Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

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[edit] Dabbing terms that are often borrowed

I recently sorted through the links to the Templar and piped most of them over to Knights Templar. While doing this I noticed that a number of pages linked to Templar as a reference to fiction organizations unique to the fictional world the article was based on (for example Twokinds). In general, I took the following approach:

  1. If the article dealt with the actual Knights Templar, I dabbed to Knights Templar.
  2. If the article dealt with an alternate history version of the Knights Templar (i.e. one where they weren't wiped out in the 1300s), I dabbed to Knights Templar.
  3. If the article dealt with an organization that borrowed the name "Knights Templar" without any apparent connection to the historical Knights Templar, or because calling a group of people Templars is neat, I removed the link.

Thoughts? --Burzmali (talk) 14:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. I take the same approach with other terms. Just make sure the edit summary explains what you are doing. (John User:Jwy talk) 15:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
One concern on point 3 (and maybe 2)... sometimes, in a "notable-enough" fictional universe, fictional organization (or things) based on, inspired by, or simply named after real organizations may have/need their own pages. My guess is that this is likely to happen in at least the Star Trek and Star Wars fictional universes, but probably others. The key would be that if the fictional version was notable enough to have its own article (or section in another article), there should be a link pointing to that, not the "real-world organization".
Gee, I bet people would like an example... let's see... Columbia (Star Trek) named for the Space Shuttle Columbia. Illuminati (Marvel Comics). so, my point is that if you see Illuminati linked in an article pertaining to Marvel Comics, the best disambiguation is to direct it to the universe-specific article, not to remove the link as in 3 above. --Marcinjeske (talk) 22:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I acknowledge this possibility, but if the base article links straight to the Dab, confirming the presence of the alternate article can be difficult. For example, if the comic book Foo had a group of Templars, they could be at Templars (Foo), Templars (Foo comic), Templars (fictional organization), etc. Burzmali (talk) 16:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it may require a disambiguator to familiarize themselves a bit more with the topic of the article... my main concern is that third option, removing the link... where clearly someone meant to link to something there... a good resource would be if there is a disambiguation page for that topic - in the case of the Knights Templar, we actually have a dab page Knights Templar (disambiguation) making this easy:
The Knights Templar was a medieval Christian military order prominent in the Crusades, from the early 1100s until the early 1300s
Knights Templar may also refer to:
Knights Templar (Freemasonry)
The Knights Templar (Deus Ex), a fictional organization in the Deus Ex series
Knight Templar (The Saint), a 1930 novel by Leslie Charteris
I think we can rely on dab pages as a good test of whether an "option 4" makes sense - in this case, mentions of Templar in articles related to some video games, conspiracy theories, and spy novels may be appropriate to redirect to one of these rather than the main article. (I broadened the scope from just Deus Ex and The Saint because it is reasonable that an article about other video games may refer or compare with Deus Ex, and so on.) . I realize it is more work, but I think before choosing to unlink, dab pages should be references to see if there is a more specific article relating to that specific twist on the main topic.
Please note that getting rid of redirects is not always a good thing... for instance, when a redirect is parked somewhere pending a future article... for instance let's say a character is only notable as part of a series (think Spock when Star Trek first came on the air), but later merits its own article (Spock in the present day)... so at first Spock would be a redirect to Star Trek, but eventually the redirect would become an article... if all the links to Spock had gotten piped to Star Trek, then the result would be that people would no longer be directed to the most relevant article. Just something to keep in mind.--Marcinjeske (talk) 10:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarifying Set Index

The set index idea seems an elegant solution to a certain level of disambiguation need. This came up over on WP:HN [1] [2] but I thought the details are best thrashed out here.

Someone stated (rightly in my opinion) that The War of the Worlds (film) was a set index and removed the template [3]. My only concern was that it wasn't replaced with anything, as there was nothing to replace it with, which could lead to confusion over the nature and purpose of such a page. I suggested using a generalised form of Template:Shipindex that would also add the page to something like "Category: Set index", a child of Category:Disambiguation, which could then contain things like Category:Ship disambiguation - which would tend to clarify the structure there.

Of course, we might need to look at naming but I think it is largely OK and avoids messiness like "List of XX named XX". We also might need to look at whether we can add additional categories (as discussed in the section above) - I'd say that it would work fine but again it is an issue we probably need to decide on and make sure the guideline reflects this. (Emperor (talk) 19:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC))

Set indexes are not (or should not be) children of disambigs. Set index articles are articles, disambiguation pages are not. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not so sure they shouldn't be. They are not articles in any conventional sense. They (at least ship index and mountain index) are more like specialized disambiguation pages than they are like articles. Currently {{Shipindex}} adds pages to Category:Ship disambiguation, which is a subcategory of Category:Disambiguation. Similarly, {{Mountainindex}} adds pages to Category:Disambiguation lists of mountains, which is likewise a subcategory of Category:Disambiguation. I don't see any problem with that arrangement. older ≠ wiser 19:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, currently as it is stands, set index is discussed on the main page, it is an alternative to the standard disambiguation page (just with more flexible layout rules), the templates use a form of the disambiguation symbol and the specific indexes are children of disambiguation. If the consensus is it isn't then some work is needed to separate it firmly from disambiguation.
Just from a practical point of view it is certainly a useful extra weapon in our armoury for disambiguation - it just happens to be more tightly focused on a specific topic and allows people flexibility on layout (see the talk on the use of tables in disambiguation - it makes more sense that the pages that tables work on are really set indexes).
Clearly this issue was even in more need of clarification than I thought. (Emperor (talk) 20:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC))
This seems to have gone quiet despite there obviously being a need for clarification. Would it help if I mocked up a set index footer template? (Emperor (talk) 12:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC))
I think it is a mistake for the ship and mountain index articles to be children of Category:Disambiguation. Ship index was set up first, I made the mountain index have parallel structure, but I don't think I did the right thing. There has been endless ink spilled in discussing the difference between a set index article and a disambiguation page: if we blur the distinction, then people get confused and the temptation is to get rid of the set index articles entirely. hike395 (talk) 02:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. The fix is to have a parent category like "Category:Set Index" and then the ships and mountains can then become children of it, without (you'd hope) much argument. The debate would then move on to what the parent of that Set Index category should be and I'd suggest make it parallel to disambiguation. However, having the parent means we can be flexible with the solution. Somewhere down the line you could put the mountain and ship set indices up for renaming and I you'd get my support, and if we have kicked around the issue enough here, it should get the support of a lot of people here. Such a move would also suggest the set index section should probably be split off to its won article.
Also note there is discussion on set indexes below that touches on this too, as {{SIA}} automatically adds the Disambiguation category which seems a mistake. (Emperor (talk) 14:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC))
One thing that keeps me wondering is why do we even have set index articles in the first place? Why not indeed get rid of them and amend the guidelines for the dab pages so they are flexible enough to deal with situations set index articles are aiming to resolve? The way I see it, we simply need to allow red links on dab pages and allow referencing of said red links (not necessarily in a separate section even; it could be done in comments or on talk), as well as to allow longer descriptions for cases when dab pages contain entities of the same type (ships, localities, hospitals, etc.). Surely that would alleviate a lot of confusion? Building rules around a completely separate concept of set index articles just seems awfully redundant, considering how much overlap between them and disambiguation pages exists...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
My main concern is that the strictness of WP:MOSDAB is what keeps the disambiguation pages functional and easy to use (people get in and get on again with the minimum of fuss) and making it more flexible might help with the handful of set indexes at the cost of the vast number of disambiguation pages. I would imagine attempts to amend it would be met with stiff resistance and I'd probably find myself sympathising with such suggestions. (Emperor (talk) 19:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC))
I don't believe merging the dab and SIA concepts would affect MOSDAB's strictness all that much. As far as red links go, there have been complaints already, and if extended descriptions are only allowed on topical dabs (list of places, ships, etc.), then we essentially achieve the same results but get rid of a redundant SIA concept at the same time. The bulk of the dab pages, however, is not going to be affected at all.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Only one link per entry?

