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This is a non-debate

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I have read this entire talk page and it appears that most Australians have grown up with a myth, and upon having had that myth exposed, instead of accepting the new reality some have become pig headed about their myth. It's like the flat earth society - instead of accepting that the earth is a sphere they just come up with more and more tenuous arguements to assert what they want to believe. See confirmation bias

It is obvious that the New Zealand case is clearly the strongest and the Australian case lacks substance. Just as rugby has been adopted by New Zealanders as their national sport without any need to claim they invented it, pavlova should be accepted in the same way by Australians. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 09:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, that's a rubbish analogy. It's a confirmed fact that rugby was invented in the UK. It isn't remotely confirmed where pavlova was invented. Saying 'New Zealand has the strongest case' is weasel words. What does that even mean? That New Zealand has a 51% chance of inventing pavlova, therefore we just need to accept it as a fact because it's more likely that the 49% chance of Australia inventing pavlova? There's a different between confirmed facts and probabilities. Looking at the sources, it seems more likely pavlova originated in Australia anyway e.g the trove link that another person posted on this talk page. Apples&Manzanas (talk) 17:02, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Most Australians aren't arguing the point. This article is stable. Few people actually care. Format (talk) 01:48, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm an Australian, and I don't give a damn where pavlova came from. Flash Man999 (talk) 15:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only way this is ever going to be settled is if New Zealand becomes officially part of Australia. Which would be awesome.14.2.39.63 (talk) 12:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a kiwi who moved to Sydney recently and I was surprised to see many Aussies celebrating Australia Day with pavlova. It may have originated in New Zealand but it doesn't mean it can't be traditional in Australia too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.56.127.1 (talk) 06:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

its a non debate because the proof is in the newspaper in 1906... here http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/20822916?searchTerm=pavlova%20recipe&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc When you read down, it says not to add (significant) flour.. That would mean...its a pavlova ! and its australian not NZ. This article shows that the recipe was the result of evolution and multiple small deviations of the recipe, not singular invention. 220.233.121.43 (talk) 06:27, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As the article quotes: "People have been doing meringue with cream for a long time, I don't think Australia or New Zealand were the first to think of doing that."-gadfium 06:44, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In my family, we personally think the very idea to label desserts with surnames of ballerinas is weird. HOWEVER, in 1911, ice cream was an incredible rarity worthy of some loud name. In this sense, I like to think "pavlova" was supposed to be a diet-ish dessert made of juice rather than butter, cream and other fatty stuff. Of course, it's a personal opinion; I am just saying 11-11-1911 mention of pavlova ice block feels wholesome, while the same ballet-related name slapped to a cake-sized meringue feels like it would be a marketing ploy to use in our decade. Профессор кислых щей (talk) 09:35, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a cake

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It's not a cake, should change page title — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.123.110.96 (talk) 12:13, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pavlova (dessert) is a more appropriate name. A requested move is needed however. Apples&Manzanas (talk) 23:39, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive my humor, i can't help but say: the cake is a lie! Профессор кислых щей (talk) 09:50, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Description of Pavlova picture

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I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's passionfruit pulp, not "lemon sauce" 124.168.179.114 (talk) 06:32, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's passionfruit lemon sauce, which is a combination of passionfruit pulp and lemon. All the major supermarkets sell it. —Panamitsu (talk) 06:46, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Claim about 1922 Futter recipe

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The claim that was the first recipe to entirely resemble the modern Pavlova is explicitly contradicted by the cited source, which notes specific differences. The lack of vinegar and cornflour, -and obviously the 'fruit filling', where the top is lifted off, it's filled, and then replaced.2404:4404:3726:BF00:724E:FF17:4C56:A1D5 (talk) 08:01, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I checked the source, and agree, so I have made an edit that I hope reflects that. DrThneed (talk) 07:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I can edit the page as I'm relatively new but there's a recipe from 1932 that was published in NZ, which does include vinegar and is named as Pavlova (albeit smaller cakes and with coffee flavouring). It seems similar enough to warrant inclusion, no? If so, it would go between the 3rd and 4th recipes mentioned. Here's the citation: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MT19320719.2.7.1
Hoping you might be able to incorporate this as you seem to have edit privileges (if you think it meets standards). There's also one from 1933 that is covered in fruit, whipped cream and nuts: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19330722.2.145.4. It appears to have become more fleshed out as a recipe by 1934: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19341103.2.188.42.3
Thanks! LavenderSprout (talk) 04:16, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 December 2024

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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. There is a numerical majority in favour of moving (around 8:34 in support) and the arguments presented for a primary topic check out, both in terms of significance and of page views. Counterarguments were presented in opposition, arguing that Anna Pavlova was a contender for primary topic too, but ultimately these arguments were not sufficient to overcome the consensus among participants.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:07, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– Currently Pavlova is a disambiguation, however, per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, Pavlova (dessert) should be moved to Pavlova and the disambiguation page should be moved to Pavlova (disambiguation). This has previously been suggested by Schwede66 but it seems that a requested move proposal was not made as a result. It is very clear that the dessert is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. As previously identified, it has a significantly higher number of page views than all other pages by a large margin: Pageviews on wmcloud.org. Carolina2k22 • (talk) • (edits) 02:38, 3 December 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 14:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support per the pageviews analysis. ―Panamitsu (talk) 04:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Primary topic. Alexeyevitch(talk) 09:11, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per WP:DPT, let's have a look at the stats some more. WikiNav says we saw 364 views of Pavlova in October, and could identify 200 clicks to the dessert, 45 to a biography, and 158 clickstreams were not identifiable because of anonymization - they were under the threshold of 10 source-destination pairs. As the dessert is the most popular option, it's less likely clickstreams involving it were anonymized, rather those involving other smaller topics were. So the ratio of traffic is most likely ~200 : ~203. That is not an indication of primary topic at all. That just looks like half the readers want to read about the dessert, and half about other topics. (The best immediate response to this is to sort the list better.)
I noticed the overall traffic link above, and went to look at the all-time view, and included the old article names, and page views like that show a lot of variability in the dessert traffic (seasonal?), while traffic to Anna Pavlova is consistently in the same ballpark.
I don't see a long-term significance argument above, and I don't see why we should assume that a dessert has more significance than the biography of the prima ballerina.
It's not impossible that search engines like Google have learned this navigation layout and have sent us a disproportionate amount of ambiguous traffic, but we can't really know that. Setting up a primary topic might cause half the readers to be navigated in a less efficient manner, and despite a significant volume here we're not seeing an appreciable volume of complaints. A handful of editors noting this idea over the last couple of years doesn't compare well with decades of disambiguation at ~500 views/month ([1]). (Oppose) --Joy (talk) 11:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some additional thoughts to note in response. When reviewing the the WikiNav statistics (correct me if I am wrong), the dessert accounts for a relatively overwhelming number of >80% of all clicks from the disambiguation page, and even though the dessert fluctuates in page views, the page view statistics consistently still show a significant disparity between the two over the last two years.
Also, Google Ngram shows a large disparity between Pavlova and Anna Pavlova; when searching Pavlova in books, it is also clear that these are all largely focussed on the dessert (even on a Google website from a different region). Carolina2k22 • (talk) 08:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that WikiNav isn't rendering the 158 anonymized ones in the outgoing and incoming graphs. So those graphs show only identifiable clickstreams, and don't have a visual indicator for the missing data. That causes it to lead us to conclusions that aren't necessarily right. It's showing the certain parts and skipping the uncertain parts, thereby creating an illusion of certainty.
Likewise, Ngrams can give you more information - if you add wildcards to see what do books mention the most before and after the word, like this, I'm not sure we can say with any certainty that these would generally be talking about the dessert. Rather, Anna is consistently the largest item, there's a posessive form 's, the use of had and to, the N., A. and P., ... that all seem more likely to be references to people, not objects. --Joy (talk) 12:04, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I will also note that, the statistics brought out so far, which overwhelmingly display that there is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The Pavlova dessert is something known by practically every single Australian and New Zealander, this is tens and tens of millions of people. It is significantly more popular than the ballerina, and any anonymised links it is significantly and much more likely that it is related to the dessert. Carolina2k22 • (talk) 02:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why would we assume that the readership for this term is mainly in Australia and New Zealand? This is a global encyclopedia, serving not just tens of millions, but everyone.
I don't know why we'd want to assume that anonymized clickstreams are significantly more likely related to the dessert. There would need to be some sort of a rationale for that, beyond an assertion. --Joy (talk) 09:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are more English-speaking Canadians than Australians and New Zealanders combined, of which there are not "tens and tens of millions", since that double plural implies 40 million and the combined population of the two is about 32 million. Only a very small number of Wikipedians participate in any given RM, so it is important that the closer gauge how well the (necessarily local) consensus represents the global view. In other words, there is no need, as two users have done, to highlight Australian views. Srnec (talk) 21:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support The page view and ngrams evidence (even from those opposing the move) clearly demonstrates that the dessert is the primary topic. The clickthrough data above assumes that all anonymous clicks went to something other than the dessert with no justification, instead of the more logical assumption that the anonymous clicks would follow a similar pattern. Meanwhile, the page view analysis shows that the lowest ever monthly page view count for the pavlova is still higher than the highest ever for Anna Pavlova over the same period (which is still true if you add all other non-food pavlovas into her total). In the last two years, the food item has routinely had over double the monthly views of the ballerina, peaking at over four times as many views in December last year. This is one of the most clear cut examples of a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC that I've recently seen. Turnagra (talk) 09:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You can't logically assume that the ratio of 200/364 applies well to the anonymized ones, because the more popular options naturally stay in the data set and less popular options naturally get removed. Perhaps it's best to illustrate this with a couple of examples:
When we see 24 clickstreams where the source is Main Page, that means the number 24 was derived from these possibilities: 24, 14+10, 13+11, 12+12. All the others would have necessarily been removed. This can mean that there could have been e.g. 14 people who went from Main Page via Pavlova to the dessert, 10 from there to ballerina, 6 from there to the film, 5 from there to the gymnast, 4 from there to Pavlov and 2 from there to the novelist. Of these, 14+10=24 would have remained visible, while 6+5+4+2=17 would have been removed. Looking at the final output, we get the impression that only the 24 matter, even if 17 would have been a fairly comparable number to it.
Conversely, as the amount of traffic per source goes down, we can lose a disproportionate amount of clicks towards the popular destinations. For example, if in a month there were 11 navigations from cake to pavlova, of which 9 proceeded to the dessert, and 1 to the ballerina, and the last one just went away. Here we would lose the information that over three quarters of those readers definitely wanted the dessert. At the same time, these 11 or 12 lost are still overall fewer than the 17 from the previous kind of an example.
I don't have a strict mathematical proof that the first kind of an example is more impactful on the overall numbers, but it's got to be based on the distribution of probabilities: in most examples, the bulk of traffic to disambiguation pages comes from big, generic source categories like other-search, other-empty, Main Page, etc. This naturally happens because editors disambiguate any incoming links from other more specific places. Likewise, the remaining anonymized traffic from more specific places is usually restricted topically - there's only so many places where it's likely a reader would reach for the search box to get to this place. That's why I think the first example scenario is more impactful than the second.
Anyway, the most general problem that I have with this line of thinking where we choose a popular topic as primary based on a smaller or larger advantage in this or that statistical measure is that the point of a primary topic is supposed to be to mimic real-world consensus about what a term refers to. If we go against such a consensus, we risk confusing any readers who look up a term and have an expectation to only ever see that topic described there. I don't know that we can apply that to this term, because the sum of knowledge about this term seems to involve a variety of topics. Sure, maybe Australians associate this with just the dessert, but it seems highly doubtful that everyone else does. I also doubt the Australians have an expectation to be navigated directly there. Who are these readers who would say anything approaching "get me straight to the dessert, or else this isn't a serious encyclopedia!"? --Joy (talk) 19:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do understand your logic, but I'm still not seeing that this indicates there is no primary topic. Pavlova (dessert) consistently receives between two and three times the pageviews of Anna Pavlova, and just under twice the traffic of the ballerina from the dab page, with her page being the only other page with substantial outgoing traffic. There are also other measures suggested at WP:DPT which are worth considering. If I change my search region to the US (so I'm getting US results), almost all of the results in a Google Books search are for the dessert, as are those in a Google News search. I do note your analysis of the Ngrams above, but I don't think it really tells us much, as there isn't any specific word which you would expect to consistently show up beside "pavlova" when referring to the dessert, whereas many (perhaps the majority) of references to the ballerina's name will include "Anna" next to "Pavlova". While not as instructive, a regular Google search (again, with US results) also gives pretty much exclusively results related to the dessert. The dessert is also linked much more frequently, [2][3] another metric WP:DPT suggests we consider. In addition, I think I can say with confidence that any Australian (as one myself!) would expect a search for "pavlova" to take you here (I, in all honesty, doubt that the vast majority of Australians and New Zealanders would have heard of the ballerina), though of course this alone would not make it the primary topic. Taking all of these things together, the dessert seems to me to be the primary topic. – Michael Aurel (talk) 10:31, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Raw page view ratios are not determinative. For example, Talk:Fallout (disambiguation) describes a case where we maintained a primary redirect despite millions of views in difference.
Google search engine results are not reliable. Here from Europe, the exact same Google Books search link you posted has /zero/ hits for the dessert in the first two pages - and my location/profile affected only #20 (it was in Croatian - all the others were in English), and the results seem reasonable - no dumb old database lookups as it sometimes happens.
The News search gives first 4 about the dessert, 5th and 6th are about some persons who don't even have a Wikipedia article, then 5 more about the dessert, then a sportsperson (again no Wikipedia article), then another about a dessert, then some album called Pavlova's Dog, then the phrase "a pavlova response" (another modified reference to Pavlov's dog?), then a tennis player, etc. Sure, there's a lot of desserts in there, but also a lot of other stuff that may be news but also hasn't much relevance to an encyclopedia - WP:NOT#NEWS.
The 922 vs 590 difference in links also is far from impressive, and besides, that's something that can reflect editorial practices, not necessarily readership. The last time I did a bigger analysis of incoming links ratios was I think at Talk:Montserrat, where it was apparent that these variables aren't correlated all too well.
--Joy (talk) 16:03, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None of this seems to change the fact that these measures indicate that the dessert is the primary topic. All of the measures I considered were those listed at WP:DPT, and, as far as I can tell, pretty much all of them point to this conclusion. All your response seems to be doing is saying is that in some cases we would not follow just one of these metrics, and sure, that's true, but we can't not follow all of them, they're all of the measures that WP:DPT says we should use to determine the primary topic. And besides, I'm not arguing that we should take any single metric as conclusive evidence, but rather that, taken all together, these various measures strongly point to the dessert being the primary topic. – Michael Aurel (talk) 19:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the dessert is PT1, it may not be PT2. As in apple vs Apple, we can easily see why a dessert gets more internet hits than a dead ballerina. But Wikipedia isn't just here to throw the internet back at you. That is why PT2 exists. When you consider all factors, the evidence for primary topic based on hits and clicks is not overwhelming. Srnec (talk) 21:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point on the basis of PT2 is fair. I still think there's enough here to consider the dessert the primary topic, though. – Michael Aurel (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Um, I'm not sure what you were reading, but you seem to have missed the fact that a book search for 'pavlova' resulted in 0 out of 20 hits with the dessert. This measure absolutely does not indicate that the dessert is the primary topic. The others are rather moot, because a bit over half the people favoring one usage and a bit under half the people favoring all other usages is not indicative of a primary topic. All this taken together points to an absence of primary topic. --Joy (talk) 09:20, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why would we ignore what a US Google Books search says, in favour of what a Croatian Google Books search says? Far more readers come from the US than any other country. And we can't simply discount all of the other measures at WP:DPT in favour of a single measure which only weakly supports this Pavlova being the primary topic. – Michael Aurel (talk) 10:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that it's not US or HR or AU Google Books, it's that they differ based on profile of the reader. So Google Books is recognizing the ambiguity and not showing a coherent primary topic to everyone. If our robot overlords don't want to force-feed all readers the same thing, the encyclopedia shouldn't either.
And, once again, all of the other measures do not support that, that's merely your interpretation, which we disagree on. --Joy (talk) 13:10, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really see how you can disagree that the other measures I provided don't support the idea that the dessert is the primary topic (eg., how does having 2 to 3 times the pageviews not support that?), but if that's your interpretation, that's fine. I think I've said my piece – I'll leave it to others to draw their own conclusions. – Michael Aurel (talk) 21:45, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned before, raw page views are not determinative, because that is not the sole criterion. The clickstreams are inconclusive, the books ngrams are inconclusive, and the incoming links are probably the least reliable of these indicators of usage as they are based on editor behavior, not reader behavior. The guideline further advises us to think of long-term significance and of different groups of people in the audience.
In my thinking this is a bit like a difference between a plurality, a majority and a supermajority. It's easy enough to say that the dessert is the single most popular item in the set, but that doesn't mean it rises to the level of primary topic. --Joy (talk) 02:13, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I've removed a trailing period from the proposed target of Pavlova (disambiguation). Skynxnex (talk) 16:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It may be helpful to note that the legendary ballerina has been generally referenced and known to the public as simply "Pavlova", rather than by the full name "Anna Pavlova". A famous novelty song about the ballerina, titled "Pavlova", became a 1940s hit for Danny Kaye. For those who may be interested, here is a link to Danny Kaye's performance of "Pavlova". —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 19:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it's perfectly normal for people to be referred to by their surname, even if it's not strictly mononymous usage. There's no reason to believe that the contingent of readers recognizing this term as a surname isn't just as large as the contingent of readers recognizing it as a dessert. --Joy (talk) 13:12, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, those whose historical notability is such that simply a mention of their surname is sufficient, such as Mozart, Balzac or Einstein become, for most intents and purposes, mononymous and, likely, no one would accept a culinary preparation named after Einstein to be primary over him simply because those who type "Einstein" are presumed to be researching the dish, while those who search for the great man are expected to type "Albert Einstein".
In the field of dance, Pavlova or Nijinsky are comparable to such mononymous redirects as Beethoven, Disraeli or Proust in their respective fields. Here is the cover of a book simply titled "Pavlova", with the interior subtitle, "Pavlova: Repertoire of a Legend". It may be also noted that the dessert is sometimes referenced as "the Pavlova" or "a Pavlova", thus indirectly acknowledging that simply "Pavlova" is the legendary ballerina. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 17:09, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I support the view that the dessert is the primary topic by long-term significance, noting that any use of a surname is necessarily a partial title match. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The ballerina, who is very often known simply by her surname, is as notable as the dish named after her per long-term significance. No primary topic here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:48, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. On than the dessert and Anna Pavlova, every other topic is so far below them in page views that I easily conclude that all of them combined make a negligible difference. Between the dessert and Anna Pavlova, the dessert has many more page views (even before discounting for the fact that Anna Pavlova is not always known as or sought by the term "Pavlova" by itself), and many more outgoing clicks from the disambiguation page. I disagree with Joy's analysis which relies heavily on implausible assumptions about the intentions of clicks not in the dataset. As for ngrams, I don't think any useful information has been shown from them. Adumbrativus (talk) 08:01, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Adumbrativus I don't think my analysis heavily relies on one specific clickstream aspect - truth be told, I bring this upon myself by engaging on the clickstream topic at length. Sorry.
    I've discussed many more arguments, including but not limited to:
    • general level of interest in the ballerina article
    • seasonality of the high interest in the dessert
    • a lack of a coherent long-term significance advantage for the dessert
    • a lack of complaints from readers over decades of disambiguation
    • a lack of indications from Google Books Ngrams that most references would be to the dessert
    • general indications of how readers approach surnames
    The lack of clarity from the clickstreams comes on top to reinforce all that ambiguity, it's not the prerequisite argument. --Joy (talk) 10:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your response. I'll clarify that my mention of you was meant only as part of my position on clicks/views here. I appreciate that you're making a number of other arguments. Adumbrativus (talk) 12:13, 7 January 2025 (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.
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