Template talk:SIA

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This page is part of WikiProject Disambiguation, an attempt to structure and organize all disambiguation pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, you can edit the page attached to this talk page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

[edit] Tweaks

There is some talk on the Disambiguation Project talk page about this.

One concern is that this automatically includes the disambiguation category when set indexes are a parallel to disambiguation. One fix that I have suggested is to start a "Set Index" category.

Also I wonder about the wording: "This set index article page lists articles that share the same (or similar) name"

Perhaps a more accurate one would be: "This set index article page lists articles on the same topic that share the same (or similar) name." As this underlines the difference between a set index and a disambiguation page - these are on the same topic (e.g. mountains/ships) that share the same name.

Also there is a shortcut: WP:SETINDEX. It might be the section needs splitting off and the shortcut would keep links pointing to the right place. (Emperor (talk) 15:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

To answer your questions:

• The template is included in the disambiguation category because there is no other, more suitable, category for it. Note that Category:Set index articles has been previously deleted. If there is another category where this template fits, there shouldn't be a problem to re-categorizing it.
• No objection to changing the wording and a link—both make perfect sense.

In all honesty, however, I started this template more as a subtle way of bringing the community's attention to the overly vague set index clause of the MOSDAB rather than a genuinely usable tool. Judging from the category deletion discussion, the wording is that vague intentionally, but the side effect of that vagueness is that many editors (including experienced ones) simply don't get what this set index thing is all about. Perhaps if the wording is edited so it becomes more obvious that set indices are supposed to be strictly topical, the understanding would improve. Further clarifying how a set index article containing a list of, say, hospitals or geographical locations is different from, correspondingly, {{Hospitaldis}} and {{Geodis}} dabs would do wonders for separating the concepts of dabs and set indices and would certainly improve the general public's comprehension of the differences. The way things are now, set index articles are going to increasingly be used as a work-around for MOSDAB's very "helpful" clause prohibiting the red links.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Exactly - I have been trying to get clarification on the whole business for a bit: WT:D#Clarifying Set Index (and I see you've replied there. I suppose one of the issues is that when you try and create a set index (which is also about being focused on a specific topic) people tend to come along and merge it back into the disambiguation page, so it isn't just about formatting - it is also about creating a useful and tightly focused page. In some ways I see it like the work being done by the Anthroponymy Project who are often creating set indexes (although they also often expand into larger articles) which works to disambiguate but would be best working as a parallel to disambiguation to allow for flexibility in style (and I've also suggested one way to clearly define exceptions to WP:NAMB is to allow hatnotes to set indexes).

So at the moment I think it is being hampered by falling within disambiguation - I know we could open up WP:MOSDAB but I think the result of that would be a lot of disambiguation pages getting unnecessarily messy when most times they are best kept tight and focused and a strict MOSDAB helps keep them working. (Emperor (talk) 19:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Speaking of Anthroponymy Project, it seems that the set index article concept tends to surface when names (not necessarily human) need to be listed on one page (either for the purpose of disambiguation, or as a list proper). If set index articles are going to be kept from the dabs, it may be worth looking into limiting their scope to names only. {{Geodis}} dabs and {{mountainindex}} sets alone could benefit from being converted into Toponymy indices.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts, SIA are more like disambiguation pages than they are like regular articles. I don't think it is a good idea to create nonce varieties of set index articles simply because of some disagreement with disambiguation style guidelines. That is, I don't really think that this template should be used very much, and should be avoided if at all possible. Both Ship Index and Mountain Index articles have active projects and have developed their own standards for formatting such pages. One-off set index articles, which essentially fill the same function as disambiguation pages, should not be orphaned from Category:Disambiguation, especially where there is no active project to maintain them. older ≠ wiser 02:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

That all good and reasonable, but take a good long look at a real life example. WP Russia is working on geographic coverage of Russian inhabited localities, and in the process a lot of red links turn up that require disambiguation (for reasons of efficient workflow, for benefit of the readers, because WP:NC:CITY#Russia requires it, or for something else). The impression I got from the ever so friendly MOSDAB crowd is that unless we paint those red links blue (even if it results in something nearly useless, like this example, which, in essence, is just a copy of what otherwise would be a red link description on the dab page), or unless we move them to a set index article and link to that from the dab, we can't pursue the project's goals in a manner that's most efficient and convenient for us. Indeed, it feels as if we are trying to build a house, but have to somehow meet an inane local ordinance prescribing to start building the house from the roof, then proceed with the electrical works, and only then do the foundation. The project has been around for years; I myself have been working on it for even longer than that (talk about project being active and supported!). However, unless this idiotic MOSDAB clause is restored to its previous state (or is otherwise made less restrictive), it is only a matter of time until we see SIAs (tagged with this template or not) starting to pop up on a massive scale. We don't have this problem yet because the red link clause is only currently enforced by a handful of zealots, but if things continue to stay the way they are, we are risking the dilution and disintegration of the whole disambiguation concept. All because someone can't stand red links on disambig pages? Charming... Note how the SIA issue had hardly ever turned up before the MOSDAB's red link clause was amended.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, so if WP Russia wishes to define a standard for set index articles listing place names that share the same or similar names, I don't think anyone at WP Disambiguation would object (well, I shouldn't say that--it is always possible for someone raise an objection). My own objection to overuse of the bare SIA template is that it should not become too easy of an escape hatch for creating disambiguation that don't follow MOSDAB. IMO, the simplest solution would be for the project to create pages with links to the various place names -- thereby satisfying the overly literalistic interpreters of the redlink clause for MOSDAB -- and also providing a more certain indication that there is a fair likelihood that articles will in fact be created for the places. In defense of the redlink clause, unless there are links from other pages to a particular term, there is no readily available evidence that such a term will ever have an article created or that such a use for a term exists. I don't think disambiguation pages are the appropriate venue for WikiProjects to plant seeds for potential articles. older ≠ wiser 11:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Creating articles (as opposed to WikiProject worklists) which would hold the red links is in the plans, but it is cost-prohibitive to do so now just to satisfy the MOSDAB literalists. With over 150,000 rural localities in Russia, and with hardly half of them having genuinly unique names (meaning a lot of disambiguation will be required to tell them apart), creating such "redlink-holders" (whether as articles or in WP namespace) would be one hell of a job, not to mention the fact that a complete list of all those 150K+ rural localities is not even available in public access in full (I'm working on it, though). That means that those holders will have to be periodically updated as data become available, but I see that as just a monkey job to keep MOSDABbers satisfied. The guidelines, MOSDAB included, are supposed to aid the organization and workflow of different WikiProjects, not to dictate how the WikiProject should organize said workflow, wouldn't you agree? Why should we be wasting hundreds of man-hours just because "red links on dab pages must have backlinks", when the validity of those red links in this case is so obvious?

All in all, however, I have hardly any objections to preventing the overuse of the SIA template, because my own interest in dabs/sets is mostly limited by the Russian geographic names. Such SIAs can easily be converted to something similar to {{surname}} (a {{toponym}}, perhaps?).

Finally, in defense of having red links on dab pages, there are actually plenty of ways of verifying whether those red links lead to valid terms or not. Quite often, a simple websearch would do it, but even if it fails, one can always post a question on the talk page, ask the person who added the red link directly, or make an inquiry to the WikiProject in the scope of which the term seems to fall. In absence of reply within a reasonable amount of time, the red links can be removed. Of course, that would require more work on the part of folks who clean the dab pages, but in the long run it benefits Wikipedia a lot more than a formalistic approach based on arbitrarily chosen technical criteria (such as the presence of backlinks).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The long-time, and some would argue sole, purpose of disambiguation pages is to help readers differentiate between articles that might be confused. While tolerance for redlinks on disambiguation pages varies somewhat, they were never meant to be placeholders for redlinks that had no other reference within the English Wikipedia. You claim that creating such lists of places would be some sort of onerous task -- but it would seem to me the effort involved would be not much different from adding such links to disambiguation pages. And as a bonus, you would have to waster your time arguing with "MOSDAB literalists". older ≠ wiser 00:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The effort would not be much different if the project focused on disambiguation pages, but this is not where the focus is. Creating lists of red links is an onerous task because all inhabited localities would have to be covered. As for the disambiguation pages, the project only adds the red links when a disambiguation page already exists and there is a collision of meanings, or if there is another good reason to create such a page (naming conventions being one of them). We don't routinely create the red-linked dabs on a mass scale; we only create them when there is an important reason. I am not arguing the red links case because I enjoy going on red-linked-dabs sprees every other day; I'm arguing it because quite often the MOSDAB literalists impede the project's progress when adding a red link or two is important. I hope you see the difference.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I can see where letting the different projects deal with their own set index pages would be attractive - I do quite a bit of editing within the Comics Project and given the fact that different publishers seem to name their characters in similar ways (so many superheroes so few words in the dictionary?) we use a lot of these sub-disambiguation pages which prove useful for sorting out confusion and would probably be best turned into set indexes as some of the formatting is already non-standard (e.g. Sandman (comics). I notice Captain Marvel has been tagged as requiring clean-up probably because other things have sneaked on the end of the comics listing) and being able to add in references would be useful (sometimes it even leads to the page breaking out into its own article: Thor (comics), so these can act as a stepping stone to a more detailed treatment). There are easily enough of these to warrant us taking that step.

However, other areas could probably benefit from this. Films often have similar names and we ran into a real problem with War of the Worlds films, which was solved using The War of the Worlds (film) and I was alerted to the existence of Set Indexes by the editor who removed the disambiguation footer [1]. Such focused disambiguation pages are clearly a solution to problems I've run into in various areas and this seemed like the ideal solution. However, the reason I first raised this on the disambiguation talk page was because there was no replacement footer or any real information on what you could or couldn't do on them.

Now the idea of taking the set indexes under the wing of the specific project seems attractive but I can see these being useful solutions for various projects and I can see:

a) Some projects only needing a few and coming up with guidelines for those few seems like re-inventing the wheel over and over again, when a unified set of simple guidelines and a general footer would avoid any problems.

b) The various projects all have their idea of what a set index should be and they diverge and evolve to the point that the general reader might end up running into ones run by different projects which work in different ways while essentially doing the same thing (which is by providing a focused way of differentiating between articles of the same name and on the same topic).

What I want to try and avoid is everyone going off and doing their own thing and then a year or so down the line people start having problems with them and momentum builds for the creation of a simple set of guidelines that would help keep them all working in the same direction, which could then entail everyone having to re-edit all the set indexes they created (or even having to scarp them altogether because they'd got into such a mess.

It needn't require anything drastic - one of the things that helps disambiguation pages work is because they are simple an standardised: people can get in, know how things work, find what they need and move on. So perhaps as long as we set out some simple guidelines (e.g. nested listed are fine, using references are OK, more than one link per item is OK within limits and red links are allowable; more than one sentence should probably be avoided) this would be the kind of thing that different projects could hang a more specific set of guidelines on (for example with that Sandman example the Comics Project would say that the extra links for each item could be the creators and the publisher - allowing people to jump straight from Sandman to Neil Gaiman or Vertigo). The template here could be made more flexible to allow the topic to be inserted and perhaps a more specific category (so the text could say: "This set index article page lists articles on [films/comics/books/ships/mountains] that share the same (or similar) name."

So nothing major - I think it is wise to leave it up to the special interest groups to work out the specifics (which works well as the pages are so topic-specific) but perhaps it'd work best if there were some broad guidelines set out and some flexibility in the template (otherwise everyone would be off making their own).

Anyway that is just my thinking - with a little bit of planning now we could head-off some larger problems down the line. However, it might not be a big deal. (Emperor (talk) 23:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC))

I couldn't agree with this more; it all makes perfect sense. So, here is a short summary (for people who wouldn't normally read through something "this long"), with a few clarifications of my own. Please feel free to edit or add to in case I missed or misunderstood anything:

1. Set index articles are intended to list (and, as a side benefit, disambiguate between) the entities bearing the same name and belonging to the same concept type (comics, place names, ships, schools, hospitals, etc.).
2. This template, with an addition of a parameter specifying the concept type, will be used as a footer for set index articles. SIAs using the template without a parameter would show a generic SIA message, and can later be sorted by folks specializing in cleanup not unlike stubs are being sorted right now.
3. WikiProjects may create additional sets of rules dealing with SIAs which cover the same subjects those WikiProjects do.

How's this for a proposal draft?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems good to me - I'd give some general guidelines on formatting like:

• A set index can deviate from WP:MOSDAB and include nested lists, red links, references (especially for red links) and more than one blue link per item. The description should still be kept brief. Much beyond this and the set index is developing into a full-blown article and either be trimmed back or let loose.

This could go in before the bit about the last item about projects as, for example, the Comics Project might want to specify that the extra blue links should be kept to publisher, creator, title, year in comics or major adversary.

That way the general formatting ideas are there, but it is flexible enough for the specific projects to produce a more refined set of guidelines that match their needs. They can then link this in from the relevant category (so picking comics as the parameter would add it to "Category: Set index on comics" (or "Comics set index" or some such), otherwise they go in the general category and can be cleaned up form there. The added advantage of having a set index category on which to hand the others is that the decision on whether to have them under Category: Disambiguation is an easy one to adjust as you need only edit the main category, i.e. that is a debate we can have another day (I'm fine with it being under there for the moment - can't hurt). (Emperor (talk) 02:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

This also seems ok to me. hike395 (talk) 19:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Cool. Any other thoughts/ideas? (Emperor (talk) 14:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC))

Guess not. Should we submit this as a proposal now?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Do we need to submit anything? Seems we have a reasonable consensus to get things moving along (the above, and the discussion on the disambiguation talk page, probably count as a proposal). If everyone is on the same page we can make the adjustments to the template and use a form of the above words to update the set index section and make it more general (as it is dire need of a rewrite). If there is any fine tuning to be done we can kick it around on the disambiguation talk page (or here if it relates specifically to the template). Of course, if it needs proposing then I'd say definitely go for it - it is certainly looking like we are in a position to move things forward, one way or the other. (Emperor (talk) 16:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC))

Well, to cut the red tape short, let's do it the way you are suggesting. If anyone happens to have an issue with this thread later on, I'm sure they'll let their grievances known. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't see a problem but if there are it'd fall under WP:BOLD and any issues raised should be fixable - it is basically taking what we currently have and making it more flexible and usable, which is never a bad thing. (Emperor (talk) 01:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Update

Seeing there is no further activity, I went ahead with another small step and added a parameter to the template, which would allow for categorization into "Set indices on..." categories. For example, {{SIA|Russian inhabited localities}} would categorize the set index article into the Category:Set indices on Russian inhabited localities. I categorized that cat under Category:Set indices on Russia and put that one into Category:Disambiguation, but such scheme is not a requirement of this template. Any categories generated by the new parameter will need to be created by the participants of the WikiProject under scope of which the set index falls.

In absence of a parameter, the template categorizes the set into Category:Disambiguation as before (I did not want to re-create Category:Set index articles without further input).

Please let me know if there are any further suggestions or if you see any problems with this approach.

An example of this template used with a parameter is available at Abzakovo.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. Some quick suggestions:

• We create a new category Category:Set indices and make it a child of Category:Disambiguation.
• We adjust the wording - it is currently:
  • "This set index article page lists articles that share the same (or similar) name" - which isn't actually accurate so the first adjustment would be to something like:
  • "This set index article page lists articles on the same topic that share the same (or similar) name" - but those with better understanding of the structure could make it reflect the actul set index so it could say:
  • "This set index article page lists articles on Russian inhabited localities that share the same (or similar) name" - basically:
  • "This set index article page lists articles on X that share the same (or similar) name" - where X = films, comics, Russian inhabited localities, mountains, ships, songs, albums, bands, etc. and it can default to "the same topic".

Anyway great start - I'll go and sort this out for a few examples in comics and pop them back in here. (Emperor (talk) 14:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC))

Alright, I changed the wording and created Category:Set indices. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:23, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Great work, thanks! hike395 (talk) 14:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Let's hope it'll hold :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I've made a start: Sandman (comics).

Just one thing - my using bold was only to show the area that needed changing, it wasn't to suggest they needed bolding. It probably works if it is seamlessly integrated into the text, so we can lose the bold.

Next step is to let the Mountains and Ships folks know and see if they want to tweak anything there. I'll be thrashing out formatting guidelines with the comics project. I'll check around to see which projects would benefit and drop them a note. (Emperor (talk) 14:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC))

I think boldface adds an extra emphasis as to the index topic, but I have no strong feeling either way, so I'll have it removed per your suggestion.

As for letting the projects know, if you could do that, I'd much appreciate the effort—I myself don't quite have the time to do that. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I've dropped a note into the Film Project talk page and one onto the Ship index category (where I noticed this had come up a while ago). Mountains have already upgraded and I've fixed all the comics SI that fell into the main category (as well as starting discussion on nailing down a Comics Project style guide to deal with the projects specific needs). I'll check around to see which projects have enough specific disambiguation pages to warrant a disambiguation category for their talk page header and drop them a note (as I did with film) as they are the ones with enough articles that it'd be in the projects interest to devise guidelines for them. I'll also have a word with the Anthroponymy Project as the pages they tag with their footer banner (e.g. Pike (surname)) are essentially name specific set indices and they might want to also link in under the general SI structure. (Emperor (talk) 17:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC))