Talk:Portland

Proposed move (2006)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I think en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland should bring people directly to Portland, Oregon. When 'Portland' is mentioned, this city is the first thing that springs to mind for most people. In cases like this, where a word has multiple meanings but is used mainly for one thing, a link to the word's most common meaning with a disambiguation page is the best way to handle it. The current setup appears clumsy and inelegant. --128.205.3.147 20:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and would support such a move, especially if we could determine that Portland, Oregon received a significantly higher amount of page hits than the other Portlands listed on the page. --Danreitz 20:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, I like the disambig as is. Isoxyl 20:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC) To be more explicit, with the many, many meanings of Portland, I suspect people may be looking to find out what other Portlands there are and where the name appears other than in place-names too. That's what brought me here. And as an aside, being a New Englander meant that when I think of Portland, I always think of Portland, Maine. So, not everybody thinks of Portland, Oregon! Isoxyl 13:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

And let's not forget the UK, where Portland existed long before. :-) - Ballista 14:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

~~Points well taken. I still don't like this page as is, but do not have strong feelings about it. In reviewing the buffalo disambiguation page, i noticed that it is mostly limited to things that are actually called Buffalo. The Portland page has a lot of references (e.g. Portland Trailblazers and Portland Castle) that are features of places called Portland. Take a look at the New York disambiguation page -- there is no mention of the New York Knicks or the New York Stock Exchange or the New York State Park System, etc. I think this page could either be cut back or made otherwise less verbose. --Danreitz 15:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Could be making progress here. Maybe there's no proper place for sports teams on this list. Otherwise, every town name in Wikipedia will have a list of sports teams tagged on (and, where does it stop? - Portland Tiddlywinks Club? Why not the Womens Institute, etc.?). However, place names, important people names and other significant encyclopedic topics that are tied into the 'Portland' name probably do have a place. Maybe we could alter the heading hierarchy, to make it a clearer layout? - Ballista 15:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Let's trim out some of the fat, and maybe put all the 'most important' links at the top -- Portland, Oregon and Maine, as it is now, as well as Isle of Portland and perhaps Portland Cement or some of the others. No clubs, etc., as stated, unless they are VERY prominent... Portland Trailblazers is the only one that comes to mind for me, but there may be others of special note. I'm not attached to whether or not they are listed, but I agree the sheer number of places named Portland, some described as "small towns" of almost no note is excessive or at least distracting, and with no current wikipedia page the traffic about those places must be small.... I invite somebody to give this all a try! Isoxyl 16:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I've cut a lot of the crap out, but I left the sports teams, 'cos I know sports teams are often abbreviated to just the name of the city. If anybody actually knows anything about these teams, could they clean up that section? Thanks, Joe D (t) 12:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I see the debate has petered out. But, really, why shouldn't this page be moved?

• Portland, OR has a population over eight times as large as the next-largest Portland, in Maine. And, with a population over 100,000, it is the only one present in the List of United States cities by population.
• Over half of the sports teams on the disamb page hail from Oregon.
• Unlike Buffalo, Portland does not share its name with a common noun.
• Google-searches for "Portland" clearly favor the city in Oregon.[1] The only other "Portland" on the results summary is Portland, ME, which could be mentioned in a disambiguation phrase. I.e.: "Portland" redirects here. For the city in Maine see Portland, ME. For other uses, see Portland (disambiguation).

Not to beat a dead horse, but has anyone had a change of heart and agree with me on this? Shall we propose a move?
Ulmanor (talk) 00:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the move, but support wholeheartedly further fat-trimming on this page. I would cut ALL the sports teams out, based on the precedent set by New York. I also think Portland Project and Portland (sheep) should have far more prominent billing here, and Grand Theft Auto shouldn't be mentioned at all, as the fact that the name Portland was used in that game isn't notable or encyclopedic at all (IMO). The defunct town in Colorado, seeing as how it's a redlink, should also go. eae (talk) 07:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I really disagree with this. Portland ME isn't the only other google search page, why do you keep forgetting Portland (UK) which is where the actual name originated!! Sorry but this really pisses the hell out of me! Just because it isn't American and doesn't have a population of several million doesn't mean it isn't just as important! And also Portland Harbour is about to become the host of the 2012 Olympic Sailing Events and is likely to recieve a lot more views during that time. And Portland Stone which comes from Portland, and Portland Sheep which come from Portland (UK).

Being from the UK and Portland I would like to see the latter featured slightly more highly than Portland Oregan, don't steal our name and our recognition too!! MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 17:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I can see no reason for the move. Portland, Oregon may be the most populous place with this name, but it has no claim to be the "real" Portland, nor even the most important. Neither, for that matter, does the original Portland – neither size nor age are relevant here.

