Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages

Disambiguation pages (abbreviated often as dab pages or simply DAB or DABs) are non-article pages designed to help a reader find the right Wikipedia article when different topics could be referred to by the same search term, as described in the guidelines at Disambiguation. In other words, disambiguation pages help readers find the specific article they want when there is topic ambiguity.

Note that even though most disambiguation pages are kept in the Article namespace (mainspace), they are articles. These pages are aids in searching for articles.

The style guidelines on this page aim to give disambiguation pages a consistent appearance and help the efficiency of searches by excluding extraneous information. Any page containing one of the disambiguation templates should contain only disambiguation content, whether or not the page title contains the parenthetical "(disambiguation)". For more information on these templates and identifying a disambiguation page, see § The disambiguation notice and categorization below.

Note that these style guidelines do apply to article pages containing such sentence- or paragraph-level disambiguation techniques as having a hatnote at the top of an article pointing to a related subject. These guidelines only apply to pages correctly tagged with a disambiguation template.

Page naming
In general, the title of a disambiguation page is the ambiguous term itself, provided there is no primary topic for that term. If there is already a primary topic, the "(disambiguation)" qualifier should be added to the title of the disambiguation page, such as Jupiter (disambiguation). For more on how to title a disambiguation page, see.

At the top of the page
The first lines should consist of the following, in order: Each of these three should begin its own line (the Wiktionary template creates a box on the right side of the page).
 * 1) optionally: a link to  (see )
 * 2) if there is a primary topic: a link to the  (see )
 * 3) the  (see )

Thus if there is no Wiktionary link and no primary topic link, the introductory line should be the first line.

Linking to Wiktionary
When a dictionary definition should be included (see ), rather than writing a text entry, create a cross-link to Wiktionary, one of the Wikimedia sister projects. To do this, use one of these Wiktionary link templates on the first line:


 * can be used with up to five optional parameters: . This can be useful for linking dictionary entries with multiple capitalizations (e.g., star, Star, and STAR). With no parameters, the template defaults to using the current page's name with a lowercase first letter.
 * will behave like a piped link:.

Be sure to check the links created by these templates, as Wiktionary's case sensitivity sometimes differs from Wikipedia's. Most notably, Wiktionary uses proper capitalization for the first letter of its entries, unlike Wikipedia's use of an uppercase first letter for each page name.

Linking to a primary topic
It is recommended that a link back to the primary topic appear at the top, in a brief explanatory sentence. This link should be the primary topic set in bold. (This is opposite to the recommendation for primary topics in articles; that is, MOS:BOLDLINKAVOID does not apply to disambiguation pages.) The brief explanatory sentence is otherwise an individual entry per MOS:DABENTRY.

When the page has "(disambiguation)" in its title – i.e., it is the disambiguation page for a term for which a primary topic has been identified – users are most likely to arrive there by clicking on a top link from the primary topic article, generated by a template in the otheruses series. For example, the article School contains the hatnote:

The primary topic is the one reached by using the disambiguation page title without the (disambiguation) qualifier. Capitalisation differences matter, so there will only be one primary topic for a title.

Since it is unlikely this primary topic is what readers are looking for if they have reached the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links. As stated above, it is recommended that the link back to the primary topic appear at the top, in a brief explanatory sentence. For instance:

A school is an institution for learning.

School or the school may also refer to:
 * School of thought, a number of individuals with shared styles, approaches or aims
 * School (fish), a group of fish swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner

When the primary topic article has a different title than the term being disambiguated, then the first line normally uses a redirect from the ambiguous term to link to that article:

A cosmonaut or astronaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft.

Similarly for an acronym, initialism or alphabetism:

CIA is the Central Intelligence Agency, a civilian agency of the United States government.

However, in some cases it may be clearer to link directly to the target of the redirect, such as with surnames that have a primary holder:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was a famous composer during the Classical period.✅ instead of the more awkward: Mozart was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), a famous composer during the Classical period.

