Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 21

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Why?

I have recently had a few brushes with editors who think it is fair to delete useful information from disambiguation pages (and other things from other places, but let's stick to the topic for the moment) because that information (allegedly) did not (quite) fit into a (proposed) Wikipedia standard (which apparently was created six months ago and has yet to reach a consensus).

Now, we all know that to enjoy working for Wikipedia one must have a Ph. D. in Zen Buddhism and have at least one foot already in Nirvana. But mantras and breathing exercises help only to a point. Besides wasting one's time, such incidents wear us common editors down, and take all the fun out of the game.

I understand that Wikipedia needs a manual of style, but the thing seems to be getting out of hand. When I started contributing, alittle over a year ago, a casual user could still contribute usefully even without reading the MoS, and those who felt like doing more could still read the whole MoS in a couple of hours and memorize most of it. But now the MoS has become a multipage MonSter that no one can hope to read in one go, much less memorize.

When I started contributing, disamb pages were just an informal concept. Authors were supposed to use common sense and good taste, and organize them as would be best for the reader. I did create and clean up quite a few of those myself (I won't say which ones, lest the "disamb censors" decide to "improve" them! 8-); and immodestly I think that I did a fairly good job. Needless (or needed?) to say, each page had a somewhat different layout, as suited the number and structure of the links.

However, in the meantime some people decided that dab pages must be sharply distinguished from normal pages, and that their format must be rigidly standardized. So now there is a long MoS just for disamb pages, with a Talk page that puts King Gesar to shame. And of course with lots of insider jargon terms - templates, categories, interwiki, etc. - that are often confusing even to me, a computer scientist and "veteran" contributor.

Do you expect prospective contributors to actually read that MoS before daring to create a miserly dab page? Do you expect users to put all the Wikipedia MoS pages in their watchlist, and check the changes every day before setting down to edit?

In general, editorial standards are instituted for some good reasons:

to make editing more effcient: namely, people who create or modify articles don't have to waste their time figuring out a nice layout, they can just use the standard one.
reader's comfort: arbitrary changes in layout (font, color, etc.) distract the reader and make reading a less pleasant experience, so they should be avoided when possible
marketing: a person browsing through the shelves of a bookstore is more likely to buy a book if it just looks nice (independently of what is written in it).

Methinks that none of these goals justifies having such an obsessive standardization of disamb pages. An overly detailed and restrictive MoS obviously goes against #1, because the editors will have to spend more time thinking about how to fit the information into the specified format, than they would spend devising a good ad-hoc format. #2 is not a significant issue -- those readers who get to a disamb page when expecting an article are already as badly surprised as they could be; and I very much doubt that they will notice that the pageś layout violates article 314.6(k) of the Disamb-MoS, 54th edition (rev.). As for #3, I doubt whether anyone will surf Wikipedia just for the pleasure of contemplating the remarkable visual uniformity of its disamb pages.

So here is my proposed new "Manual of Style for Disambiguation Pages":

A disamb page should help the reader find the article he really wants.
Do not put more words or links in a disamb page than necessary for #1.
Check these examples of disamb pages: .... and use whichever of these layouts is appropriate; or invent a better one.
When in doubt, use your common sense.
Don't forget #1.

