside the point.

  From my perspective, the first few pages are solely about JFK, albeit under John F. Kennedy rather than plainly John Kennedy, there are still mentions of JFK as 'John Kennedy', as I've already explained to you. Even so, Google Books is not the sole indicator of whether a subject has primary importance. There are other aspects at play here. Bandit Heeler (talk) 23:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. The claims that William Harrison should redirect to William Henry Harrison are disingenous. Harrison is nowhere near as famous as Kennedy, who is one of the most notable of all US presidents. Given Wikipedia has a global perspective, the President of the United States is not always the primary redirect. But in Kennedy's case he is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:35, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Perfect. Svartner (talk) 20:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Def agree with this argument. Cfls (talk) 16:09, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Around the world, too many people colloquially use simply John Kennedy to represent the former President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. The Louisiana senator conspicuously falls short of this global profile. Especially in East and Southeast Asia, the local-language names of president John F. Kennedy conventionally do not speak the "F." middle name. Disabling such redirects will only lead to much more unnecessary confusion to worldwide audience. Cfls (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for your comment. This discussion only applies to the English-language version of Wikipedia Peter L Griffin (talk) 21:16, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  Of course, but usage from people native on other languages isn't going to correlate directly to English usage. I doubt those people, many of whom are presumably not native in English, who are using just "John Kennedy", are suddenly going to think about including the president's middle name. Admittedly though, this is a relatively small scope that we're talking about, which doesn't necessarily apply everywhere, so I'm not exactly convinced by that argument specifically. Bandit Heeler (talk) 23:21, 31 March 2024 (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.