Introductory line
The term being disambiguated should be in bold (not italics). It should begin a sentence fragment ending with a colon, introducing a bulleted list:

Interval may refer to:

John Smith may refer to:

John Smith is the name of:

ABC may refer to:

ABC may stand for:

Where several variants of a term are being disambiguated together, significant variants may be included in the lead sentence. For example:

Bang or bangs may refer to:

Bang(s) may refer to:

Arc or ARC may refer to:

Angus McKay, MacKay or Mackay may refer to:

However, it is not necessary to mention minor variations of capitalization, punctuation or diacritics. For example, AU may refer to: is preferable to AU, au, Au or A-U may refer to; and Saiyuki may refer to: is preferable to Saiyuki, Saiyūki or Saiyûki may refer to.

When the title being disambiguated has a primary topic (i.e. when the disambiguation page's title ends in "(disambiguation)"), the introductory line includes the word "also": see the "school" example in above.

Individual entries
After the introductory line comes a list of individual entries – lines which direct the readers to Wikipedia articles on the various topics which might be referenced by the term being disambiguated. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the specific article they want quickly and easily. For example:

Interval may refer to:
 * Interval (mathematics), a certain subset of an ordered set
 * Interval (music), the relationship between two notes

Apply the following rules when constructing entries:

In most cases the title of the target article will be an expansion or variation of the term being disambiguated (as in the example above). If this is the case:
 * The link should come at the start of the entry.
 * The article title should appear exactly as it is on the target page; the link should not be piped except to apply formatting (see ).

However, in some cases the target article title is an expansion or variation of the term being disambiguated. For example, in the Maggie Anderson (disambiguation) page: For the case where the link is not an expansion or variation see below.
 * Maggie Anderson, character in the musical play Brigadoon

Note also the following points when constructing lists of entries:


 * An entry without a blue link is useless for further navigation. (See for cases in which no article yet exists.)
 * A disambiguation page should not be made up completely of red links or have only one blue link on the entire page, because the basic purpose of disambiguation is to refer users to other Wikipedia pages.
 * Never include external links, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web. To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them on the talk page.
 * References should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles.

 Examples of individual entries that should not be created
Do not include entries for topics that are not ambiguous (according to the linked article) with the title. Use list articles for lists of related topics if needed.

On a page called Title, do not create entries merely because Title is part of the name (see ). This does not apply if the subject is commonly referred to simply by Title. For instance, Oxford (disambiguation) should link to University of Oxford and Catalina might include Santa Catalina Island, California. If there is disagreement about whether this exception applies, it is often best to assume that it does. When multiple articles contain Title but are not referred to by it, and  templates may be added in the "See also" section.

You may want to create entries on the same page for:
 * TITLE and Title
 * Title town and Title township
 * An example is Willow Valley, which lists a town of that name as well as "Willow Valley Township" in another state.

Do not include entries for topics which are not mentioned in any article, even if there is an article on a related topic, since linking to it would not help readers find information about the sought topic.

Given names or surnames
People who have the ambiguous term as surname or given name should be listed in the main disambiguation list of the disambiguation page only if they are frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g., Abraham Lincoln on Lincoln).

There are two options for listing name-holders. A list of name-holders can be included in a People section of the page. For longer lists (of 12 or more entries), and as an alternative for a short list, an anthroponymy list article can be created and linked from the disambiguation page. If it isn't clear that the article includes a list, consider mentioning that in the description, for example:


 * Marilyn (given name), a female given name (including a list of people with the name)
 * Dylan (name), a given name and a family name (including a list of people with the name)

Articles listing persons with a certain given name or surname, known as anthroponymy articles, are  disambiguation pages, and this Manual of Style does not apply to them. Anthroponymy articles follow their own style standards. For those articles, do use  or, but  or  instead.

Misspellings
Common misspellings should be listed only if there is a genuine risk of confusion or misspelling. These cross-links should be placed in a separate section entitled "Common misspellings" or "See also". For example, in a page called Kington (disambiguation), a link to Kingston (disambiguation) would appropriately be included in the "See also" section.

Piping and redirects
Piping and redirects are two different mechanisms that allow the displayed text of a link to differ from the title of the page that the link points to.
 * means concealing the title of a linked article by replacing it with other text. For example, instead of showing the full title Moment (physics), it may be presented as, resulting in the link moment.
 * A is a page used to "jump" readers from one page title to an article with a different title. For example, a redirect at the title 9/11 sends users who navigate there to the article September 11 attacks.

. This is to make it clear to the reader which topic is the subject of an article title. For example, on the disambiguation page Moment, in the entry Moment (physics), the parenthetical disambiguator "(physics)" should be visible so that the reader sees which "moment" topic the entry is about, among others sharing the same base title. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need in order to find their intended article. However, raw section and anchor points should not be displayed; see for those cases.