This is a disambiguation page. It is for people who are looking up the word Portland, not just those who are looking for the biggest or most famous settlement. They may be looking for Portland, Oregon, but they are just as likely to be looking for the sheep, the Isle, the stone or the cement (actually I see the last one is not in). Personally I can't see much wrong with the page as it is, apart from extra links on many lines. There are indeed some links which are of low value – but if these have articles, they do need to appear here – or where else would they be? Prune the articles if necessary, but not the disambig page. New York is not a good model, as it's so huge and so has far more associated articles than almost all other cities. As that and almost all other cities are built of Portland cement mortar and concrete, I think even that has a better claim than just one city in Oregon...

I think the suggested move is a very bad idea. --Richard New Forest (talk) 20:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

One further point for clarification. The discussion about whether this page has too many low-value links is wholly independent of any name change – it applies to the disambig page content whatever title it has. --Richard New Forest (talk) 09:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

When searching for "Portland Metropolitan Area" the user is taken to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_metropolitan_area, which leads with the statement: "This article is about the metropolitan area in Oregon and Washington. For the metropolitan area in Maine, see Portland, Maine metropolitan area." Seems the search for the city proper should be consistent with the metropolitan area in general. One of these searches should be changed, in order to be consistent. Further, when searching for "Kansas City," the result is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_metropolitan_area, with the lead statement: "Kansas City" redirects here. For the central city of the metropolitan area, see Kansas City, Missouri. For other uses, see Kansas City (disambiguation)." Seems to me that since Portland, Oregon is the destination of the vast majority of users, it should be the destination of the search, with a simple, "For other uses, see..." lead at the beginning of the page, much like the one for Kansas City. Treat Whambin (talk) 02:49, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Another argument in support of moving: Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR are virtually identical in terms of population: both city-proper, and metropolitan area. Yet Vancouver, WA is nearly triple the population of Portland, ME--but if one searches for "Vancouver," they are taken directly to Vancouver, BC's page. No disambiguation page. So, if we're going to be consistent, in terms of population of cities with the same name, either give Vancouver, WA the same status as Vancouver, BC (and require searchers to go to a disambiguation page, like they have to do for the Portlands), or treat Portland, OR like Vancouver, BC and put a link to the disambiguation page on Portland, OR's page (like is done now, with Vancouver, BC's page). As it is now, Portland, ME (pop. 66,000) is given the same status as Portland, OR. Yet Vancouver, WA (pop. 160,000) is NOT given the same status as Vancouver, BC--a city the same size as Portland, OR. Treat Whambin (talk) 06:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@TreatWhambin: The original comment on this discussion is nearly nine years old. If you want to attract people to a new proposal, you can follow the procedure at the requested moves page. Conifer (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

top entries

(copying my own post from User_talk:Richard_New_Forest)

The guidelines I'm going by are WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (to determine which deserves special mention, if any), the "prime example" of Lift, where each entry has at least some context, and the MOS entry.

Some grok.se stats, using viewcount for ranking (higher=better), with 200902 data:

• Portland, Oregon: 95k
• Portland, Maine: 20k
• Isle of Portland: 4k

That makes it clear that Isle of Portland should definitely be removed from the "often" list. Cheers, tedder (talk) 22:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Based on this, I've removed Isle of Portland from the top list. Note that Portland, Maine hardly gets more traffic than the Portland dab page. I still think giving population or context for the Maine/Oregon would be useful. tedder (talk) 19:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Few Brits would think of anywhere other than the Isle of Portland, which to us would be the clear primary use. The current arrangement is quite US-centric – and Google hits are an unreliable guide, as always. Do we actually need any "oftens" at all? Not sure it matters that much, but I think either all three, or none of them. (Richard New Forest) 21:08, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, I used WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. There are obviously one or more primary topics, no need to bury Portland, Maine down with the Portland Vase. This dab page is too large for that. Yes, Isle of Portland would appear to be important if you lived there, but google hits and grok.se at least provide a guide for what is the primary topic. (Note the numbers I quoted are NOT google hits, they are grok.se hits, which is a more reliable guide for wikipedia). tedder (talk) 21:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Point taken about which hits they are, but popularity is still not a reliable guide to importance. Actually I was not only talking about people who live on the island, but probably all Brits, and perhaps most people in the world who are not from North America (though Portland cement might be a rival there). I remain of the view that it should be all three or none. You have made a good case for those two cities, so I think that makes it all three.

