Talk:Cell (biology)

Cell (biology) was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 16, 2005	Good article nominee	Listed
July 17, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
June 27, 2007	WikiProject peer review	Collaborated
July 18, 2009	Good article reassessment	Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

Molecular Biology: MCB

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Molecular Biology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Molecular Biology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Molecular BiologyWikipedia:WikiProject Molecular BiologyTemplate:WikiProject Molecular BiologyMolecular Biology articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Molecular and Cell Biology task force (assessed as Top-importance).

Biology Top‑importance

	Biology portal Cell (biology) is part of the WikiProject Biology, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to biology on Wikipedia. Leave messages on the WikiProject talk page.BiologyWikipedia:WikiProject BiologyTemplate:WikiProject BiologyBiology articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Index

Archive 1

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by when more than 10 sections are present.

Requested move 13 July 2024[edit]

It has been proposed in this section that multiple pages be renamed and moved.

A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil.

Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly.

Links: current log • target log • direct move

Cell (biology) → Cell
Cell → Cell (disambiguation)

– This is the clear primary topic since the dab page says that is the most common term for the page. Interstellarity (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – do you have any solid backing for this rather than what another editor added to a DAB page? Remsense诉 20:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support per some combination of WP:SURPRISE and WP:NWFCTM. If you say 'cell' when you mean cell phone and I don't know what you mean by 'cell', you will clarify "cell phone". If you say 'cell' when you mean prison cell and I don't know what you mean by 'cell', you will clarify 'prison cell'. If you say 'cell' when you mean the biological unit and I don't know what you mean, you will assume I don't have a high school education and draw me a diagram of a cell. I should think end users of the site would expect about as much when using the searchbar of this website. I think the current dab is a diplomatic nicety or compromise as I'm sure WP has significant representation of individuals specializing in at least two or the three topics, which is why I mention WP:NWFCTM and the examples it gives as something to immediately consider in tandem. AVNOJ1989 (talk) 22:00, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Cell phone" is not the incisive example here: there are many things referred to primarily as "cell", as it a word used in general to characterize discrete units with like contents and biological cells are not clearly primary among them. Remsense诉 22:09, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not denying 'cell' is unique to 'cell'. Again, I explicitly mention WP:NWFCTM for a reason. Identifying a city in Bulgaria as a PTOPIC is not to say there aren't hundreds of thousands of people who have that same word as their name, but to adjust a portion of the site to accomodate for what users are most likely to expect when they type 'Sofia' into a search bar. Think of any search engine. If I type 'cell' into Bing or Google or any other search engine of choice, I am mostly being met with pages about the biological unit. If I want prison cell, I immediately know what to type in to get more relevant results. If I want cell phone, I immediately know what to type in to get more relevant results. I would be annoyed (re:SURPRISED) if I was searching for the biological unit and wasn't getting those results. Excel cells, cell towers, geometric cells, etc... I would be curious to find out what you consider to be the incisive example that overrides the cell and actually challenges the point I'm articulating. AVNOJ1989 (talk) 22:21, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While Cell (biology) has a plurality of pageviews on [1], it does not have anywhere near a majority, so it fails WP:PTOPIC on the usage criterion: "much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined". On long-term significance, we can downweight some entries like Cell (film), but other general science entries like Electrochemical cell and its subtopics (e.g. Fuel cell) are just as important, so it does not have substantially more long-term significance than everything else combined. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:58, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be able to clarify how pages like Electrochemical cell would be in contention for PTOPIC of 'cell'? The PTOPIC of Star is currently determined to be the astronomical object, but, for example, the Dallas Stars would appear to have the plurality of pageviews when analyzing the Stars disambiguation [2]. I don't mean to 'what about' here but try and understand the logic. How many of these general science entries – which I don't disagree are just as important – are you actually proposing could get away with only being titled 'Cell', and if they're not, are they still relevant to the argument as you're suggesting? AVNOJ1989 (talk) 01:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's very easy for me to use "cell" by itself in that context. Remsense诉 02:29, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think WP:NWFCTM speaks to that when it talks about partial title matches, no? AVNOJ1989 (talk) 02:51, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, and I did a biology degree. Phrases like "The cell is..." or "Cells and organisms" are unambiguous, phrases like "a cell" suggest biology but not conclusively so ("He spent the night in a cell"). I'd like this to be the definite primary topic but to the general public it's at best only weakly so, and the arguments in this thread already demonstrate where this is headed — nowhere. We might as well stop now really, but I guess we'll have to endure a week of it before it undeniably runs into the ground. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose while it seems the most common use it doesn't appear to be primary. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support for no other reason than that the dab page is such an awful place to land that I refuse to even scroll down to see where the important articles are. I'm a regular Wikipedia editor since 2005 and dab pages like this stop me in my tracks. Srnec (talk) 18:53, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't that be a good reason to improve the DAB page, not create an even more ambiguous situation? Remsense诉 18:54, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I watchlist the dab page, how can I be sure any improvements won't be rolled back? Srnec (talk) 19:00, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While admitting I personally have a very extensive watchlist: I'm not sure why you wouldn't do precisely that? Remsense诉 19:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]