Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages aren't articles

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

[edit] Voting to implement

If you wish, feel free to add your name below, and state why you agree/disagree with asking developers to implement this proposal:

[edit] Agree

• Agree — as I am the creator of this page — Jack · talk · 16:45, Sunday, 15 April 2007
• Qualified Agree — I agree, but qualify that any #DISAMBIG should be added to the dab template, not individual dab pages. I mainly agree in that the software should ideally handle dab pages as being different from articles - this isn't a huge bug. Nihiltres 17:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  ...and any #DISAMBIG should be implemented so that it is not displayed on the dab page by default (just like you don't see the #REDIRECT command by default). -- JHunterJ 21:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• Agree that disambiguation pages should be marked as non-articles in some way. Punctured Bicycle 19:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Agree. Disambiguation page is not to be linked directly from other articles, this is the reason to avoid placing any content there except for a minimal portion of info summarized from linked articles for verbal (non-automated) redirection purposes. Mashiah 22:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Agree Given how the redirect function works, I can't see this as being difficult to implement or detrimental in any way. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Agree. There should be a way to qualify these as something other than "articles". Timneu22 23:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Voting is Evil, but nevertheless ... Agree ;) anthony^[cfc] 00:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Agree it will clean up the special pages a little. Any little bit will help.DGG 07:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disagree

• Disagree
  1. WP:WIAA already indicates that dabs aren't articles;
  2. the #REDIRECT is a command, not a "not-an-article" indicator (see WP:R);

     Besides, we already have them tagged with a {{disambig}} template. Why not use that? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

  3. and I am skeptical that simply adding "#DISAMBIG at the top of an article would keep the Special:Statistics software from picking it up.

  If the stats software can (be updated to) recognize a tag as a dab (probably needs to be discussed at WP:STAT), that tag should be added once to {{disambig}}, not individually to all the dab pages. -- JHunterJ 17:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  In response to your first point, I think you misunderstood. The ultimate aim is to teach that point to the software, not to us users. — Jack · talk · 03:50, Monday, 16 April 2007

  I didn't misunderstand, but perhaps the proposal is misworded. Point 1 counters "so shouldn't be classed as an article (see Wikipedia:What is an article?)" -- they aren't currently classed as articles; they're explicitly classed as non-articles. The statistics do not yet reflect this classification; if this proposal were solely "Wikipedia Statistics should not count disambiguation pages as articles", then my first point would not hold. -- JHunterJ 11:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Disagree
  1. The points by JHunterJ, plus:
  2. Nobody was asked if they thought disambiguation pages in Special:Random were useful; they are useful to me, as it is a way to find faulty dab pages. I wish it were otherwise, but they DO contain article information, which I then move to the correct place, and other faults are also corrected. If I hover over the "Random article" button, it says "Load a random page", and that would include disambiguation pages. We just need to fix the button itself to say "Random page"   ;-)   Chris the speller 03:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That could be easily fixed (edit mediawiki:sidebar), but then it would imply the specialpage can call up any page on Wikipedia; which would certainly be a Bad Thing — Jack · talk · 03:50, Monday, 16 April 2007

If disambiguation pages were distinguished from normal articles like redirects, then a function like Special:Randomredirect for dab pages could presumably be created. Punctured Bicycle 03:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good :) also, Chris, if you like cleaning up disambigs, you should try Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Disambig-cleanup — Jack · talk · 04:03, Monday, 16 April 2007

Thanks, but I don't have that much faith in editors who can flag 'em but not fix 'em. That's only one of the ways I find crummy dab pages. Chris the speller 04:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral

• While I agree in general that it would be nice if the software could distinguish disambiguation pages and not include them in article counts and lonely pages, I think the suggested solution may be putting the cart before the horse. Simply placing #DISAMBIG at the top of every disambiguation page will do nothing until the developers implement software changes to recognize that. Some developers suggested that that might be possible, but that is a far cry from reality. I don't think I can support such a specific solution without clearer indications from developers that this is the best approach. I could support the proposal if it were limited to identifying this as a problem that should be addressed. older ≠ wiser 18:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• In addition to just articles counting there are several problems related to orphaned pages recognition posted on bugzilla.wikimedia.org, see this for example. Mashiah 22:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Mashiah here. DES ^(talk) 04:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks, that is now included in the list of bugs caused by disambig status — Jack · talk · 14:54, Monday, 16 April 2007

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.