Though piping and redirects should generally be used in disambiguation pages, there are certain cases in which they may be useful to the reader:

Where redirecting may be appropriate
  Redirecting may be appropriate where the is a redirect; see. 

 Redirecting may be appropriate when linking to another disambiguation page. 

 However, when the disambiguated term is an acronym or initialism (alphabetism), links should use redirects to conceal the expanded version of that initialism. For example, on the disambiguation page BNL, linking to the full article title Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is preferable to linking to a redirect at BNL (bank).   A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article if only that section discusses the disambiguated topic. This also suggests that the topic may eventually have its own article. For example:

Eon may refer to:
 * (correct) Eon (geology), a division of the geologic time scale
 * (incorrect) Eon, a division of the geologic time scale
 * (incorrect) Eon, a division of the geologic time scale
 * (incorrect) Eon, a division of the geologic time scale
 * (incorrect) Eon, a division of the geologic time scale

The above technique is used when the link is the subject of the line. For description sections, redirects or piped links may be used; follow the normal Redirect and Piped link guidelines. 

 Linking to a redirect can also be helpful when both:


 * 1) the redirect target article contains the disambiguated term;
 * 2) the redirect could serve as an alternative name for the target article, meaning an alternative term that is already in the article's lead section. For example:

James Cary may refer to:
 * (correct) James Carrey or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actor
 * (incorrect) James Carrey or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actor
 * (incorrect) James Carrey or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actor

The above example of a redirect is only appropriate because James Carrey is indicated as an alternative name in the lead section of the Jim Carrey article. If it were not, then the second example could have been used instead.  

Where piping may be appropriate
  Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance, Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "Route 66" (song), Saturnalia (genus), "Hush" (Buffy episode), Neo (The Matrix). The templates and  may be used to create properly formatted links. These should be substituted, since templates are discouraged on disambiguation pages (see below).


 * WikiProject Disambiguation/Title templates for song, album and film title links
 * WikiProject Ships/Tools for ship and ship classes links

<li> Similarly, use piping if the entry's article title differs from how it should actually be rendered, due to technical limitations in Wikipedia; for instance, The Singles 86>98 or Softimage|XSI. </li>

<li> When the link is part of the description, rather than the actual entry name, piping can be used more freely. However, the text of the link should still be very similar to the title of the target article, to avoid confusing the reader. For example:

Switch may refer to: </li>
 * "Switch", a song by Siouxsie & the Banshees from The Scream

<li> Piping may be used (see ) for linking to a section or anchor point rather than an entire article. For example, on E (disambiguation), the piped Entertainment Software Rating Board is preferable to simply linking to the entire article Entertainment Software Rating Board. Piping is commonly used to link to the track listing section of an album article. The text of the link should not be the title of a different article, and should not surprise the reader. For example:

Ten may refer to:
 * (correct) Ten or Tenshinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
 * (incorrect) Ten or Tenshinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
 * This is incorrect because although the piped link will take the reader to the correct page where the character's name is discussed, the actual article Dragon Ball does not mention him and is not where the reader should think he or she is heading.
 * This is incorrect because although the piped link will take the reader to the correct page where the character's name is discussed, the actual article Dragon Ball does not mention him and is not where the reader should think he or she is heading.
 * This is incorrect because although the piped link will take the reader to the correct page where the character's name is discussed, the actual article Dragon Ball does not mention him and is not where the reader should think he or she is heading.

</li> </ul>

Section and anchor point linking
Section and anchor points in links should not be visible to the reader (e.g., ). If an anchor-point link is needed: When creating a redirect to a section, add the template on the redirect page within the. When a redirect to an anchor is created, make sure the template is placed at the targeted topic in the article, and tag the redirect with.
 * For linking the subject, link to a redirect to the anchor point (or leave the subject unlinked and move the link to the description).
 * For links in the description, link to a redirect or use an anchor-point link with piping to display text similar to the article title.

Foreign languages
For, be sure an article exists or could be written for the word or phrase in question. Usually this means that the term has been at least partially adopted into English or is used by specialists.