The manual of style for disambig pages says that, pretty much, each entry should only have one link. However, in actually looking through disambig pages I find that at least 25% of them have at least one entry with multiple linked words, and sometimes all entries do. Am I correct in assuming that all of these should likely be fixed, and that this is because inexperienced editors are inappropriately attempting to be helpful by linking words all over the place when they actually shouldn't be? It would appear to me that 10,000+ of these disambig pages need to be fixed in this regard. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 22:02, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes you are right and we are working on it :) Abtract (talk) 22:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Is this being done in any organized fashion, or just "pick a part of the list and start clicking on articles"? I fixed (to some extent) a bunch of the disambig pages starting with Pa. I probably oughta read through the manual of style page on this more thorougly so I can fix whatever else is wrong while I'm at it. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 22:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Look at mos:dab for some clues on style ... look here for pages tagged for cleanup or these and these for a full listing of dab pages. To be honest we are not that well organised with occasional bickering creeping in here and there ... come join us. :) Abtract (talk) 22:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
The [4] category is unintentionally silly, in that the list of disambig pages which don't need cleanup is probably smaller than the actual full list of those which do. But I might go through and clean that out. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 01:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify: It's one navigable link, or blue link, per entry. Entries with a red link on the dabbed term should also have a blue link to an article that discusses, or at least mentions, the disambiguated topic--although this guideline has been debated recently (see the discussion here). --ShelfSkewed Talk 23:33, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, actually I was aware of that, I was just being lazy in my initial explanation. I'm going to read the manual of style on disambig links carefully, though, so I can try to fix everything wrong with the pages as I go along (and so I won't "fix" things the wrong way). --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 01:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Set index query

mos:dab makes it clear that set index article are not dab pages so I am trying to remove the Gorki dab statement at the bottom of the page ... sadly I cannot, can anyone help, what have I missed? Abtract (talk) 15:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

{{SIA}}, for some reason unknown to me, classifies articles into Category:Disambiguation. However, Gorki looks a lot like a disambiguation page to me.... --Russ (talk) 16:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought it might be that ... I have no idea how to change it, do you? As to whether it is a dab page, I can only say it went through a lot of chat to arrive where it is ... see talk ... I think its ok but who knows? :) Abtract (talk) 16:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

We also want to avoid {{SIA}} as an "escape hatch" for editors to use on random dab pages as an excuse to include red links. Baykal (disambiguation) (while not so tagged) had a similar conversation, and was even less of a set-index. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree - I was looking for clarification on this above. To answer some of the above point:
  • The category is coming in via "includeonly" tags within the template.
  • Gorki probably does count as a set index although the "see also" seems like a bit of a cludgy work around to have your cake and eat it. I think it should be possible to refine it -probably with "Gorki (disambiguation)" and move the other bits there.
As discussed above it might be worth either removing the includeonly or switching it to one that automatically includes it in a "Set Index" category. It wouldn't allow for much flexibility but note {{surname}} (which is similar in that it is a parallel effort to disambiguation) has a way to turn this off if there are subcategories like the ship and mountain indexes (indices?). This while a bit more complicated in the coding (although we can lift it from {{surname}}) would allow rapid and easy categorisation (and people could keep an eye on that and refine the categories where needed).
Having a "Site Index" parent category would also allow you to build the site index structure in parallel to the disambiguation areas which would help avoid confusion (I'd also suggest splitting of the site index section here to start a new article so we are clear about the distinction).
Quick changes but they should really help clarify the issue and make the efforts in this area more focused. (Emperor (talk) 14:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC))
I've also dropped some thoughts on changes to the template here: Template talk:SIA and linked back here to keep things joined up. (Emperor (talk) 15:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC))
J, the discussion at Talk:Baykal (disambiguation) had nothing to do with set index articles. No one ever attempted to classify that disambiguation page as a set index article; the (applicable portion of the) discussion was strictly over the inclusion of red links on disambiguation pages and over the practicality and usefulness of the most recent amendment to the MOSDAB's red links clause.
As for {{SIA}}, I replied to Emperor's inquires at Template talk:SIA. In my opinion, the suggestions made by Emperor make perfect sense. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


I am finding one element of the Set Index guideline very confusing. To quote from the page:

Sometimes, there will be a disambiguation navigation page and a set index article with a similar name. For example, there is some topic "Like this one" that consists of "Concepts of this type" plus other meanings. In this case, the disambiguation navigation page should be named Like this one and the set index article List of Concepts of this type named Like this one. Alternatively, if the the "concepts of this type" are dominant, then the set index article should be named Like this one and the disambiguation page Like this one (disambiguation). Whether to use this alternative follows the guidelines for naming disambiguation articles.

I think the combination of the red links and "Like this one" make it very hard to follow... I would fix it myself except I am not quite certain I get what it meant. --Marcinjeske (talk) 04:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The red links is there for a reason. We are an evolving encyclopedia, so blue links tend to change. This could cause the meaning of the paragraph to change. In particular Like this one was chosen because it's a protected title, so it's not ever going to turn blue. In particular the current set of names was created after this discussion Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 26#"For example, there is some topic XXXX..." at the time the guidline looked like [5] Taemyr (talk) 10:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Here's a concrete example:
The thinking here is that the mountain meaning isn't clearly dominant, so that Glass Mountain becomes the main dab page, and List of peaks named Glass gets the longer, more awkward title.
Does this make sense? hike395 (talk) 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Required deletion?

I just was looking through WP:MOSDAB, and according to that, most of the links in Sexuality should be deleted and redirected to Human sexuality. However, it has several songs named Sexuality, and any future links to Sexuality would redirect to Human sexuality. I am not sure if I should leave it like it is, or redirect it, or what. Mynameisnotpj (talk) 05:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps most of the links should be deleted, but if you're asking should the page be turned into a redirect to Human sexuality, then no. It should definitely be a dab page, and should include at least the song and album titles and an entry for Human sexuality. I'd also add an entry for non-human animal sexuality and that might be it, just those five. --NapoliRoma (talk) 09:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I would think Human sexuality should be seen as the primary topic for sexuality so the latter should be moved to sexuality (disambiguation) and sexuality should rd to Human sexuality. The specific instances of Human sexuality, Heterosexuality,Homosexuality etc. should probably be removed from the dab. Taemyr (talk) 10:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I have cleaned it how I interpret mos:dab ... several items deleted with an important addition (list etc). Abtract (talk) 10:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I see it like Taemyr, but I also think the current version is alright. – sgeureka t•c 11:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hatnote question

There's a small dispute on Barack Obama as to whether the current hatnote,

"Barack" and "Obama" redirect here. For other uses, see Barack (disambiguation) and Obama (disambiguation).

is sufficient to disambiguate the Senator from his father, Barack Obama, Sr., or whether an additional hatnote should be added saying something like:

This page is about the United States Senator and presidential candidate. For his father, the Kenyan economist, see Barack Obama, Sr..

I can't tell from the MoS what the standard for something like this is. The only comparison I can think of is Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill (1620-1688) and Winston Churchill (novelist). Winston Churchill has no hatnote linking to his namesakes, but it does have a hatnote pointing readers to Churchill (disambiguation). However, I wasn't sure whether that represented an actual guideline or just something that was locally determined. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Since there are two people named "Barack Obama", an additional hatnote could be added, such as {{For|the Kenyan economist|Barack Obama, Sr.}} before or after the current redirect hatnote. Churchill should (or could) also have such a hatnote. See also William Shakespeare. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I usually add dates to hatnotes like that: {{For|the Kenyan economist (1936-1982)|Barack Obama, Sr.}}. Not sure whether it's in line with the rules, but it seems helpful. PamD (talk) 23:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Another option is to use the {{Distinguish}} template, though I have to admit I don't see this as being a terribly popular template. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, folks. So should a separate disambiguation page exist for the other three Winston Churchills (I'd forgotten Winston Churchill (grandson)) at Winston Churchill (disambiguation), in addition to the current dab page at Churchill (disambiguation)? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
It could exist, or {{two other uses}} could be placed on Winston Churchill to handle it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Ireland

Disambiguation question at Talk:Northern_Ireland#NI_disambig about removing the hatnote. Any guidance would be nice. WLU (talk) 18:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

To summarize, the discussion is over the inclusion of the hatnote:
This article is about the constituent country. For the European constituency, see Northern Ireland (European Parliament constituency).
I've since added the same hatnote to Denmark, the Czech Republic and adjusted the disambiguation pages for Cyprus, Germany, Luxembourg and probably some other stuff, so there's more than just one page affected. WLU (talk) 19:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Other opinions on dabbing Nostradamus

I'm looking for some outside opinions as to whether or not Nostradamus should have a hatnote dab that links to Nostradamus (disambiguation). User:PL thinks that having a hatnote is unnecessary, and if any dab link should be present in the article, it should be under the "Popular culture" section, or at the top of the actual Nostradamus in popular culture article, because that's where readers will be looking for those links. I disagree and find this to be inconvenient to the reader and counter to the purpose of disambiguation. The passage from WP:DAB#Usage guidelines that says: "disambiguation links should be placed at the top of an article. Bottom links are deprecated, since they are harder to find and easily missed" applies to this situation, in my opinion. Any thoughts? Nufy8 (talk) 19:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of disambiguation pages is to allow pages with similar names to be easily found. The convention for this, as you seem to know, is to have the link to the disambiguation page at the top of the page. I understand the point that many of the things listed at Nostradamus (disambiguation) are listed at Nostradamus in popular culture, but I think that is actually the fault of the disambiguation page. Articles should be linked to on a disambiguation page if it is likely that someone will search simply for "Notradamus", and mean one of those page. Many of the pop-culture references at Nostradamus (disambiguation) have much more detailed titles; the only two links I'd really feel necessary to keep are the first two, Nostradamus (album) and Nostradamus (arcade game), since their names are truly the same name as the article. Regardless of that, though, if there is a disambiguation page (which there is), it should be linked to at the top of Nostradamus. -- Natalya 20:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't personally think that a disambiguation link is needed at all, since the name Nostradamus isn't ambiguous, and everybody knows who it refers to. If readers have some other specific name based on it in mind, they have only to input it. If they are merely looking for Nostradamus games and albums in general, they can find them under 'Nostradamus in popular culture', which contains all the relevant sections and is specifically linked to by the main article.
The only justification for a disambiguation link would be if there were articles on other members of the Nostradamus family or other people called Nostradamus, which there aren't. --PL (talk) 09:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
"Nostradamus" is ambiguous for dab purposes, because there is the person, an album and an arcade game of the same exact name. For everything else, I agree with Natalya. – sgeureka t•c 10:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
"everybody knows who it refers to" is dangerous: do you think everyone interested in the album really knows/cares that it's named after the seer? There are multiple entities which have the title "Nostradamus", so there is a dab page, so there is a hatnote linking to the dab page from the article at the prime, non-disambiguated, meaning. Simple. An alternative would be to have "Nostradamus" link direct to a dab page, but I hazard a guess that most people would agree that the seer is the primary sense of the word, so the present situation is correct, and helpful. PamD (talk) 10:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Nostradamus the man is definitly the main topic of all pages named "Nostradamus", but, as much as we would like, we can't assume that everyone who comes to Wikipedia will know who Nostradamus is. Hence the need for the link to the disambiguation page. -- Natalya 11:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we move this discussion over to Talk:Nostradamus, as this is about application of the guidelines to that specific page. --Marcinjeske (talk) 11:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion on Talk:Ubuntu

Currently there is a disagreement on whether it should be a WP:REDIR to Ubuntu (operating system) or Ubuntu (philosophy), or stay as a disambiguation page. Anyone who is neutral on the topic (not me, I use Ubuntu) care to comment? ffm 23:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request to change disambiguation guideline

I've outlined the below issue as it relates to the guideline that says:

"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)"."

Lets assume there is article X and article Y. Article D is the disambiguation page for article X and Y. If there is 100 to 1 ratio of people interested in article Y versus X wouldn't it be better to point to the article that the 100 people are looking for? For the people interested in article X they get to read the disambiguation text as the first thing on article Y and can click on it.

Rather than using non empirical method for determining primary article, how about something more concrete? The thrash can be attributed to a few determined people rather than what is actually should be a primary topic. How many thousands of people do we need to inconvenience with a disambiguation page when we can determine what the vast majority really want? My suggestion is to change the guideline using more emperical methods rather than relying on people who aren't aware of how many zillion people they are inconveniencing by not pointing to the article they want to see. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 02:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

For reference, this comes as part of the discussion at Talk:Ubuntu. -- Natalya 02:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
As for changing it to a more empirical method, what more empirical method did you have in mind, Daniel.Cardenas? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Can we agree what is ideal? My thought is if that individual page views per time period would be the ideal metric. If that is not available then we will have to move to secondary metrics. What metrics exists to indicate page popularity? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 13:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
If we can come up with a foolproof method that allows us to determine which article is more primarily a topic, then I think that's great. I'm very apprehensive about being able to find such an options, though, which is why I am hesitant. Yes we could use Google page scores, or number of hits on the Wikipedia page, or something like, but even so, I'm not sure if that will give a truly accurate measurement. What if one Wikipedia page gets more hits only because it is easier to find? For some issues, I imagine there would be tons of internet pages for one of the topics, and not many for the other. That doesn't necessarily mean that that topic is more primary over the other.
We should use primary topics when there is clear consensus that one topic is obviously more prominent than the other. If there is valid discussion on which is more primary though, even if there are more people on one side, to me, that indicates that there is enough discrepancy that neither should be considered the primary topic. For example, Boston is about the city in Massachusettes. I'm sure that if someone from any of the other towns named Boston in the United States felt that their town should be given equal footing with Boston, MA, almost everyone would clearly see that that doesn't make sense. However, when it's not that clear, I would personally rather leave both pages on equal footing. That is just my opinion though; we are trying to work for the good of the encyclopedia, so I hope that we can figure out something that everyone can feel okay with. -- Natalya 14:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
What if one Wikipedia page gets more hits only because it is easier to find?
Do you have an example?
For some issues, I imagine there would be tons of internet pages for one of the topics, and not many for the other. That doesn't necessarily mean that that topic is more primary over the other.
Does this comment relate to counting google page hits rather than wikipedia article page views? I researched a bit and wikipedia page views are available so google hits aren't needed. http://dammit.lt/wikistats/   http://stats.grok.se/
We should use primary topics when there is clear consensus that one topic is obviously more prominent than the other.
Are you disagreeing that even if page Y gets 100 times as many hits as page X there still should be a disambiguitation page? What you are saying to me, is that if there is a few obstinate people, then a disambiguation page is required regardless of how popular one page is over another. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 15:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

For my money these should be the priorities for deciding primacy: 1) First would come articles at the root word, which would include articles at any variant of the root word included in that dab page (so plurals, punctuation/capitalisation/accent variants are all included). My reason for these taking precedence is that other editors have already decided they are primary by electing to use the bare root word for the title (for example Title rather than Title (subset). If there are no root articles, then 2) By common consent (often known as consensus). When the majority of editors consider one (or more) meanings to be primary, then they are so. If there is doubt then imho there is no point in resorting to google hits or whatever because such methods tend to favour the commercial rather than the real. Failing consensus, there is no primary topic. All of course imho. Abtract (talk) 15:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify what you are saying. Assuming root word is not an issue and there is no clear consensus. If we see that page Y is 100 times more popular than page X on wikipedia, that is not sufficient information to decide which page should be the primary page because something about it "tend to favour the commercial"? Please don't talk about google hits, no one is suggesting that. I'm suggesting wikipedia page popularity. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
What I am saying is that, if the case is good, consensus will be reached. I don't favour enforced choice brought on by "hits". Abtract (talk) 16:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, your idea breaks down when taken to the logical conclusion. Bleach (manga) → Bleach is just one of the wacky examples that such a policy would encourage. We already have enough of a problem with WP:BIAS. Burzmali (talk) 16:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

O.K. I agree. How about adding to the guideline to say that wikipedia page popularity can be used as a data point to help reach consensus? Such as the tool: http://stats.grok.se/   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 16:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the hatnotes at bleach etc assuming that was what Burzmali had in mind. And I have no objection to that sort of change DC. Abtract (talk) 17:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I think what Burzmali was saying was that based purely on the criterion on most page views, the manga article Bleach (manga) should be moved to Bleach and the other to something like Bleach (cleaning product). That simply illustrates why any sort of hard-coded numerical criteria based on page popularity is ill-advised. older ≠ wiser 17:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC) PS but your edits to the hatnotes on the articles are an improvement. older ≠ wiser 17:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
If you think that, you might like to look at the changes since then. Abtract (talk) 23:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
For those who didn't look up the stats, Bleach had 235369 hits in March, while Bleach (manga) had 659274. I'm guessing that most of us can agree that the cleaning product is clearly the main topic, if for no other reason that it is far more widely known in life, even if the comic had more internet hits. A lot of that probably has to do with internet culture, and technology in general. But still, it is our goal to make an unbiased encyclopedia, not biased by anything, whether it be national preference or the fact that it is online. -- Natalya 20:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, but how many people that went to Bleach (manga) went to Bleach first, scoring a hit for both pages? I figure that few people are entering "Bleach (manga)" into the search bar. Since Bleach isn't a dab page, it's hard to guess how many had to stumble over the wrong page, then a dab page, to get to the clearly more popular Bleach (manga)... Burzmali (talk) 21:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
That's why the desired empirical methods won't work -- they don't exist. Any metric you can come up with can be gamed, broken, or otherwise fail in any number of cases. In this case, an encyclopedia topic on "Bleach" can be expected to be about "Bleach", and if one means the manga, one should either (a) use a manga encyclopedia or (b) click through the dab to find it. Similarly, Muse doesn't go to the band and Bones doesn't go to the TV show. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] General Principles

I want to start my comment by outlining a few general principles that I think are applicable to disambiguation and this issue in particular, then touch specifically on the Ubuntu and Bleach issues.

  • Wikipedia's main goal is to inform the reader in a neutral fashion
    • disambiguation serves to inform the reader of other uses of a term, which in turn often provides context for their knowledge of the desired topic
  • There is a fundamental advantage over paper encyclopedia in that articles are part of a web
    • seeing links about other things is not bad - it encourages further exploration and ultimately more fully informs the reader
  • Disambiguation anticipates likely and reasonable confusion on the part of the reader.
    • the more there is likely to be confusion for a specific term, the more extensive our effort to disambiguate

When a name is ambiguous, disambiguation helps the reader find what they are looking for.

  1. When there is a clearly dominant topic and one other topic, that topic gets the "main" page with a link to the secondary page.
  2. When there are only two prominent topics, with not one clearly dominant, provide hatnote links between then and try to pick one which has a stronger claim to the title, or create a disambiguation page if neither can reasonable claim the title above the other.
  3. When there is a clearly dominant topic and several other topics, that topic gets the "main" page with a link to a disambiguation page, which links to all possible topics.
  4. When there are a few dominant topics and several other topics, then the approach is a hybrid of #2 and #3. Link the dominant topics to each other using hatnotes and link to a disambiguation page. Try to pick one of dominants to be the main page or if no choice is possible, have the disambiguation page be the main page.

That doesn't address the issue of prominence yet. Google hits and Wikipedia page views provide us no information in this regard, as they do not reflect meaning, but volume of use.To take an example similar to Bleach, Apple stated in English without any context, clearly refers to the fruit. There is another prominent use of the word Apple which I would wager would have more hits on the Web and more page views, but it is only clear in the context of talking about technology that we mean Apple Inc.. Further, although Apple is often used to refer to it, the formal name is different. Plus, there should be special consideration when identical names are caused by one thing being named for another, as knowledge of the original would serve to better inform the reader about the namesake.

So specifically on Ubuntu, since it is at best a borrowed word, there is no clear meaning in English without the context of computers or philosophy. They are co-equal in the sense that neither one clearly can claim the word "Ubuntu". While the Linux distro has a certain advantage in volume of usage, the philosophy has going for it that the distro's name is based on it, like with Apple. Given that there are a few other less prominent uses, case 4 above applies... Ubuntu should be a dab page, with hatnotes in both the prominent articles mentioning the other in addition to the dab page. Neither "side" should consider having to go through the dab page a bad thing... in fact, by being informed that there are other uses... that there is a philosophy inspiring the distro, and that there is a distro applying the philosophy, is a good thing. There is no reason to put blinders on our readers... if there is no clear meaning for a term, inform them about how that term is used.

As for BLEACH, I have to say I though the original arrangement was superior. the Bleach article on the chemical is clearly the dominant meaning for Bleach, but Bleach (manga) is prominent enough that it merits special disambiguation in addition to the usual dab page. From the other side, even though capitalization shouldn't make a difference... in this case it does.. BLEACH is more meaningful in the context of the manga than the chemical... and for those who like to type in capital letters for no reason... bleach gets a special hatnote. I have to agree with the locals that the original usage was better before attention was drawn to that page from this discussion. --Marcinjeske (talk) 09:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I would just like to comment that we should be careful of allowing wikipedia's current user profile and biases to be our guidelines for future content and as a notability metric. Wikipedia's technical bias is currently one of its largest weaknesses. A policy along the lines of "frequency of page reads in wikipedia" as a notability guideline would merely reinforce and propagate existing user and content biases. I am very technical, but I consider the current state of both Apple and Ubuntu to be positive signs that wikipedia is growing up as a "real" encyclopedia my family might use. --HiltonLange (talk) 21:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
In case my point got buried in the prose... yes, it is clear that Google hits or page hits are not a good way to compare prominence of two similarly-named articles. They might make a good heuristic if we had a computer making automated decisions, but as long as we have a human involved, it makes sense to actually reason about what sort of disambiguation map is appropriate. --Marcinjeske (talk) 12:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comments—bot to find missing DAB entries

Hi— I'm developing Navibot, a bot to find and remedy missing disambiguation entries. Here's an example of the kind of edit I hope it will be able to make eventually. At the moment, all the bot can do is find such opportunities, I made the actual edit. The example is explicated a little more on the bot's user page, and I'd welcome comments on the whole endeavor on its talk page. Thanks! —johndburger 02:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The bot is going to find plenty of articles that should be deleted. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 02:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Good point. At the moment, Navibot finds candidates using a monthly database dump, and there is likely to be a lag of at least several days before making any edits. So any speedy deletes will have happened, and the bot will discover that one of the relevant pages no longer exists. Nonetheless, something to keep in mind if I ever make it more reactive, e.g., working off of Special:Newpages. —johndburger 00:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Provided the deleting admin remembers to clean up then I fail to see how the inclusion on a dab page of a page that should be deleted can be seen as a problem. If working of Special:Newpages then you might want to lag a day or so and look for a speedy template before adding, but otherwise I think this sounds like a good idea. If the bot is automated, and adding to a page with several lists, how will the bot know how to categorize the article?Taemyr (talk) 10:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
As to the first issue, yes, I think I will check the target page for any deletion templates, and hold off for a while, so as not to make more work for admins. As to the second, do you mean when a DAB has several sections (either ==explicit== or implicit)? I am working on parsing the structure of such pages—if the bot isn't confident that it "understands" the DAB page, it won't add the new entry, it'll wait for (my) confirmation. If there is an obvious Other section, it will probably always add the entry to that. It will also try to see if the entries are in alphabetical order, and insert accordingly. All good questions, thanks! —johndburger 11:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
It should probably insert last rather than try to maintain alphabetic ordering. Per Wikipedia:MOSDAB#Order_of_entries the entries should be ordered according to usage, most used meaning first least used meaning last. "Forgotten" entries should be assumed to be fairly seldom used. Taemyr (talk) 12:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

If the article isn't already in a DAB page then that is an indicator of perhaps low quality. And perhaps an indicator that the article should be deleted rather than added to a DAB page. The example you have given is a page that should be deleted, in my opinion. The BOT should check for several references before adding it to a DAB page or something to indicate quality. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 16:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Addition to a dab page is not a mark that this article has approval. It's simply a mark that the article exists. I see no reason that we should make a judgment on an articles encyclopedic appropriateness when considering if it should be put into a dab page. The important question is and should be, could the dabbed title be the title of this article. Making a bad article more accessible is a good thing, since it exposes it to more editors and thus allows the problem to be addressed. Taemyr (talk) 21:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
My fear if this type of program runs rampant is that:
  1. We will have tons of links on disambuiguation pages. Many of them not want people are trying to find and make it harder for people to find the article they want.
  2. Creates work for people to go and delete the many junk album and local band articles.
  3. It is not so cut and dry to "...allows the problem to be addressed." Many articles start out as crap and then improve over years. Should they be deleted? Will create tons of debate for articles to be deleted.
I see more value added in a BOT that collects statistics related to appropriateness on articles and tags articles with poor stats for deletion. :-) Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:44, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The two first of your points are addressed by my point that dab pages is not really a mark of approval. If articles exists on wikipedia then they should be accessible. The second, if the article should be deleted it should be deleted even if it was not listed, so the bot does not create work, it merely makes the fact that this work is needed more visible. The last is a point I totaly agree with. That's the reason I did not say allows the article to be deleted above. But especially when dealing with articles that could be improved increasing the articles visibility is an advantage. Taemyr (talk) 07:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Not appropriate to create a bigger mess so that a smaller mess can be cleaned up. First clean up the smaller mess. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 10:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should focus on the point of disambiguation - if there are multiple articles with the same name (except for a dab phrase), a disambiguation page should list them to guide the reader to the desired article. For concerns about notability, we need to rely on the other processes of Wikipedia. A couple of points/ideas for the bot in light of the above discussion:

  1. The bot should only deal with pages x (y) where a x (disambiguation) already exists as an articles or a redirect. Other cases of disambiguation (partial matches or word variants) at most should get put in a Category:Articles needing disambiguation for review by human editors. (This guarantees the bot only adds entries certain to need disambiguation.)
  2. The bot should not act until an article is several days (or weeks?) old to allow time for speedy and proposed deletion processes. It should also check the article for warning flags like copyvio and the db templates. (We do not want to needlessly legitimize junk pages or create zombie entries which will just need to be cleaned up.)
  3. If an article is orphaned, with very few incoming links (make sure to account for redirects - the key number is how many articles link to this article, whether that is through a redirect or not), it should be placed in Category:Articles needing disambiguation so that a human editor can evaluate it and possible suggest it for deletion. (This guarantees that disambiguation pages do not get swamped with
  4. The bot should make sure that the new entry does not point to the same article as an existing entry (it must follow all links on the disambiguation page, including redirects, and confirm that the new entry does not direct to an existing entry's destination article. (In fact, this would be a good check to run on all the entries... there are dab pages where the same entry shows up multiple times, sometimes as differently-named redirects.)
  5. The bot should append the entry after all other entries (just before stub or the See also section if there is one). If it is able to identify an appropriate subsection, it should append to the end of that subsection. (The idea being that the very fact the entry has not already been added is evidence that it is a less common use.)
  6. If the bot adds more than a few (two?) entries to a page, it should change the disambig tag to disambig-cleanup to indicate that a human editor may need to take a look.

How's that for some feedback? --Marcinjeske (talk) 12:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the bot sounds a great idea. If an article exists as X (Y),then it needs to be included in the "X (disambiguation)" page. Full stop. If it isn't there, then the editor who wants to create an article about "X (footballer)" doesn't find it when they look at the dab page, so creates it as "X (football)" and we get duplicate articles. Including all appropriate existing pages in dab pages is a help in preventing duplicate article creation, as well as simply helping the reader to find the article, which is what dab pages are for. Go for it! But I support the idea about checking thoroughly, redirects and all, to make sure that the article isn't already listed on the dab page. I have my doubts about the bot categorising additions to dab pages, given the hugely varied way that dab pages are set out and categorised. Perhaps it needs to always add the new entry at the end, and to add a message to the talk page to list which items have been automatically added, so that anyone who verifies them could add a note to say they've done so? Or add a hidden comment within the code on the dab page, to be removed when a human editor has looked at the new entry and verified that it's in the right place? PamD (talk) 22:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
[Friendly indent of PamD's addition —jdb]
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! My intent is to be very careful, because I think bots need to coexist in the Wikipedia ecology with all the humans, and should try to avoid annoying anyone unduly—too much of that lately. So if a candidate target article is very new, or has been tagged for deletion (or copyvio—good suggestion, that), Navibot will put it off for another round. I am already resolving all redirects, even more than MediWiki itself does (it stops at chains of one). I had already thought that candidate edits of either limited utility, or low confidence, should be added to a to-do list for humans—something like Category:Articles needing disambiguation would be good in some cases, but I can't figure out what category you were referring to, Marcinjeske. Category:Articles with links needing disambiguation doesn't seem quite right. I am a big believer in edit summaries, so the bot will try to explain specifically what it's doing in that way, but anything complicated (like adding multiple entries to a DAB) can be summarized on the Talk page, as Marcinjeske and PamD suggest. (I will be careful not to spam Talk pages indiscriminately, though.) These are all good ideas, thanks, folks! I hope to have a rudimentary version able to make its own (supervised) edits in a week or two. —johndburger 03:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
John, I recommend you change direction for a while and create a BOT to do wiki cleanup first. For your first example given, it created work, in deleting the DAB entry. Would be great if you created a BOT that tagged articles for deletion instead. After the bot has run its course, then a BOT to add DAB entries will have more value. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 12:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


First, to address the idea of a DeleteBot, I think 1) it would be difficult for a bot to make those kinds of decisions... 2) this is not the appropriate venue to propose a DeleteBot, try Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion... 3) as long as the legitimate concerns can be addressed, there is no reason to not have a DabBot just because it is not a DeleteBot.
As for the category to put "low confidence" articles into, I was suggesting above that a new category be created, Category:Articles needing disambiguation, sorry I was not explicit about that. I looked and I could not find an existing appropriate category. This should then be hooked up like the other DAB work categories so that editors could resolve decide these by hand.
Per PamD, I think the Bot should behave like other bots in that when it changes the page, it leaves a comment along the lines of (!-- disambiguation link added by NaviBot --) and an appropriate edit summary, but I do not see the need to repeat on the talk page, even for multiple entries... If someone wants to start a discussion, they will do so... and the bot is out of the picture at that point anyway. (Just do what the bot that generates external link titles does.)
As to Daniel's point about creating work, perhaps the example edit was poorly chosen. I think if some criteria are added to keep the bot from touching pages that are very young or marked for deletion or copyvio. For what remains, given how much work is involved in a deletion, an extra revert of the bot edit is trivial. Besides, as you said, stalking the bot would be a great way for you to find candidates for deletion, and may bring attention to questionable articles which have been silently passing the time (I can't tell with the album, but that bands page has been quietly sitting there for almost a year... if it had not been for a Bot designed to dab, no one would have noticed it... by adding to the dab page, the bot creates a fresh edit and a path to attract editorial attention, which would include a human evaluation of deletion, as you did.) Since I do not think a bot should be allowed to propose deletion, speedy or otherwise (except maybe in extreme circumstances), this is really the next best thing.
'Daniel, have you seen Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#On Inherent Notability and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Did someone ask for examples?. If you want to address the problem, I would say that you should go straight to the source, the "inherent notability" doctrine, under which there is a flood of pages getting added to Wikipedia.
Any objections to moving this discussion to the bot's talk page?--Marcinjeske (talk) 02:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish question (disambiguation)

Please voice your opinion about Jewish question (disambiguation) in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Jewish question (disambiguation) `'Míkka>t 20:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Monckton

Monckton, unlike the rarer Moncton and Monkton does not seem to have a disam page. Lots of people, no doubt some places etc too. Johnbod (talk) 02:43, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

That would make it a surname list, not a dab page. Created (and cleaned up Moncton (disambiguation) and Monkton too). -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stubs in dab

I'm reverting this recent edit by Centrx (talk · contribs). I feel it's wrong to include "a basis or hint for a future article" in a dab entry. The use of red links in dab pages is discussed in detail at WP:MOSDAB#Red_links, and I don't think an incomplete summary of that guideline tucked into WP:D#Dictionary_definitions is helpful. For one, if no article exists for that dab term, then the dab entry itself is not useful for the purposes of navigating (other than telling the reader they've hit a dead end). Second, if a future article is indeed warranted, why not create a stub? (WP:STUB) Isn't that what stubs are for? I see no reason to clutter a dab with what should more appropriately exist in stubs. Noca2plus (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

The stub can be created, but the topic should not be deleted from the disambiguation page if a separate page for the stub does not exist, or if the title of the potential stub is not redlinked.
  • The stub may not exist because it has not yet been created, or because it was deleted for reasons unrelated to the inclusion of the topic in the encyclopedia.
  • The redlink may not exist because it has not yet been created, or because a good title for the non-existent article is not known.
  • The dab entry with its contextual definition may very well be identical before and after the creation of the stub.
  • If no article exists for a dab term, the redlink is still useful to editors--and readers are editors.
  • If no article exists for a dab term, a stub whether in a dab page or in a separate article still usefully navigates the reader to the information they sought, which is still on an encyclopedic topic but is sparse.
—Centrx→talk • 00:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it appears we simply disagree on what a dab should contain. I am a strong believer in the guidance (from WP:D#Disambiguation pages):
  • Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link...
Based on your statements, it appears you disagree with both me and that guidance.Noca2plus (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Noca2plus. Stubs that don't exist because of, well, it doesn't matter why really; stubs that don't exist (that is, red links) should not be listed on dab pages without a blue link in the description. Links to actual stub articles that have been created are fine. Red links are fine on articles; disambiguation pages are not articles, but navigational pages that disambiguate existing Wikipedia articles. If you want to include a red link on a disambiguation page, you should first find an article to blue-link to in the description (and add the red link to that article if it's not already red-linked to the term). -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
And (although it may already have been assumed), there should only be a red-linked entry if it is reasonable/likely that an article could be created out of that topic. -- Natalya 11:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Right. I was assuming that WP:REDLINK will be followed for adding the red link to the article (before adding it to the dab), but the way I said it could have been taken as an instruction to add it regardless of its suitability. Thanks! -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
No worries - I figured as such! Just wanted to make sure it was clear for anyone who was reading. -- Natalya 19:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Redlinks do belong in disambiguation pages, and you would have overturn all existing practice and policy if you believe disambiguation page should not refer to encyclopedic topics that do not yet have articles. Incomplete dab entries are not the "Dictionary definitions" of Wiktionary mentioned here. Also, each dab entry should, generally, have one navigable blue link; but an entry without one navigable blue link is still a dab entry that needs to be improved; and if a dab entry with a redlink has a related article, that related article is the target of the one navigable blue link. —Centrx→talk • 18:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with Centrx. Interpreting this guideline as an simplistic rule banning plain redlinks on disambiguation pages is a triumph of empty formalism over the goal of producing a comprehensive encyclopedia. Editorial discretion (and intelligence) is required to distinguish between a redlink for an encyclopedic topic that hasn't been created yet (and may entail some improvements such as identifying an appropriate blue link with sufficient context to make the reference intelligible or the creation of a stub page) and those spurious redlinks to vanity pages and other deleted nonsense that should be removed from dab pages. I don't think the guideline should encourage simplistic rule-bound, thought-free editing. older ≠ wiser 19:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
(Mwah edit conflict!) I believe there is general agreement with that point. I took a reviewing look at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Red_links, and it seems like we do want to have a blue link in each line, regardless of whether there is a red link or not. I don't think that's particularly hard to do, though. So, perhaps the disagreement is not so much in the use/non-use of redlinks? In technicality, it seems like all entries in a disambiguation page that are either red links or are not linked at all are "mini-stubs", in a sense; they provide very basic information about the topic, enough so that a person can determine if that is what they are looking for or not. I'm not sure if we need to say that these descriptions could be bases (plural basis) for stubs, becaues it seems like they just are. If it's not as evident to me as it is to everyone else, then perhaps we should, but I feel as though adding that part in may create invitation for rather lengthy descriptions on disambiguation pages. Either way, I think it will be okay. -- Natalya 19:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

This is apparently two separate issues: 1) Whether it is appropriate to have a dab entry for a viable future article without any links which would thus appear to be a dictionary definition, for the reasons given above such as not knowing what title to name it; 2) Whether a dab entry can consist only of a redlink with a dictionary definition to be incorporated into the future article, such as in cases where no related blue-link articles exist. This latter seems to be obviously common and allowed. —Centrx→talk • 16:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

No, a dab entry should not consist only of a red link where no blue link articles exist, nor should it have no link at all . This is (hopefully) uncommon and suitable for correcting to the allowed form (by adding a blue link or removing the entry). Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles. If there's no Wikipedia articles, there's nothing to disambiguate. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Certainly anything is "allowed" on wikipedia (see WP:IAR, and WP:MOSDAB#Break rules in particular). I'm not sure "redlink-only" dab entries are common. But even if they are common, that's hardly justification for interpreting the current Manual of Style as recommending their preservation. On the contrary, I don't think the MOS could be any more clear on the subject. From WP:D#Disambiguation pages:
  • Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link
and from WP:MOSDAB#Individual entries:
  • Including no links at all makes the entry useless for further navigation.
and from WP:MOSDAB#Red links:
  • Red links should not be the only link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information.
To me, it's clear that redlink-only dab entries are not recommended. Now, you might argue that MOSDAB should be changed, but judging by this discussion I don't think consensus (WP:CON) exists for such a change. Noca2plus (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Wikipedia articles starting with...

The disambig page PAM has 'See also' links to List of Wikipedia articles starting with Pam and List of Wikipedia articles starting with PAM. I've edited quite a few disambig pages but never come across this type of link before. Are these valid and useful or just trivial? Should we be adding such links? Thanks. --Jameboy (talk) 05:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I've seen it a few times. It seems to be a solution to the problem of people trying to put Pam A through Pam B on the page. It could be useful. I've never removed it when I saw it, but I have never added it either. (John User:Jwy talk)
I've also seen links to the "List of people with the name..." pages, which also help to ameliorate the huge number of links that sometimes crop up on disambiguation pages. Like Jwy, I don't think I've ever added those pages, but I've not really taken them off either. They are sort of a compromise between listing everyone and their mother whose names starts with "X", and not listing any of them at all. I don't think they need to be on every page, but where this is some disagreement about including named people, etc, they could be a good compromise. -- Natalya 10:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I have added the links on occasion for precisely the reasons indicated. Perhaps the WP:MOSDAB should have some guidance about usage (assuming that it doesn't already--I haven't checked). For one, it could recommend using {{lookfrom}} instead of an external link. older ≠ wiser 12:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd prefer not to codify anything on this. I don't think its that big a deal. If there gets to be some contention about it, then we might address it. (John User:Jwy talk) 15:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) I think it's helpful, particularly on words which can be forenames, and on placenames - saves listing every team, building society, etc which starts with a placename, but still provides access to them, as on the Leeds (disambiguation) page. It helps the reader to find the article s/he is looking for if it exists, and helps the editor who wants to create an article to check easily whether it already exists. The list reached through the link is guaranteed to be complete and up to date and involves no effort in maintaining it, at the cost of one or two neat entries in the "See also" section - now even easier to add since we've been introduced to {{lookfrom}} (I speak for myself - perhaps everyone else had it at their fingertips). I suggest it's worth including the capitalised version as well, especially for a page where some of the meanings are acronyms - leads to things like the PAM Brink Stadium. PamD (talk) 15:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC) (Yes, I declare an interest in PAM, and I added those two links).

[edit] FYI: New category related to splitting pages

Category:Disambiguation pages in need of being split
Origin of the category explained at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#split category. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

As I am not super familiar with Wikiproject Anthroponymy, just for clarification, are these pages that need to be split into a page of people with those names and the rest of the disambiguation page? -- Natalya 15:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
As I see it, its kind of related to the item just above on "starting with..." They have been creating articles about (citable) names and extracting some of the non-dab information from the dab pages. If you check out some of the pages in the category you should get an idea - or check out their WP:WikiProject Anthroponymy where they have a list of pages they have split. It seems useful, for example, for those pages where there is a long list of people with the same last name that are not REALLY known by only that last name. My only quibble with the project is their name. I can never remember it! There's some sort of weird irony in not remembering the name. (John User:Jwy talk) 15:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
(Upon further perusal of the Wikiproject page) Cool! That seems to really help with disambiguation pages too; we don't have to fight over whether or not people's names (who don't go by just that name) are on them, which in turn keeps them easier to navigate, but yet there is still a reference for people with that name. -- Natalya 16:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moving Mountains

I created an article called "Moving Mountains (song)", a song by Usher. I decided to use this title because Moving Mountains is already taken; its an article about an album but not related to Usher. The following day(s), a user created "Moving Mountains (Usher song)" subsequently creating a bit conflict between us. My stand is that why should we use "Moving Mountains (Usher song)" if there is no existing song-related article of the same name? --Efe (talk) 05:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I've replied to Efe about this subject on my talk page, FYI. As I stated there, it would seem to me that the earlier-released record of the same name would be the proper one to carry the "song" tag and the upcoming single should be more specific, but I'm perfectly cool with whichever. --InDeBiz1 Review me! / Talk to me! 05:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Music talks a little bit about what to use as a clarifier. I think the simplest one is best. Right now, Moving Mountains (song) redirects to Moving Mountains, which is an article about a Justin Hayward album called "Moving Mountains" (that has a song on it called "Moving Mountains"). However, if the Usher song is notable enough to have an article, but the Justin Hayward song by the same name is not, it would make sense to me to have Moving Mountains (song) go to the Usher song page (at least to me). -- Natalya 13:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
They say that its going to be his next single so I created it. Lets put aside notability issue; Justin Hayward's song is non-existent (no article is created to this) so it would be right to use "Moving Mountains (song)" for the Usher-related song. --Efe (talk) 03:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Just be aware that Wikipedia:Notability_(music)#Songs seems to say that most songs are usually not their own page. I don't know the past precident for this, though, and I feel like I've seen a lot of song articles. You might just want to look into it before making the move. But other than that, your evaluation seems to be right. -- Natalya 13:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Its going to be released as a single. I think we already reached a concensus now. Any affirmation? --Efe (talk) 05:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The opinions of only three of us doesn't constitute a consensus, IMHO. I suggest leaving this open for another day or two to see if anyone else weighs in, particularly an admin or two. Not that I disagree with what's being suggested, by any means... I just think if we're really going for a "consensus" we need a couple more thoughts. --InDeBiz1 Review me! / Talk to me! 06:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
No problem. --Efe (talk) 11:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rewording the intro

From a discussion at WT:MOSDAB#"Trivial" categories on disambiguation pages, the intro here may need a little tweaking to avoid appearing to exclude dab entries that link to related articles (as opposed to articles that could have been titled with the dab phrase). My suggestion: "In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different articles that the reader could have been seeking when looking up the title." -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{Page d}} - suggest removal of displayed icon in article

Hallo, I hope this is the right place to discuss this (and I know someone will point me to the right place if not). I've just discovered {{Page d}}, on Long-distance trail, labelling the link to Rights of way in the United Kingdom as a "correct" link to a dab page. I'm not sure whether that page actually qualifies as a dab page, as it's explaining that the topic is covered in two different pages, but that's not my issue in writing this. I don't think that the icon being displayed in the text of an article is useful to the reader (as opposed to the editor). If I hover my mouse over the icon, I see technicalities about the image. As a reader, I don't need to know that the link is "correct": it leads me to a useful page from which I can choose which link to follow, and that's all I need. The icon is disconcerting, and detracts from the article.

I can see that there is some real usefulness in tagging the link to the dab page to say it's OK, it's been checked out, it doesn't need to be tidied up. I wish there was something similar for occurrences of mistakes like "he should of" which are in quotes or song titles, so mustn't be "corrected", as that's one of my hobby-horses. This info could be included in the text, either in a template or in a standardised comment. (If such a mechanism already exists, please let me, and the other people at WP:Typo, know about it!) But I suggest that displaying the icon in the article is positively unhelpful to readers and should be stopped.

Looking at "what links to" the template, the first on the list is Books of Samuel, where the link to Zuph is labelled - but it seems to me that there is one person and one place on that dab page, so that the link is unambiguously to the place; Moses /Peor seems similar. PamD (talk) 11:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Aaargh: at Fulneck Moravian Settlement the icon has been added to the hatnote - surely we don't need every instance where someone has used free text in a hatnote instead of {{otheruses}} to be decorated with an icon? I'm about to change it. PamD (talk) 12:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Changed it. PamD (talk) 12:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the main problem is that the template is being misused. It is not supposed to be used in hatnotes such as {{otheruses}}, and the example in Books of Samuel is also a misuse, as it is not meant to be used in lieu of disambiguating the link. I can understand the argument against having the icon in the page, but would it be fine to still have the template in order for Wikipedia Cleaner to be more efficient? MrKIA11 (talk) 12:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this template should not be used. To "mark" a link as a correct dab link create a redirect that is an explicit disambiguation and link to that page with a pipe. So instead of Rights of way in the United Kingdom link Rights of way in the United Kingdom and have the latter target redirect to the former. I believe wikipedia cleaner understands that syntax. I will propose {{Page d}} for deletion. Taemyr (talk) 12:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Taemyr. I think your suggestion is helpful - linking to something with "(disambiguation)" in its article name is clearly a conscious decision, shows that an editor has decided that the dab page is the appropriate thing to link to. To clarify, I've just created the redirect at Rights of way in the United Kingdom (disambiguation) which your example above uses! PamD (talk) 13:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
We should try to make this practice more well know, if possible - it definitly does help make intended links to disambiguation pages clearer. There's actually a bit about it at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links_to_disambiguation_pages. -- Natalya 17:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
What we did on the French wikipedia is having 2 templates Page h with the icon, Page h' without the icon. Otherwise, the idea of using links to pages ending with (disambiguation)) seems a good idea. If you want to go this way, I will see what I can do in Wiki Cleaner (but not right now, too busy). --NicoV (talk) 18:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Yusuke

How do I take off the parent cat from Yusuke? I've surely seen this done before, but do not recall the situation. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the 'nocat' parameter needs to be the last parameter presented; I had thought that the order did not matter. (see diff) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Parentheses

I think this guideline should be more clear that parentheses are not the only acceptable method of disambiguation. While it gives the Delta rocket example, there are many other cases where adding an adjective in front is a clearer method of disambiguation and is supported by the use common names metric. Some editors seem to be under the impression that all disambiguation must be parenthetical. Powers T 13:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bot approved: dabbing help needed

Hi there. Fritz bot has been approved at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FritzpollBot for filling in a possible 1.8 million articles on settlements across the world. Now dabbing needs to be done for links which aren't sorted as the bot will bypass any blue links. and I need as many people as possible to help me with Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Places to prepare for the bot. If you could tackle a page or two everything counts as it will be hard to do it alone. PLease also pass on the message to anybody else who you may think might be willing to help. Thankyou ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 12:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Could use some disambiguator's opinions at Talk:Ubuntu (disambiguation)

The primary topic of the disambiguation term "Ubuntu" is still in flux, and opinions have not been forthcoming. Some more input at Talk:Ubuntu_(disambiguation)#Continuation_of_the_primary_topic_discussion would be much appreciated. Feel free to take a look at Talk:Ubuntu_(disambiguation)#Revisiting_primary_topic and really a lot of that whole talk page for previous discussions on the topic. -- Natalya 20:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requesting clarification

The section #Disambiguation pages says: "Only include related subject articles if the term in question is actually described on the target article." Does this suggest that acronyms must be cited first? For example, does Bam's Unholy Union have to make an obvious reference to either "BUU", "B.U.U.", "B-U-U", etc., before warranting inclusion at Buu (see also this discussion)? If this is indeed so, then this cleanup was entirely legitimate. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

This has been rumbing on for a while at BUU and recently on my talk.. Common practice has always been to disambiguate articles by their acronym / initials, whether or not the initials are explicitly referenced on the page. This is an entirely different situation to the example given on WP:D that Sess is taking as the basis for his edit. I'm not sure why this level of wikilawering to remove links from disambiguation pages is necessary, but this would be a very dangerous precedent to set (User:JHunterJ has already been doing so, link on my talk page), a ton of dab pages would have useful links removed from them under this incredibly strict and imo dispirited interpretation of the guideline, and there will be a shitstorm of editors who, like me, see no reason to remove useful, valid links to articles from dab pages simply because "the initials are not mentioned in the article". Come on. Deiz talk 17:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that the only reason to link to acronyms is because the acronym is listed in the article, but that certainly is the easiest way. My goal when dealing with pages of articles that may be referred to by an acronym is to keep all the articles on the page that people really do refer to with that acronym without overcrowding the page with extraneous articles. So, what I usually do is first check the article. If the article really does list the acronym, that's almost always good enough for me to leave it on the page. If the article doesn't list the acronym, I do a Google search of the article name (sometimes with the acronym), to see if there are references to it being referred to by the acronym. Usually, either a number of references will come up (in which case I leave the article on the page) or nothing will come up (in which case I usually take it off). If it still seems unclear (or, if the topic of the article is not an internet-friendly topic, and therefore may not have information avaliable via Google), I'll drop a line on the talk page of the article in question (or on the talk page of a related Wikiproject) to ask those more familiar with the subject if it really is referred to by this acronym. In the end, I find that this allows me to keep valid links on an acronym disambiguation page while not filling the page with unnecessary links, making it harder for people to find what they need. It may be hard to verify for many organizations if they really go by the acronym (unless it's the WWF, for example), but I think we can find a middle ground. -- Natalya 20:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
WWF appears to need a good cleanup, would you know of any other examples? AFAIK, the pages RK, AS, DB, DMZ (disambiguation), and AL only list articles which mention the dab term (the same may happen to DC per the discussion there). Alas, this is not the case for Bam's Unholy Union, I see no reason why it should stay on the Buu dab, and the guideline concurs. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

There is an abundance of informal acronyms for everything, some of which are just made up on the spot. If "BUU" is a non-rare acronym for this show in reliable written sources, why not include that for clarification, sourced, in the article Bam's Unholy Union? However, in mine own searches, "BUU" does appear to be quite rare as an abbreviation for "Bam's Unholy Union", its usage being confined to filename's for DVD rips, a peculiar case, and to forum comments with silly abbreviations like "u" for "you" and rampant misspellings, unreliable for determining language syntax. —Centrx→talk • 22:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Then that's just it. If someone can come up with a reliable source (as was once done for Horsepower's acronym) then Bam's Unholy Union remains on the dab. Consensus? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is all about reliable sources, no? If there's such a source for it, then it sounds like it should belong. -- Natalya 23:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
You're all missing the point. We are not compiling an article containing a sourced, referenced list of acronyms, we are aiding ease of navigation around Wikipedia. Disambiguation pages are not lists, and are not subject to the same rigours or sourcing - how many dab pages do you see with a refs section? This flies completely against common practice and the spirit of Wikipedia, two things which are far more important than a technical misinterpretation of a guideline which makes no reference to this strict requirement. In any case, you've noted it yourselves - Bam's Unholy Union has indeed been referred to as BUU, the reason being that it is intuitively obvious to refer to things by their initials, hence the reason we provide links to them on dab pages. I'm against redlinks and tenuous spellings on dab pages, but if something is referred to by the exact initials of the target article there should be no reason not to help our readers find it. Deiz talk 02:04, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Despite our agreement here, Deiz has re-inserted the link [6]. Any assistance required. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Guys, I don't know if we need to be fighting so much over this. The BUU disambiguation page isn't even a very long one, so it's not as though one extra link is going to make navigating it extremely difficult. (that's usually the goal in ferreting out unneccesary links) Myself, I'd just say leave it there, because it's not doing any harm, and may be valid to have there. But if that isn't satisfactory, Deiz (or anyone), can even just one link be provided anywhere that shows that more than one person refers to it as "BUU"? Really, it seems like that's all we need.

To clarify my statement about reliable sources, I think a reliable source would be great to solve this dispute, but I (and hopefully others) would settle for a less-reliable-that-showed-that-more-than-one-person-refers-to-it-by-the-acronym source. Otherwise, to follow suit, we'd need to remove quite a lot of acronym links, which would probably be detrimental to the overall navigation. -- Natalya 14:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Can we do something like Emu (disambiguation) does? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
You mean separating out things that go by "Buu" and things that go by "BUU"? I don't see why not. It's not a particularly long list, but I can't see why it would hurt. -- Natalya 01:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I would feel a lot better if you made the edit Natalya. Do you want to though? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Heh, I have no problem doing so. A question, though - does this help to solve the disagreement over the inclusion of Bam's Unholy Union? -- Natalya 12:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
IMO, it surely would. What do you think about Taemyr's suggestion below? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Frankly I am having difficulty seeing the need for a disambiguation page here at all. We say nothing about the element, and the acronyms inclusion is strenuous. I'd say move the dragonball article over the dab and then see if one should include a hatnote to Bam's Unholy Union. Taemyr (talk) 13:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you're halfway right. There are too few items, but I don't a hatlink to Bam's Unholy Union will be appropriate. What do you mean "move the dragonball article over the dab"? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that we do need the link for the element. True, there's not a lot of information on it, but it is a valid use of "Buu", and someone could come looking for it. -- Natalya 16:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, do we really need the disambiguation page? Hatnotes should suffice, as the guideline says. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template to caution against frequent mistakes

Please see, and voice support or objections for, a proposed dab-style warning-template, to appear (in edit-mode only) at the tops of all disambig pages, at:

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Template to caution against frequent mistakes.

Thank you :) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)