Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 16

Related proposal
It looks like Hatnotes is proposing changes to these guidelines. -- Beland 16:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for mentioning this here. I would recommend that any users involved in the discussion above express their opinions at Wikipedia talk:Hatnotes, so that opinions of many disambiguators can be considered. -- Nataly a  16:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Otheruses4
Template:Otheruses4 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. &mdash;Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Michigan highways
Can some of the disambiguation people weigh in here on the best disambiguation for a highway in the U.S. state of Michigan named M-X (where X is a number)? Thanks. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems ) 11:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

When to not disambiguate?
Is there a policy regarding whether or not there should be a disambig page if the whole page only has one link that isn't red? It seems to me that the purpose of disambig is to disambiguate between articles that exist.

Anyway, the article I'm asking about is EPF. Should there be a disambig page there? On top of that, does anyone actually use EPF to mean ex post facto? Jesuschex 03:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the world of three(/two/one/four/five) letter acronym pages! Some people (not me) think these pages are "special". Anyways, nothing links there Special:Whatlinkshere/EPF so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Ewlyahoocom 07:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Ahab needs disambiguation
I'm new at this, so I'm not exactly sure how to do this...

I think there a need for a disambiguation page for "Ahab" which could refer to:
 * 1) a King of Israel
 * 2) prophet
 * 3) Ahab, from X-Men comics
 * 4) Captain Ahab, from the novel Moby Dick
 * 5) Captain Ahab, Band

and others.

At the bottom of the entry for (1) already has a start for alternative meanings and (4) is a disambiguation page for "Captain Ahab".

Clemwang 18:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Done, see:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ahab&diff=53187791&oldid=53185775
 * Ahab (disambiguation)
 * /wangi 19:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

List of comics characters sharing the same name
We've got a few comic characters where the character (comics) page is a further disambig page, for example, Ares (comics), Thor (comics), Hercules (comics), Dennis the Menace and Sandman (comics). I would like to create some form of category to place them in, perhaps Category:List of comics characters sharing the same name?


 * I think the answer is much more simple than this - put them onto the disambiguation page that they belong on! There is no need for a separate disambiguation page just for the comics-related entries, that is why there is Longer lists section at the Manual of Style for Disambiguation Pages.  Thor (comics) and Hercules (comics) are separate cases, because they are not truly disambiguation pages, but Ares (comics) and Sandman (comics) should definitly be put back into Ares (disambiguation) and Sandman.  In fact, Sandman already contains all the information from Sandman (comics).  My goodness!  What a mess of disambiguation pages. :)  Appropriate cleanup tags have been added, which I will likely take care of.  -- Nataly a  23:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hold up! The reason they are needed is that people do link to these pages when wikilinking, they will thus otherwise get created and these issues need to be looked at before action is taken.  What sort of thing are you suggesting? Hiding Talk 11:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It seems that for almost all of the links to these pages, they could/should be corrected to link to a specific comic book character, rather than the page that lists all the different characters. The title "Sandman (comics)", for example, seems to be linked to when referring to any reference of "The Sandman", when it really should be specified which Sandman is being referred to.  (Don't worry, I haven't made any changes yet!  I was just throwing my general impression out there). -- Nataly a  16:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. So what would the page at Sandman (comics) become?  A redirect to the disambig page? Sorry if I came across a bit stressed, your enthusiasm scared me.  I'm not used to seeing it in the corners I inhabit. Hiding Talk 21:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I was just overwhelmed with the disambiguation. :) That's exactly what I was thinking, making it a redirect to Sandman.  Does that seem appropriate? -- Nataly a  21:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sound brilliant. I'll add it to my to do list. The position is that if they simply act as a disambig page, then redirect them to the redirect page, but if they act as a summary page, like Thor (comics) and Hercules (comics), that's fine and they can be kept? Hiding Talk 13:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Let me know if you'd like any help (I'll try to be less enthusiastic ;) ). -- Nataly a 16:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh god, don't lose that enthusiasm on my account. I should be alright, but if you turn one up feel free to have a go. Hiding Talk 18:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Are dab pages for readers or editors?
The disambiguation guidelines say: Disambiguation serves a single purpose: to let the reader choose among different pages that closely relate to various meanings of a particular term (some of which might logically utilize said term in a titular fashion). This makes clear that dab pages are there to help the reader find a page. But there is no mention of the fact that editors also use dab pages to find the correct article to link to (either while writing an article, or when [as part of the Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links project] cleaning up after someone who linked to a dab page without checking).

The point I want to raise here is that dab pages that are written for readers are not as comprehensive as the ones that would be written to help an editor disambiguate. What do I mean by this? Well, for an editor to dab correctly, the editor might need a full list of the meanings of the word (and wiktionary often doesn't help here), plus possibly also the articles containing the word as part of the title. This is because the original editor at the page pointing to the dab page might have typed iris diaphragm instead of iris diaphragm, or something similar. Hence the "part of a title" bit is helpful for editors correcting dabs.

Given this, is there a case for relaxing the guidelines slightly? Carcharoth 17:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You can put these extra tips on the talk page. For example Talk:Italian. Editors read the talk pages, readers don't - this seems like a good idea. --Commander Keane 17:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh the irony! :-) Did you see that someone added in Italian cuisine the edit after your one that tidied up the dab page? But seriously, thanks for the tip, I will consider doing this in future. Carcharoth 20:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Using that example of Italian, would I be right that the dab entries should be ones where you would say it in normal speech, eg. "I am Italian", "I am learning Italian", "I like eating Italian", but the chess example fails this test, as only a chess player would say "I played the Italian last night"? Carcharoth 20:38, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Compare that to pages like Dental or Alternative, which simply include every article whose title includes those words -- most of which are never, ever referred to as simply a "dental" or "alternative". Ewlyahoocom 20:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It seems like those pages would be candidates to be cleaned up...? -- Nataly a 21:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, technically they do not include every article... For that have a look at articles starting with "alternative" and articles starting with "dental"... :-) But seriously, it is sometimes unclear where to draw the line, and I find AllPages listings like that to be very helpful. It is just a pity that they cannot be referred to in article namespace (it is self-referential). On the other hand, we could put links to listings like this on the disambiguation page's talk page. I wonder if there is a way to get a list of all articles containing a word, ie. not just starting with a word? Browsing the list generated by a search for the term, such as here for "dental", is the closest I can get. That yields Yamahachi_Dental for example. I just think that tips like this should be advertised more widely so that editors are more likely to link to the correct pages in the first place, rather than leaving it to the dab squad to clean up. In any case, something like this could be added to a collection of tips for those cleaning up dab pages. Carcharoth 22:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

What might be an idea, is having a template to put at the top of talk pages for dab pages. The template would give useful instructions, and would have links to the Prefix index and to What links here, and to a Wikipedia search for the term, all using a "PAGE NAME" template. Would this be a good idea? Carcharoth 22:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Self-referencing shouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle, so long as the self-reference is identified as such. Links to Special:Allpages can be wrapped within the Selfref template. For example,  This makes it relatively simple for responsible re-users of Wikipedia content to remove the self-reference. older ≠ wiser 00:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm... I wonder if such a link could become useful on disambiguation pages? The main topics appropriate for the page would be covered in-depth, but then there is still the link to everything else with a similar title (true there would be some overlap).  Feasable?  Or maybe only on pages where it is an issue?  I'm just brainsrotming. -- Nataly a  11:14, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to note the http://www.wikiwax.com search site is an invaluable tool when sprucing up dab pages -- it finds all uses of a word within a title, not just at the beginning. Of course it turns up lots (perhaps a majority) of things that shouldn't be included on a dab, but it often finds important links that have been overlooked too. It would be great if something like this could be integrated into Wikipedia, or a WP toolbar or something... &mdash; Catherine\talk 01:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggested change to guideline
I want to propose a wording change to part of the disambiguation guidelines:


 * Disambiguation

The current entry reads: "Dictionary definitions don't belong here. However, there are templates for linking to Wiktionary. (See Wikipedia:How to link to Wikimedia projects#Wiktionary.)"

Following the Village Pump discussion here, I would like to propose the following wording change (add bit in italics): "Dictionary definitions don't belong here. However, there are templates for linking to Wiktionary. (See Wikipedia:How to link to Wikimedia projects#Wiktionary.) If the dictionary definition does not exist on Wiktionary, it should be added to Wiktionary or labelled for transwikking, not just removed."

