Talk:MSG (disambiguation)

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Hello, I just reformated the page. Sorry to undo the recent alphabetization, though I kept the alphabetic ordering within sections. The guidelines at MOS:DAB are clear that only pages that could be titled MSG should be listed here, and many of the links on this DAB page would never be titled "MSG". I did some research with the stats tool, which should be used with caution of course. I found that Madison Square Garden (53k hits in March) and Monosodium Glutamate (78k hits in march) are by far the most major topics, so should be listed first. The only other things that come close are Master Sergeant (11k hits in March) and Mobile Suit Gundam (38k hits in March), but these articles would never be titled MSG. Sam Staton (talk) 08:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Out of interest, would people expect the Madison Square Garden page to be titled "MSG"? When someone says "MSG" to me, I first think of Monosodium Glutamate, so I wonder if that is the primary topic. Sam Staton (talk) 08:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. JPG-GR (talk) 18:20, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MSG → MSG (disambiguation) — I think Monosodium Glutamate is the primary use for this abbreviation. I think it is the only page that might actually have been called "MSG" (other than the minor stub M.S.G.). I wonder if there is consensus on this. If so, I propose to make MSG a redirect to Monosodium Glutamate. —Sam Staton (talk) 11:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Support I think this makes sense. The other uses do not seem very common. Miami33139 (talk) 17:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Agree that monosodium glutamate is the primary meaning. Andrewa (talk) 01:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Madison Square Garden is very commonly know as MSG. The current structure of the dab page indicates that there are two widely used dominant meanings for this abbreviation. So I don't see how we can establish a case that one of these two is the primary use. Add to that the large number of other uses and the risk of sending too many readers to the wrong article is simply too high to move this dab page. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Just to clarify, it was me that gave the page its current structure. I put those two meanings at the top because they were the only non-niche articles that might possibly be called "MSG". I was genuinely unsure how commonly "MSG" is used to mean Madison Square Garden — this is why I proposed the move. The abbreviation for Madison Square Garden is never used in England, as far as I know; are you saying it is common throughout the USA? Sam Staton (talk) 09:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Never heard MSG refer to Madison Square Garden. Perhaps it's similar to RPA, which in Australia generally means a particular hospital which features in a reality TV show, or perhaps the show itself. But in sailing circles and particularly in these circles in the northern beach suburbs of Sydney, RPA means a particular yacht club, to which I happen to belong, so in my particular micro-dialect that's what RPA unqualified would normally mean. None of these of course are primary meanings of RPA for Wikipedia's purposes. So the question is, is MSG for Madison Square Garden a genuine primary meaning, or just a local one? Andrewa (talk) 13:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is far from a local convention and is used for a sports network MSG Network name. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmm, the MSG Network article lead reads The Madison Square Garden Network, now shortened to simply MSG, is a regional cable television and radio network serving the Mid-Atlantic and focused on New York City sports teams. I guess to some people New York is the whole world, but really... Andrewa (talk) 10:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Madison Square Garden argument is a pretty weak one. It is highly unlikely that an encylopedia user would know of the arena as "MSG" but not know its full name or that he would type "MSG" in the "Go" box and expect to find the article on the arena. On the other hand, it is probable that some people have heard of the food additive MSG but not know its full name and searches for it as "MSG" are more likely to occur. Having said all that, I'm not sure the importance of the food additive is enough to outweigh the cumulative MSGs listed. I would lean toward the move but wish for others to decide in this case. — AjaxSmack 03:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Disambig page MSG has 17 alternatives, and I do not see that any is dominant. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"The Message" missing[edit]

Hello! This is missing: The Message (Bible)

-- Thomas1311 (talk) 12:33, 4 February 2018 (UTC) given[reply]

Requested move 2 May 2019[edit]

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. Hatnoted with {{redirect}} at Monosodium glutamate, I'll leave it to King of Hearts or another user to decide whether to mention the primary redirect in the lede sentence of the resultant disambiguation page or whether to keep it as is. The former is more probable per WP:MOSDAB. (closed by non-admin page mover) SITH (talk) 10:49, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MSG → MSG (disambiguation) – "MSG" primarily refers to Monosodium glutamate, and should be a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT there. (Let's not discuss moving Monosodium glutamate to MSG here; someone can propose that if this succeeds.) I tested the pageviews of the top entries in mid-March, and here are the top five results. As you can see, only Madison Square Garden and Madison Square Garden Company come close to rivaling the chemical compound. Now, with Monosodium glutamate and Madison Square Garden running neck-to-neck in the results, that would normally not be sufficient to make a determination of primary topic. However, as you can see from usage in the respective articles, the compound is referred to as MSG far more frequently than the venue; "MSG" is the default name for the compound in encyclopedic prose, something which is not true for almost all the other entries on the list. Anecdotally, I live in the New York metropolitan area, which if anything should bias me towards the venue, but when I hear the word "MSG" without context it unambiguously refers to the compound for me. Monosodium glutamate will exist for eternity, but the long-term significance of Madison Square Garden is less clear (the original Penn Station which it replaced lasted just 53 years before being demolished).

To confirm my suspicions, I did a test by taking the top three entries and setting up special-purpose redirects to measure where people go after reaching the MSG disambiguation page. This is very different from the first pageview test; that one measures the relative popularity of different topics, while this measures how likely it is for MSG to refer to a particular topic, which is a much more accurate test. It's not even a contest, with Monosodium glutamate taking 87% of top-three share. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:43, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support the finding that monosodium glutamate is the primary topic for "MSG". Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 17:08, 3 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The page views for these redirects are a tiny fraction of the total number of pageviews for these pages. Therefore, extrapolating a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT is not compelling. Tassedethe (talk) 05:18, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Procedural oppose. None of the pages involved (Monosodium glutamate, Madison Square Garden, Madison Square Garden Company, Michael Schenker Group, McAuley Schenker Group, plus 20 more pages) have been notified of this discussion. Tassedethe (talk) 05:18, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Tassedethe: I don't think you quite understand the point of my experiment. The vast majority of people will reach pages via wikilinks, which for the most part will point to the correct pages and not MSG. For the overall numbers we've already established that Monosodium glutamate is #1 with about 96K pageviews per month, Madison Square Garden at #2 with about 76K pageviews per month, and everything else trailing far behind. The point of the special redirects is to establish that when the abbreviation "MSG" is concerned (since people can reach those two pages via many different means, most of which are not by searching "MSG"), Monosodium glutamate completely dominates Madison Square Garden. Again, what we care about is what "MSG" most likely means, not whether Monosodium glutamate or Madison Square Garden is a more important topic. The numbers achieved by the experiment are high enough to remain valid in the face of sampling variation, and that's all that matters. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:43, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - That's also not standard procedure. Red Slash 22:38, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Easy support - we're talking not just about how notable the targets are, but also how frequently the short version is used to refer to the target. BO does not redirect to Barack Obama Red Slash 20:30, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Like User:Red Slash said, it's pretty clear that it's not just how notable the targets are, but how frequently the short version is referred to. --Justin J. Liu (Dylan Smithson) (talk) 21:19, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Support. "MSG" primarily refers to Monosodium glutamate and rarely to Madison Square Garden, especially outside the United States. feminist (talk) 08:19, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.