Talk:Alpha (disambiguation)

If I remember correctly, alpha is not used for direct proportions, as the article states; the symbol used is the "proportional to" (\propto in TeX), which looks like alpha but isn't. Someone correct me if I am wrong before I add it to the article. i like stuff (talk) 21:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. The "proportion symbol" is a little more "boxy" than the lowercase alpha, with the two lines on the right side parallel to each other. I'll remove it (along with some other edits to the page.) Me Three (talk to me) 15:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 14 December 2021

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: no consensus to move. There is no need to relist this discussion given that there has already been significant participation here, with a reasonable interpretation of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC on both sides.

I've looked at Talk:Alpha#Requested move as pointed out by Crouch, Swale, but that RM was closed as "no consensus" rather than "consensus against" moving the article to the base title, so there is no stronger consensus to revert to; and in any case 2010 is a long time ago which means the current setup (with the Greek letter as PRIMARYTOPIC) has been stable for a long time. (closed by non-admin page mover) feminist (talk) 05:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alpha (disambiguation) → Alpha
Alpha → Alpha (Greek letter)

– While this may be the use that most of the other topics are named after it doesn't seem like its primary. Views[[1]] show the the Greek letter has 32,923 views but the coronavirus variant has 37,385, the 2018 film has 13,727 the particle has 17,201, the group has 8,838, the Walking Dead character has 6,501, the finance has 3,377 and the course has 2,924. Alphabet has 38,350 views and is sometimes abbreviated "alpha" such as "alpha order" as well as with Alphablocks. Dominance hierarchy (alpha male) also has 11,271 views[[2]]. There was a RM in 2009 at Talk:Alpha#Requested move where there was no consensus to move yet the article was moved without discussion a few months later. Google only returns 1 result for the latter namely the WP article where it also sub heads the particle article, the course and 2018 film show up, Images also shows few results for the letter though the 1st result is the letter and again the course and 2018 film are there. Books doesn't appear to return anything for the letter but again the course is there. There are also uses like ALPHA experiment that clearly don't derive from the letter. There are a number of other letters at Alpha (disambiguation)#Letters such as Latin alpha. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:57, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom, I don't think there's a clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.--Ortizesp (talk) 19:26, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Retarget to SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant for the second move I think in recent days, due to COVID-19, alpha most likely referred to one of the COVID-19 variants. Another option would support the similar argument as Ortizesp above. 125.167.56.79 (talk) 00:30, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, I'd say that your first suggestion is just a bit too far / a bit of WP:RECENTISM. Like, I could see where you're coming from if this was Delta or Omicron (or even Lambda, possibly), but the Alpha variant DEFINITELY isn't getting the same amounts of coverage as those two. Paintspot Infez (talk) 00:39, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - The views[[3]] show that while the variant had more views a few weeks ago it doesn't now. Also while the variant was noted as spreading even faster[4] and worried people back a year ago about how quickly it spread, since when it was declining due to the even more contagious Indian variant the name "alpha" has not caught on as much as delta and omicron. Indeed around when there was mention of the Indian variant but shortly after the talk about it reduced and I think before it was normally called the "British variant" but people outside the UK and in the UK we called it the "Kent variant". Delta obviously has multiple common uses like the river even though that's named after the letter it clearly has a lot of long-term significance. On the other hand while the newest VOC has only really been known as the omicron variant as opposed to the South African variant due to the WHO giving it a name shortly after it was discovered and due to the beta variant it seems like "Omicron" doesn't have much competition other than the variant. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:16, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. I'd say there's no clear primary topic for this term. The safest bet would be to have a disambiguation page at the basename. Paintspot Infez (talk) 00:39, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support move as proposed. There is a clear absence of a primary topic, and I expect that most of the Greek letters currently occupying primary topic titles should be moved in favor of their disambiguation pages. BD2412 T 02:18, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per very clear long-term significance of the Greek letter after which all the other alphas are named. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:33, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per apple. Srnec (talk) 15:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support of course there's no primary topic; people ain't typing in "alpha" to get a letter of an alphabet. Red Slash 22:53, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Fewer than 3% of visitors of Alpha click through the hatnote link to the dab page [5]. – Uanfala (talk) 21:10, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per very clear long-term significance of the Greek letter. --Khajidha (talk) 12:55, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per long-term significance. Uanfala's link shows most people are indeed looking for the Greek letter. Vpab15 (talk) 13:00, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: alpha is first and foremost the name of a Greek letter, and all other articles listed are named after the letter. I wonder if the hatnote leading to the should be a bit more discoverable - as noted there are many things called alpha, although that doesn't stop the letter being the primary topic. User:GKFX^talk 22:26, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If this is closed as "no consensus" which it is looking like will we revert the undiscussed move in 2010 again the RM in 2009 or has too much changed since then? See WP:Stable version to revert to. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From that essay, A rough guide may be a few months isn't enough to be stable, 6-9 months it depends, longer than a year generally is and more than 2 years is. Eleven years is a good bit more than two and I think is enough to count as the status quo. User:GKFX^talk 22:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But look at the Maven (wrestler) part in "Moves". Crouch, Swale (talk) 23:09, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.