Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Archive 32

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Single-letter dab cleanup

I've done dab-cleanup on S (disambiguation). I moved almost everything to a new article: S (symbol), which I meant to be a list, not a dab, but someone almost immediately tagged it as a dab too. Feel free to review my arguments on Talk:S (symbol), so that maybe some orientation can be derived for other single-letter dab cleanups. --maf (talk-cont) 08:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your rationale that it's a list and not a dab page. If S (programming language) hadn't existed, I would have left all the symbol meanings of "S" on the main dab page, which should have been renamed into List of symbols: S or something similar to make the distinction clearer. Yes, the "S" symbol needs to be disambiguated from the letter-S main page, but the resulting page would not be a dab page per MoS:DAB. On the other hand, I see where others not familiar with MoS:DAB in the strictest sense mistake a list for a dab page and tag it as such. In the end, a wrongly tagged list page is not something i would lose any sleep about. (This is also meant in reference for future cleanups of other single-letter ab pages where no single letters can be dabbed like the programming language.) Also, I've seen wiktionary (in this case wikt:S) as a place where symbols are explained/discussed, but I can't say that the symbol list should thus be removed from WP. – sgeureka t•c 09:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. If it's a list of things that the symbol S may refer to, it's a dab. -- JHunterJ 11:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, the symbol S may refer to many things, but the article S not, therefore (IMO) not a dab. From WP:DAB: "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic. In many cases, this same word or phrase is the natural title of more than one article. In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to different topic pages that could have essentially the same term as their title." (emphasis by me) An article about sulfur will always be called sulfur, and never just "S". t•c 11:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC) (Bad example in hindsight; will discuss this topic on Talk:S (symbol).) – sgeureka t•c 12:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
(I phrased it a little less summarily over at the page's Talk. Which I should have done first and left this section as just a pointer to that discussion.) -- JHunterJ 11:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Main discussion should probably take place at Talk:S (symbol).

Most of the single-letter dabs don't fit WP:MOSDAB though ("* In <linked_context>, ... <main_link>" just isn't MOSDAB. At a bare minimum <context> shouldn't be linked). Most of the single-letter dabs may need to be cleaned up in the same way. --Interiot 19:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Table instead of a list?

There are a number of disambiguation articles that are formatted using tables, rather than lists. I just wanted to double-check whether tables might possibly fit WP:MOSDAB at all. Example articles:

--Interiot 09:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

About the mountain dab pages: there has already been talk at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mountains#Our_disambiguation_pages_violate_WP:MOSDAB (they reference you in the first line). We will see shortly where that goes (maybe someone who was there when the ship-dab pages were set up can comment how discussions worked out, and the real MoS:DAB should be changed accordingly). I can't say anything about the party dab pages, as this is the first time I see pages like this. – sgeureka t•c 09:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Analogous to the ship-dab pages, I have set up mountain-dabmountain list pages, which include tables of data, and use the {{mountainindex}} template, instead of the {{disambig}} template. They aren't true dab pages: they are more like list pages. I would suggest that they fall in the ambit of the Mountain WikiProject, and should follow style consensus discussed there. In order to avoid conflict with WP:MOSDAB, whenever aship page disambiguates between non-mountain and mountain usage, I am spinning the mountain list page into its own page. See, for example Mount Wilson vs. List of peaks named Mount Wilson and Signal Mountain vs. List of peaks named Signal Mountain. The former are true dab pages, following WP:MOSDAB, while the latter are mountain index lists.
Note, too, that I am trying to unify the style of such pages using a template. None of the pages that Interiot lists, above, have been converted yet. I am (slowly) working on it.
I think we can draw a clear line between true disambiguation pages and mountain list pages, keeping everything consistent.
Thanks for noticing this: I think we can clear it up. hike395 13:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Later --- I think I wasn't clear enough, above. The mountain list page is definitely not a dab page. Look at the definition of a dab page from MOS:DAB:
Disambiguation pages ("dab pages") are, like redirects, non-article pages in the article namespace. Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles, usually when a user searches for an ambiguous term.
That's not what mountain list pages are for --- they are pages to collect and display data on a set of mountains, so as not to make N stub articles, and to help editors decide which ones to flesh out into real articles. They are real articles in the article namespace.
I'm sorry that we tagged them as dab pages -- that was misleading and caused misunderstanding. Keeping them separate will make everyone happier. Thanks! hike395 14:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, you lost me there on the last paragraph - are you going to change the name of Category: Disambiguation lists of mountains to completely sever its ties with dab pages? As for everything else, great and most exemplary work! --maf (talk-cont) 14:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • About the party dab pages: first time I see dab pages where the descriptors are absolutely uniform. I can see only benefits in having those descriptors (the country names) vertically aligned and sorted (but not linked to, obviously). --maf (talk-cont) 14:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
We have enough confusion without referring to ship-index pages as "ship-d*bs" (I can't even bring myself to type it). Let's all strike that made-up word from our vocabulary. Also, by having the "Category: Disambiguation lists of mountains", you are begging editors to clean it up to the standards of MoS:DP. A category that does not start with the word "Disambiguation" will save you and many unsuspecting editors a lot of jangled nerves. Chris the speller 16:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I've never actually come across a ship-index page apart from a mention on MoS:DAB, so I wouldn't know. Still, {{shipindex}} currently returns [[:Category:Disambiguation lists of ships]. And WikiProject Mountain is using {{Mountainindex}} with a similarly called category, so basically the same. If there is consensus (and it seems this way), all that's left to be done is make an entry for exclusion of mountains d... er... indexes on MoS:DAB like we have for ships (MoS:DAB#Ships). :-) – sgeureka t•c 16:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree, what's allowed for ships should be allowed for mountains (and I didn't know that the ship-index category started with the "D" word). The ship-index strife settled down right away as soon as we put set them adrift and noted the exclusion in the guidelines, so I'm sure we can easily make this work, too. Chris the speller 18:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
As Sgeureka says above, I chose Category:Disambiguation lists of mountains to match Category:Disambiguation lists of ships. I'm happy to change this to not have the D word (perhaps Category:Index lists of mountains? or Category:List of mountains with similar names?) and/or put an exclusion in MoS:DAB for mountains. If you want me to change the category name, may I suggest also changing the ship dabindex category name, too? hike395 01:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Both ship index pages and mountain index pages still at least partly function as disambiguation pages. I've no objection to the specialization of these pages, but if someone links to such a page and there is an existing article for the intended meaning, I'd hope that we'd all want the links be updated to go directly to the intended target. older ≠ wiser 01:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Point taken: you're right, of course. It's somewhat dab-like. As long as there is an exception carved out for mountains, I'm happy. hike395 03:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
No need to change the category name; as I said, I was unaware that a similar category name was being used for ship-index pages, where it apparently is not causing much trouble, so it's probably better to keep mountain-index pages more or less in parallel with ship-index pages. Chris the speller 02:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
That's fine with me. Thanks! hike395 03:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

In my review of lots of disambiguation pages, I noticed a strong pattern of allowing greater flexibility in formatting with subject-specific disambiguation pages. I'm on the Automobile Wikiproject, and I certainly hope that ours can be given some extra latitude as well. (eg. Dodge Charger, Mercedes-Benz 220) Is this something we could formalize as part of WP:MOSDAB? --Interiot 05:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm okay with this when, like cars, mountain names and ships, there are very few things other than the subject that need to be disambiguated. But we need to be careful that we retain the general navigation purpose of dab pages. (John User:Jwy talk) 06:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest 2 different types of dab pages: "dab navigation pages", and "dab list articles".
  1. Dab navigation pages have links to a heterogeneous set of concepts. They are purely for navigation, not information, and should have minimal formatting and follow the strict set of rules at WP:MOSDAB.
  2. Dab list articles describe a single set of concepts. For example, a set of cars, a set of mountain peaks, a set of ships. They are both for information and for navigation. Dab articles should not be restricted by WP:MOSDAB as it currently stands, but instead should follow Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists).
Sometimes, there will be a dab navigation page and a dab list article with a similar name. For example, there is some topic XXXX which consists of concepts of type YYYY plus other meanings. In this case, I would propose that the dab navigation page be named XXXX, and the dab list article be named List of YYYY named XXXX. Alternatively, if the meaning YYYY is very dominant, then the dab list article should be named XXXX, and the dab navigation page be named XXXX (disambiguation). Whether to use this alternative follows the guidelines of articles vs. dab names at WP:DAB.
This proposal avoids having to carve out individual exceptions for cars, mountains, ships, towns, etc. What do people think? hike395 13:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Good analysis, but the second type needs a name that doesn't start with "dab", to avoid creating even more confusion than we already have. How about "set-dab" or "set-index", where "set-index" is the general form that comprises ship-index, mountain-index and other such pages. The phrase "dab articles" gives me the creeps, because dabs are not articles. Chris the speller 15:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Dab navigation pages and index list articles

Rewriting below, based on Chris' feedback. Where does this belong, in WP:MOSDAB or WP:DAB? and where in the guide article does this belong?

