Talk:Indian agent

Title

Shouldn't this be called "Indian agent (United States)"? Wikipedia is an international project. Why should the default be the United States? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.23.193.251 (talk) 23:14, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. -- Themightyquill (talk) 08:03, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 7 August 2023

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 Mike Cline (talk) 12:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

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Indian agent → Indian agent (United States) – Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias Themightyquill (talk) 08:03, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

• Leaning support: I suppose the suggestion is that "Indian agent" could refer to an agent of India or an agent who is an Indian person. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:24, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Strikethrough above. I thought this was about India, but if it's just a question of Canada and the United States, it's just a WP:TWODABS with a primary topic or would be solved by a merge. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 06:06, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I assume the proposal is because of Indian agent (Canada), but this article gets 90% of all pageviews. It might be possible to merge the Canada article into this one if we want the broader perspective. Otherwise the current hatnote is fine. Station1 (talk) 05:43, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Themightyquill: Can you please provide a more clear explanation of the rationale for this RM proposal? Is it for disambiguation? If so, for what other topics discussed on Wikipedia? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 05:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: Sorry for not explaining more in the nomination. Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia, so, based on my readings of {{globalize}} (and concerns raised at Geographical bias on Wikipedia), it seemed strange to me that Indian Agent would deal exclusively with Indian Agents in the United States, while Indian Agents in Canada would be at Indian Agent (Canada). @Station1: Given that anyone searching for Indian agents (in either country or without knowledge that they existed in Canada) would first end up at Indian agent, it shouldn't be a surprise that that article would get a large majority of the hits. Several articles referencing Canadian issues (British Indian Department, Pass system (Canadian history), List of mayors of Markham, Ontario, North-West Rebellion, and Kwantlen First Nation) are also (accidentally) directing people to Indian agent. Oddly, Indian agents redirects to the Canadian article. Admittedly, there are more direct links to the American article as well, but given the relative size of the populations, that's quite normal - there were more Indian agents in the United States numerically, though not necessarily proportionally. That's certainly not evidence of American Indian agents being the primary topic with Canadian Indian agents as secondary. Merging the two would make sense, or if it makes more sense to split them, they should both be disambiguated, no? Forgive me if I've misunderstood naming policy. -- Themightyquill (talk) 22:34, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Honestly, when I made this nomination, I had zero memory of ever editing this article before, but looking back now, I was surprised to see that I actually created Indian agent back in 2007, just setting it up as a redirect to Indian Agent which, at that point, referred exclusively to Indian agents in Canada. Only later was that page moved to Indian agent (Canada) to acknowledge they existed elsewhere. Later still, Indian agent was established as an article, referring only to American Indian agents. I'm not trying to claim ownership or anything--my only contribution in 15 years was creating a single redirect--but that sequence of renaming hardly seems right. -- Themightyquill (talk) 22:56, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Your points are entirely reasonable. To answer a couple: It's true that pageviews are inflated somewhat by the U.S. being at the base name, but even assuming every reader looking for the Canadian article mistakenly landed first on Indian agent, that would still mean over 80% of readers want the U.S. article (as opposed to 90%). It's also true that wikilinks misdirected to a dab page are more likely to be fixed than those directed to a wrong article, but the flip side is that those readers searching for "Indian agent" who want info about the U.S. agents (a significant majority) are inconvenienced by being forced through a dab page, while the minority looking for Canadian info are no better off clicking through a dab page than clicking through a hatnote at the top of the U.S. article. As mentioned, all this could also be solved by a merger, and I don't think the articles are too long for that, at least not yet. Station1 (talk) 05:46, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per Station1. Don't see why a disambiguation page needs to exist either when their hatnote works.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 07:30, 8 August 2023 (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.