Talk:Main (river)

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At or near[edit]

Is the confluence at Mainz or near Mainz? Rich Farmbrough 15:16, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is opposite Mainz.

The funny thing is, it was once within the Mainz city limits, but in 1945, the city was split in two halves administratively, and Mainz was reduced to the neighborhoods on the left bank of the Rhine, the right bank and the last miles of the river Main fell to other communities. So, today, the confluence of the river Main is right opposite the historic city center, but outside the city limits. --Magadan (?!) 10:50, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

river length[edit]

The info box states the river length is 500 something kms, but the text claims more than 1000. (The river's mouth is 1000 kilometers away from the junction with the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal).

Move discussion in progress[edit]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Main (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 02:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology[edit]

"The name derives from the Latin Moenus or Menus": more likely, the name derives from Common Germanic Mainaz and was recorded as Moenus or Menus by invading Romans. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. 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 move request was: move. Between pipes and rivers, consensus is there is no primary topic. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Main → Main (river) — While this may be the primary use for rivers it is not the primary use for main. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Main (disambiguation) → Main

There are many uses for main which appears to make it clear that there is no primary use. In addition, adding the s for mains and we get a very confusing set of pages for main and mains which in some cases are used interchangeably. Better to have both at dab pages to lessen confusion and avoid routing readers to a page that they would be surprised to be at, especially given that main is a rather common adjective in the English language. I'll add that main is also commonly used by itself to refer to electric power lines, water lines and sewer lines when they are the supply sources. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support: "Main" is far too common to not be a disambiguation page. –CWenger (talk) 21:26, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nomination. If there was to be a primary topic then "main" in the sense of utility main would be a more likely candidate. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 22:06, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Main is a lot more than just a river, and the river is not very commonly known (or at least, I've never heard of it). I think Main should go to a disambiguation page, because there are so many articles with the title Main. --Thekmc (talk) 22:38, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support. If you'd asked me to guess the ten most likely candidates for what this article was about, I wouldn't have come up with a river.--Mike Selinker (talk) 04:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Looking at the number of possibilities on the dab page, the move looks intuitively obvious to me. Snowman (talk) 23:45, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The only notable entries (apart from this page of course) on the DAB page are not actually called "Main", but only contain the word. Lars T. (talk) 23:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment if they aren't notable, they wouldn't have articles, as they have articles, your statement appears wrong. 65.94.45.238 (talk) 06:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. @65.94.45.238: cut him some slack; by "notable" he clearly means "important". --Bermicourt (talk) 07:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment and the Wikipedia article traffic statistics seems to support that. If the people actually wanted to see a dab page, why don't they go there, even after first hitting Main? Lars T. (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support definitely too common, especially since "The Main" is "main street". 65.94.45.238 (talk) 06:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - and "The Second" is the Second Street/Avenue/Bank of Whatever, yet somehow Second is about some unit of time measure. Lars T. (talk) 21:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. This is easily the primary meaning; the Main is a major and very well-known European waterway. The only meaning that could trump it is the adjective "main", but that is a Wiktionary word, not a suitable Wikipedia article. "WP:ICANTHINKOFOTHERPHRASES" with the word "main" in them somewhere is no logic for a move. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. "Main" should indeed be a disambiguation page. mgeo talk 10:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom and Mike Selinker. Yes, Main is always going to be a wiktionary-like entry and/or a disambiguation page, but hardly the only one here. And the river is far down the list of items I associate with the word Main in English. --20% (talk) 02:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Although the English adjective first comes to mind and that there are subjects that contain the word main, the river is the primary use of this as a single noun. However for people not familiar with European geography/history/economics I can see it will not be an obvious choice. Question is, is a majority lack of knowledge on a subject or a WP:WORLDVIEW bias or people inputting the wrong spelling of another word a reason for not accepting this as the primary page?--Traveler100 (talk) 17:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. You make a good point which ought to be more widely discussed as it causes problems in other disambiguation discussions. Where there is no other contender for the actual article title, as here, it should be de facto the primary topic, even if it is not universally known. Otherwise we open the debate up to all sorts of spurious contenders: there are hundreds of phrases with "main" in them, but only one topic that has "Main" as its proper name. And it is a pretty significant waterway, we are not talking about a little-known stream! --Bermicourt (talk) 08:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. What other encyclopedia topic would anyone be looking for under the name "main"? None that I can think of. (If you want Main Street, you type Main Street.) This is a very well-known river, especially given that Frankfurt is "am Main", so no reason to disambiguate the article title just because it happens to be spelt like an English word.--Kotniski (talk) 17:32, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A page called "Main" is just too ambiguous in English. That is not the river's fault, but it is still true. — Gavia immer (talk) 04:47, 14 February 2011 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.

3854751748 2403:FBC0:1000:0:0:0:0:1094 (talk) 16:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Skip 2403:FBC0:1000:0:0:0:0:1094 (talk) 16:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Links to be fixed[edit]

I would like to remind all those who supported the move in the discussion above that there are many links to be fixed, as per WP:FIXDABLINKS. Over 400 other Wikipedia pages contain links to "Main", most of which (but probably not all) refer to the river because that was the topic associated with this title until earlier today. All those pages need to be reviewed and the links retargeted to the correct article. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Length[edit]

The opening section names the Main as the longest tributary of the Rhine with 525 km (en; german Wikipedia says 527). But the Moselle seems to be slightly longer: en:546, de: 544; not to mention sometimes even the much longer Meuse is considered a tributary of the Rhine. So the Main should rank at 2nd odr 3rd position. It is, however, the longest tributary from the right side. I2003:CF:3728:8B00:E928:FF1A:90D6:C572 (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]