There are two types of pages that serve a disambiguation function: disambiguation navigation pages and set index articles:
  1. Disambiguation navigation pages have links to a heterogeneous set of concepts. They are purely for navigation, not information, and should have minimal formatting and follow the strict set of rules at WP:MOSDAB.
  2. Set index articles describe a single set of concepts. For example, a set of cars, a set of mountain peaks, a set of ships. They are both for information and for navigation. Set index articles tend to be a list of items taken from the set, with extra information about each item. Set index articles should not be restricted by WP:MOSDAB as it currently stands, but instead should follow relevant Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists).
Sometimes, there will be a disambiguation navigation page and a set index article with a similar name. For example, there is some topic XXXX which consists of concepts of type YYYY plus other meanings. In this case, the disambiguation navigation page should be named XXXX, and the set index article be named List of YYYY named XXXX. Alternatively, if the meaning YYYY is very dominant, then the set index article should be named XXXX, and the disambiguation navigation page be named XXXX (disambiguation). Whether to use this alternative follows the guidelines for naming disambiguation articles.

More comments? hike395 12:29, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone expand on the purpose of "set index articles?" Are they an exhausive inventory of the name beyond the notable ones? What purpose do they serve? I think we need to be able to state that before we decide how to handle them best. (John User:Jwy talk) 15:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
From what I can see, set index articles serve 2 purposes: the same purpose as a list article, and as a navigational aid. A set index article is a list article that happens to be on a set of items that have the same name. Just like a normal list article, it has metadata and extra information about each entry (e.g., see WP:Featured lists). Such a set index article is entertaining and informative in itself, and can help editors find redlinks to create articles on notable entries, and finally also helps readers navigate between articles that have similar names. Examples of set index articles include Dodge Charger, List of peaks named Signal Mountain, and USS Enterprise. Whether they are exhaustive or not and contain non-notable entries or not depends on the subject and editors, I think.
This is my description of the concept: User:Interiot and the participants in Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships may have a slightly different idea. hike395 23:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, doesn't seem to be any disagreement. I think the best place for this is over at WP:DAB, at WP:DAB#What not to include, generalizing (and replacing) "List of ships". I think we should also leave a pointer from here to there, at the end before "break rules". Again, this would generalize and replace the exception for "List of ships". I'll post my proposed change at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation, just to make sure the community is not surprised. hike395 12:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, hadn't gotten back here to comment further. I still think we need a clear line between dab articles and other things. Ships, for example, generally have clear name differences (U.S.S X or H.M.S. X) that don't overlap with other articles. Mountains are not quite as distinct. Formalizing these pages might start graying the line between dab pages and other pages and make it difficult to manage what guidelines should be applied to a page and reduce the useful consistency of dab pages. (John User:Jwy talk) 13:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Not quite sure I understand your objection --- it seems clear to me: if there is a conflict between a mountain index list article about peaks named "Signal Mountain", and a disambiguation for "Signal Mountain", then we make a mountain index list article named List of peaks named Signal Mountain and a dab page named Signal Mountain.
Here's another way of looking at it: various wikiprojects want to provide real information about a set of items that have the same (or similar) name. This idea has been implemented by multiple independent WikiProjects: Ships, Mountains, and Automobiles. I claim that this shows that the idea has merit --- it was thought of by multiple people independently. Now, we've outlined a way of (IMO) clearly separating dab from list. Given that editors want to write list articles on similarly-named items, is this proposed guideline enough to reduce the confusion? If not, how can it be made more clear? hike395 05:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Hike: I don't think we need an either/or here. Keep a disambig (if one is needed), and make sure one of the pages it links to is the list article. If no disambig is needed, the list article can stand on its own. UnitedStatesian 06:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, there was no more discussion, so I'll go ahead and add the material. hike395 13:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Verbs

In disambiguation pages that are about verbs (for example Dig, Tug (disambiguation), Jump, etc.), should the verbs be included as one of the entries, like "The act of creating or expanding a hole," be in the first line "To dig is to create or expand a hole. Dig may also mean," or not be included at all? Thanks. --Chaffers (talk)/(contributions) 21:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

If the verb has a page of its own (Jumping), then that should be included. If it doesn't ("Dig"), then the entry shouldn't be there; that meaning will be handled by the {{wiktionary}} or {{wiktionarypar}} template -- Wikipedia is not a dictionary. -- JHunterJ 21:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Remove "List of people named Title"?