Sorry for the flame... but, as I said above, mantras and deep breathinghelp only to a point. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 01:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I sympathize with the feeling of helplessness at the velocity of changes in the MoS as a whole. It was one of the reasons I proposed Wikipedia:Changing policies and guidelines. The nice thing about a wiki, though, is that you don't have to be perfect in your edits. Someone else can come behind you and make it better. So if you write something that doesn't comply with the MoS, someone else can fix it to do so. Editors don't get penalized for helpful edits just because they don't follow the letter of a style guide. The problems arise when the MoS is changing so rapidly that no one can keep up. I think we're getting near that point. --TreyHarris 02:28, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your proposals for the Manual of Style. All of your points are important, and those are the goals of disambiguation pages. Disambiguation pages are supopsed to, as you put it, "help the reader find the article he [or she] really wants". Even though it sounds like an easy thing to do, it can often run amok. Going with the goals of Wikipedia, it is the hope that everyone who can do so will contribute to disambiguation pages. Different people are able to add different necessary articles to the disambiguation pages, and allow them to help more people find the article they are looking for. However, without standardized guidelines, disambiguation pages can become just the opposite, and make it very hard for the correct article to be found. Take a look at Monad, Cosmopolitan, or any of the other pages in the Category "Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup". These pages have turned from disambiguation pages in pages of confusion. While the Manual of Style for Disambiguation Pages does set a lot of style guidelines for disambiguation pages (that can intially be hard to understand), the purpose and goal of the Manual of Style is to make disambiguation pages the epitome of usefulness. By setting a style for all pages, the Manual of Style allows people to use disambiguation pages to "help find the reader find the article he [or she] really wants". It is hoped that everyone will use the Manual of Style when editing disambiguation pages. If not, there are many editors familiar with the Manual of Style who will make those changes - it is not their goal to delete useful information from pages in a person attack, but rather to make disambiguation pages as useful as possible. -- Nataly a 02:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Good example with "Cosmopolitan", Natalya, any reader looking for the cocktail will be ready for 3 or 4 of them by the time they plow through all that garbage. This will only happen more often if editors are encouraged to "invent a better one" (layout) whenever they feel like it, which is why I do not agree with the 3rd proposal by Jorge. The other "proposals" seem to be rewordings of established guidelines, and I agree with them. Chris the speller 03:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, "Cosmopolitan" is is not a "bad disamb page"; it is a "bad article" (the first 80%) with a disamb at the end. This obviously fails rule #1 as well as the intuitive notion of "good article". The first step for the fix its to split off the bottom 20% to "Cosmopolitan (disambiguation)" (or the first 80% to "Cosmopolitan (culture)", and perhaps move some material to the appropriate articles. In either case, the format of the disamb page will be of little importance. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 03:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Cosmopolitan does seem to be a "bad disambiguation page" - it is a disambiguation page, and it is poorly put together. This has occured because when the page does not follow any style guidelines. Take a look at Giant - this arbitrarily disambiguation page follows the Manual of Style, which makes it very easy for someone to find the article they are looking for. -- Nataly a 03:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for spoiling the example, but I just split the cosmopolitan page as said above. To my eyes, cosmopolitan (disambiguation) is now good enough, and cosmopolitan (culture) is "merely" a weak article, like many others. (However we should rather move cosmopolitan (culture) → cosmopolitan since most links to the latter seem to be for the former. Would someone with admin privileges please do the move for me? Unfortunately there is a redirect blocking the way. Thanks...) Jorge Stolfi 05:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I was understanding the third proposal was saying that instead of listing guidelines for the Manual of Style, examples of properly made pages would be given. I do not, however, agree that new layouts should be made arbitrarily (or at all) without proper discussion. -- Nataly a 03:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, note that, with Mos or without, anyone can create an arbitrarily bad disamb page. With a restrictive MoS, if someone puts up a page in any format other than the MoS-defined standard, someone else must step in and fix its layout. With a liberal policy, intervention is necessary only if the new layout does not satisfy #1, or is definitely uglier than the examples. And even then, it is not necessary to make the page conform to any standard; the "fixer" needs only ensure those two requirements. So, methinks that a liberal format policy means less work and less heat for everybody. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 03:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

There are two problems with a "liberal" policy, as you put it: first, our readers have a reasonable expectation of editorial consistency. Disambiguation pages are one of the few places where the reader must confront the "plumbing" of Wikipedia. Like other such plumbing readers may encounter, such as dispute and cleanup boxes, standardization helps the reader to understand what is going on without careful reading. We don't want readers to spend a lot of time reading disambiguation pages; we want to assist them to quickly move on to the content they're actually looking for. Second, disputes have continually arisen about disambiguation page layout; editors who have put a lot of work into disambiguation content often feel ownership of that content, and are understandably dismayed when that content is wiped aside in favor of our standardized style, which is quite minimal. We don't want editors spending a lot of time on disambiguation page disputes, any more than we want them spending time on policy disputes; it doesn't help in the goal of writing an encyclopedia. A standard form assists in dispute resolution and helps editors to be more efficient. --TreyHarris 04:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

But again, a rigid standard does not prevent people from creating bad pages; while, on the other hand, it forces the "censors" to fix dab pages, even when there is no need to, and makes the fixing harder than it would have to be. In the end, that means more work, more disputes, and more soured feelings, not less. Not to mention that there will always be cases where the rigid standard makes it harder to satisfy goal #1. Jorge Stolfi 05:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

PS. Actually, the problem may be the idea that "disambiguation pages" and "article pages" are two completely disjoint categories of objects. Instead, try to think of both as "article pages", where "disambiguation" is just one of many possible article styles, like "biography", "species", "country", "language", etc. Wikipedia cannot and should not establish rigid standards for those types of articles (otherwise no one would write them), not even force the articles to fit into a prederemined set of types (because there will always be articles that escape categorization). For the same reason, it should not make rigid standards for disamb articles, nor try to make a sharp distinction between disamb articles other types. A good set of examples should be much more effective than a hundred pages of manual. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 05:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem is that most editors understand that a disambiguation page is not an article, it is a non-article page in the article namespace, but you want to abruptly change that, perhaps because of some unsatisfying experience. I'm not going to try to think of both as "article pages", because they are not. You haven't convinced me a bit, Jorge, and you won't convince me by calling me a "censor". I don't advocate snipping out the naughty parts, and I don't throw away information. I always advocate and practice moving information to articles if the info was erroneously placed solely in a dab page. Three sections back on this talk page is a discussion that explains why not to have info only in a dab page. A disambiguation page is not an article. I agree 100.0000% with TreyHarris that the readers expect consistency, and that consistency helps the editors. Chris the speller 05:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not referring to anyone in particular, and I did not mean "censor" in negative sense. Please change that to "volunteers who have to fix other people's pages to make them fit the standards".

Also I am not advocating to put excess information in disamb pages (see my proposed #2 rule above).

As for convincing others, this discussion (as well as another that is going on about the Wikipedia:root page proposal) did not convince me, either. It just left me with a sinking feeling that Wikipedia is losing its aim, becoming a bureaucracy obsessed more with its own mechanisms and procedures and with hammering things into nicely squared slots, than with producing real quality contents -- which, by the way, is what readers really expect. Making the mechanics more rigid and complicated will not improve the contents, it will only drive the good editors away (the bad editors of course will just ignore the MoS). It is not a question of people "owning" the articles, but the frustration of people who see their careful work being undone, not because the other guy has different tastes, but only to fit some totally arbitrary standard.

I have seen are several great articles in Wikipedia, like alphabets derived from the Latin, that would probably not be added today, because of the opressive standards. That also goes for some of the articles that I contributed and that I am most fond of.

Anyway, it is well past my bedtime. Sorry again for the rant. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 07:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that we should have no more rules and policies than are necessary, I think there is a strong argument for standardizing disambiguation pages. Before the introduction of the standard, many disambiguation pages had piped links, extra links, and extraneous text. All these things demonstrably worsened the user experience when searching for something because they got in the way of directing users to the articles they were actually looking for.

We identified a problem with unambiguous harms and devised a solution to the problem by coming up with a set of guidelines for formatting disambiguation pages. The problem with disambiguation pages is that the badness of non-standard disambiguation page is not immediately obvious. Most people do not have a natural sense for user experience. They simply don't consider that although piped links are "prettier", on a disambiguation page, they actually get in the way of users finding what they're looking for. The same goes for extra links and extra text, which just serve as distractions. The benefit of the guidelines is that they capture this kind of received wisdom about how to make a disambiguation page more useful. Without the guidelines, there were stacks of disambiguation pages with piped links and extraneous links, and consequently hordes of people stumbling onto those pages and not finding what they were looking for.

It should also be noted that the guidelines explicitly state that when they don't make sense, there should be exceptions made. However, given that the disambiguation pages guidelines have been so successful, and disambiguation pages that meet the guidelines almost always serve their purpose better than disambiguation pages that violated one or more of the guidelines, there really should be a good reason to deviate from the norms.

You seem to be under the impression that some people feel compelled to fixup disambiguation pages. I can assure you that is not the case—most people who fix up disambiguation pages do it sheerly out of the pleasure of bringing a little order to chaos in a way that substantively improves Wikipdia. For these people, having a set way of doing things makes it more fun to do what they do because they don't have to worry about designing a new format for each new disambiguation page, but can instead focus on fixing up as many disambiguation pages as possible by just following the rules. At least, that's how I feel about it. The reason I strongly supported the guidelines is because I was constantly finding myself on disambiguation pages that confused and misdirected me. For example, before I fixed up Sprite, it looked like this. I was looking for the article about the legendary creatures called "sprites" but clicked on "legendary creature" instead of "sprite" and got the wrong page. That simply wouldn't happen with the current version of the page. Now, whenever I stumble onto a disambiguation page that doesn't instantly direct me to the page I was looking for, I fix it up right then. It's almost always just a matter of unpiping some links, maybe changing some wording around and removing some extraneous links. I find the process satisfying and often find myself thereafter looking for a few more pages to fix up.

But everyone can't know all the rules. I certainly haven't learned the rules for naming articles about royals, and I don't think I ever will because I simply don't care. And If one day I edit an article concerning a royal and I get the details of it wrong, c'est la vie—someone who cares about such things will eventually attend to it. And if they call me stupid and say I need to read the appropriate sections of the MoS, then that's their problem, not mine. Wikipedia is a big community, and there are assholes out there. You can't please everyone all of the time. But for me, that's not a good enough reason to leave the project and decry it as being an unworkable mess. When the going gets rough, I just move onto something uncontroversial. There's nothing like making Wikipedia a little bit better to make you forget about how the jerks out there are ruining it.

In conclusion, do not feel compelled to memorize the manual of style—you can always refer to it if you're unsure about something, or not worry about it and let someone else fix it. If, however, you are the kind of person who is compulsive about making changes that adhere to the rules, then my friend what you have is an unhealthy compulsion, and the cure is not to simplify the manual of style, but to let go of the idea that everything you do must be perfect, and just to learn the rules you want to learn and contribute to the extent that makes you comfortable. And when something somebody does pisses you off, just move on to something else for a while. We have over a million articles here, and the only way to prevent utter chaos is to have some standards. While throwing out most of the manual of style on disambiguation pages might make Wikipedia a marginally more kindler, gentler place, it certainly isn't going to make it a better reference work. Nohat 08:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm completely befuddled. What does alphabets derived from the Latin have to do with this? It's not a disambiguation page. This style guide has nothing at all to say about that page; it certainly wouldn't keep it out of the encyclopedia. Disambiguation pages are for cases where the same title might be used for several different articles, to navigate the reader to the appropriate actual article. Usually, the several entries on a disambiguation page are for completely disparate topics. In cases where a disambiguation page references several articles that do interrelate, it would absolutely be appropriate to add some minimal language to help the reader to understand which article they really want and avoid having to return to the disambiguation page to try a different path. But any such info should also be found in the articles themselves, too. --TreyHarris 08:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I should have gone to bed, but thought I would just do a last check of my watchlist. It turns out that some "well meaning volunteer" has just throughly mangled anvil (disambiguation), another page I had put much work in last year, in order to make it conform to the Wikipedia Manual of Stupidity.

My version had the entries neatly sorted in a logical order, all fitting in a single screenful. The new version starts saying that "El Yunque" is the origin of the word "anvil", then lists the anvil bone of the ear and the anvil cloud as "symbolic meanings" (after a bunch of insignificant entertainment entries), mixes classical concertos with wrestlers, and so on. And uses three screenfuls and plenty of superfluous headings, to give exactly the same information.

Now please note that no one would have thought of doing that damage, if it were not for that #$@!@ manual of style.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".

I was about to add some really nasty words, but I suspect that the worse is still to come, so I'd better save them for the next time.

No "sorry" this time. Goodbye. Jorge Stolfi 08:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You'll get no quibble from me that the edits made to that page by BludBash (talk · contribs) were bad ones. But they don't conform to this Manual of Style, so why are you blaming it for the bad edits? You say "no one would have thought of doing that damage, if it were not for that #$@!@ manual of style", but do you have any reason to believe that's true, or are you just asserting it? This editor seems to be a very new contributor, and I see no reason to believe that he was trying to make the page conform. The changes that you are annoyed at have no more to do with this style guide than alphabets derived from the Latin does. --TreyHarris 09:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

TreyHarris is very correct in saying that the initial edits made to the page had nothing to do with the Manual of Style. The later and most recent set of edits do follow the Manual of Style, and it is easy to see that the page as it stands now is a very clear disambiguation page, and makes it easy for any reader to find exactly the article he or she is looking for.

Additionally, please remember to be civil. Personal attacks and cursing do not facilitate a helpful discussion. Also, if you have a problem about a specific change or page, consider leaving a message on the article's talk page or the user's page so that you can both discuss the matter - each of you had a reason to make the changes that you did, but making a blanket statement waying that the entire Manual of Style should be thrown out the window is not very productive. -- Nataly a 12:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The Anvil page when Jorge edited it actually fit the MoS better in some ways than the "mangled" page. But Jorge's version was no paragon of dab pages. How does linking to "slang" and "professional wrestling" help a reader find the right anvil? The header about brand names trails off into an Alaskan city and an operatic chorus. Arguing with someone who claims that the MoS destroyed this and other pages is like arguing with someone who claims the sun rises in the west. It does very little good to win such an argument, and no good at all to lose it. I am bowing out. Chris the speller 16:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, after a night's sleep, I am now sorry that I used those words.

Why did BludBash (talk · contribs) made those edits? I presume he was tring to imitate Roman, which I belive was cited here as an example of the correct disamb format. But in another incident earlier this week, where 2/3 of kaffir (disambiguation) got deleted, the stated motive was indeed "to fit the standard". Also taxoboxes (not mine) have been removed from cabbage and Rhinogradentia (not my articles) with a similar excuse; only that in those cases it appears that the "taxobox standards" that were violated haven't even been written down yet.
What has this discussion to do with Latin alphabets page? That page is essentially a disamb for the phrase "Latin alphabet", and even started out looking pretty much like one. Since there were no disamb standards at the time, it eventually evolved to the present article, which I happen to find quite cool. But now that we have a standard, shouldn't it be made to conform --- by turning it into a list of "XXX alphabet" pages and removing all unnecessary text and formatting? (After all, that extra information is already in the linked pages). Could a similar page evolve today? Would someone dare start such a page, knowing that it may be "standardized" some day?
Recent edits to anvil (disambiguation): I have never claimed that my work was perfect, and I have myself removed many excess wikilinks. I am glad that the original format has been restored. While the new version looks nicer, IMHO without the bolding and italic it is still a bit less helpful for the reader than the original -- and it is inconsistent with the markup conventions of ordinary articles.
Negativism: Unfortunately my complaint is that the WP standards are already to complex and too rigid, so my suggestions are necessarily "destructive": fewer and simpler standards; fewer and simpler navigation mechinery; good examples instead of detailed rules; more tolerance of stylistic inconsistencies; and emphasis on quality of individual articles (contents and style), rather than consistency of format across articles.

In particular, we should avoid any mechanism or convention that leads to articles being partitioned into groups (trees, series, clusters, categories, etc.), because such groupings inevitably lead to the perception of differences in style or format within the group as "defects", and therefore to pressure to fit all of them into a standard format — as happened to disamb articles when they became a distinct and exclusive category of articles. The maintenance of consistency within groups wastes energy and deters editors from improving single articles, meaning lower quality articles. IMHO the negative effects of article grouping -- even that implemented by simple navboxes, e.g. in History of Brazil -- negate the slight advantage that the grouping gives to the reader.

All the best, Jorge Stolfi 23:55, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

PS. If you care, there is an even longer version of these comments in here.

Help please

I have only just become aware of all this debate on style. To save me having to wade through all the explanations, can someone please point me to the explanation as to why there should be no puncutation at the end of each line in a dab structure. It offends my sense of style that there is no full stop at the end of an otherwise self-contained sentence. Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer this query. David91 02:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

In the section "Individual entries", "Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments." Even if a complete sentence is used, it is still an item in a list, which needs no punctuation at the end. Consider that the third item in this list needs none:

Reasons not to smoke:

the expense
the yellow fingers and teeth
it will kill you
holes burned in clothes

Chris the speller 04:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, fashions change. When I was young and still publishing, I and all the editors I have ever worked with would have used semi-colons in a list like the one you offer. In a list that is made up of complete sentences rather than fragments, we would have used full stops. But I suppose that punctuation is no longer normative in Western publishing following the adopting of SMS standards? I do not suppose I could argue for punctuation on the dab pages I have created? No. Ah, well. I suppose I will just have to close my eyes and look elsewhere for peace of mind. David91 10:57, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Guidance is at WP:MoS#Bulleted_items. Sentence fragments (which is what disambiguation pages are ideally composed of) don't use the full stop.--Commander Keane 11:37, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the reference. This is interesting because the rules for using lists of bulleted items include:

"When using complete sentences, always use punctuation and a period at the end."

So if I have created a DAB with complete sentences, I can put periods at the end of each sentence? Or am I missing something obvious here? David91 17:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The idea is that the descriptions on disambiguation pages should ideally be sentence fragments. This is not always able to be the case. However, leaving the periods off all of the descriptions (even if there are a select few complete sentences) allows for consitancy. -- Nataly a 19:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

This is all most helpful and I thank you all. Given that the rule in bulleted items bars mixing complete sentences and fragments, should your idealised system not be flexible enough to allow periods when all the definitions are complete sentences. I would be interested to see the verifiable souces you are using to explain rather than merely assert this punctuation standard of no punctuation. David91 02:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I misunderstand you, but it sounds like you're making an appeal to Wikipedia:Verifiability. Wikipedia:Verifiability is a policy about the content of articles; it does not—cannot—apply to policies and guidelines. The points of guidance in policies and guidelines are not declarative statements of fact; they are speech acts, specifically performative utterances. By stating a point of policy, having proper consensus, they make policy. Asking for verifiability of a speech act is meaningless; it would be like asking a judge, "Says who?" after she sentences you to six months of probation. Consensus was reached here to omit terminating punctuation of bulleted entries, and therefore, it is so. If you want to argue that we should change that consensus, you should do so, not ask for sourcing. --TreyHarris 08:30, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I was merely interested in whether you were using a verifiable source as a model or whether you were making a policy unique to Wiki. As to a judge sentencing: actually, the convicted person has a specific right to ask for reasons as a precondition of the validity of the sentence. A judge is required to demonstrate the rationality of any decision by always citing existing precedents since judges are not generally allowed to make policy. But, the law aside, I would be appreciate an answer to my question. May I take one of the disambiguation pages that I formatted before I was aware of this policy? The page contains both fragments and complete sentences. I now see that this is against the rule of bullet points. May I reformat so that all are complete sentences and use periods? A simple yes or no will do (with reasons, of course). David91 12:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

To quote the Manual of Style for Disambiguation Pages: "Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments. When the entry forms a complete sentence, do not include commas or periods at the end of the line." So unless you wish to go against the Manual of Style, no. -- Nataly a 12:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for all your attempts at help. It was an interesting experience to meet you all. Since I prefer merely to get on with writing new material, I will leave you to assert your own policy and will not interfere further. In the real world that I used to inhabit, arbitrariness and irrationality were most often evident in those who could not explain or justify their decisions (obviously, "should nearly always" is merely invitational as opposed to a more mandatory "shall" or "must", mere policies are subordinate to rules, etc.), but since the self-selecting few who contributed to formulating this policy achieved a consensus, that must make this policy all right no matter what the rest of the world might actually think is an appropriate use of punctuation. David91 14:21, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

You asked for help; you asked to be pointed to the explanation. I pointed you to the explanation. Then you insulted me and others who responded. We are not a clique trying to keep out the educated, and we don't exclude people just for having pedantic tendencies; we simply explained what works on disambiguation pages. MoS#Bulleted_items applies to articles, but MoS:DP applies to disambiguation pages, which are not articles. I hope this unpleasant experience doesn't make editors leery of other people who come asking for help. I truly hope you keep your word to not interfere further, but of course you will be welcome here if you come back to give or receive real help, not just to sucker-punch the good people who work on Wikipedia. Chris the speller 18:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I regret that you feel that I have trolled. That was not my intention. I simply asked for a rational explanation and received none (by my standards). Over a period of forty years, I have published extensively and so have been subjected to various in-house editing styles. More recently, I was the managing director of a small publishing company. It has always been my experience that those who edited were able to explain stylistic decisions. The companies that published my work had often published their own manual of style. In my own company, we used to refer to those manuals as precedents so that our authors would understand why we had chosen to alter or amend their work. I was interested to know how this dab policy had come to be developed. I was hoping to be referred to an archived discussion of punctuation rules or to an external source as a precedent. That would have matched my long experience of those who create these in-house manuals. Instead, I was referred to a set of rules on bullet points which better corresponds to my understanding of normative standards. When I asked what the relationship was between the rules and this policy, there was no reply save that this was the way you had decided to do it for dab pages. Perhaps my tone was frustrated and, to that extent, I apologise if it gave offence. By coincidence, I have just created a dab page neglect adopting your policy and, even though I think it a poor policy, I will not challenge it further. However, being old and cantankerous, I reserve the right to comment. Perhaps we can all learn something from this exchange. David91 03:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)