I can't see that population figures are much help on a dab page – if I'm looking for somewhere called Portland, I'm unlikely to say "oh look, that must be the one, there are 64,000 people living there". It will help me to know whether it's a large city or a small town, but after that it starts becoming encyclopaedic information which does not belong here. Richard New Forest (talk) 08:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I also object to removing Isle of Portland from the primary topic. Why is it is so wrong about it being there, when its the origin of the city names, and of several other things besides. I'm probably not the only person who finds it very useful encyclopedically. --Tesscass (talk) 18:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Requested move (2009)

The following is a closed 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 do not move Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

• Portland -> Portland (disambiguation)
• Redirect Portland to Portland, Oregon

I personally believe that, given the incredible disparity between hits (as per grok.se) for Portland, OR and all other Portlands (primarily Maine's), typing in the word Portland should give you this city. I think that, given that neither city (or anything else listed, for that matter) has any particular claim to the name over the other, the difference in the number of hits should be enough. If you want further arguments, here's a couple: Portland has 500,000 people living in it (Portland, ME has 60,000) and has two million people living in its metro area (~500,000 live in the MSA which contains Portland, ME, but it is not the sole principal city within it) and is an extremely well-known place in the United States as well as boasting a considerable worldwide presence for its art, culture, and environmental leadership. I therefore think that when our readers type in "Portland" they have a general expectation that it will lead them to Portland, Oregon and am requesting a page move for that reason. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 00:05, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

To add the statistics from above, hits are as follows:

• • • Portland, Oregon: 95k
    • Portland, Maine: 20k
    • Isle of Portland: 4k

Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 20:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Survey

