Template talk:Disambig editnotice

As discussed at Village pump (technical)/Archive 40 and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 10. Code details being hammered out at MediaWiki talk:Common.js.

Suggestions for wording
Having cleaned up a fair share of dab pages, only to watch new entries be immediately added that break the fundamental guidelines, I would say the basic problem here is that even reasonably experienced editors don't get that on a dab page, all the things they've been encouraged to do in articles are wrong:


 * No, do not pipe the entry name to hide its disambiguating component; we need to see it.
 * No, do not build the web; one blue link per entry.
 * No, do not write in complete sentences; each entry should be a sentence fragment without punctuation
 * No, do not cite, do not add lots of informative material, do not add external links, do not add entries without corresponding articles...

In short, they're not aware that what they're editing is not an article.

The current proposed wording for the template may sound to us like we're telling them that ("This is a disambiguation page"), but it really doesn't, because the average editor doesn't know what that really means to them, which is that they shouldn't treat it like an article.

I suggest explicitly saying so:

This is lengthier than what's there now, but if some number of people actually pay attention to what it says, I think it could eliminate about 90% of the degradation of cleaned-up dab pages.--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That seems generally fine to me.
 * 2 minor points: I'd prefer to move the "1 blue link" point to the top (as that is the most common mistake, I think?), and to provide direct links instead of the shortcut links.
 * It's definitely at the upper limit of size, and anything that can be done to reduce it slightly would be good; but I don't have any major objections. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I too would prefer it slightly briefer, and (in line with the change I made before) we should not be totally categorical, there are occasional cases where exceptions to these rules are appropriate, so I would prefer "should normally" rather than "must". Otherwise generally OK though.--Kotniski (talk) 20:08, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with "briefer", although we should keep in mind that if it's so brief that it's unclear, it's worse than not having anything there at all.
 * Maybe "must" is too strong, but I think "should normally" is too weak; how many counterexamples can you point to in practice for any of these main guidelines? I've cleaned up about 140 dab pages—so figure 1,000+ entries?—and of these three guidelines, I've only broken one, exactly once.
 * Even if we say "must", WP:IAR is still there, and is even stated explicitly in WP:MOSDAB as "Break rules". But... maybe just change from "must" to "should" ?
 * No disagreement with changing the order.
 * I'm not wedded to the shortcut links, it was just faster to type for the example. However, note that the shortcuts might be more permanent than a section name, since those have been known to get reworded.--NapoliRoma (talk) 21:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Next pass, then:

The pipe one is slightly longer, but I think it's more effective to say why as well as what.

So is this still an active proposal?--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Up and active! Sorry it took so long. I've posted notices to the 3 main disambig talkpages.
 * As for updating the text, I have no objections to the above. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Tech stuff
I was pointed here since I work with the editnotice system. I have some comments:

I have just done some testing and the good news is that the disambig editintro system works fine together with the editnotice system. (That is, they do not disturb each other.) It also should work fine with the new extension I am planning to add to the editnotice system.

And this disambig editintro system works fine in all three of my browsers: Firefox 2, Opera 9.02 and my very old Internet Explorer 5.5. So you are using good compatible javascript code.

I intend to mark this template with the class name "disambig-editintro" to make it possible to skin the looks of this template in the different Wikipedia skins and in the user's own /monobook.css files. (As long as there is a class name we can skin items even if they use hard-coded styles, like this template does, by using the  keyword in CSS.) Any comments about that before I add it?

--David Göthberg (talk) 16:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * All sounds good. Any improvements welcome :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done - Yeah, I mostly just wanted advertise the reason why we add such classes with the template's own name. --David Göthberg (talk) 01:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

"On very rare occasions..."
This was added recently:

On very rare occasions it makes sense to vary from the above. Be thoughtful, careful, and caring. Do not implement any guideline robotically.

Although I agree that strictly speaking the first sentence is true, and the second and third sentences are admirable sentiments, I wonder if this is the right place to express them.

The fact of the matter is that "very rare" is an understatement. Of all the virtually innumerable disambiguation entries to be found on all the dab pages on Wikipedia I would guess that only a handful of them would be improved by varying from any of these recommendations. Seriously; as in "less than ten."

This intro was added because there is a constant influx of edits to dab pages that don't follow the guideline. I don't think we're doing the editor a service by being ambiguous over whether or not this is a problem, if said editor is that unlikely to ever encounter a situation where varying from these recommendations is apropos.

If it's felt that this intro, before the addition of this new text, was too harsh, maybe there's a middle ground in wording that can be reached? If we were going to add three new sentences to what should be a very concise intro, I'd like to spend at least one clarifying that each dab entry really should have an ambiguous article it's referring to.--NapoliRoma (talk) 14:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. Please feel free to update/change/revert/etc. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and the thread below, for what seem to be the main discussions about this. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I think one reason that WAS 4.250 added that text might be that this editnotice is also shown on many set index articles, and for such pages the entire content of this editnotice should be disregarded.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 01:53, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The set index article templates should probably have the disambiguation flag unset, so the guidelines won't appear at all. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * JHunterJ: Right, there have been many complaints about that. So Quiddity asked me to take a look and I fixed the three set index boxes I could find earlier today. However there might be more out there. So if you know any set index boxes that still gets this disambig editintro notice shown then please report them over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation. Or if you are lazy just report them here, since Quiddity and I are watching this page.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 14:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Not lazy, just ignorant -- I know dab pages well enough, but not much about set indexes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Add a symbol to the box?
I'd like to add the "info" symbol to the box, as in the examples above. Otherwise, I think the text kind of disappears into the usual hash at the top of an edit page.

What's the appropriate way to do that?--NapoliRoma (talk) 20:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Administratively: We usually don't use images in editnotices. So if you want to use an image you should probably see to that some more users come here and discuss first. Personally I think I slightly lean against using an image, but just slightly. And if an image should be added, then we should probably use a more specific image, perhaps use the Image:Disambig gray.svg [[Image:Disambig gray.svg|30px]]
 * Technically: To add an image is now easy, since I just updated this box to use the fmbox. To get the default blue (i) image you just need to remove the line " ". To add the disambig image change the line to " ". (And you can learn more in the documentation for fmbox, or you can ask any editor who is used to the mboxes to do it for you.)
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 22:37, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Display problem?
The template does not appear to be displaying right now (or I just noticed right now). Is it just me, or is a bug report warranted? I'm using Firefox 3.0.5 on Windows XP SP3. — Swpbτ • c 23:07, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Nothing appears for me either using Firefox 3.0.5 + Windows XP, but when I tried in IE 7.0.5 (not logged in), it displayed. After logging in and out in IE, nothing shows up there anymore either. Strange. – sgeureka t•c 23:35, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Wording
There seemed to be a consensus to add something like "This is not an article" to the front of the text. Whatever happened to doing that? Additionally, could we change the background color, or do something to make the template a little more noticeable? As it is, I would bet maybe one in three editors notice it's there at all. » šᾦῥъτ • ¢ 05:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't display when editing a diff
I had been a little puzzled about the seemingly inconsistent display of this template. I edit a lot of disambiguation pages and sometimes the notice is there and sometimes it isn't. I think I may have narrowed down when this happens. Seems that when I am looking at a diff and click the edit text link next to the diff, this notice doesn't appear. But it does appear when I click the "edit this page" tab at the top. Is there a way to make the notice appear regardless of how the edit window is opened? older ≠ wiser 13:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It only works when clicking the edit link at the top of the page AND when the disambig template is on the current page. It's not perfect, but this is acceptable considering that the target audience is mostly people that would never be looking at diffs. --- RockMFR 02:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Punctuation
editprotected Please remove the quotation marks from the first point of the template and wikilink it to Hyperlink or Manual of Style (links):  →   They are incorrect and unnecessary, and a wikilink would be more useful. Thanks, Reywas92 Talk  00:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅. – sgeureka t•c 01:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Inserting Editintro documentation
Hello, can you please insert the following code here:. This will allow people to write a documentation, categorize this template and add interwiki links without that these things will be shown on pages that use the editintro template. Thank you. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I repeat the comment that I left on Template talk:BLP editintro. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello, please insert it now. WikiProject Templates has said it would be fine to use it, and at Requests for page protection, I was told that protection would not be necessary as it's not shown on the page. If you absolutely think it's necessary, you can also protect it yourself. Thank you. --The Evil IP address (talk) 15:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done, see Template talk:BLP editintro for more. Amalthea  00:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Link to WP:DDD
Disambiguation dos and don'ts is a quick how-to for editors who can't be bothered to read all of MOS:DAB (which I imagine would be most of them). I suggest linking to it in this template, either in addition to or in place of the link to MOS:DAB. Thoughts? » Swpbτ • ¢ 13:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, since no one responded to my last request, I quote it again here in full: There seemed to be a consensus to add something like "This is not an article" to the front of the text. Whatever happened to doing that? Additionally, could we change the background color, or do something to make the template a little more noticeable? As it is, I would bet maybe one in three editors notice it's there at all.

Here's hoping someone who can edit the template actually reads the talk page once in a while. » Swpbτ • ¢ 13:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reviving the discussion
So it's been a couple of years, and a few ideas that I think are worthy are still pending:


 * 1) Adding an image
 * 2) Adding a background color
 * 3) Referencing WP:DDD

Assuming that Category:Wikipedia editintros is accurate (which is probably a bad assumption), I see only three editnotices, including this one. Of the other two, Template:BLP editintro is about the same level of plainness as this one. Template:Featured article candidates/editintro, on the other hand, has a background color, a top border, and several images. (...but doesn't appear to be the actual active editnotice?)

I suggest a little discussion here, then solicit input on one of the other disambiguation project pages, and once a degree of consensus is reached, we can put up the batsignal.--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

...oh, and I also would still like to change the opening sentence so it doesn't just say, "hey, this is a disambiguation page!" with no explanation of why that matters to the editor. It needs to be painfully clear that just about every normal guideline of article editing does not apply here. (see my first post at the top of this page).

The people who need this warning notice the most are unlikely to derive any meaning whatsoever from the unadorned statement "This is a disambiguation page."--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

InterWiki

 * Please add: tr:Şablon:Anlam ayrımı degir  Emperyan - message/ ileti  19:28, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Requesting edits
The requested changes have been proposed on this talk page since 2009, with no opposition: "This is not an article; this is a disambiguation page, for directing readers quickly to intended articles. For a quick guide, see disambiguation dos and don'ts. For more details, see the complete disambiguation page style guideline."
 * Add a link to WP:DDD to the template text, and add the text "This is not an article;" to the beginning of the first sentence, so that the top text reads as follows:

Thanks! —Swpbtalk 14:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Change the background color from white to something more noticeable. The standard #F8EABA background and #C0C090  border of talk page templates would be appropriate.
 * Yes check.svg Done — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 18:38, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated! —Swpbtalk 18:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 8 January 2015
This template says "do not pipe entry names", but there are situations where it is desirable to pipe names, such as adding italics to part of a title (such as Robin Hood (1912 film)). Perhaps it should say: "do not pipe entry names (except for the purpose of adding text formatting such as italics)" "the entry name should not be piped except to apply formatting (see )."

Ahecht (TALK PAGE ) 16:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC) PAGE''' ]]) 15:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: As pipe explains, Piping means concealing the actual title of a linked article by replacing it with other text, often to suppress parenthetical expressions in an article. For example, instead of showing the full title of Moment (physics) in a normal article, it will usually be presented as to display as a single word: moment. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 17:10, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * But MOS:DABENTRY says "If the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the part requiring such treatment, as opposed to the entire link ... E.g.: Dark Star (film)" and "the link should not be piped except to apply formatting (see Where piping may be appropriate). -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:32, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Apparently this is a topic that needs to be brought up on WT:MOS to see what the consensus is about whether or not MOS:DABENTRY supersedes WP:DABPIPE for dealing with the use of piped links in disambiguation articles? Perhaps that same discussion will result in a clarification of WP:DABPIPE itself.  Either way, there is no consensus to change the wording of this template at this time and I would oppose such a wording change as clutter. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 17:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * MOS:DABENTRY links to WP:DABPIPE; search for "as opposed to the entire link" and click the link immediately following. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I updated the request so that it mirrors the language in MOS:DABENTRY. I don't see any conflict between MOS:DABENTRY and WP:DABPIPE. MOS:DABENTRY says The article title should appear exactly as it is on the target page; the link should not be piped except to apply formatting (see ) and WP:DABPIPE says Subject to certain exceptions as listed below, piping or redirects should not be used in disambiguation pages and then lists the exceptions, which include italic titles, in the WP:DABPIPING subsection. --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Since I still oppose added clutter to the template, there will need to be a consensus to add it to the template.  I would support the addition to pipe itself. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (e • t • c) 16:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * There are many details in WP:MOSDAB that are not conveyed in this template. This is an extremely abbreviated list of the most prominent differences when editing a disambiguation page from what editors might expect when editing articles. older ≠ wiser 17:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose the suggested change, per older. Adding unnecessary detail to the template will incur a cost – i.e., fewer people bothering to read/consider the template at all – that far outweighs the marginal benefit of the added detail. The template links to the full MOS for a reason: so that not every case has to be dealt with here. The purpose of the template is to catch the attention of editors with little to no understanding of why dab pages are the way they are – these editors are responsible for the majority of dab edits, and unnecessary subtleties, important though they may be to experienced dab editors, will get in the way of the fundamental concept being conveyed here. —Swpbtalk 13:48, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

More generality in the wording -- (a good idea? or not?)
Sorry if I have placed this comment /slash "question", on the wrong "Talk:" page. Please advise, if applicable.

Today, I was looking at the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Norton_Museum&oldid=202074593 current version] of the disambig page for "Norton_Museum" -- which has only changed once! to correct a TYPO! three minutes after it was created! -- and, I noticed that, at the bottom, it has some text between two parallel lines, that is apparently the expansion of a "" template. (right?)

That expands to something like THIS:

...except that, when I was looking at it, after "with the title" it had these words: "'Norton Museum'" instead of the words "'Template talk:Disambig editintro'". (right? so far?)

OK, well, some of the entries there, do NOT have "the title" "Norton Museum"!

...in particular, the one I was interested in, was one that said:


 * R. W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana

...so, I figured that, maybe it would be better if, "instead of" saying "'This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title [John Doe]'", if it were to instead say, [something like] : "'This disambiguation page lists articles associated with a title something like [John Doe]'". (maybe without the gratuitous italics) (right?)

Maybe instead of "something like" it could say "equal to or close to". (Would that sound too mathematically precise? Oopsie...)

I am not very familiar with editing templates ... and in this case (at least) the "reaching consensus" part might be the better part of valor, and the actual "updating of the wikitext" part might be easy. (right?)

So... Any comments? e.g.,
 * [A] Do you think it [the suggested change to the wording] would be a good idea?
 * [B] Any advice? (such as, where this idea  /slash "question", should have gone, instead of on this "Talk:" page) - ? -

Thanks, --Mike Schwartz (talk) 23:58, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're on the wrong page, perhaps because you were looking at the wrong template. This is the talk page for Template:Disambig editintro, which is the light brown box shown above the edit window when you're editing a disambiguation page. The text between two lines that you describe above is Template:Disambiguation - shown in the page's wikicode as since it goes through a redirect. The talk page for that is Template talk:Disambiguation and the wording "Norton Museum" is dynamic - it self-adjusts according to the name of the page itself. -- Red rose64 (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Would you recommend for me to "COPY" (or move) (?) this idea / question to the correct place, or is it OK to just use a hyperlink such as  "Template_talk:Disambig_editintro"  (like this) to sorta "refer to" this section, that is, to "incorporate it by reference" - ? -  --Mike Schwartz (talk) 01:53, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not a good idea to copy the thread whilst leaving the original behind, because there will always be somebody who doesn't realise that it's been copied and will comment in the old location. Of the other two options, you can do pretty much either. If there have only been a few comments in a short period, I normally prefer to move the whole thread; if there have been a lot, or it's been going for several days, I leave it alone and drop a message on the "correct" talk page inviting discussion to continue at its actual location. More at WP:MULTI.
 * When moving a thread, I use the and  templates, see this pair of edits: (i) ; (ii) . -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:48, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, great.  ""One thing that you have already (inadvertently? perhaps?) taught me, is the use of the    construct.  I did not [previously] even know that such a macro (or, is "template" more correct?) existed.  I did not previously know that such a *thing* existed. Now, I am using it.  ...and I have "some" understanding of what it does:  besides inserting a "username with an 'at-sign' prefix" at the beginning of the text of a given reply [edit], (that is, one that is sorta replying "mainly" to some specific user), it also sends some kind of "notification" to that other user!  I know, because I have been getting them!  (I also get "notifications" sometimes, when other events occur -- like, when something I changed gets "reverted".  Ideally, that should happen rarely; and -- [if I learn from my mistakes!] -- even "more" rarely, as time goes on.)
 * As far as the use of  and , I might not have time -- (or I might be too lazy[!]) -- right now, to look in to that; but I will keep it in mind.  Thanks! --Mike Schwartz (talk) 22:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Mike Schwartz They're called templates. All that does is create a link with some styling. The actual notification is part of the WP:Notifications feature, and works just as well if you use a plain link, as I did here. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposed changes to make the template more effective
1. Replace the third bullet with the following, and move it up to bullet two, as it is more important than punctuation for dab page navigability:
 * Keep descriptions short, and organize long lists in sections

2. Bold the other two links in the top paragraph, since they are very useful.

3. Add the File:Information.svg icon to the left of the text, to grab more attention.

—Swpbtalk 14:07, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * There doesn't seem to be any opposition to these changes. Please could you update Template:Disambig editintro/sandbox and I'll copy it across &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:29, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Done; thanks! —Swpbtalk 19:52, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Alakzi (talk) 20:00, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Should the link for blue link go to hyperlink?
Current the template is  for the text blue link. Should it instead be something more like  which gives guidelines on blue links in disambiguation pages? TartarTorte 18:19, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Template talk:BLP editintro which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 04:34, 10 February 2024 (UTC)