Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 37

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Pre-Indo-European

Someone might like to look at this page which purports to be a dab page but which has an ownership problem. Abtract (talk) 08:06, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I made a cleaning pass over it and Indo-European. But the ownership issue may be sticky. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

To me, it seems like it is less of a disambiguation page and more of a page explaining what Pre-Indo-European means. None of the articles seem to have similarly confusing names; rather, it seems that the topic itself is confusing, which an article itself could clear. -- Natalya 20:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's a set-index article? I once had similar problems at cleaning up Orthodox Christianity, and I am wondering now if it was the ownership issues there or my possible mistaking it for a dab page that was the problem. – sgeureka ^t•c 21:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Links to other Wikipedias

Occasionally, I see links to foreign language Wikipedias in disambig pages, generally for entries which we don't have an article on. For example:

• RAVA (village)[1] - Hungarian village in Transylvania/Romania

What to do with these? --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 16:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Delete them, or comment them out, or move them to the dab's talk page. Or, I suppose, create the article by translating the linked one. :-) In this case, there's another article that could be lined instead. -- JHunterJ (talk)

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've been doing (commenting them out, generally). Just making sure. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 10:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

should "see also" section be a hatnote

Proposal to do away with the guide that says that similar and easily confused terms should be in the "see also" section. They should be in a hatnote, like regular articles.

Why should a reader have to go through all the entries before they realize that they are mistaken? In addition, there's some small dab pages with unsightly large "see also" sections. It would be much neater if they were all taken care of with a hatnotes, which are horizontal, not vertical. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 01:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I can see a hatnote at the top of a disambiguation page getting rather large, if there are a number of easily confused pages associated with the disambiguation page. There are definitly some "See also" sections that are much larger than necessary, but there are definitly pages with many valid entries. In addition to adding clutter, I think that adding a hatnote at the top of the disambiguation page would take away from the (possible) primary topic and the other main uses for the disambiguation term. Yes, it's true that someone could have come to that page erroneously due to a misspelling, but conceptually the majority of people would be coming for that exact meaning of the page. I feel like having the possible misspellings in a see also section at the end makes things crisp, clear, and organized.

Also, unlike long articles where it would be a pain to comb through the article to get to the bottom if you were looking for a different meanings, most disambiguation pages are much shorter than articles, so getting down to the bottom of the "See also" section is not a great chore.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be frugal in what we include in the "See also" sections, however. :) -- Natalya 02:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

DeWitt (althogh technically not a dab, but a surname page, they seem to work with the same guidelines) is a prime example. DeWitt is easily confused with De Witt. But a person would have to go through the long list at the article to realize that they might have been mistaken. That searcher might give up even before they reach the "see also" section. The other day I moved the common mispelling from a "see also" section to a hatnote. I think that for that article, and similarly situated articles, a hatnote is the better way to go. Do you agree?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 04:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

DeWitt is a dab page, not a surname article. It could be split into a surname article and a dab page if desired. Surname articles, including the lists of name holders on them, do not need to observe the dab guidelines. Multiple wikilinks per line, for instance. Some guidelines still make sense, like not ending the fragments with a period. I'd say a hatnote on a surname article is fine. I'd recommend combining the dab pages DeWitt and De Witt, since they are just navigational aids, and leading the list with links to the new surname page(s) -- the surname article might also cover the name both with the space and without. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

That's true, it is a dab page, I wasn't carefuel before I spoke. But why should dab pages and surname pages have different guidelines? They are the same type of articles. If a hatnote makes sense in one, it should make sense in the other. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 13:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that's a good example of when having the easily confused meaning as a hatnote is helpful, but what about other disambiguation pages with multiple confused meanings? I'm wary of making that a broad change in the MoS, and would rather engourage ignoring the rules in cases where is appears that it would be much more helpful. -- Natalya 11:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The "broad changes" were initiated when the "see also" MOSDAB guideline was written, making the "see also" section have a different role in dab pages then in regular articles. I'm also wary of "broad changes" and for that very reason the current guideline should be reversed. Consistency between dab pages and regular pages outweigh the benefits of using "see also" the way it's uses in dab pages. If this isn't agreeable, how about modifying the guideline to say that "in certain cases, it makes sense to put the easily confused term in a hatnote"? --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 13:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(after ec)Personally, I don't think DeWitt and De Witt should be separate pages. The spelling among the place names, and even among the human name, is rather inconsistent. For US places, the articles were created based on names used by the U.S. Census Bureau. However, in many cases the local web sites use a different spelling (or in some cases are inconsistent. Even now, after the pages have been split and scrubbed a few times, De Witt, Iowa and De Witt, New York are listed on both pages, although they currently redirects to DeWitt, Iowa and DeWitt, New York. Among people, Alexander De Witt is listed on DeWitt, but not on DeWitt. I think it would be more sensible to have a single page for these easy confused names. older ≠ wiser 13:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't really have in mind to discuss the "Witts", I had broader policy issues in mind. I guess I should track down a better example. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 13:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

So pretty much like Rogue and Rouge? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 14:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

(after ec) As a general practice, I don't think hatnotes are appropriate on disambiguation pages. As an exceptional practice, there may be some cases where a hatnote might be appropriate. I have come across them occasionally, and I've tended to leave them be as the hatnote did not strike me as unreasonable. But I don't recall any specific examples though. I can see your point about the "see also" section serving a different function on disambiguation page than in articles. But I would not want to see the contents of the See also sections simply dumped into hatnotes. In many cases, the items in the See also section would simply not be appropriate in a hatnote by any measure. older ≠ wiser 14:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Lord Sesshomaru's example is perfect. It's where a "commonly confused word" should belong in a hatnote, not in the "see also" section. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 15:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I think hatnotes on dab pages should be an exception rather than the rule; one instance where hatnotes are used often on dab pages though are for wikipedia stuff, see Article (plus incoming links such as good article). I am neutral on that for surname pages, since what should be done in cases like Dyment-Dimond-Dymond-Diamant (disambiguation)-Diament? DeWitt and De Witt can be merged, since they overlap so much, but their respective lengths would also justify keeping them separate; I don't feel strong either way. – sgeureka ^t•c 15:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. So it looks like we are coming to the conclusion that sometimes merging is appropiate, sometimes a hatnote is appropiate, and sometimes a "see also" section is appropiate. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 16:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

That's seems pretty accurate. I think that the "See also" section should still be consiered the default, however, so that we do not get an abundance of unnecessary hatnotes. -- Natalya 16:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so I'm going to apply this to the main page. Please revert anything that is unagreeable. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 20:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Avi

Does anyone see any reason to keep any of the four final names listed at Avi on the page? I would normally just discuss it on the talk page of the disambiguation page, but it doesn't seem to be frequented much/ever, so I figured I'd see if anyone thought of reasons to keep them here. The only one I might consider keeping is the link to Avie Tevanian, who may have a nickname "Avie" (even so, that's more of a misspelling). Thoughts? -- Natalya 19:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no point in ever discussing anything on disambiguation talk pages, unless an edit conflict comes up, as it may be years before anyone sees your post there. (As for your question, I'll leave that to others to answer) --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd segregate them to a section "People with the given name Avi" (until Avi (name) is created), and remove "Avie" or move to See also. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Yup, I'd remove "Avie Tevian" and add just "Avie" to a See also section. --Gwguffey (talk) 00:27, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Cool, those ideas sound pretty reasonable. Thanks for the input! -- Natalya 11:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for already doing that, JHunterJ! Just fyi, I moved "Avie Tevian" to the "See also" section, and made the header for the given name section a little smaller, since they are not very big lists. -- Natalya 11:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Even for small lists of name holders, I usually use a big header to emphasize the distinction between the list of name holders that should go to their own name article when available and "real" disambiguation entries. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I can ride with that. I think I was basing the sections off of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#People, but those actually people whose names are the disambiguation page, not people-whose-names-include-the-name-of-the-disambiguation-page-who-technically-don't-need-to-be-on-there-because-they're-not-really-known-by-that-name-but-who-we're-including-because-we're-nice. I think it stuck out to me at first glance, since the list was so small, but it does makes sense. Thanks for explaining! -- Natalya 12:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Two songs called "Fade"

Here's the situation: There are two songs called "Fade" with articles. The one by Blue Angel has an article under Fade (Blue Angel song) and the one by Staind has a redirect under Fade (Staind song) to the album it's on, Break the Cycle. Now, until a few minutes ago, when I changed it, Fade (song) was the article for the Blue Angel song; I moved it to Fade (Blue Angel song) when I stumbled upon the article, having navigated to Fade (song) looking for the Staind song.

Anyway. I know that Fade (song) should not remain a redirect to the Blue Angel song. My question is, which one of the following should it be a redirect to:

1. The Staind song, which is much more popular than the Blue Angel song (whose own article calls it "obscure")
2. The omnibus redirect page Fade, which has links to both songs, but also to many other fade-related entities
3. A new redirect page under Fade (song) listing just those two songs (and maybe also the Radiohead song with the word in a parenthetical, which is listed at Fade), specifically for those who, like me, navigated to the article of that name looking specifically for a song named "Fade."

--zenohockey (talk) 01:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Unless I'm quite mistaken, Fade (song) should redirect to Fade, where both specific songs are covered. There is a template to be used on Fade (song) that's called something like "redirect from insufficient disambiguation," but I'm not sure of the exact name. --Tkynerd (talk) 04:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

{{R from incomplete disambiguation}}. But, Zenohockey, there is no real reason to move Fade (song) to Fade (Blue Angel song). A hatnote on Fade (song) (when it was an article about the Blue Angel song) directing the handful of people who would reach it by entering "Fade (song)" in the search box to the Staind album would have worked as well, and IMO would be preferable since there's only one full article about any song named "Fade". -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, JHunterJ -- that makes sense to me. Zenohockey, I encourage you to follow JHunterJ's approach. --Tkynerd (talk) 14:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

But as as I said in my question, I already moved Fade (song) to Fade (Blue Angel song). Should I put in an AfD to move it back, or take Tkynerd's first suggestion and re-redirect Fade (song) to Fade? --zenohockey (talk) 02:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Moving a title back over the redirect that was created when it was first moved can be done by any editor; no AfD or admin intervention required. I made the move and added the hatnote to Fade (song). -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not know that. Thanks for your help! --zenohockey (talk) 22:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Primary topic

When there is just one primary topic, the current guidelines seem pretty clear to me. However when there are two or more, then I believe there is rooms for clarification. We have establish previously that variants in capitalisation, punctuation and spelling are not to be distinguished in the lead sentence (see mos:dab#Introductory line, and since the "root article" (Article name on a dab page Article name (disambiguation)) is by definition the primary topic, this combination creates the possibility of more than one primary topic - see HP (disambiguation) as an example. It is how to address this possibility that I would like to see clarified. To start things off I suggest the following additional sentence at the end of the mos:dab#Linking to a primary topic section:

There may be more than one primary topic if variants in punctuation, capitalization and spelling have produced more than one 'root article' such as with HP and hp in HP (disambiguation); each of these primary topics should be given equal prominence at the top of the disambiguation page like this from Freak (disambiguation):

A freak is a person with something unusual about their appearence or personality. "Freeek!" is a song by George Michael from the album Patience Freaks is a 1932 film. The Freak was an unproduced motion picture written by Charlie Chaplin in the early 1970s. Freak(s) may also refer to:

There may be a better way to do it but I'm sure you get my general thrust. What do you think? Abtract (talk) 09:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Freeek!, The Freak, and Freaks do not appear to be primary topics of Freak (disambiguation)], with possibly a case being made for Freaks. Not every variant of punctuation, capitalization, and spelling will be a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with JHunterJ that the variants are not primary topics for Freak. They certainly should be mentioned somewhere on the page, but not as primary topics. I think the best summary of primary topics on dab pages was given by JHunterJ above (mos:dab#Introductory line 2). Here is the relevant portion:

There is only one article at the root word of any (disambiguation) page. That article is the primary topic. Depending on the set of articles, there may be other articles that would be primary topics of their own dab pages (such as QI (disambiguation)), but those dab pages have been merged or were pre-emptively created in the other dab. On the other hand, there may be still more articles that are variations of spelling, punctuation, or capitalization but would have no (disambiguation) pages to be the primary topic of (such as Q.I (disambiguation), which should not exist, since Q.I is not an ambiguous title); these are not primary topics.

Although taken out of context of the discussion it is not as clear, but perhaps some version of this should get incorporated into the main page. older ≠ wiser 12:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It is just that interpretation that I am querying. Simplifying my point a bit ... if variants of spelling, punctuation and capitalisation are considered equally suitable for inclusion within a dab page, then they are equal partners and should have equal status in terms of "primary topicness". Indeed this (my) reasoning allows both HP and hp to be primary topics within HP (disambiguation) whereas JHJ's reasoning would surely exclude hp as it is a "variant". Take as an example Freaks ... the dab page Freak (disambiguation) covers that variant just as well as the "main" variant Freak, they have equal status and therefor are both root articles imho; what is the difference between them? JHJ says above, "Not every variant of punctuation, capitalization, and spelling will be a primary topic." Why not? Abtract (talk) 13:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

One most significant difference between the HP/Hp example and the Freak example is that the HP/Hp is a variance in capitalization, while the Freak example is a variance in spelling. So, they are different words than the dab topic. Thus, I agree with JHunterJ and Older as that would make them non-primary topics. Doing so would fundamentally shift the premise of primary topics and I don't think that makes the pages clear nor friendlier for the readers. --Gwguffey (talk) 14:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

But if that is the case, why do we include Freaks on the page at all? Surely it's either "in" (with equal status) or "out". mos:dab#Introductory line goes to great length to be inclusive of all variants; why does't this apply to primary topics? However I have no axe to grind here but it needs clarifying in the guideline. If the consensus is that spelling variants (even including plurals) have a lower status in this regard, then we had better say so. And what about punctuation variants? Abtract (talk) 14:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ordinarily, Freaks would redirect to Freak. Hence, as JHJ conceded and I tend to agree, a case could be for Freaks being primary on that disambiguation page. Indeed, the version immediately before you edited the page had Freaks listed as a second primary topic. Based on this common practice of redirecting plurals to the singular, the likelihood of mistaken links or searches involving the terms is significant and Freaks could justifiably be considered a second primary topic. The other terms are somewhat different. Arguably "Freeek!" should not even be included in the main listing on that page, but merely noted as a see also. The Freak is a little more interesting. It is a distinctive title, and there could arguably be a separate disambiguation page for The Freak as there are comic book characters commonly known as "the Freak" or "The Freak". Because the definite article may be dropped in casual speech, The Freak should be included on the dab page for Freak, but it is harder to claim it is a primary topic. older ≠ wiser 14:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC) And just FYI, the dab page should also treat terms related to Freaking. older ≠ wiser 14:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll restate more generically my earlier not that BKonrad quoted:

• Any disambiguation page that has "(disambiguation)" in its title has at least one primary topic, and that will be the page that has the same name minus the " (disambiguation)" part -- the "base name".
• There may be variations of spelling, punctuation, and capitalisation (and number - plurals) of the base name. Some of these may be primary topics, and some of them will not be primary topics. A variant may be a primary topic if:
  • The variant spelling had a dab of its own (because there are multiple articles that could have been titled with the same variation) and that dab page was merged with the dab in question.
  • The variant spelling could have had such a dab, but rather than creating a separate dab page the multiple entries that would have gone there were added to the dab in question.
• A variant is not a primary topic if there is no hypothetical dab page for it to be the only primary topic of.

In particular, we want to avoid moving a lot of entries to primary topics if those entries are going to then go counter to the guideline to order the entries by likelihood—even if they could have had their own dabs. If it becomes a point of contention on a particular dab page, we should consider splitting the variations out (or back out) to their own disambiguation pages, list each other in the See also sections. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Good. Probably need to note that the primary topic may be a redirect, typically more common with abbreviations, but can happen with other forms as well. Though I'm not sure it will be universally accepted, we might want to suggest how to formulate the sentences for such redirected primary topics (as in the lengthy HP/hp or Baikal discussions). older ≠ wiser 12:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be a pain but I disagree with JHJ's summary ... I think it is much simpler: If a variant is sufficiently close to the dab page title to merit inclusion in the dab page then it is a primary topic is much simpler to understand and act upon. The JHJ way is balancing on a pinpoint and liable to cause argument after argument imho. Abtract (talk) 23:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It's simpler even than that: If a variant merits inclusion on the dab, then it merits inclusion on the dab, that's all. Merit for inclusion is not merit for primary topic-ness. The "JHJ way" is not my way -- it's the way the dab guidelines speak about primary topics, and is a look at the spirit of the guidelines. Is a George Micheal music video a primary topic of "freak", an article the reader would have already seen before reaching the dab page? Clearly not -- nobody types in "Freeek!" when looking for the movie or the sideshow attraction or any of the other entries on the Freak disambiguation page. Things that are titled "base name (phrase)" vary from the base name even less than spelling variations, punctuation variations, etc. -- if not for the technical limitations of Wikipedia naming, they wouldn't vary at all. There is no reason to promote minor variations to primary topic-ness ahead of these articles, unless the minor variations would be primary topics of some other dab page. Again, if it's a point of contention, the better solution would be to split any dab page that you feel should have multiple primary topics into multiple dab pages. I don't think that pinpoint-balancing is necessary. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

With respect I think it is your way rather than that of the guidelines because the guidelines don't allow for more than one primary topic; it's this omission I want to correct. I think we have probably discussed this enough to attempt a forward move; my suggestion is that we each put a proposed amendment in the box below, together with a status quo alternative, and see what others think:

(A) - Leave the guidelines unchanged (B) - insert JHJ proposal here (C) - Add the following to the end of the primary topic section of the guidelines: "Where a variant (or variants) of the term being disambiguated exists as an article which is considered close enough to the term to merit inclusion on the page, then this variant becomes a second (or third etc) primary topic and should be positioned at the beginning of the page as on HP (disambiguation). This will normally be applicable with capitalization, accent and punctuation variants; with the addition of the word "the" before the term; with plurals; and with common alternative (mis)spellings."

I then suggest that we vote in the normal way but not until your proposal is in place. Does this seem a reasonable idea? Abtract (talk) 13:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that the guideline does not allow more than one primary topic, only that it does not specifically address such situations. I think we may need to agree on baseline definitions though. For purposes of disambiguation, a primary topic exists only when the disambiguation page has "(disambiguation)" in the title and some other article uses the unqualified title (either directly or through a redirect). The placement of the primary topic line on a dab page was simply a nod towards indicating that that term occupies the unqualified title: Since it is unlikely that this well-known meaning is what they [users] are looking for if they've visited the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links. Now, IIRCC, that part of the guideline was not adopted without some disagreement. I seem to recall that I expressed some objection, but it would take some digging through the archives to find the discussions. But in any case, the practice is well-established now. And by the logic currently expressed on the guideline for presenting the primary topic separately on the dab page, the only cases where there would be multiple primary topics is when there are alternative spellings with existing articles where a reader could end up on that page and might reasonably have expected to find some other page AND the alternative meanings for the article could easily be confused with the items on the disambiguation page (i.e, there is a combined disambiguation page for what otherwise would have been separate dab pages for distinct primary topics). older ≠ wiser 14:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

"vote in the normal way" -- what would that be? We don't vote on guideline changes; we reach them by consensus. As Bkonrad mentioned, there is no guideline prohibiting multiple primary topics, and I'm observing that there is no guideline that every base-name variation be a primary topic. The only thing that appears to be in question is what "merits" an entry for primary topic-ness, which is also spelled out in the guidelines: "Since it is unlikely that this well-known meaning is what they are looking for if they've visited the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links." We could spell out how this works with "blended" dabs (with an example of a page with two primary topics because it is a combination of two disambiguation pages), if that will help, or we could specify that blended dabs should not be created, so that there is only ever one primary topic, and split out the ones that currently have multiple primary topics. But I see no problem with the guidelines as stated, so I don't yet have a proposal to put into your proposed vote. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

For what its worth, I'm with JHunterJ. I don't see that we have much of a problem as things are. I have never had a real problem determining what made some sense nor have I had conflicts about it. (John User:Jwy talk) 16:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(Ec) I think the guidelines do fine as they are now. They allowed us to find a good solution at HP (disambiguation), where, because of not clearly defined capitalization, the primary topic truly could be two different things. Even with the guidelines as they are now, we were able to do that. Now, I'm not too averse to mentioning a short line about the example of HP (disambiguation), but I don't want that to open up disambiguation pages that don't need it to having primary topics. For Freak (disambiguation), for example, I'd much rather make a second disambiguation page at Freaks (disambiguation), and link to that from Freak (disambiguation). The only reason I see the HP example as a valid reason to have two primary topics is because even if you had two separate disambiguation pages for the capitalized and non-capitalized version, there is not enough differentiation in the terms to say which capitalization refers to which (Additionally, the directs from HP and hp make it dually confusing). In most other cases, however, I think that we can find alternate options that do not require primary topics, and thus. If we want to mention HP (disambiguation) somewhere in the MoS, I wouldn't disagree, as long as we make it clear that there needs to be very good reasons for doing this. -- Natalya 16:58, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

OK already ... I can see that the weight of opinion is clearly in favour of leaving things as they are. I will go along with thew spirit of this and not make a point wherever I find minor 'variants'. Thanks for taking my idea seriously. Abtract (talk) 17:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing it, Abtract. Even if it's sometimes hard to get consensus to change the Manual of Style, and even if it feels to some editors like its uprooting the way we know to do DAB pages, it is good to see if there are ways to improve the way we do disambiguation pages. -- Natalya

Sectioning entires at Bravo

Does anyone have any ideas of further topic sections to make for the entires currently in "Other" at the disambiguation page Bravo? I did a bunch of cleanup on the page, but it still feels like there are a lot of entires clumped together, and if there were any categories we could put them into, it would make navigation easier. -- Natalya 22:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. Propaniac (talk) 13:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A few questions

Many people have a tendency to put the word "the" in front of the linked term at the beginning of an entry. Am I correct in assuming that we don't want this?

Second question, frequently editors will make the first word or phrase in an entry bold if we don't have any article for it and they've guessed that it's not worth redlinking. Such as:

• Rhapsody Play List, a playlist format for Rhapsody online music service

Should these be de-bolded? --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 18:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

There definitly shouldn't be bolding for the entries. Unless I'm mistaken, the only things that should be bolded are the link to the primary topic (if there is one) (MoS:DP#Linking_to_a_primary_topic), the name of the subject leading line (Rhapsody may refer to:) (MoS:DP#Introductory_line), and possibly any sections separating the entries (MoS:DP#Longer_lists). The individual entires themselves definitly shouldn't be bolded (MoS:DP#Individual_entries). You may already know the info at the links - I just figured I'd link to where the Manual of Style for reference.

As for the use of "The"... wasn't 100%, so I did some digging! MoS:DP#Individual_entries says "The link should be the first word or phrase in each entry". So, if there is a blue link for the entry, it sounds like there shouldn't be a "the" before those links. I think this also applies if we decide that a red link is appropriate. If there isn't one, though, MoS:DP#URL_anchor_notation, the blue link that we have in the entry shouldn't start the line - so, in that case, there could be a the, I guess? -- Natalya 19:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Foreign language wikipedias

I noticed something which I thought might be of interest when looking at some of the other Wikipedias. I don't speak any other languages, but I used google's translation service to look at the disambiguation policies of some of the other wikipedias, and I found that they vary quite a bit.

The German wikipedia is the 2nd largest wikipedia, and their guidelines appear to be exactly the same as ours, as far as I can tell. The Polish and Italian wikipedias, on the other hand, have an entirely different disambiguation philosophy, and their pages are a sea of blue links, using piping to cover up the original article titles as is normally done in articles. The Spanish wikipedia only allows one blue link per entry, but uses piping to cover up the sloppy looking article titles, and all entries end in a semi-colon.

I can't really tell the finer points of their guidelines, as the translations are not so good, but from the parts I can make out, I found it interesting how the different Wikipedias ended up having very different ways of handling disambiguation pages. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 20:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Capitalisation

I disagree with this:

"Start with a capital letter unless the target article is marked with {{lowercase}}."

