Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 19

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Colonia

Speaking of primary topics: could someone more experienced than I with the standards on disambiguation have a look at this change to Colonia? Seems to me that it heads the wrong way, in that the literal origin of the term gets lost in the shuffle. - Jmabel | Talk 04:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I would also have move the dictionary-like definition down (treating it like a synonym according to WP:MOSDAB, with a wiktionarypar link at the top to handle it (if wiktionary has an entry for it). And the examples of the definition, assuming the linked articles don't themselves mention "colonia", should be deleted -- possibly even the dictionary definition itself, since the linked term there doesn't mention colonia either. The disambiguation pages needn't have information on the etymology of terms, IMO, because WP's not a dictionary. I don't understand why colonias is a separate article, though, and the colonia page has other problems (pipe links, multiple links). -- JHunterJ 11:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
... and possibly separate the informational text to its own article. But the disambiguation page, the hypothetical page on the historical Roman bit, and the Colonias article need to be arranged appropriately; one of those should be the base name, and the others should be Colonia (disambiguation), Colonia (Roman), and Colonia (Mexico) (?), as needed. -- JHunterJ 13:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a dictionary definition, because it's got historical context, and gives examples. That's what an encyclopedia article is. I've reverted. john k 14:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A disambiguation page is not an encyclopedia article. I've separated. -- JHunterJ 14:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You know, I typed up a whole thing with some suggestions, but I just was that JHunter already took care of what I was going to suggest. :) The best way to take care of it, since it has historical information, is to create an article about it, which was done (Colonia (Roman)). Awesome! I might suggested a different parenthetical identifier, though. Perhaps Colonia (Roman outpost)? -- Natalya 16:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no particular love for the shorter parenthetical, but I will observe that the interwiki links appear to be close: Colonia (Rom) in German, Colonia romana in Italian, Colonia (Romeinse term) in Dutch, Kolonia (starożytny Rzym) in Polish -- likely that last one is closer to Roman outpost. But I see that I've used an adjective descriptor, which is guided against. Roman colonia or Colonia (antiquity) would be other options. Colonia (Roman outpost) works too, if perhaps not simple enough. -- JHunterJ 17:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Lift

Since Lift is cited as a model disambiguation page, it would be helpful for editors here to put it in their watchlist and keep it squeaky clean. There are currently two entries with no blue links, which seem like obvious problems. Maybe there are other problems. As an editor who is new to fixing disambiguation pages, it would be helpful to know I was looking at an example that is a good model. JonHarder 18:03, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I've provided a bluelink for Lift (band). "Lifted" needs more work, since it seems to be both a band album and the name of a film. I don't have any more time now, but I'll be back tomorrow CarolGray 20:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I've fixed Lifted and LIFTED, but decided on reflection they don't belong on the Lift dab page - to my mind they aren't easily confused with Lift. CarolGray 09:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Following JonHarder's comments, I thought I'd check the other examples used on the project page, and I discovered that
  • Cold Fusion no longer uses {{For}}, it has been changed to {{otheruses4}}
  • Zürich no longer uses {{otheruses2}}, it now uses {{otherusesof}}
  • Defense industry is not a disambiguation page.
I can put the first two back the way they were, but should I? Changing the articles back to match the project page feels a bit like the tail wagging the dog. Perhaps we should find other examples? And perhaps label them somehow so editors know not to change them? Or should we avoid "real" examples altogether? CarolGray 14:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for quick following up on this. Examples of current practice are helpful to me when I'm editing in a new area. Sometimes seeing how something should look is more powerful than reading a description. JonHarder 14:43, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessary disambiguation?

Wikipedia:Disambiguation used to say,

""Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they realistically be expecting to view as a result? When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page."