• Support. I suspect that if you live in Maine, Portland, Maine is the primary usage, but that only applies to about 0.5% of the U.S., and less than a tenth of a percent of the planet. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 01:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. Declaring a primary usage is a serious inconvenience to readers looking for the secondary meanings of a term; many casual readers miss, or are confused, by hatnotes; even if not, they have to click three times to get where they want. For this reason, the use of a primary meaning should really be confined to situations where 90% of all English usage of a term has one meaning, not the 75% here. In addition, this is contrary to the widely discussed compromise at Wikipedia:NCGN#United_States. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I do not see any contravention or contradiction with Wikipedia:NCGN#United_States. The requester is not proposing renaming the page to "Portland", he is only requesting "Portland" redirect to "Portland, Oregon" (with the usual options at the top of the page to send you Portland, Maine or the disamb. page.) Facts707 (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. While this may well depend on the coast you live on, we need to follow the principal of least surprise. No sense sending a large number of readers to the wrong page. Link counting is not an alternative to determining what the primary use is. In this case, it is not likely that we would agree that there is a primary use. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:02, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Page views would strongly suggest primary usage. We are only talking about a redirect, not the article name. The dis page gets 13631 page views/month,[2] vs 22954 for Portland, Maine[3] and 116797 for Portland, Oregon.[4] So less than 10% of the people looking for Portland get there via the dis page, and of those only 20% of 10%, or 2%, of those looking for Portland, Maine, so 98% of the people looking for Portland, Maine are clicking on a link to get there and never go through the dis page. The stats are even less for any other Portland. On the other hand, 5 times as many who do go to the dis page are likely looking for Portland, Oregon. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 12:55, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
    • As a former opposer who is now a supporter, check out San Jose. See how people looking for the other city in Costa Rica can get there with just one click. And others can see all the other San Joses also with just one click. So the Portland, OR users (~80%) get there in one less click, the Portland, ME users (~18%) get there with the some number of clicks, and the others (~2%?) get to the disamb. page and then to where they want with one more click. Facts707 (talk) 14:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
      • The example you selected assumes that San Jose, California is the primary use. The issue here is, is there a primary use? My contention, and that of others is that there is no primary use. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC suggests three methods that may help define the primary meaning: 1) incoming wikilinks (Special:WhatLinksHere), 2) statistics from grok.se, and 3) Google web/news/book/scholars search. Comparing just Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine, the former has about 80% of the total incoming article namespace wikilinks (about 6500 vs about 1500), about 80% of the traffic in grok.se (120k vs 23k), and about 90% of both Google Scholar hits (252k vs 21.6k) and Google Search hits (19M vs 2.8M). I haven't checked all the other meanings on the list but I'm assuming they'd have less hits than Portland, Maine. For me, 80% is primary meaning. Also, Wikipedia:NCGN#United_States describes only how US city articles should be named. The article on Portland, Oregon will stay in the format proposed by the guideline (City, State) regardless of the result of this move discussion. I think 20% of our readers having to click three times to find the alternative meaning they were searching is a better solution than 80% having to click two times to find the primary meaning and 20% still having to click two times to find the alternative meaning. Just my opinion of course. Jafeluv (talk) 06:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I am glad you added "for me" in your definition of primary usage, as all the guideline says is "significantly more", which to a scientist could be 0.000001% more if it is consistent, such as the top of Mt. Everest is 0.1% farther from the center of the earth than New York, and the sidewalk is 0.000002% farther from the center of the Earth than the street. Individual editors use their own definitions of "significantly more" ranging from about 50% to about 900% more than the second most topic (a ratio of 1.5:1 to 10:1). Your 80% equates to 300% more. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 14:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Weak oppose I find Portland Me not so uncommon, personally, given its appearances in popular culture. 70.29.213.241 (talk) 07:52, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. To me in England, "Portland" first means the Isle of Portland on the south coast of England. For a long time there was an important navy base there. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:22, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Which gets 1/4th the page views of even Portland, Maine.[5] 199.125.109.126 (talk) 14:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose per Vegaswikian, plus the blind assumption in the proposal. - Dudesleeper / Talk 09:33, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • There is a section above, which gives stats. It may have been a blind assumption, but it was here all the time. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 20:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. First, if in fact Portland, Oregon is the primary topic, then it should be moved to the short name. Second, the name is clearly ambiguous. While the Oregon city may be the most likely, it is not so overwhelmingly common beyond all the others as to merit primary topic. older ≠ wiser 13:10, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Weak support based on the combined evidence of Google hits with page view statistics. Although the termm is still rather ambiguous and still may better be as a disambiguation page to facilitate the correction of mistaken links to the undisambiguated term. older ≠ wiser 12:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • It can not be moved to Portland because it is not listed in the AP style guide as one of the 30 cities in the United States that do not require being followed by the state name. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 14:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Which is all the more reason not to make the move as proposed. older ≠ wiser 14:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