Tambo may refer to:
 * Tambo (weapon), a very short staff used in martial arts

Avoid adding foreign words or phrases that are merely translations of an English term. For example, do include:


 * Tambo (田んぼ), a Japanese word for rice paddy

Instead, consider linking to Wiktionary.

People
For, include their birth and death years (when known), and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Keep in mind the conventions for birth and death dates—see. Do not include a, an or the before the description of the person's occupation or role.

John Adams (1735–1826) was the second President of the United States (1797–1801).

John Adams may also refer to:
 * John Adams (composer) (born 1947), American composer, came to prominence with Shaker Loops in 1978
 * John Adams (physicist) (1920–1984), Director General of CERN and particle accelerator designer
 * John Worthington Adams (1764–1837), British general in India

Title-and-name disambiguation pages
It is common practice for sources to refer to holders of certain offices or stations by their title and surname. These references frequently make their way into articles, complete with links. Having disambiguation pages at these titles makes it easier for readers to find particular individuals who might be known by this combination, while also helping to eliminate incorrect links. These pages provide better results than Wikipedia's search function, which will sometimes return every article containing the title and the surname, even where the words have no relation to one another in the article. Jumbled results from the search function bury those most relevant to a search for people who might actually be called by that title and name. This is exacerbated by Manual of Style/Biography, which generally prohibits referring to article subjects by their title in running text. These pages also provide a better result than merely redirecting the combination to a surname page, as the surname page will likely include many names of persons not associated with the title.

A title-and-name disambiguation page should only be created if there are multiple individuals who can be included on the page. Furthermore, an individual should only be included on a page if the subject was known by that title and name, and this is reflected in reliable sources. For example, there is no redirect from Lieutenant Kennedy to John F. Kennedy, even though Kennedy at one point in his military service held this rank. Although many notable people with the surname Kennedy may have at some point held the rank of lieutenant, none of them were notable for having held the rank, and it is therefore inappropriate to have a disambiguation page at that title. By contrast, William Howard Taft can be listed at both Governor Taft and Justice Taft (and can be the redirect target of President Taft) as he would have been notable even if any one of those was the only office he had held.

Having a title in some capacity is also not, by itself, sufficient to merit inclusion on the page. There must be a reasonable propensity for the subject to be referred to by the title and name. Thus, people who are merely a sports team captain should not be listed with people titled "Captain", and people who are merely the president of a company should not be listed with people titled "President". In some cases, people have given names that in other contexts are a title (such as actor Justice Smith, politician Major Owens, and musician Earl Hines). Where this is the case, the person with such a name will often be considered the primary topic over any person with a corresponding title and name.

Places
For, it may only be necessary to write the name of the article.

Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida.

Jacksonville may also refer to:
 * Jacksonville, Alabama
 * Jacksonville, Arkansas

It may be appropriate to add the country after the link. Leave the country unlinked.

Kimberley may refer to:
 * Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada
 * Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

Red links
A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should be included on a disambiguation page only when a linked article (not just other disambiguation pages) also includes that red link. Do not create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or are likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics. To find out if any article uses the red link, follow the link (from an edit preview, a Wikipedia search, or typing it into the Wikipedia URL), and then use the "What links here" link in the toolbox.

If the only pages that use the red link are disambiguation pages, do one of the following:
 * Unlink the entry word but still keep a blue link in the description. Red links should not be the link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information. The linked article should contain some meaningful information about the term.
 * Start a new article for the red link, according to Article creation practices. Using the description on the disambiguation page as the lead sentence can be a start. Usually there should be a source in an existing article that mentions the topic which can be used.
 * Make a redirect to a page where the item is described (see above).

In the following (made-up) examples, if the entry with the architectural motif is judged to be appropriate for a future article, and assuming that the fictitious "flibbygibby" is mentioned in its respectively linked article, it is considered a valid entry. If "flibbygibby" is not mentioned in the noodle article, or there is no linked article at all, as in the toy example, it is not a valid entry; therefore, only the entry for the architectural motif can include a red link.

Flibbygibby may refer to:
 * (correct) Flibbygibby (architecture), a flamingo motif used on cornices ✅
 * (incorrect) Flibbygibby, a type of noodle
 * (incorrect) Flibbygibby, a type of toy

Synonyms
If the link is to a (where the disambiguated title is mentioned as a synonym), simply use it as it is named:

Serving spoon may also refer to:
 * Tablespoon

Items appearing within other articles
If a topic does not have an article of its own, but is discussed within another article, then a link to that article may be included if it would provide value to the reader. In this case, the link may not start the line (unless it has a redirect that is devoted to it), but it should still be the only blue wikilink. For example:

Maggie Anderson may also refer to:
 * Maggie Anderson, a character in the musical play Brigadoon

It is often useful to link to the relevant of the target page using anchors and conceal that by making it a piped link. For examples, see, above.

If the topic is in the other article, that article, since linking to it would not help readers find information about the sought topic.

Acronyms, initialisms, and abbreviations
Many pages serve primarily to disambiguate short letter combinations that can represent various acronyms and initialisms. When considering articles to include in the list, it is important that each individual entry is referred to by its respective abbreviation within its article. For example:

TLA may refer to:
 * (correct) Three-letter acronym ✅
 * (incorrect) Two-letter acronym

The second entry is incorrect because the article that it refers to, Acronym, does not mention that "Two-letter acronym" is abbreviated "TLA", and therefore is unlikely to be searched for by that letter combination. The Three-letter acronym page, however, notes that the topic abbreviated "TLA", and would thus be a likely candidate for someone searching that initialism. If an abbreviation is verifiable, but not mentioned in the target article, consider adding it to the target article. Similar to MOS:DABNOENTRY, if there is disagreement about whether this applies, it is often best to assume that it does.

Ordering
The following guidelines describe the appropriate order of entries on disambiguation pages:
 * 1) The primary topic, if there is one, should be placed at the top, above the introductory line, in a complete sentence.
 * 2) In cases where a small number of main topics (or just one) are significantly more likely to be the reader's target, the most common meanings may be placed above other entries, with their own introductory line or heading. See Mojave, Mercury, or Twister for examples of this.
 * 3) Long disambiguation pages should be grouped into subject sections, and even subsections as necessary, as described below. These sections (and any subsections) should typically be in alphabetical order.
 * 4)  each section, entries should be ordered to best assist the reader in finding their intended article. This might mean in decreasing order of likelihood as the user's target, alphabetically, chronologically, or geographically, not to the exclusion of other methods. In some cases it is useful to order entries by similarity to the ambiguous title, as follows:
 * 5) Articles with a clarifier in parentheses: e.g., Moss (band)
 * 6) Articles with a clarifier following a comma: e.g., Moss, Monterey County, California
 * 7) Articles with the item as part of the name: e.g., Moss Bros (Only include articles whose subject might  be called by the ambiguous title.)
 * 8) Synonyms: e.g., Tupolev Tu-126 (NATO reporting name: Moss)

See also section
Some entries may belong in a See also section at the bottom of the page:
 * Links to indexes of article titles beginning with Title (using ), article titles containing Title (using ), or both (using )
 * Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket
 * Less likely to be confused alternative spellings of Title, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont
 * Different forms of Title, for example Splitting, Split, and Splitter
 * Certain partial title matches.

As with any See also section, the ordering should be logical.

The See also should always be separated from the other entries with a section header. Links to other disambiguation pages should use the "(disambiguation)" link per WP:INTDABLINK.

In the See also section of a disambiguation page, an intentional link to another disambiguation page that does not contain "(disambiguation)" in the title should be written as  (then ensure that a redirect to   exists at that location).

When appropriate, place easily confused terms or commonly confused alternate spellings in a hatnote instead of a See also section. For example, Sydney (disambiguation) has a hatnote linking to Sidney (disambiguation).

Example ordering
Moss is a small, soft, non-vascular plant that lacks both flowers and seeds.

Moss may also refer to:
 * Moss (band), a UK extreme doom metal band
 * Moss (surname)
 * Moss, Monterey County, California
 * Moss FK, a Norwegian football club
 * Moss, a Korean webtoon by Yoon Tae-ho


 * MOSS (disambiguation)
 * Spanish moss, a flowering bromeliad plant that grows hanging from tree branches

Grouping by subject area
A large number of entries can make it difficult for a reader to find a particular topic. On longer disambiguation pages, separate entries by subject sections. Subject areas should be chosen carefully ; see Organizing disambiguation pages by subject area for detailed guidance. Use subject areas that are well-defined, and that group the entries into similarly sized sections. Very small sections may impede navigation, and should usually be avoided. Section headings should be as simple as possible; Sports is preferred to Sports people or Sports figures, since the nature of the category (people, in this case) should be obvious.

Entries that do not fit neatly into any section should be placed in an "Other uses" section or subsection, at the bottom of the page or section (but above any "See also" section). The "Other uses" section should be relatively short; if it becomes excessively long, the page may need to be reorganized. Uncategorized entries should be left at the top of the page or section, with the exception of one or two primary topics at the top of the page as stated above.

Keep in mind that a particular division scheme may not work equally well on all disambiguation pages. An example:

Thingamajig may refer to:


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


 * Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos
 * Thingamajig (Qatar), a seven-stringed musical instrument
 * Thingamajig (UK), a wind instrument, similar to, but longer than the Peruvian one

Use sections rather than bold text (see WP:PSEUDOHEAD). Using more than one level may be necessary, as on Aurora (disambiguation). Always use ==Level two== as the highest-level header. Section headings should not include links.

On longer lists, may be used to move the table of contents to the right-hand side of the page. This reduces the amount of white space and may improve the readability of the page. (For more information, see .) If used, should be placed after the lead section of the wiki markup and immediately before the first section heading. Users of screen readers do not expect any text between the TOC and the first heading, and having no text above the TOC is confusing. (For more information, see .)

Images and templates
Including images and transcluding templates are discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles on the particular search term in question. Examples of this are the images at Congo (disambiguation) and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation).

Icons, including flag icons, should not be used on disambiguation pages. Only if flag topics are being disambiguated and images are needed to do so, then flag icons or flag images might be added. See also: Manual of Style/Icons.

The disambiguation notice and categorization
After all of the disambiguation content (including the See also section, if present), but before any categories (see below) or interlanguage links, a template should be placed identifying the page as a disambiguation page. This generates a message to the reader explaining the purpose of the page, and also places the page in the appropriate category or categories.

The usual template to use is, which produces a general disambiguation notice, and places the page in Category:Disambiguation pages. Parameters can be added to place the page into other more specific disambiguation categories. For example, if a page includes multiple places and multiple people with the same surname (and possibly other items), use. A full list of available parameters and their corresponding categories can be found in the template documentation.

If a disambiguation page consists of items in one of the more specific classes, then a specific template should be used instead of. For example, use for locations,  for human names and so on. A full list can be found in the template documentation.

If a disambiguation page needs cleaning up to bring it into conformance with this style manual, use. This replaces  and.

Do not use  or , as the contents of this notice may change in the future (see Transclusion costs and benefits). Also, the Wikipedia software relies on links to the templates to determine which pages are disambiguation pages, and subst'ing breaks this feature.

Most disambiguation pages do not need to be placed into any categories other than those generated by the template. If such cases do arise (for example, specific categories of personal names that do not have corresponding template parameters), then the additional categories should be placed after the template.

If new topical categories of disambiguation pages seem to be needed, please bring this up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation.

Set index articles
Set index articles are list articles about a set of items that have similar or identical names. and do not have to follow the style outlined on this page. Note that the set index article exception was designed to be narrow: for pages that contain links to articles about different topics, please follow this style guide for disambiguation pages. An example of a set index article is a list of ships with the same name, such as HMS Albatross. For more information about such ship lists, see.

Disambiguation pages with only two entries
A disambiguation page with only two meanings is not necessary if one of them is the primary topic for that term. The recommended practice in these situations is to place a hatnote on the primary topic article to link directly to the secondary topic. The and  templates are useful. A two-entry disambiguation page with a primary topic can be tagged with.

If neither of the two meanings is primary, then a normal disambiguation page is still used at the base name.

When to ignore the guidelines
Application of these guidelines will generally produce useful disambiguation pages that are consistent with each other and therefore easily usable by most readers. Usefulness to the readers is their principal goal. However, for every style recommendation above, there may be pages in which a good reason exists to use another way; so ignore these guidelines if doing so will be more helpful to readers than following them.

WikiProjects

 * WikiProject Disambiguation
 * WikiProject Deletion sorting/Disambiguations

Relevant categories
Also see the categories located, as usual, at the bottom of this page.
 * Category:Disambiguation and redirection templates
 * Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup

Essays

 * Partially disambiguated page names
 * Wikipedia:Primary topics in WP:TWODABS situations