This seemed eminently sensible to me, and avoided foolish consistency, the hobgoblin of little minds. When was this removed from the article, and why? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems to have disappeared with this edit made by Stevertigo on 19:53, September 16, 2006 (UTC). I don't see that there was any discussion on the talk page. Full disclosure, I later removed a large part of Stevertigo's revision because it seemed a major change to address a personal hobbyhorse. But I hadn't noticed the earlier removal of the statement you mention. older ≠ wiser 21:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Would anyone object to the restoration of this passage? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I've gone ahead and been bold and restored it. If anyone objects, they can revert and discuss. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
(As an aside, before Stevertigo removed that passage, WP:D had contained this text or a passage like it since this edit by Eloquence (talk · contribs) on December 31, 2003.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
That has always been a good standby to describe what should and shouldn't appear on disambiguation pages; thanks for noticing, and replacing it. -- Natalya 02:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Question about top links

Is it appropriate to use a top link to the disambiguation page in pages where the title is already disambiguated, such as Jim Dowd (hockey player) or Martin Brennan (engineer)? I could understand if there were another hockey player or engineer by those names, but in cases like these, it would seem like there would be no confusion based on the title of the page. Khatru2 17:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's not needed, but it might be wanted. If another editor has added it to a disambiguated page, I would just bring it up on the article's talk page. There's no guideline against it, as far as I know. -- JHunterJ 18:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I personally find the practice annoying, but there is some marginal value in having a ready link to other people with the same name. Powers T 14:12, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
There are only two Jim Dowds at Jim Dowd. The two articles should link directly to each other, and the disambiguation page should be orphaned. Also, remember that a reader could find your article from a web search, and may never have read Martin Brennan (the disambiguation page), and so may find a link to other Martin Brennan's useful. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:55, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
My questions were about the idea of these links in general and not about these specific examples. I wanted to know if there was a precedent for this. However, does this mean that we should add a top link to most or all pages with already disambiguated titles? Khatru2 18:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
No. There is no guideline for or against such a toplink (again, as far as I know), so this means that we do not need to add it where it isn't, nor do we need to remove it from where it is, for the links in general. The links in specific cases should be discussed on those specific cases' talk pages (in the absence of a general guideline), and I think the absence of a guideline here should work just fine. -- JHunterJ 18:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Though it is not discussed in the section about top links, it is general practice to not include toplinks if there is already a parenthetical clarifier. The point about finding an article from a web search is a good one, but if you do a good search for "Jim Dowd" (just as an example), the first Wikipedia page you come up with is the disambiguation page ([1]). Though there are certainly times when the top link can be useful, even on a parenthetically defined page, it shouldn't really be common practice except when necessary. -- Natalya 19:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
This guideline itself states: "When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate nor add a link to a disambiguation page."
There is also a long-standing consensus against it, see Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 5#Disambig warning on already disambiguated pages and Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 9#Disambiguating disambiguated articles.
I find disambigation notices at the top of already disambiguated pages to be annoying. At times I have wondered if these other pages which are mentioned are somehow related to the page I'm looking at. After a little wondering and looking at the other pages I've decided that they're not. Dagnabit 17:26, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Using disambiguation for "consistency" over groups of articles when disambiguation is no disambiguation is needed

Just informing everyone here about a discussion that's cropped up over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#RfC Episode Article Naming conventions regarding the use of disambiguation.

The discussion's trying to made a centralized decision about whether the disambiguation of articles for TV episodes in the format of "nameofepisode (nameofseries)" is appropriate when the disambiguation is not actually needed.

The discussion's sort of grinding to a halt, with people not agreeing on whether or not to have the disambiguation, and whether or not certain TV series should be exempt from the rule if their governing wikiproject decides so.

Just dropping a note here since this is really a "use of disambiguation" issue. If anyone here wants to come over and join in, it'd be really nice. We really need some input from some more people. --`/aksha 01:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

{{otheruses}}: "Other articles with similar names"

This phrasing is inaccurate, because the disambiguation is not necessarily between articles with similar names, but between subjects that may be referred to by similar names. If there's a Franklin Pierce in Band XYZ, and a main character called Franklin Pierce on some TV show, but all information about them is included in the band or show article, then the disambiguation page would link to the article on the president, the article on the band, and the article on the TV show. As a perfect example, look at Bolt -- Most of the articles on that page are not called "bolt," but they are all things that may be referred to as such, and so need to be disambiguated. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:31, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

So? If you're looking for the Franklin Pierce from the TV show, and you find the Franklin Pierce article, you'll follow the otheruses template that says there are other articles with similar names. When you get to the disambig page it points you to the correct article. What's wrong with that? — Omegatron 05:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Because that's not what disambiguation pages are. You're saying that it's ok to lie to our readers as long as they get to the correct place in the end. That also ignores the danger of creating such a misconception in the minds of editors: We run the risk of encouraging people to include similarly named articles that aren't likely to actually be confused in the disambig page, like ones that contain the disambiguated word as part of the title but are never referred to as such. For example, page header on page (which is there now but probably shouldn't be). Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
More significantly we risk encouraging people to remove highly relevant items simply because they are (a) not autonomous articles, or (b) not similarly titled. It's rather destructive if you ask me. — CharlotteWebb 02:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't see a problem. — Omegatron 09:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I do. Articles with "similar" names might be better excluded from the disambiguation page, if a reader is unlikely to search for them with the near-miss. Articles with "dissimilar" names might be better included, if a reader is likely to search for them with the other phrase. But I see it has been rephrased to "For other uses" again... -- JHunterJ 11:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's remember for a moment that disambiguation pages are not for free association. Just because an article contains the term in question or is related to the term in question does not make it necessarily appropriate to include on the disambiguation page. With disambiguation pages, we want to take articles that could be easily confused, and make it easy to find the correct article. Articles with the same time and parenthetical clarifiers are easily confused. Articles that happened to contain the same term but would likely be searched for different, not as much. (This is not to say that there are not many occasions where articles as such are valid to include) When we start overloading disambiguation pages with any article that is related to the term, we decrease their productiveness. I know this isn't exactly what the discussion is about, but it seems to be leading back to the idea. -- Natalya 03:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in complete agreement with you, Natalya. I'm also in agreement that the otheruses template should be phrased accurately. Other uses aren't restricted to articles with similar titles, but rather to articles with subjects whose hypothetical articles would have similar titles. And that's a little too wordy to put in the template. :-) -- JHunterJ 03:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. "For other uses, see Foo (disambiguation)" always seemed perfectly sufficient to me. -- Natalya 03:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
It's unclear. Other uses of what? —Centrx→talk • 03:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
And this isn't just academic. Aside from the children and non-native speakers, an ambiguity is introduced for anything that has uses. "For other uses of bleach" quite reasonably means that some uses of bleach are dealt with in this article, and other uses are dealt with in other articles. Most readers are not familiar with peculiar Wikipedia conventions. Even a simple "For other meanings" would be better. —Centrx→talk • 03:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. "For other meanings" is an improvement, but the articles aren't necessarily other meanings of the word. What about "For other uses of the word" or "For other uses of foo"? -- Natalya 06:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

How about For other senses, see Article (disambiguation).? It's exactly the same as other uses, except in the implied reference to alternate meanings of words or phrases. So in an article about a hammer, it won't look like it's referring to pulling nails or killing zombies with the same hammer. I got this from my dictionary's definition of disambiguate, which refers to "the various senses of (words in context)."

Another possibility is to label the notice: Disambiguation: for other uses, see Article (disambiguation). —Michael Z. 2006-11-14 18:45 Z

Why would that help? You'd at least need to link the word "Disambiguation". It's still not obvious what that means to newcomers.
You really need more than three words. "For other uses", "for other meanings", "for other senses", and so on are all poor choices, due to the lack of context at the beginning of the page. They're unclear and mean nothing to a first-time visitor, who will see an article about something different and assume we don't have an article on what they were looking for. There's no need to be curt. We're not going to run out of space if we use six words instead of three. It needs to be clear and unambiguous what the template is for; finding other articles that have similar/related names when you end up on the wrong one by accident (probably from a Google search or Wikipedia search for a word in the article's title).
Here's how our biggest mirror says it:

Saturn (6th planet from the sun)

Or did you mean: Saturn (in Roman religion and mythology), Saturn (rocket), Saturn (store), Saturn (microprocessor), Saturn (detachment), Saturn (Arcade Game), Saturn , Saturn (first name) More...

That's short and obvious in purpose, though it would probably fail here because people would say it is not encyclopedic tone. (Though encyclopedic tone really only applies to article content, not navigation text, but they'll ignore that.) Anyway, that's the kind of thing we should be aiming for. — Omegatron 00:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
What do you think of "for other senses" instead of "uses"?
Adding the disambiguation label would help because it is an English word, and its meaning is at least somewhat transparent: the removal of ambiguity. I would choose not to link it, because then it distracts from the disambiguation link.
I don't mind the tone of the text in the big grey box. Presenting a few choices plus a "more..." link works well. But I'm not crazy about it for other reasons. I'd like to see an actual example on top of an article before judging, but I see the following potential problems:
  • It pushes the start of the article down and visually distracts from it.
  • The bold disambiguation text Saturn (6th planet from the sun) is more prominent on the page than the article's title term in the lead sentence Saturn, additionally distracting from the start of the actual article.
Perhaps a smaller version would work better. But this is a significant departure from the current page design, and would require a lot of discussion and work. I'm proposing an incremental improvement of the current disambiguation line, which perhaps could be implemented with a minimum of song and dance, while still leaving the door open for less modest proposals. —Michael Z. 2006-11-15 02:14 Z
No, no. I'm just giving it as an example of wording. See http://www.answers.com/saturn&r=67 for the way they present it. — Omegatron 02:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay. As I wrote, I like the wording. My tendency would be to simplify the text and formatting as much as possible, and in this case keep it on a single line. Something like:

Or did you mean: Saturn (mythology), Saturn (astrology), Saturn (store), Lockheed Saturn, Saturn (rocket family), NPO Saturn, more...

Unlike a disambiguation page, each link text would have to stand on its own, without a description. We'd have to look at a lot of disambiguation pages to see if they would always work.
Hm. Now that I think of it, "or did you mean..." implies a response to an action, like in a search result. It isn't too informal, but it is a departure from Wikipedia's usual implied dead-tree encyclopedia metaphor. Perhaps the prompt-phrase should be something more static, like "similar titles", "see also", "other senses", or "disambiguation.
But, do you think than "for other senses" is an improvement on the current pattern? —Michael Z. 2006-11-15 06:16 Z
One possible drawback is that such a short listing entails some sort of prioritization -- if there is a dab page with 20 or 30 entries, how many and which ones get listed and why those and not others? With current practices, top disambiguation usually points only to the disambiguation page when there is more than one or two alternatives, and a specific alternative out of many is generally only listed if it is clearly a very common alternate use of the term. I'd be cautious about opening up yet another reason for people to argue about the relative importance of specific articles. older ≠ wiser 14:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
"For other senses" is a tiny improvement over "for other uses", but both are bad. — Omegatron 03:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Name (country) vs Name (countrian role)

No matter how much I look on WP:DAB, WP:NC, WP:MOSDAB .. I can never find what I am looking for.

Basically - I find that John Smith (musician) or Jane Bloggs (politician) is preferable to John Smith (Canada) or Jane Bloggs (Australia). Of course, the country is used if there are multiple politicians, etc. I'm sure that this is the preferred format, but wanted to make sure that hadn't changed recently without my noticing. I was about to move David Anderson (Isle of Man) to David Anderson (Manx politician) [or (Isle of Man politician)] and wanted to verify this, but it is quite difficult for myself, an experienced Wikipedian, to find the information - I hate to think what a newbie would have to go through! -- Chuq 08:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't feel bad - I'm not positive about this either, and I've been around disambiguation pages a lot. It seems that either way could be found as useful; on one hand, keeping the parenthetical clarifier as just the country keeps the name of the article shorter, but having the country and whay they are is a lot more explanitory. I'm more preferential to the latter, but I'm not aware if there has been any agreement on the subject. -- Natalya 17:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
It's found in WP:NAMEPEOPLE (AKA WP:NCP) under "Qualifier between brackets or parentheses". Chris the speller 01:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Images ?

Can someone offer guidance - is it permissible to have a picture on a Disambiguation page? I've just added one to Broadcasting House (disambiguation). If not, I'll delete it - Thanks Zir 13:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC) Just found a reference in Manual of Style "Including images is discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles" Zir 13:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

That guideline pretty much sums it up (you can see some discussion about it here. Cases where images assist disambiguation are Mississippi Delta (disambiguation) and Congo (disambiguation). Otherwise, even if they're cool images, we realy shouldn't have them. -- Natalya 15:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
It's deleted - and thanks for being so diplomatic! Zir 17:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Other uses → other senses

Does anyone object to changing the text of template:otheruses to the following?

For other senses, see Disambiguation/Archive 19 (disambiguation).

The only change is the word "senses", which is a synonym of "uses" but more clearly applies to words, rather than to whatever the subject of the article is. So in an article about a hammer, it won't look like it's referring to pulling nails or killing zombies with the same hammer. (Turns out user:Michael Hardy proposed this above earlier, and I only just found it.) —Michael Z. 2006-11-15 17:01 Z

I wanted "meanings," but apparently that's too dictionary-like. Works for me though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't like the proposed change. Have there been complaints? It is likely to annoy many existing users of Wikipedia. Maybe it is part of my reaction to the overuse of "sense" on the Sunday-morning political interview shows "What is your sense of ..." when they mean "How do you feel about ..."; it seems pretentious as hell. I already have five senses, don't need any more. ;-) Chris the speller 16:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Like Chris the speller, I like "uses" better than "senses". I quite like "meanings", too. CarolGray 10:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
They are all bad. "Senses" is better than "uses", but we can think of a better, more verbose, less misleading phrase. — Omegatron 03:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguaton Request

Hi, I don't know how to do a disambiguation page, but I recently searched on "You Can't Go Home Again" expecting to find information about the famous Thomas Wolfe novel having that title. Instead, I found no mention of the novel, but only something about a Battlestar Gallactica TV series. Shocking! Can anyone help? (At the least add a note saying such a novel exists.) Thank you. JCNSmith 22:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

No disambiguation page is needed when there are only two articles, so I have made You Can't Go Home Again a stub about the novel, with a hatnote pointing to the TV episode. Now maybe someone would like to flesh out the article? Chris the speller 05:40, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

In a similar situation to the above, I searched for "Don't give up the ship" and instead of information on Captain James Lawrence (who said it), the USS Chesapeake (the ship in question), or even the War of 1812 (context of the quote), I was directed solely to a page about a paper-and-pencil fantasy game named Don't Give Up the Ship. If I hadn't known Lawrence's name Wikipedia wouldn't have helped me find it. Worse, there are links in the opening paragraph to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and to the Battle of Lake Erie, although the quote originated from challenging the blockade of Boston Harbor. Dick Kimball 06:33 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Try it again. I have changed the redirect to be a dab page. This is something that you can do yourself; give us a holler if you need help or encouragement. Chris the speller 23:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Books

There is a common phrase in English, let's call it 'x'. There are two books, neither of which was written in English originally, but both of whose traditional titles in translation are 'x'. At the moment, one book has the article title 'x', while the other one has the title 'x (author)'. Is it acceptable, for the sake of consistency, to move both books to titles of the form 'x (author)', and make the original 'x' a disambiguation page? Currently, the 'main' title is the more popular of the two books, but does popularity/obscurity override consistency in naming conventions and disambiguation? Both books are, however, classics, so this isn't some promotion thing: they are centuries old. The Crying Orc 06:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If there are only two pages, a disambiguation page is generally unnecessary because you can just put a hatnote at one linking to the other. At most, people will have one extra click to get to where they were going. If they're both at longer titles, then people will always need an extra click to go where they want to be, instead of <%50 of the time. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, "consistency" is a red herring here. General Wikipedia practice says that if one of the two books is sufficiently more popular or better known than the other, it has the right to the undisambiguated title. If the two are of roughly equal significance, then there might be an argument for moving the article currently at "title" to a disambiguated page. It doesn't really matter if the two pages look "consistent" — what matters is that we increase the probability that a random user who enters the title into the search box will reach the page he or she is looking for. I hope that helps! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguating with the Wikipedia namespace

The disambiguation page at neutral point of view currently disambiguates between the article objectivity (philosophy) and WP:NPOV. I was surprised that there doesn't seem to be any guidance on this page telling people not to disambiguate across namespaces. Did I miss it? Am I wrong? As it stands, shouldn't this be a redirect to the article? For example, the beans page redirects to bean... it's not a disambiguation page for bean and WP:BEANS. Dekimasu 03:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it disambiguates with Objectivity (disambiguation), but I agree. There is no need to have a disambiguation page when there are fewer than two main namespace articles to be linked to. It would be just as effective to redirect neutral point of view to Objectivity (disambiguation) with a top link to the Wikipedia page using the {{selfref}} template (which I notice the page already has). The policy should reflect this if it does not already. Khatru2 04:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I missed that the link was to a disambig that already had the selfref. I went ahead and redirected it, but I still think that the policy should be clarified (if I haven't missed something). Dekimasu 05:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)