What do people think?

If this is acceptable, there would be a need to link to something explaining how to transwiki stuff. Does anyone know of a suitable set of guidelines?

Please also see the related proposal here. Thanks.Carcharoth 13:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm OK with your addition, but I'd like to also modify the rather inflexible dictum "Dictionary definitions don't belong here" -- I think this is profoundly unhelpful. There are many cases where a brief definition is quite helpful (and may be all that is needed in cases where there isn't specific article -- or where there may be several articles on specialized uses, but nothing on the more general meaning). I think it is stupid to remove a very brief general definition and replace it with a link to Wiktionary where the entry in many cases is either missing altogether or is even less helpful than the brief definition that was removed. I completely agree that disambiguation pages should NOT become dictionary entries trying to cover all possible nuances and other aspects of dictionary entries. But I think we do readers a disservice by forcing them to go to Wiktionary (which is often inadequate) when a brief general definition is enough for them either understand the gist of the term or to determine whether they want to pursue the meaning further. older ≠ wiser 14:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe there's a way that we can encourage people to create articles (even stubs) for dictionary definitions that are still encyclopedic? That way, the important definitions can still be included, and they can have an actual article.  The problem with including dictionary definitions without articles on a disambiguation page is that the disambiguation page will then be linked to, which isn't really idea.  -- Nataly a  17:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * No, I don't think encouraging dictdef stubs is the way to go. The problem you mention could be addressed in part by Carcharoth's suggestion above -- i.e., links to the disambiguation page where the intended target is clearly not an existing article but definitional in nature would be linked to Wiktionary instead of the disambiguation page (or the misplaced link could simply be removed--though a better long-term solution might be if there were an easier way to get to Wiktionary definitions by simply right-clicking on a word in an article or something similar). And the proposal would encourage taking responsibility for ensuring that appropriate definitions exist in Wiktionary. See, the thing is, no matter how rigorously we patrol the links to disambiguation pages, there will always be more links created. Besides that, there will be always be casual browsers, and although the primary purpose of disambiguation pages is not to facilitate casual browsing, I don't see how providing brief (and I emphasize brief again) definitions will detract from that primary purpose. older ≠ wiser 21:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess I don't like the idea of linking to disambiguation pages just for that definition (probably rollover from too much work at WP:DPL :) ), but if it were standardized in an appropriate way, and the emphasis on brief made very clear, it could possibly work. -- Nataly a 05:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * But I agree with you that pages should not link to disambiguation pages only for a definition -- those links would either be removed or changed to Wiktionary links. But we cannot completely control how people get to disambiguation pages. Consider this hypothetical: a reader comes across a term "foo" (doesn't even have to be in an article--I know many people for whom Wikipedia has become the first reference source that they consult for their offline work). But Foo is a disambiguation page and only contains links to a few specialized articles--not a word about the general meaning. Perhaps there's a link to Wiktionary, and it may or may not have anything. I'd consider this a failure of Wikipedia for the person trying to understand the general sense of what "foo" is.


 * IMO, I think such brief definitions (or perhaps better, contextualizations) would only really be needed in those cases where there are multiple articles about specialized uses of a term but no article about the general meaning. Providing some contextualization would make it clear that the list of specialized terms is not exhaustive and that if you are looking for more information about the general meaning you might want to check Wiktionary (or some other dictionary). older ≠ wiser 11:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * If I understand, there would be short dictionary definitions were appropriate, but they would be for the purpose of understanding once someone got to the page, not to be linked to regularly? Providing I understand correctly, that sounds pretty good. -- Nataly a  14:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguating phrases and names - proposed change
The guideline currently reads: "Lists of articles of which the disambiguated term forms only a part of the article title don't belong here. Disambiguation pages are not search indices. Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title (where there is no significant risk of confusion)."

