Wikipedia:Cross-reference

Discussion: Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines/Archive 13#Accepting "WP:Multiple-cross-reference page" as a guideline

A cross-reference refers to a previously proposed concept whose objective was to be like a redirect page except that it would lists several target pages among which the reader may choose. It was supposed to exist when there were at least two candidate target pages and none of them alone sufficed, or when there were at least two that deserved inclusion as possibilities for the reader to consider.

A cross-reference page was supposed to have a list of two or more links to articles on related topics that shed light on the concept identified in the article's title. For example, Professional dancing and health was a cross-reference page, with the motivation that both Dance and health and Health risks of professional dance described the concept but in different aspects, and it was believed that it would be confusing with a third article instead of a cross-reference page.

Differences from disambiguation pages

• Not all, and possibly none, of the topics were supposed to be called by the name that is the article's title.

• A disambiguation page links to various articles about possibly unrelated topics known by the same name. A cross-reference page was supposed to link to articles related to just one topic identified in the page's title.

• Many pages was supposed to be able to link to a cross-reference page. Normally no pages (except redirects and occasionally other disambiguation pages) should link to a disambiguation page except via a disambiguating hatnote.

It was also not supposed to be a glossary: it didn't need to define the terms that it listed.

Recommendations

According to the relevant discussion, cross-references are not to be used in Wikipedia, and alternatives should be used instead, such as:

• Broad-concept article ("dabconcept")
• Stand-alone list article
• Set index article
• Redirect
• Disambiguation