Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shortcuts:
WT:WPDIS
WT:WPDAB

For discussion related to disambiguation on Wikipedia but not to the project, please see the Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation (general disambiguation) or the Manual of Style (specific style questions).



To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation: edit · history · watch · refresh

Make it so disambiguations are no longer classed as articles! (but see talk)
Archive
Archives
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3
Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6
Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9
This talk page is automatically archived by MiszaBot II.

Any sections older than 30 days are automatically archived. An archive index is available here.


Contents

[edit] Maxwell School

Maxwell School currently directs to secondary school by that name in Malaysia, while the graduate school in New York that commonly goes by that name is under the heading Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. While this is its full name, I have to think that there should be a disambig page for ¨Maxwell School" that would direct the reader to both. After all, English language users are much more likely to be looking for the American graduate school than the Malaysian secondary school when they search ¨Maxwell School¨. Iś appreciate if someone could make this disambig page as I´m pretty busy at the moment. Thanks. -Plasticbadge (talk) 17:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There's already a hatnote on the Singaporean school; that should do it for now. If there get to be a further number of notable schools of that name, then we'll need a dab page. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dab pages for countries

I was removing the incoming links for Greek and noticed that not all Greek related pages are added on the page (e.g. Greek Music or Greek Religion). I checked other country related dab pages and saw that mostly only the country, the people and the language is mentioned, sometimes history and culture. However I couldn't find a policy relating to it. is there any reason why these pages are missing? --Mdebets (talk) 22:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Is someone looking for Greek Music going to enter Greek in the search box and hit "Go"? Is an editor intending to link to Greek Music going to call it Greek in an article? If not, there's no reason to put it on the disambiguation page. The country, the language, and the people are likely to have "yes" answers to those questions. Music and religion are less likely, but vary by the term. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
The only country I can think of which might need a country dab page is Korea (which already has one here). You might need one for America as that could refer to a number of locations, but that page is already a dab page. There may be others, but that's what I can think of off the cuff. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
There's also Macedonia. :) --Tkynerd (talk) 02:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
China, Madagascar, I'm sure there are many (especially if someone made a movie about it!). (John User:Jwy talk) 02:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't know if many people will type "Greek" in the search box and hit "Go" when looking for Greek music, but for sure people will link just the word "Greek" in such circumstances. I've disambiguated several language/ethnicity pages, and frequently there are links to music or cuisine. I often link those to the culture article, but if there is a music article and/or there is a cuisine article, those articles belong on the dab page.  Randall Bart   Talk  20:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Devilman (disambiguation)

New dab needs attention. For example, the red links (each?) need a good description and blue link. Or perhaps a different layout which conforms with MoS:DAB#Red links? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps there could be a link to Devilman#Remakes.2C_Sequels.2C_and_Live-action_movie saying something along the lines of "Adaptations of the film", instead of all the red links? That section of the article seems to talk about all of them, and in more depth than the disambiguation page does/can. -- Natalya 10:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the redlinks would all point back to the primary topic Devilman, they aren't too useful on the dab page. I've commented them out. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Otaki

How's it looking? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Taylor County

Discussion moved to Talk:Taylor County. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] So I finished the P's, Q's, and R's

As I mentioned above , I'm doing a massive cleanup on disambiguation pages, going through and checking each page one by one. I've finished the 10,000 or so pages in the P's, Q's, and R's, having done at least some cleanup on probably 70% of them.

As before, I'm not completely polishing these pages to perfection, just removing the worst of the problems, the excess blue links, periods at the end of entries, inappropriate bold text, entries which obviously don't belong, fixing inappropriate piping, moving the blue linked term to the beginning of the entry if possible. Also, the worst of the pages, 100 of them or so by now, are getting disambig-cleanup tags.

I've made a new section on this here rather than simply updating the previous one as I want to insure this cleanup is noticed, partly just to keep editors informed, but also hopefully to inspire someone at some point to join in or take over when I inevitably burn out on this. If I could somehow keep this up for the next 10 months, I'd finish them all, but the odds of that seem low.

I noticed that editors in this project were spending time debating over the minutiae of the various finer points of the manual of style, having crafted a well thought out set of guidelines over what disambiguation pages should look like... but 25% of the pages were radically divergent from the guideline and another 50% were somewhat off. Things were (and still are) such a mess that it becomes almost futile to try to enforce the guidelines on any page, since any editor could easily point out that in general the guidelines aren't really being followed anyway.

Well, they're being followed on the pages beginning with P through R now. And I'm onto the S's next. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 21:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like what you're doing is quite beneficial. Yeah, I've noticed that recently, there's been a bit of disagreeing back and forth over pages that, in relation to other disambiguation pages, are in pretty good shape. I like your attitude of getting the pages managable, but not obsessing over minute details, so that a lot can get done. Right now, I'm still focusing on the pages tagged for cleanup, but I may take up your task also. You initially started with the P's, right? -- Natalya 13:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I have been working slowly back from the Zs. Abtract (talk) 14:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps eventually I'll make it far enough to reach the portion you've done, and I'll be able to skip forward to the A's. If I'm still at this, some months from now. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 16:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I started with the P's. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 16:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to start going backwards from you... which puts me at the O's. -- Natalya 17:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Groovy. You might want to consider using some software to help you out, if you're not doing so already. I find wikEd to be helpful, there may be other software which is better, I'm not sure. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 20:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I just looked over several of your pages. It looks good, though in some cases you are being too strict in removing secondary links. If there are just a few links, and the secondary links are potentially useful, you can leave them. In Sell Sell Sell you should have just left it as it was. In the former version I could hover Barenaked Ladies or David Gray and have popups tell me a little of the article, which might be enough to tell me which one I want.  Randall Bart   Talk  21:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I disagree in general. On longer pages (beyond the two there), having a bunch of links on the page make it difficult to find the one thing most people coming to the page are looking. If they are interested in looking at BNL, then they can click on Maroon and get there that way. Most people looking for BNL would have entered Bare Naked Ladies rather than Sell Sell Sell. But on a shorter page, I'm not that concerned. (John User:Jwy talk) 03:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flash (comics)

I need a little help on this page. User:J Greb is insisting that the hatlink there should not use a redirect over the direct link. I've pointed the guidelines to him several times (especially WP:D#Links to disambiguation pages), but he seems to not get it. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like you've cited all the appropriate guidelines for why the link should be to Flash (disambiguation). Perhaps wait and see with what he replies? -- Natalya 22:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
He won't settle for anything else. Should I undo the edit per our discussion? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I find it's almost always best to wait and resolve the issue first, rather than start a psuedo (or real) edit war. In hopes to be helpful, I've posted my thoughts on his talk page, so hopefully we can find a resolution. -- Natalya 23:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Per his (J Greb's) talk page, it looks like there's a better understanding on the issue now. I'll go ahead and change it back. -- Natalya 01:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I guess it's possible that he overlooked something. Alas, glad to hear all was settled ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Torres (disambiguation)

There any rule on using two similar looking "disambig" tags? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no actual rule against it. Arguably it looks weird to have two similar messages at the end of the article, but there are many articles with multiple stub tags. I would avoid it unless there's a specific justification for it.  Randall Bart   Talk  19:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
There should not be multiple disambiguation tags on a page. older ≠ wiser 19:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I've dealt with it. :) Abtract (talk) 19:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mick / Mike / Michael Hill

Does anyone see a good reason why I shouldn't merge the 3 dab pages Mick Hill, Mike Hill, Michael Hill into one? It wouldn't be unbearably long, I suggest. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Only issue may be that the Micks aren't all actually named Michael or Mike. See the archived discussion on Danny Miller for dab pages with a similar issue. --Tesscass (talk) 21:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Quite so; I'll try to find a form of introduction that doesn't imply that they're completely interchangeable. --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
You might also check with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy folks. They have thought long and hard about name pages and might have a different (but hopefully not inconsistent) view of things. (John User:Jwy talk) 22:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)-
Thanks for thinking about the Anthroponymy WikiProject. The focus of that Project is on one-name studies (e.g. Mick, Mike, Michael ... all of which need some work) rather than full names. I do no think you should feel constrained by origin-relatedness in the case of {{hndis}}-type dab pages. (a note has been cross-posted referring to this discussion to invite further comment) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for cross-posting. --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Suggestion withdrawn. There are see also links from each to the other two, and it didn't seem that there was much confusion among the inbound links to each of the 3. --AndrewHowse (talk) 13:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Airport codes and radio stations

On a related subject, but not wanting to start a war between two projects not being sure what the rules are... The guidelines mention that dab pages are supposed to show alternatives to article TITLES which might have the same meaning. I do a lot of searches on radio stations, and frequently bump up against dab pages listing an airport ICAO code as an alternative article KSYR as an example. The general public would never do a "Go" article search with an ICAO code to find the article on the Syracuse International Airport. If they know the code, they could "Search" to find the article, since the code appears in the article. For a radio station (in the U.S. at least), the call sign IS the name of the station - it isn't an acronym or a code - it's the only reasonable name for the article. People looking for the AM radio station in New York on 770 khz are going to search for WABC or perhaps WABC-AM if they know the naming convention used by the radio station project and know there is a WABC-TV.

I also notice similar pages where the 4 character word that overlaps a radio station call sign is a character name in a literary work, a "move" in a martial art, a word from another language... None of those are article titles - just words used in the target article. Am I on safe ground removing those kinds of disambiguations? If so, what do I refer to as the policy I'm basing the change on?StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 10:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

No, do not remove those entries. In general, they should be listed below entries such as those for radio stations, in which the dab term appears in the article title, when there is an article for the radio station.
  • KSYR appears to serve no purpose -- there is only one blue link on it, so it should redirect to the airport or the radio station article stub should be created.
  • WABC needs cleaning to remove the bare red links.
  • An entry like this, from APC, is fine:
  • Or use a hatnote like the one on KMCI if there is only the radio station and the airport.
Let us know if this helps. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:57, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
As a follow up, the Manual of Style for disambiguation pages discusses having entries on a disambiguation page that are part of an article, not an article themselves. For more information, you can take a look at the sections in the Manual of Style on red links and URL anchor notation. -- Natalya 14:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Species epithet disambiguation pages

I have created a few disambiguation pages that list articles that share the same species epithet, including canus and miserabilis. The rationale behind creating such pages as these is that a person will often only know part of the name of the species for which they are looking. By typing "canus" or "miserabilis" into the search bar, they are provided with either a short list to choose from or a long well-structured list by which they will easily find the specific species they desire. These pages are not supposed to indicate that there is some connection between the species listed. Instead, they serve as disambiguation pages that distinguish between unrelated but similarly-titled articles. The validity of these disambiguation pages has been questioned, so I thought that the WikiProject Disambiguation community would be able to help in the discussion. Please voice your opinion and your reasons so that we can determine whether or not species epithet disambiguation pages in general should be created. Neelix (talk) 01:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... I can see the use, but isn't that sort of what the search function is for? If I don't know the whole species name, and I just know "Canus", I'll type it in the search bar, and all the things with the name will come up. I'm not sold one way or the other yet, but that's my first thought. -- Natalya 02:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
There are a huge number of specific epithets in the world, particularly when one considers all the names that have been used for the same organisms. Further, some of them have been used for hundreds if not thousands of taxa. Check out alba or crassa or hispida, etc. Having access to the type of disambiguation tool you discuss might well be helpful. I'm not at all sure, though, that this project fits within the space envisioned for Wikipedia. I would advise much more discussion before creating pages except as sandbox tests. Tim Ross (talk) 10:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems fairly reasonable that a readers might type in Canus or Miserabilis when looking for any of the entries on these pages, if they had half remembered the name. Indeed they may even think that the thing they are seeking is actually called by that name. The fact that there are potentially huge numbers involved should have no bearing. "Are the pages useful in a disambiguating way?" is surely the only question of significance and IMHO the anser is "Yes". IMHO this is an acceptable, if slightly marginal, use of a disambiguation page. Abtract (talk) 11:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm. As the person who tagged the Miserabilis article for deletion, I feel like I ought to be against this, but I think I'm liking this idea. First of all, when a search is performed, I don't enjoy weeding through each result and several hundred pages to find the one I'm looking for, or even to find out I don't know what I'm looking for!
Second of all, it occurred to me that there are many species which are renamed or have controversial names, so this could be a useful way to locate those species. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs)

[edit] War Machine (disambiguation)

Shouldn't WARMACHINE be a second primary topic for this dab, like how streetfighter is one for Street Fighter (disambiguation)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

No, streetfighter shouldn't be a primary topic on Street Fighter (disambiguation); there are not multiple entries that would have gone on to a hypothetical Streetfighter (disambiguation) page for it to be the primary topic of and kept so after being merged; and there are not multiple entries that would have gone on to a hypothetical WARMACHINE (disambiguation) page for it to be the primary topic of and kept so after being merged to War Machine (disambiguation). As we've discussed before, and Abtract agreed (or at least conceded), at WT:MOSDAB#Primary topic after that edit at the Street Fighter dab. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Conceded lol. Abtract (talk) 13:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Doctor Doom (disambiguation)

I'm proposing the creation of this page, as I believe there are enough subjects:

Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think a user would be expecting any of those articles when typing in "Doctor Doom" other than the top two (when to disambiguate). I'd say a dab link at the top of Doctor Doom for Marc Faber should be sufficient. Thanks/wangi (talk) 11:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
What about the fact that we have other similar-looking "stub dabs", like Children's literature (disambiguation), Buu and Devilman (disambiguation)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 07:55, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Looking at Children's literature (disambiguation), I don't think we need all of those see also links! None of them are easily confusable by title, and even though they are about the same topic, they are all listed at the primary topic Children's literature. I don't even think we need that disambiguation page at all, and could just have top links between Children's literature and Children's Literature (journal). -- Natalya 14:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Guess I'll tag it for deletion with {{db-disambig}}. That ok? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think we need to deleted - I just made it a redirect to Children's literature, and modified the hatnote. -- Natalya 20:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe it's common practice to delete redirected links with "(disambiguation)", like I requested for UBU (disambiguation), Indian (Americas disambiguation) and Vizard (disambiguation). Does it bother you that much? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I can't think of there being harm either way, but I had in the back of my mind that we were supposed to redirect them. After digging through WP:D, I came across a line in Wikipedia:D#Links_to_disambiguation_pages saying an example of a link to a disambiguation page could be "Redirects from page names that have "(disambiguation)" in their titles — E.g., Britain (disambiguation) redirects to Britain". Which it does. Since no one is going to type in "xyz (disambiguation)" into the search bar, it shouldn't hurt people using the encyclopedia to delete the pages, but for behind the scenes work, having the page at least exist may make it easier to see the history of why it was deleted, etc. Overall, probably no harm done by deleting them, but I don't think they have to be. -- Natalya 00:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I think you're a little confused, Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages shows that the tag is for redirects with the "(disambiguation)". These only target their dab counterpart. This is not the case for Children's literature (disambiguation), which targets a non-disambiguation page. Does this make sense? Ah, while I'm here let me ask you, how does Beelzebub (disambiguation) look? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
OH! I get it. :) Sorry, it took me a while to work through all the terminology, but no, you're right, that totally makes sense. I'll go ahead and delete the page.
As for Beelzebub (disambiguation), it looks nice - I just have two thoughts. You could reconsider the ordering of links per MoS:DP#Order_of_entries. Also, I'm having some difficulty with the See also section. On first glance, it looks too long. Then I consider it more, and I can see that there are some legitimate possible misspellings going on. If it were me (and this is just my opinion!), I'd move the Beelzebub Jones link to the regular section, and probably delete the "What's New, Beelzebub?" link, since it doesn't seem to be anything anyone would easily confuse with just the term "Beelzebub". But what do you think? -- Natalya 20:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, I never really grasped the concept of MoS:DP#Order of entries, mainly because I'm not sure which terms (save for the primary topic) would be the most popular choices. Can you make the necessary tweak(s) there? I might learn from you ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, though I still don't see a significant difference. So, what shall we do with a "Doctor Doom (disambiguation)" and this one? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)It seems valid to have Doctor Doomsday there, since (myself being confused), it seems that people would consider him similar to Dr. Doom. I don't particularly think the other links besides Doctor Doom and Marc Faber are necessary - yes, they are about similar Dr. Doom topics, but they are not confusable by title, and would be more appropriate in the Doctor Doom article (which many/all of them are). -- Natalya 21:52, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

OK. We all set here? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tombstoning

I'd appreciate if somebody could help out with Tombstoning - it's clearly needing a clean-up and is basically a list of dictionary definitions and entries that are otherwise not notable. Add to that a references section... I don't have the time just to do this properly, talking the issue through with contributors as to why those entries are misplaced. Thanks/wangi (talk) 11:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Tombstoning is when a member of a legislative body uses his name as part of the name of an act, so that the law will be known by his name, eg, Taft-Hartley. Are you telling me there are other uses of the term? Who knew?
This is one of those dab pages that has few links into it and few links out of it. It's not really a dab page, it's more of a wp:dicdef. I think that dicdef belong in Wikipedia, but the powers that be disagree. When I encounter such a page, I just ignore it and move on. If you think you can do something with it, do it, but don't search too long for the right thing to do, because there is no right thing.  Randall Bart   Talk  19:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
This is not a dab page. If someone wants to turn it into one, they are welcome to, but in its current state it doesn't disambiguate articles, so I have removed the tag. SlackerMom (talk) 20:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Given that it contains a bunch of brief, unrelated entries, it appears to indeed be a disambiguation page, but one with no keepable entries. I'll agree with Barticus88 that there isn't really a right thing to do with this page. Split it up into 10 useless stubs? Keep it as a useless disambiguation page? I'd just as soon delete it, but then, I do like the simple answers. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Near everything there is a simple dictionary definition and shouldn't really be on the dabpage (per guidelines/policy at WP:DAB#Dictionary definitions and WP:DICTIONARY). However the "extreme sport" probably is notable enough to warrant an article (see http://tombstoning.com/ and http://google.com/search?q=tombstoning for links to many media stories). Thanks/wangi (talk) 22:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mark I, Mark II, Mark III, Mark IV, etc.

Under the aegis of the WP:WikiProject Military history, I recently proposed a series of "Mark {Roman numeral}" disambiguation pages that cite variants of weapons, vehicles and products, along with other pages that fall under the particular dab heading. The first handful of these are already in place, except for Mark II which is currently a radio telescope article. I've been working on Mark I, Mark III, Mark IV, Mark XIV, Mark XV and Mark XVIII, and intend to continue fleshing out and adding where needed. Redirects along the lines of Mk I, Mk. I as well as Mk 1 and Mk. 1 will be added up through the various Arabic and Roman numerals.

The Mark II and Mark X pages will have to be taken away from the current articles that are there now. Mark II (radio telescope) can be created (similar to Mark III (radio telescope)), and Mark X (musician) will have to be created as well.

Mark 1 through Mark 16 are set up as chapters of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. I don't have the slightest problem with this: they can stay where they are. I'll add Mark 17 and up as redirects.

The basis for this new project is the assumption that some readers will be coming here looking for an article on an item only knowing its 'mark' number. To help these readers, a number of piped links will be necessary to bring the variant to the fore. For instance, Merkava Mark III is the piped link that brings the reader deeper into the appropriate section of the Merkava article. Binksternet (talk) 17:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems fairly reasonable, although I'm not sure if we could fully defend the notion that it's "primarily" found in military hardware. But thanks for bringing this here. Please note that each line/entry on a dab page should only have one blue link and that any other text should be the bare minimum needed to allow the reader to find the article s/he seeks.
And, of course, when you move Mark II and Mark X, you'll need to clean up the redirects before you build your new page! Feel free to ask for help here if need be. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Looks like User:Swpb set up Mark III to line up with the DAB Project guidelines. I'll use that page as the template for all the other dab pages. Binksternet (talk) 18:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I suspect that all sorts of things that have a Mark 3, for example, will be added here from time to time - and from time to time we'll delete 'em all since nobody is likely to search for a Canon Eos by typing Mark3 in the search box. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I would like help in moving Mark II and Mark X to their new pages. I would prefer not to bother the editors involved in those articles until the rest of the 'Mark' dab pages are in place. That way, the "owners" of the already-established pages will see the scale involved and resist the move less strongly. Binksternet (talk) 18:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Up to you entirely. It's not the article per se, so much as all the other articles that link to it that will need to be changed. If one goes to Mark II and clicks on 'What links here' in the toolbox, one sees all the articles that will (eventually, and wrongly) link to the new dab page unless we fix that; that's what I'm getting at. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, yes, the Alt-J links. Binksternet (talk) 20:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Hang on. It should not be automatic that these dab pages replace an existing page of the same name. There are general (not super specific, but still. . .) guidelines for whether a dab page should be at X or whether X is a primary article and X (disambiguation) is the dab page. You should look at each in turn and not assume that you have precedence. Or maybe I've missed something? (John User:Jwy talk) 20:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? I've never understood how one can objectively determine the primary topic. It could be determined by consensus, or just by chronological precedence, of course. Binksternet, perhaps you should propose a move, on the talk pages and at WP:RM, and hope that a consensus emerges. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I'll check for notable instances of Mark II and Mark X that would add leverage to consensus at those article's talk pages. I'll start the process of gaining consensus when it seems appropriate in terms of progress on the total project. Binksternet (talk) 21:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
The current Mark II has 21 incoming links, of which at least this and this are false. The current Mark X has 5 incoming links, and this one is false. That's pretty low move impact. Go ahead and move them and fix the links.  Randall Bart   Talk  20:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Fixed the bad links. I'll do a find and replace for the remaining good links in AWB after the moves if you like; it'll be easier and faster than doing it manually. --AndrewHowse (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Spider-Man episodes

I was wondering if such a page could be used to disambiguate:

Thoughts on what to make of this? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
It definitly seems like a useful page. I think it may be a set index article, though? -- Natalya 14:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Should I make a layout like that of List of Harry Potter related topics? Inclusively, since WP:PIPING discourages pipe links, what would be a good redirect for Spider-Man (1967 TV series)#Episode list? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Piping would seem a appropriate in that case. I also agree with Nataly about making it a set index (which would allow a bit more flexibility on formatting so defintiely piping would be fine) but one thought on the name: should it be "Lists of Spider-Man episodes"? You could redirect "List" there but "Lists" strikes me as being slightly better, after all you would have "Mountains named Black" not "Mountain". Although that is splitting hairs - the important thing is to have the article. (Emperor (talk) 04:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC))
Since it's a list of lists, your point is sound, Emperor - it should be "lists". -- Natalya 10:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I just had a thought, wouldn't List of Spider-Man related topics be a lot better following the Harry Potter precedent? Any "List" and "Lists" links can redirect there. However, I still need a suggestion on what the name of the redirect for Spider-Man (1967 TV series)#Episode list could be. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Could you make it similar to the title for List of Spider-Man (1994 animated series) episodes? -- Natalya 21:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
We have two options:
  • List of Spider-Man (1967 animated series) episodes
  • List of Spider-Man (1967 TV series) episodes
I'd say the latter would be the best choice, but only because the main article is titled Spider-Man (1967 TV series). Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Unless there was a 1967 un-animated series, List of Spider-Man (1967 TV series) episodes seems fine. -- Natalya 17:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wanted: Disambigious members with free time to help MASSIVE project!

Note that this was originally posted here: Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links but I feel that this is also a good place to ask anyone to have a look.
Hello disambigious wikiproject! Just giving a shout out to anyone that is here interested in a VERY BIG disambigious task. It involves this BOT: User:FritzpollBot and this project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Places. The objective is to add an extra ~1.8 million articles on Wikipedia. Yup that's right, ~1.8 million articles of places (viligies,towns etc). All of this will be automated and such but there is a problem with the disambigiuation aspects of this task. That is, there are many places that happen to have the same name (but are two different places --> as suggested by the coordinates) and if one article was to be created, the second won't be created but will instead be a copy of the first. This might leave big gaps in the amount of articles created so that is why disambigious names will need to be fixed to ensure there is an article for each of the places. There currently are a few people undertaking this task already but if you happen to be interested in this task, do check out the project page and help any country of your choise out. Currently not all countries are available, but they soon will be so I thought I give a heads up to anyone that might want to help out in anyway. Ok maybe that wasn't an exceptional explanation but if you have any questions, please go to User talk:Fritzpoll or User talk:Blofeld of SPECTRE as both happen to be a part of this excellent idea. Cheers! Calaka (talk) 11:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh and just to give an update: There is currently a discussion occuring here at: [1] so if there is any interest, you are more than welcome to state your view/opinion. Cheers!Calaka (talk) 01:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{surname}} vs. {{hndis}} vs. {{disambig}}, etc

I'm working on a bot to add missing entries to DABs, and it has run into some problematic pages like McCain (disambiguation). This used to be tagged as a DAB, but now is just a {{surname}} page. Nonetheless, it has a few non–personal name links at the bottom. (Other examples include Riemann (disambiguation) and Yakovlev (disambiguation).) Most surname pages are not disambiguation pages, supposedly, but this one is a mix. I am a bit confused over DAB vs. surname vs. hndis—can anyone share their theories about this? Thanks. —johndburger 16:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi. This is another one where Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy might have some input - I'll cross-post it if nobody has beaten me to it. My understanding is that {{surname}} simply tags a page as dealing, anthroponymically, with a given name. It might cover derivation, similarities in other languages, and/or a list of examples. It is not intended to disambiguate. {{hndis}} is specifically for disambiguation of the same name; e.g. Michael Smith. There shouldn't be anything there but entries for various Michael Smiths, and certainly nothing about the names Michael or Smith per se. {{disambig}} is for other disambiguation pages that are not human names (nor ships, nor places, which also have their own disambiguation templates - there are doubtless others). In other words, {{hndis}} is a special case of {{disambig}} and should be mutually exclusive with {{surname}}, in the vast majority of cases.
You might also check with User:Quadell who has a bot to work on human names that could be added to dab pages; see (the history of) Wikipedia:Suggestions_for_name_disambiguation. No sense in reinventing a wheel.
Finally (one surely hopes - this is too long!) McCain (disambiguation) looks more like an {{disambig}} than a {{surname}}; I think that's the wrong template. I don't think it's an {{hndis}} because there are multiple given names covered. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree - McCain (disambiguation), as it stands now, should have the {{disambig}} tag on it (going to go change that now). If there was a page McCain (surname), that would be appropriate to have the {{surname}} tag. -- Natalya 17:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
But DABs are for pages with same or similar titles—my reading of MOSDAB is that a DAB called McCain should not contain a list of people with surname McCain, which is mostly what McCain (disambiguation) is. Therein lies my confusion. Should said list be broken out into McCain (surname), with a pointer from the (now) DAB page? —johndburger 00:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
One could read it that way. One would then need to remove all the people from McCain (disambiguation) to List of people with the surname McCain or somesuch, along with the line about the origin of the name. I would contend that there's not enough about the name qua name to merit {{surname}}; it would simply be a list. Is there a problem you're trying to solve, or is this more of a theoretical excursion? There's nothing wrong with the latter, but I'm not sure what you're trying to do. --AndrewHowse (talk) 01:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure how else to read MOSDAB—it pretty clearly says none of those people should be on McCain (disambiguation) if the latter is a disambiguation page. But the non-theoretical issue has to do with making my bot follow MOSDAB and other guidelines. An immediate question is what should the bot do with these kinds of pages. Imagine that it wants to add a new article, Riemann (album), to Riemann (disambiguation). Should it do so? Should it change the page from a {{surname}} to a DAB? That seems quite excessive. Thinking out loud, I suppose it should not do anything at all where a {{surname}} or {{given name}} page is involved. I want it to be as conservative as possible, as I think most bots should be. —johndburger 02:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Technically, unless the person is really known by just "McCain", they shouldn't be on the disambiguation page. However, this is often only loosely followed. I for one don't think that it is unreasonable to change a page from {{surname}} to {{disambig}} - there have been lengthy discussions about the topic, and it was made pretty clear that {{surname}} or {{hndis}} should be used if the page is only about those names. Something that your bot could do would be add the category Category:Disambiguation pages in need of being split to those pages. Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy, which created that category, is doing a lot of help to take the long lists of names off of disambiguation pages, and that category indicates disambiguation pages that need to have the names split off.
If there is an article about Riemann (album), there's no reason that it shouldn't be added to the disambiguation page, and really, the tag should be changed (in fact, since there are non-name articles there now, I'm going to change it). -- Natalya 03:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Where does this come from, the idea that people named Mccain (for example), shouldn't be on the McCain (disambiguation) page? This section of the manual of style, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Given_names_or_surnames, seems to me to pretty clearly be saying that such entries do belong, but they belong in their own section of the page and not mixed in with the other entries. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 08:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I take it from the fact that things on disambiguation pages are only supposed to be there if they are easily confusable with the title in question, and that for the most part, people who happen to have the same first/last name aren't just referred to by that (unless of course, they are, in which case they should definitly be on the page). Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Examples_of_individual_entries_that_should_not_be_created and Wikipedia:D#Partial_title_matches both discuss this. With the work of Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy, however, we shouldn't even need to worry about it, because names of people should be getting their own page. -- Natalya 11:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes—MOSDAB says do not create entries merely because Title is part of the name. But then the section below that does indeed talk about people with Title as a surname. Not sure how to reconcile those two directives, except that the latter is an exception to the former, I guess. —johndburger 23:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
To me, McCain (disambiguation), as it is now with so many people whose surname is McCain, looks more like it should have been named McCain (surname), with a {{surname}} template. --Tesscass (talk) 17:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
And... I had just made a John McCain (disambiguation). Is there any reason why not to split the dabs and surnames into different pages, each more appropriate to its own style guides? --Tesscass (talk) 17:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
That seems OK to me, although WP:WikiProject Anthroponymy have at times, I think, tried to differentiate between (i) a surname page, which would include derivation of the name, geographic distribution and such, and (ii) a list of people with that surname. The current McCain page is more of the latter, I suggest. Also note the history of the Riemann pages, and this and this edit, where at least one editor didn't agree with that splitting approach. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll drop a line over to the folks at WP:WikiProject Anthroponymy and see what they have to say about the splitting; hopefully we can get some more clarification! -- Natalya 20:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

(undent)I've been editing the John McCain article quite a bit lately. I just want to mention that, whatever you all decide, I hope it will not involve more than one hat note on the article. More than that would be unnecessary, and would have a cluttered appearance, IMHO.Ferrylodge (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I created the John McCain dab page, and then realized there's this McCain dab page. What I had meant to do was to change the McCain dab and then replace/combine the John McCain hatnote. Then after seeing this discussion, I thought better of doing any further change to anything pertaining either until there's some consensus, but I didn't undo my change of John McCain. Sorry I didn't think it was that cluttered. But that's just my opinion. --Tesscass (talk) 22:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I think the hatnote on John McCain should be {{for|other people with the same name}}, resulting in:
For other people with the same name, see John McCain (disambiguation).
I don't think anybody will go to John McCain expecting to find Fred or Betty McCain. —johndburger 23:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
The one problem with only have that link is that since McCain redirects to John McCain, we need to have a link to McCain (disambiguation). We don't need to have a link to McCain (surname) if such a page existed, but with the redirect we do need the link to the disambiguation page. -- Natalya 00:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Oy, you're right. If there's only one hatnote, then McCain (disambiguation) is it. —johndburger 02:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Since there is John McCain (disambiguation), I think the way things lay out is that we have to link to both that and McCain (disambiguation), since both links take people to John McCain, when they could be looking for something else. -- Natalya 12:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I see the need for John McCain (disambiguation) to exist. Is it really useful? Why not also have a John S. McCain (disambiguation)?Ferrylodge (talk) 15:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
They are all John S. McCains though, no? If there are multiple people by the same name, we have to have a disambiguation page somehow to sort them out. Can you clarify why you don't see the need for it? -- Natalya 20:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two dabs, Geni and Geni (disambiguation)

Anyone want to merge these two into one page? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. Redirected Geni (disambiguation) to Geni, and also cleaned up Geni slightly. All the information at Geni (disambiguation) was already at Geni. -- Natalya 00:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Feminine and Masculine

There seems to be a disagreement as to what links are appropriate for these dab pages, primarily epicene. Any views on contemporary semantics would also be appreciated. --Yamara ✉ 23:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well you could tag them both with {{disambig-cleanup}}. That'll garner some outside attention. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
A comment has been made (and discussed) on the talk page for Masculine that not having references on dab pages is not mentioned anywhere in MOS:DAB. Indeed, I couldn't find anything, either. Am I crazy? Has this practice never been made part of the guidelines? SlackerMom (talk) 14:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Looks more like WP is not a dictionary is more to the point. (John User:Jwy talk) 15:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
There's no need to have reference on a disambiguation page, as it's not an article. If there's ever a question of having a reference to show that one term really related to the other, that reference better belongs in the article that is being linked to. We can totally put something in the Manual of Style about not having reference (if there is consensus, of course). -- Natalya 16:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I think something should be in the MOS to this effect. It would help prevent future disagreements on the issue with inexperienced and/or opinionated dabbers. We don't have this problem at Masculine right now, but I can see it being a problem elsewhere. SlackerMom (talk) 17:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] False positives?

This morning I ran AWB on Confederacy for about 3 hours and it found nothing. I believe the "pages with links" page says it has something like 188. The "what links here" shows quite a long list in the article namespace, but I've started checking the first few and I can't find any mention of the word. A search of the template namespace doesn't turn up anything. Since there are so many listings, I'm going to assume I'm doing something wrong. Can anybody guess what that might be? --AnnaFrance (talk) 20:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you're being confused by the redirects? Most of the pages which link to Confederacy actually link to Confederate or Confederates, both of which are redirects to Confederacy. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 23:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Exactly! I never would have thought to look for that. Thank you for taking the time to help out a noob. --AnnaFrance (talk) 02:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enlightenment

Can someone fix up that top section? Overlinking appears to be a problem there. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A bot to do DAB page cleanup?

Would it be possible or reasonable to have a bot that would carry out disambiguation page cleanup? It seems to me that a bot could remove punctuation from the end of entries, convert numbered lists to bullet point lists by switching #'s to *'s at the beginning of any line, comment out external links and reference sections, and remove any categories besides the few which belong on a DAB page. These changes alone would mean cleanup on 50,000+ pages.

It would not, I don't think, be possible for a bot to fully clean up a page. There is no way a bot would be able to tell which of the blue links in an entry to remove, or how exactly to go about fixing improper piping, or which red links to remove, or how to reorganize an entry to make the link the first word in an entry. But there is a lot a bot could do. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 17:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The accuracy of these bots is greater than the grammer from most editors I've seen. I honestly believe it is possible to program them to perform such tasks. This WikiProject should definitely have a bot. Actually, Xyzzyplugh, didn't User:DABbot do something like this? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DABbot, it appears that this bot never actually got started, and was going to be doing something different than what I mentioned above. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 17:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I once tried to request a bot myself, didn't work out though. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible that it can also be programmed to "fix" excess blue links and red links? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I really don't see how. For red links, the problem is that we actually probably want to keep many redlinks even if nothing else links to them. For example, place names. If there's a city in Poland we don't have an article for, it's almost a guarantee we someday will, so removing the redlinks wouldn't work (Or at least, that's my opinion). For blue links, the problem is that a bot can't tell which of the links in an entry is the keepable one. It may not be the first link in the entry, it may not have the article title in the link. For example: Blah blah (song), by The Rolling Stones from their album No Security. A human editor knows to link to the album, the bot won't.
Now that I think of it, a bot might be able to do some blue link fixing. For example, every entry which begins with a blue link, where the blue link has the article title in it, should not have anything else linked in the entry (unless something else in the line also has the article title in it, in which case someone may have combined multiple entries into one line). --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 19:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah... because sometimes people can combine two valid links for the page into one line. Still needs fixing, but not necessarily removal. -- Natalya 19:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... interesting idea. There definitly seem to be some tasks that it could do, and definitly a lot that it couldn't to. I'd have no qualms about a bot to remove periods, and to change numbered lists to bulleted lists (although, I've actually never seen a numbered list dab). Can we think of other tasks it could do that wouldn't require human input? Even if it couldn't fix it, could we get it to tag pages with the {{disambig-cleanup}} where it sees multiple blue links in a line or no primary topic when the page is located at "term (disambiguation)". That would still aid the human editors in finding the pages that need work.

As a follow up, I have no idea how to run a bot/write the code for it, but I think it would be really cool to learn how to do. I'd love to do this! -- Natalya 19:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Any bot expert you guys know of? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I can't think of anyone offhand (though I'm sure there is someone). I was looking at Wikipedia:Creating_a_bot, and even with my vague knowledge of Java, I was pretty intimidated. I'd like to be able to write the code for it, but I don't even know where to start. -- Natalya 03:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Given that likely none of us have the capability to write such a bot (or someone would have done it already), the place to look would be Wikipedia:Bot requests. Before I would go making a request there, though, I wanted to make sure that people here agreed that such a bot would be a good idea. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 09:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it's safe to say that everyone agrees with you Xyzzyplugh. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Master Chief

Despite the discussion on Talk:Master Chief, I now realize that this shouldn't be a disambiguation page. Master Chief (Halo), which I believe is the popular choice, should be moved to this title and a hatnote to Master Chief Petty Officer would be more than appropriate. Show of hands? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I commented at the talk page. But I think it should stay as a disambiguation page. -- Natalya 12:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I also commented on the talk page, and I agree with Natalya. SlackerMom (talk) 13:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Converting hatnotes to templates

This may be of interest to this project:

I'm writing a bot to convert unformatted hatnotes to one of the hatnote templates. I'd like to have some feedback about this idea at Wikipedia talk:Hatnote#Converting hatnotes to templates. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 21:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page needing splitting

Penia contains two articles at the moment - one on an Italian bread and another more substantial on a Greek deity. Really if I understand disambiguation properly it should be split into two articles, with the bulk of the article content and its interwiki links relocated to something like Penia (personification) and a stub created at Penia (bread) to contain the fragments of information about bread, and Penia should be kept as a disambiguation page. I am not sure how to do this bearing in mind the GFDL complications and also because I do not have access to page moving as I am a new editor. Can somebody help me out, if only to tell me how to report this page as needing disambiguating? TwoMightyGodsPersuasionNecessity 20:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. Split into Penia and Penia (bread). Used hatnotes to disambiguate, so no dab page is needed. SlackerMom (talk) 17:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Get railroaded

There currently is a discussion underway on Talk:Railroad about whether the Railroad disambiguation page should be moved and redirected to a primary topic. It would be helpful to have more editors review the page and express their views. --Russ (talk) 21:06, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Malplaced disambiguation

I'd Do Anything redirects to I'd Do Anything (disambiguation), and the page could use a little cleanup. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Dab page cleaned up. I'll leave a page move to you; it's not hurting anyone where it is. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:04, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
You can always add it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages, which has two admins regularly stopping by. – sgeureka t•c 20:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Reduplicants

What is this exactly? And why are there dab pages categorized here? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Did you see Reduplication? --Tesscass (talk) 23:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Timberjack

There are some parts which should be changed to a disambiguation. Since I'm from de.wp I don't know anything about your guidelines and cannot do it by myself. Thank you, --Flominator (talk) 08:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Finding lists of surnames

Cross posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#Finding lists of surnames.

I was wondering if people here knew about a fairly powerful way of finding lists of articles that may be useful for surname pages and surname disambiguation pages? It is similar to the "prefix index" method of finding all articles related to a given name (eg. All page starting "William", which I believe is part of one of the templates used on name articles). For surnames, you can try a search (and this is always needed because there are always some articles that aren't classified properly), but a good starting point is the entry in a category containing all articles about people. Now, this super-category doesn't yet exist (Category:People is currently subdivided rather than fully populated), but a good example does exist at Category:Living people. Assuming that the relevant articles are correctly sorted (by DEFAULTSORT or pipesorted for the 'living people' category), it is possible to jump to the relevant point in the category to find the articles on living people with the surname Brackman. This can then be compared with the articles Brackman, Brackman (name), and Brackman (surname) (none of these exist), and a normal search for Brackman, and the end result is a list of five names: Barbara Brackman, Levi Brackman, Andrew Brackman, Robert Brackman, and Jacob Brackman. My question is where people should go from here as far as constructing disambiguation pages and name pages (the latter is not in scope here, but is related)? Any advice? I found Wikipedia:Suggestions for name disambiguation, but that doesn't seem to be active at the moment. Carcharoth (talk) 18:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Answered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#Finding lists of surnames. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 19:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I think what I'm looking for is a template (both for a centralised page like Wikipedia:Suggestions for name disambiguation, and for the talk page of a name or name disambiguation article) that will take a parameter NAME (in some cases it could use PAGENAME to take the page title as a parameter) and output the following:
  • [[NAME]]
  • [[NAME (name)]]
  • [[NAME (surname)]]
  • [[NAME (given name)]]
  • [[NAME (disambiguation)]]
  • [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixIndex&from=NAME&namespace=0 All pages starting "NAME"]
  • [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Living_people&from=NAME Articles on living people with the surname "NAME"]
  • [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=NAME&fulltext=Search Wikipedia search for "NAME"]]
NAME could be "Brackman" as in the above example, but could also be "John Baker". In the case of "John Baker", several of the links will be redundant (the 'name', 'surname' and 'given name' ones), with the most useful ones being John Baker, John Baker (disambiguation) and Wikipedia search for "John Baker". All pages starting "John Baker" (note the need for a space of "%20" betwen 'John' and 'Baker') will be less useful (though not completely useless). The category listing would need tweaking to read "from=Baker,%20John", to give: articles on living people with the name "John Baker" (two in case anyone is interested). Things are all in synch there, as you would expect (though some tidying up is needed). As an aside, what should be done with John Baker's Mill, Barnham, John Baker-Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield, John T. Baker Middle School and John S. Baker House (Cincinnati, Ohio)? Anyway, before I set up such a template, I wanted to get some ideas from others for improvements or additions, and to find out if something similar has been done previously? Carcharoth (talk) 19:40, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
That sounds somewhat similar to the work that created the lists at Wikipedia:Suggestions for name disambiguation, which was done by a bot belonging to User:Quadell. Quadell seems to be on wikibreak, but you could always try emailing. Whatever logic s/he used to identify lists of names might be relevant. --AndrewHowse (talk) 00:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what logic Quadell used. I will try and e-mail at some point. A similar list (or start at such a list) has been done (following my post) at User:Eugene van der Pijll/surnames. I guess I should contact those people who worked at Wikipedia:Suggestions for name disambiguation previously. Carcharoth (talk) 09:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template to caution against frequent mistakes

This is a disambiguation page. Please respect the disambiguation page style guideline. Remember:
  • Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link
  • The link being disambiguated should normally be the first word or phrase in each entry

I asked at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Template for edit-mode-only in dab pages whether it is possible to create a warning message box for the top of all dab pages, that only appear when in edit-mode. We've created {{Disambig editintro}} (seen above), which works just like MediaWiki:Talkpagetext, except that it disappears once you click "preview". Now we just need a show of support, to get it added into Mediawiki talk:Common.js, if you agree that it is a good idea.