      • Not at all. There may be only one place on the planet named Foo, and if it was in any other country than the United States the article would be named Foo, and if in the United States there would always be a redirect from Foo to Foo, State. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 14:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strongly Support. Actually, since looking at San Jose and how it distinguishes from San José, Costa Rica, I am changing my vote to Strongly Support from Oppose; San Jose, California "San Jose" redirects here. For the capital of Costa Rica, see San José, Costa Rica. For other uses, see San Jose (disambiguation). I was first looking at the jetBlue booking site, where only Portland and San Jose have two different meanings. Facts707 (talk) 14:09, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • By way of comparison, San Jose, CA gets 164% more page views than San José, CR, and is considered the primary usage, while Portland, Oregon gets 409% more page views than Portland, Maine. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 15:01, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Thanks for that info. And as previous posters pointed out, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is the guideline that should be applied here. It says <quote>When there is a well-known primary topic for an ambiguous term, name or phrase, much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer (significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that term or phrase should either be used for the title of the article on that topic or redirect to that article.</quote> I would think "significantly more" would be over 55% overall and 15 points ahead of the runner-up; or 35-50% overall and 20% points ahead. (Fictious eg: 35% for "orange the fruit" and 10% for "orange the color" would give "orange the fruit" the redirect for "orange".) In any event, clearly 80% of the market is "significantly more". Facts707 (talk) 15:56, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
      • • Just to interject this, it says "any other topic", not "every other topic", so you do not, as is often mistakenly done, add up the total of all hits and calculate the percentage, but instead only look for the two most used and take the ratio between them. It doesn't matter if there are two or two thousand topics that could use that name, in deciding if there is a primary usage, you only look at if there is a gap between the most used and the second most used. If there is no gap, i.e. both are used about the same, or within a very undefined 20% to 100%, then there is no primary usage. If there is a gap, 2:1, 3:1, etc., then there clearly is a primary usage. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 23:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
      • You omitted an important guideline from WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)". older ≠ wiser 18:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
        • No one has seriously proposed that any topic other than Portland, Oregon is the primary topic. I'm the one who brought up if your Auntie is named Martha Stewart, (and no relation to Martha Stewart), than for you, your Martha Stewart is the primary topic. Amazing that anyone would even think of using that as an excuse that just since they "live" on the Isle of Portland, the Isle of Portland, that no one else has ever even heard of, would possibly be the primary topic. The primary topic does not at all vary wildly with where you are in the world. If you live in Portland, Jamaica, you still look at the links and google hits and page views and say, for me it is Portland, Jamaica, but since I am editing Wikipedia, for Wikipedia, it is Portland, Oregon. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 20:02, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
          • However, the question is not whether there is any other contender to be primary candidate -- only whether there is any primary topic. older ≠ wiser 21:33, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
            • Please provide your definition of primary topic. Please be complete, mathematically definite, and concise. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 23:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
              • Why? WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is not mathematically definite. If the guideline presents no mathematical requirements (nor even implies any such illusorily precise criteria), then what is the point of asking me for such nonsense? The main criteria for determining primary topic has always been discussion and consensus -- and in the absence of such consensus there is no primary topic. older ≠ wiser 00:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
                • Actually, in this case, there is, whether you admit it or not. Discussion and consensus is intended to bring out facts, but may or may not be successful. The "criteria" is not discussion and consensus, the criteria is quoted above. No need to repeat it here, but it uses the words "much more" and "significantly more". The only debate is what is your definition of "much more" and "significantly more"? And are there any other factors to consider? 199.125.109.126 (talk) 04:49, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
                  • The criteria is quite deliberately not framed in terms of mathematical criteria. Implying that the decision of whether a primary topic is based on anything other than discussion and consensus is misleading. The facts presented so far are not convincing. IMO, the default should always be a disambiguation page in cases where the terms are ambiguous unless, after some discussion, there is consensus that one article is the primary topic. older ≠ wiser 11:40, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose. This is a clear case where the "primary" topic varies wildly with where you are in the world. To me there is only one Portland: the Isle. To others, it is various other places around the world. Changing Portland to any one of the topics would mean that all the others went to the wrong one first. The current situation is clearly in accordance with WP conventions; it is also the most logical, and the "fairest". Keep it as it is. Richard New Forest (talk) 19:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
  • No, it would if you were editing your own private Wiki that you shared with no one. Being a primary topic means much more searched for by everyone searching for it, not for me. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 20:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
    • No, I'm not saying that it ought to be a dab to suit just me – I'm using me as an example of someone for whom Portland Oregon (or Maine) would be the wrong article to be called Portland. If it was only to suit me I'd make it the Isle, but I don't think that would be helpful to those interested in other Portlands. Richard New Forest (talk) 16:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't think redirecting Portland to the Oregon city would be "unfair" to the Isle of Portland - by that logic, it is also unfair to have Newport, Worcester, and Plymouth go directly to the large UK cities intead of dab pages that serve their American counterparts. What is most logical is to direct a term to the article that the majority of readers are intending to find when typing in "Portland" - in this case, statistics indicate that that is Portland, Oregon. Cheers, Rai•me 02:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
    • It's highly unfair for Plymouth to be about the English city, it should be a dab. 70.29.213.241 (talk) 05:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
    • WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good argument in these discussions. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support - Article statistics indicate that a sizeable majority of readers are searching for Portland, Oregon when typing in "Portland," so a dab page is not the appropriate solution; a redirect, perhaps with a hatnote link to Portland, Maine and/or the Isle of Portland is. Cheers, Rai•me 02:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Portland, Victoria is not even mentioned, along with the other Portlands in the statistics. So the numbers that are presented are US centric and misleading. Even if the numbers were complete, they are not the way we determine primary usage. They may be a piece of information that can be considered, but they are not the determining factor. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
