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Alternate names

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.

This is too strong. It is good advice for cell phone, which could as easily be the name of the article; we chose more or less arbitrarily between them. But not all redirects are of this form; many of them are less useful, informative, or helpful than the article name.

For example, Francis, Dauphin of France (1518-1536) redirects, properly, to Francis II of France, who was one of the four Dauphins called Francis; this is duly noted on the dab page Francis, Dauphin of France. But we should not encourage piping through the redirect, much less replacing Francis, Dauphin of France with Francis, Dauphin of France (1518-1536). The phrase with the numerals is hardly ever used of him; it is an artificial Wikipedia term, and neither readers nor editors will understand it without effort.

What we should do is encourage piping of the form [[Francis II of France|the Dauphin Francis]] and so on, depending on what he is called in the context when he is being referred to as a young man. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:42, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Why? What does that help? If he is commonly called the Dauphin Francis, create that redirect. But readers who end up on the dab page Francis, Dauphin of France clearly do not call him "the Dauphin Francis", or else they wouldn't be on that dab. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
It helps the next editor, who will see, in edit space, that Francis II is the man meant. He won't have to guess, or jump through links. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Disambiguation pages are navigational aids to readers, not help desks for editors. Feel free to add a comment (e.g., <!-- don't use this name in article edit space -->) if you think it's useful. I don't see the danger you're positing or the benefit of avoiding it, but at least this would avoid it while still presenting the reader with the link to the person under the name he apparently expects. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
And this language doesn't serve readers either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
It directs them to the page they are looking for under the name they were looking for. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, we do, and should, have redirects from rare names or misspellings; this edit summary seems to suppose the opposite. I only argue that we should not treat all redirects alike. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:00, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the disputed tag is not for indicating a personal dislike of the document. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it is for indicating that there is reason to suspect that it does not indicate consensus. JHJ's solitary support does not consistute consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Multiple dab editors have reverted your edits to the so-called disputed section. Only you dispute the section, contrary to consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
On the sole grounds that this page says to (which it does not); this is circular reasoning. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

At Music of the spheres (disambiguation), there's a listing for Music of the Spheres (film). No articles link to this page, except the disambig page itself. Normally, I'd just unlink that and add a blue link for the director, or one of the actors — but none of them have articles here either. But the movie has an IMDb listing, which is (improperly) linked from the dab page. That suggests that it's potentially notable, and could well have a page made for it. In these circumstances, is it better to leave the redlink red, or unlink it, or delete the entry altogether? —Josiah Rowe (talk ‱ contribs) 06:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment it out and/or move it to the talk page. Disambiguation pages do not disambiguation potentially notable topic or even definitely notable topic, but only topics that have Wikipedia articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:23, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I cleaned it for primary topic, short descriptions, and comma use as well. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk ‱ contribs) 19:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Individual entries

There are nine points here, and I've placed them in what I consider a more logical order. I've added a little more exposition, too. I'm also not happy with the wikification point as stands. It is too prescriptive, and this is only a guideline. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The prescription is a guideline, yes. The guideline may be ignored when appropriate by WP:IAR, but there's no reason to water it down. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Exceptions are given to other points on that list. I feel there are certainly some exceptions to this point. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
See this thread at WikiEN-l for further context. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Boll was a bad dab page anyway; I've updated it to reflect its surname-list-ness. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Undiscussed change in the individual entries section

I'm referring to this. Repetition has been talked about before. If the edit will be made, this will need to be talked about again. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 23:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The previous discussion was, to be kind, minimal (and at that time, in August, you questioned the edit to make the entry shorter, pointing out that it had not been discussed, so I'm having trouble understanding your opposition to the exact opposite edit in October). In any case, IMO, "Dark Star" (song), a song by the Grateful Dead reads much better than the shorter version. The admonition to avoid excessive information should not be taken as an admonition to abandon all attempts to maintain a decent style.
That admonition has also done damage, it would appear, to this example:
School may also refer to:
The third description actually provides insufficient context to allow an uninitiated reader to identify the item. It can't be assumed that a reader who is looking for this sense of school will know enough context to be able to identify it from that meager description.
In short, I'm not in favor of paring down the descriptions on dab pages to a bare minimum, particularly when style or context, or even both, end up being sacrificed. If this means that we need to modify the current wording (The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link), then so be it. --Tkynerd (talk) 03:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I have asked User:Abtract to chime in on the subject since he was the one who initially proposed the edit, and had me sticking with it. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 03:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Don't forget there are two parts to the guideline "The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum ... " and the all important second part " ... just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link. Imho this covers all eventualities: when it is clear what is meant without repetition, then don't repeat; when there is doubt or when the phrasing demands it, repeat.For the examples quoted I can't see how repeating the word "band" in the description, when it is clealy stated in the article title, adds anything to the disambiguating value of the entry. We mustn't lose sight of the fact that we are disambiguating and not writing an essay. Abtract (talk) 05:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
The change was made without sufficient discussion. Descriptions, when they are necessary, should be correct. The description is (or can be) a non-restrictive appositive phrase. I have no problem with allowing it to be a prepositional phrase, but those are not typically set off by commas. I have a problem with prohibiting the correct appositive phrase, which has the benefits of being correct even if the link changes (for example, after an update after an article move) and being consistent with entries that don't have the disambiguator in the title -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Tkynerd and JHunterJ. The guideline should not imply that bad grammar is appropriate. The intent of the guideline has always been to avoid the paragraph-long descriptions that sometimes get added by well-meaning editors. The emphasis should be on clear, concise and unambiguous -- not on brevity for brevity's sake. older ≠ wiser 12:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Well put; exactly what I was getting at. Brevity is a worthwhile goal, but only in the service of clarity and good writing, not as an end in itself. --Tkynerd (talk) 12:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Agreed ... but how does duplicating a word benefit clarity or good writing? Abtract (talk) 14:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)? Abtract (talk) 14:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
(EC) I also agree that minor repetition for the sake of grammatical and stylistic smoothness should not be deprecated. As JHunter points out, sometimes these page names are changed to different disambiguators, and if the editors don't rewrite the descriptions, they may no longer make sense...I've seen it happen. While I don't think this is a huge problem (as in, let's go around yanking or adding single words to descriptions everywhere), I do think we should be careful how we word the guidelines, since they serve as an example to all. I would not be in favor of an guideline that forbids us to repeat any words which appear in the page name. SlackerMom (talk) 14:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) But we're not talking about forbidding anything, just how this particular example looks best. I don't see the renaming issue as a problem - if someone rewrites the link in the dab entry, they will presumably recast the rest of the entry as appropriate. I think it's only a matter of taste, but my preference is not to repeat words if it can be elegantly avoided - and for me there is nothing inelegant in "Xxx (song), by Yyy" (at least it's not ideal, but then neither is "Xxx (song), a song by Yyy", and for me the second version is marginally more annoying than the first).--Kotniski (talk) 14:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. Abtract (talk) 14:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it can be simply a matter of taste in some situations, and I would be fine with either description being used, but as you well know, these guidelines are often used as clubs, so we should either be clear that one way is preferred, or we should be clear that either way is acceptable. I do think that the (band) example above is too brief. "Band" can mean several different things. I also agree with JHunter that our descriptions, being set off by commas, tend to be appositive phrases, which re-state. Please also consider the point made by Bkonrad that the purpose of the guideline was to discourage paragraph-long descriptions, not to cut out every last "extra" word that might appear. SlackerMom (talk) 14:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
The grammatically correct possibilities are Xxx (song) by Yyy and Xxx (song), a song by Yyy. The first phrase cannot have a comma. As for which version is more "annoying," I think the reason I prefer the appositive is that it makes it easier to scan the descriptions to find what you're looking for; "a song by Yyy" is more informative than "by Yyy." --Tkynerd (talk) 17:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
So maybe we should choose different examples where this question doesn't arise. I understand the point about commas and phrase types (which is why I wrote above that the shorter version is not ideal), but for me the repeated word is a worse offence. It's not just that it's an extra, unnecessary word (I'm not a minimalist in that respect), but that, by being repeated, it makes the reader blink - and possibly even make a wrong interpretation (for example, that "(song)" is actually part of the official song title).--Kotniski (talk) 15:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and with "(band)" we can provide additional information without repetition, e.g. "Xx (band), a rock group from..." I suppose this can also be done with "song" and in other cases, although elegant variation is jarring too... --Kotniski (talk) 15:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) Agree with SlackerMom et al. The minor repetition of a word to me is not particularly annoying. I'd rather see the consistency and the better grammar: since the practice is to set off the description with a comma, my own preference would be to stick with the appositive phrase rather than a prepositional phrase. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 15:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Why not have both options? Like the samples at MOS:DABINT? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 16:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

America

Editors may wish to comment at Talk:America on the appropriate wording of that disambiguation page. --Russ (talk) 10:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Soft redirects to Wikia

I just cleaned Yakumo. It included an entry for Yakumo (Naruto), which looks nice, but is a soft redirect to a Wikia article, not to a Wikipedia article. What on earth shall we do with these? -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's a guideline or policy regarding soft redirects to Wikia (I looked and couldn't find anything), but the RfD debates for Akimichi clan and Hyuga Hiashi suggest the consensus is that they're not currently appropriate. So I'd be inclined to look for a relevant Wikipedia article target for the redirect and dab entry, and list the redirect at RfD per precedent if no appropriate WP target exists. --Muchness (talk) 13:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I think the Wikia link is alright (see the one at Kurama). However, why not list this character by the full name, Yakumo Kurama? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 06:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Second part first: because the disambiguation page is for "Yakumo", and the "Yakumo (Naruto)" redirect is a better fit for readers who just enter "Yakumo" in the search box. First part, why do you think the Wikia link is alright (at Yakumo or Kurama or anywhere else)? I do not think Wikipedia needs to disambiguate Wikia articles, and Muchness's note on approach seems sound -- point the redirects to WP articles or delete them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware that the dab is for "Yakumo", but don't you recall that Byakuya Kuchiki is used over Byakuya (Bleach) in Byakuya? Or maybe we should just have the Kurama redirects deleted. I do think it is a bit redundant to link to another wiki. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 03:32, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
When there isn't a separate list-of-name-holder article, yes, the dab page will often include such a list. But not once the list is spun off to its own article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I am pretty sure that soft redirects to non-Foundation sites are discouraged on wikipedia. However, the fiction coverage on wikipedia (depth, representation, collaboration with wikia) is still strongly disputed, so everything that is said here may be outdated in a few months anyway.– sgeureka t‱c 12:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I've prodded those redirects, citing the RfD discussions Muchness mentioned. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Dispute at Jack Harkness (disambiguation)

There's a bit of a dispute at Jack Harkness (disambiguation), which can be seen in the page's history and its talk page. One editor disputes that Jack Harkness is the primary topic, and also wants to combine two related entries into one line with two blue links. The opinions of outside editors who are familiar with disambiguation standards would be welcome. —Josiah Rowe (talk ‱ contribs) 22:52, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Help with John Brown

Another editor has put forward that the entry for John Brown (abolitionist) is clearly the most important John Brown (perhaps even the primary topic) so has moved him and a second, also relatively important person John Brown (doctor), to the top of a list. (See discussion here). The page is otherwise ordered by occupation (politics, religion etc.) This move is clearly in line with WP:MOSDAB#Order of entries but you can see it otherwise breaks the normal layout. Any ideas on how this can be fixed? A separate sub-group at the top of the list Most significant John Browns? Without this the abolitionist is tucked in way down the list under 'Other'. Tassedethe (talk) 07:35, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, having these two links at the top is far preferable to burying them under the headings. I would leave it just as it is in the spirit of being as useful a page as possible. You might consider changing the intro line to: "John Brown most often refers to:" or something like that. I know the format seems broken up this way, but I think in this situation WP:MOSDAB#Order of entries should trump the headings. SlackerMom (talk) 12:32, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Sentences

As we admit, good dab entries will normally be sentence fragments. This sentence, therefore,

Even when the entry forms a complete sentence, do not include commas or periods at the end of the line.

applies very rarely; when it does, it is both unenforceable - many editors will reflexively add missing periods - and makes Wikipedia look illiterate. I don't insist that such periods be supplied when they are absent; but I do think it better to say nothing than this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how a good dab entry can be a complete sentence so I agree ... bin it. Abtract (talk) 09:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Proper title for a dab page

Hi, folks. I just came across Turing test (disambiguation), which disambiguates the primary usage Turing test from a Doctor Who novel (The Turing Test (Doctor Who)) and a redlinked opera (The Turing Test (opera)). My question is this: since the two other uses are both titled "The Turing Test", should the disambiguation page be moved to The Turing Test (disambiguation)? (I just created that as a redirect, before wondering whether it should be the dab page title.) Is the title of a disambiguation page based on the title of the primary usage page, or on the titles of the alternate meanings? —Josiah Rowe (talk ‱ contribs) 06:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I would leave it as it is, though I don't think it matters a great deal. (Though I've edited the page a bit; I don't think the redlink was helpful.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
I've reistated the redlink as it is typical of many others. I also would leave the page where it is but I have a feeling purists may disagree. Abtract (talk) 09:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Do we really want this type of redlink? It's not like there's any sign such an article is going to be written. This is a bit like the redirect issue above - what's the point of displaying a phrase (here in the form Fooo (barrr)) if that phrase is neither a real-world name nor the name of a WP article.--Kotniski (talk) 09:54, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Kotniski. At present there is no indication that such an article will be created. A redlink in such a case is little more than a distraction. PS, and I'm generally more willing to include redlinks than most, but in this case it seems highly unlikely that an encyclopedic article can be written on the subject. older ≠ wiser 12:14, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

When the primary topic's a redirect...

... how should the first line look? Should redirects be used? We seem to have at least three approaches:

  1. (at Hitler (disambiguation)) Hitler usually refers to Adolf Hitler....
  2. (at EU (disambiguation)) EU generally refers to the European Union....
  3. (at Danzig (disambiguation)): no primary topic line.

Any reasons for preferring any of these over the others?--Kotniski (talk) 17:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Simple. Use the term which matches the dab title, even if the link is a redirect. The Hitler dab looks perfect, however, the other two need a revamping. Suggest marking them for cleanup. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 22:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Well, looking at them from the point of view of a reader, I find myself preferring the EU solution. That way things are made absolutely clear to the reader - the facts are there, the link is there, and the reader knows where the link is going to take him. The Hitler one is OK but a bit confusing, since it isn't 100% obvious what to click if you want to go to Adolf Hitler after all. --Kotniski (talk) 08:59, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Kotniski that placing the link on the actual title of the article is preferable in terms of least surprising for readers. older ≠ wiser 17:43, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I think #1 and #2 are both acceptable, although I think I prefer #1. Number 3 is just wrong and needs to be fixed. The reason I prefer #1 is that on a page named "Topic (disambiguation)", we are assuming that the user is not usually looking for "Topic". That's why we format these pages differently and put the link in the intro line, rather than with the other links below. Specifically, if someone is looking for Adolf Hitler, and they type in "Hitler", they are going to get there! The way they end up here (on the dab page) is by following the hatnote because Adolf Hitler was not what they wanted. SlackerMom (talk) 18:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Well yes, that just means that the question is less important, but I don't see why it favours answer #1. Suppose someone is "not" looking for Adolf Hitler, then - isn't it better to make it clear to them that the first link goes to AH and not to, say, some page on the etymology of the surname "Hitler". That way they know not to click that link; and the smaller minority of readers who might actually be looking for AH on that page know that they should click it.--Kotniski (talk) 18:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Except that the intro line already explains that Hitler means Adolf Hitler, so I can't see how it would be unclear where that link goes. I think we achieve acceptable clarity with either #1 or #2, but I guess I didn't really explain my preference for #1. I prefer it because the appearance is more consistent with the dab pages where the primary topic is not a redirect. I don't think having a redirect as the "primary topic" is inherently problematic such that it requires a separate style guideline. SlackerMom (talk) 18:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Not sure if I understand Kotniski's logic. For instance, what should be done with Vincent and Vincent (disambiguation)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 19:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Not sure I understand your question, Sess. Vincent is not a redirect. SlackerMom (talk) 19:22, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Right, but is it not odd that Vincent (a non-article) is the primary meaning of Vincent (disambiguation)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 19:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I believe Vincent is an article. It may not be a very good one, but I believe it would be considered an article about the name "Vincent", which includes a list of people with that name. I don't think there is a problem with that (although I do understand why you're asking). SlackerMom (talk) 19:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering the same a few days ago with Top Secret (disambiguation) (where the redirect is really not apparant), and chose #2 without the second bolding. Either option is a little messy. – sgeureka t‱c 20:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything messy about either option. It's not so important to be absolutely consistent with other dab pages (it might seem that way to us, who spend much of our time looking at and evaluating dab pages, but to readers it's not a big deal - what matters more is that each individual page perform its function most efficiently). I find it generally kinder to readers to tell them where a link goes, if that can be done without creating a mess. So "Top Secret refers to classified information..." is more transparent and no more messy than "Top Secret refers to...". A reader deciding whether to click that link might want to know whether the target is an article on classified information or on the top secret classification specifically. However, if the redirect reasonably goes to a specific section of the target page, then I would certainly be in favour of using it (since the # notation is messy - I don't think there's any disagreement about that).--Kotniski (talk) 10:49, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Incidentally, I've just tidied up Danzig, the #3 example given above. And in this case I found myself preferring option #1 - I think because it's a bit like the case of cell phone described in the guideline. So it's clearly a fine line - I don't think we should mandate or forbid either method, but to stop people from wondering (or claiming the guideline says something it doesn't), we should probably include examples of each.--Kotniski (talk) 11:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
There being apparently no objections, I'm going to add some examples.--Kotniski (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Kotniski, there was no agreement for this. We were only talking about using redirects which matched the dab term. Now primary usage is a whole nother thing. So far, there's only one existing layout. Either get more people to agree with you here or start a new thread somewhere else. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I think the edit does seem to reflect the general agreement about precisely what was being discussed here and happily allows either form without suggesting that either is preferred. Perhaps you were confusing this section with another thread. older ≠ wiser 18:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Don't think so. Where exactly was this agreed? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:54, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
(after ec) See above. The title of this thread's section is When the primary topic's a redirect... Everyone who spoke up here agreed with either #1 or #2 above and no one strongly disagreed with either (although your confusion about whether Vincent was an article did not seem completely resolved, but also didn't seem entirely germane to the question at hand). The example chosen illustrates both options. older ≠ wiser 19:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Unless there is something I'm missing here, I agree that giving the option for either linking to the redirect or the target (at editorial discretion) should be fine. Reducing "rules" in favour of ease of use, would seem to be preferrable. - jc37 19:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
OK, here's how I see it:
  • Me and SlackerMom agree mostly with #1
  • sgeureka goes mainly with #2
  • Kotniski wanted options #1 and #2 available, and quickly implemented this change before clear consensus was formed, which I obviously disagree
  • Bkonrad's was #2
  • And now jc37 is in favour of options #1 and #3
We still haven't heard from JHunterJ, Abtract, SlackerMom, and possibly others. Just give it a little more time. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 19:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Sessh, I'm not sure how you concluded I was for #3. Or that Kotinski wanted options 1 and 3. I'll let Kotinski clarify his preferences, but I expressed agreement with Kotiniski when he appeared to describe a preference for #2 (and he later expressed that either #1 or #2 would be acceptable). Similarly, I don't see how you count jc37 as in favor of #1 and #3, his statement seems pretty clearly in favor of either #1 or #2. And similarly, while SlackerMom stated a preference for one, she explicitly stated #1 and #2 are both acceptable. I don't see that anyone has favored #3 here. older ≠ wiser 20:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Ok, fixed it. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 20:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
My view is that I can't see any problem with #1 when the redirect is as clear as Hitler; the arguments come when it isn't as clearcut. I don't quite see how it is feasible to make a good case for an article being the primary topic if it doesn't merit a Hitler style redirect therefore I am not generally in favour of #2 but it may be ok sometimes (I suppose). It goes without saying that #3 will be true in the majority of dab pages. Abtract (talk) 20:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I've just had a look at Danzig (disambiguation) and I don't understand what "no primary topic line" means because there is a normal style primary topic line so I withdraw my comment about #3 above. This one seems unrelated to the thread here. Abtract (talk) 20:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
It didn't make sense because Danzig (disambiguation) has been fixed since the discussion began. SlackerMom (talk) 20:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I did wonder. Abtract (talk) 23:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Abtract, I'm assuming that you also don't agree with this? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 20:39, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Correct. Abtract (talk) 23:18, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I have left User:JHunterJ a note about this thread. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 23:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
My own feeling is that since there's no clear consensus either way, that the guideline should reflect that, and just say, "either of the following two methods are acceptable". Then whoever creates the disambig page gets to choose whichever format they like. Or, if the page is a mess and undergoes an overhaul, the person doing the overhauling chooses something that they think makes sense. We have something similar in the "American v. British" spelling debates: There are two different forms, both work, so it's really up to the editors on that page to choose something. See also WP:ENGLISH which says "leave it at the last stable version..." or "defer to the choice of the first major contributor", which is similar to the "first major contributor" choice at WP:ENGVAR. --Elonka 00:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
That's still controversial and unhelpful. Hitler (disambiguation) was using an appropriate redirect before Kotniski went ahead and changed it. Unless we aim for true consistency, there will be problems and edit wars that one can't even imagine. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 00:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
The real problem is that some editors are simply incapable of dealing with anything other than binary thinking. A simple-minded consistency is NOT the goal of disambiguation pages. The only reason for edit wars that one can't even imagine is when editors are incapable of tolerating approaches that deviate from their own narrow preconceptions. older ≠ wiser 00:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's not really a matter of debate. We just need to have the rules straightened out so we can follow them to the letter. Make that an aim of our MoS and then, no more troubles. At least that's what I believe. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 00:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Well, see that is precisely a symptom of the problem. The MOS and wiki in general is not a rule-based system. If following rules gives you satisfaction, then chances are that editing wikipedia will result in conflicts. older ≠ wiser 01:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
A difference of opinion ... Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 01:03, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps. Wikipedia:The rules are principles, Wikipedia:Product, process, policy, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. older ≠ wiser 01:14, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) Yes, rules are fine as far as they go, but they have to be followed with a certain amount of flexibility and with the brain switched on. And changed when they are found to be defective. Having thought about redirects a bit more and read some of the opinions on this page, I would propose the following rule, which would apply to both the primary topic line and normal entries:

  • Use a redirect if the redirected term is a commonly used and no less specific alternative name for the target term.