In MoS:DAB#Examples of individual entries that should not be created, it says "People who happen to have the same surname or given name should not be mixed in with the other links [...] For longer lists, create a new Title (name), Title (surname) and/or Title (given name) page, or a List of people named Title." Before I change something about this, I want to ask whether it is okay to remove "List of people named Title" from the suggestions. In Category:Given names, there are only three articles named List of... [1], and in Category:Surnames, there are five [2]. (Out of those eight articles, two were created by me when I was still a new dab editor, and they look really silly to me now; when I fix their names I might as well fix the MOS.) – sgeureka t•c 21:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Some of those List of... pages have likely been deleted. I am in agreement with the consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people with the first name Julie that resulted in deletion. (WP is not a directory.) --Paul Erik 22:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I added that line when I was trying to remove the lists of people from the dabs (see my user page if you want pointers to many discussions); I would be happy to see it go, as long as the lists stay off the dabs. :-) See also All pages beginning with List of people named and Famous people with the surname Smith, some that weren't in the categories. -- JHunterJ 00:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Title (surname) is better because it encourages an encyclopedia article about a surname, rather than just a list. CarolGray 07:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Consensus seemed pretty clear, so I removed "List of people named Title" from the MOS. I also moved some of the "List of..." name pages to "Title (name)" etc. Thanks. – sgeureka t•c 22:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

deciding ordering of subject areas?

in this example:

Thingamajig may refer to:

In science:

  • Thingamajig (chemistry), an isotope of chlorine
  • Thingamajig (physics), a kind of pulsar
  • Thingamajig (biology), an invasive plant used as ground cover

In world music:

  • Thingamajig (Qatar), a seven-stringed musical instrument
  • Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos

how is it decided that "science" comes before "world music" and not the other way round? cheers. 82.14.71.162 19:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

In the pages I have edited, I've normally ordered them by 1)notability of each section, for instance, if the chemistry section is going to be searched more often than the physics one, I'd place it first, and 2)the length of sections; if two sections are equally notable, I'd place the longer one first, by the rationale that more people will be hitting the DAB page for that section. PaladinWhite 20:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Formatting of abbreviation entries on DAB pages

What is the appropriate format for entries about abbreviations? For instance, Seal lists

Is this correct? Should the acronym be listed at all?

What about at Ram, at the listing for Radar Absorbent Material, acronymed as RAM. Which is more appropriate?

I have seen all three used, and although the third seems intuitive, it seems to be discouraged. PaladinWhite 22:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The third option probably shouldn't be used (There is no need to emphasize the link with bolding...). As for the other two options: It depends on how many acronyms are listed on the dab page. If there are just one or two of them, use whatever style you prefer. If there are four or more, I tend to split the acronym section off from the rest. Examples: EMU, INA, even EDA. Then it's obvious it's an acronym. – sgeureka t•c 23:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
What if abbreviations make up a good part, or even the majority, of the entries? Should the abbreviation section then be sub-categorized just like a regular disambiguation page would be? PaladinWhite 23:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I used sub-sections for NET as an acronym. If you're unsure, trust your common sense. Whichever way you clean up a marked-for-cleanup dab page per MoS:DAB, it still looks better than before. :-) – sgeureka t•c 00:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

UNCC

Could an admin come over to the discussion page of UNCC and help myself and another decide how to proceed? Thanks! 65.82.104.120 17:17, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Last name disambig

The manual of style now says this:

People who happen to have the same surname or given name should not be mixed in with the other links unless they are very frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g., Elvis, Shakespeare). For short lists of such people, new sections of People with the surname Title and People with the given name Title can be added below the main disambiguation list. For longer lists, create a new Title (name), Title (surname) and/or Title (given name) page.

I think the examples of Elvis and Shakespeare make this sound like last name disambiguation should be a rare exception, not the rule. I want to disagree. It is true that only in extreme cases like Elvis and Shakespeare a person is only known with one name, but even in much more mundane cases, people would often want to find an article by last name. Consider someone hearing of an author named "Dickens", or "Kipling", and not being aware of their first name. Or someone (like myself) who found a painting by "Kessler" and didn't know his full name (Daniel Patrick Kessler, as I found after a Google search). Or hearing of prime-minister Olmert of Israel, and not knowing his full name. And I can go on and on. I think that last name disambiguation should be encouraged, not discouraged. Only in the rare cases of very common last names, should separate "list of people named..." articles should be considered (and even then, I believe the 10 most famous, say, people should also remain in the disambiguation page).

Nyh 10:06, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that part of the manual means that you shouldn't mix in names like
  • Thing
  • Person
  • Person
  • Thing
On the other hand, shorter lists of surnames are still allowed to be listed on dab pages, and easily accessible Title (surname) pages exist for longer lists. User:JHunterJ has a nice collection of old(er) surname debate links on his userpage, which I found interesting. Personally, I'm strictly against listing people with certain surnames on dab pages if there are more than 5~10 of them, as most(!) of them will never be referred to by just their last name in an article, making disambiguation of surnames useless (WP:DAB: ...disambiguations are paths leading to different topic pages that could have essentially the same term as their title - not the case with people sharing a surname). On the other hand, for whoever is too lazy to look up the correct name somewhere else first (Wikipedia is not Google), Title (surname) pages may be of help to help them. As far as know, those surname page only exist because you can't look for surnames in alphabetical order ({{lookfrom}} doesn't work) like you would in a normal encyclopedia; because links to LoPbN are hard to keep track of in dab pages; and because Title (surname) pages encourage inclusion of a more detailed origin of name etc (not really encouraged on dab pages). Fact is: Surnames clutter up dab pages, and when it gets confusing, it's IMO best to give surnames their own page. See Hill (disambiguation)/Hill (surname), Sullivan/Sullivan (surname) and even Wild/Wild (surname) to see what I mean. – sgeureka t•c 10:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to arrive here rather late.

I agree with what I take to be Nyh's main point.

I think I follow what sgeureka is saying. The premise forming the first half of his/her remark [F]or whoever is too lazy to look up the correct name somewhere else first (Wikipedia is not Google), Title (surname) pages may be of help to help them seems unfortunately flip: Looking in Google may do the job, but the useful information being sought could be in a language the searcher doesn't know, submerged by advertising, or hidden by some other obstacle.

sgeureka continues by saying that "Title (surname)" pages encourage inclusion of a more detailed origin of name etc -- uh huh, but should this be encouraged? I think not, and for several reasons.

First, WP is not a dictionary, and thus not an etymological dictionary. Etymologies can of course be legitimately summarized, but I suspect they are much likelier either to be cribbed fairly directly from copyrighted materials or to be worthless fantasies. (Or indeed both: cribbed from copyrighted fantasies.) I note that the etymological stuff within Sullivan (surname), mentioned above, is completely unsourced.

Secondly, even if the etymology is of the name is well sourced and scrupulously written, it's unlikely to tell us anything whatever about any but a tiny number of people who share the surname: it really is an irrelevance. (Even if the material about "Sullivan" is verifiable and [whispered] true, it tells me nothing about any real-world person called Sullivan other than that some male ancestor is likely to have been from Ireland.)

Worst, I fear that to encourage writing about surnames themselves, and about families, brings a huge risk of vanity -- blather about "leading" families, "distinguished" families and so forth.

Therefore I suggest that guidelines about pages of links to people who share the same surname should not encourage writing about that surname. The word "disambiguation" may be inappropriate for other reasons, but it seems handy for this purpose and its (modified?) retention, or a judicious substitute for it, may merit some thought. -- Hoary 06:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC) amended 01:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

In the meantime, I've found this two year old debate: Wikipedia:Deletion policy/names and surnames. It basically tackles the same issues as we do now, and it is not more conclusive than "use your common sense" and "follow existing WP guidelines". For most names, there will never be more than two sentences of etymology, so why not encourage etymology in the first place? I've also found that surname pages may be helpful when there are many spelling variants, e.g. Dymond (see the "see also" section). I've also dealt with the cleanup of lots of German surname pages in the past, and while I agree that etymology should mainly take place on wiktionary, there is the problem for instance that many German surnames are composite words (eg. Breit, now split and cleaned up), and as you might know, such words can get ridiculously long (Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft). Creating an etymological wiktionary entry for each variation of such a name is IMO not very helpful (not to mention that inexperienced wiki readers have never heard of wiktionary), whereas one or two sentences at the beginning of a foreign language surname page (including wikilinks) is.
And there won't be such a big problem with surnames since surname pages only survive if they list a few people who share this surname. If there are only redlinks, the page will be deleted sooner or later anyway. If there are several bluelinks, then it can be considered a surname dab. WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a directory ("Wikipedia articles are not: [...] Genealogical entries or phonebook entries") already prevents major abuse because of vanity and/or wrongly-perceived-to-be-leading families. But that's just me rambling. – sgeureka t•c 10:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Can you either point me to a good example of a surname etymology in WP or to two or three examples of surname articles with good material that isn't etymological? I'm not saying that they don't exist; I'm wondering what they look like if they do exist. -- Hoary 10:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Smith (surname), Shin (Korean name), de:Deutsch (Etymologie) (in relation to en:Deutsch (surname)), Wang (surname)... OTOH, I've cleaned up pages where the etymological attempt was rather bad (or just really unbalanced or antiquated) and has been removed since [3], so there are counter examples as well. The real question is: How many people are really interested in one particular surname, and how many people just want to check on WP whether their surname means something in another language ("cool, my name means 'captain'"). All major surnames have long pages of etymology (and rightly so!). The less notable surname usually have to suffice with a translation attempt, but may be expanded. I really don't see the harm either way (at the moment).
(And to back up why I suddenly switched from WP:NOT#GOOGLE to surname variations allowed: I have noticed that when dealing with foreign language surnames, most people (including me) are not aware of all correct transliterations. Eg. Frankel in itself may be from the German surname Frankel, or it was wrongly transliterated from "Fränkel", but what English keybord has got an "ä" on it? ;-) If someone knows more about this issue, this kind of etymological info may be included on the main surname page. Until then, the "see also" section has to suffice.) – sgeureka t•c 10:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I have only dealt with Chinese surname articles and they are mostly of low quality. Most people called Wang are not interrelated and do not share anything expect the surname. I especially take exception at a lot of the historical sections in the surname articles, many of which are pseudohistorical and based on the findings of a little-known geneticist who thinks that you can write Chinese history based on bloodgroups! We need a clean-up of these articles.--Amban 14:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Redlink discussion

I have been doing a lot of disambiguation work lately and have encountered a massive number of redlinks. The Manual of Style guideline on this reads as follows:

Links to non-existent articles ("redlinks") may be included only when an editor is confident that an encyclopedia article could be written on the subject.

This is way too lenient. An editor could be confident that any redlink (especially one of a person that appears to be notable) could possibly have an article written about it one day. Vandals regularly add a redlink of a fake or non-notable person and include a description that makes it seem like the person might one day actually have a Wikipedia article (such as "American baseball player", "Chinese politician", etc).

I propose that all redlinks be deleted from all disambiguation pages unless an outside source is provided proving that the person/thing exists and is notable enough to have a Wikipedia page. shoeofdeath 04:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean that redlinks on disambiguation pages would have to have a footnote asserting what the link is supposed to represent? Frankly, I fail to see how it would help readers if, for example, King Bell had all red-linked King Bells removed from it. And what's to stop a vandal from adding a link to a phoney person or thing to the disambiguation page and then making up a fake reference to back it up? No, I think what might be a better idea is for someone to check any questionable redlinks with a Google test or something similar to determine whether they are valid and "an encyclopedia article could be written on the subject." — Brian (talk) 04:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I think there is general consensus that without a footnote redlinks can be removed (maybe I am wrong here). For an article like King Bell it may not seem like a big deal (I would still get rid of the redlinks), but other articles contain a vast number of redlinks that make it harder for people to find the person they are actually looking for. I mentioned vandals who add fake names - I would say these only account for about 10% of redlinks overall (this is still a huge amount of junk). Most redlinks are about people/things that actually exist, what I am saying is that it is insane to just allow anyone to add a redlink about whatever they want and have it remain on Wikipedia. Your Google test is a nice idea but is unrealistic; the amount of redlinks on dab pages is enormous and it would take people forever to check everything. It would be much easier if redlinks were just removed on sight; newly created articles would obviously be added to dab pages. I realize this seems a little extreme, but doesn't anyone else think that redlinks detract from the appearance and quality of disambiguation pages? shoeofdeath 05:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Erm, no, general consensus (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)) is to not have any footnotes/external links on dab pages:
This style guideline is intended to make this process more efficient by giving disambiguation pages a consistent look and avoiding distracting information, such as extraneous links (internal or external)
External links should rarely, if ever, be given entries in disambiguation pages. Including them as comments or on a talk page is a way to mention URLs that might be helpful in the future.
On the other hand, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Redlinks would favor User:Shoeofdeath's approach:
Links to non-existent articles ("redlinks") may be included only when an editor is confident that an encyclopedia article could be written on the subject.
Adding links to articles not yet written should be done with care. There is no need to brainstorm all occurrences of the page title and create redlinks to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics.
Do include a redlink when another article links to the ambiguous article with none of the disambiguation options in mind. (A list of links to an article can be obtained using Special:What links here.)
Even the dab editors regularly discuss if/how many redlinks should be left on dab pages. (see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation_pages)) My personal take: The article is supposed to establish notability of the subject, not the dab page, so no need for any footnotes. If it's a redlink, and the Whatlinkshere page is empty, the redlink gets removed. I hope that helps. – sgeureka t•c 07:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Right, I am generally against keeping any redlinks (forget what I said about outside sources) and agree with you almost completely, sgeureka. I do not believe that this is agreed upon by most Wikipedians, though, and am suggesting that the MOS be more strictly worded. I will go back and read about what has been said here about redlinks in the past, but from my experience most people have a very different (more generous) opinion than us about redlinks. shoeofdeath 07:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Alright so it seems that all of this has basically been discussed here already. All that I can really gather is that there is no definitive policy on redlinks (Wikipedia:Red link?? - still very unclear). I think it really needs to be decided on for sure whether we want redlinks or not - various parts of the MOS all say different things, and in the meantime some editors continue to add and keep redlinks while others remove them. shoeofdeath 07:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I concentrate my efforts on the disambiguation of placenames, and I don't delete redlinks if I am satisfied a place exists. If I can find it on a map, I leave it in. This includes, for example, all the places in the List of United Kingdom locations.
In the UK, a settlement can be tiny, only a few houses, yet still be needed on a dab page because it is referred to in historical articles - because of nearby archaeological remains or an ancient battlefield.
Take a look at Sutton - if you delete the redlinked places, you give a false impression that all references to Sutton, Kent must mean the place near Dartford. I added the redlink to the village near Deal last October to make it clear this is not the case. CarolGray 10:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone will disagree that clearly non-notable items unlikely to have an article should be removed. However, thoughtlessly removing all redlinks is a bad idea as well. Let's not forget that they help encourage an article to be written, and if the subject is notable, there's no reason not to at least acknowledge its existence. The quick Google test is usually pretty useful for this. I'll just add that as something of an "in-between" solution, I will sometimes take redlinks for which I'm not sure about, or that Google doesn't return anything but in cases where that isn't a sure-fire test, I'll comment the entries out and move them to the bottom with a comment along the lines of "notability not established." Moving them to the talk page would work too. That way, there's some record of them still around, and if some turn out to be legitimate, future editors can easily find them and put them back. SnowFire 14:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines state (as pointed out earlier in the discussion) "Do include a redlink when another article links to the ambiguous article with none of the disambiguation options in mind." I have added more stubs and articles to WP than I have added red links, but I added a red link the other day. This illustrates why the guideline exists, and why editors should follow the guidelines. I added the actor to Frank Hayes. It is a red link. If you follow the link and then select "What links here" it will lead you to two movies in which he appeared. One of those may be all a reader needs if he/she was looking for a Louise somebody who acted in silent movies with Frank Hayes. The connections within Wikipedia are a large part of its strength. An editor who goes around deleting all red links from dab pages should stop and ask himself/herself "Am I doing this to please my own set of sensibilities, or am I helping the readers and improving Wikipedia?" The purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide information to its readers; those readers are not served by wholesale deletion of information. Chris the speller 15:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I think I generally agree with everyone here: obviously checking out the "what links here" is good reason for a redlink to be left. Moving some redlinks to the talk page is a good idea - I hadn't considered that before. I sort of disagree with the logic that it encourages articles to be written (doesn't mean they are notable) but this is minor.
I brought this up because I have had a few agruments lately over pages with a very large numbers of redlinks (not location pages, I was really only talking about human names). I am not really worried so much about relatively short dab pages. People here seem to be very confident in the "guidelines" but like I said before, different parts of the MOS say different things (not just about redlinks). I still do not see that there is any definite answer to this - if there is nothing on the "what links here" (or Google results) it is basically up to the editor to decide if it should be kept or not.
Oh, and for those concered about me going "around deleting all red links" should not worry - I do not plan to spend that more much time on dab pages because the guidelines are clearly a mess. I also think people seriously overestimate the number of people who actually read the guidelines. Again, I see now that this has been discussed several times over the history of this and other talk pages and I apologize for bringing it up again. shoeofdeath 17:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
The guidelines are a mess?! Where are you getting this from? Don't get me wrong, I have my own disagreements with them, but they're pretty clear, all told, and more and more disambig pages are looking basically like the guidelines suggest. There are far fewer really weird disambig pages now then in, say, early 2005. And people don't need to read the guidelines- they pick up what they see on other disambig pages as the suggested style, and tend to keep to the style of the page when adding new entries. As long as a small number of people make more and more of these pages fit the preferred style, other people will organically and accidentally adopt that style as well.
That said, don't feel obligated to "fix" disambig pages. If you don't want to spend the time simply Googling a few redlinks to make certain they exist, then don't! Just don't remove them "on sight", either. SnowFire 17:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
If "a mess" was too strong, perhaps I should have said "inconsistent". Example: Wikipedia:Red link does not say the same thing as the main dab section on MOS ("a new article is needed" vs "only when an editor is confident"). shoeofdeath 18:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Shoeofdeath, the guidelines encourage common sense, therefore they aren't very strict (and sometimes open to interpretation). But whereas full human names are clearly covered by disambiguation (MOS:DAB), it has been decided some times ago that surnames aren't/shouldn't be anymore. When lists of surnames become too long, they may be split off to their own surname article pages (whereas disambiguation pages are non-article pages), and MoS:DAB doesn't apply anymore.
As I think that you were referring to the WP:SU pages, I'd just inform you that almost all of the redlink entries were copied from either de:wikipedia or the saur.de PDF files (which are usually also listed in the external links section). In either case, the person who copied them here hasn't given much thought to whether the English-speaking wikipedians care for creating articles about German TV dubbers or the average Jewish rabbi etc. (which wouldn't make the notability cut either way). And as lists of surnames can quickly violate WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, the indiscriminate cut-off point may as well be "needs to have an article, or another article linking to it". Therefore, checking the Whatlinkshere pages for shorter lists is never a bad idea. (But no-one would jump at you if you just delete them without checking in a case like this.) ;-) – sgeureka t•c 18:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Haha, thanks sgeureka. Yes, I was generally talking about surname pages which I still consider to be dab pages because they are not really "articles", that is, they usually have little to no content and just disambiguate to other articles. I wasn't really talking about WP:SU and understand the situation there well - I just became confused after reading some of the MOS (always a bad idea, IMO). There are way too many rules and everything is too broad, I'll just stick with common sense and go with it. : ) shoeofdeath 18:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
There's never a need to apologize for asking an honest question. I agree that the guidelines are often poorly explained, but they generally come to make sense, if you spend enough time working with disambiguation pages. Chris the speller 20:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Uncle Tom's Cabin AfD

Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Uncle Tom's Cabin (disambiguation). Could other editors familiar with the disambiguation concept please weigh in. Thanks. -- JHunterJ 10:56, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Bluelinks

User:David Gerard recently made changes to the guidelines on wikilinks on the dab pages, mainly softening the language. In the past, I believe we have wanted to have the default be one per line and understood there to be cases where this might not be useful and that would fall under the "break the rules" paragraph at the bottom. I would prefer we keep it that way. Why the change? (John User:Jwy talk) 15:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

David is running about the MoS making changes to pages that suck, mainly making it possible for them to be read as guidelines, rather than clubs. Why not? fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 04:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The old version does indeed read better than David's revision. Guidelines are supposed to be prescriptive; I might equally well say, "David is running about the MoS making changes to guidelines, mainly making them read as marshmallows, rather than guidelines. Why?" (Not that I've read any other revisions by the editor in question, but this one was definitely a marshmallow.) --Quuxplusone 07:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

David just removed some redundance. Before his edit, one-blue-link-per-line was mentioned twice. The only thing in his version that I would have changed is moving (not copying) the bluelink info somewhere to the top as it is one of the most important things in dab'ing. – sgeureka t•c 08:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Redundancy is good for communication, though. IMO. -- JHunterJ 10:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Check for yourself: [4]. Part of the reason I brought the topic up here was that the edits didn't seem to completely reflect the changes. (John User:Jwy talk) 20:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC)