Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 5

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Low-key disambiguation

Consider these two ways of pointing to "other meanings" articles that are clearly minor to the main article:

Style A

Manga
Manga (Kanji: 漫画, SAMPA: maNga) is the :Japanese word for comics; outside of Japan, it usually refers specifically to Japanese comics. Mangaka (漫画家) is the corresponding Japanese word for a manga artist. Because most Japanese nouns have no plural form, manga can be used to refer to multiple comics, although mangas is sometimes used in English.
For other senses of the word, not covered here, see La Manga (a place in the Mar Menor, Spain), and Manga Entertainment (an American distributor of anime, but not manga).
Origins
Literally translated, manga means...

Style B

Manga
This article is about the Japanese medium. "Manga" can also refer to La Manga (a place in the Mar Menor, Murcia, Spain) and Manga Entertainment (an American distributor of anime, but not manga).
Manga (Kanji: 漫画, SAMPA: maNga) is the Japanese word for comics; outside of Japan, it usually refers specifically to Japanese comics. Mangaka (漫画家) is the corresponding Japanese word for a manga artist. Because most Japanese nouns have no plural form, manga can be used to refer to multiple comics, although mangas is sometimes used in English.
Origins
Literally translated, manga means...

In style A the alternate links are listed at the end of the introductory block, as part of the text. In style B they are listed between the title and the intro paragraph, as a side annotation.

Methinks that style A is better than style B. In both styles the alternate links break the flow of the article and are "noise" for readers who are intersted in the main sense. However, in style A the break occurs where there is already a break in any case (the table-of-contents); whereas in style B the break occurs between the title and the crucial first paragraph. Said another way, in style A the reader gets immediately the defining sentence, whereas in style B he/she is forced to read the alternate links first.

So, while style B seems to be the prevalent standard, I think that style A should be used whenever possible. What do you think?

(There is also a "style C" which places the alternate links at the end of the article. However that is definitely bad because the reader will not see those links unless he/she scrolls to the end of the article.)

All the best,
Jorge Stolfi 05:26, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I strongly prefer Style B, for much the same reason I agree that the bottom of the page is the last place they should be--if it's not the first sentence, I'm not going to read it if I'm looking for an alternate use. Also, I think the way it's offset by both the indentation and the italics makes it clear, even to most readers who haven't seen a Wikipedia disamb notice before, that if the first sentence tells them it is the subject they are looking for, they can skip down to the non-italic/non-indented text. Niteowlneils 01:03, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Agree with Niteowlneils. Deco 03:21, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Splitting A Page

What should be done in the case where a single page describes multiple homonyms with very different meanings? I think disambiguation would be most appropriate, but moving either of the meanings to a new page would lose the authorship. Is there any ability to duplicate an entire page including history? Zuytdorp Survivor 23:56, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There isn't (yet) a way to duplicate the page history. All you can do is either credit the authors in your edit summary (if there are just a few), or just copy and paste the page history of the original version onto the talk page of the new page. See Sep11:Talk:Donald Adams for an example. Angela. 07:27, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)
Ahh, okay. I'd considered that but wasn't sure it was deemed acceptable. Duplication would be very nice, although I suppose not in high demand. Only two editors of the smaller topic so I'll take your advice. Thanks :) Zuytdorp Survivor 11:56, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Secondary meanings without articles

The disambiguation policy addresses what to do in the case where a primary meaning exists, but there are other articles available that discuss secondary meanings: these are linked to at the top with a very brief description. However, there is another similar case where there is a secondary meaning that neither has nor deserves an article of its own, and yet cannot be described briefly enough to place at the top of a page without dominating the introduction. On the other hand, when such mini-articles are placed at the end of a page, it's quite unlikely that someone seeking them would ever come across them. There's no visual indication they should even think of scrolling to the bottom; in reality, the only people to see these would be people who read the article on the primary topic.

I decided the best thing to do in this case is to delimit the mini-article with the usual horizontal bars, but to place it immediately after the introduction and preceding the first major section. In this way it is visible but does not dominate. As a case in point I point out my recent edits to Fantasia. However, there is the conceivable problem with this approach that such meanings do not appear as parenthetical as they are intended to be, and following text may appear misleadingly to refer to it; perhaps italics would help.

What are your opinions?

Deco 06:01, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

  • If the secondary topic can be explained in one or two lines, it can be left at the end of the introduction. The horizontal bar is perfectly dispensable, IMHO:
Foobar was the Emperor of [[Kansas] from 1435 to 1922. He built the Rocky Mountains and the fjords of Norway, and invented chewing gum, chicken soup, and solar eclipses. Many people consider him to be the greatest composer of telephone dial tones of all time.
 
Several other people have been named Foobar, including a former parking lot attendant of Maxim's Hamburger in Paris, Texas, and a fictional swimming pool cleaner in Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
If the secondary "article" is more than a couple of lines long, it deserves to be made into a separate article, with a single-line reference in the main page:


Foobar was the Emperor of [[Kansas] from 1435 to 1922. He built the Rocky Mountains and the fjords of Norway, and invented chewing gum, chicken soup, and solar eclipses. Many people consider him to be the greatest composer of telephone dial tones of all time.
 
Several other people have been named Foobar, including a parking lot attendant in Paris, Texas (see Foobar (parking assistant)), and a fictional swimming pool cleaner in Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
Jorge Stolfi 19:09, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
IMO if a topic is not noteworthy enough to warrant an article of its own, it's not noteworthy enough to piggyback on another article either (assuming it's not related to the subject apart from its name). So just don't mention it at all. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 22:09, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
And any links or users that might happen to end up there looking for the other meaning are just left in the dark? I would hope not. older≠wiser 22:30, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages of the form: Pagename_(not_disambiguation)

For an example of what I mean, look at Discovery (album). It has something other than "disambiguation" in the parentheses, and it has the disambiguation message. I think its contents should be either on discovery or a new page called discovery (disambiguation). And while there may be rare cases when these pages have value, for the most part they're pointless. Mackerm 19:36, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Nothing wrong here that I can see. Since there are multiple albums named Discovery, the page named Discovery (album) is right to list all the albums by that name. You could list all the albums directly on the Discovery page, but since BOTH of the pages are disambiguation pages, there really should not be any links to those pages--any articles that link to them should be properly disambiguated. There is no need for a new page called discovery (disambiguation), since that form is only needed when there is one meaning of a word that is by far more commonly used than any other and the (disambiguation) page is needed since the most common term occupies the main title. Even if all the albums are listed on the Discovery page, Discovery (album) would still serve a funtion to pre-emptively prevent someone who might be unaware that there are multiple albums named Discovery from accidentally creating a new page there. older≠wiser 21:43, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
But since there is something linking there, and it's not a "natural" word like "discovery" without parentheses, should the disambiguation message be removed? Or replace it with a redirect? (Yes, its probably picky, but I just had a dispute about one of these.) Mackerm 23:43, May 12, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow what you mean. What would you redirect to? Why remove the disambiguation message, when that is what the page is? I didn't see anything linking to Discovery (album) other than some user pages, this talk page and the master list of disambiguation pages. There are some pages linking to Discovery that probably should be disambiguated though. older≠wiser 00:40, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
OK, Thanks for the reply. Mackerm 00:55, May 13, 2004 (UTC)
Let me expand a little. I think Discovery (album) should redirect to Discovery because there's little chance that a reader will type the parenthetical in a search. The redirect can also serve the function of preventing authors from accidentally creating a new page there. Mackerm 19:24, May 13, 2004 (UTC)
That's probably acceptable. Since there are only a few albums, it shouldn't overwhelm the Discovery page. I'm not sure if there's any precedent for this, but if someone objects they can just switch things back. older≠wiser 19:36, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with leaving both Discovery and Discovery (album) as disambiguation pages. There's already a link from the first to the second. There are other multi-level disambiguation pages out there too. You could merge the two pages as both are short, but why bother? I agree that users might not put in the (album) in a search, but since the album dab page is listed on the main page, I don't see that as a problem. --ssd 12:44, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fixing links to disambiguation pages

Should calls for fixing such links go to Wikipedia:Cleanup, Wikipedia:Pages needing attention or...?

I've come across two pages in need of assistance so far:

Of course, fixing this is non-trivial because it requires reading those pages to determine where the new link should go out of the context (or, in the case of Yugoslavia, should it be changed at all), so it may be useful to have a page listing those, they're not all likely to go away soon... --Shallot 18:17, 13 May 2004 (UTC)


There is a page at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links that might be the best place. It used to be generated with a database query, but that can't be done at the moment so some manual updates have been added - you could do the same. -- sannse (talk) 11:46, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation for people?

I've added a disambiguation page for John Hancock, with a disamb notice at the top of the default article (which discusses the person John Hancock). The disamb page includes the person, the company named John Hancock, and three buildings named John Hancock (e.g. John Hancock Tower).

I notice a lack of such disambiguation pages for people and wonder if they are a good idea? I can easily see a disamb page made for George Washington: GWU, GW Bridge, and even George, Washington.

KeithTyler 01:00, May 29, 2004 (UTC)

Well, you shouldn't disambiguate if there's no risk of confusion. No one is going to look up "George Washington" if they really mean "George Washington Tower", IMO. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 06:15, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Well, I don't know of a sure-fire way to determine the amount of risk of confusion. John Hancock is a great example. I could be looking for info on the company, and not the person. Or on the building (which is commonly referred to as "the JH").
With George Washington, I could be looking for info on the town, and just forgotten the comma. Or I could be looking for info on George Washington Carver. If I enter "FDR", am I looking for info on the president, or on the freeway?
Other disamb pages include "this term is part of these terms" type listings... it would seem these would be equally appropriate for people, especially famous people for whom things have been named after. And furthermore, these pages would serve as a list of things named after the person. KeithTyler 17:27, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I know other disambig pages are doing that, but they really shouldn't be. Check the second paragraph here: "Disambiguation pages are not search indices -- do not add links that merely contain part of the page title where there is no significant risk of confusion." If people commonly refer to something without the extra word (like "the JH" as you mention) then fine, but something like George Washington Carver is silly IMO since anyone looking for that will include the "Carver".
It's basically a judgement call, and erring on the side of extra disambiguation is probably better, but you needn't go racking your brain for stuff that has "George Washington" in it on the off chance some schlub will mess it up. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 04:32, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Here's another example... This morning I wanted to add an article for William Mason (1808-1883), who was an early manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives. Doing a quick search, I found William Mason (1725-1797), who was an English poet. Another conflict that I found is for John Armstrong. The existing article (John Armstrong) pertains to the civil engineer (1717-1795), but the article I want to add is about a prominent model railroader and railroad author (1921-2004).
Before today, I didn't know about the other William Mason or John Armstrong, and who's to say which meaning would be the primary meaning in these cases? Would this type of disambig best be done by the "equal disambiguation" discussed earlier? What would we put for the parenthetical notation; should we put the birth/death years or the person's primary noteworthiness (I'm leaning toward the latter because a searcher might not know when a particular person lived)?
AdThanksVance. slambo 11:19, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Or William Mason, the composer and Liszt-pupil. (1829-1908.) Schissel 04:38, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation category

Version 1.3 of MediaWiki is here, and with it comes the category feature. Joy! How about in addition to adding the standard footer to disambiguation pages, we put them all in Category:Disambiguation as well? This would allow us to automatically generate what is currently maintained by hand over at Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages. In addition, categories can be nested so we could add [[Category:Multiple place name]], Category:Multiple personal name, etc. to Category:Disambiguation, to keep things organized like they are now. Bryan 15:35, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

As there is already an automatic list at Special:Whatlinkshere/MediaWiki:Disambig, I'm not sure how useful adding category tags as well {{disambig}} tags will be. Angela. 17:52, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
If we want to try to categorize most articles/pages/lists, we probably should eventually do this with disambiguation pages as well. If we could just add the category to Template:Disambig, this were quite easy. -- User:Docu

Disambig and redirect

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find it (or rather didn't search for it that intently !). I was taken to the king page and found it to be a disambig page to my surprise. I was planning to redirect it to the main King article with a "King (disambiguation)" at the top that would have all the people, places and all other names to do with King. But the best redirect I can do is to monarch, and it would be inappropriate to have a link to king (disambiguation) at the monarch page. So how do I go about the main article disambiguation. Jay 19:15, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you would want on a "King" article that wouldn't belong in the monarch article. As I see it, there are three choices:
  1. Keep King as a disambiguation page, and fix all the links to it.
  2. Move the current King to King (disambiguation). Then, create a new article King that can stand on its own and would link to King (disambiguation)
  3. Move the current King to King (disambiguation). Then redirect King to Monarch, and add a note to the Monarch page to the effect that The word King can refer to a specific kind of monarch. For other uses of King, see King (disambiguation).
It looks like number 3 would require the least effort, with results that are rational, if not typical. Number 1 might make the most sense, but would require a lot of work. -Rholton 21:52, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I just did #1 and it was a lot of work. Kevin Rector 03
14, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

I'm in favour of #3. King has to be a "primary topic disambiguation". In English, "King" brings up the primary meaning of monarch, other usages are derived.

Anyway the reason for bringing up the scenario on this page was to clarify the implementation of #3. A user who types Monarch on his browser will feel lost and confused if he comes to a page that says "The word King can refer to a specific kind of monarch. For other uses of King, see King (disambiguation)." (All kings are monarchs, but all monarchs are not kings) In fact I've noticed some pages which have this scenario, and I had thought then that this is one scenario where the disambiguation policy has gone wrong.

Is there some way we can hide the "king disambiguation" statement on monarch if user goes to monarch directly, and shows the king disambiguation statement only when he goes to monarch via a redirect from King ? Maybe some tweak in the software can take care of this ? Jay 12:07, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

One wording I've seen that I think works better is: The page "king" redirects to here, and refers to a specific kind of monarch. For other meaning of the word "king" see King (disambiguation)
I like the idea of the notice only showing up when the article is redirected, but that would require software tweaking. -- sannse (talk)
Isn't it usually:
King redirects here, for alternate uses see King (disambiguation).
We could uses a template expand to that, e.g. {{alternateusesredir|King}}, once the template parser makes it possible. -- User:Docu
Yes, that wording is better, but why use a template? It seems just as easy to type it in as a standard format. Are there other advantages to doing it that way? -- sannse (talk) 08:56, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Statement mentioned by Docu is I feel an imperfect yet the most logical one we can use. I wonder what would happen if I make "emperor" and a few other pages as primary topic disambiguation to "monarch". On the Monarch page, it would go this way, line after line :

King redirects here, for alternate uses see King (disambiguation).
Emperor redirects here, for alternate uses see Emperor (disambiguation).
Potentate redirects here, for alternate uses see Potentate (disambiguation).

This is not a real scenario, just fictional, but hope it makes us think of a cleaner solution. Jay 10:14, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Disambig page style guide

In order to avoid constant reverts and re-reverts, could someone check which of the two recent versions of TNT is preferred? I've never seen any other disambig page with a numbered list before. -- Chuq 02:37, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer this sample or definition lists (e.g. BC, they work much better in MediaWiki 1.3). The name of linked pages should probably be visible (e.g. TNT (band) rather than TNT ). -- User:Docu

Wikimedia

Added a Wikimedia reference, because the disambiguation category is used in Wiktionary too. See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Disambiguation.

"X area term" vs "X (area term)"

The policy states that if a title can be disambiguated by lengthening with appropriate words, that should be preferred over adding a parenthesized term, as in Java programming language instead of Java (programming language). Does this still correspond to actual practice? I think people are actually doing the paren thing by default, at least that seems like what I see 90% of the time or more. My surmise is that the support for piping the paren version is encouraging it despite policy, plus one doesn't have ponder whether a multi-word term is plausible - just put the proper name outside the parens, disambiguator inside. Should the policy be revised to reflect reality? Stan 04:08, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not reading the same thing as you, but I don't see that it gives a preference either way. Mackerm 04:48, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm, good point. Perhaps it should be more explicit about the lack of preference then. Stan 05:40, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I was wrong to say it was clear about this; on the other hand, I think the fact that both are mentioned makes it pretty clear that neither one or the other should be totally eliminated. My other arguments also yet stand. Deco 16:59, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Disambig: "primary topic" disambiguation style

There are many pages containing a primary topic that have a disambig "see also" commentary on the header. Two styles of indicating this are abundant:


Style 1

See whatever (disambiguation) for other meanings.

Whatever is a bla bla bla... ...


and

Style 2

See whatever (disambiguation) for other meanings.

Whatever is a bla bla bla... ...


Even more, Wikipedia:Disambiguation uses the second style, and the example page used in the article, Rome, uses the first style. I think a decission should be made and a policy issued. My vote goes for the first style, it looks somewhat neater in my opinion. xDCDx 14:59, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I also prefer the indented style, without the horizontal line, but the other one is okay, too, sometimes the line looks appropriate. Also, there are other forms such as noting the primary topic first and then linking disambiguation pages (which may or may not be of the form "<title> (disambiguation)"). I don't think we really need to set strict standards on this matter, just as long as the text is clear and simple enough. --Joy [shallot] 15:24, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I also prefer the indented style (style 1), without a horizontal line. older≠wiser 15:31, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Style one is a lot better. Horizontal lines are bad. Angela. 20:58, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)

To Joy: I don't want to sound rude, but if we don't fix policies for details like this, although both styles are perfectly understable by a casual reader, this causes Wikipedia to look unprofessional, and I don't think we want that. Our goal is to make Wikipedia the best we can. :)

It's a little of an offtopic but, in my opinion, the same must be followed for Title (movie) and Title (film). The current Wikipedia:Naming conventions (movies) page says the proper way is the first one, but there are (unfortunately) a good quantity of Title (film) pages.

xDCDx 00:59, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Watching dab pages

I sometimes worry about vandalism on disambiguation pages. I'm guessing people regularly watch disambig pages only if they were formerly an article which has since been moved to a disambiguated title -- that's how it works for me, anyway. We've probably all stumbled across dab pages with old vandalism. There could be hundreds of dab pages with old vandalism. Am I the only one worried about this? Does anybody habitually watch dab pages? Tuf-Kat 01:22, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it too much more than any other vandalism to infrequently used pages. If I've edited a dab page, its on my watch list, and I've edited quite a few. I honestly haven't noticed that much vandalism of them. If a vandal were to only come in and find one unwatched page to vandalize, yes that might go unnoticed and could sit out there a while. But many vandals seem to either pick higher profile pages or work in spurts on various pages, making it easier for folks who check Recent Changes to spot them and revert all their edits. older≠wiser 01:51, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
i habitually watch most pages i edit (i don't when im mass disabiguating for example though) this includes disambiguation pages
also i would imagine that most disamiguation pages were at some point in the past article pages. Disambiguation pages are usually introduced when other uses of the term come to light

Anti-edit war proposal

I'd like to propose the addition of the following:

Creating a "Primary topic" disambiguation can prove controversial due to differing ideas on which is the primary topic. When the discussion on the matter descends into edit wars and wasted time and effort, it is better to resort to an "equal" disambiguation page.

Chameleon 18:00, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I disagree (as did some anon who removed it). If there is reason to believe two topics which each have significant articles deserve equal weight, then certainly an ordinary disambiguation page is warranted. If, on the other hand, one editor correctly believes one topic is the main topic, and the other incorrectly believes the other article is, then the primary topic should remain on the main page. It's an okay compromise, but policy shouldn't force anyone to compromise when they don't feel they should. Deco 18:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree. But what happens when one editor correctly believes one topic is the main one, and another incorrectly believes another article is... but the second person or group is more insistent in their edits and refuses to let the main topic be the main article. Rather than bicker for ever and make endless reverts, wouldn't it be better to just make an equal disambiguation page? Chameleon 18:21, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I modified the phrasing to indicate that some editors feel it is better and that this opinion is not shared by all. My objection to the proposed phrasing above is that this would give POV warriors and trolls a platform to argue that because primary topic disambiguation is disputed therefore by this policy it must become a equal disambiguation page. older≠wiser 15:45, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

at the bottom?

"One can also disambiguate at the bottom of the article like this:"

Shouldn't this always be on the top, so that readers can quickly find what they're looking for? I can't see why the bottom would be an official recommendation. - Omegatron 17:04, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
This was at one time a subject of considerable debate. However, I believe most people have accepted and prefer top dabs now. Would anyone object to modifying the policy to reflect this? Deco 18:31, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Do you intend to disallow any page with a <hr> ? I'd object. It's often reasonable until there are articles, rather than a set of stubs. -- User:Docu

No, I think these are fine. The only thing I'd object to is placing a very short article at the bottom of a very long article, separated by a rule. Separating a number of small articles with rules is fine, or even placing the short ones above the long one, but at the bottom they're not likely to ever be encountered by those who seek them. I apologise for my hasty edit, which implied somewhat more. Deco 04:17, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disambig warning on already disambiguated pages

I'm starting to see this a lot: people put the "This page is about such-and-such, for other meanings see blargh" message on pages that are already disambiguated. For example, I just took it off of the top of Flip-flop (politics). IMO there's no point in having the message on any page except the parent article (Flip-flop) since there's no possible way you could get to the politics one if you actually had another meaning of flip-flop in mind (nothing redirects to the politics one either). Just thought I'd solicit opinions before writing it into the policy here. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 22:16, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

This might cause a problem if someone has reached the page by clicking on a piped link: a link which does not show the title of the linked page in full, or indeed at all. If you were to click on flip-flop you would reach the article referred to above, but you might equally well have wanted to find another article with a similar name. I am not necessarily in favor of reducing options for navigation. --Phil | Talk 12:02, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
Articles that link to flip-flop (politics), piped or not, want to link there, not to other meanings of flip-flop. Whether the reader wants to continue reading some other meaning of flip-flop is a problem separate from this. It can be settled by having an optional extra element on page top that links to "$1" from every "$1 ($2)" (similar to how the subpages have a link to "$1" from every "$1/$2"), it shouldn't be done manually. --Joy [shallot] 13:08, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Careful how you phrase it. For similarly named places in a state, it is common to include some indication that there are other places they might have been looking for -- even though for a careful editor there is no possibility of linking to that article without intending to. The similarly named articles do turn up as results in searches. For example Paw Paw, Michigan, Paw Paw Township, Michigan, and Paw Paw Lake, Michigan or the various places in Michigan beginning with Grosse Pointe. older≠wiser 22:30, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest...

Please read this very slowly and carefully:

I suggest that in all dis-ambiguation pages that (with the {{disambig}} template at the bottom of the article) are too long to reach the {{disambig}} template without scrolling down should have the (disambiguation) suffix in their article title. Sometimes there is one dominant meaning; sometimes more than one. If there is only one, such as London, then there should be a link to the dis-ambiguation page at the top, namely London (disambiguation). If there is more than one, such as Georgia, then the title with no suffix should re-direct; it will not change the titles of any articles it links to. Any comments?? 66.245.81.205 20:10, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I think having all disambiguation pages redirect to a suffixed page title isn't a bad idea. It would increase consistency, and make substituting a primary topic easier, as well as giving clear indication that the page is a disambiguation page (for those familiar with the concept).
There is another alternative you might not have considered: we could list the primary topics, the most commonly desired ones, at the top of the list, place the notice below them, and then list some more topics below that. Deco 20:23, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of enclosing part of 66.254's comment above in <nowiki> tags.
I came here with the intent of passing on a similar idea from User:Jnc. In addition to the familiar reasons for equal disambiguation (i.e. not favoring one definition over another, ambiguity of which one is primary, etc.), he presents some arguments based on the maintenance task of changing links so that they do not point to disambig pages. The full argument lives here. I tried to paraphrase it, but it just came out worse. --Smack 03:25, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
First off, I am not 66.254. All IP's of mine are 66.32.xxx.xxx or 66.245.xxx.xxx. If you can't remember my IP, you can just refer to me as "The Georgia Guy", a nickname that User:Mintguy gave to me. Second, can you please clarify what you mean?? 66.245.98.219 22:32, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I read the link you showed and you say that NO dis-ambiguation pages should have the "(disambiguation)" suffix in their title. Has anyone ever come to a consensus on the best rule for which should and which should not as of this moment?? 66.245.98.219 22:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, the mistaken IP address was a typo. The <nowiki> tags are a part of wiki syntax; go here and search for "Suppressing interpretation of markup". As regards the main point, I don't know what you're talking about. Jnc's page makes an argument for why all disambiguation pages should have '(disambiguation)' in the title. --Smack 06:31, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation category getting very populous

Copied from Category talk:Disambiguation

This category is getting awfully big and takes a very long time to load (it took me 3 tries to defeat the time-out bunny). Would it be a good idea to sub-categorise: for example create Category:Disambiguation (people)? --Phil | Talk 12:04, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

You'd have to extend Template:Disambiguation to support such a parameter first, because most pages are categorized via the template. Ideally it would be an optional parameter so that we don't have to duplicate N templates for N categories... --Joy [shallot] 12:49, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was actually thinking in terms of a similar situation to that of stubs; there seem to be two avenues of attack, one using a metastub, one using various cloned templates. YMMV as to the best way: either necessitates the changing of a shed-load of articles. NB at the moment there appears to be no such thing as an optional parameter to a template. --Phil | Talk 13:12, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Breaking up Category:Disambiguation by topic, I'm not sure if this would work, afterall they are disambiguation pages. Category:Disambiguation (personal names) or Category:Non-unique personal name lists can help, but this is likely to be only a short relief.
A possibility would be to add the name of the current month to the category name in Template:Disambig, e.g. Category:Disambiguation/2004/November and change this once per month. This way the (current) category will grow slower, all disambigation pages can still be identified with {{disambig}}, and all disambiguation pages remain categorized (i.e. not on Special:Uncategorizedpages).
Currently there are still several thousand disambiguation pages with {{disambig}} not in Category:Disambiguation yet, as they haven't been edited recently. The current 14100 entries took about 4 months build up. -- User:Docu

Returning to this topic after the Mediawiki upgrade to version 1.4, the situation is much eased with the progressive display for categories. However I still think there is some mileage in my suggestion. Looking at the first tranche of 200 entries in Category:Disambiguation, there's a bunch of military topics (20th Division, 24th Division, 25th Division, etc). To take these as an example, I would suggest creating {{military-disambig}} which would belong to Category:Disambiguation (military terms) which would obviously be a sub-category of Category:Disambiguation. Obviously there will be some pages which cover so much scope that they cannot immediately be categorised in this fashion, but if we bite off the easy ones first, we can look at the difficult ones later. --Phil | Talk 11:40, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the need for making any change. Why is it important to be able to browse this category manually? While there may be a some pages where everything on the disambig page is of the same type, by and large I think more disambig pages are heterogenous. Perhaps you could expand a bit on why you think a change is needed--till then it seems this is a solution in search of a problem (or more charitably, if we can reach a clearer understanding of what you perceive the "problem" to be and why it is a problem, then perhaps we will be in a better position to define an appropriate solution). older≠wiser 14:15, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand the problem being solved either. Stub categorization sort of makes sense, because it's a way for specialists for zero in on what needs expansion. But disambiguation specalization? C'mon, let's let at least one category in the system have more than one article in it. :-) Stan 16:18, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I first raised the question because there was no limit on the number of articles displayed when browsing a category, so that it took so long to display Category:Disambiguation that my connection timed out on most attempts. This particular problem has been mollified with the introduction of progressive display in Mediawiki version 1.4.
However just because it is now possible to display the category without timing out doesn't mean it's easy: you still have to start from the beginning unless you like typing in URLs by hand and know where you want to start.
As for why it is important to be able to browse this category manually, I would suggest that it should be easy to browse any category manually: there should be no special cases.
This particular category is useful in that it collects together many articles of a particular type. It is arguable that disambiguation pages should be fairly homogenous: readers should not be surprised by what they find. It is also arguable that disambiguation pages should be targetted by a minimal number of links. In the same way as editors patrol stub articles checking for expansion possibilities, they should be able to patrol disambiguation pages to check format and possibly to short-circuit links.
Using my example above, it would be much easier to check that the various military unit disambiguation pages were consistent, and that articles linked direct to the correct unit rather than to the disambiguation page, if said pages were collected together in a smaller sub-category of their own.
HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 12:21, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, I guess I still don't really see the utility of this as I see most disambiguation pages as at least potentially heterogenous. You'd have to slice the categorization pretty thinly to get truly homogenous categorization (and I really don't think disambiguation categories require the same sort of maintenance that stub categories do). For example, while there are many disambigs that your suggested Category:Disambiguation (military terms) could apply to, there are also many more generally ambiguous terms, such as private. So either we have extremely specific categories, like Category:Disambiguation (military divisions) or we have inherently incomplete categories (which I suppose is true statement in most cases). We could include items like private in multiple disambiguation categories, but to me that seems very counter-intuitive. The disambiguation category is a simple concept--it indicates terms that may have multiple meanings--I just don't see any substantial benefit to additional subcategorization and potential to cause considerable confusion. older≠wiser 14:21, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

I've added the the CategoryTOC template to the category. Does this and the progressive display adequately address the original concern? -- Rick Block 17:52, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

question about the appropriateness of a disambig

What is the general policy or advice on disambiguating homophones? Example I was looking at: Mercia, Murcia, and Mircea are three different things (a kingdom, a city, and a prince, respectively), spelled differently; however, they sound the same to an English-speaker's ear, and someone who isn't familiar with them may not know that the small spelling differences indicate completely unrelated subjects (especially since they're all historical topics, and may appear in variant spellings in older sources). Would it make sense to have top(or bottom)-of-page disambig links on these pages for these things? (A side note, of course, is that Mircea is already a disambig for two members of a dynasty, but that's a minor issue.) It seems odd to want to disambiguate things that are unrelated and spelled differently- I can hardly imagine wanting or needing to disambiguate hair, hare, and herr (or toxin, tocsin, and Taksin), after all- but something like this seems trickier. -FZ 17:36, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can't escape the impression that this is dumbing the encyclopedia down for people who can't spell, and that's a rather slippery slope. (I have pondered something similar at Talk:John Capodistria, but more as something slightly amusing than as a policy...) --Joy [shallot] 23:34, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Common personal names

Just wanted to solicit some other opinions about something. The page William, up until recently has been a disambiguation page with a short explanation about the name itself [1]. This is similar for many other common names like John, James, Henry, Richard, Elizabeth. A user now wants William to be an article about the name with a link to William (disambiguation) at the top. Based on precedent, I was initially opposed, but am not so sure now--any other thoughts about whether this is a good thing? older≠wiser 20:14, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

(disclaimer: I am the one who made the William page). Most of the proper name pages are currently not disambiguation pages. They may contain information that helps with disambiguations, but they also contain information that has nothing to do with disambiguation. James for example. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought a disambiguation page is not a Wiki article but a tool to re-direct users to articles. Most of the proper name pages are currently a mix of article and disambiguation, which is the worst of both worlds, it is neither a real Wiki article, nor is it a real disambiguation page. Proper names deserve their own article because as I just quickly put together for William one can see there is much to be said about a name: Origin, transmission, usage, spellings, popularity, history, trivia, external links. In addition, proper names deserve a disambiguation page to help Wikipedians navigate. Stbalbach 00:22, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
As already evident from the William article, I beleive it should stay as a disambiguation page. If I need to find the correct Wikipedia format for a personal name I can type it in (or link and preview usually) and find which one I need. No good reason to insert another layer into the process (William (disambiguation)). It is unfriendly to newcomers. There is no reason some text cannot explain the history of William while it still remains a disambiguation page. Also I note that Wiktionary has a Names etymology appendix (but I can't check the details as it is currently down.) Rmhermen 17:11, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
Not entirely sure I follow. But, I don't see how it is any less unfriendly than any other page that has a name(disambiguation) link at the top of the article. Also, the Williams page is more than etymology. If your suggesting putting the disambiguation back in to the main body of the article, that is possible, however, as I said earlier, disambiguation pages and Wiki article pages are and probably should remain two seperate entitites. Say for example with the Williams article, I want to really jazz it up and apply for featured article status, can't imagine they would let me get away with a disambiguation inside the article. Stbalbach 18:27, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, first I think it goes without saying that a disambiguation page for a first name should only link to people who are commonly known by their first name alone, such as Grover the muppet. As for how to manage the discussion of the name itself and the disambiguation links, I'm unsure. Maybe article intro, then dab list, then article details. Deco 22:20, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
For a situation like William, I would say have it be an article about the name "William" (origins, similar names in other languages and cultures), and then a list of notable Williams that people may be searching for - kings, princes, etc. I don't even think that list needs to be above the article proper. People can scroll down. It'll be in the TOC. --Golbez 22:33, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

It seems logical to me to have articles about names in and of themselves, especially frequent ones like William and Ahmed. --Iustinus 20:52, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Template:Disambig at the top of disambiguation page

I think putting the disambig template at the top of a page is a mistake, because it interrupts the user's search for information and is unnecessary. I can understand that someone might be motivated to put the template at the top when the page name doesn't include "(disambiguation)" (e.g., Mercury), but I think it would be much better to move the page OR to do nothing at all. --Yath 03:54, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not saying I completely disagree with you, but let me explain my logic. Assume that a new user comes across a disambiguation page. In some cases disambiguation pages look almost like dictionary entries:
FOO can mean-
  • definition 1
  • definition 2
  • ....
I think it would be easy to misunderstand and think that the disambiguation page is the article on FOO. The template explains what the page really is - a navigational aid to help you find the correct article. My logic was that the page makes more sense when you understand, up front, what its purpose is. ike9898 04:08, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

"Extra" disambig considered useful

older≠wiser and I recently had a brief exchange about "extra" links to a disambig page, which reflects this paragraph from Wikipedia:Disambiguation:

Do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page, if there is no risk of confusion. Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", would they expect to view any of the articles listed on the disambiguation page? Disambiguation pages are not search indexes -- do not add links that merely contain part of the page title where there is no significant risk of confusion.

I had picked a topic pretty much at random (Florence) from User:Topbanana/Reports/A disambiguation link is suggested, added a disambig page, and edited pages linked to by the disambig page to include a dablink to the disambig page. The paragraph above pretty much says I should not have done this last part. I understand what this is saying (effectively, avoid unnecessary clutter), however I think it's based on the assumption that most users browse wikipedia using wikipedia links. I suspect this might be true once a user arrives at wikipedia, but how did they get here in the first place? My guess is that they've followed a google hit, which I think considerably changes the equation. For example, I've been adding disambiguation links and pages for place names in Japan, e.g. Ichinomiya, on the theory that someone arriving at, say, Ichinomiya, Chiba, from a google hit might actually be looking for the Japanese city with this name. How is Florence, Kansas any different? Unless you already know that Florence is a famous city in Italy, if you arrive at any other Florence article how would you know that you're not seeing the "main" Florence article? The whole point of an encyclopedia is to provide information the reader doesn't already know. Do not disambiguate if there is no risk of confusion begs the question of how an editor knows whether there's a risk of confusion. Does wikipedia have a more specific target audience than "English speaking users of the web"? If not, IMO adding disambig links is generally a good thing. Does a 1st grader necessarily know Florence, Kansas is probably not the Florence they're doing a report on? How about someone in Japan who speaks only a little English? Rather than attempting to discourage "extra" disambiguation, how about if we encourage useful disambiguation:

Add a disambiguation page and disambiguation links if there is any risk of confusion. Ask yourself: If a reader encounters this article from a Google hit, would they expect to see some other article instead? Consider adding links containing part of the page title that might have sensibly been the target of a Google search.

-- Rick Block 18:59, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Proposal: When to disambiguate section

Please read the paragraph above ("Extra" disambig considered useful).

The second paragraph of the wikipedia:Disambiguation page currently says:

Do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page, if there is no risk of confusion. Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", would they expect to view any of the articles listed on the disambiguation page? Disambiguation pages are not search indices -- do not add links that merely contain part of the page title where there is no significant risk of confusion.

Per the above discussion I propose changing this to:

Add a disambiguation page and disambiguation links if there is any risk of confusion. Ask yourself: If a reader encounters this article from a Google hit, would they expect to see some other article instead? Consider adding links containing part of the page title that might have sensibly been the target of a Google search.

Please indicate Support or Oppose and sign your vote. - Rick Block 17:50, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Support - This will be useful for the WP search as well, which is frankly nowhere near the best search engine I've seen (although infinitely better than the one implemented on Defra's intranet). Thryduulf 09:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose — disambig pages should be short and to the point. If they're clogged up with every possible related meaning then their utility is diminished. — Matt Crypto 11:32, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Disambig pages have their strict technical meaning, purpose and intent as a tool for dealing with wikipedia's internal cross-linking and for dealing with exactly matching names. If a reader has a google hit, then they probably has 3,200+ more google hits. Wikipedia's disambig is of little help, if they cannot judge the relevance of information from what they read. Mikkalai 22:00, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, same reasons as Matt and Mikkalai. I've had problems with disambiguation pages that say too much myself. Neonumbers 02:34, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, if only for the Google-centrism, but I agree with the points raised by the Opposers above as well. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 13:10, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, this will make a lot of one-word disambiguation pages way too long. JYolkowski // talk 22:13, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I think I oppose this - I have been working on Spanish Missions, which often have names that are the same as other places. It would be good to have them on disambiguation pages (see Guadelope). Moomintrollmania 09:37, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
  • voting closed

It's been nearly a month. By my count, I see 2 Support (including my implied support by suggesting this) and 6 Oppose, which sounds like consensus to not make this change. -- Rick Block 14:55, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

How to disambiguate; middle names

I come here, and discover to my surprise that there is absolutely no guidance for how to disambiguate, not even a notice to check the (sadly uncomprehensive) naming conventions page. I say this because I've been trying to figure out what to do when you have two individuals with the same first and surname. My contention is that if there are middle names which can be used to distinguish between the two, these should be used, even if the person is not commonly known by their middle name. Others disagree, and prefer parentheticals. I've raised this at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names) as well, because they say that middle names shouldn't be used unless they are commonly used, but make no notice of disambiguation at all. This seems to me to be a serious issue, on which we should have a clear policy. john k 17:10, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Future image commons:Image:Disambig.png

What? That discussion page is a bleeding mess. I have no idea where to park my two cents' worth. --Smack (talk) 18:16, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Self-destroying prophecy

It seems that whenever you claim there will never be a page on something, someone will create it. There is now an article on fireplace poker. But any other example we could conjure would suffer the same fate. For this reason I've simply changed around this part of the article to acknowledge the article's existence but explain why it doesn't deserve a place in the main article. Deco 21:52, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)