    • The numbers that are presented are in no way US centric - the fact is that the two most common uses of "Portland" are US cities, so they are being given due weight in this discussion. I don't see how the numbers are misleading at all - Portland, Victoria has 1900 hits per month, so it does not need to be mentioned. We don’t need to list out the article statistics of every term with "Portland" in its title - only the ones that a significant number of readers will be searching for. And yes, the hit counts are only a piece - other factors such as Google searches and incoming wikilinks should also be considered, and these also clearly favor the Oregon city. A disambiguation page is not the appropriate solution to everything; we should not direct the majority of readers to a dab page when most are clearly seeking one article. Cheers, Rai•me 00:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
      • No comment about the uselessness of internal page view statistics. If we consider Google hits as well, then Portland +australia -wikipedia returns some 31,100,000 hits; Portland +oregon -wikipedia returns some 29,400,000 hits and Portland +maine -wikipedia returns some 19,400,000. All of which does not make for a very convincing case that any one of these is the primary topic. older ≠ wiser 01:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
        • I count 15,700,000 for Portland, Victoria, 27,700,000 for Portland, Oregon, and 11,200,000 for Portland, Maine from the above links, which is still admittedly close. But, when we consider incoming wikilinks, Portland, Oregon has over 8,000, Portland, Maine has less than 1,500, and Portland, Victoria has less than 500. This provides a much more convincing case that the OR city is the primary topic. Cheers, Rai•me 01:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
          • Incoming links to the disambiguated titles is meaningless. What is somewhat more meaningful is an analysis over time of mistaken links made to the disambiguation page. If a vast majority of such mistaken links were to a single topic and editors persistently added new links to the dab page intending a specific topic, that would constitute reasonable evidence for a primary topic. older ≠ wiser 03:47, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
            • Incoming links are somewhat useful because they roughly indicate how likely a reader is to access one article from another - which article readers are expecting to find when typing in "Portland" is what matters the most here, and this is why I don't agree that article statistics or incoming links should be discounted in favor of the Google test. All three tools listed at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC may not be the best, but they are what we have to work with, so we need to closely examine all three. Cheers, Rai•me 13:02, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
              • Incoming links to the simple title (the disambiguation page) are useful for determining if there might be a primary topic. Comparing incoming links to the already disambiguated titles is meaningless in that regard. A single template can generate hundreds of links. A city link Portland OR is probably included on multiple templates. older ≠ wiser 17:45, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
                • I still think that comparing incoming links to the already disambiguated titles (ignoring links from templates) is still somewhat useful for the same reason that comparing article statistics is useful: it helps determine which article the readers are looking at most, and this is very useful for determining primary topic. Comparing incoming links may not be the most useful tool (neither is the Google test, for that matter), but IMO, it isn't meaningless either. Cheers, Rai•me 18:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
                  • First, how do you distinguish links that are from templates from other links? I'm not aware of any way to do that. If there is, I'd like to know. Second, what relation do links to a disambiguated title have with what people are searching for when they look for the undisambiguated title? I don't see any connection between the two. older ≠ wiser 20:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
                    • Actually, given that Portland, Maine is also linked to a great deal of articles via templates, there isn't really a need to distinguish links that are from templates from other links in this case. It isn't hard, however, to do a quick run through of some of the incoming links and see if they come from templates or article text; it is fairly obvious that Detroit is linked to Portland, OR by template and Portland Art Museum is linked via text. And as I stated above, incoming links are somewhat useful because they roughly indicate how likely a reader is to access one article from another; it is useful for the same reason that comparing article statistics is useful. Of the three ways listed at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, however, I would agree that comparing incoming links is the least useful. Cheers, Rai•me 00:01, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
                      • How does checking the links to disambiguated titles give any indication of how likely it may be for a reader to expect a specific article at the undisambiguated title? You are misunderstanding the criteria of checking incoming links listed at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. That should be clarified to describe incoming links to the undisambiguated title. That is useful fodder for analysis. older ≠ wiser 12:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
                        • It doesn't show "how likely it may be for a reader to expect a specific article at the undisambiguated title." Comparison of incoming links works in the same way as comparison of traffic statistics, or so I thought - they roughly indicate how likely a reader is to access one article from another. I guess I am misunderstanding the criteria at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but at many other move discussions I have participated in (see Talk:Plymouth (disambiguation)#Requested move), it is the comparison of how many incomng links, not only the analysis of links to the undisambiguated title, that is used to determine primary topic. I agree, the wording should be clearer to prevent such a misunderstanding in future discussions. Cheers, Rai•me 14:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
                          • Well that fact that it was used as an argument in the unending morass of Plymouth move discussions doesn't really count for much. :-) As a measure of sheer magnitude of scale, there might be some utility in such comparisons. But all it really indicates is that one unambiguous topic has lots of links while another perhaps not so many. Especially when such incoming links are easily proliferated by including the target on various templates, links to an unambiguous title only means that some editors have been industrious in linking to that unambiguous title. I suppose if there were many hundreds of times more incoming links to one particular topic than to others, that would be an indication of primary topic -- but even in such cases, the orders of magnitude would also be reflected in other criteria as well. older ≠ wiser 22:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Let's recheck those Google counts. You need to put a plus sign before the Portland as well. And "+Portland +Victoria" is more accurate than "+Portland +Australia". So:

+Portland +Oregon -Wikipedia ~ 27,600,000 +Portland +Maine -Wikipedia ~ 11,200,000 +Portland +Isle -Wikipedia ~ 3,790,000 +Portland +Victoria -Wikipedia ~ 354,000 +Portland +Dorset -Wikipedia ~ 242,000 +"Isle of Portland" -Wikipedia ~ 75,200

So Portland, Oregon is still ahead by over a 2:1 margin over the next closest. Facts707 (talk) 01:51, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

(deindenting) Using quotes gives some interesting numbers too:

• "Portland Oregon" -Wikipedia 17.3M
• "Portland Maine" -Wikipedia 2.6M
• "Isle of Portland" -Wikipedia 75k

That gives Portland Oregon a 6.6:1 margin over the next closest. tedder (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, I get somewhat different results:

• +Portland +Australia -Wikipedia ~ 30,200,000 (I don't necessarily agree this should be excluded)
• +Portland +Oregon -Wikipedia ~ 29,600,000
• +Portland +Maine -Wikipedia ~ 19,500,000
• +Portland +Isle -Wikipedia ~ 4,100,000
• +Portland +Victoria -Wikipedia ~ 1,870,000
• +Portland +Dorset -Wikipedia ~ 241,000
• +"Isle of Portland" -Wikipedia ~ 75,700

Even if we discount +Portland +Australia -Wikipedia, which I don't see why, Oregon is at best only approximately 3:2 ahead of Maine. That is still not very convincing. older ≠ wiser 03:47, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Note I was using searches for "Portland Oregon", not +Portland +Oregon, which allows them to be anywhere in the search results. More to add:

• "Portland Australia" -Wikipedia 28k
• "Portland Victoria" -Wikipedia 37k

I think the double quote searching is a lot more telling than when it happens to show up on the same page. tedder (talk) 04:15, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, using quotes do indeed give interesting results. older ≠ wiser 04:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comments relevant to any outcome: Currently, Special:WhatLinksHere/Portland is a tool that allows maintenance and cleanup of links: any link there is mechanically detected as being an error that needs the originating link to be disambiguated, and ideally the WhatLinksHere should be regularly emptied of links from main space. Such tool is Good and Desirable and its functionality should be retained by any solution adopted. It does not forbid the proposal itself, because it is stated that Portland would only become a redirect to Portland, Oregon: so the WhatLinksHere to Portland could still be regularly sorted out and emptied. But: (1) I have read above further proposals to move the Oregon city to Portland itself, and that should not be allowed: it would then forever become impossible to sort all the incoming links to find mechanically those needing repairing. (2) It is to be feared that making Portland be a redirect to Portland, Oregon will encourage many editors to be lazy and just link to Portland, making maintenance and link hygiene become perpetually much more laborious to repair all links to Portland and empty its list of incoming links. (3) Maybe the page at Portland (whether it stays a dab page or becomes a redirect) should be pagemove-protected to discourage future reckless changes without discussion. — The Little Blue Frog (ribbit) 15:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Weak oppose: In addition to points made by others such as Vegaswikian: (1) The notion of "main topic" shouldn't be just quantitative but also qualitative and international; for someone reading articles about Maine or the UK or New Zealand, most references to "Portland" will not be the Oregon one, and this accounts not for a handful of pages but probably hundreds or thousands of pages for which "Portland" means something else than Oregon – this is different from a case such the singer Michael Jackson, who is the main topic in most pages from everywhere across the world. (2) As outlined in my comment above, dab maintenance to regularly empty Special:WhatLinksHere/Portland is liable to become too laborious if editors are encouraged to just link to Portland because there's a redirect to the Oregon city, this means more people sent to the wrong page and more laborious work just to maintain the same level of link hygiene. (Note: for me too "Portland" usually does mean the Oregon one, because a lot of artists I'm interested into all seem to live or have lived there, from Al Columbia to Donna Kossy, yet I don't let it cloud the wider picture that motivates my opposition – besides, the usefulness of emptying WhatLinksHere should take precedence over "common topic" towards link hygiene in a hyperlinked encyclopedia.) — The Little Blue Frog (ribbit) 15:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: I have lived near the Oregon instance for decades, but don't think it should be the default. Even in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio—when I say I'm from Portland—they don't know whether that would mean Oregon or Maine. In Florida and Georgia, they definitely think of the Maine city first, and by a wide margin. For the redirect to be direct to Portland, Oregon, the hit count (Google or stats.grok.se) would have to be at least 9 to 1 (where "1" is the sum of all the others), like Paris. —EncMstr (talk) 15:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: I have been disambiguating links to Portland for a while now, and can attest that a lot of them really mean Portland, Oregon. However, I think redirecting "Portland" to "Portland, Oregon" would only lead more people to assume that there is only one "important" or "primary" Portland, and I'm oppose to that. --Tesscass (talk) 17:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • But wouldn't a hatnote to Portland, Maine avoid that? This was basically the compromise for Worcester: Worcester, Massachusetts gets far more raeders than Worcester, Worcestershire, but as there are really own two main uses (as seems to be the case here), it made sense to direct all traffic to the UK city with a hatnote to Worcteser, MA rather than needlessly redirecting all readers to a dab page. At least this way, half the readers get to the article they want, while the other half only have to click on a hatnote. New York is a similar situation. In Portland's case, about 75% of readers would get to the article they want (Portland, Oregon), 15% would easily to a second usage (Portland, Maine) with a hatnote, and only 10% would need to go to the dab page. Cheers, Rai•me 17:50, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
    • No. The disambiguation tools work much better when the target is to a real dab page. If an article is there, then the job is more labor intensive. Using Worcester as an example is not helpful here since that one was a very poor decision that was not made based on what the primary topic is. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:23, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

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.

"South Portland"

The usage and primary topic of South Portland is under discussion, see talk:South Portland -- 70.51.200.96 (talk) 08:18, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 4 March 2022

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. (closed by non-admin page mover) TheBirdsShedTears (talk) 01:18, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

---

Portland → Portland (disambiguation) – Portland should be a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT to Portland, Oregon whose population of 652,503 [metropolitan area 2,512,859] far exceeds the combined populations of all the other entries listed upon the Portland disambiguation page, including Portland, Maine, its state's most populous city, whose population is only 68,408 [metropolitan area 551,740]. — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 21:26, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. City population is not a criterion used to determine the primary topic. 162 etc. (talk) 23:07, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
• Weak oppose the Oregon one is the most important but probably not primary over Maine. Crouch, Swale (talk) 00:02, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I get that the Oregon city has more people, and was named after the Maine city because of Portland Penny. But I would prefer to error on having no primary topic between the two cities based on long term significance. The one in Maine is still the most populous city in that state, regardless of the actual population numbers between Maine and Oregon, and the Maine city still contributes significantly to Maine's economy, history, and so forth. Zzyzx11 (talk) 00:13, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Not more likely than all other topics combined to be the sought article. BilledMammal (talk) 02:57, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. It is more likely than all other combined topics to be sought. Nearly 70 percent of readers go from the dab page to the Oregon city article. Less than 15 percent go to the Maine article, which is the second-most sought article. Dohn joe (talk) 01:36, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

  Those numbers may merely reflect the number of inhabitants living around Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine, looking up their city. Still a parochial preference. Not that Portland, Oregon is the primary topic from a global perspective. Walrasiad (talk) 09:07, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

  You know, this argument can be used to explain away any difference in usage between populated places with the same name. – Uanfala (talk) 23:12, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, which is why it should be taken with a grain of salt. If clicks are all the evidence there is, it is not persuasive nor enough. Walrasiad (talk) 13:41, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, Wikinav gives the figure of 69%, but that excludes readers who didn't click on any link and – more significantly – readers who followed any of the links that got less than 10 clicks for the month. There are 90 links on the dab page (excluding the "see also") that got 9 or fewer clicks in January. If you factor them in, then the actual figure for Portland, Oregon would be somewhere within the range of 48–69% of readers who followed any link. If we include the readers who didn't follow any link (it's a different question whether we should), then the figure becomes exactly 43.5%. – Uanfala (talk) 23:12, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are many other Portland articles. Not primary topic. Walrasiad (talk) 08:57, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support: I don't see how Portland, Oregon isn't the primary topic --Spekkios (talk) 03:44, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support - Google News among other sources make it very very very very obvious which Portland is more notable, has more educational significance, and is the page our readers would be best served to find at the base title Portland. (It's the one in Oregon.)

  (I also looked at a "neutral" newspaper-- a well-respected Japanese English-language site. Hilariously enough, the first two mentions are actually Portland Maine (and the third is a duplicate!), but starting at the fourth it's just Oregon Oregon Oregon Oregon Oregon Oregon [6]) Red Slash 06:26, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. Nominators rationale is exceptionally weightless, but it's clear there are a significant proportion of Portland seekers who are not looking for somewhere in Oregon, and there isn't nearly enough in the other arguments to suggest moving would be a positive aid to navigation. Keeping as a disambiguation page seems best in this case. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:45, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Too many Portlands. If one was in the UK, one would think of Isle of Portland, for example. Even if one was in the USA, one would not necessarily think of the Oregon city first. Certainly not if you were in Maine! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose the city in Oregon is more prominent than any other single article title, but isn't so prominent that it is a clear primary topic. Also there will certainly be many, many incorrect links regarding other cities named Portland. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 00:32, 12 March 2022 (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.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Portland, Oregon which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:30, 12 February 2023 (UTC)