There are many pages which mix proper and common nouns. Using an initial lowercase for the latter will ease distinction for readers. We are already careful to preserve unusual capital/lower usages e.g. PuTTY on putty (disambiguation); NeXT, N.EX.T and NEXT on next. Why the refusal to preserve the most widespread of all such usages? jnestorius^(talk) 12:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

This practice on disambiguation pages is adapted both from common usage in English, as articulated in the guideline for lists, Wikipedia:Lists#List styles, which has the following guidance: As a matter of style, list items should start with a capital letter. They should not have a punctuation mark such as a period, a comma or a semi-colon at the end, except if a list item is one or more full sentences, in which case there is a period at the end. older ≠ wiser 13:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Although interestingly, the main WP:MOS is more flexible as described in the section Bulleted and numbered lists: When the elements are sentence fragments, they are typically introduced by a lead fragment ending with a colon, are formatted using consistently either sentence or lower case, and finish with a final semicolon or no punctuation, except that the last element typically finishes with a final period. I can see where that is reasonable, since lists consisting of single words or short terms are often uncapitalized. But in general, I think it is more common to use sentence case on lists, especially where the list consists of heterogeneous elements, and, as typical, on disambiguation pages the disambiguation lists frequently include at least two parts separated by a comma or other compound structures for which sentence case seemed more appropriate as the default guidance. older ≠ wiser 13:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Whatever about Wikipedia, I don't believe it is standard English style to require vertical list entries to begin with a capital. It is often permitted but more often prohibited than required.
• What do you mean by "sentence case"? The list elements are explicitly not sentences, so the initial capital of a sentence does not apply. Modern dictionaries do not capitalise headwords of entries; DAB pages are similar to dictionary entries.

jnestorius^(talk) 13:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe it is standard English style to require vertical list entries to begin with a capital. It is often permitted but more often prohibited than required. -- When editing Wikipedia, Wikipedia style guidelines apply. In my experience, vertical lists (other than those consisting of short words or terms) in general use sentence case. I'm the various style manuals with have divergent guidance. The Chicago MOS suggests that each entry begin with a capital letter—whether or not the entry forms a complete sentence. In my experience, I'd say sentence case is more common for lists similar to what is found on disambiguation pages, although YMMV. In any case, the guideline has been such for quite a while and at least has some support from recognized style authorities, I think a better argument than "I don't like it" is needed to develop any consensus for change. older ≠ wiser 15:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Nope, the CMOS says numbered lists should begin with a capital letter, whereas "A group of unnumbered items each of which consists of an incomplete sentence should begin lowercase and requires no terminal punctuation". DAB lists are of course unnumbered . Apart from WP:UGH, my arguments are:

1. An initial upper or lower case letter is a useful aid for distinction and recognition; DAB pages are about ease of navigation.
2. Forcing an init-cap is inconsistent with the preservation of other distinctive lettercase in DAB items.
3. There is no need to have DAB-list style conform with article-list style; the purpose of each is different.

jnestorius^(talk) 15:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree. A lot depends on how widely the present guideline is actually adhered to. If it isn't, then we could quite easily change it unless someone comes up with strong arguments in favour of it. However, if it's being observed fairly consistently at the moment, then changing the approved style is going to mean a prohibitively large amount of work to bring existing pages in line.--Kotniski (talk) 15:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: CMOS. the FAQ I referred to above states Bulleted lists "are treated the same as numbered lists in terms of capitalization and punctuation." If the CMOS proper says something different, well, that's a problem for the CMOS editors. The practice is widespread in disambiguation pages. It would require significant effort to update pages for what, IMO in any case, is very little benefit. older ≠ wiser 16:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The first part of your argument stands strongest with me. After thinking about it for a while (as much as I have a tendancy to not want to fix things if they aren't broken :) ), the ability to distinguish between proper and non-proper nouns on a disambiguation page could add to ease of navigation. Kotniski brings up a good point, though, about the difficulty of implementing it. If there was to be consensus that we should change it, I don't think we should let it being time-consuming to implement (at least with the already created pages) stop us, but it's something to keep in mind. -- Natalya 18:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this discussion is that it is simply a rehash of what must have been discussed in the article naming debate years ago. Dab entries almost all start with an article name and article names (mostly) begin with a capital letter. We are disambiguating articles so we surely must use the article name ... which starts with a capital. Abtract (talk) 22:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

True, that was something I was thinking about for a while. All of the lowercase article names go right to their uppercase counterparts (apple goes right to Apple). True, unless there is a specific reason for it, the actual article name is supposed to begin with a capital letter. Is there harm in having the upper/lowercase letter based on whether it is a proper noun or not on the disambiguation page? If there are valid reasons not to do it, then, y'know, we should leave it as it is. If not, though, it seems like there could be some disambiguation benefit. -- Natalya 22:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Article names begin with a capital due to technical limitations, not stylistic choice: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Lower case first letter. Since apple links to Apple, there is not even the need for the kind of pipetrick that is currently prescribed for book-titles, etc. I think the kind of consistency Abtract advocates is spurious and pointless. jnestorius^(talk) 00:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Setting aside, for a moment, the debate over which style would be better, I think a more practical question is, who exactly would edit nearly 100,000 disambiguation pages to make them all conform to the new guideline? Probably 99.9% of pages have all the links starting with a capital letter, even those which are otherwise wildly out of sync with the manual of style.

The answer, of course, is - no one. Even I, in the middle of my massive cleanup project, wouldn't be willing to do that, as the idea of making an unnecessary stylistic change which would then require 90% of disambig pages to be changed seems ridiculous. If this were 4 years ago, we could reasonably argue over whether this would be a good thing, or whether we should end entries in a semi-colon or perhaps a comma, or if putting the link in bold might be better.

But after 100,000 disambiguation pages have already been written? Nobody's going to fix them all to meet the new policy, and the end result would be a complete lack of consistency, with a tiny but growing number of pages meeting the new policy and the great (but slowly shrinking) majority now violating it.

And even the editors who have never read the manual of style and think every other word should be a blue link and entries should have references and photos, even they all seem to naturally want to capitalize the first word in an entry. So the new pages being written would mostly be violating the new guideline as well. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 09:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

This is really a meta-question, perhaps deserving of its own page: to what extent should agreeing a change in the MOS be dependent on the degree of effort required to retrofit existing pages to the new standard? The MOS has two purposes: (1) ensure a level of quality for each page (2) ensure consistency between pages. There is a tradeoff between these two objectives: favouring (1) encourages frequent tweaking of the MOS; favouring (2) requires a stable if imperfect MOS. I believe the nature of Wikipedia adversely impacts both objectives, but affects (2) more severely than (1). For myself I favour (1) over (2): the prospect of a large number of pages spending long periods of time not fully MOS-compliant does not cause me any great alarm; a change in the MOS does not instantly make a good page bad (or a bad page good). That said, I would agree that any wide-ranging change like the present proposal could not reasonably be approved without a long and broad discussion leading to a strong consensus. jnestorius^(talk) 12:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is a meta-question. In looking back at the earlier versions of this manual of style, the earliest version (not the drafts, but once it actually became a guideline) appears to have changed very little from what we have today. I don't think there have yet been any changes which would then suddenly have caused the majority of pages to be out of compliance with the manual of style. For that matter, I wonder if there have ever been any changes made anywhere across Wikipedia policies or guidelines which have then required something like 100,000 pages to be altered. Policy pages like WP:NOT and Wikipedia:Reliable sources have changed radically since they were first written, but in neither case I don't believe was it ever a matter of, "Ok, now all our articles need to be different to match this new addition to this policy".

I think any change to the manual of style which would then make the majority of our disambiguation pages out of compliance with the new guidelines should only be done if it is widely agreed that the new way of doing things would be clearly and substantially better, better enough that it would be worth introducing widespread inconsistency, as a large percentage of disambiguation pages would not likely follow the new guidelines for many years to come. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 09:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

In subject:

The "longer lists" example currently uses headings of the form "In subject:"

Thingamajig may refer to: In science: Thingamajig (chemistry), an isotope of chlorine Thingamajig (physics), a kind of pulsar Thingamajig (biology), an invasive plant used as ground cover In world music: Thingamajig (Qatar), a seven-stringed musical instrument Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos thingamajig (UK), a wind instrument, similar to but longer than, the Peruvian instrument

Is this a suggested format or a required format? On several pages I have tidied, I have preferred a bare "subject" to the "in subject" format; depending on the subjects in question, I have considered it to read better. For me, "In X" only works if X is an abstract noun denoting a field of study: "in geography" works, "in cities" doesn't. In many cases, other users have "corrected" my text to the "in subject" format. If this is a fixed standard, it should be explicitly stated to be such; if not, then perhaps another example using a different format should be added to prove it is not. jnestorius^(talk) 10:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

IMO, this is at best at suggested format (and in many cases a very poor choice. I would welcome revising that section to indicate "In X" is not always the best choice for subheadings. It often results in ungrammatical formulations. I agree that in many cases, a bare subject subheading is preferable. I don't agree that "In X" only works if X is an abstract noun. It also works, perhaps best IMO, in lists of places names "In Country X". older ≠ wiser 12:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It has always struck me as odd that when we move to the == format (for longer lists) we drop the "in" altogether. IMHO it should be made clear that it is optional and the "in" should only be inserted or removed if there is a specific case for so doing. Where possible, consistency within a page is desirable. Abtract (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Consistancy is nice, so perhaps we can strive to have pages all with categories that use in. The points above about it not making sense in some places are very true, though. "In Other" sounds rather odd, so I always just put "Other". A short change about that in the MoS wouldn't go awry, I don't think. -- Natalya 13:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

"In other uses:" works well too. I use the "In" format just because that's how the guidelines are written. If there's no consensus for that format, then yeah, it might be a good idea to do (or to use only the "non-In" form if there's consensus for that). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I like that. It sounds more elegant than just "other". (That was really just an aside, but thanks!) -- Natalya 13:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Any objections to including an "In other uses:" example in the body? Another editor asks for cleanup, I group the entries using "In other uses:", and he changes it to "In other usage:" without explanation. "Other uses" better matches the phrasing we use in {{tl:otheruses}} and IMO is better semantically -- "usage" has multiple meanings, and the one meant here is "use". ("Use" has multiple meanings too, so I'll lean more heavily on the consistent phrasing justification.) Plus it's one character shorter. :-) I wouldn't change it from "other usage" to "other use" on a page that didn't need other cleanup, though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

No objections here! Sounds like a good idea. -- Natalya 14:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this supposed dispute: what is the main difference between "In other uses" and "In other usage(s)"? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

If you do not see a difference, then why do you edit a dab page to change one to the other? If you do not see a difference, please stop changing one to the other. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

J, why are you trying so hard to avoid the question? IIRC we were supposed to have "In other usage" in practice. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying "so hard" to avoid repeating myself, since I already answered your question at 11:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC). I do not know where you got the "In other usage" idea, but it certainly isn't set in stone, and I happen to prefer "In other uses". If you're going to ask other people to clean up dab pages, you're going to have to let them clean them up. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't quite pinpoint grammatically why, but if it were to be "in other usage", I think it would need to be "in other usages". At least, it sounds right that way. "In other uses" appeals more than "In other usages" just because it's shorter. But in reality, is there a particular reason to go either way, rather than just personal preference? -- Natalya 19:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I think we need to strive for consistency. Can we agree on implementing "In other uses" in the MoS? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

reset indent> Are we trying to decide 1) whether or not to use "In" as a general prefix or 2) what the heading for "other" things. For 2, I actually prefer a plan otherwise.—Preceding unsigned comment added by jwy (talk • contribs) 18:48, July 9, 2008

I believe we are trying to decide your No. 2, the heading for "other" things. The discussion had been around "In other uses" versus "In other usage". Would your suggestion of "Otherwise" be without an in? I at one point had just been using "Other", but the appeal of consistancy with all headers being "In 'something' " is definitly present. -- Natalya 19:43, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it necessarily needs to be consistent. If it is added to the guideline, I'd prefer "In other uses:" for the reasons given above. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay... it looks like we're reading some agreement on "In other uses". Any final disagreements? -- Natalya 22:02, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there'll be any disagreeing. Should we give it a few days before making the change? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

"Trivial" categories on disambiguation pages

I know there has been talk about this before, but what should be done to the category listed as an entry on Time (disambiguation) and the Dragon Ball-related reference at Kamehameha? MoS:DAB#Categories doesn't specify on how to deal with such situations. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's harmful to link to the Time category on that dab page. What's your own thinking on this? The Dragon Ball-related reference on the Kamehameha page is definitely useful; as long as it's not reformatted as a redlink to an article on that sense of Kamehameha, it should stay, IMO. --Tkynerd (talk) 17:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, the one at the Time dab seems a bit strange to me. Can't quite put my finger on it. The Kamehameha one has been discussed, however, User:JHunterJ there felt that there shouldn't be a category. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

On further reflection, I agree that the Time category link doesn't belong on that page. It doesn't really serve as a good dab target because it could never be what someone is looking for if they try to go to a Time article, or if they wikilink to just Time. Having said that, I disagree with JHunterJ's blanket statement in that discussion ("Categories are not dab targets"). It seems to me that the Kamehameha instance is an excellent example of a situation where a category makes a perfect dab target. The category explicates the concept almost as well as an article could, and (a question I don't feel qualified to address) is the Dragon Ball sense of the word notable enough to warrant its own article? If not, then the category is clearly the right dab target. --Tkynerd (talk) 22:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Kamehameha (Dragon Ball) has been deleted on several occasions so a category was considered. I will take off the Category:Time per this discussion. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

While I did quote the blanket statement, it is not "mine". Both WP:D and WP:MOSDAB agree that disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, and categories are not articles. So Categories are not dab targets. I suggested

• Kamehameha, the signature move of the Dragon Ball character Son Goku

I picked Son Goku because it's more "his" move than any other DZ character's, according to signature move. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. A strict interpretation of the guidance at WP:D would result in removing the Dragon Ball-related entry from Kamehameha altogether, since it is not disambiguating a Wikipedia article (Son Goku (Dragon Ball) is not ambiguous). I realize that that's not the accepted practice, but I think it indicates that WP:D may need some revision to handle cases like this. In any case, I tend to favor direct dab targets (the kind where it's immediately obvious to the reader how the target relates to the ambiguous term, as soon as the link is visited if not sooner), and Son Goku (Dragon Ball)#Abilities fails that criterion rather miserably. Even though your proposed dab page text explains the relationship, the fact remains that the reader must read a way down into the linked paragraph before finding the Kamehameha reference. Not good. The only thing I would change about the category link is that it probably should not be piped; the reader should know that the target is a category page. --Tkynerd (talk) 15:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the interpretation of the guidelines that would remove an entry covering "kamehameha" with a blue link in the description. What part of WP:D needs to be revised to avoid that interpretation? If the reader were looking for the Dragon Ball ability, then he would have found the right page and would be all set to read about it, good. The link to the category suffers because the reader clicks through and does not land on an article, but has to click through yet again, not good. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different article pages which could, in principle, have the same title. Son Goku (Dragon Ball)#Abilities is not a "path[] leading to [one of a number of] different article pages which could, in principle, have the same title." So a strict (I did use that word) interpretation of the guidance would prohibit that link. A strict interpretation of WP:D would mean that no links on a dab page could go to any article that didn't have the name being disambiguated (or some form of it). I'm not saying that a strict interpretation is the right one to follow, but then I'm the one who thinks categories can, in some cases, make perfectly valid dab targets. :) --Tkynerd (talk) 20:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I still don't see the interpretive problem. "Kamehameha" is the "path... leading to [one of a number of] different articles pages which could, in principle, have the same title". In this case, the article Kamehameha (Son Goku ability) doesn't exist, but the article page which covers it does, on Son Goku (Dragon Ball), and both WP:D and WP:MOSDAB go on to explain how to write up entries for such articles. So the context is important. But categories still aren't dab targets. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

That's your interpretation of WP:D, and I find it rather peculiar that you choose to emphasize the word "article" so strongly (to exclude categories) while ignoring the rest of the sentence. What I wrote above stands: Son Goku (Dragon Ball)#Abilities simply does not meet the criteria set forth in WP:D. "Kamehameha" is not a "path" in any meaningful sense on Wikipedia; it is simply a concept (that requires disambiguation). The article links on a dab page are the "paths" referred to, but Son Goku (Dragon Ball)#Abilities is not one of those, both because it could not reasonably have any other name, and because it could not have the name Kamehameha. The point is that if we want to permit links to articles whose titles aren't examples of the dab term, while prohibiting links to categories, that needs to be spelled out. As it is, it's not clear that that's what is meant. --Tkynerd (talk) 23:57, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The sentence is clear enough. The topic is the ability of Son Goku. The article that gives best coverage of this topic is Son Goku (Dragon Ball). Taemyr (talk) 04:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Tkynerd, "article" is my interpretation of WP:D's use of "article", which is not peculiar at all -- it's why things like external links, unlinked dictionary definitions, and yes categories are not valid entries. Reading "article" as "articles and anything else some editors would like to treat as article-like" is a can of worms best left sealed. "Kamehameha" is the start of the "path" meaningfully used on WP:D -- a page title that could lead to different articles, which is why it's a concept requiring disambiguation. The article links on the dab page are not the "paths" referred to; the "path" referred to is the disambiguation process, starting with the ambiguous title, going through the disambiguation page layout, and ending at the desired article. Spelling out "article" while not spelling out "category" seems clear to me. How would you suggest it be made clearer? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Sorry, no. For your reference, here is the text again: In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different article pages which could, in principle, have the same title. It escapes me why you want to emphasize "article" at the expense of the rest of the last phrase. Arguing over exactly what "paths" means isn't really relevant, because "leading to different article pages which could, in principle, have the same title" is unambiguous: it means that the targets on a dab page must lead to article pages that could, in principle, be titled with the term being disambiguated. Since Son Goku (Dragon Ball)#Abilities could not, in principle, have any other title, it isn't an appropriate dab target if we follow WP:D.

How could this text be clarified? Easily: In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different article pages which could, in principle, have the same title, or to other article pages that explicate the concept being disambiguated. That permits the kind of link we're discussing here, while retaining the "article" stricture. If desired, that stricture could also be made explicit. --Tkynerd (talk) 15:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not read "disambiguations" as "entries on disambiguation pages" there, but I don't know why you're arguing over what "paths" means if you find it irrelevant. You are right, taking the introductory summary on its own could lead to the non-consensus interpretation. I'd hesitate on bulking the intro up too much, though. Perhaps something along the lines of "In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different articles that the reader could have been seeking when looking up the title." Changes to the text on WP:D should be discussed on WT:D, though. I'll remake this comment there. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Clarification needed

I keep running into legalistically minded people citing this page in order to disrupt an intelligent presentation of disambiguation of related meanings of a term. E.g. at Energy (disambiguation). This guideline may need some clarification to allow for that. People would also do well to obsess less over technicalities (like insisting on an unbolded "In") and remember the link to WP:UCS from the top of every guideline page. dab (𒁳) 14:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

And you would do well to stop disrupting the disambiguation page to try and include an unneeded "intelligent presentation" of your view of the primary topic. If you feel that the topic at Energy is not the primary topic for "Energy", take it up at Talk:Energy. The dab page isn't the place to try and change that meaning. The guidelines do not need any clarifications to allow for things other than navigation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The guidelines here at this Manual of Style have been developed in order to make the navigation of disambiguation pages as easy as possible. As these are the guidelines to be used, unless there is a valid reason to ignore the rules (which does happen), the guidelines should be followed. If you feel like some of the guidelines aren't making the navigation of disambiguation pages easier, then by all means, please bring up suggestions you have here, so that all of those involved in disambiguating can offer their input and we can possibly improve disambiguation pages. If you think there is a good reason not to follow the guidelines, it's usually a good plan to discuss why.

As an aside, is there anything wrong with unbolding "In"? If one editor puts it in bold, not knowing that, for ease of navigation, it should be unbolded, does it do any harm for another editor who knows this to unbold it? If, on the other hand, you think that having the "In" in bold helps with navigation, then, please bring it up for discussion. We are always open to ways to improve disambiguation pages. -- Natalya 16:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason to ignore all rules. Similar arguments have once been brought up at Talk:Entropy (disambiguation). Result was to use MoS:DP conventions. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:33, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Please archive this page

It's too big.--Xyzzyplugh (talk) 07:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

MiszaBot II archives Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation - do we want to see if we can get it to archive here too? -- Natalya 17:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Would be a good idea. Meanwhile, I'm dumping the first half of this page into archive 35, and changing the dates listed on it. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 16:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Reasonable place to break the rules?

The following articles all have the same format: Schedule I, Schedule II, Schedule III, Schedule IV, Schedule V, Schedule VI, Schedule VII, Schedule VIII. In this situation, having the link on the right seems to make the page easier to follow, as the country name on the left is perhaps what the reader would be looking for. Thoughts? --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 07:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me.--Kotniski (talk) 08:44, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more helpful to redirect all 8 pages to one central list/table which would then not be governed by mos:dab? It might be called something like List of schedules for drugs and poisons and could then link to pages like Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Drugs and Poisons. This might be better than going against guidelines. Abtract (talk) 10:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Since there was no disagreement, and because it seems sensible to me, I have actioned my suggestion. Abtract (talk) 21:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Improper name

I don't think Indian (Americas) is a suitable name for a disambiguation page. Then again, I could be wrong though. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't an answer, but I've reverted it to the original version, as someone replaced all uses of "Indian" with "First Nation", which caused the page to not even fit with its title. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 05:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It strikes me as a poor name, too, but there is a bit of reason since there is a page named Indian (Asian) and both are linked from Indian (disambiguation). I think it would probably be better to put them all on the main dab page (Indian), since there aren't an overwhelming number of entries and there appears to be some confusing overlap between the pages. I only have time to throw out my opinion, not to lend a hand...sorry. SlackerMom (talk) 12:52, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This was discussed here, where the consensus appeared to be that both Indian (Americas) and Indian (Asian) are unnecessary content forks and should both redirect to Indian. I had suggested doing that at the conclusion of the discussion with no opposition, but then forgot about it. I'll do so now. older ≠ wiser 12:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

categories

I see that the guideline currently says:

Categories aid navigation between articles. Disambiguation pages however are non-articles and do not require categorization other than for maintenance purposes, and they already get auto-categorized by using {{disambig}}, {{hndis}} and {{geodis}}. No other categories should be added, except Category:Surnames, Category:Given names or their subcategories (if the disambiguation page includes sections of name information or lists of people), or disambiguation subcategories that might apply.

However, if all entries on a disambiguation page are related, then might it be appropriate to put the page into a category? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 22:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but if they are all related, maybe the related topic deserves a page with a bunch of links out and/or see also - which would not be a dab page. (John User:Jwy talk) 01:21, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

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/Archive_10#Template_to_caution_against_frequent_mistakes.

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

Including ISO/IATA/ICAO codes, chemical element symbols, etc.. on dab pages

In my opinion, such codes and abbreviations have no place on dab pages and go against MOS:DAB, yet I can find no guidelines or discussions on Wikipedia that deal with this specific issue.

To quote the opening paragraph of WP:DAB:

Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different article pages which could, in principle, have the same title.

Therefore, in my opinion, a dab page such as Au should not include entries such as a link to Gold just because "Au" happens to be it's chemical symbol, nor should it include a link to Austral Lineas Aereas simply because "AU" happens to be it's IATA code. If someone comes to Wikipedia and wants to know to which airline IATA code "AU" belongs, they should search for an article specifically about IATA codes or perhaps consult a list such as List of acronyms and initialisms.

Am I correct in my logic or am I just being anal? I'm interested in any and all comments regarding this issue.

Thanks in advance, Marchije (talk) 04:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I think your argument makes sense, but I also think that it is very possible to take a different approach. The opening paragraph of this page uses a slightly different description: "Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles, usually when a user searches for an ambiguous term." I think that the question we should ask is: Is it likely that a user will search for a IATA code looking for an airline? The answer is yes (I have done it myself when I've only had a code without knowing the name of the airline). So if we want to make the user experience as smooth as possible I think we should include terms that users are likely to search for (including IATA codes). Cheers/ Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 07:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I definitly see the rational, but I worry that not everyone may be as logical/knowledgeable as you and I! Someone may know the code of an airport, but may not know that that code is an IATA Code (or even know what an IATA code is). Having those codes (and element symbols, etc.), hopefully allows people who are not as knowledgeable about the topic still find what they're looking for. Granted, we don't want every article and it's mother to end up on disambiguation pages, but I don't think it's too overwhelming. -- Natalya 11:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree; when in doubt, include. Abtract (talk) 13:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

And if the wording of the opening paragraph of WP:DAB is causing some editors to jump to the wrong conclusion, we could look at rephrasing it rather than enforcing it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don' think that the paragraph needs changing. To quote WP:DAB even further:

Ask yourself: When readers enter a given term in the Wikipedia search box and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result?

and

A disambiguation page has links to a heterogeneous set of concepts. It is purely for navigation, not information.