I suggest that the aforementioned paragraph be deleted as it does not reflect the reality on disambiguation pages in that there are numerous pages that disambiguate articles that only share part of a title. For instance Aaronovitch disambigs Ben Aaronovitch and David Aaronovitch (this is only one of countless disambig pages that disambig based on a family name), Ace (disambiguation) includes numerous articles that have other additional words in the title, Democracy (disambiguation) disambiguates a number of phrases that include the word democracy. Love &amp; Hope 14:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The guidline is not meant to prohibit any links that only include the word in question. Rather, it is meant to deter the adding of unneccesary links that may just have the word in the name.  If an article is likely to be confused with the term being disambiguated, it is generally appropriate to appear on the page.  You are correct that reality does not necessarily reflect this; Ace (disambiguation) has certainly gone a bit overboard, and should in fact be merged with ACE (which I'm about to bring up below), as well as cleaned up. -- Nataly a  18:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Ace (disambiguation) and ACE
Per the page naming conventions at Wikipedia:Disambiguation, Ace (disambiguation) and ACE should be merged. Before that happens, though, it seems that it might be good to clean them up a bit, as they are both very long disambiguation pages. As addressed above, Ace (disambiguation) contains a very, very large number of links, many of which may not be necessary to be on the page. It definitly needs some trimming down. Any opinions on the best way to go about this, since it's a bit more complicated than the norm? -- Nataly a 18:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Primary topic links
I know this has been discussed before, but I'm confused by why the page contains the following guidance: Ensure that the "(disambiguation)" page links back to an unambiguous page name. The unambiguous page name should redirect to the primary topic page. This assists future editors (and automated processes).


 * For example, the primary topic Rome links to Rome (disambiguation), where there is a link back via Rome, Italy (rather than directly to Rome).

This really seems counterintuitive, and if there is some rationale for doing this, it really should be explained, rather than simply postulated as if a decree from on high. What is the point of having Rome (disambiguation) link to Rome, Italy instead of Rome? I know there had at one time been some attempt to describe a "Disambiguated Primary Topic" (DPT), which if I understand correctly was supposed to make it easier to identify mistaken links to Rome that were actually meant for some other topic. At least I think that is the rationale for why the text above was added to the guideline. The way it was supposed to work, IIRC, was that intentional links to a primary topic like Rome were supposed to go through the redirect at Rome, Italy. Under this theory, it was supposed to be easier to monitor for mistaken links to the primary topic.

But this does not at all reflect actual practice. If you look at What links here for these pages, there are over 9000 links to Rome, while there are about 300 to Rome, Italy. Is there some other reason for the disambiguation page to link to a redirect instead of to the primary topic? If not, can we get rid of these statements (that I've always found a little confusing, but really didn't pay much attention to). If there is some good reason for keeping this instruction, can we add some explanation to clarify this? older ≠ wiser 21:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I could see it being used along the same lines as the "no piping" guideline, but it does seem to make a lot more sense to link to the redirect in that case. I don't see any reason why not. -- Nataly a  21:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

My bad. — Jun. 14, '06  [22:14] < [ freak]|[ talk] >


 * No problem, Anyone else care to comment on this? If there are no objections within a week, I will remove the text quoted above from the guideline. older ≠ wiser 22:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it makes sense to link to the redirect rather than to the primary topic. If we have a disambiguation page, that means that the name is ambiguous, i.e. several entities have legitimate claims to use the name.  It doesn't really help anyone if we link, on a disambiguation page, to the ambiguous name. --Smack (talk) 21:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It doesn't really help anyone if we link, on a disambiguation page, to the ambiguous name. But by the same logic, it doesn't really help anyone to link to a redirect to a topic instead of directly. What is the benefit or harm either way? The real detriment in my mind is that this guidance is not only rather confusing, but is also, in my very unscientific estimation, rather widely ignored. Guidelines are supposed to reflect actual practice. Or in those cases where guidelines are prescribing a practice that is not generally recognized, IMO there should be a very strong argument in favor of making the change. I don't see that there is a very good argument here. older ≠ wiser 23:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

"List of highways numbered X"
I've been working on the disambiguations like Route 1 (which has redirects from Highway 1, State Road 1, etc) recently, and I realized that they might work better at titles like list of highways numbered 1. Can someone coment on whether this would be a good idea? --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems ) 13:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it would be better to keep them at the shorter titles. Farm to Market roads would, in fact, be routes, but I wouldn't consider them highways. I think it would be more meaningful to think of these as disambiguation pages rather than lists. Note that we don't have a List of people named Dylan, we just have Dylan, a disambiguation page, even though some people link to it accidentally, but they usually mean Bob Dylan. — Apr. 24, '06 [20:16] <[ freakofnurxture]|[ talk]>