The wording might be improved, but it's intended to allow redirects like Danzig->GdaƄsk and Cell phone->Mobile phone, but to exclude those like Hitler->Adolf Hitler or EU->European Union (not "no less specific") and like Ten (character)->Tien whatever (not "commonly used"). This way would seem to maximize clarity to the reader, and we would have a rule for those of us who like rules. I would also suggest yet another solution to the Hitler first line problem - don't begin with Hitler at all, just say "Adolf Hitler (1899–1945) was...". That must surely be an approach that's in use on many such pages.--Kotniski (talk) 08:19, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the "less specific" constraint at all, especially if it would exclude Hitler which seems an eminently sensible redirect to me. That's what "everone" calls him and that's what most of us expect the article to be called ... I see no value in going via a dab page, and if that's the case the first line should surely start "Hitler was ...". Maybe we are trying to make a rule which is outside out remit; it is not for dab specialists to decide whether a redirect should exist or not ... our just is to decide how to disambiguate what exists - be they articles or redirects to articles. If an editor, as part of a dab cleanup, decides that a redirect should be created (to any article, not just primary topics), then they must fight their corner on that in the appropriate place (probably the article tallk page). Abtract (talk) 14:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
But you see the problem with "Hitler usually refers to Adolf Hitler...", I hope. I'm not saying it's a huge problem, but it's certainly going to confuse some readers. If you're told "A usually refers to B", then you know A is less specific than B, so if the link is on A, you expect it to go somewhere less specific than the article on B, while if the link is on B, you expect it to go to the article on B. What they would expect the link under Hitler to be when they're already on a dab page for Hitler is maybe not clear, but we can't predict how readers' minds work and it's better to make things as clear as possible for them (that seems to be the guiding principle behind this guideline). Of course, if we can say "A is B" (or words to that effect) then the link can just as well go on A as on B (as in the Danzig and cell phone cases). Whether a redirect exists shouldn't be what makes our decision for us - there are many redirects created for all sorts of reasons (even common misspellings and so on), and not all of them are appropriate ever to be linked to for any purpose at all. So yes, it's not for the dab project to decide which redirects should exist, but conversely too, the existence of redirects shouldn't determine how dab pages have to look.--Kotniski (talk) 15:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
OK, nice job Kotniski! That's the first time I've understood why you prefer to link Adolf Hitler rather than Hitler on the dab page. I think that is fair reasoning. However, I still don't think we need to push for a rule here. Sesshomaharu, you need to get over it. Bkonrad is right. This isn't the place for hard and fast rules that force conformity. It's a wiki. Relax. Edit each page to serve the purpose it's designed for and then stop editing. Don't run around forcing conformity to a standard that consensus refuses to set. SlackerMom (talk) 16:46, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
OK now I understand your point Kot much better .... the problem has arisen imho because that lead is poorly worded. It should read "Hitler, or Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945), was the leader of Germany from 1933 until his death" (or something similar). This would eliminate the surprise element and be according to guidelines. Abtract (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
SlackerMom, somebody has to enforce the rules around here or this place will be a running joke. Anyway, I agree with Abtract. Link to 'Hitler' since it is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of 'Hitler (disambiguation)'. If the dab was titled 'Adolf Hitler (disambiguation)', then I wouldn't have a problem with Kotniski's edit in the first place. Would you folks be happy if I brought up a few precedents? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 23:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
I think you take the rules a bit too seriously Sess - and in this case we didn't even have a clear rule to enforce in the first place. But Abtract's solution for the Hitler case seems good to me - looks like we should try to avoid the "X generally/usually refers to Y" type of wording. What do people think about Barack (disambiguation)? In this case I can't see any reasonable way to link to Barack rather than Barack Obama without looking very odd, but still I don't like the first line the way it is now (Barack can refer to Barack Obama...)--Kotniski (talk) 11:13, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
For example, how about simply "Barack Obama is..." (or if you really want to be pedantic about the rules, "Barack Obama is...", though that just seems to muddy the waters).--Kotniski (talk) 11:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

PS I've changed the Hitler dab page as suggested by Abtract (but with the wording that was already there).--Kotniski (talk) 11:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Barack (disambiguation) and Obama (disambiguation) need cleanup. They're not good examples of "perfect" dab pages. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 17:58, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Even assuming that there is such a thing as a "perfect" dab page, no one here has suggested that either page is such. In fact, how to improve the opening line is precisely what Kotinsky was soliciting opinions about. Substantively, I agree with Kotinsky that phrasing the introductory line on such pages produces awkward results if we hold to the one-rule-fits-all-situations approach. older ≠ wiser 18:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I've edited both Barack and Obama dab pages, in line with my suggested wording above. If anyone can make further improvements, please do so.--Kotniski (talk) 08:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC) (Well, some people have simply reverted my changes without argument - I've permitted myself one re-revert, but the version you see on those pages won't necessarily be my version.) --Kotniski (talk) 10:48, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Aladdin (cartoon)

Can someone delete this? The content isn't even worth merging to the already existing Aladdin (disambiguation), which covers both "cartoons". Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 03:04, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I've converted it to a set index article. Not much point having it, but someone might want to keep it in order to have the Aladdin category on it. --Kotniski (talk) 11:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Surely neither it nor Aladdin (animation) should exist as per Sess. It would be best to redirect them both to to Aladdin (disambiguation) imho. Abtract (talk) 16:06, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Few days ago, I asked Emperor for his opinion. He said it would make a good set index article so I left it in his hands. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 17:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Consistency issue

Picking up on the previous topic, I find it somewhat inconsistent to have these three points:

  1. Concise entries
  2. No wikilinks beyond the entry's bluelink
  3. No external links.

That is, to make good and concise entries, which I'd give the highest priority, it is often going to be necessary to use some uncommon term. Take that to mean something a "general reader" won't automatically know - for example a medical term. Then the definition may be quite opaque. This can be improved, either by an internal link, or a Wiktionary link. And I don't see why not, really. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I think "concise" doesn't mean so concise as to become opaque to the target audience. You can use a slightly more wordy description to make things clearer. But using a link for extra clarity doesn't help much - if the reader is going to follow a link, she may as well follow the link to the term that she was possibly looking for in the first place. Every surplus link makes the dab page less useful, by distracting the reader's attention from the key links - the ones we are disambiguating between.--Kotniski (talk) 13:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, no, it doesn't make the page less useful, because that hides an assumption or several. If an entry has link A and link B, then those who follow link A and those who follow link B will each be self-selected groups. I don't think we need to worry so much about Buridan's ass. It's not distracting, unless the overlinking is at the level in the example on the page, which would anyway be considered poor style in an article. The point would be: allow browsing that is actually clarifying, and exclude linking which is of marginal value to locating a term. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you're going to find yourself in an uphill battle to try to change consensus on the practice of barring extra wikilinks and external links from dab pages. It is strong and long consensus that these links not appear, unless a good WP:IAR defense is made in individual situations. I myself have, on rare occasions, used more than one wikilink per line, when the individual situation seemed to require it for clarity. I have, however, never allowed an external link to stand on a dab page. Any information gained that way should be gained (as Kotniski has stated) in the target article itself. I haven't yet come across a target article that couldn't be described concisely enough for dab purposes without sending users clicking around the internet to figure out which target article they were seeking. SlackerMom (talk) 15:16, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
It is certainly not, believe me, any kind of argument, that "this point is already decided" (WP:CCC). I'm actually here in response to a wikien list discussion, in which I was presented with an argument, and one I couldn't accept at all. I was told, reasonably enough, to do something about it, on the page itself. It is not silly or pointless to try to write in some rationale for linking, rather than saying IAR has to be it. I constantly see examples where the project as a whole would benefit from such links. Therefore a debate is called for, I think. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:09, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not saying you shouldn't try, and this is certainly the right place. So far, your arguments have not convinced me to deviate from current consensus, but I am willing to be persuaded. SlackerMom (talk) 21:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
So I edited Governor of Punjab earlier today, taking out the India and Pakistan links which were there (not needed, I'm quite happy about that). There is a redlink for the India version - well, perhaps the position is obsolete? In any case, though, the link to the Indian Punjab article gives a map, and if I knew (say) Chandigarh was the relevant city, I'd be grateful that a click and click back had told me that much (I don't need the Pakistan version). It happens here that the map in the Pakistan-version bluelink article is less detailed, and shows an area, not cities.
Thus far, thus work-in-progress. But am I really going to be told that there is no trade-off at all, between the alleged "confusing" nature of an extra link, and the real value sometimes of an extra link? The trouble with confusion as the only reason for the guideline (see my reverted version for my views), is that it is impossible to prove that no one will ever be confused. It's not falsifiable, you know. Charles Matthews (talk) 22:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
(diff of Governor of Punjab at time of the above comment.) - note from quiddity
Could you also adapt a long disambiguation page, say a copy of Blue (disambiguation), to the style you envision, to illustrate your proposed level of recommended wikification? (it is currently at an absolute minimal level). I think that might help us understand your intent. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Bump (Charles is busy, but intending on replying here soon) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Name disambiguation nesting

I'm confused about something I'm seeing in surname disambiguation. There is, for instance, a page Armstrong (surname) that has dozens of names listed. There are also disambiguation pages for several common first names with a last name of Armstrong. John Armstrong (disambiguation), for one, has seventeen entries. However, three of those seventeen have been selected for display as a sublist on the Armstrong (surname) page, indented under John Armstrong (disambiguation). Is there a convention for this double listing? Why those three and not the other fourteen? And if all the John Armstrongs go in the main Armstrong list, why have a separate list for John Armstrongs at all? Rklear (talk) 21:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that whoever wrote it that way thought those three were the most notable. When I'm working on something like that, my preference is to have just the link to the other dab page with a note saying something like "any of several people by that name". Auntof6 (talk) 03:22, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Dictionary definitions

I was under the impression that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and that mere definitions of words do not belong on disambiguation pages. However, another editor appears to have a different impression, and has placed such a definition on Turk. What is the consensus on this? --Russ (talk) 15:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

You are correct. Entries such as this are inappropriate on a disambiguation page -- and without citations would be inappropriate in an article. older ≠ wiser 15:58, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Barack (disambiguation)

I would appreciate someone looking at the see also section of this. I created redirects as mosdab suggests for the dab pages but have been reverted. Abtract (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

On my conscience

The thread right at the top now - I have neglected because of, well, stuff. I'll see if I can state something coherent now. The sentence fragments normatively have a single bluelink. The issue is not whether this should be the norm. It is about the get-out clause, exceptions that are not simply IAR. So I hypothesise the "general reader" reading sentence fragment S, singly bluelinked, and not getting the meaning. The usual reason would be that it is too concise; but concision is a virtue on dab pages. We get this scenario, there are options:

S1 (verbose) which is considerably longer;
S2 (which introduces a second bluelink) still concise but offering the unforced chance to look up a key term.

Then, I say, if the general reader is more helped by the concision of S2 relative to S1, than hindered by the presence of a second bluelink, S2 is the better option. You could call this the principle of "optional illustration", or something. The reader who finds the second bluelink leads to a map (for example) that brings matters into focus will welcome it. So the criterion should be that S2 offers real advantages over S1 both on cutting back verbiage and by giving good illustration at the end of the wikilink. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:05, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Impossible to tell in the abstract. Can you provide some concrete illustrations of the supposed benefits? older ≠ wiser 17:09, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Could you please edit either Mercury (the example page used in our guidelines) or Blue (disambiguation) as an example for discussion? (or any other long disambig page) It should only take a few minutes to add some [[]]'s to the page. As I suggested in the thread above, and at your talkpage, and as bkonrad says directly above, it is very hard to tell what you mean from an abstract description. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

On Blue (disambiguation) there is the case only for a link to best linear unbiased estimator, which is already given quotes. But since that leads to the same place, it is not a good example. On Mercury the instances that catch my eye are

The former may anyway not be quite right: I know the area but functional/logical programming language is confusing. Could be cut back to "programming language" if there was a link to Prolog. On the latter, people who know neither "intermodal" nor "Conrail" could be lost. Here perhaps there is a case to explain intermodal, though. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

"a functional/logical programming language based on Prolog" can be cut back to "a programming language based on Prolog" without a link to Prolog. A reader on the dab page who is looking for the programming language doesn't need to have the dab page explain what kind of programming language it is (or what it's based on, for that matter -- the entire description could be dropped since "Mercury (programming language)" provides enough navigational assistance. The Contrail Mercury entry should be deleted (along with the redirect) unless some text describing the Mercury is added to the Consolidated Rail Corporation article (the target of the redirect, which doesn't mention "Mercury" at all). I'll raise that point on the article's talk page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

When exactly do we use redirects for dab entries?

Seeing as nobody has answered my query at #Summary of consensus, I would like to know exactly what the discipline on redirects is before I make some prepared changes. For starters, what's this supposed to mean? And also, why is the redirect Tien Shinhan being used at Ten when piping may be appropriate? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 22:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

"This" means that on a dab page for "School", "School (discipline)" matches the dab phrase more closely than "School of thought", and, in general, on "X (disambiguation)", "X (phrase)" matches more closely that "X in the title" or "A title with X". (And WP:R#NOTBROKEN again.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Then let's apply that logic for Third; use 3rd instead of 3 (number) there, right? And if what you're saying is true, why did most not approve of using Ten (character) or Ten (Dragon Ball) at Ten? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 23:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I believe part of the problem some expressed with Ten (character) was that the redirect was created specifically for the disambiguation page. I don't have any problem with it though. But remember: not every consensus on every disambiguation page has to mean that every other disambiguation page editor set has to reach the same consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, but that doesn't explain why we're listing Tien Shinhan and 3 (number) respectively. Also, can you take a shot at this? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 02:54, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
That the Ten (character) redirect was created specifically for the disambiguation page is only part of my objection to it. It is more a matter of least surprise for readers. A article with that title is unlikely to ever be created. The possible article, if one were to exist is at Tien Shinhan. However, regardless of what a possible article might be titled, the redirect for either Tien Shinhan or Ten (character) will at present drop a reader to the section titled "Tien Shinhan". It takes a moment of looking to see the reference to "Ten" in the text. For that reason, it is less surprising to a reader to link through the redirect at Tien Shinhan. A secondary reason has to do with assisting editors who disambiguate mistaken links to Ten. IMO, we should not encourage the creation of links to a redirect created for a nonce purpose such as Ten (character).
As for linking to 3 (number) on Third -- I'm not sure -- the entry could perhaps be phrased better, but I think the I would prefer linking directly to the number rather than through a redirect. The article does not explicitly address ordinal numbering, so it doesn't make much sense to force the link through the ordinal redirect. older ≠ wiser 03:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Piping and redirects

continuing discussion from Talk:Ten (disambiguation)#Redirects

There appears to be some confusion on when to use piping and redirects on a disambiguation page, possibly because disambigs that were used as examples have since been updated to different forms. Different people seem to be reading WP:PIPING and coming to different conclusions, so I wanted to try and get things clarified here. Specifically: When should a disambiguation page link to a redirect as opposed to an actual or piped link? Examples:

  • On the Delta disambiguation page, how should we link to the "Delta quadrant" section at the Galactic quadrant article?
    1. Delta Quadrant, from the fictional Star Trek universe ([[Galactic quadrant#Delta Quadrant|Delta Quadrant]])
    2. Delta Quadrant (which redirects to [[Galactic quadrant#Delta Quadrant]])
    3. Delta Quadrant, a Galactic quadrant in the fictional Star Trek universe
    4. Delta Quadrant, a Galactic quadrant in the fictional Star Trek universe [[Galactic quadrant#Delta Quadrant|Galactic quadrant]]
  • On the Cell disambiguation page, how should we link "cell phone"?
    1. Cell phone, a type of mobile phone (which redirects to [[Mobile phone]])
    2. Cell phone, a type of mobile phone ([[Mobile phone|Cell phone]])
    3. Cell phone, a type of mobile phone
  • On the Ten disambiguation page, how should we link this fictional character?
    1. Ten, or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
    2. Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media (which redirects to [[Tien Shinhan]]))

Thanks, --Elonka 17:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I say we adhere with this type of layout from here on:
2. Delta Quadrant, a Galactic quadrant in Star Trek media
1. Cell phone or mobile phone
2. Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
Agreed? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree entirely with Sess's suggestions which are in accordanc with mos:dab and the most elegant of the alternatives ... generally elegance = user friendly. Abtract (talk) 18:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
For me, I've been using:
  • "Delta": # 1, provided that the section header in the target article is identical, otherwise # 3 switching to #2, link to the redirect which has the deep link to the specific section. --Elonka 20:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • "Cell": # 3 Switching to #1, the redirect form
  • "Ten": # 1
How have other people been handling these? Guidelines generally reflect actual practice, so if we have multiple commonly-used methods, we should probably indicate that in the guideline, that multiple methods are acceptable. --Elonka 18:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Given the present state of the corresponding articles I would use:
  • "Delta": # 1 2
  • "Cell": # 1
  • "Ten": # 3 1
Primarily because cell phone is an extremely common alternative name for the device. While Ten may be an alternate name for the character, which qualifies it for inclusion on the page, I don't think linking through that form should be encouraged, for reasons of precision, as well as potential ambiguity (as perhaps the title refers to a non-English language character such as 捁). older ≠ wiser 21:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Erm, on "Ten", there were only two options? Or are you suggesting a third, and if so, what? --Elonka 22:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Oops. My mistake. I fixed it. Oh, and I also misread the Delta entry. I would use a redirect in that case. older ≠ wiser 13:24, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't have any great preference, but tend to agree with older ≠ wiser. We shouldn't use a redirect just "because it's there" - only use them in situations like cell phone when it's an equally valid possible name for the article.--Kotniski (talk) 08:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I think I would use 4, 3, and 1, as I thought the rules mandated using the name of the article being linked to, but would like to use 2,1,2 as the clearest and most helpful options if these are allowed! I await clarification with interest. PamD (talk) 08:43, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

A question to those who support option 2 for Ten: are you saying that we should always create such a redirect rather than use a link later in the line? (Because we presumably always could do that.) It seems fairly random to use such redirects just if they happen to exist, but to format the entries differently otherwise.--Kotniski (talk) 08:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

IMHO it isn't necessary to create a redirect but it may be helpful to do so. The advantage of a redirect is that it avoids the need for a decision by the reader who simply clicks on the term they are looking for. Abtract (talk) 10:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
What decision would a reader have to make? older ≠ wiser 13:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I was just thinking that if the article/section didn't mention (in its title) the term being disambiguated it might give pause for thought. Sadly I can't find an example quickly and maybe that means my idea is unfounded - in any event I hope I was clear that imho creating a redirect is not necessary just potentially helpful. Abtract (talk) 14:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Well said Abtract. It's all a question of proper formatting. I don't see how [nasty] piped links ever help in any sort of dab given that their target, whether it be a list or similar, will always be changed around, hence, these pipe links will always need human monitoring, editing, etc. These are the types of things that bots never fix. Redirects, on the other hand, are constantly updated by the bots so there's never a need for us humans to worry about "fixin' those damn piped links". Am I right or wrong here? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 14:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Abstract, I'm still unclear about what you mean. What decision is there for a a reader to make? Sessh, I'm also not sure what you're going on about. Whether the "nasty" pipe as you call it is directly within a dab page or in a redirect to section, if the section link gets mucked around with, the link breaks exactly the same way regardless. There are no bots that I'm aware of that are capable of fixing broken redirect to section links. There are bots that fix broken redirects, such as occur after a page move, but again, there is little difference whether the link on the disambiguation page is a redirect or a direct link to a page. If the target page is moved, yes a bot will update the redirect. But the link on the disambiguation page will also still function just fine (even though it now will go through a redirect itself). My position remains that there is very little value added by creating redirects solely for the purpose of producing a sanitized format for a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 17:21, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I have altered Cell so that it is better sequenced, reflects the normal usage of "cell phone" rather than "cellular phone" (the dab page is titled "Cell" after all) and added a toc. Abtract (talk) 10:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

My own feeling is that though piping has its uses, that redirects should nearly always be avoided. I see one of the points of disambiguation pages, aside from just navigation, as also education on what the correct link should be for future use. The only time that I could see a redirect being appropriate, would be if a target page was getting ready to split out a subpage anyway. So the disambig would be linking to a redirect only on a temporary basis, as that redirect would be its own article in the near future. There's also the issue of standardization, for anyone who is unfamiliar with the subject matter. For example, it's one thing to say, "Cell phone is a common synonym for mobile phone", but I'm sure many of us have had the experience of dealing with a disambiguation page for some odd foreign language term that we've never heard of before. So as we're working on cleanup, we have no idea what is or isn't a "common" synonym. Or even worse, we may have situations where one editor says "of course it's common", and another editor says "no it's not". So I'd prefer a more consistent "don't link to redirects" guideline, unless we can come up with a cleaner way of defining what is and isn't a "common" term. --Elonka 15:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I would have thought "common term" was defined by the target article just as it is with cell phone (now). Abtract (talk) 15:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean by the fact that it's bolded in the lead section? --Elonka 16:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes ... bolded and with a citation confirming its usage. Abtract (talk) 18:34, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, okay, I could see going along with that, where there's a bolded term in the lead section of an article, that a disambig page could reasonably link to the redirect rather than to the actual article. So that would work for the cellphone example, and I'd be willing to support a guideline change that would allow for both methods, # 1 and # 3. But what about cases where the bolded term is itself an ambiguous word? In the case of Tien Shinhan, the nickname "Ten" is legitimate, but we can't just link to Ten. But neither is it simple to link to a redirect, since there are multiple options: Ten (character), Ten (Dragon Ball), Ten (fictional character). How would we decide which one to use? The least ambiguous? It does put a bit more of a burden on the person who's cleaning up a disambig page, to try and make a decision on the best redirect, rather than just avoiding the redirect problem altogether. --Elonka 20:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I used "Ten (character)" since there was no other subject with the same name. If there was another subject called Ten, I would've re-placed "Ten (character)" with "Ten (Dragon Ball)", and have "Ten (character)", "Ten (fictional character)", etc., redirect to Ten. Believe it or not, I do this to every other dab that I see needs editing. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 22:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I like that - using redirects with disambiguating tags, I mean. If "Ten (character)" is neither the name of a WP article nor a name used in the real world, then I don't see what service we are doing to the reader by displaying it.--Kotniski (talk) 07:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Precisely, such a redirect exists solely for the purpose of making a disambiguation page comply with an artificial standard. older ≠ wiser 12:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
I have asked my mentor, User:JHunterJ, to express his thoughts on the subject. Hope he returns soon. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 16:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Let me ask you something Elonka: would you prefer that we humans should do all the hard work and correct every pipe link on Wikipedia? It sure sounds like you're suggesting so! Can you not see the purpose of redirects anywhere? Not even the way WP:PIPING, WP:RDR#NOTBROKEN and WP:DISAM#Links to disambiguation pages recommends it? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 16:36, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Sesshomaru, can you please ratchet back the rhetoric? Let's not attack each other and make extreme statements or straw man arguments. Let's just try to find the consensus. --Elonka 16:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
How on earth is that a personal attack? I don't understand how you interpret things so negatively. And to imply that I'm going off-topic is, well, off. If you can't answer a simple question, then just say so, but please don't accuse me of such things. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 17:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Elonka at 15:07, 30 October 2008, redirects should be avoided so as not to confuse the reader.--Commander Keane (talk) 06:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

These links fit with the guidelines and avoid confusion and surprise while serving the reader by matching the disambiguation term:

  • On the Delta disambiguation page, "Delta Quadrant, a galactic quadrant in Star Trek (which redirects to [[Galactic quadrant#Delta Quadrant]])"
  • On the Cell disambiguation page, "Cell phone or mobile phone, a device used for communication over a network of specialised base stations (which redirects to [[Mobile phone]])"
  • On the Ten disambiguation page, "Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media (which redirects to [[Tien Shinhan]]))"

-- JHunterJ (talk) 22:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It's the third one that bothers us. I think it does bring about a certain amount of confusion and surprise, since it tells the reader that there is something called "Ten (character)", while in fact there isn't - not a name in the real world, and not a name of a WP article. Doesn't "Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character...", or else "Ten, an alternative name for Tien Shinhan..." do the job more neatly and less confusingly?--Kotniski (talk) 09:04, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
The disambiguation page is intended to direct the reader to the article sought. If a reader arrives at Ten (disambiguation) looking for the Dragon Ball character, Ten (character) is the best link for it -- they're looking for a character they're thinking of as "Ten". If the reader is looking for something other than the DB character, it doesn't matter. On the third hand, if the character is not known as "Ten" (and no reader is going to end up at Ten (disambiguation) looking for him), then an RfD is in order (and the entry is unneeded entirely, regardless of phrasing); but the indication in the linked article is that he is known as "Ten". -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I didn't mean to suggest that the character is not known as Ten; I meant that he/she/it is not known as "Ten (character)". If we want to list the name with a dab tag after it, I guess "Ten (Dragon Ball)" would be most intuitive and helpful to readers, but that's getting off the point. I don't think including these bracketed dab tags serves any purpose unless the article is actually called that. The information that it's a "character" or that it's from "Dragon Ball" is in the dab entry anyway, where it's easily scanned. Putting in these tags just produces more clutter (though I could probably accept them if they were part of a series of similar ones - e.g. if we are listing articles called Ten (X Ball character) and Ten (Y Cube character), then I can see it might make sense also to say Ten (Dragon Ball character) for consistency, even if that's a redirect).--Kotniski (talk) 15:07, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Of the various "blah (character)" articles (or redirects), none are known as "blah (character)". In this case, Tien Shinhan is nicknamed Ten (that is, known as "Ten"), and is a character, so the name seems to fit, but the naming of the redirect is a discussion for a different guideline. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:59, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
The creation of a redirect for "blah (character)" assumes that people are likely to create links to the page using that form. In the case of Ten, that would seem unlikely. Such a redirrect is created solely for the purpose of making the disambiguation page meet an artificial standard. For purposes of disambiguation an entry such as Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media 'Ten, or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media is equally as helpful to the reader as an entry using a redirect and arguably more helpful in that it avoids any surprise factor (or annoyance/confusion with the redirect message). older ≠ wiser 23:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
You've lost me there - surely the entry you propose does use a redirect?--Kotniski (talk) 10:38, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, that was sloppy cutting and pasting on my part. I struck through my mistake and inserted what I intended above. older ≠ wiser 14:28, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

After reviewing the above discussions, I'm changing my opinion on the "Delta" option, which would mean that we now have a consensus on that one. In other words, on the Delta disambiguation page, the entry Delta Quadrant should be used, which redirects to [[Galactic quadrant#Delta quadrant]], rather than piping it directly in the disambig page as [[Galactic quadrant#Delta quadrant | Delta quadrant]]. Of course, this is only for cases where the term is on the left (beginning) of the line, and not in the description text. Sound good? --Elonka 20:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

We also appear to have a consensus on the "cellphone" option. Specifically: If a redirect would clearly match a bolded term in the lead of the target article, the redirect should be used as the link on the disambig page. I'll go ahead and add these examples to the guideline. However, we don't appear to have a consensus yet on the "Tien Shinhan" situation, so more discussion is needed on that one. --Elonka 20:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Summary of consensus

Okay, since discussion has died down, I'd like to try and summarize the consensus on the last item, the Dragon Ball character. We have two ways that this could be handled:
  1. Ten, or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
  2. Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
In our discussions, five four editors (Elonka, Bkonrad, Kotniski, PamD, and Commander Keane) prefer option #1. Three editors (Sesshomaru, Abtract, JHunterJ) prefer the second one.
Since there is no clear preference one way or the other, I recommend that we write the guideline to indicate that both methods are acceptable, as follows:
Linking to a redirect can be helpful when the redirect contains the disambiguated term and could serve as an alternative title for the target article, meaning an alternate term which is already bolded in the article's lead section.
A special case exists when the bolded redirect is itself an ambiguous term, and would require further disambiguating to point to the correct target. There is no clear consensus on how such cases should be handled, so it could be done in either of the two following ways:
  1. Ten, or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
  2. Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
Where there is disagreement on which system to use, choose the style of the most recent editor to make a clean version of the disambiguation page, or follow normal dispute resolution procedures.
Sound good? --Elonka 18:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, no. And why is there a comma in option #1? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Inclusively, User:PamD seemed to be neutral on the topic so why count that as preferring option #1? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Ah, my mistake on PamD, sorry, I'll fix. As for the comma, I was just copying what we had used previously. --Elonka 19:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't think we should make such an issue of it; it isn't helpful to people using the guideline. Just say that both methods are acceptable, depending on which gives greater clarity in a given situation. --Kotniski (talk) 11:28, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Which wording do you dislike? Could you propose something different? --Elonka 16:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
The current version just put in place by kot seems to say it neatly without being too proscriptive. It doesn't seeem to be broke so why fix it? Abtract (talk) 17:50, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Well, the version I put in place is about primary topic redirects. I think Elonka wants to address the question of other redirects (as exemplified by the cell phone example). I'm happy with the current wording of that too, so perhaps it's best if a proposal to change it is made by someone who isn't.--Kotniski (talk) 17:56, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Right, I'm not talking about the primary topic redirects. I'm talking about the wording of the "piping and redirects" section, specifically as regards the Tien Shinhan example above. In other words, on the Ten disambiguation page, should that entry to link to Ten (character), aka Tien Shinhan, or "Ten, aka Tien Shinhan". Though as an update, while we've been discussing this, even the Tien Shinhan article itself was redirected, to List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan. So, how should we format that line now?
  1. Ten, aka Tien Shinhan, a Dragon Ball character
  2. Ten (character), a Dragon Ball character
  3. Ten, aka Tien Shinhan, a Dragon Ball character
--Elonka 18:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

This is getting out of hand ... what can it matter which is used? Discuss the guidelines by all means but so much debate over one line ... Abtract (talk) 18:20, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

For coherency with the dab term, I still think we should stay with:

Ten may refer to:

  • . . .
  • Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
  • Ten. or tenuto, a direction used in musical notation
  • . . .
But if you guys really want to avoid the redirect(s) (which I wholeheartedly disagree with) use:

Ten may refer to:

Of course, there needs to be clear consensus on the layout that will be chosen. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:25, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I think the second option there is of better use to our readers. --Elonka 18:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
AFAIC, given the current state of Tien Shinhan being merged into a list, any of the following would be acceptable on a dab page:
  1. Ten, aka Tien Shinhan, a Dragon Ball character (Tien Shinhan here is a piped link)
  2. Ten (character) or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
  3. Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
  4. Ten, aka Tien Shinhan, a Dragon Ball character (Tien Shinhan is a redirect)
If it seems likely that there may eventually be a separate article on the character with the article at Tien Shinhan, then IMO, #4 would be the best choice. If that seems unlikely, then any of the options would be acceptable, although I think #2 would be the least so, since a) the article, if one were ever to exist would never be at that title; b) by itself, it is unclear and does not unambiguously identify the subject of the redirect; and c) it is not the best link to provide for editors repairing links to disambiguation pages.
As for ten. vs. tenuto:
  1. Ten. or tenuto, a direction used in musical notation
  2. Ten. or tenuto, a direction used in musical notation
I think #1 is more helpful for a reader because the link is on the actual name of the target page. A secondary reason here is that as with Tien Shinhan, Ten. is not the best link to provide for editors repairing links to disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 18:52, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Would you be fine with #2 if we used Ten (Dragon Ball)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 23:29, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
It would be somewhat less objectionable. While it would address b) by itself, it is unclear and does not unambiguously identify the subject of the redirect; it does not in any way address a) the article, if one were ever to exist would never be at that title; and arguably does not very well address c) it is not the best link to provide for editors repairing links to disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 00:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Bk (older wiser). I think what he says is also compatible with the guideline on as it stands, so no substantial change is needed.--Kotniski (talk) 07:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

What's the decision gonna be? It'd be good to know so that the minor edit war at Eugene (given name) will come to an end. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 00:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, considering that Eugene (given name) is technically not even within the scope of the disambiguation guidelines, I'm not sure how any clarification here would benefit that sorry situation. older ≠ wiser 02:50, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The main reason for this thread was because of the edit warring at Ten, over the Tien Shinhan line. Which I still don't think we've completely resolved. The consensus here at this thread seems to be that "Ten (character)" is one of the least satisfactory options. But if we try changing it to one of the more satisfactory options, will it stick? Or just spark off a new round of reverts? --Elonka 03:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I've tried it - let's see if anyone objects and why.--Kotniski (talk) 11:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but what's the consensus on redirects? Ten is using two of them. I thought most of you folks wanted to avoid all of them. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Would anyone object if I changed the Dragon Ball entry at Ten to the following:
This way, the element of "surprise" is avoided, and the viewer is taken directly to the desired header (and I also plan to implement this possibility in this section. Going once? Going twice? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 16:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
That's probably the best choice if it is unlikely that there will ever be a separate article for the character. What do you mean by implement this possibility in this section? As an example of the bullet 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. Or something else? older ≠ wiser 16:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Sorry about that, meant to link to the exceptions section. I'm implying that there could be more than one choice when it comes to redirecting and piping. In this case, since the article was merged to a list, piping would appear to be the better solution (that, and our little discussion above). I specifically choose that section because I think it explains piping best, and that Dragon Ball entry shall serve as a piped example. Make sense? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 17:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I did understand that you meant the Exceptions section. But I'm still not sure how you are proposing to incorporate the example into that section. older ≠ wiser 20:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Fixed it. Alright, here's what I plan to set up:

Ten may refer to:

How's that look? Should I mention a couple more entries in this or do you have something else in mind? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits)
The example looks good to me. But how do you propose wording the rule that this example is presumably serving to illustrate?--Kotniski (talk) 19:19, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I was just gonna come up with something on the spot. Guess it'll be something like "There are situations when piping is preferable ... link the piped sentence to the size of the description after it begins with 'in', 'a', 'the', 'at', 'an', etc. ...". What do you say? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 20:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Why is a new rule needed? Isn't this an example of the third bullet under Where piping may be appropriate? That is, it is linking to a section, no? Also I suggest adding in small text at the end, as with some other examples, an illustration of how that link is formed, such as ([[List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan|character in ''Dragon Ball'' media]]) So the entire line would look like this:
older ≠ wiser 22:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Come again? I just want to show a demonstration in the MoS of how it would look like. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 22:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure what is unclear. Look at the other examples in the Exceptions section that also include similar formatting that indicates how the links in the line are formatted. Or are you questioning the relation to the third bullet vs. creating a new rule. older ≠ wiser 23:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
More like a third option, if that's ok with you guys, and this especially goes for the Tien Shinhan entry since it's unlikely that the character will have a page again (after several merge discussions occurred ...). Now then, shall I proceed with the changes? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 01:41, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Third option? What does that mean? If you are adding a new rule, I suggest you discuss it first. Although I don't see why a new rule is needed. older ≠ wiser 02:58, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Bkonrad, have you read a word I said?! Let me say it louder and clearer: I WOULD LIKE TO IMPLEMENT AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD TO LINKING IN THE STYLE MANUAL WHICH GOES ESPECIALLY FOR ARTICLES THAT HAVE BEEN MERGED/REDIRECTED TO A LIST, AND PIPING WOULD BE THAT OTHER CHOICE! Yes, we're using the new Dragon Ball sample I presented, and yes, the reason I am discussing this is quite obviously for approval. Did I leave anything out? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 14:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you left out civilty. —Mattisse (Talk) 14:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, what Mattisse said and also something more definitive than I was just gonna come up with something on the spot. older ≠ wiser 14:37, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Sorry y'all, but it feels like I have to keep saying the same things over and over and over. As for the "coming up with something on the spot", it wasn't gonna be just some random statement Bkonrad, but what this conversation was about (which I'm sure we know by now). That's all. Thoughts before I act? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 14:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
And all I'm asking for is clarity on just what language you are proposing to add. I mean adding an example is one thing, but surely you can't think it all that unreasonable to ask for a more precise preview for new guidance on a topic that has generated such voluminous discussions. older ≠ wiser 15:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I see. You want something more than, "There are situations when piping is preferable ... link the piped sentence to the size of the description after it begins with 'in', 'a', 'the', 'at', 'an', etc. ...", right? Like I suggested above, I can come up with something to complete it, and I'll do the copy-editing (or leave it to someone else, if that's the case). So, would you happen to have something a little more formal in mind? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 16:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
To be honest, apart from wanting to add an example to somewhere in the Exceptions section, it is still rather unclear what it is you are proposing. older ≠ wiser 16:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I suppose it may be easiest if you just go ahead and add something to the page and other editors will remove or emend it as needed. older ≠ wiser 16:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I have made the changes, and tried to be as prolific as possible. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 17:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Discussion of change(s)
Oh dear. I thought I was following and understanding this discussion. Apparently not.
The inserted text says:
  • When piping is used on a disambiguation page to link to an article section, the link should be in the description. For example:

Ten may refer to:

  • (correct) Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media (Ten or Tien Shinhan, a [[List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan|character in ''Dragon Ball'' media]])
  • (incorrect) Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media (Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character in ''[[List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan|Dragon Ball]]'' media)
I interpreted the above discussion to be saying the opposite.
Would somebody mind pointing me to the paragraph which led to this, rather than the opposite, so that I can read it again more carefully?
Thanks, Pdfpdf (talk) 18:25, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe User:JHunterJ sorta missed my point too. You might want to glance at this. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 20:15, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, but that doesn't quite seem to answer my question.
For example, the above seems to be the opposite of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Items appearing within other articles, (particularly the "coin" example), whereas the opposite of above would seem (to me) to be consistent with the coin example.
I don't think I missed the point; I missed identifying the bit of the argument that justiified / explained the switch from the "coin" scenario to the above scenario.
So, would somebody mind pointing me to the paragraph which led to this, rather than the opposite, so that I can read it again more carefully? Pdfpdf (talk) 13:02, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Did you read the exchanges I had with Bkonrad above? Also that section you're referring to is formatted quite badly. Someone should fix it up. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 01:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Yes, I've read the above twice, (some bits several times). Not wishing to be tedious, but, "would somebody mind ... ".
Or have I mis-understood, and you are saying the the relevant bits are in your discussions with Bkonrad?
"Also that section you're referring to is formatted quite badly. Someone should fix it up." - Sorry, but I don't understand the significance of these sentences. They don't seem to me to address the questions I asked.
I don't seem to be making much progress towards my goal of understanding how the switch occurred.
Signed: Confused of Adelaide Pdfpdf (talk) 11:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can point to anything specific, but I'm not exactly sure what the concern is. The statement 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. has been in the guidance for some time now, so that is not really a change. The included example did morph somewhat from the discussion above. Most of the discussion seemed to concern the merits of linking Tien Shinhan vs. Ten (character), although a piped section link was also mentioned as an alternative. The example became an illustration of how to format a piped link to a section, which is OK, IMO, but it is true that that wasn't exactly the gist of what was discussed above. older ≠ wiser 13:41, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Need an actual example of section linking

Re: this edit. The Tail (disambiguation) page doesn't use the section link like the example has. Anyone have a nice example from a current dab page that we can use in its stead? -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't quite understand that either. For consistency with Exceptions, the entry should be demonstrated as:
Right? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 00:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I think JHunterJ's point was that Tail (disambiguation) doesn't use "our" example anymore, so we need a new one. I haven't found one in my list of fixed dab pages though, as I usually create redirects in such rare cases. – sgeureka t‱c 01:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I see. So what do you folks wanna do? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 01:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
We could use "Netta, an introductory form of netball" (from Netta (disambiguation)), if no-one's got anything better.--Kotniski (talk) 08:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm hoping we can find one on a more "mundane" term's disambig page. One of the nice things about "tail" is that everyone knows at least some of the meanings already. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
In fact, is there really any difference between this situation and some of the "exceptions" listed under piping? It might be good enough, in the "Items appearing within other articles" section, just to refer back to the "Ten" example.--Kotniski (talk) 12:22, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
What's wrong with the method I proposed for Tail? The usage is similar to that of the pipe link at Ten. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:35, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with it, except it's not what currently appears on the Tail page itself (which now has a piped link to a more specific article, not a section of the coin article - see also my comment below.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll be more than happy to make the update. That okay with everyone? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 19:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
What update? If you mean update Tail (disambiguation), then I don't see any need, as there is now a redirect from Tails there (maybe this is new or I just misread it when I said it involved piping).--Kotniski (talk) 19:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh no, I meant the style manual ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 20:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

In fact again, the coin line which does (or did, or possibly only in my imagination did) now appear at Tail (disambiguation) is not covered by the current list of exceptions to the no-piping rule, and I think it should be. If the link is in the description we ought to allow piping quite freely, not only when there's a section involved.--Kotniski (talk) 12:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, and that's how I've been editing dab pages all along. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, I'll edit it as seems appropriate, and others can revert/alter if they disagree.--Kotniski (talk) 08:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Have made my edits - someone might have a better example of piping that doesn't involve a section link (where I've used the "Switch" one); any suggestsions?--Kotniski (talk) 09:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, I don't quite recall any like that ATM. Kotniski, what is your opinion on Water breathing and Heat vision? I'm thinking it could be formatted better ... Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 17:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Changed heat vision a bit. I can't see any obvious way to improve water breathing.--Kotniski (talk) 18:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into it Kotniski ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 19:27, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

New example needed

Cell phone has been turned into an article by someone, now the second box in Exceptions has to be changed. Might I suggest we go with a redirect method using either DMZ (disambiguation), Vampire (disambiguation), Haku, Superman (disambiguation), Gouki, Hao, Ice (disambiguation), Archangel (disambiguation), Ryuk, or Boo (disambiguation) as a precedent? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 04:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm pondering, would it be better to present a dab sample that does not have "(disambiguation)" in its title in order to avoid confusion with Linking to a primary topic? This thought occurred to me when I was about to switch the Cell sample to a Kunoichi (disambiguation) box. Hey, we can also pick one of the dabs I referenced at Talk:Francis, Dauphin of France#Request for Comment which doesn't end up with "(disambiguation)". Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 17:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I've decided to go with the Jim Carrey redirect at James Cary. Now before I implement this change, I'd like to know if there are objections to that particular example. Anyone? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Made the change [1]. Tried to be as accurate as possible ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 18:36, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

At WP:MoSDab#Redlinks, i take seriously the guidance of the initial line

A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link.

which prevents me from taking seriously the final line of the next 'graph, reading

If the only article that uses the red link is the disambiguation page, unlink the "entry word" but still keep a blue link in the description.

This

  1. sounds like someone ignoring the word "another" and no one noticing their addition, and
  2. would be counter productive (even if we did want to clutter the Dab page with entries for potential articles that no one anticipates wanting to lk to): even assuming the Dab'd title is obvious, it means that getting the Dab entry properly lk'd once the article has been created requires someone undertaking periodic searches for it (or use of a largely neglected facility that i'll explain if asked).

Can we just remove the 2nd sentence i quoted?
--Jerzy‱t 05:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Not sure I fully understand your objections, but I've edited it down and hopefully it makes more sense now.--Kotniski (talk) 08:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
The point of the differing sentences, I think, is as follows. the 1st sentence mention disallows redlinks for which there are no other articles that link to the term. The second sentence allows entries on a dab page where entry term is treated in another article that is linked in the description. The first sentence, if interpreted as strictly as I think Jerzy seems to imply, would in effect disallow any entries on the dab page where the link is in the description of the entry (i.e., the term itself is not linked because there are no articles using that link). The second sentence may need some clarification, but I do not agree that it is inherently in conflict with the first sentence. older ≠ wiser 14:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

What kinds of places qualify for geodis?

I've been working with place name dab pages. It seems to me that the following types of places should qualify an article for Template:Geodis (assuming sufficient notability):

  • Bodies of water (creeks, lakes, streams, rivers, bays, seas, oceans, etc.)
  • Cities, towns, communes (as used in France), counties, countries, barangays, states, etc. -- any type of settlement or official geopolitical subdivision
  • Neighborhoods
  • Mountain peaks and ranges
  • Craters (whether on Earth or elsewhere)
  • Islands
  • Continents

But what about these, all of which I've seen in lists of places?

  • Schools (anything from elementary through university)
  • Constituencies
  • Parishes (are there multiple kinds of parishes?)
  • Asteroids, planets, and other celestial bodies
  • Parks (neighborhood, national, amusement)
  • Shopping centers
  • Resorts
  • Buildings (churches, mansions, office buildings, etc.)
  • Power generating stations
  • Proposed geopolitical entities (such as Cascade County, Washington)
  • Towns, cities, etc. that were formerly named as the article topic (such as the last entry on Centerville, Pennsylvania)

There are more, but that's a good start. Comments (on either list)? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there a disagreement over the placement of the {{geodis}} tag somewhere? But I'd say no on schools, celestial bodies (not geo-), parks, shopping centers, resorts, buildings, and power generating stations. They would not by themselves make a geodis, but are certainly worth disambiguating. If a list includes both geographic entries and non-geographic entries, it should get a {{disambig}} tag and just the Category:Ambiguous place names -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Linking to IATA code, etc.

Dab pages should only have one link per entry, but when it comes to short letter sequences, I've found that entries for airports, train stations, etc. very frequently link to IATA code or an analogous page, in addition to the article about the airport/station in question. In cleaning up dab pages, should these links be removed like any other extraneous link, or do they fall into a special category? » ĆĄáŸŠáż„ŃŠÏ„ ‱ Âą 19:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Removed. If a reader is looking for something by intentionally entering an airport's IATA code into the search box, they're looking for the airport, not for the code page. If they're looking for neither, then they're looking for another entry. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

TOCRight change

I don't think the guidance on TOCRight placement needs to be here. Disambiguation pages don't have lead sections, just introductory lines. If there's no primary topic, I don't think the TOC should be between "... may refer to:" and the first entry/group/section. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

So where do you think it should be? Or should there not be one?--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
The guidance on accessibility is pretty clear. If a template is not used, the toc appears immediately above the first section heading. Placing the toc somewhere other than that can cause problems for screen readers. I'd be OK with relying on simply linking to that guidance which can be found at both Help:Section#Floating_the_TOC (which pre-existed my recent edit) and at Wikipedia:Accessibility#Article_structure (which was in what I recently added). However, the interpretation on placement is that if used, the toc template should go immediately above the first section only. older ≠ wiser 12:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it should be right before the "may [also] refer to:" line. After the recap of the primary topic, if any. But I'm unfamiliar with the problems of screen-reading software, so if there's a technical reason for placing it after a paragraph, it's not going to look bad or anything. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
The toc is is based on section headings. As I understand the problem, any text between the template and the first section heading can become more difficult to access, in that you can jump from the toc to a section and back to the toc, but there is no indication (nor any expectation) to the screen reader that there might be some other text between the toc and the first section. Placing the toc above the intro line simply results in less intelligibility for the screen reader (as in the toc is presented before there is any indication about the subject). older ≠ wiser 12:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

surname and given name templates on dab pages

Currently documentation at {{surname}} and {{given name}} says

Place {{surname}}/{{given name}} at the bottom of given name pages or within sections of disambiguation pages that list people by given names.

However, if followed rigorously, that results is pages such as this. I don't see that the extra templates are helpful in this case. Should we try to refine guidance regarding the placement of these templates on disambiguation pages? older ≠ wiser 12:58, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

That's precisely that sort of problem I had in mind when I initiated this, which is the refined version of what I employed to fix Rhys. -- Fullstop (talk) 13:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree we only want one dab template per page. If we already have a template explaining that it's a dab page, we don't need additional ones saying that it includes places, human names or whatever (unless that information could be combined on a single template).--Kotniski (talk) 13:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
For example, we could add parameters to {{dab}} that cause the page to be placed, additionally, into categories like Surnames, Given names, Place name disambiguation pages, etc., and possibly change the wording of the message displayed by the template.--Kotniski (talk) 13:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree re the redundancy of the tags. I actually feel that all these surname and given names should be dumped in the trash. Ostensibly, the tag is there to fix articles in which only the first name of last name of the person is given. This never happens. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 14:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it never happens -- at least not for surnames. I see little disambiguation value to lists of people with the same given name -- with the relatively rare exception where a person becomes widely known by simply the given name. However, it is not unusual to find references to persons by only their last name, or last name and initials. I think there is some disambiguation value to lists of people by last name. A somewhat tangential issue -- often, when such lists of names becomes very lengthy, they are shunted off to a "(name)"/"(surname)"/"(given name)" page, however the resulting page is often not really about the name per se, but rather is just a list of people that share an arbitrary characteristic. Should there be better guidelines about when such lists get split and at what point do such list pages become the bailiwick of WikiProject Anthroponymy rather than WikiProject Disambiguation and does WP:Anthroponymy really want to adopt such lists that are ejected from WP:Disambiguation? older ≠ wiser 15:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
As a member of WP Anthroponymy - "Yes" to the last question. If there is not already an article about the name (its origin etc), this will be a prompt to start one. By all means post a note on the WikiProject page that it has been started and needs more work.
I don't think the Name templates should ever appear on disambiguation pages. People who are known by a given name or surname alone should appear on disam pages; see MOS:DABNAME. However, if a disam page includes more than a couple of people who simply have that page title as one of their names, then that disam page needs to be split. When doing so, it may be of some value to leave a hidden comment on the disam page "Do not add people to this list unless they are known simply by the name X", although in practice this is frequently ignored by anon editors.
If the list is an unjustifiable selection from a large number of people that share the name, then we may end up deleting it from the Name article, unless a consensus can be reached on selecting the most notable instances. Anyway, WP Disambiguation is welcome to wash its hands of the problem by moving the lists from Disam pages to Anthroponymy pages. - Fayenatic (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
It also happens for given names -- monarchs, saints, people who lived before surnames were common, etc. A good example of this is at John. However, I could do without these two templates because there's still a way to add the categories. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

new template functionality

To show you what I mean, I've created the template {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} as an alternative to (extension of) {{Disambig}}. You can add parameters to it (as defined in the {{Dabcat}} subtemplate) which place the page into specialized dab categories. As an example, I've placed it on Dexter. If it seems useful, we can update {{Disambig}} with the new code.--Kotniski (talk) 15:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself... **suggested change for hndis** (incorporates functionality of hndis, given name, surname and combinations of those +/- general dab), and **an example**(essentially) of what it looks like in practice. -- Fullstop (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
{{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} looks interesting - could possibly add "forename" as an alternative for "given name"? PamD (talk) 17:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, any number of reasonable alternatives could be added to Template:Dabcat.--Kotniski (talk) 07:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Simple 'first','last' could theoretically do the trick too. But {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} is positioned as a substitute for disambig, not for {{given name}} and {{surname}}. The variable categorization of these makes them a bit more complex than a mere "This is a disambiguation page" banner.
Dexter is a trivial example because {{given name}} and {{surname}} were not taking a parameter there. -- Fullstop (talk) 19:25, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Right, because {{given name}} and {{surname}} are not dab templates. In cases where people are/were known by only a single name, a dab template needs to be used in addition to the name templates. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:52, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand. It doesn't matter that "{{given name}} and {{surname}} are not dab templates". The fact is that over at Dexter they are now treated as, and together with, dabs.
A set index is a dab too. A special kind of disambiguation page, but a disambiguation page nonetheless. Moreover, the idea that these are not dabs, when hndis and geodis are, does not make any sense. -- Fullstop (talk) 21:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, a set index is officially not classified as a dab (although it serves a similar function). If a dab page includes list(s) of articles about people with a given term as a surname/given name (as is very common), then it's as if the dab page has been merged with a theoretical surname/given name page(s). So it makes sense to me to have one template telling readers what kind of page it is, but to place the page in all the relevant categories (general dab pages, surname pages, given name pages). Assuming these categories have any purpose (which is perhaps rather doubtful), we make them less useful if we exclude items from them just because they happen to appear on the same page as something else.--Kotniski (talk) 21:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I like this! Much simpler. Would the parameters need to be in any particular order? --Auntof6 (talk) 23:52, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
No.--Kotniski (talk) 07:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Upon further thought, why is Dexter a human name dab page? It's a given name page, and a surname page, but a name dab page? My understanding is that those are supposed to be pages where the entire name is the same (like Matthew Perry or Thomas Mitchell (disambiguation)), not just part of it. --Auntof6 (talk) 04:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
If that's the case, then sure, change the "hn" parameter on that page to surname|given name.--Kotniski (talk) 07:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

So is there agreement that the instructions at {{surname}} and {{given name}} should be updated to indicate that the templates should not be added to disambiguation pages? That is, those templates should only be used on pages that specifically treat human names. older ≠ wiser 23:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean pages that treat human names and nothing else? Some of those are dab pages. I think the templates are unnecessary on dab pages -- it doesn't make sense to have them for names but not for other categories. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Eliminating silly looking redundancy when linking to a disambiguated title on a dab page

I have been advised to read MOS:DAB after making some edits to the Split dab page. I have done that, and see that this is a fairly recent issue covered above, and think perhaps something was missed in the case of linking to an article that has a disambiguated title (where the disambiguation information is provided in parenthesis). The MOS currently states, "piping ... should not be used in disambiguation pages". The reasoning given is, "to make it clear to the reader which article is being suggested, so that the reader remains in control of the choice of article." I think there is an unintended consequence from this rule, that is manifested with silly looking redundancy. For example, this is an excerpt from the Split dab page:

Each line here has redundant information. This is because the disambiguation information disambiguates the name in question from other uses of that name (be it song, album, the particular band, etc.), and is also note in the description of that particular usage. That's what creates the redundancy. If the MOS allowed for piping in this case, the redundancy would be eliminated, and the reader would have just as much control. So the above would like this:

What I'm suggesting is that since the description fully describes the item on each line, what should be shown to the reader in the link is just the name of the subject of the article in question, not the disambiguatory parenthetical information.

In other words, I think the MOS should reflect the fact that disambiguatory information is not meant to be comprehensive - only sufficient to distinguish one particular use from other uses, is redundant when full descriptive information is also provided, and so should not be displayed through the use of piping. But before I propose the changes be made to the MOS accordingly, I'm first soliciting for comments, because I realize I might be missing something. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

It should be cleaned up to
which is what the current guidelines suggest. No need for (or benefit from) piping. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I pretty much concur, except the top should actually be:
For the splitting of Wikipedia articles see, WP:SPLIT
Look up split in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Split may refer to:

In music:

...

That is how the current guidelines would want it. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 03:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree. This eliminates the "silly looking redundancy" while still making it clear to the reader what articles the links point to.--Kotniski (talk) 07:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Getting rid of "entry, noun phrase describing entry" is not how the current guidelines want it. We went over that recently. Recapping that discussion:
Split may refer to "Split" (song), a song by KMFDM
is perfectly fine, not all redundancy is bad, and it remains consistent with the other entries needing a description. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
We went over it, but I don't think much agreement was reached. Since it's primarily a question of taste rather than reason, maybe we should ask people outside the project, for example at the Village Pump, to express an opinion? Or just agree that sometimes one way is right, sometimes the other, depending on the other entries? For example, in Sess's Split example above, there's clearly no need for an extra "a song", since the other entries don't have that form.--Kotniski (talk) 15:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
The agreement reached was that the clean up of a page that favored one option would not have another edit to switch to the other option. And the actual Split page is longer than the excerpt (and includes other entries with that form). -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I prefer to eliminate redundant words/phrases as per Sess's example above but I wouldn't edit a page just for that purpose. Abtract (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

"...Somewhere to navigate to for additional information."

WP:MoSDab#Red links says (emphasis added)

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.

That implies to me that if i found at Jim Jeffords (disambiguation) the following entry

* Jim Jeffords (boxer), fighter in bare-knuckle boxing

(i didn't, but only in the sense that i've kept the same targets and cleaned up some irrelevant details), i should not be satisfied to observe that bare-knuckle boxing doesn't mention him, while list of bare-knuckle boxers does, and thus redo the entry as

* Jim Jeffords (boxer), bare-knuckle boxer
(* [[Jim Jeffords (boxer)]], [[list of bare-knuckle boxers#J|bare-knuckle boxer]])

I say i should do more, bcz the only information on him (in WP, beyond what's on the rendered Dab page) amounts to "Yeah, that's 'Jeffords' with a 'J'. It seems to me i should instead either

  1. make the entry read (even if it violates the guideline)
    * Jim Jeffords (boxer), bare-knuckle boxer
    (since this provides the same information, without requiring the readers to lk to the page and read down the J column to his name in order to find out they've completely wasted that effort), or
  2. kill the entry, definitively leaving it to biographical dicts to provide dict-defs of such people, or
  3. convert the entry to a comment (or move it to the Dab's talk page), so that, without an entry that pointlessly burdens readers, editors can consider expanding the coverage beyond dict-def level, within the b-k boxer list or in a bio-stub or article.

I'm in fact doing 3, as i've usually done in the past, but i'd like to have a better reason than IAR for doing it, since such cases are common enuf to be provided for, and since the existing guideline may well be encouraging the contribution of entries such as the one i found.
--Jerzy‱t 06:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

  • Part of what made me choose this example is that i end up with a single-entry Dab, presumably harmful (as opposed to the harmless form of two-entry Dab) even tho it serves the editing task of helping other editors consider working on the boxer and then expanding the Dab; i fear the Dab will be deleted, especially since i have seen editors remove commented-out entries.
    --Jerzy‱t 07:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I think the option with the blue link to the list is perfectly OK. It at least gives the reader a place to go to find more context, and isn't that likely to be annoying, because by clicking a link called "bare-knuckled boxer" you don't expect to find information on any particular boxer. Hmm, though other dab entries are formatted on the assumption that readers will have such expectations... Not sure if there's a great solution to this.--Kotniski (talk) 08:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Another part of the calculus is whether there are any links to Jim Jeffords (boxer) (or in perhaps in some WP-space lists of subjects that are included in other reputable reference works, implying that there is reason to think the subject is notable). If there are no links to Jim Jeffords (boxer) and the only thing known about him is that he was a bare-knuckled boxer, that entry, IMO, should be removed from the disambiguation page and the redlink removed from the list article as well. It is a little tricky though. If the only link to a subject is from a list article indicating a subject of some notability (say a list of presidents of some small country), there may be reason to retain the entry on the dab page, not least to help remedy WP:systemic bias. older ≠ wiser 14:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I've added a couple of entries in Orion which are red links, which are again entries in a list page. User:Bkonrad says these will probably be removed soon by the disambiguation project guys. See the discussion here. Combining some of the reasons that came up there with this discussion:
  • Only include related subject articles if the term in question is actually described on the target article. - But this is not valid for list pages as they are not supposed to have descriptions. And this is clarified in User:Kotniski's comment above.
  • Disambiguation pages are not directories... - I would definitely like to look into what this really means. Where can I get more information on this?
  • Removal of a red link in a list page can ensure it is removed from the dab page as well. - But what is policy regarding removing a red link from a list page? Wikipedia:Lists#Development says if a list is primarily made of red links, it should be moved out of article space. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Red_links says red links do not have an expiration date. So probably we should deal with a red link on its own and not put the onus of its removal on a disambiguation page.
Jay (talk) 08:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
List articles that list a thing without explaining it should be sufficient for including that thing on the appropriate disambiguation page. If there's a problem with listing things without description, that's a topic for WP:WPLIST to take up. Disambiguation pages are not directories, however. WP:D and WP:MOSDAB limit them to disambiguating Wikipedia articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
We're getting this statement again! Where does it say that, and where can I get more info on this - Disambiguation pages are not directories. Jay (talk) 07:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
It's here -- the paragraph that starts "Never include external links", just before the next heading. The total paragraph reads, "Never include external links, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web. To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them as <!-- comments --> or on a talk page." --Auntof6 (talk) 05:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Seems unlikely...as the discussion was never about external links. I checked Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory, but could not figure out what is the relation to disambiguation pages. (As a side note, the section WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not talk about external links either.) Jay (talk) 15:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this up here. I disagree that mere inclusion of a redlink in a list article is sufficient reason to include on a disambiguation page. IMO, it partly depends on the nature of the list -- hard to define precisely, but I think most of us can recognize that there are some lists which are mostly items that would be difficult to develop into encyclopedic articles. There is considerable leeway for including redlinks on disambiguation pages that have potential to become articles (or which genuinely require disambiguation because people keep creating mistaken links) -- and I have been an advocate for such inclusion in the past. But so far as disambiguation pages are primarily meant to disambiguate articles and not to disambiguate the world-wide web or serve as a directory, a name appearing on a list page is not necessarily sufficient reason to include on a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 12:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
If the target appears in a list article, and an editor wants to include it in the appropriately-titled disambiguation page (or reverts its removal), I think the default would have to be to include it (unless discussion on that disambiguation page's Talk page formed consensus among multiple editors against its inclusion, but this parenthetical can be taken for granted, since it's true in the application or ignoring of any guideline). -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. I know I (and others) will often remove redlink entries with poor supporting information when cleaning up a dab page. And I've probably become more inclined to remove such cruft than I was previously. But in general you make a reasonable point -- if someone cares enough about about a borderline case to re-add it, it may not be worth arguing about. But, by the same token, if they do care enough about the subject, they could just as easily create a stub for the topic. Sometimes adding an entry to such lists is little more than self-promotion -- and definitely not worth promulgating to a dab page. I think that at the very least, the contents of the list page would need to have a reliable, verifiable source -- if the inclusion in the list can't be verified from the list article, there is no basis for inclusion on a dab page. older ≠ wiser 13:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
You're right about adding a stub part. I was going to create only the Orion Application Server article, but not the other red link, which is why I wanted to get clear on policy in general. By the way another policy question on undeletion hinders me in getting the article created. Jay (talk) 07:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
  • My whole point is that applying "context" to this situation is an abuse of the word context. The bare-knuckle list is a list of names, some but IIRC not even most lk'd to bios, and none with more than the boxer's name. Jeffords may be (we don't know, bcz we don't have dates or nationality for him) next to boxers who were never on the same continent nor alive in the same century as he. By that criterion, every soldier or smith is given sufficient "context" to justify Dab'n by their being on a list of those who share the trade.
    --Jerzy‱t 07:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Possible new approach

Thinking about the above problem some more, maybe this indicates a possible solution to the redirect vs. piped link debate we had before. Generally speaking there are two forms for an entry which doesn't have its own article (i.e. the topic Y is dealt with within another article: X, say):

  1. Y1, ...... [where Y1 - possibly Y with a tag - redirects to X or a section of X]
  2. Y, ...X... [where the link to X may be piped and may contain a specific section]

Perhaps the most helpful (to readers) criterion for deciding which style to use should be: if the target article contains a significant amount of information specifically about Y, use a redirect (method 1); if not, use method 2. That way the reader has some intuitive idea whether it's worth clicking on the link to find out more about Y specifically.--Kotniski (talk) 11:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, some editorial discretion is required. I do not want to see language in this guideline that implies there are black-and-white litmus tests which give impetus to mindless rule-bound editing. older ≠ wiser 14:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Litmus is red and blue, surely? ;) But yes, I certainly agree with that sentiment.--Kotniski (talk) 14:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I enjoy mixing my metaphoric clichĂ©s. older ≠ wiser 13:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Sorry, i missed the purpose for which we would provide lks not "worth clicking on" in the first place.
    --Jerzy‱t 07:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I put much more stock in whether the need for minimum astonishment is adequately served by the Rdr, since we've no assurance that the user is familiar with the target subject; piping provides the opportunity to give the article and section titles some context, to prevent the "Oh, god, another broken link" reaction just bcz the target article was not designed around anticipation of the term being Dab'd (as opposed, of course, to all articles being designed around the Rdrs that point to them [wink]).
    --Jerzy‱t 07:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Consider these articles: sentience, rationality, embodiment, self-consciousness. In each case, this is a term that is used slightly differently by different communities. This situation is very similar to disambiguation, but not exactly the same. Sentience devotes a section to each community. Rationality has separate paragraphs for different communities, but without any structure. Embodiment is a disambiguation page which skips any definition that does not have corresponding article. Self-consciousness has banished the other definition to self-awareness after a lengthy edit-war some years ago.

Articles like these can be very prone to edit-warring and are often suffer from terrible organizational problems. I'm wondering if anyone here has an opinion how they should be handled, since they are so similar to disambiguation pages and are occasionally implemented as disambiguation pages. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 07:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Section headers

In disambiguation pages where section headers are needed, should they use second- (==) or third- (===) level headers? This just came up while doing some cleanup at WP:WikiProject Check Wikipedia. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 02:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I use second-level headers. But I don't see a problem with third-level headers (except I would probably continue to separate name-holder lists and "See also" with second-levels). Is there an issue with not nailing it down specifically? -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:39, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
I had seen one person revert a change from using third-level headers to using second-level headers, saying that second-level headers weren't used on dab pages. The only reason it's a real issue is that all the ones which start with third-level headers are grouped in with all of the actual articles which start (incorrectly) with third-level headers, so I'm just kind of changing them as I go along to prevent their appearance there. I had just been wondering if there was a guideline about the topic, or if it was just personal opinion. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Update disambig template?

Are there any objections, then, to updating the code of the {{disambig}} template in line with the {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} example template I prepared? (See #new template functionality above for previous discussion.) The change will have to be made by an admin, since the template is protected.--Kotniski (talk) 14:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Will {{disambig-cleanup}} still work if the update is done? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 19:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it wouldn't be affected as far as I can see. Of course, we could make an analogous change to disambig-cleanup as well.--Kotniski (talk) 20:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
No objection here -- I look forward to using it. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to ask for {{disambig}} to be temporarily semi-protected, then, so that we can edit it and get the details right (like exactly what parameters we want to allow).--Kotniski (talk) 12:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
That request was declined, so we'll have to make {{editprotected}} requests at {{disambig}}. If anyone wants to add/change parameter values, make the changes at {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} (or more likely at {{dabcat}}), then in a few days' time we'll ask for that to be moved to {{disambig}}. --Kotniski (talk) 12:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

This is now live, I've updated the style page accordingly.--Kotniski (talk) 09:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Primary topic or primary topics

There's some discussion on Talk:Crystal (disambiguation)#Primary usage and some earlier discussion from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 50#Disambiguations about including or excluding multiple primary topics for articles that vary by capitalization or other minor ways. We may need to pick one or explicitly allow either method. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

If the term uses the same spelling as the dab name, then it should become a primary meaning. That's how I feel. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 19:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Some recent discussion on my talk page about the dab page at Periwinkle brought out a difference in opinion about where to place a linked term where the title of the linked term is not a variant of the term being disambiguated. The periwinkle page may have other problems that may or may not have a tangible effect on this question, but the issue concerns whether the term Littorinidae, which is a taxonomic family name for molluscs, many of which are commonly known "periwinkles". There have been a few options proposed:

Periwinkle may refer to:

Fauna
  • A common name for a number of gastropod molluscs in the family Littorinidae including:

OR

Fauna

OR

Fauna

I had thought that either WP:DAB or WP:MOSDAB had contained some guidance to this effect, but it seems that it presently does not. What is the best practice in such cases? older ≠ wiser 13:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I would use the Periwinkle (mollusc) redirect once the change in target is made, otherwise I would (and did) use:
  • Periwinkle, a common name for a number of gastropod molluscs in the family Littorinidae
--JHunterJ (talk) 13:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with your edit, but is there anything in WP:DAB or WP:MOSDAB to explicitly recommend such practices? My query is not so much about the specific application on that page, but the general principle. older ≠ wiser 14:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Isn't this just another variant on the discussions we keep having, about redirects at the start vs. links (often piped, but not in this case) in the description? I don't know that we've ever settled it properly.--Kotniski (talk) 15:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
But this isn't a redirect (and we shouldn't link to redirects in disambiguation pages). Littorinidae (the periwinkle family, described in several articles as “the periwinkles”) is another synonym for periwinkles. As are the superfamily Littorinoidea, and all of the genera and species within it, down to and especially the common periwinkle. These are all disambiguated article titles, and “the link should be the first word or phrase in each entry”, as MOSDAB clearly states. Only links to articles about related or differently-scoped things appear after the disambiguating term (cf. items appearing within other articles). —Michael Z. 2009-02-15 17:51 z
Yes, blue links should lead the entry. And the entries should match the dab phrase. And redirects that match the dab phrase should be used in place of direct links that don't. And by the time you get through half a dozen more shoulds, you should find at least two or three contradictions. WP:D and WP:MOSDAB should be overhauled, but overhauling by consensus (by committee, if you will) is tough. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Assistance requested at ADL

Hi, I'd appreciate if someone with MOSDAB experience could help out at the ADL page. I'd do it, but the page has become the latest battleground in an Israel-Palestinian dispute, and since I'm acting as an administrator in sorting out the problems there, I have to be careful that I don't engage in the edit wars myself, since then I would lose my uninvolved status. The page is getting steadily worse though, and really needs some help. Would anyone like to assist? --Elonka 23:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed most of the issues you've highlighted on the talk page (redlinks, lines with no links. more than one blue link per line). NoCal100 (talk) 00:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Toward deletion of Template:Primary

  • I propose to nominate the Template:Primary for deletion (at TfD), as unneeded and potentially harmful. All 9 uses on Dab pages have been tagged for Dab-CU, which i expect will include replacing its use with our primary-topic boilerplate. The use on The American people should be changed to use of {{Main}}. On the assumption that my long presentation at Template talk:Primary will prove non-controversial, i've not burdened this page with it. If the discussion there should turn up anything, let's move it here at that point.
    --Jerzy‱t 22:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Rhode

This looks more like a dab than a name article or something. Anyone agree? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 04:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I've cleaned it as I see it. Abtract (talk) 15:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Names of bands: disambig or not?

Please see here. Thank you. --Kleinzach 04:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Crap#Synonyms and meanings

A second opinion here would be appreciated. How to deal with multi-synonyms is the debate. Abtract (talk) 18:45, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

American

Knowledgeable opinions are requested for sorting out the ongoing dispute at American (namely, how closely to follow the guideline so that the reader's interests are served). Since this is such a high traffic disambig page we need to make sure the page is clean and useful.--CĂșchullain t/c 21:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Order of entries

I believe that some work needs to be done on the Order of entries section of this page. I would like to suggest a few principles, which I'm dividing into subsections to facilitate discussion. Matchups 03:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I responded below, but I'm curious: is there a page in which the current guidelines have caused some strife that couldn't be settled (consensus reached) on the page's Talk? I'm not certain this section really needs to be made more rigorous. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I haven't seen strife, but I have seen different pages use different orderings and I have been reluctant to make them consistent in the absence of a clear guideline. Regarding your comments below, I'm fine with whatever we come up with and am not attached to the first draft I put out.Matchups 04:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I would agree with that, that they should not be forced into consistency with each other in the absence of a clear guideline. But I'm not sure that that means we need a clear guideline here. It's okay for the dab pages to be inconsistent on some aspects of their construction when that inconsistency has no negative impact on their navigational function. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Common items

One or two particularly common uses of a term may be listed at the top of a disambiguation page. Other uses should be given in an some sort of inherent order, such as alphabetical, numerical, or geographic.
Matchups 03:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I would not limit it to "one or two". However many items can be identified as more common than the others and ordered by likelihood, those should be listed at the top in order of likelihood. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Names of people

People with similar names should be listed in alphabetical order based on family name, then given name, then middle name(s). People with identical full names should be listed in order of year of birth. Suffixes are not included as part of the "full name" for this purpose.
Matchups 03:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Again, the most likely entry or entries should be listed at the top, in order of likelihood. After that, an alphabetical list would be fine; people with identical common names (middle names/initials wouldn't be useful unless part of the commonly-known name) could then be listed in chronological or reverse chronological order. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

Entries should be listed in alphabetical order as suggested by the guideline below:

  • A Connecticut Gizmo in King Arthur's Court, novel by Twark Main
  • Gizmo (electronics)
  • Gizmo (mathematics)
  • Gizmo (1978 movie), directed by Ingmar Hitchcock
  • Gizmo (1983 movie), directed by Alfred Bergman
  • Gizmo (physics)
  • Gizmo engine
  • Gizmo School
  • Southern Gizmo
  • The Gizmo and Me, seventh volume of memoir by Mayan Angel
  • Turkish Gizmo

Matchups 03:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with a mandated ordering that puts "A XXX in some other phrase" before "XXX (phrase)". I prefer the ordering given by the current guidelines:
  • Gizmo (electronics)
  • Gizmo (mathematics)
  • Gizmo (1978 movie), directed by Ingmar Hitchcock
  • Gizmo (1983 movie), directed by Alfred Bergman
  • Gizmo (physics)
  • Gizmo engine
  • Gizmo School
  • Southern Gizmo
  • Turkish Gizmo
  • A Connecticut Gizmo in King Arthur's Court, novel by Twark Main
  • The Gizmo and Me, seventh volume of memoir by Mayan Angel
-- JHunterJ (talk) 11:32, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

What's with interwikilinks? If the article exists in an other language it should be possible to add a red link. (Example: Bio of an American country singer [2].) --Kolja21 (talk) 00:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

If the article exists in another language, it should first be translated to at least a stub article on the English Wikipedia before it becomes ambiguous with English Wikipedia articles and in need of disambiguation on the English Wikipedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Is common sense forbidden COMPLETELY by this style manual?

I undid that part of this edit that seemed to offend common sense. "Included angle" is a concept that occurs in both of those two articles. But the phrase "included angle" does not refer to the same thing that either of those titles refers to. Must one write "may refer to" even when it is so grossly offensive to common sense? Michael Hardy (talk) 01:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

In this case I'd consider a solution that doesn't involve a disambiguation page, for example, adding a definition of included angle to Angle#Types of angles, tagging the definition with a {{anchor}} tag, and redirecting included angle to the anchor. --Muchness (talk) 05:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with that long-term solution, but if we have a dab page as a temporary measure, then certainly the first line doesn't have to say "may refer to". I've had a go at a better first line on that page.--Kotniski (talk) 12:24, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

14-April-2009: This page has had a severe problem with excessive restrictions against wikilinks. I'm sorry, but no, wikilinks WILL BE ALLOWED ANYWHERE they are needed. If you wish to keep a separation between wikilinked terms, such as city versus nation, then add a preposition or parentheses, such as:

Coral Gables, Florida in U.S.   or   Miami, FL (U.S.)

From this point forward, wikilinks will be allowed anywhere, repeat anywhere, on a page. You do not have consensus to prohibit wikilinks. REPEAT: You do NOT have consensus with me to forbid or prohibit the use of any winklinks in any context, whatsoever, in any part of any page. Do you completely understand? Please discuss below. From this instant forward, wikilinks will be allowed anywhere on any page. Any other restrictions constitute a total violation of the fundamental policy of consensus. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Please point out what part of that policy specifies you as the unilateral arbiter of what consensus is.--Kotniski (talk) 12:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Please do not get rude with me (see: WP:NPA), with accusatory phrases, such as "unilateral arbiter of consensus". I'm sorry that my presence on Wikipedia annoys you, but welcome to reality. Consensus is the total agreement of all interested parties, acting in good faith. That concept doesn't require any additional policy disputes. Again, I regret that you are annoyed, but the current MOS:DAB is presenting guideline examples as though they are approved by consensus, but they are not. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Consensus is not the total agreement of all interested parties. Consensus is overall consent of the editors. At this point the consensus is what is written in the Manual of Style. You appear to disagree with the current consensus and since consensus can change one course of action is to propose a change and discuss the changes and build a new consensus. Another course of action would be to follow the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle and try to build consensus that way. A new name 2008 (talk) 01:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Wikid, I do hope no one will be rude to you. However, please consider, as well, how your comments here might appear to others. Although you are a long-time contributor to Wikipedia, it does not appear that you have ever participated in or done anything to support this particular project in all that time. Your first exposure to most of us was in the post above in which, in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS (normally interpreted as shouting), you come in and announce in imperative terms what "will be allowed" "from this instant forward", instead of making a suggestion or a request. Please step back and consider how this appears to others; might it not appear rude? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
      • I agree that the original post in this section takes quite an imperious tone, which is unlikely to lead to agreement. Issuing commands is generally a bad idea, because people don't like it. Upsetting people works against you. It generally only works if you've got people with guns backing you up. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
      • I made an emphatic statement in the text above (italics added for emphasis). The guideline had assumed that consensus was reached to exclude wikilinks, but I am announcing that the supposed consensus does NOT exist. Hence, the guideline cannot be followed because it violates consensus. I'm sorry if my direct, succinct statements seem rude, but that guideline to forbid the use of wikilinks is completely unacceptable to me. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
        • You don't need to apologize to me. I'm only trying to help you. If you want to get your way, you'll be more successful with a different tone. Accept that reality, or don't. If you don't care for my advice, that's fine too, but you'll eventually learn that I'm right. Something being "completely unacceptable" to you may convince you, but how will you convince everyone else? -GTBacchus(talk) 21:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Converting to use of see-colon

14-April-2009: Article references need to start using a see-colon form as "see:" rather than just "see". When Wikipedia began, the article titles always began with a capitalized word, as in the style of a mainstream encyclopedia. However, Wikipedia has evolved into a distinction between uppercase and lowercase words, for example, allowing an article to be the name of a rock band named "einStein" or "einstein" rather than the name "Einstein". Also, common words have become article titles such as "see" (the verb "to see" or lowercase of German word "de:See") or "here" and such. The new style is as follows:

For other uses, see here.   becomes   For other uses, see: here.
For other uses, see see.   becomes   For other uses, see: see.

Alternatively, to further reduce confusion, the connection, in some cases, could be as "see article:" (as follows, For other uses, see article: see).

The change is not intended as a forced new style to be instantly bot-edited into a million articles ASAP. Rather, the use of see-colon will be a gradual change to accommodate a broader use of lowercase letters or other characters in the name of Wikipedia articles. The MOS guideline should be changed to begin using "see:" in that manner. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you include a link to where this has been discussed and agreed-upon? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I do not understand why the semicolon and the first capital are related in this subject.
  • On the first capital (example: EBay vs eBay): Wikipedia did and does still save an article with First character is a capital. Would there be a second thing called EBay, say a videogame, Wikipedia cannot make a different name. We would need a different name (like "EBay (videogame)" for the second article). Nowadays the pagetitle is presented as "eBay", by using template:lowercase title. And always, the in line link can be piped into the correct casing: "See [[EBay|eBay]]".
  • Then on the semicolon: should only be judged by readability & correctness, not for interpreting the first-capital-problem. And I see no problem reading: For other uses, see eBay. -DePiep (talk) 11:37, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Query

I'm lost here. Does the style guide really promote this or is the editor in particular misinterpreting something? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 23:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe the film article naming conventions promote that, not MOSDAB. But 1993 film is better than 1993. -- JHunterJ (talk) 04:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Right, but what was wrong of "film" as the disambiguator? Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 22:50, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Film_titles says it along this line: First: is the filmname is unique, it is the article-title. Second, if the filmname is shared with say a book, add (film). Third: If there are two films with that name, add (YEAR film). E.g. (italics omitted):
  • Monty Python's Life of Brian
  • Dune (film)
  • Titanic (1953 film)
  • Titanic (1993 film)
So having checked Poetic Justice (and DAB) we need:
  • Poetic Justice
  • Poetic Justice (film)
Would I be cleaning the Disambiguation page of Poetic Justice, I could move the movie (with admin help). -DePiep (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Sure, whatever works I guess. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 21:17, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Did I musunderstand your question? -DePiep (talk) 11:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The guideline MOS:DAB contains a unilateral statement, in bold text, that prohibits the use of wikilinks beyond the listed titles, as follows:

"Do not wikilink any other words in the line" (disputed)

I strongly, totally, and completely object to the inclusion of any such attempt to forbid or prohibit the use of wikilinks. Such intense restrictions on the use of wiklinks do not provide a neutral viewpoint of the use of wikilinks to connect readers to related information. There is no logical, reasonable, intelligent, coherent, or rational reason to forbid the use of wikilinks. Instead, the problems caused by that statement include numerous, severe, one-word edits to hundreds of articles to remove the wikilinks of unusual terms that formerly had helped new readers to better understand the subjects being listed. That prohibition against wikilinks has caused Wikipedia to become clogged with thousands and thousands and thousands of minor edits that do nothing more than shut down the ability of Wikipedia pages to reach more information via the former wikilinks. I am planning to remove that statement in the very near future, as it does not reflect a consensus concerning my opinion after considering the issue for 4 years. This is an official notice of the intent to quickly change the guideline, as stated. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a fundamental premise behind dab pages: they exist to disambiguate. Any other link other than to the disambiguated pages introduces confusion and clutter.
If there is related information, it should be in the article associated with the entry. This keeps the dab page from being cluttered with an array of links, which reduces their functionality. It also makes WP more maintainable, by not having information in two places.
I would recommend keeping this policy in place.--NapoliRoma (talk) 03:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
How is this a different topic than the "Obsessive" topic you started two sections up this page, Wikid? And, to make it "official", I strongly, totally, and completely object to your proposed changes. By your own logic, you do not have consensus, so you cannot make the change. Now, if you'd actually like to discuss your views instead of dictating them, please try again. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
To be clear: the consensus now is Keep. Agree with R'n'B. About changing the MOSDAB: See Template talk:Dmbox#Set index image for a similar talk, also relating to WP:MOS#SIA (list-like pages). The example by Wikid in "Obsessive" above on "Coral Gables, Florida in U.S. or Miami, FL (U.S.)" is not clarifying to me. These are the only talkative remarks by Wikid to me, please rephrase the point(s) into e.g. a proposal or a question or an idea. -DePiep (talk) 10:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Um... Wikid77. Rhetoric matters. If you write in certain ways, you will win support for your position. If you write in other ways, you will tend to alienate those who would otherwise support you. I think the post with which you began this section is in the latter category. If you're interested, I'll tell you why. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

RE Wikip77: if a guideline violates consensus, then it cannot be retained, because WP:consensus ranks higher.: OK. Could you point me a consensus in this (for example change ZZZ into XXX, or for any situation into XXX wherever from). You're even invited create a new consensus. I'd like to read it. (inserted after editconflict) -DePiep (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Working toward consensus

15-April-2009: (subtopic) Please understand Wikipedia policies: if a guideline violates consensus, then it cannot be retained, because WP:consensus ranks higher. To achieve consensus, changes must be made in some manner, either as a retraction or a modification agreeable to all parties involved. There is no reason to get angry because someone strongly disagrees with an existing statement in a guideline document. Please rethink your reactions to my announcement that consensus does not exist, and the guideline cannot stand. Also, I advise all to re-read WP:Consensus about achieving a "logical" or "rational" agreement between all parties involved. Numerous discussions have determined that "consensus" is not voting (of a supramajority); instead, consensus is a logical decision which all agree to follow. Please do not over-react in some baseless anger. "I am not the enemy." I am trying to correct a situation that is causing a lot of problems. Perhaps this is a good lesson in what "Wikipedia consensus" really means. I am sorry that you are so upset. This might be the first time that many have actually dealt with true consensus; so yes, I understand the confusion underway. Again, please re-read WP:Consensus. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I'm not remotely upset. I don't even necessarily disagree with you. (Did I say I disagree with you? No.) I'm just hoping to point out to you that pragmatic considerations matter. Simply citing policy will not necessarily "win". You either wish to convince people, or you don't. If you do, then you will eventually have to deal with the fact that rhetoric matters.

    I really don't know why you think I'm upset. Were you even addressing me about that? I'm in a pretty good mood right now. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

All I can do is remind people of how Wikipedia works. Much of the trouble seems to stem from the idea that if someone disagrees, then it doesn't matter as long as the "vote" goes the other way. That's not the rules for how Wikipedia works. Wikipedia depends on consensus, and that viewpoint gets escalated to higher levels until the rules are followed or people drop away. BTW: I'm glad you're in a good mood. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! You might not realize it, but I know pretty well how Wikipedia works. I've been an administrator for over three years, and I've been called upon to resolve all kinds of issues, I've read consensus in thousands of discussions, and I've helped craft several policy and guideline pages. I certainly don't believe that anything is decided by "voting". Voting is anathema to our project, because it would subject us to the tyranny of the majority. (I suppose Requests for adminship and certain other elections are exceptions, but we're talking about decisions of encyclopedic content, which are different.)

This is somewhat tangential to my actual point. I know about consensus, and often remind people that it doesn't mean majority or supermajority... However, the fact remains that, if you want to be heard, tone matters. You can be as right as rain, and your task can be very easy, or very difficult, depending in large part on the rhetoric that you employ. It might seem wrong that this should matter... but it does matter. This is something that I learned, and I think it is something that you'll learn, too.

To summarize, your point about consensus is well-taken, but it does not obviate the practical considerations of working collaboratively. You can create a whole lot of static for yourself if you ignore this aspect of working on Wikipedia. Nobody likes to create static for themselves. Does what I'm saying make sense? -GTBacchus(talk) 21:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

  • I must disagee with your assumption that consensus must change simply because you don't like it. Although you are certainly correct that consensus is not achieved by simple bean-counting, I'm afraid you are mistaken when you assert that consensus means a decision is reached that is "agreeable to all parties involved." Take, for example, RFD AfD discussions. Some articles draw both strong support and strong opposition, but in the end the article is either deleted or it is not. Some parties to the debate will not find the outcome agreeable, whatever it is, but they generally do agree to abide by it even if they don't like it.

    So here we have guideline that you dislike, and you assert that your dislike is all that is necessary to force a change in consensus. But it isn't so. The consensus is still what it was, and I have yet to see any indication that you've persuaded anyone but yourself that it should be changed. You say the current guideline is "a situation that is causing a lot of problems." What are these problems, and what is your evidence that they exist? You did mention earlier that the "prohibition against wikilinks has caused Wikipedia to become clogged with thousands and thousands and thousands of minor edits...." Again, what is your evidence? Or is this just rhetoric? So far you have presented no evidence and no reasoned arguments as to why this guideline should be changed.--ShelfSkewed Talk 21:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

  • The fragmenting of this topic into subtopics allows 6 benefits: naming each specific issue for separate focus; wikilinking by #subtopic name; reference back from other topics; de-massing the total topic discussion; encouraging later replies; and avoiding edit-conflict by editing each subtopic (which unfortunately I didn't prevent by creating subtopics fast enough). -Wikid77 (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Too many problems for progress

To GTBacchus: I do understand what you are saying, but I see little spirit or "Zeitgeist" to actually form a real WP:Consensus. As I had feared, a guideline is seen as "what slips into the document", and it requires a majority rule to change what was cleverly slipped past the other people. Of course, instead, if a guideline action is seriously refuted, in good faith, then consensus for that action is gone, and the action-text must be removed/reworded; if no rewording is acceptable, than it is simply removed. There is no need to "prove" the agreement: either find some agreed wording or remove it. The Wikipedia community is struggling to understand these simple principles, and the result has been "an arm decided by committee lacks a few fingers". A committee can rationalize or debate any points of view, while waiting for the vote to settle the matter. However, the Wikipedia community, in general, is just not ready for that concept of "kept by consensus else removed". There are many macro-social forces in play, which are caused by the overall Wikipedia system, so no one, here, should be blamed for their view of "consensus" as a sort-of non-voting-vote. Instead, policies must be changed, at higher levels, as in large bureaucracies, to prevent guidelines from reaching this level of trouble. Also, consensus should probably be taught, with the help of mediators, to show ways to negotiate an agreement. Too many people think AfD is a real consensus, rather than the "old quick way" issues were decided on Wikipedia. Deleting an article that can be re-written/restored is one level of concern, but writing a guideline that affects 109,000 (more by now) disambiguation pages warrants a more sophisticated level of agreement. Big projects require big thinking, because of the big risks. I think we can "agree" on that. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't surprise me you see little spirit with GTBacchus to change. That's not what is is for now here. The invitation is up to you. GTBacchus is only (only) saying (my words now): please watch the sounding. Now for myself: sure "seeking consensus" is not like creating a rock. But it works. I do not feel being 'voted' upon on Wiki. Or some majority. I'd leave Wikipedia before, of course.-DePiep (talk) 23:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
(after edit conflict. Hi, DePiep.) Wikid77, pardon me if I'm wrong, but I think you haven't addressed my point. I'm not talking about the nature of consensus, or about how policy is determined. I'm simply talking about the realities of working in a collaborative environment, and that one's tone will have a significant impact on one's effectiveness. Do you disagree? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • The guideline we're discussing has by no means "slip[ped] into the document" or "slipped past" anyone. It has been discussed and debated many times, and consensus emerges again and again to retain it, for the many good reasons delineated in the discussions that A new name 2008 has been kind enough to make available below. And I don't see the logic behind your contention that a guideline must be removed if its wording is objectionable to a single editor. If that were the way things were done, nothing would get done and there would be no guidelines at all.

    Wikid, you keep writing as if we'd never given this serious consideration before--but we have. Yet I'm still willing to listen to any good arguments you may have for changing it. But when invited to offer those arguments, you reply with assertions that no one here understands consensus and that the guideline you disapprove of exists because of inertia, or because of some mindless defense of the status quo. If you have a worthwhile argument to make, then please make it. But you won't get far by demeaning the experience and understanding of those with whom you disagree.--ShelfSkewed Talk 04:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Previous Discussions

I went through the talk page archives and found some previous discussions, for a perspective of the thought processes that went into this consensus.

A new name 2008 (talk) 23:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a reminder

I think this discussion has gotten far afield from the questioned wording in the article which I think sets out the reasoning behind it with examples, etc., and which is as follows:

Individual entries (Quote)

Individual entries follow the primary topic (if any) and the introductory line. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the information they want quickly and easily. These pages are to help the user navigate to a specific article.

  • The individual entry list is a bulleted list: preface each entry with a bullet (an asterisk in wiki markup).
  • The link should be the first word or phrase in each entry. For example:
  • Start with a capital letter, unless the target article is marked with {{lowercase}}.
  • The link should not be emphasized with bolding or italics, although titles (such as for books and movies) may need to be italicized, in conformance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). If the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the part requiring such treatment, as opposed to the entire link (see below).
  • Entries should not be pipe-linked—refer to the article name in full. See below for several exceptions to this rule.
  • Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments, with no final punctuation (commas, full-stops, semicolons, etc.).

Example:

Interval may refer to:

There are some further points on the design of links and their entries, based on practical experience.

  • The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link.
  • To avoid confusing the reader, each bulleted entry should have only one navigable (blue) link. Do not wikilink any other words in the line; for example:

or

but not

Including no links at all makes the entry useless for further navigation. (See "red links" below for cases in which no article yet exists.) Never link days or dates.
  • Never include external links, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web. To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them as <!-- comments --> or on a talk page.

Personally I am happy with the present wording. clariosophic (talk) 00:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, because there's nothing wrong with the current wording. The reasons given for the current wording (disambiguation page disambiguate Wikipedia articles) lead to the current wording, with consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Does linking Grateful Dead confuse readers

Let's consider the wording of the MOS:DAB guideline:

"To avoid confusing the reader, each bulleted entry should have only one navigable (blue) link."
Example: · "Dark Star" (song), by the Grateful Dead

Well, does no one find that claim just a tad bizarre? If "Grateful Dead" were linked, then ALL (not just a few) readers would become horribly confused (having "warped their little minds"), and they would abandon the disambiguation page, running from the scene, in horror, and vowing never again to risk mental confusion by that mind-boggling experience of 2 wikilinks (Oh My God, count them: TWO), yes 2 wikilinks, on one line. Well, back to reality, I am extremely offended (no, utterly outraged) that you think that 2 wikilinks, on one line, would confuse "my pitiful little" mind. So, you still see no problem here: you willfully insult ALL READERS by claiming their tiny minds cannot handle 2 wikilinks. Well, fortunately, according to WP:Consensus, you can longer do that. I refuse to accept the above guideline action, and the underlying concept that readers' "small minds" will be overly confused. No, that guideline action-text is not acceptable, at all; instead, it is an insult to Wikipedia readers everywhere. And you wonder why people "laugh at the Wikipedia project". The time has come to understand the policy of WP:Consensus: if someone notes that the readers are being badly insulted (by claiming 2 wikilinks would confuse them), then don't just ignore that viewpoint. I'm sorry if some editors are upset, but you have 9 million registered Wikipedia users (48,430,587 and more readers) to consider as well. Can anyone imagine how other readers view the entire MOS:DAB when they read a statement such as that one ("To avoid confusing the reader...")? God, how demeaning to the readership. Do you understand why Wikipedia has converted to WP:Consensus, to stop a runaway train? Fire alarms exist for everyone to activate them. I will not agree to insulting readers by that attitude, "To avoid confusing the reader, each bulleted entry should have only one navigable (blue) link" (NO, I strongly disagree). Perhaps next year, it can be changed, but meanwhile, you do not have consensus with me. I'm sorry, but someone had to state the situation, for the record:

NOTE: The MOS:DAB (revision ending 15-April-2009) is not the result of current consensus; instead, it is in violation of Wikipedia policy.

Please do not laugh at the Wikipedia project for the content of that guideline: the Wikipedia project has defined policies to correct the situation, but they are being violated. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

What policy is it in violation of? (It's not in violation of WP:CONSENSUS, since the guidelines has been refined through consensus.) If your issue is truly with the use of "confused", I believe we can certainly reword that to use something that you believe would be inoffensive to the 9 million registered Wikipedia users, as long as it works with the guidelines of using disambiguation pages to disambiguate Wikipedia articles, uses blue links to link to the ambiguous articles, and does not include other blue links which are not needed for disambiguation, since disambiguation pages are not articles. What word other than "confused" would you recommend? And please, realize that your disagreement does not void the consensus that came before you and continues to exist. Consensus can change, of course, but that would require more editors agree with you. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:39, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me that the current guideline is not at all condescending. In fact, it treats users as intelligent agents, who a) know what they want and are in need of the correct path to get there; and b) actually want what they say they want, and not something else. So, for each topic or usage of the ambiguous term, the dab page offers the single most relevant link.

I do agree, though, that the use of the word confusing is unfortunate. Perhaps it would be better to use wording similar to what I just wrote: "In order to clearly and efficiently guide users to the most relevant article for each use of the disambiguated term, each bulleted entry should have only one navigable (blue) link."--ShelfSkewed Talk 14:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the proposed language above. The word confusing probably does not belong and this explains why there is only one blue link per entry. A new name 2008 (talk) 15:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Concur with proposed language. (I'm also not that wrapped around the axle about "confused", though: extraneous links make things more confusing.)--NapoliRoma (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
I also think that this wording is an improvement, and is in the spirit of the purpoted aim of dab pages, which is to be similar to redirects, making navigation as quick and simple as possible. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 05:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Not to put too fine a point on it but, wikid77, have you read WP:SARCASM? Padillah (talk) 17:09, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Replies to OP

Wikid77, hi. I've copied bits of your above post, and interleaved replies. I hope this is acceptable; if not, someone please refactor it. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

If "Grateful Dead" were linked, then ALL (not just a few) readers would become horribly confused (having "warped their little minds"), and they would abandon the disambiguation page, running from the scene, in horror, and vowing never again to risk mental confusion by that mind-boggling experience of 2 wikilinks (Oh My God, count them: TWO), yes 2 wikilinks, on one line.

Nobody has made this exaggerated claim. Casting the point of view that you oppose into such extreme language is not consistent with intellectual honesty. The guideline does not imply this exaggerated claim, either. "Confuse" ≠ "Cause extreme confusion and horror"; pretending they're the same isn't helpful. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, back to reality, I am extremely offended (no, utterly outraged) that you think that 2 wikilinks, on one line, would confuse "my pitiful little" mind.

You're "extremely offended", and "utterly outraged", by something nobody ever said? Then you need a dose of perspective. Oh, and who has called your mind "pitiful" or "little"? Nobody, that's who. Introducing inflammatory language that nobody else has used in not consistent with intellectual honesty. Why not respond to the arguments people are actually making, rather than responding to bizarre arguments that are your own invention? -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

So, you still see no problem here: you willfully insult ALL READERS by claiming their tiny minds cannot handle 2 wikilinks.

Actually, nobody has made this claim. You seem to be painting every shade of gray as pitch-black or else brilliant white. The world isn't like that. Please adjust the contrast level on your monitor. Oh, and if all readers were insulted by this, then why haven't we heard from more of them? Where are these insulted readers? I'm willing to say they don't exist, outside of someone's imagination. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

No, that guideline action-text is not acceptable, at all; instead, it is an insult to Wikipedia readers everywhere. And you wonder why people "laugh at the Wikipedia project".

Who ever wondered why people "laugh at Wikipedia"? I don't wonder anything like that. Again, why cast this issue in such extreme terms? Do you really believe that one sentence in MOS(DAB) makes Wikipedia a laughingstock? Do you expect anybody else to believe that? -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry if some editors are upset, but you have 9 million registered Wikipedia users (48,430,587 and more readers) to consider as well.

What makes you think people are upset? This is a sincere question. You thought I was upset above, when I wasn't. What clue are you using to discern this "upsetness"? Do you think that, if someone disagrees with you, that makes them "upset"? What makes you say "I'm sorry if people are upset."? Do you think it's a good idea to say, "I'm sorry if you're upset," to people who aren't upset? I'm a bit puzzled (not "extremely confused") by this rhetorical choice of yours. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually, people are upset, and you seem to be in some sort of denial. Your point-by-point response here is a bit, over-the-top, and I think you could have just responded in a single paragraph that you felt I exaggerated the claim that 2 wikilinks are forbidden. Well, guess what: 2 wikilinks ARE forbidden, so all your tedious replies were a total waste. They do not refute the truth of what I said. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Why thank you. I do enjoy that you think my reply is "over the top," coming from the guy who said:
, and
, and

.

From the guy who has filled this page with five sections, five subsections, and one sub-subsection over an edit that nobody else supports, I'm over the top. That's rich. I think if you check, you'll find your house is made of glass, and that it's not stone-proof. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:34, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


Can anyone imagine how other readers view the entire MOS:DAB when they read a statement such as that one ("To avoid confusing the reader...")?

Sure, every reader will read this one line and it will ruin their experience of the entire guideline</irony>. Come now. This claim is immoderate, exaggerated, and silly. Is it really just the word "confusing" you want to get rid of? That's easy. As you see, many Wikipedians agree that we don't need to use that word. All you had to do was suggest a different wording that doesn't use the word "confuse".
In summary, I'm happy enough to drop the word "confusing", but I don't think you've demonstrated a good reason to use additional wikilinks on dab pages. All you've done is attack a silly, strawman version of the opposite view. Why don't you respond to the assertion, made by several Wikipedians now, and backed up by my experience, that consensus is not the same as unanimity, and that it is not proper for one editor to declare no consensus because he or she doesn't like one sentence in a guideline. If that were true, then any editor could take any sentence out of any guideline, simply because they don't like it. That would not be a good, reasonable, sober way to run this place, in my opinion. At least see if you can find one person to agree with you, first. (Hint: You won't find them by casting the issue in exaggerated, black v. white, terms.) -GTBacchus(talk) 16:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
If you look through Wikid77's contributions, you'll see that his or her interest in this particular issue appears to have originated with an edit war over the dab page Drama Queen.
 
 
(Probably just a coincidence.) R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • No, it was not a coincidence, but rather the impetus to show that the no-wikilinks policy had gone too far by unlinking the word "mangwha" or rather "manwha" which, never having read the page before, I suspected to be a typo (or possibly some vandalism which is rampant in changing words into nonsense). The word "manwha" is related to "manga" and unusual enough to warrant a wikilink for further information. Perhaps others, more familiar with "Drama Queen", might not have needed the explanation of a manwha, but I did not know about it, so I linked the word and followed the link to see what was reported. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
    A few words of explanatory text would be at least as useful as a wikilink, and altogether less likely to generate heat. Shouting at the person who reverted you, on the other hand, was a terrible idea, and an immoderate response. Please consider in the future that people will not react well to a dictatorial tone. Please avoid it in the future. Thanks for understanding. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:28, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:Consensus does mean unanimity

The policy of WP:Consensus DOES INTEND the word "consensus" to mean "unanimity" because anything else is a form of implicit voting by the majority or supramajority (a large majority). The basis of the concept is the word "consent". You can't claim to have consent when you don't. Does everyone understand that if the result is not a mutual agreement, then it acts as a type of voting against the implicit minority report? This form of "proof of concept" is related to "reductio ad absurdum", where simply thinking through the implications reveals the true answer: of course, consensus must mean "unanimity", otherwise Wikipedia policies would be explaining the proper methods for majority voting to resolve issues. I realize the concept of "consensus" can be frustrating, when all these years, other people were formerly ignored, rather than asked to help form a group agreement. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

If what you are saying here is true (I do not believe it to be true), that the Consensus Policy does intennd consensus to mean Unanimity, then there is no consensus on anything in Wikipedia. There is not a single page that all 9,000,000+ editors completely agree with. This means there is no consensus on the consensus policy either. A new name 2008 (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Not only will we never reach a unanimous agreement on which links are appropriate on disambig pages, but we will never even reach a unanimous agreement on what the meaning of 'consensus' is, since one user can filibuster the process by insisting it means something completely different from what the guidelines say it means. (Just hypothetically, of course.) And although there will never be a unanimous agreement that any editor is permitted to remove excessive links from a disambig page, there will also never be a unanimous agreement that any other editor is permitted to add links to that page. So I guess we just have to close Wikipedia and we can all take up new hobbies. I hear that growing tomatoes is popular. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • There are qualifications as to who is considered among "the ALL": typically, unanimity is sought among all interested parties acting in good faith, hence, with no intent to cause harm or engage in WP:Wikilawyering, or prevent a consensus from being reached, etc. However, mentioning the 9 million users is a great idea. It might be a good idea to select or invite "jurors" from among the 18 million (9+9 million IP addresses) total editors (if they wish) to join the group. For statistical margin of error (MOE) of 3%, typically, 1001 would be needed to represent the entire population. A sample size of 1001 tends to avoid the dangers of biases without having to "prove" the sample was ultra-random, but coordination could be very difficult with 1001 editors. Therefore, people have suggested that Wikipedia must evolve/upgrade into ways to coordinate such a group of 1001, perhaps as nested 10x10 sub-groups of 10 (plus "1"), until all objections are negotiated for consensus. However, there are 1,641 admins, so the numbers could be handled. Currently, Wikipedia remains primarily the various invented plans of small groups of people in many areas. Most of the other-language Wikipedias are very hollow, being translated mostly by dedicated groups of teenagers or 20-27. However, imagine having coordination processes, in place someday, to actively combine the efforts of 1001 people in each part of Wikipedia. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:42, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
    I suppose this is interesting to some statistical subset of the 18 million users, but (speaking as one of the 1641 admins), it appears that you do understand that consensus is not unanimity, so I have to ask again, what policy are you claiming has been violated here (since WP:CONSENSUS has not been violated)? -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:Consensus versus old Wikipedia decisions

Perhaps some people, new to Wikipedia, might wonder why all the fuss about the word "consensus" and such. In prior years, almost all issues in Wikipedia were (very frequently) decided by implicit forms of voting. In fact, even reverts were controlled by people "ganging up" to out-revert opponents until claiming the 3-revert rule WP:3RR to get the opponents banned from further editing:

For example, in the "Hurricane Katrina" article, people kept removing statements that all coastal cities in Mississippi were quickly flooded, over 90%, while New Orleans was only flooded 70% (not the French Quarter, Garden District or downtown NOLA). The fact that Katrina travelled the entire length of Mississippi (from Pearlington, MS to the north state line, near Tupelo, as in Elvis) was forbidden to be stated in the lede section of the article. Perhaps 40 edits were rejected.

However, disputes were also in other articles. People would debate issues, endlessly, and then claim a so-called "consensus" because the minority could not keep debating, and any changes, that they made, were reverted by the majority players, who out-numbered the others. There was no plan to "word a negotiated paragraph" that all could accept, even though seen as an awkward compromise text, it just would not be allowed. The culture shock with WP:Consensus is so intense, that many people cannot believe the word "consensus" means for everyone to agree to give their consent. It's not only with MOS:DAB, but in many areas of Wikipedia, people think they will still just "vote" and exclude the other opinions. And they shouldn't be blamed, Wikipedia had no other ways to get people to work together. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you under the impression that our policy on consensus decision-making is somehow new? Where do you get that idea? Also, how can you tell that your interpretation of the consensus policy is correct, and others' incorrect? Is there some objective test for that? -GTBacchus(talk) 20:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I was explaining how Wikipedia decisions have been made in the past. The interpretation is actually using deduction as in sentential logic. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
    You talk about some kind of "culture shock"... do you believe that most of Wikipedia doesn't know about the consensus policy, or that most Wikipedians interpret it incorrectly? Do you believe that one person's objection is sufficient to remove any sentence from any policy page, and then demand consensus to have it restored? This is a sincere, honest question. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Exact wording from WP:Consensus

Below is some of the exact wording from the page WP:Consensus. Reading the talk-page there reveals how much careful wording was chosen, involving months of discussion by those editors who balanced the many considerations when writing that policy page. I think that for MOS:DAB, the following continuous portion (addressing guidelines) should be considered:

Level of consensus (3rd section)
"Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. In the case of WP:policies and guidelines, Wikipedia expects a higher standard of participation and consensus than on other pages. In either case, silence can imply consent if – and only if – there is adequate exposure to the community." (P1)
Community consensus on a wide scale supports the "one blue wikilink per line" on dab pages. It has for a long time. If a limited group of editors, at one place and one time, cannot override a broad community consensus, then one person should be able to override it even less. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Consensus can change (4th section)
"Consensus is not immutable. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" are not valid rationales for making or reverting an edit, or for accepting or rejecting other forms of proposal or action." (P2)
This is correct. Consensus can change. Pending any kind of evidence that this one has (such as, anyone else agreeing with you), I'll assume it hasn't yet. I'm certainly open to talking about it, though! -GTBacchus(talk) 22:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
"Wikipedia remains flexible because new people may bring fresh ideas, growing may evolve new needs, people may change their minds over time when new things come up, and we may find a better way to do things." (P3)
Absolutely. If you can persuade the community, through rational and collegial discussion, that abandoning one-link-per-line is a good idea, then consensus will indeed change. It hasn't happened yet, and there remains a broad and long-standing consensus for one-link-per-line. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
"A representative group might make a decision on behalf of the community as a whole. More often, people document changes to existing procedures at some arbitrary time after the fact. But in all these cases, nothing is permanently fixed. The world changes, and the wiki must change with it. It is reasonable and indeed often desirable to make further changes to things at a later date, even if the last change was years ago." (P4)
This part is again entirely correct, but I don't see how it applies to the current situation. If multiple editors revert an edit of yours, and nobody but you puts it back, that is strong evidence that your edit does not have consensus support. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Again, I repeated that portion of WP:Consensus, here, for easy reference with MOS:DAB changes. I have appended id codes as P1, P2, P3 & P4 and "quotemarked" all 4 paragraphs so that other editors can insert remarks between them, if needed. Those sections are only about 10% of the total policy. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This is all very salutary, but it doesn't change the fact that there's a broad and long-standing community consensus for one-link-per-line. It also doesn't change the fact that it would be untenable to mandate that any sentence be removed from any policy on the say-so of one editor, especially when they're going against a broad and long-standing community consensus. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I understand it's been 5 years, but it is so bizarre to claim linking "Grateful Dead" clutters, clouds or confuses the reader. It's just so wiki-spastic, and everyone already thinks Wikipedia is wacko. I just wanted one less embarrassment. Thanks for taking time to tell me it's hopeless. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm not aware that "everyone already thinks Wikipedia is wacko". I've got friends in numerous professions, ranging from medical to business to academia, who think of Wikipedia as a handy reference, a good starting point for research, and a convenient place to get quick facts, while also realizing that it's not necessarily stable, and that vandalism and such happens. I don't know anyone besides you who thinks that Wikipedia's disambiguation pages are an embarrassment. Maybe this problem is not as bad as you think? -GTBacchus(talk) 13:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC) (If you want a guideline that readers tend to disagree with, try WP:MOSTM's: "follow standard English formatting...")
  • Also, if you check the guideline, someone changed the wording so it doesn't make any claims that links to the Grateful Dead "confuse" anyone. -GTBacchus(talk) 13:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:Consensus seen as implicit voting and will not work

I have re-considered all the resistance, here, which denied "consensus" as a total agreement, and checked the opinions at "WP:NOTUNANIMITY" which also recommend "ignoring some people" to reach a decision. As a result, I must conclude that Wikipedia policies are not mature enough, system-wide, to continue an effort to negotiate a true consensus. I drop any request for a compromise about the one-wikilink rule: let it stand, if you wish (insulting readers or not).

Several people in other areas, believe that a group consensus can move forward, even when some members object, which produces the end-result of merely having voted to go with the majority rule. A consensus involving everyone is much, much harder to negotiate. I cannot, in good conscience, request that people here work to negotiate a mutual agreement, when people in other parts of Wikipedia ABSOLUTELY would not bother. Instead, going with the common flow is perhaps 100x or 1000x times easier, much like just a majority vote (but don't tell anyone I said voting is the same thing and much less confusing; they still want to pretend a consensus is what most people decide, but not "vote" you see). Anyway, I sense that several people insist on the one-wikilink rule, and common interpretations of Wikipedia policies provide no sure why to change that, so I drop any request for a compromise. It would be unfair to demand it here, when other people in Wikipedia absolutely wouldn't spend the time. Consensus agreements are very tedious, they involve numerous iterations of rewrites, and generate unpredictable amounts of discussion: way too much effort when some people strongly interpret "consensus" as a possibility to "just ignore some members" at will (whatever!).

On the Wikipedia essay-page that includes section "WP:NOTUNANIMITY", I have added an alternate viewpoint that consensus should require unanimity of remaining members, when excluding others for bad faith efforts. The added box is below:

  The above viewpoint is not correct. Consensus requires unanimity, or else it is a veiled form of voting out ("ignoring") the minority report. A so-called "rough consensus" cannot be claimed as separate from a type of voting as majority rule. Instead, consensus is a total agreement, where all consent to work together, rather than railroad the minority opinions out. If someone can be documented as acting in bad faith, as a separate action outside the decision, then they can be excluded from the group as a first step, where the remaining group reaches a consensus of all. If consensus cannot be reached, then the object of debate should be shelved, or archived, or put on hold, but there should be no move forward when parties refuse to agree to the decision. Consensus is similar to a jury vote requiring a unanimous decision, otherwise there is a hung jury: the defendant is neither "guilty" nor "not guilty" but only removed from the courtroom.

For example, if consensus cannot be reached on the wording of a paragraph, then it should be removed, because it is too contentious and cannot be claimed to represent a neutral viewpoint of all involved. As another example, everyone might agree to allow something to stand for a few weeks, then be removed, pending another attempt at a longer-lasting consensus. The consensus is the total agreement of all involved, even if that means a limited-length agreement, until further decisions can be made. Excluding people from a group requires extra effort to either ask if they wish to leave, or show they acted in bad faith, or equivalent, such as a conflict-of-interest for friends or employees "of an article" etc. A failed consensus that functions as an implicit vote under majority rule is NOT a consensus at all.

That was the text-box added to the essay. However, I will be quite blunt, here, about the concept:

A failed consensus that functions as an implicit vote under majority rule is NOT a consensus at all: it is called "a waste of time negotiating" when a simple vote would be much faster.

Either treat a consensus as a unanimous decision, or else stop wasting people's time with a thousand weasel words for a type of voting.

I apologize that I tried to advocate a half-baked Wikipedia policy to be used here, and there is truly no practical way to achieve a negotiated consensus, except at even greater discussion, which I cannot ask of others. (If you want to allow 2 "confusing" wikilinks on a line, that would be ok). All I can do is remind people of how a true consensus would have worked, and don't be surprised if other Wikipedia guidelines look like a majority rule (but please don't call it "voting": it's a "consensus ignoring some people"). Anyway, I had heard the terms Kidopedia, and Wackopedia, but Weaselpedia was a totally new one for me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikid77 (talk ‱ contribs) 06:03, 17 April 2009

Yeah, our decision-making process here doesn't entirely match up with the traditional notion of "consensus". I think that "consensus" on Wikipedia is a code word for our actual decision-making process, which shares features with various systems, including majority rule, consensus, rule-of-law, anarchy, and two or three other things that haven't got names. Most participants seem to get the hang of it, and are comfortable calling it consensus. Maybe this is weird, but it seems to be how we roll. -GTBacchus(talk) 13:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Hatnote, but to which disambiguation page?

In some situations we are invited by the style Wikipedia:Hatnote#Linking to a disambiguation page to write the Hatnote like {{otheruses|Valencia}}, when used on non-primary meaning articles e.g. Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District). There could be two disamb-pages here, called Valencia, Valencia (disambiguation). OK so far. Irrelevant of which one is the disamb-page (the other being a redirect then): which page do we write in the hatnote? Writing the short one could be clear, but writing the one with "(disambiguation)" clearly shows that this an intended reference to the dab-page. The motivation 'to the final page always directly' does not hold here I think, since we are free & stimulated to use stacked redirects for any good reason (cutting out redirects in between is technically not required). -DePiep (talk) 09:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanx, clearly too long ago since I read that page. -DePiep (talk) 10:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
The proper answer here is "none".
If someone is on the page "Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District)", it's unlikely they came there because they expected to find information about say, the film Valencia. Adding a hatnote is thus clutter for most visitors to that page.
For readers who are on "Valencia (Spanish Congress Electoral District)" and suddenly have an urge to learn about more meanings of the word "Valencia", there's a handy search box ready for them to use. We don't need to accommodate these few readers with a hatnote, at the expense of all other readers.--NapoliRoma (talk) 12:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, someone might arrive there thourgh a piped link that only said Valencia. But indeed, only the search-box is mentioned in the MOS, here. Anyway, the question is about 'when we use a hatnote, what to put there'. I change the example to Valencia City. Same question again. -DePiep (talk) 14:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Your initial interpretation is wrong. We are not "invited to use hatnotes on non-primary meaning articles"; just the opposite: "Examples of improper use" lists disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous as something not to do. Since Valencia City already goes straight to a disambiguation page, there is no problem that needs fixing. jnestorius(talk) 18:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

DAB pages as part of projects?

Kindly go to Special:Contributions/Strdst_grl and click on the links that the editor has made wherein she has added Project boxes to DAB pages. Should DAB pages be part of any Project at all? I say no, but I would certainly like backup, or at least feedback. I reverted a Project box added to Ten Little Indians on the grounds that there were no children's stories listed on that DAB pages. I think there should be a general policy against them on DAB pages. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

IMHO no dab page should be a part of any project other than this one. DAB pages disambiguate words not ideas . Abtract (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a written Policy, before I simply revert those pages that need reverting? In puzzlement, GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC) Anyway, I left a message on her page inviting her to take part in the discussion here. GeorgeLouis (talk) 23:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Judging by the looks of Category:Disambig-Class articles, 681 Wikipedia projects add their banner to dab pages that fall within the scope of their project. As an example, the two projects with which I am most active, WikiProjects Ships and Military history, have tagged and assessed 3,404 and 3,084 disambiguation pages respectively that are within their scopes. — Kralizec! (talk) 23:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

What you are telling us seems weird. If a DAB page has eight separate references (say), then it is possible that it could involve eight separate projects and eight separate banners, right? What could possibly be the reason for adopting a DAB as part of a Project? Still puzzled, GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The project-boxes mentioned are or were on the Talk-pages. :-) Let's restrict the topic. It seems that these boxes are used to create a "todo"-category. My first reaction: allowed if it is about DAB indeed (e.g. two military ships with the same name allows the project military history-box to include a cat:Project Military History).
Trouble ahead: the mil history now uses the category:Military history disambiguation pages. This is getting mixed up. I expect the word "Project" in the cat-name. Because "Military history disambiguation pages" is expected to have straight dab-pages with a military term to be disambiguated. Like Category:Educational institution disambiguation. Disambiguation job only, no separate project involved. So: dab-using projects alow a box on the dab-talk-page, and must use their own category. We need a cfd to rename the category:Military history disambiguation pages. -DePiep (talk) 11:24, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually you have it the other way around. The WP:NCCAT category naming convention specifically states that "all project categories should have 'WikiProject' (or 'WikiProjects') as part of the name. Note that this does not apply to the names of categories that projects might create for the use of assessments" a la WP:1.0 and WP:WVWP. Hence, the 1% of child categories of Category:Articles by quality and Category:Articles by importance that do have "project" in their name are wrong. — Kralizec! (talk) 13:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I've done something wrong. I just noticed that this category existed, but was empty, and began adding what I felt were suitable pages to it. Ten Little Indians (disambiguation) was added because it included a children's rhyme, which may be covered by my project. strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 17:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

You did nothing wrong; you were just taking advantage of project tagging features that others were not familiar with. — Kralizec! (talk) 21:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't think anything was done wrong, and let me give my view on why adopting DABs as part of a Project makes sense. I work mainly on historic sites listed on the NRHP in the U.S., of which there are ~80,000. Building disambiguation for the NRHP places (many of which have the same or similar names) is part of building the wikipedia on the NRHP places. I am finding it hugely helpful to put the NRHP wikiproject's banner with class=dab on the dab pages that have any NRHP entries, so that I can visit them and fix them up as my and others' understanding of appropriate dab page entries evolves. Also, it helps me greatly to find appropriate dab pages to add new NRHP entries having slight spelling variations ("St. Thomas Church" vs. "Saint Thomas Church and Rectory"). As i tag more, i get to see together which dab pages are really very similar and should be merged and redirected. There are more than 750 tagged now, would be more of them disconnected if had not identified this way and done mergers. It is fine, too, if multiple wikiprojects attach their banners, where topics overlap. doncram (talk) 18:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I surrender. GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:24, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Boxes and tags and Project-related-categories etc are OK on any Diasambiguation-Talk-page. Elsewhere: to be discused. -DePiep (talk) 21:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
I've tagged hundreds of talk-pages and always had the same doubt... now I'm going to add tags also to dab talk-pages.--Againme (talk) 19:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Anyone care to comment on this edit to One Missed Call, with corresponding changes on the Talk page? It is the case that all uses—2 films, a TV series, and a manga—are related to the same topic, but they do not identify a set of similar objects (as ships, mountains, etc). So is this a dab page or a SIA? And does it belong in Category:J-Horror?--ShelfSkewed Talk 05:56, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Commented here. I think the set index guidelines need to be clarified. Too often, editors are simply using "set index" as a way to make a dab page that doesn't conform to the dab page guidelines. Set indexes are not simply rule-less dab pages, and they do not replace the function of dab pages (nor the need for actual dab pages for ambiguous titles). -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Introductory line - listing variations

I would like to propose that we alter the guideline about the Introductory line. At present it says:

It is not necessary to repeat any variations of capitalization, punctuation or spelling: "AU may refer to" is preferable to "AU, au, Au or A-U may refer to"; and "Saiyuki may refer to" is preferable to "Saiyuki, Saiyƫki, Saiyûki, or Saiyuuki may refer to".

I think that it is more helpful to explicitly list all the variations included, to demonstrate which of them are included in the dab page. I have today combined dab pages for Angus Mackay and Angus McKay. If there isn't a note as above, how will someone decide whether to include a "Saiyuuki" on the same page as "Saiyuki" or to create a new dab page? Pip includes PIP, but Pep does not include PEP. Is "Bob Foo" included in the "Robert Foo" page? The reader, and the editor, needs to be able to see quickly which scenario applies to the dab page they see. I would prefer to replace the above statement with this one:

It is useful to list any variations of capitalization, punctuation or spelling which are included in the dab page: "AU, au, Au or A-U may refer to"; "Saiyuki, Saiyƫki, Saiyûki, or Saiyuuki may refer to". ; Angus McKay, MacKay or Mackay may refer to: are all useful indicators of the scope of the page.

... and modify the following section about exceptions. PamD (talk) 10:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree there should probably be more exceptions to this. Certainly with the MacKay example I would like to see all the variations listed. With abbreviations like AU I think it's probably enough to list just one (or possibly two) configurations - everyone will easily get the gist that AU may also include Au, A-U etc. With the Saiyuki one, we can omit the variations with diacritics (since diacritics are optional in English anyway), but it might be worth mentioning the variation with a different Roman spelling (SaiyUUki). --Kotniski (talk) 10:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Could we make a distinction: one or two main bold, then a extra line that sais "also written like: A-U, Au, ". I surely would expect the different spellings that are thrown together on the page, are separately visible. But bolding them all in a long sentenced list does not comfort my eye. Of course not the See Also-variants here. -DePiep (talk) 11:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I would support this change—in no small part because the extent to which the current guideline is already made exception to or ignored, even by experienced dab page editors, strongly indicates that it is not a sensible restriction. And I agree with PamD's reasoning that listing the major variants is useful for both users and editors, and with Kotniski's suggestion that it would not be necessary to list the variations based only on the use of diacritics.--ShelfSkewed Talk 15:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
By all means. I never agreed with User:Abtract's views to begin with. Then again, this is a blocked editor we're talking about ... Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits)
We're not talking about any editor, only about what would be the most appropriate guideline. Can someone propose a new wording that takes account of all the points raised above?--Kotniski (talk) 09:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

"Significant variants of the term also being disambiguated may be stated in the lead sentence but it is not necessary to mention minor variations of capitalization, punctuation or diacritics" would be my suggestion (with suitable examples). Abtract (talk) 22:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good to me.--Kotniski (talk) 08:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
'Significant' introduces a big grey area for editors and users (discussion too). In line with my addition above I suggest:
"The disambiguous term (as in the page name) and possible variants used as the main articles primary topic(s) are mentioned in bold. Other spelling variants that are disambiguated on the page can be added in a separete line, not bold. Spelling variants that are not disambiguated, e.g. those named under "See also", are not listed here. So the main variants are bold, and all used variants are mentioned. We should declare that some spelling-differences are gathered onto the page. -DePiep (talk) 10:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure how the extra line would work (can you write out an example?) And what do you mean by "the main articles"?--Kotniski (talk) 10:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, what is the difference between possible variants and Other variations? I'd prefer leaving a little grey area, with the usual caveat that such editorial preferences are not worth edit-warring over. That is, the guidance should be explicit that there is no hard and fast rule that applies in every case. older ≠ wiser 10:56, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, a little grey area for me too please ;-). Clarifying: First group: primary topic(s) as described in the MOSDAB, example School. Will most probably be in the pagetitle. Multiple primary topics: idem, example Bang(s). These are mentioned, in bold: "School may also refer to:". Second group: alternate spellings (including capitualisation, punctuation, diacritics) that are declared to be equal, by being disambiguated on the same page. Example: primary topic Congo is also spelled "Kongo" and "Kongƍ". These are all mentioned in the introduction, not bold, and disambiguated on that page. Third group: lookalike terms, not disambiguated on that page, are not mentioned in the introducvtion. They could be mentioned in the See Also-section, or nowhere at all. Example: on the page Valencia, Valença is a see-also word, and is not mentioned in the introduction line. I changed the proposition towards this explanation. -DePiep (talk) 12:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Also: removed the "extra line" specific, its up to the editor. Readability counts. -DePiep (talk) 12:23, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Would it help the proces when I withdraw my proposal? Then to me only one detail wouls stay: can the MOSDAB make clear which spellings are in/ex-cluded, and why/whynot. I propose: I withdraw. (I am serious) -DePiep (talk) 21:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I prefer Angus McKay, Angus MacKay or Angus Mackay may refer to:, for correct meaning. The three alternatives being disambiguated all (I assume) include Angus; it's not that "MacKay" is an alternate of "Angus McKay". -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Concrete proposal

How about the following (based on Abtract's suggestion above):

Where several variants of a term are being disambiguated together, significant variants may be included in the lead sentence, but it is not necessary to mention minor variations of capitalization, punctuation or diacritics. For example:

  • [give the Arc/ARC and Bang(s) examples like we have now, and add the mcKay example]

but:

  • [give the AU and Saiyuki examples like we have now]

?--Kotniski (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. Abtract (talk) 12:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Are there any objections to doing this then?--Kotniski (talk) 08:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm assuming not then, so I'm doing it.--Kotniski (talk) 11:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

References in dab pages: yeah or nay

I've noticed a growing trend of referencing line entries on disambiguation pages, especially in cases where the entry's description and/or association with the disambiguated term is a subject of controversy. As with the "one wikilink per line entry" convention, I had thought references were prohibited –according to the school of thought which holds that the primary function of dabpages is to get the reader to the article they want as simply and as quickly as possible – but was surprised to find no mention of them here. Would anyone care to comment on the conventions in this area and what, if anything, MOS:DAB should say on the matter? Skomorokh 14:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The relation between WP:DAB and WP:MOSDAB is often a source of confusion, even for longtime editors. The relevant guidance is at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#References. older ≠ wiser 15:13, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Ah, thank you very much, I wasn't aware of that guideline. Skomorokh 16:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I've added it on this page as well, to prevent similar confusion in the future.--Kotniski (talk) 17:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Kotniski makes a good point about confusion ... I wonder if now is the time to cut WP:DAB to the bone by removing all style recommendations so that there is but one place to look? ... Here. Abtract (talk) 17:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes!--NapoliRoma (talk) 04:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Piping

Subject to certain exceptions as listed below, piping or redirects should not be used in disambiguation pages. This is to make it clear to the reader which article is being suggested, so that the reader remains in control of the choice of article. For example, in the Moment disambiguation page, with the entry for Moment (physics), "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.

This seems absurd and unjustified to me, and results in very ugly disambiguation pages. The text following the link ought to explain "exactly what the user would need to be able to find the intended article." There is no particular reason to require that this be contained in the link itself. For instance, look at the current version of Henry I, and compare to this version, which I created with pipes. It seems to me that the "information the user needs to be able to find the intended article" is just as apparent in my version, but the article looks a lot better. What purpose is served by this manual of style guideline? It seems to be designed to make articles look worse. john k (talk) 16:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll add that I'm not opposed to using the disambiguation form in some cases, but in particular for these monarchical cases, where there's a ton of people with the same name, but with the name forms of the article titles often very different and usually awkward, there's no reason to impose a one size fits all solution. john k (talk) 16:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I am quite unclear as to what you think is a problem ... the current version (the one you seem to prefer) is according to guidelines whilst the one you created in order to scorn (and I agree it is scornworthy) is not. Wherein is the problem? Abtract (talk) 18:29, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh silly me I see you actually cast scorn on the better page ... well I am lost for words now, apologies. Abtract (talk) 18:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
What is better about it, besides that it follows guidelines? What is scornworthy about the piped version, besides that it does not follow the guidelines? john k (talk) 02:47, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I concur with you, John, that of those two versions, the one that uses piping is clearer. However, I think the problem is that neither version is actually following the guidelines very well. The pipe-less version clutters the page by adding descriptions that pretty much just repeat the name of the linked article ("Henry I of Blah, King of Blah") and in some cases, literally just repeat the name of the article ("Henry I, Duke of Guise, Duke of Guise"). For most or all of these entries, the full article title itself is all that's necessary to disambiguate it, as suggested in the last sentence of the guideline excerpt you quoted.
Also, per the guidelines, the birth and death dates should be at the beginning of the description, not the end, and there's no need for ending punctuation after each entry. Meaning no disrespect to the person who created the pipe-less version, but if I were the one formatting it, I would have simply included the article title, followed the birth and death dates, as the entirety of each entry, unless something else were necessary for a specific link. Propaniac (talk) 23:48, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Cleaned up those descriptions and also used the "Henry I" redirects where appropriate. Pipe links still not used. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:41, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
A couple of points on this. I agree that the version I initially linked to was particularly bad for doubling guidelines - this was a result of someone deciding not to simply revert the changes I had made, but to simply remove the piping, which was definitely bad. That being said, the wide variety of different name forms used make for a visually unpleasant page, in my opinion. Why should we have Henry I, Duke of Bavaria and Henry I of England? The varying title guidelines are generally annoying, but in instances where we have the ability to make them less noticeable, I don't see why we shouldn't do so. john k (talk) 02:47, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
What's wrong with "Henry I, Duke of Bavaria" and "Henry I of England"? I don't think it's "visually unpleasant". How would you make Henry I, Duke of Bavaria conform to Henry I of England (or vice versa)? A solution might be to create another redirect (one that still includes "Henry I") and use it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't like it because a) it implies the title is part of the name, and even more so, it implies that "of England" is part of his name, which is just silly. Furthermore, why one way for kings, and another way for dukes? There's various naming reasons that led to this for the titles (bad ones, I think, but they're not changing), but there's really no reason to import these bad rules into other areas. Beyond that, we're not supposed to use redirects or piping on disambiguation pages, so I don't see how that helps. Personally, I'd prefer for just Henry I to be in the link, and then dates, and then a description of who they were. So for instance:
  • Henry I (876-936), King of Germany
  • Henry I (c.920-955), Duke of Bavaria
  • Henry I (1008-1060), King of France
  • Henry I (1068-1135), King of England
Among other things, Henry I, Duke of Bavaria (c.920-955) is unclear about whether he was Duke of Bavaria from 920 to 955, or if that was when he lived. And I just really detest the Henry I of England formula altogether and think it should never be used outside of the actual titles of articles. john k (talk) 13:44, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
That looks like you've linked to the same article five times. That is the reason why we don't use piping on disambiguation pages. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't see that there's any reason to assume that people think that linking the same text will lead to the same place. But if that's really such a problem, I wouldn't have a problem with linking the whole text -
or with linking the years:
But some sort of uniformity about what is linked would make for a more visually appealing page, and I don't see what the downside would be. john k (talk) 13:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
"Outside of the actual titles of articles"? That's the point: disambiguation pages link to articles, and we need to see the actual article names. The article names may not be "pretty", but dab pages aren't the place to address that.

--Auntof6 (talk) 00:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Why do we "need to see the actual article names"? The point of disambiguation pages is to get you to the right article, not to inform you of the names of different articles. john k (talk) 13:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
The names of the different articles are often quite useful for the reader to identify which one they wanted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Often, sure. Why are they more useful than what I propose? john k (talk) 14:45, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Because the articles have to have unique titles, and the disambiguation pages are there to help readers navigate to those articles, and we allow that the naming guidelines for articles were developed by consensus to be "good", and hiding those allowably good and necessarily unique titles behind necessarily ambiguous piped pseudo-titles can hinder navigation for some readers. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:54, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Necessarily ambiguous? What do you mean? The examples I provided above are not ambiguous in the least. And I could just as easily argue that having a wide variety of different types of disambiguated titles that don't match each other can also "hinder navigation for some readers". john k (talk) 19:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The same text appears as if it were the title of an article in the blue linked portion of your entries = ambiguous text. I do not think that a "using the title of the articles hinders readers" argument will reach consensus here though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
That was true in my original example, but not in the later one. I am sure you are right that I'm not going to win the argument. john k (talk) 02:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I agree. Never should we mask links like that for name articles and SIAs, much less disambiguation pages. Lord Sesshomaru (talk ‱ edits) 00:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
What is an SIA? john k (talk) 13:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
A set index article. WP:SIA. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
The "Henry I" examples from john k look good, but I don't think that the display of full article titles looks bad. Also, I disagree with his contention that an article title such as "Henry I of England" implies that "of England" is part of his name, which, as he says, is just silly. However, that's an issue about what the article title should be, not whether or not the article title should be displayed on the dab page. One concern not addressed above is that not every editor will be as careful as john k is. If piping were standard, some people would follow the pattern of piping the link to display only the title of the dab page, and fail to provide adequate explanatory text; now, when those same people follow the current pattern of unpiped links to full article titles, then the title alone at least has the virtue of uniqueness. Even with adequate explanatory text, john k's method can make the dab page unnecessarily monotonous when all links repeat the dab page's title. --Rich Janis (talk) 08:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
I suppose a lot of this is personal preference, so if other people think the full titles look fine, I'm not going to convince anyone otherwise. I also agree that probably part of my problem is with the way royalty articles are titled rather than with the conventions here (I fought that battle, and lost it, over at the naming conventions page some years ago - I much prefer the German Wikipedia's means of disambiguating monarchical titles) - although I will say that if the naming rules are bad, that doesn't necessarily mean they have to be replicated elsewhere where we have the luxury of being able to be more expansive. You are probably also right that the current rules are the simplest to follow, and thus make it most likely that actual pages will follow the guidelines. That makes sense to me, so I'll withdraw the complaint. john k (talk) 02:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Individual entries

The fifth primary bullet in the "Individual entries" section says, "Entries should not be pipe-linked—refer to the article name in full." While that is terse and accurate, I find it a bit veiled; I'd rather see the positive directive preceding the negative, such as, "Normally the link should display the full title of the target article; it should not be pipe-linked." Thoughts? --Rich Janis (talk) 08:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I prefer the current version - it makes the message clearer - but I don't feel strongly about it.--Kotniski (talk) 08:27, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
"Use the full name of the target article in the entry link. Entries should not be pipe-linked." ? Avoids the "normally", which sometimes sounds equivocal. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:03, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Use of table in dab

I just edited a dab to replace two lists with two tables. After doing so, I realized I don't recall seeing dabs with tables and wondered why. While the guidelines state that the entries should be in a bulleted list, the motivation is that people find the item they want quickly. While I was writing this, it has been reverted. My version is here: [3]

I imagine that one reason a person might encounter the 850 AM page is that they have been listening to the radio, but didn't hear the station, or they catch a fleeting glimpse of a billboard, and only recall the frequency. They either Google and get the dab or come straight to WP and find the dab. Presumably, they know where they are, so they will want to look at the city or the state to see the likely station. The list isn't that long, they can do that, but this is what computers are designed to do. Click to sort by city or state, then look to see which stations are nearby.

I suggest this is in the spirit of making it easier for the user to find what they want. Not appropriate in all cases, but arguably, appropriate in this case.--Sphilbrick (talk) 01:03, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

  • Yes, I agree with you, and I think you made an excellent attempt to improve that page. There might be problems due to the restrictive nature of the MOS:DAB style guidelines. Disambiguation pages are a special-case of what could be called "fork-pages" which provide a "fork in the road" as a set of choices. The term "disambiguation page" was invented and later became forced to list only a fork-page with nearly identical titles, rather than offer readers a fork-page based on some other concept, such as a fork to choose among similar images, or choose from titles ending with a specific word. Currently, Wikipedia is experiencing growing pains as to how pages should be allowed to appear. The page with 2 sortable tables, which you edited, should probably be changed into a "list-page" by removing "{disambig}" and putting a bottom line as "[[Category:Lists]]". Perhaps some information scientists should get together and try to actually define a long-term Wikipedia structure, involving fork-pages and the sortable "fork-tables" that you have invented at this point. Please don't be discouraged: there are nearly 10 million registered WP users, and many people will agree with your viewpoint about the sorting. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
I have seen tables in dabs before. As long as there is consensus for it on the dab's talk page, and it does not run counter to the navigational purpose of dabs (i.e., it avoids wikilinks on dates within the table, etc.), I don't think it's impossible to have a table on a dab. But it should remain unusual. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:30, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
It seems that disambiguation pages on which a table would be appropriate are more like a set index, where all of the entries are of the same type and have some common features, rather than a general dab page, which typically contain a mixture of types. Rather than having one {{callsigndis}} page different from all the other similar pages (see Category:Broadcast call sign disambiguation pages), I suggest making a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations to develop a standard for tabular presentation on these call sign disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 13:56, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the support. While I've been around for awhile, I've only been active lately, so I still qualify as a wiki-newbie. A revert of an honest attempt to make a page better is discouraging, so your encouraging words turned a negative into a positive. I'm in complete agreement that table in dabs should be unusual - if one is searching for foo and there are several varieties of foo, a list of options makes sense. If the list is short, a table is overkill - it is easier to scan a list of a half-dozen items than it is to scan a table of the same length, especially if common practice has lead you to expect a list. In a short list, order is barely important, yet I do see people (properly) trying to impose order, and the proper order is not necessarily alphabetic. A list of film titles, for example, listed the options in chronological order. Makes sense. In this specific case, we have the unusual situation that the dab phrase "850 AM" can be disambiguated into a quadruple - (call letters,city, state, country) and ironically, sorting by call letter is the least likely to be relevant to the user. (They want to find the call letter, not look up the call letter - if they knew the call letter they wouldn't be on this page.) Moreover, it isn't immediately obvious whether sorting by city or by state is the best option, leading to my option, let the user pick. (Yes, I could have included country in the sort, but I felt that most user start with a knowledge of the country of interest.) I'm going to give this more thought, as it may be the case that there's enough meat for an article, not on 850 AM alone, but on all frequencies, potentially leading to a dab page with tables covering all frequencies. edit - as is often the case, when I respond before fully reading all prior responses, it jumps up to bite me. I responded before reading older/wiser comments, looks like I'm on the same page--Sphilbrick (talk) 14:35, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Apparently, I ought to be watching this page — I followed your later posting from the same one at WT:WPRS and saw this one. I was the reverter, and it occurs to me now that I should have left a note on your talk page when I did so. It should have occurred to me then too, and I'm sorry that I didn't do so.

For what it's worth, I do like the idea of the sortable table — it's actually very consistent with the approach that both the radio and television station projects take with their lists of stations by state/province/etc. The difference though is that those are list articles, whereas these are disambiguation pages — or at least they're set up that way, anyway. So, I reverted because a) the sortable table made the page inconsistent with the style guidelines and b) there are several hundred of these frequency disambiguation pages and, while I'm a big supporter of being bold, there's a time and place for everything. Discussion about something like this is useful.

I'm also possibly a little gun-shy on these pages. They were originally created in a spree by a user who, well, let's say has been invited to no longer be a contributor. They contain a template coding that's unreliable at best and took a lot of work to get to even the state they are today, following that user's departure. As with the list articles, they also take a lot of work to keep updated.

I think the suggestion above makes sense, to take the idea to WT:WPRS and get consensus for it. You'll probably get a lot more traction for this concept than for the mega-dab you've proposed below. It's probably worth discussing whether it's even necessary for these to be disambiguation pages, or if they might more properly also be list articles named List of radio stations broadcasting at 850 kHz, or something similar, with a redirect from the current name as a likely search term. Mlaffs (talk) 13:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Consider DABs as meta-articles

07-June-2009: The current terminology as "non-articles" is very confusing, across all of Wikipedia:

Disambiguation pages ("dab pages") are non-article pages,
in the article namespace...

Honestly, that sounds like "double-speak" to allow POV-pushing something about the handling of dab pages, forbidding something that would (normally) be allowed in "real" article pages. (What is the hidden agenda in the MOS:DAB?)

Instead, the term should be "meta-article pages" in the MOS:DAB wording. Otherwise, there is so much confusion:

  • If DABs are not articles, why do they get "AfD" not "DABfD"?
  • When someone wants to modify a DAB page, can't they just "edit an article page"??
  • If DABs are not articles, then why do they get counted in the total article pages by {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} = 6,926,397...??

Instead, call the DAB pages "meta-articles" whose primary use is to list other article titles, rather than function as detailed articles. Then DABs become a special form of article page, which can have an AfD, be edited as an article, and counted by {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}. (Wow, what an amazing solution!) The MOS:DAB is trying too hard to force unusual rules, and saying "non-article pages in the article namespace" is like saying "we are so wiki-confused we can't put pages in the correct space" and so "non-white is white, or perhaps white is black". There is simply no need to force the terminology, in some sideways effort to force the rules. It is yet another source of embarrassment in Wikipedia, as seen by people who don't realize "almost everything in Wikipedia is invented out of thin air" rather than official policies to be blamed on the Wikimedia Foundation. At least, try to make the inventions seem logical, and they probably will become so, once reality is reconsidered. Call the DAB pages "meta-articles" as a special form of article page. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see it as a source of embarrassment, more as something that people would see as a technical point. I mean, is anyone really marking off points in some scorebook somewhere if we don't use the right terminology to talk about disambiguation pages?

That said, of course they're not quite "articles". Of course they're a kind of "meta-article". Of course they're in the "article namespace". Does this actually bother many people? Is it really necessary to change our definitions in order for people to know what to do? In other words, what's the practical upshot of this proposal? Is it just that we change what we call them, but do everything else the same? -GTBacchus(talk) 07:54, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I see the upshot as very minor, but still positive, with no negative repercussions. In other words, Pareto optimal. Calling them "meta-articles" means people won't be surprised that they are counted when one counts articles. Calling them "non-articles" makes it hard to rationalize counting them. The choices are three:
  1. Leave them as non-articles, leave them in the count of articles, and live with the inconsistency
  2. Leave them as non-articles, stop counting them as articles to eliminate the inconsistency
  3. Call them meta-articles, keep counting them as articles, so consistency in nomenclature and counting rules
Option 2 is more work than it is worth. Option 3 is a tiny bit of work for a decent gain. Option 1 leaves the inconsistency.--Sphilbrick (talk) 15:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Well, it sounds as if it won't have any effect on how I, an editor, deal with DAB pages. Therefore, I'd support letting those who count articles do whatever they want to make that task make a maximum of sense to them. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal re dab and radio frequencies

I'm posting this in both Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages).

The canonical dab is reached by a user because George Foo is an eminent scientist, a hip-hop artist and an athlete. The user is interested in the scientist, the artist or the athlete, and (with rare exceptions) has little interest in the coincidence that they have the same name. In this case, a well-written dab is a simple list, organized in an obvious way, so the user can move on to the subject of interest.

In some cases, a dab may be more functional that simply disambiguating otherwise coincidences.

Radio frequencies are a perfect example of this phenomenon. A user searching for a particular frequency may also be interested in two dimension of the dab - various stations in various locations sharing the same frequency, and frequencies that are nearby (in the sense of spectrum) as well as nearly (in the sense of location).

Thus a good dab for radio frequencies will help the user in bother areas of interest. In fact, the well-designed dab may move from being a meta-article to an actual article. For example, if I'm interested in 1080 AM, I may be interested in the geographical spread of the various stations utilizing this frequency. If the dab had a map showing this information, it could be helpful in its own right. In addition, the map might use pogs of various color r size to indicate the strength of the station, adding further useful information (I realize a day and night version might be necessary).

Second, the user may be interested in adjacent frequencies, in the case of bleed-over (or whatever the right technical term may be). A well-designed page would be organized so it would be easy to do this.

Wikipedia is a big place. Whenever I think up a new idea, the odds are high it has already been implemented, and I just have to find it. If something like this has already been done, or is in progress, please point me to it. If not, I'll work up a mock-up of how I think such a page might work, so we can discuss whether it is useful. My current thinking (starting with just AM frequencies) is a large page, one section for each frequency - and each frequency containing a table of stations, sortable by station, city and state (separate tables by country), and a map showing the location and strength of each station. The dab redirect would bring you to the section of the page, so you can scroll up or down to see adjacent frequencies. I'd also like to do overlay maps of adjacent frequencies, but that for another day.--Sphilbrick (talk) 16:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't sound like a disambiguation page. 1080 AM, for example, is a radio frequency (although really the page ought to be at 1080 KHz), and a page about that frequency should link, among other things, to individual radio stations broadcasting on that frequency (conceivably, all of them in the world, if the information is available). But that's an article, not a disambiguation page; the fact that some radio stations might use their frequency as a brand name, and therefore that people looking for information about a particular station might search for "1080 AM", does not change the fact that the primary topic is the frequency, not individual stations. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 17:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Order of entries: people

At the risk of exposing my scrivenerhood to ridicule by having occasion to ask, and by caring about the answer:
I make a point of trying to make hndis and surname pages maximally efficient for those using them for Dab'n. That is, i assume the user is there bcz,

_ _ in the former case, they know or recall only the given and sur- names (not the initial or minor spelling variation -- and gofforbid we start standardizing Dab'g suffixes, or anyone tries to remember whether it's "(singer)" or "(musician)" or "(frontman)" or the name of the band, or
_ _ in the latter, they know or recall only the surname.

In the celebrated case of Palin, there was enormous fuss fueled by Order of entries ("In most cases, place the items in order of usage...") and a consequent dispute over whether Sarah was more significant than Michael, and if so, were Todd & IIRC Bristol as well. IMO that should be a cautionary tale, counseling that in the case of people, the literal construction of the present guideline (or rather, discounting the opening qualification) is a subjective trap, as to the most prominent few (and BTW provides no usable guidance among the less so). Before leaving that specific case, i'll mention for clarity that Palin now

carries a {{surname}} tag and is thus an SIA,
is the target of Palin (disambiguation))
only appears to link to itself, and
has been stably in alpha order so far this year.

Perhaps the hndis case is clearer (tho, despite the reasonable distinction, IMO users more often use surname pages for Dab'n than out of interest in the surname itself -- or in those sharing the surname, as a group, except as a means of getting to the article on a specific one of them). And it is a hndis case that brings me here today.
The significant difference of opinion regarding Michael Fisher (disambiguation) is my reorganization of it into chronological order, rather than as i found it, which was

alpha by first initial, and
(within those groups) alpha by which variation on "Michael" is used in our title, and
(similarly) whether our title includes a middle name, and
(...) presumably alpha by middle name, and
(...) alpha by the disambiguating suffix in our title.

I admit that this has the effect -- not a noticeable virtue -- of making it clear to editors exactly where to place an entry. In that, it is fully in the spirit of the "German thoroughness" of the de:Preußische Instruktionen, whose first rule i learned in one lesson in Berlin. I was seeking a work that American genealogists call "Meyer's Orts", after the first two words of its German title. The rule is "erste unabhĂ€ngige Substantiv, Dummkopf" (first independent noun) so that (translating the title verbatim) Meyer's Place- and Transportation-Lexicon of the German Empire obviously will be found under L. (And in case you're wondering, "Empire" seems to be the only other independent noun.)
IMO -- since a hndis is a species of Dab and the purpose of a Dab is to disambiguate -- this is, however, the worst possible kind of impediment to users: if you want Michoel Fisher and remember the spelling of his name, the hndis page will take you quickly right to him using your instinctive binary search. (But if you knew that spelling, why aren't you already on that page, instead of on a Dab page?) Likewise with Michael Fisher (politician): great as long as you know his Dab'g sfx isn't "Vermont" or "Representative" or "U.S." IMO chronology is the only criterion for ordering people on a hndis (or for that matter surname) page that is useful to the users whose needs it is intended to meet. You don't always know what period a person belongs in, but there is no other single property, other than nationality, that even comes close to being as frequently known -- at least roughly, which is all you need to make it useful in guiding a binary search of a chronological list. There may be languages of WP where nationality would be valuable, but in en: British and American people predominated, and with them you have to decide whether to group those described as "English" under E, B, or U, and Americans under A or U -- and at least 25% of the other countries are hard for most people to remember or spell.
I'm not asking for a change in wording the guidelines, but a colleague has reverted (including fixes clearly mandated by People, but never mind!) saying MoSDab doesn't mandate chronological order. Well, it does mandate common sense, and it specifically does so in the case of order (as is implicit in "In most cases,..."). Still, i'd like some feedback, on this talk page, to point to, at least that alpha order is not significantly better than random order, and chronology is better.
--Jerzy‱t 00:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

  • Alpha is the best way, IMHO, it's the way we are accustomed to looking things up (people, too). It's also objective and not liable to change because of the morning's papers and the larger the list, the better alpha order works, e.g.: try figuring out which entry on Adams (surname) should be eleventh vs. twelfth objectively. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm flabbergasted. In fact, i'm paralyzed by my indecision about whether it's more urgent to denounce in detail
      1. the assertion that we should use a method that is widely used in situations utterly unlike such a dab, simply because there are many (non-Dab) cases where it is either the most effective possible one or the only imaginably feasible one -- in contrast to the very familiar
        chronological lists of events or holders of a common position,
        lists of countries by continent, and cities by country, or
        organization and ancestor charts represented as hierarchical lists (and descendant charts similarly, but with each person's offspring chronologically by birth date within family)
        OR
      2. what i hope reflects mere carelessness or time pressure: citing Adams (surname) as if its list of 3 dozen Dab pages for specific Adams names were well suited to the typical user who doesn't know their target's given name, and without acknowledging its requirement for users to know that
        chess is a sport, but mountain-climbing is not
        running a railroad is only "other" if your military rank was low enough,
        writings on religion are not literature, and
        mutiny in the Royal Navy is not a military matter,
        OR
      3. my colleague's apparent belief
        that we can't afford another Palin incident, and/or
        that a good Dab-page design can sacrifice users' needs, to avoid conflict between pairs of editors who can't resolve close but insignificant decisions by one walking away saying (hopefully only to themself) "You win: you are a bigger asshole than me."
    Well, i guess i'm over the paralysis, even if there's more to say.
    --Jerzy‱t 22:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

BTW, Adams (surname) is not a disambiguation page. WikiProject Anthroponymy is not WikiProject Disambiguation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

  • Basically it's acting as though it is - are you contending that set index articles are outside the scope of this project and that MOSDAB does not apply to them? So the various names on the Adams page can be linked ad nausem? We would have a lot less uniform encyclopedia and it would degrade quickly as most of the dab pages can be claimed by other projects and they can impose whatever editing MOS they want and this project becomes superfluous. I think that is not the answer and that pages that guide users to articles as Adams (surname) (especially, as most surname articles, this has no meat on the name and no references but does have a list of things that Adams may refer to) does is properly within dab project and MOSDAB applies. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:04, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Tweaks to ordering

I made a few tweaks to the ordering to handle disambiguation by commas (common in geographic entries, and not otherwise described in the MOS), and to explicitly permit ordering alphabetically where appropriate (this seems to be the norm for most dab pages anyway, so let's formalize it), and was also the subject of the inquiry above. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's not formalize it. Some pages use chronological or reverse chronological ordering where likelihood ordering is indeterminate. As long as the entries remain easy to locate, the ordering-within-isolikelihood should be left to the individual page consensus. Not every page choice needs to be formalized across all pages. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:22, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
But removing the alphabetizing seems to formalize ordering based on usage, which is mostly subjective - where is there support in the current MOSDAB for putting things in alpha order without what you removed? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Additional input

I'd like to invite other opinions at Talk:Meros#Wiktionary link -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:32, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It is not the first time that I've run into the following issue: I create a disambig (ususually for people, sometimes for places) that have articles on other (usually, Polish) Wikipedia. However, as en wiki coverage of Polish (and other non-en) subjects is lagging behind, many of those links will be red (even through they have articles on pl wiki). There were cases where all or all but one disambig links for the disambig I've created were red on en wiki. Sometimes I'll see an editor come and delete/redirect my disambig citing MOS:DABRL. Please note that there is no dispute that the red links represent notable missing articles and they will be created one day, and the disambigs have informative value, letting the readers/editors know that there are other entities with same name, even if they are not yet described on en wiki (the disambigs are also interwikilinked to disambigs on pl wikipedia). Hence I see deleting/redirecting of such disambigs as damaging the encyclopedia. Who is right here? I'd suggest clarifying in DABRL that if articles exist on other (non-en) wikipedias, disabigs with one or no blue links should be permitted (as the red links will eventually be stubbed and/or redirected). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:45, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think there may be a dispute as to whether the red links represent notable missing English Wikipedia articles, but that's not important here. Disambiguation pages disambiguate existing Wikipedia articles (blue links). They do not list notable missing articles (red links), since the missing articles are not (yet) ambiguous. Disambiguation pages are navigational aids, not avenues for exploration. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Primary topic vs consistency

Currently, disambig pages for subjects with a "primary topic" article have the link to the primary topic article in the first sentence, which is thereafter never again mentioned. Disambig pages for subjects that have no "primary topic" article begin with "X may refer to".

The basis for that practice is the following statement in MOSDAB: "Since it is unlikely that this primary meaning is what readers are looking for if they have reached the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links."
Here are some of the problems with that statement:

  • it presupposes that the first sentence of a dab page attracts less attention than the dab list. This is probably a valid supposition, but, in effect, its telling us that no need to mention the "primary topic" at all.
  • it supposing that we can read a reader's mind: In reality, we cannot know what a reader is "likely" or "unlikely" to be looking for.
  • It assumes that the reader arrived at the dab page from the "primary meaning" article and it assumes that the reader will be aware of what the "primary meaning" is. This is busted because there are legitimate reasons to link to dab pages, and also web-searches could cause the reader to land at a dab page.
  • A reader is "unlikely" to be looking for N-1 entries any way one cuts it. It makes no difference whether the "primary meaning" article is in the list or not. The "primary meaning" article is thus just as "unlikely" as any other entry.
  • It assumes that the "primary meaning" article would be "mixed in" when in fact it could just as well (or should) be at the top of a "X may refer to" list. If it were really unlikely that the "primary meaning" article is the one being sought, well, then it could just as well be at the bottom of the list.

The distinction between dab-pages-with-primary-topic and dab-pages-without-primary-topic is also a consistency problem. In effect, we then have two kinds of dab pages, which is a layer of complexity that is completely uneccessary.

Suggestion: drop the "primary topic" must appear on the first line requirement. There is no need for (or benefit from) such a requirement, and the pseudo-distinction between dab-pages-with-primary-topic and dab-pages-without-primary-topic is just WP:CREEP that contradicts the purpose of having a style-guide (i.e. consistency). Keep it straight and simple please. -- Fullstop (talk) 12:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

While I'm not entirely adverse to changing this guidance (primarily on the basis of the KISS principle and consistency), the rationale for the statement Since it is unlikely that this primary meaning is what readers are looking for if they have reached the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links. is based on the perhaps faulty logic that when there is a primary topic, the most likely path for a reader to reach the disambiguation page is by a hatnote on the primary topic -- and as such it is unlikely that they are looking for that primary topic. older ≠ wiser 12:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Could you please elucidate on 'perhaps faulty logic'? I'm not sure whether you agree with this principle or not. It certainly makes sense to me. Dlabtot (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
  • it presupposes that the first sentence of a dab page attracts less attention than the dab list. This is probably a valid supposition, but, in effect, its telling us that no need to mention the "primary topic" at all.
The idea is that someone used to looking a dab pages will skip over it, not that it is more or less prominent, just different and easy to skip.
  • it supposing that we can read a reader's mind: In reality, we cannot know what a reader is "likely" or "unlikely" to be looking for.
We always make suppositions about the readers. We can not be certain we have it correct, but we can have a general consensus about a given situation.
  • It assumes that the reader arrived at the dab page from the "primary meaning" article and it assumes that the reader will be aware of what the "primary meaning" is. This is busted because there are legitimate reasons to link to dab pages, and also web-searches could cause the reader to land at a dab page.
There are a few reasons to link to dab pages, but only few. Most algorithms used by search engines will tend to avoid dab pages.
  • A reader is "unlikely" to be looking for N-1 entries any way one cuts it. It makes no difference whether the "primary meaning" article is in the list or not. The "primary meaning" article is thus just as "unlikely" as any other entry.
For those that enter the term in the search box, this is not true. If they are looking for the primary topic, they will never get to the dab page, so the dab page will be less likely.
  • It assumes that the "primary meaning" article would be "mixed in" when in fact it could just as well (or should) be at the top of a "X may refer to" list. If it were really unlikely that the "primary meaning" article is the one being sought, well, then it could just as well be at the bottom of the list.
See above. it just needs to be separate.

(John User:Jwy talk) 18:08, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

In Talk:Street Fighter (disambiguation), it appears that another editor has inferred the following rules from the example of "School" in MOS:DAB#Linking to a primary topic and will revert any edits that do not follow them exactly:

  • The sentence that links to the primary topic MUST be followed immediately by a paragraph break.
  • The following paragraph MUST be exactly "Page name prior to left parenthesis may also refer to:".

Are these rules as rigid as the other editor makes them out to be, to the point that they may trump MOS:DAB#Longer lists? And if so, why doesn't {{Disamb-also}} conform? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 02:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Piping on a link to an article section

User:Boleyn has been editing lots of disambiguation pages to remove pipes for section links. The result is that we have some not so pretty text displayed on the resulting disambiguation pages, such as A1:

A1, a class of computer security, see [[Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria#A — Verified Protection]]

Ignoring for the moment that this particular section link doesn't work (Protection should not be capitalized), my reading of WP:MOSDAB is that piping is permitted in this case because it is in the description. However, User:Boleyn is linking edit summaries to this project page as justification for removing them. I agree that the rules and exceptions for piping are less than clear, even after several readings. I still don't understand what to do if the section link is in the title. Is the only choice to create a redirect page? More importantly, is it EVER appropriate to have a #section style link in displayed text? The style I have been using can be seen on A7:

A7, a model of German [[Aggregate (rocket family)#A7|Aggregate Series Rocket]] from World War II

Is this OK? I recommend adding a section to WP:MOSDAB to clearly explain how to handle links to sections of an article, if anyone knows the definitive answer. Burying it under a section on piping with exceptions is very confusing. --UncleDouggie (talk) 08:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

You're right. Pipes in links in the descriptions of disambiguation page entries are fine; there is no need to remove them. (Pipes in the links if it is the entry itself are to be avoided.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. This still leaves the question of what to do with pipes for section links if it is the entry itself. Options:

  1. Use a redirect page
  2. Display the link with the #section (no pipe)
  3. Link to the full article only

--UncleDouggie (talk) 11:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Entry links should be to a full article (or redirect) only. If an entry is only in a section of another article, then the link should be (piped) in the description, or to a redirect that can then link to a section if needed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:29, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
I've updated the guideline accordingly -- UncleDouggie (talk) 03:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Barack example out of date?

It looks to me as if the "Barack" example at Wikipedia:MOSDAB#Linking_to_a_primary_topic is out of date - it seems now to have been decided that the president is not the primary usage, so the example fails. Mozart might be a better example, as it has a correctly formatted lead to the dab page at Mozart (disambiguation) (unlike the first couple I looked at, Churchill (disambiguation) and Bach (disambiguation)!). PamD (talk) 21:52, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I've been WP:BOLD and changed the example to Mozart - used the wording currently in the dab page, though I'm not sure it's brilliant ("famous" and no nationality? Hmm). PamD (talk) 21:57, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Energetic return

The disagreement as to how to list the primary topic of "energy" has resurfaced at Talk:Energy (disambiguation), and might need additional project member attention. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Adding a rule

I intend to add the following rule regarding piped links:

Intentional links to a disambiguation page that is at the primary topic name should always be linked through a redirect, so as to avoid false positives in the report of links to that page. For example, the disambiguation page Mercurius has a link to the disambiguation page, Mercury, but in order to avoid creating a false positive for an incorrect link to Mercury, the link is presented as [[Mercury (disambiguation)|Mercury]] (disambiguation), which appears as Mercury (disambiguation).

This is an utterly common sense rule, since we should not have direct links to disambiguation pages in article space wherever this can be avoided, and since the appearance of the page remains exactly the same following the piping. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't get it. As I understand it, we don't want direct links to disambiguation pages because there's almost never a reason to link to the dab page instead of to the disambiguated topic; changing what the link looks like doesn't have any effect on that. I don't understand this "false positive" thing, either--I don't think piping the link has any effect on the "What links here" report. Are you referring to a bot flagging the link to the disambiguation page as improper (when it is actually intended), and if so, is it true that piping the link will "tell" the bot that the disambiguation is intended? But wouldn't linking to Mercury (disambiguation) without the piping accomplish the same thing? Propaniac (talk) 19:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the idea against piping. Why wouldn't the guideline continue as per WP:INTDABLINK and use the unpiped Mercury (disambiguation) redirect rather than the odd-looking unlinked "(disambiguation)" trailer? -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Actually, in most cases I have not included the trailing (disambiguation) - in the case of Mercurius it was already there and I just didn't change it - which is exactly what I have done with the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of other disambiguation links on disambiguation pages. In short, I have left the page looking exactly like it did before my edit. Regarding the report, it absolutely makes a difference. Links through redirects are separated by indentation on the "What links here" page, and can easily be excluded from reports; they are also excludable with AWB, which is one of the main tools used for disambiguation work. bd2412 T 19:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
(EC) So what you're saying is: When a disambiguation page is at a primary topic title, an intentional link to the page should use a "(disambiguation)" redirect to make it clear that the disambiguation page is the intended target. If that's the case, I concur with the sentiment, although I'll defer to the opinion of others on whether it's a necessary addition to this MOS. The talk about "false positives" and the weird piping in the example, I found quite confusing, but perhaps I'm the only one who misunderstood. Propaniac (talk) 19:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The rule you've proposed is unclear as to what to do when the disambiguation page is already at a title ending in (disambiguation). For example, Worms (correctly) redirects to Worm (disambiguation), but an intentional link to Worm (disambiguation) would be a direct link rather than a redirect. Dekimasuよ! 19:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
To be clear then, where the title of the target disambiguation page does not contain "(disambiguation)" (as with Mercury above, I propose to pipe the link through the redirect. I have no intention of doing that where the target page actually contains "(disambiguation)" (as in Churchill (disambiguation)). There are about 30,000 instances of disambiguation links on disambiguation pages right now, and this would leave most of them looking exactly as they do now, while taking the link out of the pool of links needing to be checked by disambiguators. bd2412 T 20:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm still not sure why the links need to be piped. Why do something in the See also section that we discourage on the rest of the dab page? What's wrong with displaying Mercury (disambiguation)?--ShelfSkewed Talk 20:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Why display the title of the redirect when the target page does not itself contain the redirect term? The user will see the correct title under the "see also" section, and will see the same title after they click through to the target page. I don't see how it can be proper to link to Mercury, but improper to link to Mercury, since we are only using the latter link for technical reasons (much the same as when we link to a section of a page, but only show the page title). bd2412 T 20:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
You're displaying it either way. Might as well save the characters and make it look like an article title. And it's not proper to link to Mercury, per WP:INTDABLINK; Mercury (disambiguation) should be used for all intentional links to that disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
It wouldn't be displayed at all if the word "(disambiguation)" wasn't on the page separate from the link. Look, I'm prepared to single-handedly fix thirty-thousand bad links here, and I'm proposing to do it by making those links appear exactly as they already do, which seems to me to be the neater presentation. But we need to have a rule on this, because right now pages that I have not gotten to yet are all over the place in how this is handled. bd2412 T 23:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
There is a rule on it, WP:INTDABLINK, which says to use the (disambiguation) redirect. I don't see any problem with repeating that instruction here for linking to disambiguation pages in the See also section of disambiguation pages, but there's no need to pipe the link. Using the explicit, unpiped redirect lets the reader know there's a disambiguation page at the other end with the minimum of fuss. Having the unlinked " (disambiguation)" hang out after the pipe link seems the less-neat solution. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I suppose I can live with that. I'll have to start over on the task! :-O bd2412 T 23:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

No description for a dab line

At Santorum an editor has removed a description of the line Santorum (sexual slang) on the grounds that a description is unnecessary. It seems harmless to put a brief description in to me. I see nothing on this page that addresses this; any thoughts on this? Mike Christie (talk) 16:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(I was the editor who removed the description.) The specific part of the MOS that speaks to this is under the Individual Entries heading: "The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link." While the description being added for santorum was fairly harmless for that particular page, I was being a stickler because when you add unnecessary description to a dab page, you encourage other users to think that unnecessary description should be added to other dab pages, and then you end up with dab pages that are virtually unusable because the links are buried among lengthy, unnecessary text. (And I maintain that the description we were disagreeing over IS unnecessary; I would like to meet a person who, when looking for the article about that meaning of santorum, would need further information to figure out that it's not the article called Rick Santorum or Karen Garver Santorum.)
I see the page has now been turned into a surname page instead of a dab; I don't really understand why, but I don't object to that. Propaniac (talk) 18:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
There was only one non-surname-holder in the list. Surname-holders are not ambiguous with their surname. It made more sense to make it an anthroponymy list article with a disambiguating hatnote. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree; that's a good solution. Mike Christie (talk) 21:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
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