So to reiterate: A person who enters "XYZ" in the Wikipedia search box and pushes "Go" should expect to find either an article titled "XYZ" or and article about a topic which is sometimes known as "XYZ." Therefore, if someone performs a search on IATA code XYZ looking for a disambiguation page which will give them information on the name of its airline, they misunderstand the function of disambiguation. Marchije (talk) 08:53, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Though we're not about punishing users for misunderstanding our arcane concepts. If people are likely to be looking for a particular piece of information and we can give it to them without overcrowding the page, then we should be happy to give it to them.--Kotniski (talk) 10:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Marchije, would you be able to clarify your statment a little more? I'm having a little bit of a hard time understanding the part about giving them information on the name of their airline; isn't that the point of an encyclopedia? Lets say we have two people both curious about the airline Austral Lineas Aereas. One knows the actual name of the airline, and types it in to the search box, and gets to the right article. The other only knows the IATA code, and thus types "AU" into the search box. Don't we want them to be able to get to the page they're looking for too? Thanks for any clarification you can provide - I'd really like to fully understand your viewpoint. -- Natalya 11:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to note that the Airline project guidelines say The IATA and ICAO codes should be checked to see that they are redirects to the airline or that a DAB page exists that includes the airline. Although I have to agree with User:Natalya I cant see their inclusion as a problem and they can be useful to readers to find the related airline from just the code. MilborneOne (talk) 19:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Natalya,

To address your point: While it is possible that someone looking for an article about a particular airline might try to do so by searching its IATA code, it is much more likely that they would do so by using the airline's actual name. Even if someone did try the IATA code first and did not actually wind-up finding the article about said airline, most people wouldn't just throw their hands-up and say: "I give up! If I can't find an article using the IATA code, then I guess there's no article about this airline on Wikipedia. Oh well..." On the contrary, most people would try another search by using the airline's actual name, or (if they didn't know the name) by searching "IATA codes" or "Airline codes".

Having said that, I actually suspect that the above scenario is rare and that most people who search an IATA code using the Wikipedia search field are simply doing so to find out to which airline it belongs. They are in effect saying to themselves: "I wonder which airline XYZ is? I know; I'll search 'XYZ' in Wikipedia." After doing so, they reach a dab page for XYZ, they see it belongs to airline Xeno-Yellow-Zippo Air and that's that. So in effect, they have entered their 2 or 3-letter combo and found a dab page which gave them information as to what that IATA code stood for; they weren't actually interested in an article about Xeno-Yellow-Zippo Air...

Again, dab pages are not meant to give people info on every little thing that XYZ could possibly stand for. Should we really be adding IATA codes and the like to dab pages simply because some people might search a topic using these codes rather than the actual full title of the airline or airport? By that same logic, shouldn't we be listing every Wikipedia article about a city by their postal code, and every article about a private company by their stock indices on all of the worlds major exchanges, etc..., just because someone might decide to use that ambiguous set of letters or numbers to search for an article?

If someone is asking themselves "what does XYZ stand for?" they should be going to a page such as List of acronyms and initialisms: X#XY. If they want to know "which airline is represented by XYZ?" they should be consulting List of airports by IATA code or List of airports by ICAO code which are easily found by searching "IATA code", "ICAO code", "airport code", "airline code", etc...

Yes, it would be more convenient to simply type "XYZ" in the search field and land on a dab page that says "XYZ may stand for Xeno Yellow Zippo Air," rather than having to land on 2 or 3 pages before finding what one is looking for, but is that really such a bad thing? If we continue to list every possible symbol and code that a combination of letters could represent, then we risk turning these dab pages into long lists of acronyms and initialisms.

Hope that makes sense. Thanks for asking for clarification... (By the way, MilborneOne, I'm not ignoring your comment, you just happened to save yours before I could save mine; you've made a good point though... I think I'm just going to have to accept that I'm outnumbered on this one!) 8-) Marchije (talk) 19:07, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Marchije, sorry for the late reply - I only just saw your response here. Thank you for the explanation; I understand much better now. Although I still feel that it is helpful to have the IATA codes on the disambiguation pages, I am glad to understand where you are coming from. Thanks! -- Natalya 01:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

If the airport page lists its IATA or other code, that is sufficient to include it on the disambiguation page that covers the permutation of letters in disambiguation title. The reader should be able to enter the IATA code, reach the disambiguation page either directly or through a hatnote on the primary topic article, and then get to the sought airport article. Yes, making that sequence less convenient for the reader is really such a bad thing. We do not list every possible combination of letters (for example, no John Kerry on JFK (disambiguation) even though those are his initials). The "risk" of long disambiguation pages is balanced out sufficiently by the "reward" of serving the reader. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:08, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll often enter an acronym, to find out what it means. It's also a lot easier to type out SFO than San Francisco International Airport.

Specifically, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) which says "However, in many cases no decision is necessary because a given acronym has several expansions, none of which is the most prominent. Under such circumstances the articles should be at the spelled-out phrases and the acronym should be a disambiguation article providing descriptive links to all of them."

-- Quiddity (talk) 19:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I thank you all for your commentary on the matter. I guess the answer to my question is "yes, I am being anal." Wouldn't be the first time... 8-) Marchije (talk) 01:06, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Baykal (disambiguation) and Baikal (disambiguation)

Why are there two pages with the same primary topic? I recollect much debate over which name should be used but surely duplication was not the answer. All that is needed imho is one page (which one is immaterial) with a redirect from the other one. mos:dab#Introductory line makes it pretty clear that minor spelling variations should be ignored and they don't come more minor than counting as the primary topic twice. I imagine this was done to placate the editor(s) who felt strongly about the "correct" spelling but it would surely be more user friendly to have all these entries on one page so that readers who may have mispelled will immediately get the guidance they need, rather than having to find the "see also" section and go to another dab page. If placation is the order of the day, there is no reason (apart from inelegance) that the page should not be called Baykal and Baikal (disambiguation). Abtract (talk) 08:09, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd just merge Baikal (disambiguation) into Baykal (disambiguation) and not rename anything (the latter already has three interwikis, the other one none). That's what surname variations do all the time when they are too similar. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Good idea but I will leave it for a few days in case there are counter opinions to be considered. Abtract (talk) 09:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to add that the choice of spelling for the unified dab page is not "immaterial". The spelling has to be "Baykal" as per WP:RUS. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess this is debatable since Lake Baikal choses the other spelling. If we put our wp hats on, then surely it is immaterial? Even I find it difficult to get excited about spelling when the word was originally in a different script. Abtract (talk) 17:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

"Lake Baikal" uses a different spelling because this spelling is conventional in English, and conventional usage always supercedes romanization. Conventionality issues are covered by WP:RUS as well, so there really isn't anything to debate about there. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I actually just split the pages off yesterday, I think it was. Before, all of the entries were at Baykal (disambiguation), but the page was sort of crowded, and there were a lot of different entries for each spelling. Unless it really is only a spelling variation (and if we were to translate it back into the original language and they would all be spelled the same way), since they are two different terms, it seems like they should each have their own disambiguation page. Both "Baikal" and "Baykal" redirected to Lake Baikal, so that's why I modified the hatnote there as such. I feel like it's clearer to have two separate disambiguation pages, but if there's a reason not to, I'm flexible. -- Natalya 11:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The Russian and Belarussian seem to be identical except for an accent over the penultimate character (I'm guessing just the sort of difference you would expect from closely related languages). A quick glance at Talk:Lake Baikal#Dalai nuur indicates to me that Baykal and Baikal are simply different anglicisations possibly in line with which dialect was being translated or indeed who was translating. Perhaps the killer is Baykal, Irkutsk Oblast which states that Baykal is "located near Lake Baikal" which indicates to me that we are dealing with one word not two. My view is still that we need but one dab page. Abtract (talk) 12:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I only saw this thread after marking both pages for merger and dropping Natalya a note. The main reason why both pages should be merged, just as Abtract pointed out above, is because both "Baykal" and "Baikal" are valid romanizations of the same Russian word "Байкал". In Wikipedia, the two spellings are applied to different concepts due to our guidelines on common English usage and romanization (the lake, for example, has an established English name—"Baikal"—but the settlement located on that lake does not, so its name is romanized resulting in a different spelling, even though it is identical in Russian—quite a few English-language atlases do the same, by the way). In real world, where multiple ways of romanization of Russian exist, it is not uncommon to see these spellings to be used interchangeably, hence the reason why they were combined on one disambiguation page. Please merge these to dabs back into one. Thank you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:03, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Like Ezhiki, I have just been aware of this discussion. Here are my thoughts: Natalya pretty much suggested that Baykal (disambiguation) was getting too bloated for its own good, and I concurred. That's why we split the pages. Can't say WP:DAB#NAME applies here, as we do have Rouge and Rogue separated. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 15:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless I am missing something, even though the words "Rouge" and "Rogue" are very similar, none of the entries listed on "Rouge" is routinely referred to as "Rogue" and vice versa. This is not at all the case with "Ba[i/y]kal". Take the lake itself, for example. Depending on which atlas you look at, you can see this lake marked as "Baikal", "Baykal", or "Bajkal". All are valid romanizations; all are interchangeable. Same goes for the majority of the remaining entries. We do standardize on one system, but our readers may be trying to locate the article they need based on a source that uses a different system, and arbitrarily splitting the dab pages based on our practices is simply a disservice to those readers.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

It's the spelling you're missing, I'm sure. I don't think entries with "Baikal" should be at Baykal (disambiguation). If anything they can be listed at the "See also" section, but that's just another option. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, Sess, but you are not correct in thinking that entries currently spelled "Baikal" do not belong on "Baykal" (this is even regardless of whether they show up as entries or in the "see also" section). I don't know why are are so unwilling to believe the people who know the subject, but in case you need solid proof, here is some. "Baikal Cossacks" are sometimes referred to as "Baykal Cossacks" in English ([2]). Same goes for "Baikal Amur Mainline" (Baykal Amur Mainline), "Baikal grayling" (Baykal grayling), and, with more intense research, for every other entry, save, obviously, the names of non-Russian people. What else do I need to present in order to convince you?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's break it down: what items only have "Baikal" as part of the term and not the romanized "Baykal"? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

So Natalya, what do you think having heard the arguments? It seems to me that the general opinion is to merge (probably as Baykal (disambiguation)). Abtract (talk) 20:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I actually vote to separate the two because, while I understand that the differences in spelling are due to different anglicisations of the same Russian name, my question is: If the Ba(i/y)kal dab pages that we speak of are on the English version of Wikipedia, then why shouldn't we be separating them based on their English spelling?

I guess I still don't really understand what the harm is in separating the two... Yes they may sometimes refer to the same thing (as in the lake in Russia) but it seems that in most cases the two spellings are not used interchangeably for the same objects/places (at least not in English); for example, when I looked at the pages for the Baikal MCM,the Baikal class motorship, and the Shuttle 2.01 (aka "Baikal"), none of these articles state that their topics are also known as the "Baykal". In kind, none of the articles with links on Baykal (disambiguation) mention that their topics are aka "Baikal." In addition, it's not like anyone will miss what they are looking for as long as both dab pages point to one-another under "See also."

Perhaps we should look at how other non-English terms with varied English spellings are treated in Wikipedia. For example: Qi, Chi and Ch'i are 3 spellings that the English use to describe energy flow as per Chinese culture, yet you don't see Qi (disambiguation) and the Chi dab page merged together. Or how about Bombay and Mumbai? Bombay (disambiguation) doesn't list any articles such as Mumbai Harbour nor Mumbai FC...

All-in-all, I think Lord Sesshomaru has the right idea - determine which entries are referred to by both spellings and which ones are not. If there are some entries that are NOT known by both spellings then the dab pages should remain separate and those entries which can be spelled both ways should appear on both pages, somewhat like Qi (disambiguation) and Chi. Marchije (talk) 20:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Surely a better question is "What harm can there be in combining them? The advantage of combining is that it helps readers who may be doubtful about the spelling. But I've said enough ... my vote is to combine, but it's hardly a life and death issue. Abtract (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Marchije, the reason why these two should not be split is because there is no one single hard and fast criterion according to which the entries on these two pages can be split. Since many systems of romanization of Russian exist, you never know which spelling our readers are going to use when they end up on Wikipedia's disambiguation page; there are quite a few valid variants. As you said, this is the English Wikipedia, which is why we use established English names when it is possible. However, for names which do not have an established English name, we have to use a romanization system, and, as I mentioned above, there is a multitude of them used in English. Please take a look at the links I provided above when responding to Sess; those illustrate what I mean quite well. With some research, I am sure I'll be able to find you similar links to other concepts you listed (the gun, the shuttle, etc.). The spellings are interchangeable; just because our articles don't explicitly state it does not mean otherwise (in fact, this is not mentioned precisely because this fact is so obvious to people who know the subject). This case is not similar to the Chi/Qi/Ch'i example, because in that case names of most entries are not routinely interchangeable, hence the need for separate dabs. The situation with Baykal/Baikal is in fact closer to the distinction between, say "USA" and "U.S.A.", which are combined on a single dab page, and I don't see anyone rushing to split those up.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This certainly became a long discussion! Because it doesn't seem like we can separate out the two different romanizations in a clear fashion, and because they are both romanizations of the same Russian word, I think it does make sense to combine them back again. It would be nice to standardize the romanization, but it seems like that would take some work. Ezhiki, thank you for the information about the Russian! -- Natalya 21:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Folks, I think Marchije just hit the nail on the head. Thanks for seeing the point I was trying to make there ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments. I will leave it to Natalya to put the two pages back together (with the "Baykal" spelling) ... unless you want me to do it? Abtract (talk) 01:17, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

They're back together (though I'm going to see if I can't organize Baykal (disambiguation) a bit more). There was some more disucssion about this at User_talk:Natalya#Baykal, in case anyone was interested. I modified the hatnote at Lake Baikal just slightly to make it clear that both things spelled "Baykal" and "Baikal" (regardless of the romanization) can be found at the disambiguation page. -- Natalya 00:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

PS - just having read through Talk:Baykal (disambiguation), I never realized how much disagreement there was over the page in general! Thanks to everyone for being able to have a generally reasonable discussion about this. :) -- Natalya 01:02, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Punctuation at the end of entries

Am I correct in assuming that entries should never end in periods (or commas or semicolons), even when the entry contains multiple sentences? The MOS says, "Even when the entry forms a complete sentence, do not include commas or periods at the end of the line", is this true when there is more than one sentence? --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 21:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I always assumed (and this may not be an assumption, if it is mentioned in the guidelines elsewhere) that entries should never be more than one sentence. Let me see if I can find anything to back that up, though. -- Natalya 21:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

(Post-searching) I think with the line "Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments." from the Manual of Style, I've always figured that if they should usually be sentence fragments, they definitly shouldn't be multiple sentences. I realized this sort of changes the topic at hand, but it does relate. -- Natalya 22:01, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Any information following the link needs to be the minimum required to differentiate (disambiguate) it from the other links. Anything else should generally be removed. "The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum...".

Are you talking about Ashoka Pillar (disambiguation)? (it always helps to give specific examples, when asking for feedback :) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm actually thinking of the proposed idea discussed earlier, of a disambiguation cleanup bot. The bot would be removing the periods from the ends of entries. The question is, if the entry has more than one sentence, should the bot still remove the period from the final sentence? A bot cannot rewrite an entry to make it only one sentence. (And, given that there are 10 or 20 thousand disambiguation pages which have at least one entry which has multiple sentences, I don't really think we would want a bot adding disambig-cleanup to all of those) --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 09:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

And, bot or not, if an entry has multiple sentences, and until such time as the multiple sentences are shortened into one, would we rather the final sentence end in a period, or in no punctuation at all? --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 09:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

If there are multiple sentences, which ought to be a rare occurrence, my preference would be for a period at the end. And for those entries to come at the end of the list.--Kotniski (talk) 11:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

It might be too much work, but I'd say, don't leave it as a multi-sentence description! Or, if the page is just in such disrepair that whoever sees it doesn't have the time to fix it then, tag it for cleanup; if it has that many problems, I don't know if worrying about the periods is necessary. -- Natalya 12:36, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Date formatting on dab pages

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Individual entries says "Never link days or dates." Does anyone know why would we not want to use date formatting on disambiguation pages? Accurizer (talk) 00:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I would imagine it's because there should only be one blue link per entry on a disambiguation page, and that a date wouldn't be the most useful blue link to have. -- Natalya 01:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I think there may be a better way to say this on the project page. I just noticed MOS:SYL says that the autoformatting mechanism does not work for links to date elements on disambiguation pages. What would you think about amending the language on this project page to say "Never link days or dates, the autoformatting mechanism does not work on disambiguation pages." I always think it is better to tell someone why they should not do a particular thing. Accurizer (talk) 10:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not what it says. It says date links "must not be used" on disambig pages, not that autoformatting doesn't work on those pages. In other words, it's a style restriction, not a technical one. --Russ (talk) 11:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I must have misread it the first time around. Accurizer (talk) 11:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I foresee a problem with that idea ... if someone makes it work on dab pages, we then open the door to allowing datelinking and that will offer hope to those who want to put another bluelink on an entry ("well the date is linked so why can't I have my link to the name of the singer etc). It is pretty clear right now, only one bluelink per line and don't link dates. Abtract (talk) 11:02, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there an instance where a full date is needed on a dab page? I haven't seen one where a simple year wouldn't suffice to direct the reader to the sought article, and no date formatting is needed. -- JHunterJ (talk)

The page that drew my attention to this is USS Mercer. Accurizer (talk) 11:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that's a ship set index article, not a disambiguation page. They're covered by Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines, not Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). If it were a disambiguation page, it would be deleted since there aren't multiple Wikipedia articles to be disambiguated. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Apparently they use the disambig icon and I didn't read the fine print after it, which clearly says it is a list of ships. Accurizer (talk) 16:17, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I proposed a change at Template talk:Shipindex to clarify this issue (if anyone else even agrees it's an issue). Accurizer (talk) 16:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Red Links - request for comment

In tidying up the Clementine (disambiguation), I found lots of red links that weren't linked to from anywhere else, so I removed then. While checking for the unused redlinks, I found it a pain to keep on navigating to the article and then clicking the "what links here" button.

So I've created a template: {{Dabredlink}}. You just put the red link as the parameter and it gives you a "what links here" link after the red link: {{dabredlink|example article}}. I thought it might be a way to keep track of red links on dab pages over time.

Having done all this, though, I'm now thinking maybe it was a bit of a useless exercise. Anyone got any suggestions as to how this might be useful or have I just wasted 10 minutes of my life? GDallimore (Talk) 21:27, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I could see using this on some red link entries where it's not clear which of several possible blue-link articles should be linked in the description. I would opt to use this instead of other blue links on the line, but might also see its use alongside one other blue link in the description. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Awesome archives (and alliteration!)

Just in case not everyone was aware, I wanted to plug the pretty fantastic index of archives of this talk page, located at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/index of archives. It's taken all (well, most, I think) of the archives from the MoS talk page, and indexed them by category. I always forget, but was just recently reminded, that it seems to have links to discussions on almost every topic that comes up here. So if you're ever in doubt about something, remember that the index is a place where you may be able to find some helpful information! -- Natalya 02:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

An indispensable index indeed! 8-) Marchije (talk) 04:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Misspellings

Just something worth discussing: The MoS here clearly (and rightfully) discusses the inclusion of misspellings in disambigs, appropriately as redirects for words that are likely to be misspelled. But should a disambiguation consist solely of misspellings? See for page of reference Gogle. RShnike (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

At first glance, I'd recommend a sub-category of Disambiguation for it. Typo Disambiguations or Spelling Disambiguations. But the page definitely has navigational use, and I would keep it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if a sub-category is necessary (since many pages have misspellings on them), but I think the page is okay. If we really feel like a semi-legitimate term needs to be added, we could probably get away with putting a link to Gogle-mogle on it. -- Natalya 11:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Usually, I put misspellings under a "See also" section. This page, however, is more of a "did you mean" decider, and does not disambiguate any article that was in danger of being titled "gogle". That's why I suggested a subcat; it's not quite a disambiguation page. But I won't cling to that position in the face of opposition. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I'm just one person! My opposition only counts for so much. :) -- Natalya 03:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

What if we did away with this altogether and made it a redirect to Google (disambiguation) or Gogol (disambiguation)? Then we just make sure the misspellings are included on that page, either as regular entries or under "See also". SlackerMom (talk) 12:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Piping example, and acronyms

I recently did a cleanup job (please ignore the Street Fighter junk, I should have taken it out) on Dash (disambiguation). Yesterday another user did their own "cleanup" job, making a lot of changes I disagree with, and we're discussing that on Talk:Dash (disambiguation) (you're free to weigh in if you like). My biggest problem with his revision is that he put "Dash" at the front of every single entry so that, for example, the entry "Sprint (race)" became "Dash, sprint (race)". He pointed to the example at MOS:DP#Piping to support putting "Dash" at the beginning; I responded to say that the example given is a totally different type of entry, and that my view is supported by MOS:DP#Linking to a primary topic, MOS:DP#Synonyms, MOS:DP#URL anchor notation, MOS:DP#Order of entries. However, it did make me look at the example at MOS:DP#Piping and I can't help thinking that I would have formatted that entry differently. Here's the example:

Rock or rocks may refer to:

• Rock, the name of [[Mega Man (character)|Mega Man]] in the Japanese versions of the games

If I were working on the Rock dab page, I would view Mega Man as a synonym for "Rock" and just link directly to Mega Man (character), perhaps adding "called Rock in Japanese versions of the games" or something. Does anyone else agree? Could we not find a clearer example to use for this case?

I also disagree with this user on whether uses of the term as an acronym should be separated into their own section (instead of dividing entries by subject area), as I know some people like to do but I don't see the point of. A user may not know whether the term IS an acronym or not. But it does make me wonder why acronyms don't seem to be addressed at all either way in the MOS; the only guidance I found that relates to this question at all is in MOS:DP#Longer lists, which states "The list may be broken up by subject area" (emphasis mine). I do think perhaps a line should be added about whether acronyms should be broken out or not, as I do come across it fairly often but always change it since the MOS doesn't suggest otherwise. Propaniac (talk) 13:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, [[Mega Man (character)]] or Rock, a character in the Japanese versions of ''Mega Man'' would be how I'd write it. A better example would be good. No, IMO acronyms do not need to be separated from non-acronym entries, for the reason you state. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

One could even write it as "The name of [[Mega Man (character)|Mega Man]] in the Japanese versions of the games", just taking out the "Rock" bit. I think it's sort of redundant to keep putting it in. Without the mention of "Rock" in there a second time, the train of thought goes "Rock may refer to the name of...", which makes complete sense. In that same line, for all things that an acronym may stand for, I don't think that we need to list the acronym, and then the link, as is currently done at Dash (disambiguation).

One advantage to sectioning those articles that are acronyms is that it is sort of clear that the reason those articles are on the page is because their acronym is the term in question. However, I'd never thought about putting acronyms in with their particular subject area, and at least objectively, I don't think there's much harm in it, and it does sound useful. -- Natalya 21:12, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I prefer repeating the dab phrase, because it makes it look more like the other entries:

Rock may also refer to:

• Rock (geology)
• Rock, Kansas

The same train of thought that goes "Rock may refer to Rock (geology)" works with the character. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding series tables

Sesshomaru brought up the addition of a series table to the disambiguation page Love (disambiguation). My first thought was that it shouldn't be there, since the page is not an article. However, looking over the table, many of the things listed there seem like they can be referred to as just "love". Additionally, some of the articles titled "Love (clarifier)" are included in the table, but not on the disambiguation page! I imagine it will probably get removed, but what do others think about it? -- Natalya 11:14, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The table entries "Love (dab phrase)" should be repeated in the dab list. Then the series table, if kept, could be moved down to the See also section. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's very pretty, but I'd think carefully about setting that kind of precedent, especially since the table shows up on the primary topic article, and several others. I say include the appropriate links in the regular dab list and see also section, wherever appropriate, and then deep six the table. SlackerMom (talk) 13:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Yuck! Speedy revert. The first link on the dab page is Love. That covers everything in the template. Also, I hate seeing navigation templates on articles not in the template (especially series boxes which say "this article is part of a series ...": no it's not!). jnestorius^(talk) 09:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Not only that, but: "this article is part of a series..." -- it can't be; it's not even an article! --Tkynerd (talk) 13:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Undone, per WP:BOLD -- RoySmith (talk) 16:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for looking into this. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Seeing stars

See Talk:Star (classification)/Archives/2013#Related articles and redirects for a current issue and Talk:Star (classification)#Disambiguations for a proposed solution. Comments and other help welcome. Andrewa (talk) 00:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Placement of disambig notice

This guideline currently says:

"Place the appropriate template at the bottom of the page."

Does this mean the template should literally be placed after all other content, including any categories and interlanguage links? Or is there no consensus on this? The layout guideline doesn't cover disambig notices. --Frostie Jack (talk) 12:55, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't place it so that it shows up below the categories on the page. You can only place it below the other page content. When you edit the page, the {{disambig}} template should go after all the disambiguation entries, and it should still appear in the markup before cats or interwiki links. I'll add the clarification. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Disambig to disambig

A couple of months ago, another editor noted that the initialism MSMC had more uses than just Mount St. Mary's, killed the redirect, and created a new disambig at MSMC that copied some (but not all) of the content from Mount St. Mary's. The Manual of Style recommends linking to Mount St. Mary's from MSMC using a "See also" section, but that seems a bit silly considering there would only be one other link on the page, and considering (apparently) most folks who wind up at MSMC are likely looking for Mount St. Mary's anyway... Any ideas how to handle the style (or lack thereof, currently) at MSMC?   user:j    (aka justen)   22:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Of the various Mount St. Mary's Colleges, the ones (possibly all of them) that are commonly referred to as MSMC should be listed on both MSMC and on Mount St. Mary's. Presence on one disambiguation page does not prevent presence on another. (If one were particularly industrious, one could make it a common file/template transcluded on each page, but I don't think that's a requirement.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I really like your "industrious" suggestion. Thanks for the clarification and advice. Now I have some work to do...   user:j    (aka justen)   02:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

"Primary" topic (again)

I have recently had a disagreement with another editor and would like others' input. My view is that, according to the guidance at MOS:DAB#Linking to a primary topic, on U2 (disambiguation), the Irish rock band U2 should go at the top in an introductory line, separated out from the other entries. The other editor says no it should not, because the rock band is not the definition of U2 or the original meaning of the term. (See my talk page for the hairy details.) Have I misunderstood what the guidelines mean by "primary topic"? If not, do the guidelines need clarification? Thanks for any suggestions. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Your understanding (very patiently explained to the other editor) is my understanding as well. I see where he's coming from, but he's not properly interpreting the current guidelines. If he wants to change them, he needs to present his argument here for discussion. I support keeping U2 in the introductory line of US (disambiguation). Arguing about the meaning of "primary topic" is beside the point. The guidelines are clear that if "(disambiguation)" appears in the page title, the article without the "(disambiguation)" should be part of the first line. SlackerMom (talk) 21:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I already proven you wrong below on the main point. However, your improper use of criteria ("lacking diambiguation") is troubling. Many proper definitions are to items not named exactly by that format, as it would be an alternate title. The guidelines are clear, and you are severely misinterpreting them. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, your understanding is correct per Wikipedia's guidelines: a primary topic is defined as "a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase, much more used than any other". In other words, the primary topic is determined by frequency of usage. The guidelines state that if there's a primary topic it should be located at term, with a primary topic link from the top line of the term (disambiguation) page.--Muchness (talk) 21:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you are both quite wrong. The primary definition of the page is the Garden of Eden, as that is the alternate name of the Garden of Earthly delights. Therefore, its not the "primary" topic. It may be the most known topic. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:48, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

For all concerned, Paul Erik is misleading people. The original topic was The Garden of Earthly Delights, not U2. It is troubling that a user would make claims without context, and then provoke responses from people without a sense of the actual discussion. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

U2 (disambiguation) was an example of the general principle—how we arrange the disambiguation page when the primary topic is not the original meaning. It's the same principle at Garden of Earthly Delights (disambiguation), at least as I understand it. I was trying to be brief, not misleading. My apologies. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 12:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

There is no primary topic, since multiple topics are undisambiguated! That was obvious. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, on U2, which wasn't the original - the page has multiple "primary topics", none of which are defined by the combination "U2". To place any one above the rest would cause the original dispute, especially between U2 the band and Lockheed U-2, which are both "undiambiguated" (which is why you cannot go off of such a silly idea and why they didn't before!). Ottava Rima (talk) 04:12, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

If there's ever a Lockheed U-2 (disambiguation) page, Lockheed U-2 will be its primary topic. Currently, there's a U2 (disambiguation) page, and U2 is its primary topic. Changing it to have no primary topic would involve moving U2 to U2 (band) then moving U2 (disambiguation) to U2. See WP:RM for controversial page move instructions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:38, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

JHunter, you just ignored a lot of history and didn't have any legitimate reason to edit in that way. I suggest you revert yourself. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, JHunter, making that edit and putting up this POV without consensus is the first sign of edit warring, and as you can see from the disambiguation page, there is a history of that. You can do the community a favor by reverting yourself, especially when you made dramatic edits to something that was in effect for a very long time. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:08, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Ottava, I respectfully, but firmly, disagree with both your comments and your tone here. JHunter did nothing that was POV, and acted in line with long consensus concerning style on disambiguation pages. He is right. If you do not like MOS:DAB, then you need to suggest a change to the guidelines and see if there is consensus to change it. But please stop objecting to the work of the editors who conform to it. If you feel like you are the only one here who understands what's going on, perhaps it is because you are alone in your opinion. SlackerMom (talk) 15:08, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

By reverting a revert to the standard version of the page, that is edit warring and pushing a POV. You are misinterpreting the guidelines and it is blatantly obvious. "primary topic" clearly is defined as a topic which defines a term, which cannot happen in such situations. There is none. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

An editor's opinion of the style a page should follow is not the same thing as POV. If JHunter was trying to exalt the band U2 to prominence because he is one of their fans, perhaps changing the entry to say "U2, the greatest band that ever lived", then that would be POV. Also where in MOS:DAB is "primary topic" clearly defined as a topic which defines a term (your words)? I can't find it, even though you keep harping on it. Can you direct me to it? Because what I see relates to the NAME of the article, not the definition of a term. That's what we are talking about here - the NAME OF THE ARTICLE. If you don't like the fact that the band's article is named U2 (which makes it the "primary topic" when it comes to disambiguation), then you need to change the name of the page to "U2 (band)" or somesuch thing. SlackerMom (talk) 16:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know I'll be unpopular for saying it, but the U2 article probably should be renamed to U2 (band). With that said, I don't always buy into the whole "primary topic" concept, as primary topics can often be largely different between age groups, or from one geographic region to another. In this particular case, the U2 (band) article claims that the band originally chose its name "for its ambiguity and open-ended interpretations". It means that they themselves, acknowledge that the term already had at least one primary topic before they decided to borrow it. 142.68.87.24 (talk) 18:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Which is exactly why proper nouns were not used in this manner. However, people like SlackerMom, without an understanding of the various situations or a grasp on the subtle difference, wish to provoke further edit wars by pushing POV responses that would unrightly determine what was "primary", when there can never be such in these situations. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

By definition, an editor's opinion of anything, including style is POV. When you revert another while in the middle of a discussion and that revert happens to be what you agree with, that is POV pushing. That is the basis of an edit war. That action was inappropriate and uncalled for, especially when the page had stayed in that style for many years. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:12, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Also - "Also where in MOS:DAB is "primary topic" clearly defined as a topic which defines a term (your words)?" Clearly if you read it, its there. Notice how "school" links to school, but John Smith does not, just like Samuel Johnson does not as per here and every other page using proper nouns, because proper nouns are not definitional, nor can they be placed as a definition. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

"Clearly if you read it, it's there." Well, I've read it over and over, and it's not there, so please stop using the word "clearly". Perhaps you should say, "From my POV, it's there." If you want it to be clearly there, then go put it in! To be fair, when it comes to proper human names, the majority of disambiguation pages with a (disambiguation) clarifier in their names are formatted like Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). However, it is NOT true that, as you claim, "every other page using proper nouns" is formatted this way. Please see Ethan Allen (disambiguation) and Francis Bacon (disambiguation) to name a few. (I realize you were using hyperbole, but I feel I need to make the point.) Pages such as Samuel Johnson (disambiguation) do not follow MOS:DAB on this point and should be corrected, or else the "primary topic" articles (the ones without any clarifier in the name) should have their names changed to add a clarifier. I'm guessing that many of these pages may have been created before this guideline was developed, and may have been following the guidelines in place at the time. Hence, perhaps a guideline change, or a clearer explanation, is worth working on. SlackerMom (talk) 19:11, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Since you admitted that you were unable to read the page: "The link on the main article should be similar to: For other uses, see School (disambiguation)." The line then reads: "A school is an institution for learning." In English, the word "is" is for definitions. ___ is defined as ____. Now, with proper nouns, you cannot have definitions. All proper nouns are not the definition of the word. Hence, why Samuel Johnson, U2, and every other proper noun does not have the blue link at the top. This is standard English grammar and standard reading. The only way for you not to read this way is because you are pushing the POV of a person started an edit war. Those proper nouns that don't reflect this are incorrect. As anyone who wished to actually investigate, Francis Bacon's page was altered many times recently: this, this, etc, so your use of it is troubling, to say the least. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding. Are you sincerely arguing that it is incorrect to ever use the word "is" after a proper noun? Propaniac (talk) 20:01, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

If you bothered to read, when you are using definitions, the definition of a term is not a proper noun. Before you start using incivil terms as "ridiculousness", try not to be so ridiculous as to miss this obvious point. The definition of "Samuel Johnson" is not "a poet and writer from the 18th century". The definition is "a name". That is beyond all dispute, and the fact that you dispute it is, well, you can fill in the rest. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Now, to make things worse, the above user claims here that Georgia was an African country. If the above user would have actually looked at the page, he would have seen that Georgia, the country, was part of the USSR, and the USSR never extended into Africa. Furthermore, his own previous example verifies what I have been saying, and their choice of term "ridiculousness" is only verified as being patently absurd by his original example. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:23, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Ottava Rima, you are really grasping at straws. First by insulting several long-time participants in the disambiguation project (some of whom have previously participated in lengthy discussion about primary topic usage and in working out the phrasings of this guideline) that by virtue of your deductive reasoning (however faulty its premises) you know better than all the other participants here what was meant by the phrasing on the page. You are not going to convince anyone by being so blatantly offensive. older ≠ wiser 22:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Instead of trying to "win" an argument by falsely accusing people of insulting others, which is obvious from the lack of such above and also against both civil and agf, could you please focus on actual content issues? Thanks. And you can assume this is your warning for the above. Its inappropriate to attack users while ignoring the actual issues. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Your insults have been remarked upon by others. Your denial does not make them any less insulting.older ≠ wiser 22:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Your failure to provide evidence of my insulting others is only further proof that you are making false accusations and personally attacking me, which is a double breach of civil. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Ottava Rima, thank you for avoiding an edit war at U2. Everyone, please consider letting this drop here and taking it up (if needed) at Talk:U2 and/or User talk:Ottava Rima (or User talk:JHunterJ). I don't think there's anything left to be gained here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Answered at Talk:U2 and cleaned up U2 again. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:57, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Village pump

May be of interest to those involved in this discussion: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Disambiguations. --Frostie Jack (talk) 22:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I linked one way and forgot to link the other. I think everyone currently involved is participating above and should see the link here, so individual linking shouldn't be necessary. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:01, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Introductory line

Regarding J's edit, can we just make it that there is only one layout? That's why I did this. I believe it'll help avoid future arguments. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Why does it need to be restricted to only one? Explicitly allowing both should both reduce the arguments and avoid the need for trivial edits; the navigational abilities of the disambiguation pages are not impeded by either choice. As I tried to tell you here, the example on avoiding piping should not be read as a restriction on introductory lines, and it's not an excuse to revert the choices of other editors. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) My thoughts are that I prefer to list both words (Rock or rocks...) rather than use parentheses (Rock(s)...), so if we're going to make it only one way, I prefer the first. However, in the interest of avoiding future arguments, I think it would be better to leave both options open - then it is up to the preference of the editor, and there's nothing to argue about. I think JHunter's edit is appropriate and helpful. SlackerMom (talk) 21:18, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with SlackerMom on both counts: prefer Rock or rocks and in the interest of limiting the number of trivial things for people to get into stupid disputes over, better to allow both. older ≠ wiser 21:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Have we come to an agreement? Looks like either format is fine, but I just want to be sure. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

So it seems. Am I the only one laughing about trivial disputes? Probably... so it goes! -- Natalya 21:38, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Dictionary definitions and short descriptions

WP:D#Dictionary definitions indicates that a short description is appropriate. WP:MOSDAB#Linking to Wiktionary simply says don't include definitions. I've been editing using the first guideline. I was going to add a similar note here, unless there are objections. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting... I'd never seen/had forgotten about the part mentioned in WP:D#Dictionary definitions - I've always used the MOS:DAB guideline about no dictionary definitions at all, including short definitions at the top of the page. I agree that it can help with context, if we have a really obvious word being disambiguated but no article about that term, and yet... Wikipedia is not a dictionary. And disambiguation pages aren't articles. I'm a little wary of advocating for short dictionary definitions on some pages, but more discussion would be good - still need to ponder. -- Natalya 11:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

IMHO the reason for discouraging dictionary defs on dab pages is that they do not help the reader to find the right article, they impart information. Abtract (talk) 13:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Right, when people read an encyclopedia, information is the last thing they're likely to be looking for ;)--Kotniski (talk) 13:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't know about you guys, but I'm only here looking for sandwiches. ;) No, that's definitly a point, but if the goal of disambiguation pages is to get people to the article they're looking for, extraneous information not related to an article only seems like that will hinder the goal. -- Natalya 17:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

(I can personally recommend this one.) No, generally I agree, but in some cases the information (meaning) they're looking for might happen to be both a) sufficiently short not to mess up the dab page much; and b) not currently the topic of any article. In that case, why not just give them the info on a plate and make them and their mouse-fingers happy? --Kotniski (talk) 17:44, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

DB

I am having a debate on the need for redirects here; I would appreciate other opinions. Abtract (talk) 13:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggested addition to Wikipedia:Mosdab#Longer lists section

I'm constantly running across dab pages with divisions that have only one or two entries, as well as dab pages with vague, overlapping divisions like "Groups", "Businesses", and "Organizations", or "Modern culture". I propose adding the following text to the Longer lists section, before the paragraph that begins "Section headings may be used...":

"Subject areas should be chosen to best aid navigation. Divisions that are too broad or ill-defined should be avoided, as well as divisions that are too narrow. In particular, divisions that contain only one or two entries should typically be merged into an "Other uses" section. Keep in mind that the same subject areas might not make for the best divisions on different disambiguation pages."

— Swpb^{τ • c} 16:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think a section with only two entries is fine; granted, I'd hope to find a more comprehensive way to organize the articles, but a massive "Other" section can be really hard to navigate, and I'd rather be able to move a few links out of it into their own section, even if it only has two links.

It's probably just because I'm well familiarized with making longer lists (and many examples of them) that I initially didn't feel the need for such additional instruction. However, looking over what the MoS does say, it does not really elucidate how to section things, so for people who haven't already had run-ins with long lists, it would probably be helpful. I agree with everything that you've written for the paragraph, except the part of divisions only containing two links. Divisions of one link aren't really useful, that is true. -- Natalya 16:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I suppose two-entry divisions aren't the worst thing in the world, but they look cluttered to me, which may slow navigation instead of speeding it up. I agree, though, that a huge "Other uses" section is equally problematic. Ideally, the divisions should be chosen in such a way as to avoid both those possibilities, and I don't think I've ever come across a dab page where this couldn't be done, though sometimes it takes an extra bit of thought. I'd be ok with not saying that two-entry divisions should "typically" be merged, but I want to get across the idea that subject divisions are most helpful when they split the dab page into no more than a handful of roughly equally sized chunks. (Actually, the ideal for navigation speed would be to have the number of divisions roughly equal to the number of entries per division.)

I think some editors see the "Other uses" section as a failure to categorize, and feel the need to push things out of it as much as possible, even if that means tiny divisions. But I think that from a navigation standpoint, "Other uses" can be as big as any other division without slowing the navigator down, as long as the other division names are clear enough that the navigator can quickly settle on "Other uses" by process of elimination. — Swpb^{τ • c} 17:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree that sections of one or two entries should be avoided wherever possible. I have tried a couple of times putting the "other uses" section at the top and calling it "general usage" so that it is not overlooked but whether this has a wider application I'm not sure. Abtract (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say that "other uses", no matter what you call it, should always go at the bottom, because it's a section that a navigator would look in after a process of elimination. If you're looking for a particular article, you're not going to overlook the "other uses" section if none of the names of the preceding sections fit the bill. On the other hand, if the "other uses" section is at the top, you're still going to have to scroll down through the other divisions to see if any of them looks right, and then scroll back to the top if none of them does (or you might start by reading through the "other uses" entries, which would slow you down if the article you're looking for actually is in another section). One possible exception is for "main" topics – cases in which one (or sometimes two, very rarely three) articles represent the vast majority of the searches which land at the dab page. Main topics are often included in sentence form at the top if the dab page (see Gold (disambiguation)). Navigating a sectioned dab page is ideally a linear, two step process – first, scroll down the page, reading only the section names, and stop at the one that seems like it should contain the article you're looking for, then scan down the entries in only that section until you find your article. The idea is that you should never have to scroll back up the page, or look at anything twice. — Swpb^{τ • c} 22:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I knew there was a reason why I only did it a couple of time. :) Abtract (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Those are fair comments. I like the thought of suggesting "similar-sized sections", so that we hopefully wouldn't get sections too big or too small. I'm okay discouraging unnecessarily small sections when better sectioning can occur, I just don't want to outright ban it for when it can be useful. -- Natalya 21:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

How about this version: "Subject areas should be chosen to best aid navigation. Choose divisions that are well-defined, and that break the entries up into similarly-sized chunks. Very small divisions may impede navigation, and should usually be avoided. Disambiguation pages will frequently have an "Other uses" section for entries that don't fit neatly into another section. Keep in mind that a particular division scheme may not work equally well on all disambiguation pages." — Swpb^{τ • c} 22:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

That looks good to me. Although the first sentence is possible a given, it is positive. It amuses me to think of someone saying "No, I want to make subject sectioning as difficult to understand as possible". :) -- Natalya 01:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

So then, shall I make the change? — Swpb^{τ • c} 04:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It works for me. Abtract (talk) 07:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Pages containing acronyms

For pages that contain information on both a word and an acronym of the same spelling (take Arc) for example, is there a preference for the page being located at "Arc" or "ARC"? If not, it would be good to clarify in the MoS, just so that we can have some consistancy. I'm either for having them located at the non-capitalized version, or at whichever version has more links on the page. -- Natalya 20:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I would go for Arc (as you did) when there is, or could be, a word spelled that way ... but all caps when it is clearly just initials such as BBD (Bbd would look a little odd don't you think?) Abtract (talk) 22:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That it does! All caps when all of the entries are acronyms/in caps definitly makes sense. -- Natalya 23:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that in the MoS guidelines. -- Natalya 00:16, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Country initialisms

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Places says, "It might be appropriate to add the country after the link." If the country is, for example, the United States, should that be written out, or can an initialism (US or USA) be used? What other countries have very commonly known initialisms? --Geniac (talk) 13:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Unless there is already a policy to the contrary, I would prefer USA over United States because it is easier to write, easier to read and less ambiguous (there are other "United States"); also prefer UK over United Kingdom. Abtract (talk) 13:33, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

U.S.A. or United States sounds good. I personally prefer the former (it's what I've been using). Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Style of Someone Name (disambiguation) pages

Another editor and I have conflicting ideas about the layout of George McManus (disambiguation), see this edit, and discussion. I think that the page should follow WP:MOSDAB#Linking to a primary topic, while the other editor thinks this doesn't apply to people, and therefore the layout shown at WP:MOSDAB#People is applicable. A brief look at the dab pages for various U.S. presidents shows there is no consistency on this topic. Other opinions would be helpful. Tassedethe (talk) 16:04, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

It's a judgment call, anyway: Is there a primary uasge? Thomas Jefferson certainly is, but is Benjamin Harrison? Not clearly, especially against his great-grandfather the signer.

The fundamental question is: Are most readers who get to the dab page going to be interested in one link? The default is that they won't, because they probably came to the dab page from there and are interested in other people of the same name. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

However, if George McManus is not the primary person that article will need to be renamed (say George McManus (cartoonist)) and the dab page moved to George McManus Abtract (talk) 16:56, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Abtract just said what I was going to say! It's fine if there's no primary topic, but the way the pages are named now, George McManus is implied to be the primary topic, and the guidelines at WP:MOSDAB#Linking to a primary topic should be followed. If he isn't the primary topic, then the page can look the way it does now, but will require the page move Abtract described. -- Natalya 16:59, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• The dab page is perfectly clear and accessible as it stands. It would be simpler and better for the encyclopedia to rethink what we need on dqb pqges with three entries. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:53, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

A discussion about redirects in disambiguation pages

Following Abtract's thread above, there's been quite a bit of discussion over at Talk:DB#Redirects about having a redirect as the link for an entry on a disambiguation page. There hasn't quite been an agreement, but it seems that if we can clarify a piece of the Manual of Style here, it should solve the problem, and hopefully allow for future clarity.

The section of the MoS in question comes from Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Piping, specifically the following part: "This guidance to avoid piping means that a link to a redirect term will sometimes be preferred to a direct link, if the redirect term contains the disambiguation title and the redirect target does not. For example, in Delta (disambiguation), a link to the redirect term Delta Quadrant would be preferred over its target, Galactic quadrant." I am attempting to summarize the different opinions from Talk:DB#Redirects (so if there has been any misrepresentation, please do correct me); the different takes on that guideline are either that:

a) If there is an article to be listed on a disambiguation page, if that article is not of the exact name of the disambiguation page, and there is a redirect to that article of the style "Term (qualifier)", that redirect should alwyas be used.

b) If there is an article to be listed on a disambiguation page, if that article is not of the exact name of the disambiguation page, a redirect should be used if the name of the article does not make it clear why the article would be listed on that disambiguation page.

What are thoughts on this? Hopefully we can work out what exactly the guideline should be guiding us to do here, and then apply it elsewhere. Thanks for an anticipated respectful discussion, -- Natalya 01:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

a) is a little too narrowly prescriptive for my tastes, but b) is also not really much more helpful than the current text. I think redirects are helpful in cases where the actual title of the target article is significantly different from the term being disambiguated, such that it might not be obvious why the target article is listed on the disambiguation page. Disambiguation listings for initialisms are, IMO, a special case since the reason for the list is relatively self-evident (although there is the usual caveat that we don't want the page to be a random listing of terms with the specific initials without evidence that the term is commonly referred to by the initialism). older ≠ wiser 01:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Having just re-read the whole piping section and there is more to this than first meets the eye. The first exeption to the "ban" on piping says "Use piping if you are linking to an anchor point on the target page" which should surely apply to the Delta Quadrant line used as an examply of when to use a redirect! As I read that exception, it would be better this way: "Delta Quadrant, one of the Galactic quadrants in the Star Trek series". If this interpretation is corrct, then we need to re-look at the whole section. Abtract (talk) 07:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps some additional discussion is merited. I think one of the main rationales for using redirects is essentially neatness, with some vague assertion that having the links to targets consistently at the beginning of the line improves usability. There may be something to that, but I also think the use of redirects can be overdone. I'm not sure how much value there is to making single-use redirects simply to achieve consistency on a disambiguation page. In the example mentioned, I think there is a possibility (although somewhat remote) that there could be an article about the Delta Quadrant. Or at least, there is a at least some likelihood that people might link to Delta Quadrant in articles and thus the redirect is not for the single purpose of making a neat disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 11:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I personally prefer usage of redirects. Why? For consistency with the dab term. See Bongo, Zero (disambiguation), Burdock (disambiguation), Rinku, Gouki, Boo (disambiguation), Haku, Bunny (disambiguation), Son Goku, and endless others. First, I really don't agree with Abtract's "ban" on redirects because I fail to see how it helps to avoid confusion (if anything it makes the dab look dreadful!). Second, Bkonrad's logic makes sense, but the part about not using initialism redirects does not. Even if it is obvious that an acronym would be such, it should not exclude the fact that it still falls under WP:PIPING. That's why DMZ (disambiguation) is the way it is. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 15:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem with precedents is that they can be a double edged sword:

• Bongo contains three entries to articles not containing Bongo in the article title, only one uses a redirect
• Zero is too long to look through sorry
• Burdock (disambiguation) has just one and it uses a redirect ... but to an anchor point which Piping specifically disallows
• Rinku has two entries only and both use redirects
• Gouki has three, two of which are to anchor points
• Boo (disambiguation) has one unecessary redirect (Boo! (Frasier episode), three other redirects and three similar entries using piping
• Haku has one redirect to an anchor point, one correct redirect and one entry using piping
• Bunny is too long to look through but I did notice there are seven entries piped
• Son Goku has one redirect and one piped entry
• DMZ (disambiguation) has five redirects and two piped enties. The five redirects are for different demilitarised zones and imho very useful - an exception to the case I am trying to make.
• DB wasn't mentioned but there are five entries not redirected (I'm not counting Daily Bugle which started all this).