Can I have some more input on this, please? --SPUI (T - C) 15:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Upon further reflection, I agree with you. This whole collection of pages needs a makeover. My thoughts:
 * I suppose that Farm to Market Roads are technically "highways", even if they are, in reality, narrow, spindling death traps teeming with blind curves and stray cattle.
 * Likewise, then, any route maintained at the state level or higher, would surely be considered a "highway numbered X", whether it is dubbed "State Route X" or "State Road X" or whatever.
 * However, this would, I assume, exclude things like "County Road X" and "Xth Street/Avenue".
 * But, if these are moved to "List of highways numbered X", are they still considered disambiguation pages? In practice, they function as such, and will continue to do so, as all the common road naming conventions, sans geographical identifier, will redirect to these lists, as explained by SPUI. currently populates Category:Disambiguation (I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but it can easily be changed with one edit), and I even went so far as to modify User:Lupin/popups.js so it gives disambiguating functionality to pages containing this footer template.
 * Furthermore, regardless of whether Category:Lists of roads sharing the same title is or is not a subcategory of Category:Disambiguation, it should probably be changed to Category:Lists of highways sharing the same number, Category:Lists of similarly numbered highways, or somesuch. Making this change, as well as moving the list pages, would explicitly:
 * Exclude numbered non-highways (e.g. County Road X, Xth Avenue, X Mile Road) from each list page.
 * Exclude disambiguation pages for non-numerical highway names, (e.g. Western Freeway) from the category.
 * If nobody is bothered by any of this (or reading any of this), let's go ahead and do this some time soon. — Jun. 14, '06  [14:20] < [ freak]|[ talk] >


 * Without taking a position on the merits of the idea at this point, I predict that most or all pages thus moved will eventually end up listed on AfD as listcruft. —phh (t/c) 21:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Any disambiguation page could be; please be constructive. --SPUI (T - C) 21:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * PHenry, are you saying, then, that the titles of the pages carry that much weight with regards to the value of the product as a whole? — Jun. 14, '06  [21:36] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * Keeping them tagged with a disambig would probably help to keep them off AfD. (The tags would serve as proof that the lists serve a useful purpose.) -- Northenglish (talk) -- 21:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd go for it, definitely. Just to clarify, Freakofnurture, though, I would include numbered county routes.  Roads that happen to be named with a number, though, should not be included. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 21:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * There are two types of numbered county routes - those that are signed with shields (typically only the main roads in the county) and all rural roads maintained by the county (often signed with standard street signs). I'd possibly include the former, as locals may call them simply Route X, but not the latter. --SPUI (T - C) 21:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for the county roads in anybody else's neck of the woods, but the ones around here are built to lower standards (and perhaps in some cases, narrower) than the slab of cement in front of my garage, and not "highways" by any stretch of the imagination. — Jun. 14, '06  [22:12] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * County Route G4 (California), County Route 549 (New Jersey) - different states do stuff differently. --SPUI (T - C) 22:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I seriously need to buy a camera, then. — Jun. 14, '06  [23:10] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * Seriously though, does anybody care to weigh in on the *gasp* actual naming issue? — Jun. 14, '06  [22:15] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * I, like SPUI, would include county routes signed with shields, but not the rural roads merely maintained by the county.
 * As for the naming issue, as I said, I'm all for List of highways numbered X -- Northenglish (talk) -- 22:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I would include county routes in lists of numbered routes provided they are not rural unmaintained roads but major thruways. For instance your example from New Jersey at "549" could be included if there are infact other routes numbered 549. Don't know about the california example however since they don't actually have a number but a letter number combo. Does anyone know if that is confined to only california? If so then it's probably unique and doesn't need any disambig. JohnnyBGood    t   c  VIVA! 22:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Also as for the naming issue, I think they are better served as disabmig pages at the original "Route X" designation. JohnnyBGood    t   c  VIVA! 00:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I can tell you this, the List of highways numbered 202 pages isn't only U.S. Route 202, however when you try to find other Route 202's(like California, for instance), you'll only wind up on US 202. How can I fix this? (DanTD 13:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC))