Talk:Northwest

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[edit] Is this really a proper dab page?

I wanted to take this on as part of the Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links project, but many of the wikilinks to Northwest refer to the ordinal direction, which is covered better on this page than anywhere else. A proper dab page should not contain article content -- it should purely be a set of redirections allowing the reader to locate the article that meets his/her needs best. Can this be fixed? --Tkynerd 18:16, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

You may talk to User:R'n'B who did Southeast. I think the best choice here would be to link to Cardinal direction where the ordial directions are also covered.--VirtualDelight 20:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking the same thing...but the fact remains that the dab page should not contain article material (a dab page should not itself be a suitable wikilink target; that's the whole point of this project), so the description of the ordinal direction should be removed from Northwest. Another problem is that a look at Cardinal direction shows a link to Northwest, which of course needs to be dabbed...to Cardinal direction! What a mess. :-( R'n'B, or someone else, has linked back to Southeast from Cardinal direction, which I don't think is a good solution. I've just been looking around at these articles (and at what the MoS has to say about disambiguation pages), and I think the proper solution is: (1) give the ordinal direction, briefly, as the primary meaning of "Northwest" at the top of that page; (2) link from Northwest to Cardinal direction; (3) not link from Cardinal direction to Northwest because there is no information about the ordinal direction at Northwest that cannot be found at Cardinal direction; (4) dab other pages to link to Cardinal direction, as you suggested. Opinions welcome. --Tkynerd 21:28, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with your solution. As for (1) I think that the definiton is given with the Wiktionarylink. So the page could start with:

Northwest is a Cardinal direction. Wiktionarylink

Northwest may also refer to:

Dabing sometimes is quite a mess, but that's also part of the fun doing it :-)--VirtualDelight 22:54, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I suppose so.... ;-) I think it's perfectly OK to leave the basic definition ("Northwest is an ordinal direction that lies exactly halfway between north and west," or the like) at Northwest; I just don't think Cardinal direction should link back to Northwest because that information is already there at Cardinal direction. I'll implement this solution (tomorrow!); thanks for your help. --Tkynerd 03:57, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Indeed. Please review what I wrote immediately above. The ordinal directions are also covered at Cardinal direction. --Tkynerd 23:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New take on the question: Is this really a proper dab page?

I don't think a dab page should list numerous terms that happen to include the term being dabbed; it should only include those concepts that are at least sometimes referred to by the single term itself. For example, I don't think that either the Northwest Passage or the Northwest Ordinance is ever referred to simply as "Northwest"; consequently, they don't belong here. The page is in dire need of cleanup on this point, IMO. Other opinions welcome. :-) --Tkynerd 16:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)