I hope you can see that the precedents simply demonstrate that we have a bit of a "buggers' muddle" as we say in the UK

The way I see it is that:

1. Piping should be used to an anchor point (as per currect guidelines)
2. A redirect should be used when the target article has a different name to the dab term but the dab term is mentioned early in the article (as per current guidelines but not being followed by all editors in practice)
3. No piping or redirects are necessary with initialised terms (not entirely clear in current guidelines)
4. Anything not covered by these three should be dealt with as seems most user friendly ... and indeed exceptions may well occur to the first three (eg DMZ as mentioned above)

I suggest we start from this list, make changes until consensus is reached and then draft up a revised Piping section (which might be called "Piping and redirects". Or of course someone else could make an alternative list as a stalking horse. Abtract (talk) 19:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What have we agreed on? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's been any agreement yet, but I think Abtract's laid out the things that we need to come to consensus on, so that we can better define the guideline:

• Should we use piping or a redirect for anchor links (WP:PIPING actually mentions both options), or have both as an option and use personal discretion.
• Abtract, could you clarify what you mean by your second point?
• Should we use redirects for initialized terms (the example and others that brought up this argument).

I'm guessing the last of the three of these issues will be the hardest to deal with, but we can a least start in small chunks. -- Natalya 02:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Way I see it, we keep the current guidelines but add something like: "a redirect is preferred for a term that has a known alphabetism". Then give an example. That ok? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

From the expressions of other editors above, I don't think that there is agreement that that preference is true for all. I'm going to go un-neutral now... I think (as was mentioned previously in this discussion), that redirects are good when it is unclear why a link is on a disambiguation page. I also understand that having all redirects does make things more standardized. However, especially with initialisms, I think we actually lose information when all links are redirects. I'm sure that there are times when having a redirect for an initialism is more useful, but just considering the disambiguation page Ada (which recently had the very long contents of ADA merged into it), if each entry on that page referred to as "ADA" were to have a link "ADA (clarifier)", we would lose a lot of information. There would have to be a description saying exactly what each initialism stood for, so, in order for someone to find the article she is looking for, she would have to read both the link and the description. If we don't have them all use redirects, but rather their actual titles (as they do now), one only has to look at the name of the links to determine if that is the desired article or not. Just my thoughts. -- Natalya 11:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Very nicely put Natalya. I find it interesting that the practice of redirecting the initial link was introduced as an option that could be used in some cases -- but now it is being interpreted by some as mandatory. The primary consideration for constructing disambiguation pages should always be to make it easier for readers to find the articles they are looking for. Rigid application of formal rules that disregard this primary purpose is not helpful. older ≠ wiser 13:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I see. Then I have no choice but to agree with you guys. What should we write in the MoS to prevent things like this from happening again? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you sound so despondant, Sesshomaru! Those are just my thoughts on the matter - it far from means that I am necessarily correct! And either way, there are always cases when ignoring the rules is good, which I hope we will be sure to mention in the clarified guidelines. -- Natalya 02:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Something came to mind: what to do with dabs like HP (disambiguation)‎, DB, and DMZ (disambiguation)? Use the respective acronym redirects or not? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Ohhhh, interesting. We appear to have conflicting precidents, because at HP (disambiguation), the link to Hewlett-Packard Company is listed as HP. At the same time, we've had many people advocating at DB for the link to Daily Bugle to be "Daily Bugle", not The DB. Verrrrry interesting... there's probably something about notability of names or something, althout it seems that Daily Bugle is referred to as "The DB" in a similar fashion that Hewlett-Packard Company is referred to as "HP". In all seriousness, my brain is a little fried on this issue. Other opinions would be greatly welcome. -- Natalya 19:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

A significant difference for HP (disambiguation) is that HP (which redirects to Hewlett-Packard Company) is treated as one of two primary topics for that disambiguation page. The repetitious phrasing at DMZ (disambiguation) caused by the use of redirects to be not particularly helpful on that page. older ≠ wiser 20:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Come again? From what I'm understanding "The DB" would be favoured over "Daily Bugle", following the precedents given above. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Piping section break

Trying to move this forward, I have shown immediately below the current wording and below that again I have shown my proposeed wording. I hope you will see that my proposal takes account of the comments in our discussion: where there is agreement, I have gone with that; where there is disagreement, I have gone with what I perceive to be the majority; where I see no obvious majority, I have gone with my personal view (can you blame me?). I have tried to include as much rationale as possible in the newly worded proposal to avoid the need for another debate in 6 months time. I have also put reference points, (AA) (BB) etc, through the new words to make it easier to discuss the proposed changes:

Old section titled "Piping"

"WP:PIPING" redirects here. For the Wikipedia how-to, see Wikipedia:Piping.

"Piping" means concealing the actual title of a linked article by replacing it with other text, typically to suppress parenthetical expressions.

Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed. For example, in the entry for Moment (physics), the word "physics" should be visible to the reader. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need to be able to find the intended article.

Exceptions:

1. Use piping if you are linking to an anchor point on the target page.
2. Use piping if the article title differs from what it should be due to technical limitations per {{wrongtitle}}; for instance, The Singles 81>85 or Softimage|XSI.
3. Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance, Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "School" (song), Saturnalia (dinosaur), "Hush" (Buffy episode), Neo (The Matrix).

If the link is in the description instead of the subject, you may use piping in that link.

Example:

Rock(s) may refer to: Rock, the name of [[Mega Man (character)|Mega Man]] in the Japanese versions of the games

This guidance to avoid piping means that a link to a redirect term will sometimes be preferred to a direct link, if the redirect term contains the disambiguation title and the redirect target does not. For example, in Delta (disambiguation), a link to the redirect term Delta Quadrant would be preferred over its target, Galactic quadrant.

New wording section to be titled "Redirects and piping"

"WP:PIPING" redirects here. For the Wikipedia how-to, see Wikipedia:Piping.

"Piping" means concealing the actual title of a linked article by replacing it with other text, typically to suppress parenthetical expressions.

(AA)A redirect is a special page used to "jump" readers from one page title to page with another title where the targeted article is located. For example, a redirect is used at the title 9/11 to send users who navigate there to the article at September 11, 2001 attacks. (AA)

(BB) In general, it is best not to use piping or redirects in disambiguation pages so that it is clear to the reader which article is being suggested, and so that they remain in control of the choice of article. However, there are circumstances where a redirect or piping is useful to the reader.(BB)

• Where piping should not be used:
  • Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed. For example, in the entry for Moment (physics), the word "physics" should be visible to the reader. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need to be able to find the intended article.

• Where piping can be helpful:
  • (CC)Piping may be used for linking to a specific section of an article using anchor points. Piping is preferred to creating a redirect in cases where the section title is easily distinguishable from the disambiguated term, and the term is simply mentioned or described within the text of the section. This indicates a low possibility that the term will eventually have its own dedicated article. This technique is used commonly for piping to the track listing section of an album; a further example, from E (disambiguation), is that the piped ESRB is preferred to simply linking to the top of the target page ESRB.

    When piping is used on a disambiguation page to link to an article section, the link should be in the description and not used to begin that line on the disambiguation page.(CC)

  • Use piping if the article title differs from what it should be due to technical limitations per {{wrongtitle}}; for instance, The Singles 81>85 or Softimage|XSI.
  • Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance, Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "School" (song), Saturnalia (dinosaur), "Hush" (Buffy episode), Neo (The Matrix).

• Where redirects should not be used:
  • (DD) When the disambiguated term is an initialism, links should not use redirects to conceal the expanded version of that initialism. For example, on the disambiguation page BNL, linking to the full article title Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is preferable to linking to a redirect at BNL (bank) (although the existence of such a redirect may be useful for other purposes).

    This does not apply to the primary topic (see Linking to a primary topic above) on a disambiguation page for an initialism." (DD)

• Where redirects can be helpful:
  • (EE) A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article only if the title of that section is more or less synonymous with the disambiguated topic. This indicates a higher possibility that the topic may eventually have its own article." For example, in Delta (disambiguation), a link to the redirect term Delta Quadrant would be preferred over its target, Galactic quadrant. Use this technique when the link is the subject of the line, not when it is in the description.(EE)
  • (FF)Linking to a redirect is also helpful when the redirect contains the disambiguated term and the target article uses an alternative title; for example, linking to cell phone (instead of mobile phone) on the disambiguation page for cell.
  • In either of the above cases, the link to the redirect should begin the line on the disambiguation page, as when linking directly to an article title.(FF)

Comments on proposed new wording

If you care to comment here, I will amend the section above to fit your comments if they seem to have support. Of course anyone else can also change the wording above but I think it might be helpful if you were to explain here why you were making the change. Abtract (talk) 12:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comments have been received from User:Propaniac for which, thank you. These have been incorporated into my proposals above with some minor rewording and I have changed the example in AA to avoid using the same one twice. To make it easier for others to see just what is going on I have removed Propaniac's specific suggestions (as I said they have been incorporated so I hope that is OK) just leaving their intro and a thought about another section. Abtract (talk) 15:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC) ... "Suggested rephrasing below; trying to explain this stuff clearly is much harder and took much longer than I expected. I would suggest that MOS:DP#Linking to a primary topic be amended to state explicitly that the link to a primary topic should go to that title, whether or not the title is a redirect. Propaniac (talk) 14:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)"
• Question - what about the page DB, which started all this? If your proposal goes through what happens to the entry Daily Bugle there? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

  What do you think would happen to it? (DD is a clue) Abtract (talk) 20:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - at least that bit on DD (which I didn't catch the first time). If anything, acronym redirects should be in practice to match the dab term. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, are you saying you agree with my proposed wording exept that section? And your proposal in DD would be to encourage redirects? Abtract (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

  Yes. For instance, I still think The DB should replace Daily Bugle. J suggested DB (comics), but I prefer "The DB" since the article in question mentions that name, not just "DB". Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:44, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

• Notice of action - Unless there are more comments, I am going to put the proposed wording in place. There has been only one objection and that was to just one section DD which has been discussed elsewhere and imho all other opinion is in favour of my proposal at DD. I will act in a couple of days. Abtract (talk) 19:32, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
• Notice of comment - where has DD been discussed? I also fail to see how others are in favour of DD when only three editors have commented in this section, you and I included. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:48, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

  User:Bkonrad agreed here, Propaniac agrees by not suggesting it be altered, I had a feeling User:JHunterJ agreed somewhere but sadly I can't find it, and of course I agree. In addition most dab pages of initialisms do not use redirects so precedence favours the change. The fact that others who look at this page have not commented so far is a pity and that was my main reason for giving "notice" ... hoping they would comment. Abtract (talk) 22:07, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

• More comments - I notice the changes have been made, so what should be done to HP (disambiguation), MGS and DMZ (disambiguation), as asked above? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
  • And N (disambiguation)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:57, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

    Just follow the guidelines but I don't think many changes are needed because this new wording is very similar to what has been common practice for some time for most editors. Only some of your more recent edits may need changing. The pages you mentioned above look ok at a quick glance ... maybe dmz has too many artificial redirects but I can't get too excited about that. Abtract (talk) 06:21, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

wp:dab conflicts with wp:mosdab

wp:dab says:

Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title, or links that include the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion. Only add links to articles that could use essentially the same title as the disambiguated term. Disambiguation pages are not search indices.

The conflict on wp:mosdab is the rock example. Suggestions? Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:03, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

What precisely do you as the conflict? Mega Man (character) could have title at Rock as it is an alternate name for the character. older ≠ wiser 18:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

What defines could? Anything could have a title of something else. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Presumably it means "could reasonably". But as a general point, we oughtn't to have these two pages (DAB/MOSDAB) covering overlapping ground. Let's either merge them or draw a clear boundary between them.--Kotniski (talk) 22:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course it means "could reasonably". Before we start talking about merging or drawing clear boundaries, I'm still not sure that there actually is any conflict. older ≠ wiser 22:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps below wording needs to be tightened up:

"...If the link is in the description instead of the subject, you may use piping in that link..."

Two problems with this. One, why allow piping for this example? Two: wp:dab implies that don't link because of a description. The quoted text implies or overtly says that link to articles which use the term in a description is o.k. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:20, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a closely related discussion (with a proposal) above. Abtract (talk) 00:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I still don't see what the problem is here. older ≠ wiser 01:10, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

On the talk of merging the pages, this page (the Manual of Style) clearly defines how disambiguation pages should be laid out, while WP:D describes when/how to use disambiguation pages. Although there is definitly some information included on both pages, I think their separation is very appropriate. -- Natalya 23:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

"Problems"?

This edit does not make sense to me. How is it controversial? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think JHJ is trying to avoid editors using that particular example as a justification for making unecessary and potentially annoying little edits to match the precise format "Rock(s)" in a way the guidelines don't intend ... but no doubt he will speak for himself. Abtract (talk) 23:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

If anything both examples should be listed on WP:PIPING, as was agreed for the introductory lines section. Alas, let's hear what J has to say. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Sesshomaru, please stop making trouble here. WP:PIPING does not need to restate the rest of the manual of style; its example should illustrate the guideline on piping and conform to (but not exhaustively illustrate) the rest of the guidelines. Since you have continued to use the phrasing there to make disruptive edits despite the discussion at WT:MOSDAB#Introductory line and the changes to WP:MOSDAB#Introductory line, it would seem that the best way to defuse the problem woud be to remove the temptation from WP:PIPING. Could someone still active on the dab project (besides Abtract) please remake the change if you agree? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I do agree and will remake the change. I believe JHunter is right. Since this section is an illustration of piping, not intro lines, the example ought to be simple and transparent, and not introduce options unrelated to the issue of piping. It certainly should not be used as a rationale for the format of intro lines. For the record, Sesshomaru added this format to the piping guidelines with no discussion on July 26 (17 days ago) and then went on to suggest that it be the only acceptable format for introductory lines. I don't know if there is really consensus here for Sesshomaru's change (probably because it seems too trivial for editors to weigh in on), but it seems to me that it should stand the way it was before July 26 until a new consensus is reached. SlackerMom (talk) 12:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

In an attempt to help us through this little problem, I suggest we find an example (other than Rock) that doesn't need either a plural or an alternative spelling ... as a suggestion look at my proposed new wording (as amended by User:Propaniac for the "Piping" section above. Abtract (talk) 13:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I was just going to suggest that. – sgeureka ^t•c 14:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Appears that the consensus here was that we use both words, so "Bang(s) may refer to:" can't do. Should the guideline be changed to reflect that? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

No, Sess, you keep missing it. The consensus was that BOTH ways should be allowed in order to avoid trivial edits. Why do you keep trying to force us to edit the guidelines down to only ONE way? SlackerMom (talk) 19:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe because I don't understand it? And how does one decide which layout will be selected? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Just use EITHER ONE - it's up to YOU! Your choice! We're trying to leave it up to the preference of the editors because the consensus is that it DOESN'T MATTER. Use the one you like, and allow other editors do the same without running around behind them reverting and changing their edits. SlackerMom (talk) 20:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Then why'd you perform that edit? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that she views BAT in a different light to Bat where she also has edited but left the Bat(s) format intact. Arguably, "Bat(s)" makes more sense because it is a singular/plural variant whereas "BAT or BATS" might make more sense because it is just two different, but closely connected, initialisations. That would be my rationale, though I wouldn't necessarily change one to the other. I wonder how good my guess is. Abtract (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to let this go unanswered. I haven't been watching for a few days. I made the edit which you questioned out of pique at your reversion. My apologies. Abtract gave me more credit than I was due. SlackerMom (talk) 21:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Individual entries

I don't think this undiscussed change was helpful. It makes the other examples look redundant. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The previous example repeated the word "song" which was in conflict with "keep description to a minimum" a few lines below the example. Readers do not need repetition to help them find the right article. The change clarifes what I consider to be best practice. Abtract (talk) 06:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Feminine and Masculine

Other views would be helpful ... in particular the choice of primary topic (not my strongest point). Abtract (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no primary topic in the MOSDAB sense for either term. However, there is no prohibition against including a brief definition of the common sense of the terms in the opening line. older ≠ wiser 18:12, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I have continued to struggle with these two pages in an attemot to get them consistent with each other and with this mos. Imho I have now achieved that but am having trouble with Haines who is reverting me on the basis that there is a double redirect - which to my knowledge there isn't. Perhaps someone (or more) could look at these pages and decide if I am right and, if I am, to over-ride Haines. For obvious reasons, I do not wish to be seen as edit warring about this. Also I do not wish to "report" him as he is embroiled in an Rfa atm. Thanks. Abtract (talk) 07:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any double redirect, either, but OTOH I don't have any problem with the way Masculine (disambiguation) and Feminine (disambiguation) are worded now. --Russ (talk) 11:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

While Alastair is confused about what a double-redirect is, IMO there is nothing very wrong with the version of the pages that he is suggesting. FWIW, the version you suggest is fine also. So in short, since both versions are acceptable I'd suggest leaving well enough alone and not bother with getting into a dispute over this. older ≠ wiser 11:28, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

This is difficult ... but OK. Abtract (talk) 11:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Saint Clair

An IP user has been repeatedly adding a set of non-linked items to this page. I'm not sure I understand why enough to even try to articulate his/her reasons. Something about including legally acknowledged variations of name within Europe. If these are variants, then the spellings should probably redirect to this disambiguation page (which I haven't checked yet), but I don't see any reason for listing them here as either non-links or if they redirect back to the same page.

There may be other problems as well. For example, the line Henri Etienne Saint-Claire Deville, French Chemist, the first to extract metallic aluminum in quantity doesn't link to an article. It could link to Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville, but we do not typically include persons based on middle or partial name matches and there is no indication in the article that he is commonly referred to as Saint-Claire.

After repeated reverts, I had placed a cleanup tag on the IP version which was (somewhat disapointingly) removed by another user. Other opinions? Thanks. older ≠ wiser 11:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd say attempting to discuss this with the editor from the IP would be the best idea, so that there can be understanding of her rationale for adding the entries, and that the guidelines for why some of those entries might not be appropriate could be explained to her. Since the IP keeps changing, it may be harder to catch her attention, but you could try Talk: Saint Clair. If there's no response, though, page protection may be necessary until the dispute becomes resolved. -- Natalya 17:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see you already tried to explain at User talk:79.196.194.190. Perhaps attempting to get the editor involved in a more detailed discussion of the rationale for including entries could be more helpful (if they are willing to discuss)? -- Natalya 17:16, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If it keeps happening, just request for the page to be semi-protected. That could either have the IP log-in/make an account so she would be easier to contact, or she would just leave it alone. Tavix (talk) 21:16, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages with only two entries

According to WP:HATNOTE#Two articles with the same title:

When two articles share the same title, the unambiguated article should include a hatnote with a link to the other article. It is not necessary to create a separate disambiguation page. {{otheruses4}} may be used for this.

MOS:DP#Disambiguation pages with only two entries currently reads:

Some disambiguation pages with "(disambiguation)" in the title list only two meanings, one of them being the primary meaning. In such cases, the disambiguation page is not strictly necessary, but is harmless. The recommended practice is to use a hatnote on the article for the primary meaning to link directly to the secondary meaning.

My suggested revision of the MOS:DP section:

In general, a disambiguation page is unnecessary when there are only two meanings to be disambiguated. In such a case, the recommended practice is to use a hatnote, linking to the other meaning, on the article for the primary topic, if there is one, or on the article most likely to be targeted by the disambiguation term, if that can be determined.

I just think the MOS should be firmer about avoiding dab pages with only two links if possible. As I see it, if you have Use 1 and Use 2, sending the user to a dab page means that every user is going to have to load the dab page, read it, and click the meaning that they want, whereas if you send them to Use 1, only the users looking for Use 2 will be inconvenienced. It's not a huge burden, but it's an unnecessary one, and therefore I think it's misleading to say that such dab pages are harmless (under the mindset that badly-formatted disambiguation pages aren't themselves harmless, anyway). Propaniac (talk) 18:36, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with you except for the fact that it would create yet another way in which pettiness can creep in. IMHO we must avoid the situation that arises time and time again, where a "dab expert" makes a very small change (for example "use" to "usage") just because the guidelines suggest it. Lets leave two line dab pages alone please. Abtract (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why it's a problem if people choose to make small, fairly insignificant changes or improvements, or why we should avoid altering the MOS to a more preferable version out of fear that people will edit pages to a more preferable standard. We all do this voluntarily. Propaniac (talk) 20:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I would support this change. "Unnecessary" is a more accurate word than "harmless", and your wording may do better to help prevent creation of new unnecessary pages. SlackerMom (talk) 20:11, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment - I think that in order to have a dab page there must be at least three encyclopedic entries (like Buu, Devilman (disambiguation), Shinto (disambiguation), and DBZ). But what about dabs which have two, like Rinku? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

If one of the two entries is clearly the primary meaning, then it doesn't make sense to have a dab page (hatnotes work better). But what about when neither of the two is obviously primary? As I read it, the current guidance does not discourage the creation of a dab page in this situation. Though it is still possible to avoid the dab page, if we use hatnotes and make the topic redirect to one or other (randomly chosen?) of the two. Is it spelt out anywhere which method to use? If not then it probably should be. (I support the change by the way.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. If neither is the primary topic for the term then a disambiguation page may be the best option. The guideline should not prohibit disambiguation pages with only two entries, although it should discourage them where an alternative method of disambiguating is available. If there is a way to disambiguate one of the titles without introducing artificiality merely for the sake of disambiguating, then it would be better to use hatnotes to cross-reference them. And there may also be cases were both terms are located at other titles, but either could be referred to by another term. In such a case, if one is primary, the term would redirect and a hatnote can distiguish. But with redirects, it can get a little messy if the term being disambiguated are only minor aspects of the target articles. That is, it might be clearer to simply have the term be a disambiguation page, rather than having a potentially confusing hatnote (e.g., this page is about X, but Y redirects here; for another sense of Y, see Z). Also, the page is harmless and if there is a need to link to the disambiguation page, such as from the see also section of another disambiguation page, the page may even have limited utility or similarly, if additional uses are later found, there is already a place to start adding them. I guess there is a need to balance the need to avoid creating unnecessary disambiguation pages with avoiding giving another rationale for deletionist pogroms. older ≠ wiser 13:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I designed my suggested wording with the intention of leaving the door open for variation if warranted; after all, the MOS is only a guideline, and WP:IAR is always an option. If the more likely targeted article can't be determined, I'm fine with leaving it as a dab page. Propaniac (talk) 14:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there a guideline for how prevalent a usage must be for an article to be considered the primary meaning? I did some calculations, and my results indicate that hatnotes are more harmful than dab pages unless the primary topic is at least 95% of all usage. Careless editors will always link to [[Topic]], rather than [[Topic (foo)]], even if [[Topic (bar)]] is the primary article. If [[Topic]] is a dab page, this can be detected and cured. If [[Topic]] is the article on (bar), then bots and semi-automated methods won't notice, but readers will be confused by the erroneous link. Unless such links are less than 5% of all such searches, the harm outweighs the benefits, using my model. Robert A.West (Talk) 02:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you explain further how you arrived at this 95% figure? Propaniac (talk) 02:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure. First, I tried to determine whether the topics are sufficiently related that one might not notice immediately that one is looking at the wrong page. This is clearly true for many articles, and is apt to be true of casual readers more often than experienced Wikipedia editors are likely to intuit. I did a small non-scientific sample of five co-workers reading a page, clicking on a link, and then ending up at the wrong page. The first page was subject to reasonable confusion and the second was not. In every case, the hatnote was disregarded at first, and the reader simply read the article linked. Average time to realize that the link made no sense was around 30 seconds in the first case (ignoring one person who never figured it out), and 15 seconds in the latter. Two had to have the hatnote pointed out to them the first time: this may have been a methodological problem. They all navigated dab pages in about 10 seconds. In arbitrary units representing about ten seconds of user time, I assigned costs as follows:

0 units to arriving at the correct page.

1 unit to arriving at a dab page.

4 units to arriving at the wrong page. Having no information about the relative incidence of obvious and non-obvious cases, I assume them equal. (1+3)/2=2. I added 1 each to allow for confusion about hatnotes and the user that never arrived where he was going.

Let

P be the probability that a particular usage is the primary topic,

Q=1-P is the probability of all other usage.

R be the probability that an editor will be careful and disambiguate a link correctly.

S=1-R is the probability that the editor will select the name alone.

T<1 be the time that it takes a link to a dab page to be fixed, in units of the average lifetime of an edit.

The cost of having [[Topic]] point to a dab page is X=(P+Q)*(S*T)=S*T. The cost of pointing to the "primary" is Y=4*Q*S. Solving for Q, X>Y if Q < (S*T)/(4*S)=T/4. Since bots are reasonably efficient at identifying dab links, the largest value I can reasonably assign to T is .1: That is, I have to believe that a link will be identified and disambiguated within 1/10 the time that an average link lasts on Wikipedia before being changed in some way. This gives a figure of Q<.025, or P>97.5, which I round to 95%. My assumptions and measurements are subject to challenge, of course, which is why I was asking if we had any standard, and if so, how it was arrived at. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:30, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think we have any numerical standard as yet. Your research is interesting - can you describe exactly what you did? Were you just observing these co-workers as they used WP or did you ask them to perform a specific task?--Kotniski (talk) 07:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I asked them to perform a specific task: look at page X, find the reference to Y, then tell me how well Y relates to X. I tried to make it sound like I was interested in the quality of the writing, not the speed of links. I did this with different pages and under slightly different excuses. I did not attempt to do it under any sort of standard conditions, my clandestine timekeeping was very approximate and my mere presence was probably a distraction. I was only interested in getting some rough idea of how disruptive it is to be plunked down on the wrong page vs on a dab page. Robert A.West (Talk) 20:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) I see. I'm not sure I entirely agree with the emphasis on the factor T; I think we should assume that most links are in fact correct, so the efficiency of bots is not particularly relevant, but that the main "costs" arise when users type in the topic in the search box and press "Go". If we take T out of the equation I guess we get something like Q < 1/4 = 0.25, P > 75%, but it's late and I may not be thinking straight.--Kotniski (talk) 20:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The factor T has nothing to do with the number of incorrect links: that is the factor S. Setting T=1 as you propose is to assume that bad links exist but are never fixed. If you want to assume that all links are correct, set S=0, which makes the entire derivation invalid. If all links point to the optimal page, then there is no issue. No article ever links to a dab page; no article ever wrongly links to the "primary" page. The only problem with that position is that it contradicts my experience. It obviously also contradicts the experience of those who wrote the bots to detect links to dab pages. Robert A.West (Talk) 01:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, there certainly exist many wrong links, but for me that isn't the main (certainly not the only) factor to be considered when deciding whether to use a dab. The key situation for me is when a user comes to the topic not via a link, but via the "Go" button under the search box. I imagine user behaviour in that situation is roughly similar to that in your experiment. So if having a top link tends to slow users down on average 4 times more than a dab page, then we have the inequality (P+Q)*1>Q*4, which does give Q<0.25.--Kotniski (talk) 06:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to side with the comment about such a revision being likely to lead to more pettiness (there's plenty already when it comes to "primacy" of topic). I'm embroiled in a POV-laden debate about which person out of two with the same name should get to be the "primary" topic right now, in fact, and it seems clear as day to me that the only non-POV way to resolve the matter is to have a 2-article DAB page with the better known of the two at the top. For those interested in the matter, it is at Talk:Eddy Merckx#Requested move, and the short version is: There are two world champions in different sports by this name, one older and retired, one current and less famous (so far). My attempt to DAB this was reverted, on grounds that do not seem to account for WP:BIAS. PS: The change nominator commented that everyone seeking one of two articles on a topic witht the same name will have to go to the DAB page first before they can get to their article, but of course this isn't true at all. Only people trying to manually go to the article they want will have this experience; the vast majority of users will get to one article or the other by clicking on a wikilink in another article, that will go directlly to one article or other not the DAB page (unless a link hasn't been fixed, or an editor adds a new one without checking to see if it is a DAB). Even those who do not get there that way may well use the "Search" function instead of the "Go" button (I would suggest that most experienced WP readers already know to do this, since "Go" very, very often takes one to an article that was not the real target of the inquiry). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this is something a lot of people in the heat of primacy battles miss altogether (for example, as at Talk:Georgia). With a disambiguation page at the base name, it makes it that much easier to ensure that mistaken links get fixed. older ≠ wiser 21:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

So what happens to Rinku? I asked this above, but never received an answer. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:52, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Is either article listed there the primary topic? If not, then the base term should be a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 23:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Of those two topics? I don't think that one can say which is "primary" for the community as a whole. A little dab'll do ya in this instance. Robert A.West (Talk) 06:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, for whatever reasons that debate is going presently for the elder, more famous cyclist Merckx to be declared "primary topic", in a way that, to me, is in blatant disregard of WP:NPOV and WP:BIAS, but oh well. Win some, lose some. If it WP:SNOWBALLs I'm going to insist on changes to the relevant guidelines to make the ramifications more explicit. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Decisions about primary topics are made all the time; they are matters of judgement, made by consensus among editors - it doesn't make sense to say they breach WP:NPOV (or WP:BIAS, which isn't even a guideline). The Merckx one doesn't seem to be particularly unusual, except that you are opposing what to me (and others) seems to be the obvious standard solution. The issue is covered (as far as it is) at WP:Disambiguation, so that would be a better place for discussing proposed changes.--Kotniski (talk) 08:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Major WP:DAB and WP:NCP sports bio dispute

Resolved

 – Just an FYI pointer to a relevant debate.

Editors here may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Sports "revolt". The issue in a nutshell is that several sports WikiProjects are simply ignoring the biographical naming conventions and disambiguation guidelines, and I am trying to make it clear that doing so is a violation of WP:CONSENSUS policy, and that instead they need to convince the WP community at large that consensus should change at these guidelines to encompass their preferred way of doing things. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Clobber (disambiguation)

Hi. I'm having a dispute with User:Laudak about this page. According to MOS:DAB#Individual entries, specially the point where it says "The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link", I think that the descripcion on Clobber (computing) should be just "a computer term". Laudak keeps adding "a computer term: overwriting a file". I'm pretty sure he's wrong, but I don't want to start an edit war or something, so, following this advice, I'm asking here if you think I'm right or wrong. I know it's a very lame dispute, but still... --PeterCantropus (talk) 00:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally I wouldn't get too excited about it. Abtract (talk) 09:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Right, we're not complete minimalists. Adding the meaning in this case is pretty common practice, and most importantly is more likely to help the reader than hinder. --Kotniski (talk) 11:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI: Major guideline change dispute about bio article disambiguation

Resolved

 – Just an F.Y.I.

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#GENERAL preference for person-descriptive not field-descriptive disambiguators is an ongoing dispute/discussion that is of relevance to regular editors here (it starts out a little noisy but has a subsection for hopefully more substantive discussion).

The issue: Under discussion is whether to retain at least general, default guidance that bio articles be disambiguated by a human-descriptor rather than a field/topic-descriptor - "Jane Doe (chemist)" as opposed to "Jane Doe (chemistry)" - while allowing for exceptions (perhaps especially in sports), where this may not be practical under Wikipedia:Disambiguation's guidance to use short disambiguators - "John Doe (baseball)" vs. "John Doe (baseball player and coach)". Detractors suggest that there was never any consensus for such advice to begin with, while the counterargument is that the advice codifies actual general WP practice, and that that is the proper role of guidelines to begin with.

Current status: The advice has been removed from WP:DAB, as a quick way to settle an earlier dispute about whether to move articles like "John Doe (baseball)" to "John Doe (baseball player)", and the addition of a better-worded version of the advice (that accounts for such exceptions) to WP:NCP where it arguably belongs has been the subject of revert-warring. This necessites a solid and broad discussion to gain consensus on whether to have such a passage at all, and if so where, and what it should say. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Arc and ARC again

Arc begins "Arc or ARC may refer to:", which seems fine to me. But people are going to wonder if this contradicts the MOS, which says that it is not necessary to write out all variations of spelling, and then gives examples where one spelling is said to be preferable over multiple spellings. Anyone mind if I add the Arc example to make it clear that a small number (usually just 2?) of alternatives is sometimes acceptable?--Kotniski (talk) 08:51, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've "corrected" Arc ... my reading of the mos is that Ark/ARC are not required at the beginning BUT the page could be split into two halves "Ark may refer to" followed by "ARC may stand for" lower down the page (see Kak). Abtract (talk) 10:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was actually proposing not so much a change at Arc as a clarification of the guideline to avoid the need for such a change. For me having both alternatives at the top makes things clearer for the reader rather than the reverse. But if the contrary view is the general one, then I can accept it.--Kotniski (talk) 15:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd prefer to allow both as possibilities. I think I'd also like to place a large, bolded, flashing message at the top of the page -- something more emphatic than the current {{style-guideline}} text -- reminding people that the contents of the page are at best only heuristic guidelines describing best practices as currently understood and are not rules carved in stone to be robotically followed and are not meant to address every possible variation or exception. older ≠ wiser 15:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

We spent quite a lot of time deciding that it was better to avoid quoting variants just like this ... indeed it is specifically mentioned in the guidelines. Personally I see no reason to change the guidelines, though I do agree about the flashing light. Abtract (talk) 16:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand not listing all of the possible variants (Arc or ARC or .arc or A.R.C. or etc...), but for pages that have both the word and acronyms of the word, I think it helps to clarify that both of these things (the words and acronyms of the letters) are on the page, simply by having "Arc or ARC". We don't have all of the variants there, but it also makes it clear that on that disambiguation page are things called "Arc" and things abbreviated as "ARC". -- Natalya 17:01, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the Kak layout or just a mixed list (as I have put Arc are the two most common in these cases atm. I also think that a new consensus, if it arises, should be reflected in the guidelines otherwise we will all be pulling in different directions (presumably why we have guidelines) Abtract (talk) 17:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There's definitly been discussion before of how to organize pages that have both words and acronyms in them, and I can see the strong points for each argument. On the one side, separating the entries between words and acronyms is a very clear separation. On the other hand, keeping all of the entries together and sorting them by topical category, regardless of if they are words or acronyms, seems to make sorting easier, and keeps all things of the same topic together.

Also, I'm not sure if there's always a best way to separate out words and acronyms. On shorter pages such as Kak that don't require extended sectioning, separating things by words and acronyms seems very clear. On longer pages such as Arc, however, even if we were to separate the entries by words and acroynms, each section would still need further categorizing, which could make things very busy. -- Natalya 17:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Quoting my opinion from elsewhere on this Talk page:

I also disagree with this user on whether uses of the term as an acronym should be separated into their own section (instead of dividing entries by subject area), as I know some people like to do but I don't see the point of. A user may not know whether the term IS an acronym or not. But it does make me wonder why acronyms don't seem to be addressed at all either way in the MOS; the only guidance I found that relates to this question at all is in MOS:DP#Longer lists, which states "The list may be broken up by subject area" (emphasis mine). I do think perhaps a line should be added about whether acronyms should be broken out or not, as I do come across it fairly often but always change it since the MOS doesn't suggest otherwise.

I similarly don't see the point of separating a disambig page into two or more parts for different spellings. If the point is that the user may not know which of the spellings is correct, why must they look at first one list, and then another below it? If you're not combining the variously-spelled or -capitalized entries into a single list, why put them on the same page at all? Propaniac (talk) 02:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Natalya about the pros and cons of separation. But if there is no separation, I think I'd prefer to allow at least two alternative forms (like Arc and ARC) in the introductory line (like we explicitly allow singular and plural). Only if the list starts to get long is it necessary to trim it back (as in the examples currently quoted in the guideline).--Kotniski (talk) 07:00, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Plural/singular are two distinct, but related, terms which, for ease and the convenience of readers, have been combined on one page; upper/lower case are the same term in a slightly different form which sit naturally on the same page (imho). Surely no-one looking for an ARC term would be in any way surprised or confused to find themeselves at an Arc (disambiguation) page at some stage in their search? Abtract (talk) 09:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I don't really see the difference between this case and singular/plural. In particular, Arc and ARC are likely to be pronounced very differently, so they aren't "the same term". And I don't see how including both terms at the top makes the page any harder to read. Not that it makes a great deal of difference either way.--Kotniski (talk) 09:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they'd be confused to see ARC terms at at Arc, but I don't think they'd obviously know to look close enough if it didn't say "Arc or ARC may refer to", especially when the page is named "Arc". In all reality, I was actually slightly confused when I saw the page and only saw that it said "Arc may refer to", and that was when I was the one who had combined the two pages! I understand that listing all of the possible forms of the term being disambiguated is definitly silly, but by not referencing that there are both words and acroynms on a fairly hefty disambiguation page, I think that we are leaving out important information that will help people know they are in the right place to find an article they are looking for. -- Natalya 11:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Natalya that because "Arc" is also a word, it would be helpful to say "Arc or ARC". I costs very little, and helps users know they're in the right place. However, I certainly would not be in favor of something like "Arc or ARC or The Arc or A.R.C. or .arc may refer to" SlackerMom (talk) 12:59, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to change Arc back if no-one else has done so, and try to add something to the guideline to cover this case.--Kotniski (talk) 15:48, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't do that we haven't finished talking yet. As to the point from SMom, why not "The Arc or A.R.C." etc what is so different about "ARC" that it needs to be mentioned specifically? Abtract (talk) 23:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't necessarily speak for SlackerMom's rationale, but to me, "ARC" is the most general form of all the things that show up on the disambiguation page Arc because they are an acronym of the letters A-R-C. -- Natalya 01:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anything needs to be mentioned, but to me, Arc (pronounced "ark") and ARC (likely pronounced "eh-ar-see") are quite different terms (even more different than singular and plural), and it seems more helpful to the reader to say right off that both terms are included in the list. The statement in the guideline is about longer lists of items that really are variants of the same term (as ARC and A.R.C. are), so to use that statement as a reason for deleting ARC appears to be a case of applying rules for rules' sake.--Kotniski (talk) 07:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If this is the way most want it then so be it but I object to being accused of owning the page ... the discussion was clearly not finished when this edit was made. As to the main discussion, my view remains that if we abandon the restriction on capitalisation variants, we should abandon the restriction on all variants, such as diacritcs and punctuation. Just as a (feeble imho) case can be made for ARC so can one be made for A.R.C. and .arc and arc and Les Arcs etc ... it just depends how strongly you feel about each variant ... I contend that our earlier consensus was the best solution. Bearing in mind that we are changing a consensus formed not that long ago, we ought to have a straw poll on this - there may be many editors watching but not willing to discuss. Abtract (talk) 09:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I was just restoring it to the version that existed before the discussion started. You seem not to follow your own standards - as soon as I started the discussion you went and edited the page; but you think no-one else has the right to do similarly. Anyway, accusation of OWNing withdrawn, and moving on to vote below.--Kotniski (talk) 11:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course I don't follow my own standards I am human (though I was only editing the page to the format recommended by guidelines) ... apologies for being snippy. Abtract (talk) 11:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Straw poll on variants

Suggested alternatives for straw poll:

1. Keep the current restriction on minor variants in diacritics, capitalisation and punctuation.
2. Abandon all such restrictions.
3. Allow the "all capitals" variant (Arc/ARC) but continue to restrict the others.

• Option 1 - If we allow one we should allow all variants (why not?) and this would take us back to the inelegant and potentially confusing method of the past where sometimes five or six variants were included in the lead. All caps is not a "special case" as it is common practice to include (eg) Arc and ARC on one page - this is what readers have come to expect, indeeed even common sense dictates that this should be so. Abtract (talk) 09:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
• Option 3 (though I'm not sure that's the only possible type of pair of variants - people may think of others). Not all readers know what to expect from dab pages, and seeing two different terms at the top makes things clearer without being confusing. If the advice is clear, then specifically allowing two terms will not lead to long lists of confusing variant forms. (We already have singular and plural as a special case anyway, and words and initialisms are even more "different" than singulars and plurals.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
• Option 3; I don't think it's a perfect solution, and Abtract, you do raise good points, but I don't think there is a perfect solution, and this is the one that works best with me. Listing "Arc or ARC" covers (in general) all possible variants of something on the page either because it is the word "arc" or an acronym of "ARC". I do not think that we should say that any two pairs of terms can be used, though (except in IAR cases, of course), because, to me, that doesn't accomplish what listing the word and the acronym do. For example, at Lowenstein, even though there are three different spellings, there's no need to list even two of them at the top; one is significant. In the case we are discussing, however, listing "Arc and ARC" covers all word and acronym entries. Hmm... that may not have been the clearest thing ever, but hopefully I get my point across. -- Natalya 11:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

I've added section headers for the poll and this discussion section as the previous section was getting long. My first inclination is for Option 3 -- but then, what of Arcs and ARCS? Currently Arcs redirects to Volcanic arc, which seems a little presumptuous -- especially as there wasn't even a hatnote to the disambiguation page until I just added it. ARCS is a distinct initialism and so perhaps justifiably has its own page -- although I seem to recall that in other cases such "-s" variants would be treated on the "s-less" base-name page. Perhaps Arc/Arcs/ARC/ARCS is not the best example to illustrate this, but if all these variants are treated on the same page, what would the intro line look like? "Arc(s) or ARC(S) may refer to:"? Or lets say ARCS is kept as a separate page since it is a distinct initialism (as opposed to merely a plural form)..."Arc(s) or ARC may refer to:" with ARCS listed in the see also section? Or perhaps we should reconsider whether the default is to combine initialisms with word forms (i.e., have three separate pages for Arc(s) and ARC and ARCS with cross-references from each)? older ≠ wiser 12:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

*Brain explosion* :) Wow! That's a lot to ponder. No thoughts yet, I just found the complexity of it amusing. -- Natalya 19:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this is moving on to a different topic, but it seems to make sense to have Arc and Arcs on the same page (since they are just variant forms of a word), but ARC and ARCS on different pages (since they are probably unconnected abbreviations). So we have one page for Arc, Arcs and ARC, and another for ARCS, obviously with "see also" links between the two. Then for the introductory line on the first page, I would write "Arc or ARC..." or else "Arc(s) or ARC..." depending on how significant the plural forms were. Still I would feel an even greater need to mention both the word and the abbreviation than both the singular and plural. In fact I would have no objection to a guideline which specifically recommended the first style (i.e. only two alternatives given).--Kotniski (talk) 08:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I dunno. The more I look at the Arc page as it is now, the less I like it -- I think it is quite confusing have a few word forms mingled with a much longer list of initialisms. I suggest that the guidance should perhaps be amended to have separate pages for word forms and initialisms where there is a "long" list of either type. Where there are only a few entries of either type, I think they can easily co-exist on a single page, though perhaps with separate headings. What threshholds to use for "long" or "only a few" can be discussed. It's easier to identify the extremes that to specify a clear dividing line out of murky grayness. Rationale: People entering or linking to "ARC" are much more likely to be looking for an initialism. "Arc"/"arc"/"Arcs"/"arcs" would seem much more likely to be looking for a word form. older ≠ wiser 16:58, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I am pulling out of this discussion now but my final thought is that I like that last suggestion - separate pages for initialism unless a combined page would be quite short and then have separate sections as Kak. Abtract (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is rapidly sprouting out into new directions. The initial question of whether to say "Arc or ARC may refer to" seems to have been answered in a majority affirmative, so I've updated both that page and the guideline to reflect that. As for the new question of whether the word and the initialism should be combined at all, I actually like the way the Arc page is at the moment - with entries divided by subject rather than by capitalization. (Particularly since some of the abbreviations are not always capitalized.) In other such cases though (like Kak), the other way of doing it also works well. I don't see much to be gained by trying to define more mathematically which way to do it in a given case, though I've no objection if someone wants to try.--Kotniski (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Misuse of recent Arc/ARC change to guidelines

This change is being misused here and here despite very clear discussions here and here - I was afraid this would happen when the guidelines were changed. Also apologies to all for entering yet another edit war with Sess, I should have brought it here immediately. Abtract (talk) 07:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be a case of one editor deliberately reading into the guidelines what he wants to read out of them. Not sure we can legislate for people like that; although I suppose we could make the guidelines tighter by emphasizing that the singular/plural and word/abbreviation situations are special cases.--Kotniski (talk) 16:52, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Then do it. I interpret the line "However, where a word and an abbreviation are disambiguated on the same page, both may be given..." like this: when there are two (or more) variations of the dab term on the page, then they may be given in the intro. Hence, the reason I made these edits. Clarity should be our main goal here. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

That was not the intended interpretation (as the discussion will show). I'll amend it to make it clearer. Consensus is to regard singular/plural and word/abbreviation as "different terms" that require listing, but variant spellings as in the Saiyuki and Baba cases as "different forms of the same term" which do not all need listing. I wouldn't have expected this issue to stir up any strong emotions, but seeing as it's come to that, we ought to abide by consensus.--Kotniski (talk) 17:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Sessh, that's certainly an unusual and completely unwarranted way to interpret that line. I'm not sure what could make it clearer. How do you get "two (or more) variations" from "a word and an abbreviation"? I don't think it is possible nor desirable to attempt to comprehensively anticipate every possible misinterpretation. That is the genesis of both instruction creep and wikilawyering. older ≠ wiser 17:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought we (at least, meant to) be very clear to say that even if the word and the initialism could both be used in the introductory line, that didn't open the door for any two forms of the word being disambiguated to be used. -- Natalya 18:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Looks a bit clearer now ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Acronyms and their place on disambigs

I know I'm not the only one on Wiki who uses acronyms or abbreviations to navigate Wikipedia quicker; for instance: 2.5 Men=Two and a Half Men the TV series. It's just faster than typing out the full URL. Well, some users who will remain nameless are enforcing policy to the letter (or at least, that is their excuse). So far there's no policy in regards to something like this, so I move that abbreviated links (in my case, Centaurs in astrology should be allowed to be listed on the CIA disambiguation page) to articles be allowed to stay on disambiguation pages. I mean, it's not like we're listing them on the main articles. --IdLoveOne (talk) 20:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Why would it need to be mentioned on the dab page if it is used as a shortcut direct to the specific article? Abtract (talk) 20:58, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, in this case you can see on the disambiguation page that there are at least a couple dozen articles that share the same acronym, but someone decided that the Central Intelligence Agency is the one that gets the redirect from CIA and anything else with the same acronym has to settle for the disambiguation page. Why shouldn't any article that shares the acronym be allowed to be listed? --IdLoveOne (talk) 21:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The generally accepted criteria is whether there is evidence that the acronym is commonly used in published sources. Disambiguation pages are not collections of undocumented nonce usages merely for the convenience of editors. older ≠ wiser 21:41, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

(EC) I am the "nameless" editor, and I simply removed two entries from CIA (disambiguation) because the term "CIA" wasn't used in their articles, nor are they commonly known as "CIA". I'm not trying to "enforce policy" and I won't edit war over one link on a dab page, but am I wrong in assuming that this is common practice when editing dab pages? I plan to do the same thing when I get around to cleaning up CC and MIC, by the way. SlackerMom (talk) 21:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm just saying, it doesn't make sense. I mean, I wouldn't be giving you problems if there was clearer policy and if I actually understood your reason for removing the Centaurs page. When I first went to the disambig page it looked like you'd specifically and singularly removed that one. That and the reasons I just mentioned made it seem like vandalism (perhaps against the opinion that astrology is actually a useful practice; not NPOV). --IdLoveOne (talk) 22:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed all entries that do not mention the term being disambiguted on the target article will be specifically removed. If you have reason for supposing that CIA is a legitimate abbreviation for Centaurs in astrology and you can cite published references for that supposition, then the place to put it is in the article itelf ... then and only then would it be a suitable entry on the dab page. Abtract (talk) 23:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree with SlackerMom and Abstract. There was also a long drawn-out discussion at HP (disambiguation) some time ago, which (kind of) concluded with what Abstract just said above. I find this approach reasonable. – sgeureka ^t•c 07:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there any place in the guidelines that says anything to this effect? Although I know it is a commonly agreed upon practice among dab page editors, I have had trouble explaining it before to those who don't work with dab pages all the time. Is this something we should add to MOSDAB somewhere, or is it better left alone? SlackerMom (talk) 12:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

IMO, any attempt at codifying things to too fine a precision only results in more wiki-lawyering disputes. While I agree with the general sense of what others have said above, I think this statement from Abstract goes too far: all entries that do not mention the term being disambiguted on the target article will be specifically removed -- there are many cases where the initialism is fairly obvious and there is no mention in the article and there is no real reason to insist that the initialism be specifically identified in the article. For example, on the page in question above, CIA (disambiguation), a few entries make no explicit description of the initialism, such as Courtauld Institute of Art, Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Calgary International Airport, Changi International Airport, Cardiff International Airport, Cairo International Airport -- should all of these uses also be removed from the page? I think it would be fair to say that in more of these cases, the initialism is fairly obvious and it would likely not be very difficult to find uses in published sources. I'd suggest that where the usage is questionable, editors can request some evidence to warrant inclusion. older ≠ wiser 12:50, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Finally, some understanding! Thank you. --IdLoveOne (talk) 23:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

As often seems to be the case, you are of course right. Where they are pretty obvious or unchallenged then initialisms should be included even if not mentioned specifically in the article. I was in grave danger of falling into the "let's have rules dictating every little nuance" trap and forgetting the "we are here to help readers" adage ... silly me. Abtract (talk) 15:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hero worship is wrong, Abtract. It's just wrong. --IdLoveOne (talk) 22:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Of course I agree, since I left all those "obvious" links on CIA (disambiguation) to begin with. Centaurs in astrology doesn't seem an obvious inclusion to me, since it's not the name of something. I'm certainly not trying to be POV about it. I just doubt anyone would ever type in "CIA" and expect to go there. SlackerMom (talk) 16:22, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I quite agree with you SlackerMom regarding the removal of Centaurs in astrology and Common iliac artery from the CIA (disambiguation) -- both are questionable and it is not at all unreasonable to request some evidence from published sources reagarding usage as the initialism. older ≠ wiser 01:56, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess what disturbs me about this is that there is a requirement for us to add our own impressions as to what is reasonable. Since we aren't citable - indeed, our opinions are specifically prohibited - this evaluation seems wrong. If we have a solid, pure search for the term, we can use it as a dab term. If not, we don't. That seems common sense. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:03, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I feel like you may have given up common sense for a "tyranny of the Google". You're fighting over the color of the bike shed by contributing to heated disputes on such a small page as JTR. I doubt that WP was in imminent danger of being overrun by Jack the Ripper fans. And our opinions are used to help settle all sorts of differences about how dab pages should look and work - they are certainly not prohibited in that regard. Where would your lengthy talk page contributions be if they were? SlackerMom (talk) 18:17, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, common sense isn't that common, SlackerMom. I am not putting too much faith in Google, which is why I double-checked the veracity of the search results with five other search engines. All of them returned proportionally identical results. JTR as a dab term for Jack the Ripper is not a common term outside conversational discussion in Ripper-specific websites and forums. As for the wiki being overrun by JTR fans, it bears noting that the ones initially (and doggedly) arguing for its inclusion are Ripper fans. We don't cater to a small group of contributors with an agenda; the regular user is who we are supposed to write for, not the specialist. Having information that we can prove is encyclopedic requires us to use - in the case of dab pages - is a solid referential history in searches. As five engines disagree that JTR refers to Jack the Ripper, we cannot impose our personal preference. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 18:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I've never edited the Jack the Ripper page and unlike you am not a hardcore fan and editor of the subject - but the DAB does reflect a wider use of the term.[3]. Several link to museums, books, movie productions and comics when using the term. And that's just the first page...75.57.160.195 (talk) 19:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the anon's search (which adds supplementary terms to JTR) is flawed, and represents OR in that it preferentially searches for a term using criteria preferential to a connection. JTR by itself returns less than a dozen hits in millions, and is therefore not notable.

As well, it has been pointed out elsewhere that the only reason you even visited JTR was while stalking my edits, for which you have been blocked before. Maybe you can go away now, before we block this IP as well. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 19:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Your claim is not logical. JTR by itself cannot return less than a dozen hits in a million. The filtered search JTR+Eastend is a subset of JTR. Therefore JTR would return all of the 5,000 hits in the subset plus all other JTR hits. It just is. The filtered subset[[4]] is an accurate representation of it's usage and includes museums, books, movie productions and comics on the subject of Jack the Ripper all within the first page. For my response to your continued baiting[5] please see the other DAB forum you've opened. Peace75.57.160.195 (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Please ask someone to explain search protocol to you, anon. I am done bantering with my stalker. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 20:04, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Your attacks on me are interesting considering that I've never edited the main page and have expressed no opinion as to how the link should be listed. My only opinion, ever, has been a civil discussion on the Talk page in support of inclusion. This is wholly in agreement with your position[6] also in support of inclusion.. A casual reader might assume we were engaged in an edit war given the tone of your remarks here.75.57.160.195 (talk) 22:29, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Magic8ball says no. JTR meaning - Acronym Attic

Magic8ball2 says Google has heard of, but not notable. JTR - acronymfinder.com

We all wish Dreamguy would learn to use {{Find}}. And to stop gaming the system(Personal attack removed). (Doesn't he have a COI, being a published author about such?) And being such an arrogant deletionist everywhere else he goes. (Seriously, check his contribs. (Personal attack removed)). He really does make it excessively tiresome to be here sometimes. Far more harm to the project than good, in MANY editors opinions. (and he thinks he's being helpful, and very very occasionally is, which is what makes the whole thing so painful) Kumquat75 (talk) 05:01, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

"We all wish that"... "MANY editors opinion" ... really? You've only made three edits in your life on this site and all three of them are to oppose my edits on a couple of unrelated topics. Who are you to talk about "we" and what "many" editors think? Looks like we likely have yet another sockpuppet being used to furhter a conflict and pretend to have more people in support of a position that really exist. Your comments here are also quite extreme violations of WP:NPA. I'd suggest an admin block this account, because this person is clearly not a new member, clearly not here to work on an encyclopedia, and is clearly solely here to try to further conflict. DreamGuy (talk) 15:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. As a long time user, I am guessing you kow precisely where to submit a request to an admin regarding suspected sock, right? I ask bc it would seem awfully clear that this page doesn't appear to be that place. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 06:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. your a troll that makes wiki worthless and nobody wants to put up with this anymore —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.176.204.44 (talk) 15:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/DreamGuy_2#DreamGuy_limited_to_one_account says it all Kumquat75 (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Not to further DG's cause but Kumquat75's own look-ups argue against him, AcronymFinder lists Jack The Ripper as the top meaning of JTR. padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 14:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Entropy (disambiguation)

Please look at this page when you have time, an important principle is under threat. Alternatively, you may feel guidelines need to be altered to accomodate this. Abtract (talk) 12:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Piping and redirects

In the edit summary for this edit, Abtract said "alter section as discussed on talk page ... just one dissenter to one small section ... maybe a new discussion on that small point if desired". I read through the unarchived discussion here, but couldn't find a mention of the preference of a spelled-out link over an abbreviated link when the abbreviation matches the disambiguation phrase. Can someone point me to this discussion, perhaps in the archives? Thanks. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean this section:"When the disambiguated term is an initialism, links should not use redirects to conceal the expanded version of that initialism. For example, on the disambiguation page BNL, linking to the full article title Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is preferable to linking to a redirect at BNL (bank) (although the existence of such a redirect may be useful for other purposes)"? If you do I am stalling because I cannot find it anywhere ... but it is there. Abtract (talk) 19:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

This is it when it happened but I'm not sure where it is now.Abtract (talk) 19:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The archive was misplaced by MiszaBot II. It is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Archive 37. I've added to the archive box. older ≠ wiser 19:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks but isn't that a little worrying? Abtract (talk) 19:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, it seems the bot was working correctly. The Archive box on this page though has to be manually updated though. There are some boxes that will autoexpand, but I don't have time to sort it out now (that and with the weird extra white space at the top). older ≠ wiser 20:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the MiszaBot/config archiveheader to use {{atn}} instead of {{talkarchive}}, so we can see slightly more easily when there is a newer archive page. Still not as easy as auto=yes, but better than nothing, I hope. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to modify People section

For the second time I have modified a hndis dab page that has a primary topic, to follow the style guidelines of WP:MOSDAB#Linking to a primary topic, but have been reverted on the basis that WP:MOSDAB#People overrules this. See this history and the previous discussion on WT:MOSDAB. Can we have an explicit statement in the WP:MOSDAB#People section that confirms that the Primary topic style still applies, or conversely, if consensus is such, that it is deprecated? Tassedethe (talk) 16:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems clear as it is; the People section is part of the higher-level "Individual entries" section, which is separate from the "Linking to the primary topic" section. There's not much we can do about people wilfully misunderstanding what the guideline says, or inventing their own wild interpretations - they'll just do the same whatever we write. (I've reverted at IK.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The WP:PRIMARYTOPIC guideline is more specific in recommending the inclusion of a primary topic line regardless of what's being disambiguated: "When there is a well-known primary topic for an ambiguous term, name or phrase, much more used than any other [...] then that term or phrase should be used for the title of the article on that topic. That article should have a disambiguation link at the top, and the disambiguation page should link back to the primary topic." I suppose we could include an introductory paragraph under the Specific entry types heading, something along the lines of:

In addition to the above guidelines for individual entries, the following entry types have specific conventions. Bear in mind that regardless of the types of entry being disambiguated, all disambiguation pages should include a [[#Linking to Wiktionary|link to Wiktionary]] if the term has a Wiktionary definition, and a [[#Linking to a primary topic|primary topic line]] if the term has a primary topic article.

It seems to me like excessive rules creep for what should be a straightforward case, but if this ambiguity is causing regular edit conflicts then some additional guidance may be warranted. --Muchness (talk) 18:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It isn't creep so much as unnecessary repetition, but I've no objection to it going in if it's going to be useful in practice.--Kotniski (talk) 18:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I was concerned that this might be regarded as repetition, each section shouldn't need to reiterate previous style guidelines, but as I say it's happened twice, and involved regular editors. The introductory paragraph for all 'Specific entry types' looks fine, and can be linked easily to edit summaries if needed. Tassedethe (talk) 07:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't clear to me. It would be helpful if each disambiguation example was complete in itself, including exceptions. One can't expect editors to go searching all over the place for rules that may or may not take precedence. In the case of people, an example is given and it makes no mention whatsoever of notability. I therefore continue to read that disambiguation pages should not link to the most notable article first. Happy to comply with whatever is agreed as long as the example is updated. Millstream3 (talk) 11:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The section about individual entries is complete in itself -- it completely addresses individual entries. Applying it to primary topics or reading it as if it says that all people on a disambiguation page must be entered as specific entries is wrong; it doesn't say that. It specifies how to format entries that are articles about people. One doesn't expect editors to go searching all over the place for rules, but one does expect editors to avoid reverting edits of editors who have searched out the relevant rules and guidelines, or asking first if they disagree, particularly when the previous editor's edit summary included a link to the relevant section of the guidelines. Please be happy to comply with the guideline in full, and use the example only for relevant situations (in this case, entries on people, and being an entry means not being the primary topic). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

That is disingenuous: I did read the editor's link to MOSDAB and disagreed with the editor's interpretation. (I continue to do so.) On this particular disambiguation page, another editor (well-respected) agreed with my interpretation (check the history) and also reverted Tassdethe's changes. I cited my reason for reverting Tassdethe's changes, quoting MOSDAB's entry on people, and he reverted my changes once more. The MOSDAB page needs to be updated if you want to avoid confusion. Millstream3 (talk) 11:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

OTOH, I found rephrasing "familiarizing oneself with the guidelines" as "searching all over the place for rules that may or may not take precedence" disingenuous. You (or two of you) took a guideline on Individual entries and people and applied it to Linking to a primary topic. That was incorrect. "Happy to comply [with consensus] as long as the example is updated" is the wrong way about it; consensus is consensus whether or not the example is updated. If the current phrasing contributed to the error, though, how would you (or the other well-respected editor) suggest that the guidelines be rephrased so that the meaning becomes clearer to you (or the two of you)? -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

My point about "searching all over the place..." was not meant to be a rephrasing of your words; my point was that instructions or examples should be complete in themselves, or include explicit links to exceptions. As stated above, I had familiarised myself with the guidelines and disagree(d) with another editor's interpretation: the guidelines are not clear. What I found disingenuous was your assumption that I had not read them. Your point about consensus is, of course, correct; although I don't think that this discussion between 4/5(?) of us can be considered to be statistically representative. I see that you have updated Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages). Thank you: it's a good example of the type of case we are talking about, which I imagine will be the majority; but there is now no example for when there is not a "primary" article. I would have suggested leaving the example as it was and referencing the primacy point in a sentence below. Millstream3 (talk) 12:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The other goals are to keep the guidelines readable and avoid instruction creep. For pages where there is no primary topic, I can't foresee how the example with a primary topic will mislead editors in the same way that the reverse did: there's no easy way to write up a non-primary-topic as if it were a primary topic. The primacy point is referenced in its own section; I'd rather not have every section have to say "all other sections still apply". But if the new example is used by some editors to make analgous mistakes, we can revisit it then. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

That's fair enough, let's consider this one closed then. And thank you for making the change: the example is likely to apply in the majority of situations. Millstream3 (talk) 14:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

(Outdent) Minor quibble. Having an example of a primary topic for the people section is great. But. Can we find an example that shows both people who are dead and people who are alive i.e. so that one has the (born 19**) and one has the (18**-18**) form of dates. Perhaps I am over-thinking it but without those there might be a tendency for people to add day/months to the dates (or other formats). I've had a quick look but I can't find a suitable candidate, partly because most of the person name (disambiguation) pages don't follow the primary topic style, which is ironic. James Bond (disambiguation) fits but I'm not sure that fictional character is a good choice. James Baker (disambiguation) also fits but doesn't have the obvious name recognition. (Forgot to sign, but now been done, thanks.) Tassedethe (talk) 16:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Treatment

The page for treatment is a rather awkward one to figure out. Treatment has multiple uses, but no real direct page to link to. A DAB page seems a good choice, but there's nothing really to dab - all the entries are qualified ones (i.e. film treatment, national treatment, etc) with no real candidates for direct links or sensible DAB entries that are in line with MOS:DAB. I had redirected to therapy but there was a revert and now a discussion. Any suggestions from others? WLU (talk) Wikipedia's rules^(simplified) 17:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Entries to pages that are Dabs

I'm not sure if there has been a change in the guidelines, or if i made up a guideline (one, BTW, that i think is desirable). It seems i am not alone, tho, in following its principle.
The substance of the statement i expected to find would have been along these lines:

Arriving at a Dab page -- an experience we strive to minimize by wise choice of primary topics, and bypassing of Dab refs in articles -- is usually at least a little disappointing, and may throw the user off balance. Just as we prefer to follow the principle of least astonishment by, within Dabs, not piping links or linking to Rdrs for articles, it can cushion the experience of following a link from a Dab to another Dab if the standard sfx for Dab Rdrs is used to alert the user to the fact that that the target is another Dab -- e.g., coding Jefferson County (disambiguation) since Jefferson County is a Dab, alerting users to that Dab content.

Is this practice (clearly not mine alone) somehow harmful?
If not shouldn't it be formally recognized?
Notes:

1. I chose "Jefferson County" for that example for the first of these reasons, and discovered the other two as frosting on that cake:
   1. It is so coded in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Examples of individual entries that should not be created, to lk to the corresponding Rdr, not directly to the Dab page;
   2. The Dab page is about 6 years old, but the Rdr dates from this April;
   3. The Rdr was apparently created less than a day before, presumably with intention for use as i discuss here.
2. I saw another editor opine that the "See also" secn of a Dab is solely for entries for Dab pages whose titles end in "(disambiguation)"!
3. At Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#"See also" section, i was therefore especially disappointed to find that of the 8 links in the three "See also"-secn examples, the only one coded with " (disambiguation)" was the one where the unsuffixed title was not available for use as that of the corresponding Dab page.

--Jerzy•t 06:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a summary of this WP:DAB#Links to disambiguation pages, or just a link? Tassedethe (talk) 07:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I definitely follow this practice myself, and have had to cite WP:DAB#Links to disambiguation pages more than once to other editors to defend it. It would be nice if there was a shortcut there (I don't know how to make one). It would also be nice if the explanation there were a little more clear. SlackerMom (talk) 12:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• You must both mean

  To link to a disambiguation page (instead of a specific meaning), link to the redirect to the disambiguation page that includes the text "(disambiguation)" in the title (such as, America (disambiguation) rather than America). This helps distinguish accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones. See Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages.

though it doesn't explain why such a lk should not be pipe-tricked. Nor does

* Links from one disambiguation page to another for further disambiguation — British (a disambiguation page) has a link to Britain (disambiguation) (a redirect as described below) for further disambiguation.

(which refers to the "To link..." 'graph in saying "below"), tho it comes closer to hinting at the lack of piping.
One of those has gotta be what i originally saw! Thanks!
--Jerzy•t 06:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that a shortcut is desirable, and the only question in my mind is whether to make one, ala G6, to the individual 'graph, rather than to the section. I'll do the work (unless SM wants the practice), if there's agreement as to what to target.
  --Jerzy•t 06:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  
  • I went ahead & created two shortcuts within the section, and apologized at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#New shortcuts in case i violated naming conventions.
    --Jerzy•t 07:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
    
• I also agree that the point -- both points, in fact -- could be more clearly stated. But i'm not going to take my a shot at writing (most likely overwriting) new language for either without knowing whether my anti-astonishment reasoning above is endorsed by others.
  And finally, would others agree that the lks in the examples in the section named

"See also" section

should be redone to follow the guideline we are discussing?
--Jerzy•t 06:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

If you're asking "Should links on disambiguation pages to other disambiguation pages use the explicit (disambiguation) redirect?" Yes, per [[WP:D#Links to disambiguation pages, as noted. "Should that link be piped?" No, per the MOSDAB notes on piping. "What if the (disambiguation) redirect doesn't exist?" Create it. If you're asking something else? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you; i was asking about the piping, and altho the passage you cite shows IMO no sign of intending to cover this wrinkle, i'm grateful for the reassurance that someone agrees with me as to the bottom line -- that makes me more comfortable arguing for that bottom line (when necessary) as i did above bcz

on Dab pages Least Astonishment cuts one way (show the target's title) when lk'g to articles, and the other (let the Rdr describe the target) when lk'g to another Dab.

--Jerzy•t 05:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Section entitled: "See also" section

I complained in an aside in the preceding section that the examples in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#"See also" section could mislead as to what the corresponding "See also" sections would actually look like.
The relevant portion (80% of the whole section) reads

There may be a "See also" section which can include:

• Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket
• Likely misspellings of Title, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont
• Different forms of Title, for example Splitting, Split (disambiguation), and Splitter

The potential for confusion has three aspects:

1. The links involved are all Dabs -- not shocking, as they are likely to predominate, but inviting inattention to the fact of this role occasionally falling to titles that need no Dab'n;
2. The links are contrasted with the hypothetical "Title", while each bullet point is actually about two or three "See also" sections and one or two entries per section; the first, for example, is really about two cases: one with New Market as the (Dab) Title and Newmarket as a lk-target in the "See also", and a second where those two roles are reversed;
3. By leaving the "See also" contents hypothetical, no occasion arises for noting that each of these entries would in fact be coded not as, e.g., New Market or Splitter but rather as New Market (disambiguation) or Splitter (disambiguation).

The information can be deduced, at some effort, by putting the appropriate pieces of D & MoSDab together, but IMO that effort should not have to be repeated by multiple editors. I propose the following revision, where i have indicated deletions with strikethru, and replacement or new text with bold:

There may be a "See also" section, which can include:

• Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket each with the other, or Gravity with Gravitas
• Likely misspellings of Title Terms for which Title is a likely misspelling, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont
• Different (real or apparent) grammatical forms of Title, for example Splitting, Split (disambiguation), and Splitter

Thus the disambiguation-page section New Market#See also includes

• Newmarket (disambiguation)

and, conversely Newmarket#See also includes

• New Market (disambiguation)

(each a redirect to a Dab, as specified at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#IntDabLk).
In contrast, Gravity#See also includes

• Gravitas

(an article), but the likelihood of remembering "gravitas" instead, when "gravity" is desired, is too small (or assumed to be so) to justify any form of disambiguation at Gravitas as a means of reaching gravity-topic articles.

--Jerzy•t 07:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

If we cut the part starting with "Thus ...", then my only suggestions would be:

Drop "each with the other" or replace with "on the other's page"

"Terms that can be confused" (instead of "Terms which can be confused")

"Different grammatical forms" (dropping "real or apparent")

-- JHunterJ (talk) 16:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Dab help request

We sailors of the Scottish Islands regularly alight on small islands with similar names and there is a collection of dab pages as a result. It has been brought to our attention that MOSDAB guidelines mean that Garbh Eilean (disambiguation) could not incorporate information about some of the many tiddlers of this name that were unlikely ever to become articles so these were removed from main space and stored at Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Islands/Garbh Eilean. Can anyone advise how best to deal with this little conundrum? It most closely approximates a list, but somehow List of Garbh Eileans or List of Eilean Garbhs and Garbh Eileans don't seem right. Garbh Eilean (locations)? If anyone knows of any precedent for dealing with this sort of thing, I'd be grateful. Ben MacDui 17:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I think these are "set index" articles and will proceed accordingly. Ben MacDui 08:02, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have reached the ideal conclusion. Abtract (talk) 11:03, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

A primary topic discussion

There's a primary topic discussion at the pioneer (disambiguation) page. The relevant discussion is Talk:Pioneer (disambiguation)#Primary topic, input from interested parties is welcome. --Muchness (talk) 04:15, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Red links on disambiguation pages

I propose to disallow red links on disambiguation pages, because these pages should disambiguate only Wikipedia content, as the general guideline says. The articles should be written first, and subsequently the blue-link should be added. There is no need to have red links on disambiguation pages. They should and could not disambiguate the whole world, and I think to write the article first and then add the blue link is the correct proceeding. Kraxler (talk) 16:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

No, there are many cases where the ambiguous entry is known and there are links intended for that entry and a high likelihood that the the article will be created. It is a disservice both to readers and to editors unraveling ambiguous links to disambiguation pages to remove such entries. Such a crackdown on redlinks would only result in a proliferation of set index pages and other devices intended to avoid such unnecessary restrictions. older ≠ wiser 17:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, what's a "set index page"? Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 17:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Set index articles. older ≠ wiser 18:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you explain what you mean by this? Many articles are full of red links, that is ok, so one could write an article parting from this red link. That somebody wants to link something to something else which is not there is unreasonable. Most red links on disambiguation pages are non-notable entries, self-promoters and subjects on which nobody ever will write an article. Besides, many blue links are not even listed on disambiguation pages. I maintain my proposal. Write the article first, then add to disambiguation pages. If there is no article on something then you just can not link anything to it. Kraxler (talk) 17:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what I need to explain. Perhaps I misread what you are proposing. Are you saying there should be no redlinks allowed at all, even if there is a blue link identified that contains relevant information? Or only that bare redlinks should be removed. In either case, I don't completely agree, although I'm more sympathetic with the latter.

Self-promotional redlinks on dab pages should be removed as they typically will have no other incoming links (or in some cases any existing links will have been added by the same editor, often an anon IP or new users with no other edits). Such cases are pretty easy to spot.

But for the harder example, suppose you are clearing out links to a disambiguation page. You find that there are many links that all appear to be pertaining to the same subject and the links have been added over time by many different editors and the subject does not appear to be a non-notable non-entity. What to do? You might not known enough about the subject to even create a valid stub. Should you remove all the links to that subject? Or should you leave a redlink entry on the disambiguation page and disambiguate all the existing links to use the same link? By disambiguating the existing links you at least increase the likelihood that when an article is created, the other links will already be in place. And by leaving the redlink on the disambiguation page, you enable later editors who are cleaning up links to disambiguation pages to select the same target.

Oh, and I disagree with your statement that Most red links on disambiguation pages are non-notable entries. Some are, some aren't. That why I don't agree with a simplistic rule. older ≠ wiser 18:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I will think about your argument. Maybe I can make up my mind by tomorrow.

About my statement Most red links on disambiguation pages are non-notable entries see here the statistics on the page which triggered my proposal: At William Webb (disambiguation), there were 5 red links: 1 minor criminal (non-notable), 1 railway administrator (potentially notable), 2 baseball players (one played 2 or 3 games, the other played one game, a man who played one game in the Major League is notable?, that sounds ridiculous) and 1 spam-notified self-promoter. Result 4 out of 5 links (80% = "most", or not?). It sounds harsh, but there it is. Kraxler (talk) 18:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Then the non-notable red-links can be deleted. The exact same circumstances are replicated across the encyclopedia in articles: if a red-link is non-notable then it does not belong, otherwise red-links are important. The existence of inappropriate red-links is not an argument against red-links in general. —Centrx→talk • 23:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything wrong with red links on disambiguation pages. They are basically just like red links in articles, which are discussed as useful at Wikipedia:Red link. True, there are definitly red links on disambiguation pages that are non-notable, but the same things happens in articles. I don't think excluding the use of red links on disambiguation pages (or, by association, in articles, because I see no difference between the use of them in either) is a helpful idea. -- Natalya 18:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't bother me either. So long as the red link(s) conform with MOS:DABRL, I don't see a reason to outlaw them. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

For Kraxler, one area where red-links on disambiguation pages help, is for unwritten articles about National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) historic sites. I and others discussed recently this with an editor who deleted red-links from some disambiguation pages. Here is an adapted version of what i wrote to that editor:

Allow me to explain how having the disambiguation helps. You have to understand (and I believe that you do) that there are multiple cases of many NRHPs having the same name, and that each individual NRHP is wikipedia notable (because there is plenty of documentation available about each one, from their nominations, and they wouldn't have been accepted if they weren't of some national importance in the U.S.). There are also NRHP county lists for pretty much every U.S. county which list all or almost all of them. Here's the problem: say there are 3 or 5 or 15 such lists pointing to, say "Lewis House", each in a different state and county, and say that Lewis House is a red-link on each list. Then, when a local editor chooses to create the first one, he/she has no way of knowing there are other Lewis Houses, so he/she expects it is a unique name and creates it in the name "Lewis House", rather than as "Lewis House (Smithville, Pennsylvania)" or whatever. And the editor and others may add multiple links in county articles and elsewhere, meaning this particular Lewis House. Problem #1: This immediately creates erroneous blue-links to the Smithville one in the other 2 or 4 or 14 lists. Later, as editors in other localities check on the Lewis House on other lists, they have to evaluate the existing Lewis House article and consider whether it is the same place as theirs. Finding it not to be the same place, they have to evaluate whether to move the first-created one to a new name or not, and to set up a proper disambiguation page, or whether to set up "for" links at the tops of the two articles. Problem #2: the evaluation of what to do is not obvious and takes time and effort. Problem #3: Figuring out the proper name to use in renaming the first-created one is not obvious and takes unneccessary time. Problem #4: Moving the first-created one then causes all the related articles to be pointing to the new disambiguation page, rather than to the Smithville article, detracting from the readability of the related pages, and causing more work to clear up. All four of those problems, and perhaps more, would be avoided if wp:NRHP editors would create disambiguation pages up front including redlinks for all of them. That way, all 3 or 5 or 15 lists show blue-links, but those point to clear disambiguation pages. (It does seem appropriate also to create at least one of the Lewis House articles right away, so there is at least one blue-link in the disambiguation page.)

doncram (talk) 01:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

This discussion seems kinda pointless. This strikes me as an editorial decision, not something anyone can proscribe across the 'pedia. And why would you want to? Does this have any benefit, other than being another example of instruction creep? Is there any benefit to doing this? I'd say a resounding NO would be the answer. In fact, it seems more beneficial to the project to have red links, they encourage article creation. I just cannot see the point in making some steadfast rule about red links and blue links. What is the reason for this proposal? What do we stand to gain? --IvoShandor (talk) 06:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, let's keep it as it is. I am very thankful for the contributions to this discussion, but I'm afraid we might not gain anything by a change of policy, taking all factors into account. Kraxler (talk) 16:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed text for MOS explicitly allowing red-links

(this subsection to discuss a style note on the topic) This topic is repeatedly coming up. An edit war at Gilbert House is going on now, where one editor is repeatedly deleting red-links to NRHP sites (that are notable for wikipedia). Can we add a note within this style page clarifying that "As with other articles, Red links are allowed"? doncram (talk) 01:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The general rule of thumb is that red links are tolerated (about the nicest word I could think of) so long as the link is explicitly mentioned in one or more other articles. Many editors have a low tolerance for bare red links. So you would be wise to include at least one blue link that contains relevant, verifiable information about the topic. For example on Gilbert House, one current redlink is presented as

• Jeremiah S. Gilbert House in Atlanta, Georgia

But the Atlanta, Georgia article make no mention of the Jeremiah S. Gilbert House, and is thus useless for disambiguation purposes. I would suggest instead presenting the entry something like

• Jeremiah S. Gilbert House, a registered historic place in Georgia, USA

That way, at least there is a navigable blue link that provides at least a mention of the house in an appropriate context. PS, I'd hope that those editors intent on removing the links would expend as much effort on improving the links rather than simply removing them. older ≠ wiser 02:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'd agree with the inclusion of blue links like that, and the retention of entries with them. But the argument for the effort from the editors intent on including them holds at least as much water as the argument that it come from the editor cleaning up the dab page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I see that adding a link like "List of Registered Historic Places in Georgia, E-G|registered historic place in Georgia" would serve a purpose. FYI, we in wp:NRHP have done that, but other editors have come in and removed those links, with edit comments indicating that they think the NRHPs are not special and should not have explanations about them. I don't think the extra information is more helpful than a briefer mention of ", NRHP" following the red-link, with the first NRHP mention being a link to the NRHP. I have been converting to such format, and I think it serves the same purpose more succinctly. Note, the existing bluelink to NRHP for the first NRHP in the Gilbert House list provides that link. For each NRHP on the list, you can go to NRHP, and thence to the nation-wide list of NRHPs, and thence to a state list of NRHPs, and there or at a county or city sublist of NRHPs you will find a redlink to Jeremiah S. Gilbert House. Or if it is the Gilbert House in Smithville, Anystate, you may find there a link already disambiguated to point to "Gilbert House (Smithville, Anystate)" or it may still be "Gilbert House" which points to the disambiguation page, because we haven't gotten to that one yet. If you want me to pipelink the first NRHP mention to the nationwide list of NRHP sites, instead, i would be fine with that. But note, the longer bluelink that you suggest is not something that is necessary to have in the disambiguation page once the article is created, and would add a lot of bulk cluttering up the disambiguation pages. It seems helpful, permanently, to have short mention of NRHP, which provides all that you really want, in my view. And only the first mention should be wikilinked, for other wikipedia style guidelines and to satisfy those who go in removing apparent duplication in articles. Would this suffice, with the change of first NRHP mention to be a pointer to the nation-wide NRHP list? doncram (talk) 05:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry about making this request without having found the explicit section on red-links. I had searched the MOS article for "redlink" or "red-link" but not found it under "red link", or something like that. Anyhow, I notice that MOS:DABRL is already specific on red-links being allowed, and gives the procedure for you to look up and figure out that there is a Georgia state list of historic places which also has a redlink to Jeremiah S. Gilbert House. So by the current style guideline, it is not necessary to add the blue-link to the list of registered historic places in Georgia. I think it is helpful to add ", NRHP" to briefly describe the site, and that should serve to warn dab-editors that there probably is a NRHP list article also pointing to a given red-link. Shouldn't this fully suffice? If you want to argue otherwise, you have to argue against the current MOS guideline. doncram (talk) 06:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Each entry on a dab page needs exactly one blue link, linking to an article that describes that entry. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but can you provide justification for that assertion? The MOS:DABRL does not describe that. You can argue, if you wish, that yours would be a better policy for wikipedia than what is the current policy. But my understanding of the current policy is that your view is not consistent with policy. Or perhaps there is some practice, not enshrined in policy, that is consensus somehow? About the pages involving NRHP sites, I would be fine with adding one bluelink to a nationwide list of NRHPs to the page, and then add ", NRHP" to each one of the NRHP listings. That provides the kind of pointer that you want, and avoids unnecessary duplication on the dab page. If there is verbose, repetitive explanation, other editors will tend to want to delete that. doncram (talk) 02:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Enshrined thus: WP:MOSDAB#Individual entries: "Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link." WP:DABRL: "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." Please be fine with adding one blue link to an NRHP list article that includes the bulleted entry. Piping that link (in the description) so that it reads "NHRP" or something similarly short is fine. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay thanks. I didn't understand that was there. I don't happen to agree that should be too rigidly enforced. For example, if in a dab page there is already one bluelink to a list of NRHP sites, I don't think it is obviously best to require the same bluelink be added to each of those sites entries. Say if there were 1,000 entries, and 999 of them are NRHPs all covered in one list, it would violate other wikipedia policies and general good editing principles to insist that there need to be 999 bluelinks, rather than, say, an explanation given at the one exception. Anyhow, please let's continue on what to do with NRHP disambiguation in the discussion over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#what is wp:NRHP doing wrong RE disambiguation?. It seems premature to make a suggestion on how to revise MOSDAB; i withdraw my request to change MOSDAB for now. doncram (talk) 22:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed tightening of policy

The question of what to do when there are exactly two dab items, and neither of them is primary, is being discussed again at WT:D. It is proposed to tighten the policy to disallow the redirect/hatnote solution in this situation (i.e. always to create a two-item dab page if neither topic is primary by the usual criteria). If anyone objects to this change (which might be reflected on this page as well), please speak up.--Kotniski (talk) 11:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

No-one has, so let's do the change, which should prevent unnecessary disputes like the recent radio one discussed over there.--Kotniski (talk) 12:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Should bluelinks always go first?

An ongoing discussion about the disambiguation of pages like Lewis House, where all the entries are listings on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), has now reached the question of order of listings. Specifically, one editor would like the listings to be alphabetical by state, and another feels that the MOS recommendations indicate that listings with blue links should go first. Is that the consensus reading of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Order of entries, or not? Clearly, if there were a page for a "Lewis House" and another page in which "Lewis House" was a section, then the former would be listed first; but since all the locations listed at Lewis House are presumed notable by their listing on the NRHP, eventually there should be pages for each of them. Is the presence of, say, Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado) in the bald list List of Registered Historic Places in Colorado considered a case of "Larger subject articles which treat this item in a section"? Or can we treat the red link as a future case of "Articles with a clarifier in parentheses", and sort it alongside the blue links? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I would be for the last approach you mention. Anway the rules given there are not absolutes - often it's more important (in my opinion at least) to keep related entries together.--Kotniski (talk) 19:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. In the case of lists of placenames, these are typically sorted by country and state/province regardless of redness or blueness. Sometimes it makes sense to not get tied up in rules and just do what makes sense. older ≠ wiser 21:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

If the redlink becomes a real article, then you would have to re-order them each time. I think the order should not be tied to whether or not the article exists. I know what you are thinking, that the DAB page has to be changed anyway to eliminate the (now) extraneous link on former red pages. --rogerd (talk) 21:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

If a topic has an article, it is more likely to be the article sought by the reader, and should be listed first. No, you cannot treat the red link like a blue link. Yes, these are guidelines, but they have reasons behind them. But if there were a need for grouping (in the case of lists longer than Lewis House, the ordering is confined to the intra-group entries: in the first (most likely group), blue links then red links (as otherwise indicated), in the second group, blue links then red links, in the third group likewise, and so on. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:34, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If that were the case, JHunterJ, why wouldn't the guideline simply say, "List articles with blue links before articles with red links"? It doesn't, and the example listing has a group of red links before a group of blue links. The guideline talks about linking to the whole of an article versus linking to a part of the article. It doesn't say anything about red vs. blue. Perhaps there's a reason behind that too.

As it is, it seems that this "blue before red" is merely your interpretation of the MOS page, and not even a universally held one. I'd suggest that this means that with regard to the order of entries, you should show a little flexibility and let the NRHP folks order the entries as they prefer. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with JR - there are various factors to be considered in ordering entries; no one rule takes precedence over all the others (except perhaps the one that says the primary meaning goes first, if there is a primary meaning).--Kotniski (talk) 09:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

JR, the "Order of entries" section places blue links in the first three spots and red links (or unlinked entries) in the fourth spot. I have certainly shown a lot of flexibility in the actual editing of the dab pages; in the discussion, I've been trying to explain what the guidelines say. I don't see the benefit of interleaving blue and red links on a disambiguation page, unless the entries are grouped because the list is too long otherwise, and even then the new groups should be short enough that putting the blue links in front of the red links would not cause problems for readers seeking a page. OTOH, interleaving blue and red links here would probably lead other editors not familiar with the dab page guidelines to believe that that is the appropriate way to write them, so I do see a downside. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

One more suggestion: if the NRHP project creates stubs (or creates redirects to the appropriate NRHP list articles) for the various site articles first, and then fixes up the dab, then all of the entries will be blue links. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with JHunterJ's assertion that If a topic has an article, it is more likely to be the article sought by the reader, and should be listed first. If a redlink item meets criteria for inclusion on a disambiguation page, then without any other indications, there is little reason to assume that that item is any more or less likely to be searched for. For lists of dissimilar items where the sorting criteria is not always very obvious to begin with and depends somewhat arbitrarily on things such as the alpha order of the parenthetical dab term), then sorting redlinks to the bottom of such a heterogeneous list doesn't really pose much of an impediment for readers. But for a list of similar items, such as geographic placenames or NRHP properties, it is confusing to overlay two inconsistent sorting methods. older ≠ wiser 12:40, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Problems with nonsense examples

The "Thingamajig" nonsense example in the order of entries is causing some confusion to the ordering of entries, since some of its nonsense entries have become blue links. (See above section where other editors have taken that to indicate that to indicate ordering red links before blue links). Can we use a real example there instead? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

article (a/an) use on lists of people

I've got a question on a long-standing part of the style guidelines: why are "a" and "an" guided against for people entries but not for other entries. It works acceptably on lists of not-people and lists of people, but causes inconsistency (and the occasional edit trouble) on lists that have both (e.g., Chrome). I'd be in favor of keeping (or dropping) the articles "a" and "an" to (or from) the start of every entry, regardless of personhood. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

In British English at least, the currently recommended forms sound more natural (at least, they do to me). Cases like Chrome don't look glaringly inconsitent to me.--Kotniski (talk) 13:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I certainly wasn't around for the consensus-building on that guideline, but I have always liked it. I consider the articles optional on non-person descriptions, so I use them when they sound better. As for people, I'm sure the "a/an" was dropped because it is grammatically a non-specific article (used for a member of a group), and actual people are very specific (particular) objects. I suppose it might follow that we should use "the" for people, but that seems unnecessary. Perhaps your point is to drop articles altogether, but I think sometimes using "a/an" helps smooth out the descriptions. I tend to prefer the guideline as it stands. SlackerMom (talk) 14:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The "a"/"an" aren't used for specific nouns: I'm JHunterJ, not a JHunterJ. They're used for non-specific nouns: I'm JHunterJ, a Wikipedia editor, not JHunterJ, Wikipedia editor (or, in your sentence above, "used for a member of a group" instead of "used for member of a group". ("The", I assume, was opted against because "JHunterJ, the Wikipedia editor" could imply that's there's only one Wikipedia editor.) My point is to drop description-leading articles altogether, or to use them altogether, not to recommend there use for most entries but not for people entries. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see. I suppose I'm neutral on this one. I can see your point, but I also haven't felt that the current guidelines cause much confusion. It would be interesting to know what arguments were made in defense of this guideline "way back when" to see if they are still valid. I have no idea how to search for such a thing, however. Perhaps there was confusion whether to use "a/an" or "the" with actual people (I could think of examples where either would work), and it was decided that removing articles altogether was simpler than deciding which to use. SlackerMom (talk) 14:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, to me, "JHunterJ, Wikipedia editor" sounds like normal English (in the somewhat abbreviated style we use on dab pages), while "Hunter, a person who hunts" or even "Hunter, a town in Texas" seem to require the "a" (well not exactly require, but it's less natural without than with). I see no reason to change the guidance - the rule isn't exactly complicated, and may even on occasion provide extra clarity: "Panuk, Inuit seal hunter" (personal name) vs. "Panuk, an Inuit seal hunter" (generic name).--Kotniski (talk) 15:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

In those examples, I can see what you're getting at (and probably what SlackerMom was getting at too). OK, I withdraw the suggestion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambig editintro - working

It's Alive! Months later, but {{Disambig editintro}} is finally working. Do a hard refresh or cache clear, and try editing any disambig page (e.g. A Wonderful Life or Aboncourt) to see that edit message at the top of the page.

(Just fyi, the request to add the code was at MediaWiki talk:Common.js#Disambig editintro, so ask there if you encounter any code-implementation problems)

The template message itself can still be improved too. See the template's talkpage for the older discussion.

Thanks to all that helped. (notice cross-posted to the 3 main disambig talkpages) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation subsets?

I was moving episodes of Angel from titles like Lonely Hearts (Angel episode) to Lonely Hearts (Angel), per the recommendation of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television). However, when I got to the episode Sanctuary (Angel episode), I noticed at Sanctuary (disambiguation) that there's also an Angel novel named "Sanctuary" (Sanctuary (Angel novel), so it wouldn't make sense to move the episode to Sanctuary (Angel). But what should Sanctuary (Angel) be? Should it be a redirect to Sanctuary (disambiguation)? Should it be a two-item disambiguation page, with links to the novel and the episode? Or something else? I've run into cases like this before, and I'm never quite sure what to do. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If I am understanding you correctly, it seems like Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(television)#Episode_articles refers to an analogous situation: 'Where an episode title is the same as a character or object from the series which has its own page, disambiguate further using the word "episode": Serenity (Firefly episode)'. From this view, the best name for your article would be Angel (Sanctuary episode). Or am I getting it backwards? —Mattisse (Talk) 00:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you are getting it backwards. The episode should remain at its current location, Sanctuary (Angel episode). My question was what to do with Sanctuary (Angel) — should it redirect to Sanctuary (disambiguation), or be a two-item disambiguation page of its own, disambiguating between Sanctuary (Angel episode) and Sanctuary (Angel novel)? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Should be a two-item disambig page of its own, according to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Proposed_tightening_of_policy. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Done. Thanks! If anyone wants to check Sanctuary (Angel) to see that it's formatted correctly, please do so. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

That's an incomplete disambiguation. Sanctuary (Angel) should redirect to Sanctuary (disambiguation) (or to a section of that dab) as an {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}. The tightening of policy linked above has nothing to do with disambiguation subsets. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:11, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what I was asking in the first place. Is there something I've missed on the MOS page that addresses this situation? If not, should there be? Can anyone point me to prior discussion where this question has been addressed? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what I was answering. It's not on the MOS; it's on WP:D#Incomplete disambiguation. Other discussions can be found with "What links here" from the template, hiding transclusions.[7] -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I hadn't seen that. That's useful. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

More than one author

In placing a publication (which doesn't currently have an article) which had 2 authors, I was informed only one of the authors could be linked, due to this MoS. That can't possibly be correct? - jc37 00:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Whoever informed you that guidelines have to be followed to-the-letter was very wrong. Plus the guideline purposefully includes the wiggle-room phrase "in almost every case". Even if it didn't, WP:IAR applies here, but also, we simply don't spell out every exception to each rule, in order to avoid instructioncreep. (stopping self, before rant about wikilawyers and lack of commonsense/contextualjudgement begins... sigh) -- Quiddity (talk) 00:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Presuming that you are speaking of: Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link. To avoid confusing the reader, do not wikilink any other words in the line. For example:

While I understand we should avoid WP:BURO/WP:CREEP, would you be opposed to an additional example being added to clarify this point? - jc37 01:52, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

No objections from me (at least until I see the sentence that gets added ;) Be bold, we can tweak as needed. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok. To do it, I re-arranged the phrases of the two sentences, and added a parenthetical. - jc37 07:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any need to add more than one blue link. Abtract (talk) 07:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV. We shouldn't be linking to only one author, if two people authored something. Picking one over the other would in most cases be WP:OR. - jc37 07:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

OR? Seriously? Listing both and linking one is not original research, or research of any kind. These are disambiguation (navigational) pages, not articles. NPOV and OR are article guidelines/policies. Primary topic, for instance, is inherently non-neutral: it favors one topic over others. (I have no issue wikilinking two "equal" people in the description if the entry itself and the people as a pair do not have their own entries; that makes sense from an WP:IAR] perspective. I'll expand below.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:24, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Certainly it's right to link to both authors in such a case. I wouldn't have thought it was necessary to spell it out in the guideline, but if there are wikilawyers going aroung saying the opposite, then maybe we do need to give this as an example of an exception.--Kotniski (talk) 10:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The guidelines state that the blue link should provide more information on the redlinked article, so the choice of blue link should be based on which article contains the most information. If both articles contain the same amount of information then linking to either will provide the reader with the same information. If one article contains no information on the redlink, it definitely shouldn't be linked. Tassedethe (talk) 10:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

"Same amount" does not imply "same".--Kotniski (talk) 10:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

No. If there are differences in the information at each page then it would be useful to combine it, therefore improving both articles and keeping dab pages within guidlines. Tassedethe (talk) 11:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Huh? You want us to rework existing articles, possibly introducing unwanted extraneous information, just so we can maintain our "one blue link per line on dab page" rule? It's only a guideline, you know, not a holy commandment.--Kotniski (talk) 13:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems entirely reasonable that if facts relating to the same thing are spread across 2 (or more) pages that they are combined thereby ensuring that readers don't have to click through 2 (or more) links to get all the information. In fact if there are multiple sources on the same subject it would seem sensible to solve all these problems and start the redlink article as a stub. Tassedethe (talk) 15:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

All right, ideally, but people tidying up dab pages don't necessarily have the time to investigate and start articles on every topic they come across (and there's no guarantee it will be considered notable enough for an article anyway).--Kotniski (talk) 15:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

This is very similar to a film with no article where there are say three stars who all have articles; normal practice (which fits in with guidelines) is to link to one of the stars only. If we encourage linking to both authors where does it stop ... three authors? why not add the publisher? four stars of a film? the band who sang the song and the writer (maybe more than one writer)? for a song maybe link to the article on the singer and the specific album? Surely this is as nonsensical as I am trying to make it seem; one link as all that is needed for any full entry (one with an article), so why should two or more links be needed for a redlinked entry? We are disambiguating, not sharing infomation; one link is enough. imho of course. Abtract (talk) 10:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

When the entry has an article, we assume that readers will just go to that article and follow any links further from there should they wish to do so. When it doesn't, we have to tell them where to do to find the information on that thing. In the vast majority of cases, the information is to be found in one place. But in rare cases, if there are two articles of equal relevance to the thing (which naturally will contain different relevant information - contextual at least), then it seems unfair to make the reader's decision for him as to which to jump to. Linking to one of two authors implies (to real people) that either (1) the one we link to is in some sense the main author, or (2) we don't have an article on the other one. No need to link to the publisher, lesser stars of a film, etc., since those would probably not even be mentioned in the dab item.--Kotniski (talk) 10:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I am guessing that the user who asked the original question was sparked to do so because of this line on Wizard#Publications "Wizards, an anthology of fantasy short fiction edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois". If you follow the links you will see that (as I suspected) there is no actual information at the end of them other than the fact that the book was written, indeed I can't even find that info on the first link ... now how is that helpful to anyone? Abtract (talk) 11:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, you know at least something about the author of the book, which (in the absence of info about the book itself) might still be helpful to some readers. You're certainly not helping them by randomly cutting off one of the two possible lines of inquiry.--Kotniski (talk) 13:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I have no issue wikilinking two "equal" people in the description if the entry itself and the people as a pair do not have their own entries; that makes sense from an WP:IAR] perspective and I've done it myself. I'd prefer to see that handled on a page-by-page basis, though (boldly added, reverted, and discussed on the page's talk page), to avoid instruction creep here and to avoid having the new instruction seized as a reason to multi-wikilink many descriptions that don't need it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:24, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Just so I'm clear on the uptake, edits like these are acceptable? If so, this MoS change should be reinstated. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

My reading of the above consensus is that the dab page edit is OK, but people don't want to mention it specifically on the MoS (considering it to be covered by the "almost always" wording, I suppose).--Kotniski (talk) 09:21, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It's only appropriate/sensible, and I assumed we were talking about, if the Wizards item in question is a redlink. If it's unlikely to become an actual article, then that entry should be removed altogether, just like we would if someone added a listing of all the songs titled "confusion" to the Confusion (disambiguation) page. Or the 122 songs titled "Wizard" (according to allmusic) to that page. (Well, actually, we'd split them off into a separate set index, but still...) We have to be discriminating to help the reader.

Wikipedia is WP:NOTDIRECTORY, and neither are the disambig pages... -- Quiddity (talk) 09:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

That's true up to a point, but dab pages do also include terms that don't have and probably won't have articles. In principle they should be included only if they are mentioned in articles; that rule (though not always strictly followed) tends to keep the number down to reasonable levels.--Kotniski (talk) 10:05, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't exactly call it a consensus. I will just try one more tack and then leave it alone. Often, when there is no article, a redirect is created in another article (one that makes reference to the term); this redlink is used as the entry on the dab page with the bluelink being the article in question ... we only allow one bluelink here ... (for example: "Wizard (record label), an Australian record label created by Robie Porter" from the same wizard dab page; an alternative treatment is for a redirect to be created (for example: "Mr. Wizard's World, first aired in 1983" which redirects to Mr. Wizard's World#1983-1990: Mr. Wizard's World but makes no attempt to link to Don Herbert#Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert was "Mr Wizard") an equally good target article, because we only allow one bluelink. My point is simple: for 'normal' entries of the term we specifically 'prohibit' more than one bluelink; why on earth should we allow (almost encourage) more than one bluelink when there isn't even an article to disambiguate? Anyway that's my lot on the subject. Enjoy. Abtract (talk) 10:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the point of the preceding discussion is that we don't categorically prohibit multiple blue links. In addition to the common sense and IAR occasional exception described in the {{style-guideline}} in the banner at the top of the page, the Individual entries section explicitly states in almost every case. Besides, in the counter-example you offer, Don Herbert is clearly linked in the line that introduces the two TV shows featuring his character, there would be little benefit to duplicating the link. Conceptually, I have no problem whatsoever with occasionally including more that one blue link for a red-linked item when there is good reason to do so. However, in this specific case, the line Wizards, an anthology of fantasy short fiction edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, I think it is a serious problem that the item is not even mention in the Jack Dann article. If a reader is looking for information about the anthology, there is little point to linking to the Jack Dann page. older ≠ wiser 11:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Or you just create a stub for the anthology and link to it... -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

A perfect solution ... helpful to the reader and well within guidelines. Abtract (talk) 13:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes - provided one of WP's other police departments doesn't come along and have it deleted for being not notable enough :( --Kotniski (talk) 13:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)