You can test it out by adding importScript("User:RockMFR/disambigeditintro.js"); to Special:Mypage/monobook.js, hard refresh, and visit a disambiguation page, e.g. A Wonderful Life or Aboncourt.

(The wording in the box is a separate question. Feel free to tweak or improve (or discuss). Just try to keep the wording minimal :)

So, any support or objections for the overall idea? Please and thank you :) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds useful: should it also include something about not using piped links, eg "The link being disambiguated should be the first word or phrase in each entry and should not be 'piped'."? PamD (talk) 07:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Good idea as long as it works technically. I would make the wording a little less categorical though; the second point needs a "normally" or something, as there are fairly frequent exceptions, and once you put something up in the form of what appears to be an absolute rule, some people start following it (and indeed enforcing it) blindly.If my edit adding "normally" to the second point is accepted, then I'm all in favour.--Kotniski (talk) 07:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Support. Just keep it simple, or people will start ignoring it again. – sgeureka t•c 08:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I think this is a good idea. Tassedethe (talk) 08:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Yep; keeping it simple is good. Great idea! -- Natalya 11:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I like this idea. SlackerMom (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea as well. Marchije (talk) 02:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Good idea but maybe a third line should be added saying "For more information on how to construct a diambiguation page see the manual of style." Abtract (talk) 17:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Synchronising between different languages

Could people here suggest the best way to synchronise between disambiguation pages in different langauge wikipedias? Obviously adding interwikis is a good first step, but should we go further than that and make the pages match up? Different language wikipedias will have different standards on how to lay out the information (and also different inclusion standards as well), but the same basic information could be synchronised across pages. This is especially relevant with the advent of Single User Login (SUL). As an example, see Guillemin, which is in origin a French name (see fr:Guillemin), and Griesbach, which is in origin a German name (see de:Griesbach). Are there any guidelines on this and on whether it is OK to add redlinks with an interwikilink to the page on another language wikipedia, like I did for Amédée Guillemin here? See fr:Amédée Guillemin. Carcharoth (talk) 10:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought I remembered hearing about this once before! This was sort of brought up Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Foreign language wikipedias, though it wasn't discussed. Just fyi. -- Natalya 12:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. That previous post raised style issues, but not whether it is OK to add interwiki links directly to a page (ie. not as an interwikilink, but as a direct link using the preceding colon). These links would effectively be a translation request. For example: "Amédée Guillemin (see French language Wikipedia article)" - if that is not too self-referential. Carcharoth (talk) 13:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I've got another link for you, then!  :) It's more about keeping red links on pages for topics that have aticles on other language wikipedias, but is still semi-related. Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Red_links_in_disambigs_-_forgotten_interwiki. For having interlanguage links... I've got to think about it more. Ideally, it would be nice to just translate the article, but we obviously don't have the resources for that! The biggest possible concern that comes immediately to mind for me is if there would be an overcrowding of disambiguation pages with tons of interlanguage links. Do you think we'd run into that problem? Also, how helpful would it be? They would all be in other languages after all. Just mostly playing devil's advocate here, so that we can discuss possible issues. -- Natalya 14:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I consider such an embedded iwiki link as in your example as useful but tempoary solution, saying "please translate me as soon as possible".--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 15:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I don't see much real likelihood of disambiguation pages becoming overcrowded for this reason. An iw link is more useful for both readers and potential writers than a red link (as long as it's visibly clear that it is an iw link).--Kotniski (talk) 15:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, if you compare Griesbach and de:Griesbach, there are more on the German page (for obvious reasons). I'm not entirely sure all the German entries are relevant for the English page. Sometimes, if people want a list of German names relevant for German-language speakers, they should follow the interwiki. Górki, for example, seems a bit like overkill, to be honest. Reminds me of Ptolemais, Booker T. Washington High School and Booker T. Washington Middle School, though, and such examples are interesting, even if such lists can get a bit long. Carcharoth (talk) 16:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

This seems a good idea superficially but surely not in practice.

  1. A dab page is to help readers of the English wikipedia to navigate to articles in the English wikipedia
  2. Languages are not identical and it will not be possible to simple create a Portugese (as an example) dab page from the English one as the words for various things are (duh) different in Portugese, not just English with an "O" added. Abtract (talk) 17:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking more of dab pages for people. People's names don't change as much as the names of objects. Ditto for disambiguation pages for anything that has a proper name that is the same across multiple languages. The very fact that some disambiguation pages have interwiki links should be a clue that there are cases where disambiguation pages can be synchronised. To be clear, I was never suggesting that Apple (disambiguation) and it:Mela (disambigua) (Italian for apple) should be synchronised, but rather that synchronisation possibilities might exist for Apple (disambiguation) and it:Apple (disambigua) (the Italian disambiguation page for "Apple"). There are currently seventeen (17) interwiki links on Apple (disambiguation). The differences between the pages makes interesting reading. To go back to my name examples, let's look at a typical English name and a typical Italian name, and see what the differences are. Compare Smith (en) with it:Smith. Obviously, as you say, some usages of the word Smith change in translation and hence no longer need disambiguating in that language, but other uses don't change. Another example is a common Italian name, Tolomeo. In English, that is Ptolemy. We can compare it:Tolomeo with Ptolemy (name) (as opposed to Tolomeo). Of course, in practice you do need to be careful, but what I am saying is that people working with disambiguation pages involving names or words from another language, should consider browsing the interwiki links for clues to help make our (English) disambiguation pages more complete. To finish with another example, look at Fontaine and compare it with fr:Fontaine (would you believe it? A disambiguation page with a picture of a fountain?). Unsurprisingly, the French page has a much longer list of names and places. I'm not saying we should recreate that list here, but we should be alert to the possibilities that, among the articles listed on other language Wikipedia disambiguation pages, there might be some that could be listed on our disambiguation pages (usually as a redlink) and also flagged up for translation. Carcharoth (talk) 22:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pages belonging where people assume they will be

Could I get the opinions of some dabby-types at the village pump? Cheers! JohnnyMrNinja 16:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)