Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 31

Other problem with the Dreamweaver dab page
I've altered the dab page for Dreamweaver to reflect the structure and format of the thirty or so other dab pages I've surveyed today. However, it keeps getting altered by folk pushing the dreamweaver software as the most important dab term. Here's what it looked like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dreamweaver_(disambiguation)&oldid=344160143 before] I fixed it, and here's what it looked like after I fixed it. Subsequently, my changes were undone by two editors working apparently in concert. This isn't related to the discussion above. The prior discussion addresses a difference of opinion as to what a search for where Dreamweaver should redirect to. This matter specifically addresses a dab page being more or less uniform with tens of thousands of other dab pages.- Jack Sebastian (talk) 23:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Consensus in said discussion clearly shows Adobe Dreamweaver is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Look, Wikipedia works by WP:CONSENSUS. When you have MULTIPLE editors undoing your edits and/or telling you that your position is wrong or incorrect, you need to stop doing them. That you are continuing to push your personal view of what the page should be or what the primary topic is lacks neutrality and is acting against the consensus of the editors involved. You don't get to decide that you don't like the consensus and thus will ignore it. The current format properly follows Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) rather than a random selection of disambiguation pages. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 23:22, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry Anma, what consensus are you speaking of that reinstates a dab page that doesn't resemble thousands of other pages? Actually, you are going to want to look at those edits again: you reverted my fixing of the dab page, and the other editor making changes was fixing your mistakes, Anma. By the way, you've reverted there three times today; consider this your 3RR notice.
 * That said, I invite anyone to look at my change to the dab page (which creates a uniformity between it and other dab pages), and then compare it to the way it used to look (before). Pimping one term over not just one other, but all others seems to be decidedly non-neutral, and non-uniform in view of other dab pages. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 23:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you not argue without being dishonest? I have not reverted 3 times, I reverted your bold redoing of the page. The other editor did not "fix my mistakes" he tweaked the new version. You then reverted us both, and I reverted it. That is two. One, Two. Three does not come after One. Please stop with the bad faith accusations and overly hostile responses. It is getting very old and the only one it is making look bad is you. WP:MOSDAB is clear. The primary topic goes at the top, just as with other dab pages where there is a primary topic.-- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 23:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Revert: (1, 2. 3). And the other editor was correcting changes that you had made to the section, and addressed exactly none of my changes. What part of any of that is a dishonest statement of fact? Your behavior in this policy discussion page is unacceptable and disruptive. You are commenting simply to have the last word in a discussion; were you so sure of your position, you would simply take those five years of experience, back off, and allow others to support your position. You are going to want to pull back now Anma, as you are being really uncivil, and I'm not going to allow you to do it that much longer. I many be new to dab, but I know how to file a complaint. Last chance, tone it down now, please. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Whatever. Your changes were reverted, he cleaned it up further. That is called cooperative editing. And please learn what a revert is. It is not editing yourself. Anyway, your continued hostility and beyond overly hostile reaction are really just too much. I'm seeing editor assistance per dispute resolution, as I have no desire to continue wasting time with this foolishness. -- AnmaFinotera  (talk · contribs) 00:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a grand idea. Let me know how that works out; I wish you luck. And no, you don't need to apologize for calling me dishonest - especially when I've pointed out that the opposite was in fact the case. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 00:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * In my opinion the current version is much closer to the guidelines at MOS:DAB. As long as Dreamweaver redirects to Adobe Dreamweaver, that entry should be at the top of the Dreamweaver (disambiguation) page. Station1 (talk) 23:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, that doesn't create a dab page that is uniform with both MOS:DAB and hundreds if not thousands of other dab page structures. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 23:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes it does (MOSDAB). If there is a primary topic, it goes on top to (oddly, but it works) get it out of the way of people searching the rest of the page for their topic.  I'd suggest finishing the other discussion first, however.  (John User:Jwy talk) 23:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd point out a wealth of dab pages that more closely approximate the neutral arrangement I offered, but I will allow that the two discussions have a proximal relationship to one another, and wait the conclusion of the other discussion, sans all the dramah. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 90+% of disambiguation pages probably don't meet the MOS. Making a disambiguation page look like other disambiguation pages is not a goal supported by Wikipedia guidelines. Making a disambiguation page look like a disambiguation page should look (as indicated by the MOS) is a much more compelling objective, at least in my opinion and (I daresay) in the opinion of the people here who concern themselves with disambiguation. If you know of dab pages that don't meet the guidelines, feel free to tag them with the disambig-cleanup template. Propaniac (talk) 14:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Pardon me for stating the obvious, but if 90% of the dab pages are one way and the policy is another, that would seem a call for a change in the MOS. As I understand it, that's how policy usually changes. This is how our spoiler guidelines came to be, IIRC. This is how policy and guidelines change; either by discussion and retooling, or organically, such as it has in this case.
 * That gorilla aside, you are stating that the only real problem with my edit was that it didn't list the software as the primary topic? I've stated on numerous occasions that the criteria being used for determining that is critically flawed; I am not confident that it is offering a true representation of the popularity of the software in comparison to other representations of dream weaver. My solution listed all of the uses by field; someone pointed out elsewhere that I purposely moved the software to the bottom, which I will point out occurred because s for 'software' or t for 'technology' both come after m for 'media' or 'music' in the alphabet (and its also my understanding we tend to follow that as well). The current version is also missing two terms excised; I've reinserted one of them (its notable enough to be mentioned in the article the dab directs to). - Jack Sebastian (talk) 21:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Propaniac said that many dab pages don't follow MoS; xe didn't say that they all deviate in the same way. We can certainly debate MoS, but let's not disregard it only because it doesn't support the way you would like this page to be formatted. As I said elsewhere, I think the heart of the issue is WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. It seems that you don't think it should be applied here - is that right? --AndrewHowse (talk) 22:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Re. your clarification of Propaniac's statement, that seems to make sense. For the most part, I prefer uniformity - its more encyclopedic. In answer to your question, Andrew, my answer is that I do not think it can be applied as an accurate reflection of its importance. A Google search for the word "dreamweaver" or "dream weaver" both pull up the same sorts of results: both the internet software and the song. I would submit that, while the program (which is used web development) does have a substantial number of links, the content of these links as well as the fact that questions, tutorials and the like about web development software would appear - where else? - the web.
 * The song has had over 30 years to sink into the public consciousness, where most people can identify the song from hearing the first few notes of it. Now, that sounds like a bold statement, and it is. Consider that the movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street was developed after director Wes Craven heard the first few synthesizer riffs of the tune - a full 12 years after the song was released. The song keeps popping up: 1990's Wayne's World as well as other movies. I think its safe to say that while it isn't in the Top 40, its one of those songs that are just There. That's hard to quantify in a web search or Wiki viewership stats (which I've already demonstrated render skewed results when applied to determine popularity of one term over another).
 * Long story short, I think that both are primary topics, but since that might not work, let's do what's been done for two other Adobe products: Acrobat or Flash. Both searches lead to a dab page, rendering it easier for the casual user to find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently. There are other examples, but those two seem to do the job pretty well. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 15:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What was done for other Adobe products is no indicator here. Some Adobe products might have articles that are the primary topic for that name. Some products might have articles with titles that have a different primary topic. Still others might have no primary topic. See also Word, Excel, and Power Point for exactly this spread of possibilities. Consistency here is undesirable. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't actually looked at the Dreamweaver dab page because I'm disinclined to get involved in this argument. I just wanted to make the point that "there are other disambiguation pages that do it this way" is not a reason that any disambiguation page SHOULD do it that way. Propaniac (talk) 15:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I used the Adobe programs not as a comparison of all Adobe programs, but instead a proximal illustration of how a dab page can resolve problems where two primary topics present themselves. I was pointing out elegant and efficient solutions, not that 'other stuff is done this way'. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 15:44, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What I observed was someone indicating the part of the MOS that disagreed with what you wanted to do, and your responding by saying you could point out "a wealth of dab pages" that did it the way you preferred, as if the existence of a number of pages that did it that way was evidence that that was the correct, or best, way to do it. I apologize since I apparently misunderstood your meaning. Propaniac (talk) 19:29, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Your apology is accepted. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. ;)
 * That said, I do think that it seems to be a better way to handle those dab situations where you have two equally popular terms. I think it would be helpful to allow for such in policy. You say that upwards of 90% of dab pages are wrong, and others have suggested that you meant that they are all wrong in different ways. Apart from the more esoteric dab examples, would it be fair to say that two different dab situations typically exist? The first is just a list of like-named terms, with one being clearly the most common term. The second (where I feel the current situation resides) wherein you have two terms that are likely much closer in terms of use.
 * Presuming that such is the case in the majority of situations, would it not seem prudent to have better ways of addressing these issues instead of endless talk wherein one half adheres (rather blindly, in this case) to a guideline that itself says it isn't be used definitively, and the other half argue from a common sense, non-wiki reasoning? Since most of the Google numbers for the software list either the company, companies selling the product or folk offering YouTube tutorials, many of them just duplications of each other (likely examples of keyword- or page-stuffing). Likewise, wikipedia article views can be wholly misinterpreted (and IMO, has in this instance). It's like diverting traffic to a single traffic light, and then touting that as the most popular intersection, through no action of your own. It isn't an organic result, but one borne out of a rigged search.  - Jack Sebastian (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Primary topic confusion again
Talk:EA is back. Disambiguation project members or others with an understanding of the consensus guidelines for primary topics would be welcome. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:21, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Or else we should change the guidelines to reflect how the primary topic is actually determined in the wild: "Primary topic is not determined by the usage of the majority of the readership; instead, if individual editors think different topics are significant, or if any one editor has never heard of the topic that the majority of readers are looking for, or if there are many ambiguous topics regardless of which one is used most often, then there is no primary topic." (These are the "arguments" currently presented at EA.) I hope that isn't the case. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I really wish there was a forum for debating whether X is a primary topic without having to win the approval of users who don't know or care what "primary topic" means. This set-up is just ridiculous. (Although at least they can no longer point to that one sentence in the guideline and say, "See, the fact that I'm refusing to acknowledge the rest of the guideline and we're arguing about it means that I'm right!") Propaniac (talk) 14:15, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I care about what primary topic means, but I don't agree with a simplistic majority rules criteria. I understand what JHunterJ is saying, although he quite obviously frames it in highly biased language. In most cases it is true that a preponderance of page hits is a good indicator that there is a primary topic. However, I've long held that basing primary topic solely on Wikipedia page traffic is inherently flawed as page traffic merely reflects the systemic bias of Wikipedia's online readership. Wikipedia is first an encyclopedia and second a wiki-based website. The optimization of website traffic is a secondary goal to encyclopedic objectivity and neutrality. Measures other than traffic statistics are important factors to consider, including both general Search engine hits as well as more specialized searches such as Google Books or Google Scholar. And unlike JHunterJ and Proponiac, I would not be so quick to dismiss valid objections of reader/editors expressing different perspectives. Of course, objections based on ignorance should not be able to block consensus indefinitely. older ≠ wiser 17:15, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree that my language is quite obviously biased; I may be frustrated with the long-standing disregard for the guidelines, but the recap of that disregard seems even. Determining the primary topic is indeed recognizing whatever bias the Wikipedia readership has -- this is a navigational aid, not a content issue. If you would like to change the primary topic guidelines to get away from the measures it currently advocates, you should propose it and see if consensus has changed. I would welcome the other measures to be brought forward to show how another topic is primary or how no topic is primary. That isn't what happens though; the views opposing the recognition of whatever primary topic is at hand rely instead on the arguments I recapped above. Unlike you, I would not be so quick to dismiss valid objections of reader/editors trying to both apply the guidelines determined by consensus and also explain those guidelines to reader/editors with different perspectives. But at least we agree that our valid complaint, objections based on ignorance, should not be able to block consensus indefinitely. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:24, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think any change to the guidelines are needed. As it is, page traffic is only one potential indicator of a primary topic. It is not definitive and the ultimate decision is agreement among editors. What I object to is what I see as privileging traffic statistics as somehow being the most significant factor to consider. BTB, perhaps "highly biased" wasn't quite the most accurate description of your language, but your proposition is clearly a rather farcical characterization of a position you do not actually support. I very much object to your suggestion that I have dismissed  valid objections of reader/editors trying to both apply the guidelines determined by consensus and also explain those guidelines to reader/editors with different perspectives. It may be that you and I have different interpretations of how to apply the guidelines and that both interpretations can be supported by the language in the existing guidelines. If what you are suggesting is making the guideline for primary topic to be even more simplistically number-driven, I very strongly object and I expect I would not be alone. older ≠ wiser 17:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Then we each very much object to being characterized as dismissive. Perhaps we can avoid that kind of characterization from now on. I am also not suggesting any change in the guidelines. I am requesting an adherence to the guidelines, and a recognition of them in discussions. If one application of one metric suggests one primary topic and no other metrics are brought up (and this is often the case), then the suggested primary topic should be recognized as the primary topic. If an editor disagrees with the metric, some other objection based on the guidelines for determining a primary topic should be used to frame that objection, instead of the all-too-farcical objections that are normally trotted out instead. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Bkonrad, your initial response suggests that you may have misread or misunderstood my comment, as if I were saying that you or anyone who disagreed with me on a primary-topic-related matter would fall into the category of "users who don't know or care what 'primary topic' means." Of course that is not the case. I am referring to users who partipate in a discussion about whether X is a primary topic while showing no awareness that "which article users are looking for" is a criteria to be considered. I wouldn't be annoyed by anyone who said, "I'm not sure you've shown this situation meets the guideline, and here's why," or "I'm reading the guideline differently than you are, and here's why," or "I think this is a situation where the guideline should be ignored, and here's why," or by anyone who suggested--at the appropriate venue, which is not an individual Move Request discussion--that the guideline should be changed completely. It's when people say, "This isn't the primary topic, because the term has other meanings," or "This can't be the primary topic because I've never heard of it," that I assume they don't care (or they don't know, and then it's pointed out to them, and then they don't care) that we have a guideline, and there's no way to have a productive discussion with them because they won't acknowledge the actual issue, and their determined, opinionated ignorance makes the guideline impossible to follow. If I'm wrong to have low opinions of such attitudes, then I expect I'll always be wrong. Propaniac (talk) 19:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to be disrespectful of either you or JHunterJ. But I was actually thinking more of an average reader/editor who is not overly familiar with disambiguation arcanum and comes upon a requested move survey and expresses their opinion in terms that makes sense to them. Their lack of familiarity with disambiguation guidelines shouldn't be held against them. And sometimes, even someone expressing a sincere opinion along the lines that "I've never heard of X" [which is being proposed a primary topic] and in their experience the term first means Y -- this might be an indication that more analysis is needed. Of course, if someone obstinately holds onto an unsupported position, that is a problem. But sincere objections from readers unfamiliar with the split hairs of disambiguation minutiae shouldn't be disregarded. older ≠ wiser 19:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Smokeless tobacco - not a dab
I think Smokeless tobacco should not be a disambiguation page at all. All of the links are to different products that are simply types of tobacco that can be consumed without being smoked. The phrase "smokeless tobacco" only appears in a single one of those links. Would anyone object if I turn it into an article? bd2412 T 13:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I suspect no one here would. Probably no one at Talk:Smokeless tobacco will either, but that would be a good place to check. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:39, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

GAA
A discussion of GAA being a disambiguation page vs. GAA (disambiguation), with the primary pointing to Gaelic Athletic Association is going on at Talk:GAA (disambiguation). If anyone can wade in with some guidance, it would be appreciated. &#x0298; alaney2k  &#x0298; ( talk ) 19:34, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Set index articles - what is "of a specific type"?
I'm having a discussion at Talk:Temple Israel over exactly what kinds of articles qualify as "Set index articles". Specifically, an editor insists that List of synagogues named Temple Israel is a Set index article, since the subjects are all synagogues, and all share the same name. I've argued that I would also argue that this article violates WP:NOTDIR. Thoughts? Jayjg (talk) 17:11, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) there is no "specific type" of synagogue that is a "Temple Israel" synagogue, and
 * 2) that the shared name is a trivial coincidence, rather than a fundamental characteristic, and
 * 3) Wikipedia is better (and more typically) served by the disambiguation page Temple Israel.


 * Hmm, i thot that some agreement emerged in that discussion, including by Jayjg splitting the edit history from the long-standing set-index-article that was previously at Temple Israel, to include it in what is now "List of synagogues named Temple Israel". I think i answered well enough there, that like mountains named Signal Mountain but not villages of that name, the synagogues named Temple Israel are all synagogues.  And there is some explanation yet to be provided about meaning of Temple Israel as a name, and more development of the list-article with sources is slowly proceeding.  So i think it is not a contended issue about that article.


 * But, I agree with Jayjg's general thrust of questioning about set-index-articles. It was posed that any dab page could be used as basis to form a set-index-article.  I think that is basically true, but we just don't form SIAs for most dab topics because there is not readership- and editor-interest in doing so.  I further find myself at a loss to answer, in that discussion, what is the difference between a set-index-article and a regular list-article.  I wonder, is the difference the following:  A set-index-article is a list-article that serves as a list of items sharing the same name, which also makes unnecessary having any disambiguation page on the name.  The wp:SHIPS examples of ship-name SIAs fit this definition.  But this definition would imply changes to the wp:SIA section are needed, which highlights the example of Signal Mountain set-index-article page and corresponding disambiguation page.  If a set-index-article does not substitute for a disambiguation page, though, if it is not essentially a list-article that covers items of the same name, then i am not currently seeing what an SIA is supposed to be.  There's not a lot to go on, in the short wp:SIA section here. --doncram (talk) 17:13, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * No, any dab page cannot be used as basis for a set-index article. The elements in a set-index article need to be thematically related beyond just the ambiguous name. If there is an ambiguous title that cannot be handled by hatnotes, then a disambiguation page is needed unless all of the elements are thematically related (in which case either a disambiguation page or a set-index article could be used). It could be that both a disambiguation page (for thematically distinct entries) and a set-index article (if there is an encyclopedic need for richer list-article type information than is needed for just disambiguation) are needed. A set-index article is supposed to be a list article (something that provides encyclopedic content beyond navigation, and is subject to the usual list article guidelines for notability, verifiability, etc.) that has as its theme a type of thing and a limited set of name variations. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks. I am interpreting "thematically related" as meaning "pretty much the same kind of thing".  I think that the key thing about Signal Mountain is that while there a bunch of mountains of that name, there is unfortunately one town, Signal Mountain, Tennessee which is not one of those things.  So a coherent list-article about the "thematically related" ones, the mountains, does not naturally include the town.  Therefore, a dab page which lists all of the places named Signal Mountain which have articles, including the town, is needed.  It is the existence of one disparate item, the town, that causes need for a dab page.  Otherwise, the SIA should be put at the term name or the term name should redirect to the SIA name, and there should be no disambiguation page.  Or, other conditions describing when a dab page is needed, if there is any other reason, should be given.  This is not explained in the SIA passage, but I think it should be.


 * This is precisely what I do: if there is no disparate term, then a SIA suffices and we do not need a dab. One disparate term was enough to require a dab, because there may be a reader looking for that disparate item. —hike395 (talk)


 * Also, i think another example or two is needed. The Signal Mountain example seems good as one covering a term where there is both a group of similar elements, and one disparate element.  Also helpful would be an example where all the elements are similar.  Which would give directly relevant guidance for the Temple Israel / List of synagogues named Temple Israel case that brings Jayjg and me here.  I think this other example should be one where just having the SIA suffices, and there is no disambiguation page for the same term.  Does a good example come to mind?


 * One example is Granite Peak. —hike395 (talk)


 * A further question is why does the example Signal Mountain disambiguation page have only the places having articles, and not also have redlinks for the numerous mountains showing as red-links in the SIA? In [this edit] i just added one of the redlinks to the dismbiguation page, in an entry that i think is valid by MOS:DABRL.  Would it be okay/good to add redlinks for all the other ones?  If so, why has this not been done for this salient example / if not, why not? --doncram (talk) 18:39, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The red links are already covered by the See also link to the set index article. If there are other articles that are also ambiguous, those could be added, yes, but there's no reason to have dozens of links to the same set index article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That seems reasonable, thanks. I see you reverted my addition of the redlink there, which was really just a test relating to this discussion, and that's fine.
 * Okay, then bringing it back to Temple Israel / List of synagogues named Temple Israel, is there any good reason to keep Temple Israel as the dab it currently is, instead of moving the set-index-article to that name. All of the items in the dab are of the same general type and appear in the set-index-article, which has a right-hand-side TOC that serves well to bring readers quickly to their item of interest.  So I happen to think the set-index-article serves the navigation purposes fully.  The existence of the separate dab seems to me actually a tad unhelpful (because it occupies the natural article title for the set-index-article, because it causes an extra step for readers who might be interested in one of the entries for the set-index-article that does not appear in the dab; because it requires slightly more overhead to maintain two rather than just one list of these places).  The specific case can be re-examined in a new requested move, perhaps, but I am asking here for conceptual reasons, if any, why a separate dab could be needed, when all its items appear in a coherent set-index-article. --doncram (talk) 14:02, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The disambiguation page is more useful, as it contains the information in compact form where everything can be seen on one page. Bear Mountain appears to be both a Set Index page and a Disambiguation page. I don't think the definition of a Set Index Article is clear. Jayjg (talk) 05:44, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Confused is where this puts me...why do we have lists, set indexes AND dab pages? I've been away from some areas of the project so if anyone can explain to me the precise differences and why we would/should have three different things that essentially do the same thing I would appreciate it.--MONGO 05:50, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I've also had trouble understanding the concept of a "set-index article". As near as I can figure, a "set-index article" is a specific type of list article, one which lists items with the same name that all belong to a coherent set of objects/concepts.  An article titled "list of ships named USS Enterprise", for instance, is a list, of course, but specifically it's a set-index article.  (You know, perhaps the problem is the term used for SIAs; it looks to the layman like a jumble of three terms that doesn't mean anything until it's defined.)  My impression is that they should not be thought of in relation to disambiguation pages, except in the rare case where a disambiguation page would be redundant to an existing SIA.  Powers T 13:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you've got the definition of SIA correct: it's a list article where all items have the same name and are instances of the same thing (i.e., mountains, ships, synagogues?). Such a list article could be confused with a dab page: enthusiastic editors would then try to make it conform to WP:MOSDAB, which would then delete much of the information in the list. SIAs are there specifically to let certain list articles not get forced into being dabs. —hike395 (talk) 14:31, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This definition is OK - although the direction of travel is sometimes in the opposite direction. List of islands called Linga for example was created because it became clear that useful information on the Linga (disambiguation) might be removed. However note that overleaf it clearly states that "Set index articles are disambiguation-like pages". Arguably, a "list of islands called Linga" is not an entirely notable topic. In my experience set index articles are really an exceptional form of dab page, not a kind of list. Ben   Mac  Dui  15:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The purpose of dab pages is to help a reader find a particular article, when a name could refer to multiple things. They're kept very simple, because any detail would be found in the target articles. If I may proselytize for navigation popups, having no extra links on dab pages is very helpful for the a function the popups provide to fix links to dab pages. SIA pages give more detail -- they're can be synopses of the target articles. IMHO, duplicating information like that is a bad, idea. In my experience, SIA pages are often used to circumvent the restrictions of dab pages (no extra links, no external links, no references, etc.). I've never understood the need for SIA pages. --Auntof6 (talk) 18:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think I may have created a SIA when I split a lot of material out of Paean (disambiguation), which had been flagged as dab page needing cleanup, to create List of individuals named Paeon in Greek mythology, as this seemed the best way to preserve a collection of sourced info which did not belong on the dab page. But perhaps it's just a list? The distinction isn't clear, I must say! PamD (talk) 18:25, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Like I said above, it's not so much a distinction because SIAs are a subset of lists. I do believe you have an SIA in that linked article.  Powers T 12:34, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Conflicting guidelines
In its opening paragraph, WP:D states the purpose of disambiguation in clear, unambiguous language: it is intended to "open paths leading to different articles which could, in principle, have the same title".

It has been recognized that there are cases in which (1) a subject is described in an article, and (2) the subject is not the title of any article, and (3) the title of the subject matches an existing dab term. To accommodate such cases, MOS:DABMENTION allows the creation of a dab entry that links to the article in which the subject is discussed. To be consistent with WP:D's clearly stated purpose, it seems obvious that the subject being discussed must have the potential to become an article. That criteria is met by the examples given in DABMENTION, and those examples also conform to WP:DABSTYLE, which says "(i)nclude related subject articles only if the term in question is actually described on the target article".

However, there seems to be a problem with MOS:DABMENTION, which says "(i)f a topic does not have an article of its own, but is mentioned within another article, then a link to that article should be included. Specifically, DABMENTION encourages (some might say mandates, per its use of "should") the creation of a dab entry in cases where an article contains a mere mention of a subject, without regard for whether that subject is "described" (per WP:DABSTYLE) or capable of becoming an article (per WP:D).

It's likely that DABMENTION was conceived with the expectation that it will work in tandem with WP:D AND WP:DABSTYLE, but in fact it conflicts with those policies, as it can be interpreted to apply to subjects that are not described, or are not notable per WP:NOTABLE, or both.

How can these conflicting guidelines be aligned? Lambtron (talk) 15:43, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's consider the real purpose of a disambigation page here. Suppose there's a politician named Jonah A. Bleggs, and also an athlete named Jonah B. Bleggs, and there happens to be a movie that, totally by coincidence, has a minor character named Jonah J. Bleggs. The movie character would not justify a separate article, but it is conceivable that some user is trying to find that movie with the character named Jonah J. Bleggs, which would make inclusion of the movie title at "Jonah Bleggs (disambiguation)" potentially useful (and not particularly harmful to anyone). We actually descend to a second question here, which is, when is a minor character notable enough to mentioned in the article on the film at all? If the minor character does not merit such mention, then it should not be in either the article, or the disambig page. bd2412  T 16:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The purpose is clear: it is intended to "open paths leading to different articles which could, in principle, have the same title". If movie character Jonah J. Bleggs is not qualified to have a dedicated article, he doesn't belong on the dab page. If that's not the result we are striving for then we must redefine the purpose of dab entries in order to achieve consistency. Lambtron (talk) 16:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree that this is not a very accurate description of the purpose (though it was perhaps not intended to be rigorously accurate, just a broad introductory sentence). I would say "paths to different topics which might be looked for under the same name" or something like that - not every topic needs to have an article.--Kotniski (talk) 17:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

There is strong evidence that the cited introductory sentence means exactly what it says and is, in fact, an accurate and fairly complete summary of the purpose of disambiguation; it is repeated and expanded upon in several places in the intro section and elsewhere. To wit:
 * The opening sentence concisely states that (d)isambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in Wikipedia article titles.
 * It applies when an ambiguous term could be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article.
 * For example, (s)ince only one Wikipedia page can have the generic name "Mercury", unambiguous article titles are used for each of these topics: Mercury (element), Mercury (planet), ...

If dab policy really does apply to "any mention of subjects that might be looked for under the same name" then it should say so, clearly, in its summary and body. Otherwise, consistent policy can only be achieved by revising MOS:DABMENTION. Lambtron (talk) 19:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it pretty much does in practice, and I agree that this page could be modified to make this clearer. I don't see any need to revise DABMENTION, since that represents actual practice and is most helpful to readers (though if we wanted to be pedantic, we could try to define which "mentions" are sufficient for consideration; in practice I find it's pretty much any, except very indirect mentions such as the author of a reference).--Kotniski (talk) 05:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * So, to clarify: The purpose of disambiguation is not actually to "resolve conflicts in Wikipedia article titles" because, although that purpose is sensible and clearly stated, and that theme permeates WP:D, actual practice doesn't correlate with it. That line of reasoning leads to a corollary: It will be acceptable to advertise on Wikipedia if that becomes a widespread practice.


 * I do recognize that there are instances where actual practice deviates from the purpose and policies set forth here. What's troubling me is why those instances are acceptable. Either (1) the purpose of disambiguation is not at all what is stated in WP:D, or (2) MOS:DABMENTION is flawed because it conflicts with that purpose. No matter what the practice is, it seems obvious to me that purpose must drive practice, not the other way around.


 * Here's why I find this so frustrating. I encountered a new dab entry that links to an article in which the subject, which is neither notable nor described, is briefly mentioned. Right away I realized this was radically different from the other entries on that dab page. I consulted The Bible (WP:D) for guidance and, based on its straightforward statement of purpose—and its guidelines, which are consistent with that purpose—I concluded that the dab entry violates both the guidelines for and the purpose of disambiguation. But when I explain all this, I'm told "don't worry, it's okay because lots of people do that", and when I expose that line of thinking as the cop-out it is, I'm told that I should disregard WP:D because MOS:DABMENTION is The Only Rule That Matters. Lambtron (talk) 15:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, unfortunately none of the policies or guidelines are written well enough that you can actually rely on them (I won't say whether I think that makes them more like The Bible or less). The most important thing is not any Rule, but what makes the encyclopedia better. In this case, as I think has been explained, these dab entries are potentially helpful to readers, so generally speaking we make them. But yes, the guidelines really still need improving so as to describe actual practice.--Kotniski (talk) 16:19, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, the policies and guidelines in WP:D are well written, and they are logical, consistent, and easy to understand. And I assume WP:D to be the gospel, because style, and subjective opinions about what makes the encyclopedia better, must be secondary to purpose and policy if chaos is to be avoided, right? I presume that's why WP:D was created in the first place, and why it is so well crafted. That's precisely why I (and others) rely on it, and for good reason. Where else would one go to learn about dab purpose and policy, if not the the article that is specifically dedicated to that topic?


 * I agree that making the encyclopedia better is important. The problem is, "better" means different things to different people. That's why WP:D so carefully specifies the purpose of disambiguation, and why it establishes a set of fundamental guidelines that are intended to be the foundation for all other dab guidelines--including the guidelines that are specified in dab mos.


 * Who can say whether a particular violation of WP:D's fundamental tenets makes Wikipedia "better"? Isn't such a claim merely an expression of opinion until it has been discussed, approved by consensus and explicitly integrated into WP:D? To say that a violation is acceptable "because it has been explained how it makes Wikipedia better" is simply not true. Lambtron (talk) 22:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, on this occasion it hasn't just been "explained", it's been documented (in the other guideline) and implemented into widespread practice. There isn't really anything to discuss here except how to bring the wording of this guideline into line with accepted practice. Unless you're proposing that we change our practice - if so, please set out your proposal and arguments.--Kotniski (talk) 04:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

"Accepted practice" is a misnomer if that practice violates policy. If a dab entry conforms to WP:DABMENTION style guidelines, but it violates WP:D purpose and policy, then it can't be classified as "accepted practice". Period. Before I, or anyone else can propose a solution, we must all agree on this -- otherwise a solution may not be possible. Lambtron (talk) 14:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I don't agree with that - simply put, our guideline pages (and even policy pages, which this is not) do an imperfect job of documenting accepted practice. Sometimes, for accessibility, they might be expressed in simpler terms than they would need to be in order to be rigourously and literally accurate; that, I think, is what has happened here. These pages are not laws, scripture or even authoritative commentary - just as Wikipedia's articles are not reliable sources about the world, so Wikipedia's documentation pages are not reliable sources about Wikipedia.--Kotniski (talk) 14:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Let us not make "following the rules" the enemy of a useful encyclopedia. Look at Happiness (disambiguation). There are no fewer than 16 songs with that title which do not have an article, but which are mentioned in articles about the album or the artist. A user looking for any one of those songs will arrive at this disambiguation page, and we should make the page useful to them. bd2412  T 15:53, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Happiness (disambiguation) is an excellent example. That list wasn't even complete as it omitted a famous hit single of that name.  This guideline should be brought into line with such sensible practise. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:58, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I totally agree that we should not be held captive by rules. That's exactly why WP:POLICY says that although policies and guidelines define accepted practice, those policies and guidelines--and the standard practices they specify--may be changed through a process that includes discussing and reaching consensus on those changes. Regarding Happiness (disambiguation), all of the listed songs are notable per WP:NOTABLE, and consequently each of those songs merits its own article (and several do have articles), so there is no conflict with WP:D or MOS:DABMENTION. Lambtron (talk) 20:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * How does "Happiness", by Natalie Bassingthwaighte, a B-side from the single "1000 Stars" meet WP:NSONG? I agree there is no conflict with MOS:DABMENTION, but not because each of those songs merits its own article (and I don't think each does merit its own article). -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I like Kotniski's recent changes that appear to resolve this issue. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 17:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I was also going to point out that athletes tend to have ambiguous nicknames. For example, Shaquille O'Neal is also called "Diesel". The disambiguation page, Diesel, appropriately has a link to the article on O'Neal, but it would make no sense to have a separate article on each of O'Neal's major nicknames. bd2412  T 18:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Planet Lye
Imagine for a moment that a planet named Lye is mentioned in an article about a Star Trek episode as follows: "In this episode, the Enterprise travels to planet Lye and Captain Kirk falls in love with his old girlfriend." No other mention is made of the planet in the article, or anywhere else in Wikipedia, and the article is entirely focused on the love story, which has no relevance to being on planet Lye. We don't know if Lye is a Class M planet, whether there is water on its surface, its population, the length of its day, or anything else about it. Is Lye "described" in the article? If not, planet Lye should be excluded from Lye (disambiguation) because WP:D says "(i)nclude related subject articles only if the term in question is actually described on the target article." Yet MOS:DABMENTION says that "(i)f a topic does not have an article of its own, but is mentioned within another article, then a link to that article should be included". Isn't that a contradiction? Lambtron (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, Lye is described there. No, it's not a contradiction. We could switch to another word, though, if this is causing heartburn, and use "mentioned" in both places. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:03, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I respectfully disagree. Planet Lye is not "described" by any stretch of the definition of the word; otherwise we would know facts, details and particulars about the planet. And there is a contradiction: it's impossible to include something because it's merely mentioned, and at the same time exclude that thing because it isn't described. It's important to fix this discrepancy because I, and other editors, depend on these guidelines to help us do things right at Wikipedia.


 * Please don't diss this as my personal "heartburn"; I see this as a genuine logical contradiction that is being glossed over without due attention. If your solution—using "mentioned" in both places—truly reflects the standard practice, and there really is consensus for that meaning, you would be doing a great service by implementing your proposed change. Lambtron (talk) 01:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would also support this. (And if it's contradictions in Wikipedia guidelines you're after, you'll find them like pebbles on the shore, once you start looking.)--Kotniski (talk) 06:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The description of Lye I get from your scenario is that it's is a planet in Star Trek episode "[unnamed in the scenario]" where Captain Kirk and his old girlfriend fall in love. It's not a planetological description of Lye, but I think it is a topical description of Lye. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:48, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Based on your vision of standard practice, these are the requisite changes that would restore consistency to the guidelines:

WP:D changes:

Old: This page in a nutshell: When an article title could refer to several things, it is necessary to provide links or a disambiguation page so that readers typing in that title can quickly navigate to the article that interests them.

New: This page in a nutshell: When a word or term could refer to several things, it is necessary to provide links or a disambiguation page so that readers typing in that term can quickly navigate to the article that best describes the thing that interests them.

WP:DABSTYLE changes:

Old: ''Include related subject articles only if the term in question is actually described on the target article. (For example, the Canton disambiguation page legitimately has an entry for Flag terminology.) ''

New: Include related subject articles only if the target article provides the most comprehensive coverage of the term in question.

Note that the example was omitted because it implies that an encyclopedic description (vs. a mere mention) should be found at the end of one's search, and apparently that's not true.

Comments? Lambtron (talk) 13:47, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Can't argue with the logic there. (Though I don't see anything wrong with keeping the canton example - one example can't be expected to illustrate every possibile configuration.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:07, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with the proposed change (but also with keeping the existing example). The policy doesn't exist for its own sake. The point of it is to assist users of the encyclopedia in finding what they are looking for. If a planet named Lye was used prominently enough in an episode for a reader to end up searching for "the one with that planet named Lye", then they are assisted (and not harmed) by providing a link to the episode. The reader might errantly expect that we would have an article on the planet, as we do for various fictional worlds. In any case, it is correct to say that Lye is a fictional planet appearing in (episode), and probably also to redirect "Planet Lye" to that page. bd2412  T 17:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

DAB or index page ?
Is this Midnight (film) really a index page? I think its a little diffucult to figuere out what makes a page an index page (and not a DAB). Christian75 (talk) 10:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it's an incomplete disambiguation. I've made it a redirect as such. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Hatnote redirects to disambiguation pages.
At my request, User:R'n'B has set up a bot to fix hatnotes containing links to base-name disambiguation pages to instead point to the "foo (disambiguation)" redirect to such pages. This has raised some objections, and I'd like to discuss this here. It seems fairly straightforward to me that nothing in article, category, file, or template space should ever intentionally link directly to a base-name disambiguation page, and redirecting through a "foo (disambiguation)" redirect is the proper solution, which makes the jobs of disambiguators much easier. bd2412 T 14:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * For background, the functions performed by the bot are detailed at Bots/Requests for approval/RussBot 4. The job is currently suspended pending this discussion.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I completely disagree with you. For example, this edit makes absolutely no sense to me (and I have reverted it). Why change the hatnote to point to Dupont (disambiguation) when the disam page is actually at Dupont? It seems to me like a totally unnecessary use of a redirect, let's keep it simple. – ukexpat (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * "Absolutely no sense" is overdoing it, as many of your fellow editors have reviewed the proposal and support it. It would be useful to have a link here (and maybe in the edit summary of the bot) with a clear explanation of why it is being done.  It makes sense.  I would say a lot.  But its not obvious if you haven't worked through the reasoning a bit.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 15:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * This edit to Adsorption changed the hatnote from Not to be confused with Absorption to Not to be confused with Absorption (disambiguation). I can see the logic behind linking to the "X (disambiguation)" redirect, but surely the appearance of the hatnote should not be changed?  "Adsorption" is confused with "Absorption", not "Absorption (disambiguation)".  I don't know the syntax, but I suggest piped links are appropriate in cases like this.  Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 15:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The adsorption article is about chemistry, so it is unlikely that adsorption will be confused with links on the disambiguation page such as absorption (economics) or absorption (acoustics). This seems to be a straight-up disambiguation fix, since what it is likely to be confused with is absorption (chemistry). bd2412  T 15:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, your suggestion makes sense for this particular case. But do you agree that in general, the bot shouldn't be changing the actual appearance of the hatnote?  Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 15:52, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There are going to be two kinds of cases. Those where page is not to be confused with another article which happens to be listed at a disambiguated title (as in this case), and those where a page is not to be confused with any meaning of the term in the hatnote. In the latter case, the link to the base name disambiguation page should go through a "foo (disambiguation)" redirect because nothing should ever link directly to a base name disambiguation page from article space. Certainly I have no objection to setting up the templates so that the links are piped, and the "(disambiguation)" is hidden from view. bd2412  T 16:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I wonder whether Distinguish should be removed from the bot's list of hatnotes to fix automatically. Its usage seems to be significantly different than that of some of the other hatnote templates. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If you have a "distinguish foo" and foo happens to be a disambig page, then the default should be to redirect through "foo (disambiguation)". If this raises a concern about appearance, that can be addressed by modification of the template. The use of Distinguish should not buy itself permit direct links from articles to base name disambiguation pages. bd2412  T 16:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * My thought was that may as likely be an error as an intentional link to a disambiguation page, and that having the bot fix these automatically may tend to conceal the errors instead of leaving them to be fixed by human editors.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a lot of cleanup to be done there. For example, the disambiguation page Oak Ridge has a - which should not exist at all, since it belongs in a "see also" section.  bd2412  T 17:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey, can you generate a list of all instances of Distinguish currently linking to a disambig page? I'll hand-fix them, if the number is not outrageous. Probably even if it is. bd2412  T 17:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes please where is the discussion? I don't recall seeing it at Centralized discussion which I monitor. – ukexpat (talk) 18:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Umpteen Scottish island articles have just been given this extra dab page redirect through a "distinguish" hatnote. The new dabs pages are unnecessary and any that are GA candidates would normally be critiqued for linking to a redirect page. I will fix them. Ben   Mac  Dui  19:19, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Same with "Other places3" template. Ben   Mac  Dui  19:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * If GA candidates are being criticized for linking to redirects, I believe the criticism is in error. Our guideline on redirects says that "There is nothing inherently wrong with linking to redirects", and I did a quick search of the GA criteria and found no mention of redirects. As the guideline indicates, there are many good reasons to link to a redirect, whether it's in a hatnote or in the article text. (For example, by linking to a Foo (disambiguation) redirect, you ensure that the link will always go to the disambiguation page, regardless of whether the page is located at Foo or Foo (disambiguation).) Propaniac (talk) 19:55, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * MacDui, I think the dab guidelines are sound, and the bot is correct. Just try cleaning up a list of links to a dab page, and you will rapidly appreciate the value of intentional links being immediately recognisable through foo (disambiguation) redirects. I remember we discussed this before re Isle of Arran.


 * If and when the bot gets the go-ahead, it should provide a link in the edit summary to this discussion (preferably a permanent link to an archived version) as well as to WP:INTDABLINK. There may be a case, for aesthetic reasons, to pipe the link to hide the "(disambiguation)" qualifier, but this should only be done if there is consensus to do so. I prefer to see it made explicit, so that people can see what's going on. --NSH001 (talk) 20:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I think whether the link should be piped depends on the page. For This article is about Foo chickens.  For other uses, see Foo (disambiguation) the "(disambiguation)" tells readers what to expect if they click the link.  But for an article on Fough, I think the hatnote should appear as Not to be confused with Foo, with piping to Foo (disambiguation).  The underlying wiki-code could include "  ", which the bot could add, so people can see what's going on.  Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 04:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Apologies you are quite right about the GA criteria. I still can't see any reason to create large numbers of pointless redirect pages tho'. They also make it impossible for non-admins to move an existing dab page called "foo" to "foo (disambiguation)" should the occasion arise. Paradoxically some of our island dab pages fell foul of the dab police and are no longer dab pages as such - they are "set index articles." - having a hatnote that pretends that they are dab pages may cause further confusion. How would this work - Linga (disambiguation) is not the right dab page for an island hatnote this is: List of islands called Linga. Are we going to see List of islands called Linga (disambiguation)? In short, a pretty pointless exercise in my view.  Ben   Mac  Dui  08:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, you will not see List of islands called Linga (disambiguation). The bot checks the link in the hatnote to see if it points to a disambiguation page (that is, one containing a disambiguation template listed on Mediawiki:Disambiguationspage).  If not, no edits are made.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * On a technical point, it is possible for non-admins to move a page over a redirect that points back to the source page, provided no-one has edited the redirect. Since this will be the case for the bot-created redirects, there's no problem here. Also, the redirects do have a point (ensuring articles in mainspace never link to base-name dab pages), just one that's not obvious to creators/editors of the relevant article. --NSH001 (talk) 11:32, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Coming late to the party, but I've always treated links in hatnotes to go to whatever the dab page is at the time of the hatnote creation or edit. Some of them have  and some of them don't based on the day of the week, phase of the moon, or other WP guideline or policy. If the point of this is that all disambiguation pages are moving to actually say  (which, I am personally in favor of), then that's fine. But deliberately linking them to a redirect seems like an edit war, unintentional or otherwise, waiting to happen. &mdash; MrDolomite &bull; Talk 15:23, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Only if WP:R and WP:INTDABLINK are ignored by one of the edit warriors. This isn't about moving the disambiguation pages (although that could become a parallel discussion). If the edit wars happen anyway, then they'd be like any other edit wars. We shouldn't avoid improving the encyclopedia because of the possibility of edit wars -- edit wars are a possibility in many areas. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:30, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It is still not at all clear to me what the "improvement" involved actually is - other than an attempt to create a system that provides some sort of consistency, which some may value for its own sake, but has no other obvious benefits. Secondly, it is clear that some of the issues and problems have already been thought about, probably in advance of implementation. However, all that consumers see is a bot making its way through articles undertaking a task that appears to have no purpose other than to make things more complex. Then such consumers have to try and figure out what the questions are when invited to a discussion such as this. Would it not be possible for someone to design a bot to alert WikiProjects to agreed bot operations that affect them in advance, and providing a short FAQ (assuming it does not already exist)? Ben   Mac  Dui  17:35, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I can at least answer the first part: linking to the "(disambiguation)" title not only reduces surprise for the reader and also makes it easier for editors working on fixing links to disambiguation pages to find the links that need to be fixed. Links to a "disambiguation" title are obviously intended to link to the disambiguation page and don't need to be investigated. The ultimate (unobtainable) goal is for all "What links here" results for all dab pages to show just incoming wikilinks that intend to reach a disambiguation page instead of one of the ambiguous articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:02, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the bot should have an edit summary citing WP:INTDABLINK, to show Ben MacDui's "consumers" why it's doing what it is. PamD (talk) 19:25, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe something like "Robot: Editing intentional link to disambiguation page in hatnote"? :-) -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:30, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Pam, the bot already does that. I made the suggestion above that it should also link to an archived version of this discussion. We need to recognize that this bot is going to surprise a lot of editors, so we need to make sure they can easily find and understand the reasons for its changes. It should also, as suggested above, insert a hidden comment with a reference to WP:INTDABLINK. The suggestion for an FAQ is also a good one. --NSH001 (talk) 19:49, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is stalled. What would we think about going forward with the bot, with the removal of Distinguish from the bot's to do list for now, and adding a FAQ? -- Ja Ga  talk 11:52, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that's fine. Of course, I also think it would be fine to go forward with the bot without removing the Distinguish template -- the discussion may not have much "stalled" as "ended with objections addressed". -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Hardly - it is stalled because there is no agreement. However I don't wish to unhelpful. Can you explain what you mean by "going forward with the bot, with the removal of Distinguish from the bot's to do list"?  Ben   Mac  Dui  15:56, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The simple answer is that "Distinguish" would be removed from the list acted on as described here - that is, hatnotes based on the distinguish template would not be touched by the bot. I, like JHunterJ, would suggest we need not remove it - but that's what this discussion seems to be about.  I WOULD suggest, however, that we point the edit summary to a better explanation of the 'why' the bot is doing this.  First, the WP:INTDABLINK currently points to how to do what the bot does, not why.  Perhaps it should point to the larger section: Disambiguation.  To me, that is key.  Someone confused or concerned that the bot is going crazy should see its reasons for acting.  Maybe something like this edit here.  Some may STILL think it crazy, but at least we will be starting with a common understanding of the intent.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 17:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * On this at least we can agree - people will think it is crazy. Perhaps that's because it is... Ben   Mac  Dui  18:43, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm open to a discussion of that possibility - but its also possible that the goals are mis-understood. Could you help us out and explain why you think the goals expressed here are crazy?  I don't think they are crazy.  They may not be the preferred approach, but let's talk about it.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 19:03, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you explain what you mean by "there is no agreement"? The desirability of linking to disambiguation pages through the (disambiguation) redirect has been explained. What was the other point of contention? -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue is in essence with the policy - it makes no sense to me to create dabpages that are redirect pages to the actual dab pages. It is clutter and it will mean anyone trying to keep track of what is going on adding numerous pointless pages to their watchlists just in case somebody mucks about with them. The advantages seem to me to be slender. If I am in doubt links to dab pages I just use Featured list tools. Re "agreement", can you point to any of the consumers of this bot's proposed function who came here to grumble who have been satisfied by the discussion? Ben   Mac  Dui  09:15, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It sounds as if you understand what the guidelines say, disagree with it, and are requesting that the established consensus not be followed until you agree. You should instead go along with consensus or propose a change to the guidelines. Just because you find the advantages to be slender doesn't mean others do. As for consensus, there is no limitation on the audience only to those who came here to grumble. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's not get too heavy-handed. Ben has a valid point, and we should acknowledge it; the change is confusing and non-intuitive at first glance. We should address this by linking to something better than WP:INTDABLINK per Jwy. Furthermore, we should leave out Distinguish for now since some of the most bewildering results come from this template. For now, I'd just like to see the bot running again. We can tweak and improve the process later. -- Ja Ga  talk  15:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's what I also advocated: get the bot running again. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your good words JaGa, although I don't mind the use of robust language at all, and JHunterJ is quite right that if I want a change I should argue for that elsewhere. Maybe one day I will, but somehow I lose the will to type every time I consider it. On the other hand it seems only reasonable to point out that what I see as consumer resistance to the offered product. By all means run sans Distinguish and see how it goes. Ben   Mac  Dui  17:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you are quite correct in pointing out that some "consumers" will have difficulty, but with the proper _honest_ PR, that is a good explanation of what good the change does, I believe we will reduce the number of people that have an issue. I believe we DO need to work on a paragraph that describes this and make it a link from the bot edit summaries.  Perhaps it belongs in Talk space associated with the bot?  A start would be the edit I link to above. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 21:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

FYI, I've allowed the bot to run for a couple of hours today with a new and improved edit summary; I'll now wait a little while and see if there are any further complaints before proceeding with a longer run. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I still strongly oppose what the bot is doing. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 23:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you point us to where you explain your opposition? I still think a specially written summary rather than a pointer here would be better. Guess that means I should kick in an suggest something...  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 23:17, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't remember where the previous discussion was. In the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard", I think.
 * Basically, I oppose large-scale bot changes where no consensus exists. There's also nothing in Hatnote that says this is policy, and there's nothing at WP:INTDABLINK that says this should be applied to hatnotes. It's confusing to the reader and totally unnecessary. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 00:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, THAT'S where I saw it! - Thanks for the summary.  A summary of what it is good for would make it clear its not TOTALLY useless.  Whether it is useful enough to overcome negative aspects could then be discussed more clearly.  I'll start on that.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 04:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

SIAs again
Still trying to understand SIAs. Could I create an SIA for David Davies? If so, how would it be differentiated from the current disambiguation page? Could I create a List of people named David Davies? Jayjg (talk) 05:52, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd have thought not. Lists and SIAs are for things of the same type, not things merely having the same name.--Kotniski (talk) 08:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What would that list do that the dab page doesn't do? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that such a list would be valid under the SIA criteria at least: the list would contain elements of a set ("people") with the same or similar name "David Davies". The listed people could have to fulfill WP:N, of course.
 * Here's an answer to JHunterJ's question: yes, such a list article could be more informative and useful than a dab article. For example, what if we turned this dab page into a sortable wikitable, with columns like "name", "date of birth", "date of death","nationality","general profession","specific profession". Then, a reader who was looking for a David Davies in the 19th century could easily find the right person, as could a reader looking for an Australian, or a football player. Such a table would not be allowed under WP:MOSDAB.
 * I think this illustrates the point of SIAs. If you have a list of items of the same type, then they can be rationally compared and contrasted. Dab pages can contain anything: how do you compare a football player, a lemon-scented floor wax, and a mountain in Slovenia? Extra information in dab pages would tend to distract readers, while extra information in SIAs can help. —hike395 (talk) 17:58, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If it can pass whatever criteria there are for list articles, I have no problem with them. But perhaps we should make the distinction clearer, that SIAs are not disambiguation pages but would be covered by the Lists guidelines and policies. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:12, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Also, i think there needs to be some distinction about there being interest by readers and editors in such a SIA. I tend to think there is actually interest by readers and editors in the set of places named "Temple Israel", but not in the set of people named "David Davies".  I don't know exactly how to define this distinction objectively, however. --doncram (talk) 03:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that would probably be covered by the guidelines, and the sentiments at WP:AFD, that already govern lists in general, such as WP:N and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I expect that a list of unrelated, unconnected people who all happen to share the same name would probably be deleted for the same reasons that List of writers with beards (to pick one example) was deleted. Propaniac (talk) 16:28, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The way I see it, we have Davies&mdash;a set index and a surname page, and we have David Davies, which is a subset of that set index (split for length control reasons). A subset of a set index is by definition itself a set index, is it not?  What seems to be lacking is a good way to interlink the main page with its subsets.  Something the Anthroponymy WikiProject probably needs to think about...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 12, 2010; 16:46 (UTC)
 * Davies is a surname article in the WikiProject Anthroponymy. I don't think those are set-index articles. Even if you consider that a set-index page, though, the disambiguation page David Davies is not a subset of that article, but rather a navigational page to assist readers who are looking for a topic that could reasonably have been the subject of an article titled "David Davies". -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But that's the whole point&mdash;it makes no sense for "David Davies" to be a dab, because if it only contained a few entries, it would be a part of Davies&mdash;a set index. However, since in reality it is too long to be included into "Davies", we keep it separate, at which point it somehow magically transforms into a disambig.  That's where logic fails.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 12, 2010; 17:56 (UTC)
 * I cannot understand why you say is makes no sense for "David Davies" to be a dab. If there are topics ambiguous with "David Davies" (no matter how few, such as with John W. Simpson), then they get disambiguated. If they get disambiguated, disambiguation is accomplished by hatnotes on the primary topic or by a disambiguation page. Disambiguation is not accomplished by a set index article, and disambiguation pages (when necessary) are not part of set index articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you make a fair point, but the question it really raises in my mind is, what's the purpose in a surname page listing so many people who happen to have that surname that there's a need to break them off into subpages? I don't think a list of people who happen to be named David Davies would be very useful or interesting, but I don't think a list of hundreds of people who happen to have the surname Davies is very useful or interesting, either. But I am aware that just about every surname page does list people of that surname, with generally no discrimination, so I guess if one accepts the basis that there's a reason to list them, then there could be a reason to break them off into smaller lists. Propaniac (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Per JHunterJ's suggestion, above, I added a clarification to WP:SIA that stresses that SIAs are list articles and all list article criteria and styles should applied to SIAs. I hope this helps: it doesn't seem like the current discussion supports any more detailed changes (and I would be concerned about WP:CREEP in any event). If other editors think that my edit went beyond consensus, feel free to revert. —hike395 (talk) 07:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Multi-stubs
I've removed the paragraph on "multi-stub" articles which formerly lay at the bottom of the set index section. The only mention of such contructs I can find in the archives is at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 28, which suggests that these have long been deprecated. multi-stub should probably be changed from a redirect here to a new page indicating that such constructs are no longer used on Wikipedia. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:31, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Or the orphan redirect could be deleted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes. Didn't realise that the link in question is only a few months old. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:24, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

JSE disambiguation
Should the JSE page become what the current JSE (disambiguation) page is? I believe it makes more sense to disambiguate on the main JSE page. Iwaterpolo (talk) 19:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Use WP:RM to request that the disambiguation page be moved to the base name. I would also post a pointer at Talk:JSE to the discussion. Consensus there would determine whether there is no longer a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think he should use WP:MDP to request that the disambiguation page be moved to the base name ? (when the redirect from JSE to JSE (disambiguation) has been made). Christian75 (talk) 18:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks to me as if JSE Limited ought perhaps to be renamed JSE and the dab page reformatted accordingly. PamD (talk) 22:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If he's looking for consensus on changing the primary topic (or lack thereof), the pages' Talk pages are the place to do it. If there's already consensus that there is no primary topic, then the WP:MDP process would kick in, yes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Primary topic confusion
Does the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC guideline need clarification?

I ask because of the move request I opened at Talk:Ryan Miller (ice hockey) (suggesting that the article be moved to Ryan Miller as the primary topic for that name). A couple of people have commented that the article should not be moved because the hockey player is only known to hockey fans, or only well known inside the hockey community. My reading of the guideline, though, is that even if it's true (unlikely), it's irrelevant so long as the other uses are likewise not household names. One person even said "Most of the world has never heard of him!" -- but that's true for many of our articles; if "most of the world has heard of him" was the requirement, we'd have a lot fewer "primary topic" pages and a lot more disambiguation. Powers T 21:13, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No, I don't think the guideline needs clarification. There's nothing in the guideline about the number of people that have heard of the person or whether only a given part of the world knows about him.  The question is how many people will enter "Ryan Miller" in the search box expecting to find the hockey player.  From the statistics quoted on the talk page, it looks like over half.  What do expect to change in the guidelines?  Discussion should continue there until consensus is reached.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 21:20, 2 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with your interpretation, but I'm concerned that that interpretation is not clear to others. Powers T 03:03, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * What would be a clearer guideline? Or what part of the existing guidelines is being misread? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:53, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Insertion of a sentence or two stating that it doesn't matter how widely known the subject is in an absolute sense; that the subject's popularity should be considered only in relation to the other topics that share the same name. Powers T 13:37, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I doubt the suggested change would make much difference. If an editor is actually interested in reading, understanding, and heeding the guideline, I don't think they could misinterpret it in the way you're talking about. The problem is not that the guideline is unclear, it's that the guideline is ignored. That being said, I wouldn't object to a change that might counteract these kinds of arguments that have no basis in documentation. (In fact, now that I think about it, I kind of want to expand your suggestion to have the guideline list all the other common, totally irrelevant arguments: "It doesn't matter if you personally have heard of the primary topic. It doesn't matter if the primary topic is not well-known in a particular country. It doesn't matter if another topic is more highbrow or has made a nobler contribution to humanity than the primary topic...")
 * But for what it's worth, I want to point out that in this particular discussion about Ryan Miller, you never actually linked to the primary topic guideline or spelled out the primary topic criteria in that guideline, or why you thought the ice hockey player fit that criteria. So a discussion where the guideline was never really brought to the table may not be the best evidence that the guideline is being misinterpreted. Propaniac (talk) 16:10, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps that does hold the key to the confusion. Powers T 22:17, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Coming in late
I agree with Powers. The Primary Topic criteria is unnecessar. This has led to major inconsistencies on how Primary Topic is determined, and discussions that feature major POV pushing and no criteria to go off of. Therefore, I propose if any article meets one or more of the following criteria, it may become a primary topic:


 * It is the only Vital article containing a particular word (For example, Winston Churchill is the only article containing "Churchill", but both George Washington and Washington, D.C. contain "Washington")
 * It receives 8x more article traffic than any other article containing that title
 * It receives 4x more Google Scholar hits than any other article containing that title

 Pur ple  back pack 89    17:12, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The other way to look at it is editors unaware of or ignoring the existing criteria (such as editors engaging in POV-pushing regardless of the existing criteria) has led to major inconsistencies on how primary topics have been implemented. Some points:
 * What makes you think that the editors who ignore the existing criteria would honor the new criteria? (I'd ask how you chose 8 and 4 there, but I don't think it matters.)
 * By the proposed criteria, Arab-Israeli conflict would be the primary topic for "Israeli" -- no other vital topics contain the word "Israeli". "Contain" is not the right test there -- the vital article has to be ambiguous with the ambiguous title. But I like the idea of including a criterion that if there's only one vital article ambiguous with the title, it's primary.
 * -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You're probably right on that tweak...but Israeli also pretty clearly refers to Israel, which is also a Vital article. As to the POV pushers...   Pur ple  back pack 89    17:26, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Including vital articles as a criterion for primary topic seems a promising idea. I remain skeptical about codifying any sort of arbitrary numbers with regards to statistics. older ≠ wiser 17:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe in this case that (seemingly) arbitrary numbers > no numbers  Pur ple  back pack 89    15:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OTOH, I believe no numbers > unexplained numbers. I also believe that any explanation of the selection of the numbers will be unlikely to find any consensus (one person's 8× is another's 7.5× or 10×). Where we can imply the numbers ("more than all the other topics put together" implies one gets >50% of the usage), I think they work. Where we can't, I think they're less useful than no numbers. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"Terms which differ by the presence or absence of an article"
I find the expression "Terms which differ by the presence or absence of an article" open to misinterpretation (WP:DBPAGES). Though I know fully well what it means, and the example ("The Cure") shows, at a quick glance (and I am not new here) I took this to mean whether a Wikipedia article on the topic exists, i.e. not the presence of a word that in some grammars is called an "article (grammar)".

Can we reword this to "grammatical article" and link? (perhaps not that exactly, because some fool even greater than I will interpret it as being OK to have ungrammatical articles, or something)?

Si Trew (talk) 05:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ with this edit. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Alien (Alien franchise)
I've started a discussion at Talk:Alien (Alien franchise) hoping to find a better way to disambiguate this article title, if anyone here would care to participate. Propaniac (talk) 14:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Cartoon Network
The question of whether "Cartoon Network" has a primary topic is being discussed at Talk:Cartoon Network (United States). The discussion has been open for a while, but it looks like it could use some further contributions to move it towards consensus. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

"Vital" wording in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC
I was reading a move request at Talk:Circumcision, where there was some discussion about whether male circumcision is the primary topic for the term "circumcision." The user who disagreed made the comment: "What you are saying is that having an article on male circumcision is 'vital to the encyclopedia' whereas having one on female circumcision is not (per the criteria in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC). Question mark?" Of course, the intention in adding that reference to "vital articles" into the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC guidelines was not to say that if one article is determined to be the primary topic, then it is the only vital article, but I could understand how the guideline's wording could be confusing: Although a term may potentially refer to more than one topic, it is often the case that one of these topics is vital to the encyclopedia and/or highly likely – much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined – to be the subject being sought when a reader clicks the "Go" button for that term. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. It seems to me that in adding the stuff about vital articles into the guideline, we're really establishing a second and entirely separate method for determining the primary topic, and it's confusing to try to mash that new method into the middle of the paragraph written about the original method.

What I would suggest is that we revert the section to its previous state and then add in a separate paragraph that would say something like:

"An exception may be appropriate if only one of the ambiguous topics is a vital article. In such a case, consensus may determine that the vital article should be treated as the primary topic regardless of whether it is the article most sought by users."

Note that my suggested wording is "treated as the primary topic," not "is the primary topic." Another issue I have with the current wording is the bullet point that refers to "making [the vital article] is the primary topic." Besides the obvious grammatical error, this statement contradicts what I have believed to be the point of the rest of the guideline, which is that we do not choose an article to be a primary topic. The primary topic is the article most sought by users, and we try to reflect that by placing that article at the base title. When we discuss which article is primary topic, we aren't choosing one; we're trying to determine which article already is the primary topic. So if we ignore usage and just go by "the one that's vital", we're choosing to treat that article as if it is the primary topic, but we're not deciding to make it the primary topic. Propaniac (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with your general approach, but might go further. I think navigation is a more important criteria than "vitality" (although using the vitality might correlate with better navigation in most cases).  I would prefer it to be among the things to consider should a primary topic be unclear rather than part of an "official" declaration of what term should be used as if it were primary topic.  BTW, JHunterJ appears to be on wikibreak, and he probably would have input. . .  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 19:02, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) I certainly think adding this thing about vital articles has made the guidance more confusing. Separating it into a separate paragraph would be an improvement; then we could decide what (if anything) we're really trying to say here.--Kotniski (talk) 19:02, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In particular, who decides what's a vital article? What are the criteria for that? --Kotniski (talk) 19:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a FAQ page for the VITAL project; I had never heard of it until it was brought up here, but apparently it's been around since 2005. Propaniac (talk) 18:28, 29 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Of course, JHunterJ's input would be welcome when he returns; I wasn't aware he was on wikibreak. However, from the two comments above, I don't get the impression that anyone thinks the changes I suggested would be worse than the current phrasing, so I'm going to go ahead and make the changes with the understanding that a) if I'm wrong and someone does object specifically to these changes, they are of course free to revert me and resume discussion here; and b) the issue of whether the VITAL criteria should be included, and how that criteria should be prioritized in relation to the "standard" criteria, is still entirely open to debate. Propaniac (talk) 18:28, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

The new version is tepid enough to be useless. It basically says consensus at a given page may use the vital list to decide to break with the guidelines. In practice, I predict that where this is an issue (i.e., when the guidelines would be a useful reference), there will be two sides, one arguiing for a vital article as he primary topic and one arguing for no primary topic or for a non-vital article as primary, and the guideline for using the vital article will have no bearing because there would be no consensus in that discussion to use it. If there is no consensus here that being the only vital article and being ambiguous means being primary, then the whole bit can be removed without loss of utility. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:17, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * As I have said many times now, we should be determining primary topic by looking at usage in reliable sources. This would resolve the tension between importance and popularity (i.e. the objection to letting Titanic the film be primary just because it is /popular/, when Titanic the ship is so much more /important/), without the need for any of this "vital" nonsense. It would also make a very nice symmetry with WP:AT: we use reliable sources to determine the most common name for a topic, and we use reliable sources to determine the primary topic for a name!
 * In hindsight, a great deal of discussion in the archives can be seen as trying to addressing this one point of tension; e.g. all that crap about giving priority to the "original use" name was aimed at the same issue.
 * Hesperian 00:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * So you think we should or should not use the vital article criterion here? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
 * We should not. We should simply determine the primary topic by looking at usage in reliable sources. This will achieve everything that the "vital" wording aims at achieving, and do a better job of it. Hesperian 11:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The purpose of my change was to separate the mention of vital articles into its own paragraph, because the current way it was mashed into the section was jarring and confusing to read. If the consensus here is that the guideline should say that the one vital article should be the primary topic, it seems like the phrasing could be changed easily enough to: "If only one of the ambiguous topics is a vital article, the vital article should be treated as the primary topic regardless of whether it is the article most sought by users" or something along those lines.
 * I honestly have no opinion on whether the one vital article should always be the primary topic, or if the guideline should merely suggest it. I don't oppose changing it. But I disagree with the sentiment that seems to keep coming up here, that any specific part of the guideline should say "you must do it this one particular way" and that otherwise it's useless and should be removed. To me, suggesting that "vitalness" can be a useful alternative criteria seems like helpful guidance that brings the guideline closer to what the general community seems to want. Yes, if two different criteria systems are offered, there will probably be disagreements between factions each supporting use of a different system in a specific case, the same way there are all kinds of disagreements in discussions now. But even if the guideline does say "This is the one correct way," it will still always be "toothless" in some respects because people can still ignore it, as we've seen over and over, either by actively invoking WP:IAR or simply choosing not to read, consider or acknowledge that the guideline exists. Propaniac (talk) 15:43, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Intentional disambig
As per WP:INTDABLINK, how should I resolve something like "X (surname)" disambiguation page and I want to link that from another disambiguation page? Should it be "X (surname disambiguation)" or "X (surname) (disambiguation)"? I suppose it doesn't really matter to the enduser but I would just like a standard (PS. I prefer the former). –Schmloof 02:39, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Surname articles aren't disambiguation pages. You should link to it as "X (surname)". -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The question remains, though. There are many other dabs that already have parentheses in their titles. For instance, 1st Division (military). For that article, is the proper syntax 1st Division (military) (disambiguation), or 1st Division (military disambiguation)?  I've always assumed the former to be correct, but perhaps we should come to consensus and formalize it in the docs; I've never been 100% satisfied with the looks of the double parentheses. -- Ja Ga  talk  08:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Those should be fixed to redirect to the base dab as R from incomplete disambiguation. There should be no need to link to a "(disambiguator) (disambiguation)" page, because the "(disambiguator)" is supposed to be unambiguous. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I would think there should be a redirect called 1st Division (military) (disambiguation) to identify intentional dab links per WP:INTDABLINK. -- Ja Ga  talk 12:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be 1st Division (disambiguation), if things were in the correct place, which they are now. That (military) (disambiguation) redirect should be deleted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What about, say, Vector (mathematics and physics)? –Schmloof 18:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly. There are times a qualified disambig seems proper. Merging that into Vector would result in a huge disambig. I don't see the advantage. On the other hand, if having a qualifier in a disambig's page title is to be forbidden, we should update the guidelines accordingly. -- Ja Ga  talk  19:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is nothing inherently wrong with Vector (mathematics and physics) (disambiguation). It looks a little odd, but it serves the purpose of preventing unintentional disambig linking, and signaling that intentional links are, in fact, going to a disambig page. bd2412  T 19:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The guidelines are already "updated": WP:D. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Vector (mathematics and physics) has several problems. Its title is an incomplete disambiguation, so there is something inherently wrong with it. If it is to remain a disambiguation page, it should be merged into Vector (disambiguation), and there is no need for Vector (mathematics and physics) (disambiguation). The other problem, though, is that it appears to be a list article of types of vectors -- there are a lot of partial-title matches there, and they are just types of the same "vector". If it is to remain a separate page, it should be turned into proper list article (and probably renamed List of vectors in mathematics and physics). If that happens, there is still no need for Vector (mathematics and physics) (disambiguation). -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:11, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but that is a different issue from the one being addressed more generally in this discussion. Consider Sweetwater Creek (Texas) (disambiguation), which redirects to Sweetwater Creek (Texas), and The Dark Knight (roller coaster) (disambiguation), which redirects to The Dark Knight (roller coaster), each of which has enough entries to meet our rather loose standards for existing as a disambiguation page. bd2412  T 22:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * ... each of which is incompletely disambiguated and should be merged into the base dab per the guidelines (or the guidelines should be changed if consensus has). -- JHunterJ (talk) 04:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is a much better example. The Mirror (film) (disambiguation) redirects to The Mirror (film). There are some sixteen titles on this page, enough to substantially bloat the existing lengthy page Mirror (disambiguation) (to which The Mirror redirects). bd2412  T 23:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed by restoring The Mirror as an independent disambiguation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 04:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

We're looking at things on a case-by-case basis. I want to know the general policy. Is a disambig with a parenthesized qualification in its title automatically incorrect, due to the incomplete disambiguation policy? Or does double disambiguation give us wiggle room? We need consensus. -- Ja Ga  talk 08:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Automatically incorrect, per WP:D. The "wiggle room" from double disambiguation applies to titles that do not have a (disambiguator), but rather have a more specific "real" ambiguous title. Somebody looking for a Montgomery County might reasonably expect the title of the article to be "Montgomery" or "Montgomery County", and in that case the counties are listed at the more precise title and linked from the other. The two guidelines complement each other; they don't contradict each other. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, that's your take. Could we get some opinions from others? -- Ja Ga  talk 22:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with JHunterJ, pages with "(disambiguator) (disambiguation)" are inappropriate. older ≠ wiser 22:21, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, a page Foo (disambiguator) (disambiguation) is a partial disambiguation and shouldn't exist. The dab page at Foo or Foo (disambiguation) just needs a good structure and TOC if it's on the long side. PamD (talk) 22:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And I certainly appreciate the opinions from others, but I do disagree with the claim that before it was "just my take". It was "just" the guidelines (and the consensual take of the editors before). -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:18, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I never used the word "just", and never intended to slight yourself. I was pointing out that you've made your position clear and it's time to hear from others. So this has been discussed previously? -- Ja Ga  talk 08:54, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed - "(disambiguator) (disambiguation)" is clutter. Ben   Mac  Dui  08:59, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, this has been discussed previously. A quick search on "incomplete disambiguation" in the archive search box on this page yields Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 25 and Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 30 -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:23, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In the case of articles which could serve as complete proper names, would it be appropriate then to move Sweetwater Creek (Texas) to Sweetwater Creek, Texas, and have a redirect pointing from Sweetwater Creek, Texas (disambiguation), and The Dark Knight (roller coaster) to The Dark Knight roller coaster with a redirect from The Dark Knight roller coaster (disambiguation)? I note that we do have, for example, New York, New York (disambiguation). bd2412  T 16:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. The creeks aren't ambiguous with "Sweetwater Creek, Texas", but they are ambiguous with "Sweetwater Creek", so they should be listed only at Sweetwater Creek (disambiguation) or List of creeks named Sweetwater in Texas (although I personally hope the last wouldn't hold up as encyclopedic). Similarly, List of roller coasters named The Dark Knight or listed only at The Dark Knight (disambiguation). In the case of New York, New York (disambiguation), there are multiple things ambiguous with "New York, New York", so a disambiguation page is needed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:12, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree on the roller coaster, but Sweetwater Creek, Texas is ambiguous - it could refer to any of four Sweetwater Creeks in the state. (Not sure if they're actual creeks or names of settlements.) -- Ja Ga  talk 17:48, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Black River (Ontario)
I'm not sure what to make of this, as it is neither a proper disambig page nor a proper article. I seem to have stirred up a conflict over a the disambig link to this page on Black River, and I would appreciate if an uninvolved party would step in and clear this up. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed the tag to a set index article. It's not a dab page since it's not disambiguating article titles. It's a multi-stub about several rivers that happen to have the same name. Since it's not a dab, the link on Black River looks good to me. Station1 (talk) 01:06, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It is a dab page I would say. Dubious is "This article includes a list of related items that share the same name" - the items are not related very beyond them to be rivers and in Ontario and to have the same name. Schwyz (talk) 12:32, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like a set index article to me: it is a set of items (rivers in Ontario) that share the same name. That's perfectly fine for a set index article. This is far better than having 6 separate sub-stubs. —hike395 (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Bau (island)/Bau Island
Folks, please join the discussion at Talk:Bau Island as to whether the article's disambiguated title should be Bau (island) or Bau Island. – ukexpat (talk) 03:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Please note, that an IP request was made to move long standing article "Bau Island" to "Bau (island)". Whilst the request did mention sources that "Bau" without the word island is in use, it failed to show that "Bau Island" is not in use. The IP request was supported by Ukexpat, who seemed to have been unaware about details of the issue. He seems now to be in a personal fight about the topic, just to bring through the position he, maybe in error, once supported. To simple say "Bau" in a Fiji related article, does not make clear whether Bau District or the village of Bau or Bau Island is meant. The most straightforward is to write Bau Island. Schwyz (talk) 12:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

An example : Kadavu Island -> Kadavu Island, the alternative would be Kadavu Island. Does not look good to me. Schwyz (talk) 12:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Royal College of Surgeons
I don't think this should be a disambig page. It is merely a list of organizations falling under a single umbrella concept. bd2412 T 13:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * An individual element of the list would (sometimes) be referred to as "Royal College of Surgeons"? If more than one would be, then a dab is needed. If they aren't, the list article could be moved to List of Royal Colleges of Surgeons (and the redirect removed, since nobody would refer to the base name). -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it is more like University of California, which discusses the state's university system as a whole, and also lists individual articles on the campuses (UC Berkely, UC Davis, UCLA, etc.). This should be an article on the general concept of a Royal College of Surgeons, with a list of organizations falling within that concept. bd2412  T 16:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity..." UC Berkely is not independent of UC the way RCoSoE appears to be independent, and the RCoE doesn't appear to be an entity the way that UC does. But I'm not a subject-matter expert here, so I'd go with whatever consensus could be gleaned from Talk:Royal College of Surgeons. The present page seems to conform to the dab guidelines though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:18, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Conforming to the guidelines doesn't make it necessary to have the page as a disambig page. The reason I raise University of California is that it could justifiably be a disambig page listing all the schools under that name, University of California, Berkely, University of California, Davis, University of California, Los Angeles, and so forth. It is more useful to have an article on the system, and I think it would be more useful to have a single article explaining what, exactly, a "Royal College of Surgeons" is, and what all the listed organizations have in common that makes them all branches of this single concept. Contrast that with an ambiguous place name like North Springfield, where there is no common purpose or characteristic that the locations can claim other than all being locations sharing a name by coincidence, or a much clearer disambig case like Mercury, where there are all kinds of different things going on under the name. bd2412  T 17:33, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Conforming to the guidelines is sufficient for a discussion here. Specifics about that page would be better discussed at that page, so that interested (and hopefully knowledgeable) parties can engage. I have no way to tell if there is a "system" or "single concept" there. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * True. I made a note of this discussion on the talk page there. If no objection is raised, I will try to go forward with an article on the general subject. bd2412  T 18:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Hewes
I think there should be a Hewes page. They are an old East Coast family and have several pages already. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.139.15.76 (talk) 02:51, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. bd2412  T 03:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Makale
it means article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.146.197 (talk) 04:17, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

makale
Makale means article in Turkish and Arabic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.146.197 (talk) 04:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Five Virtues
This article needs to be disambiguated and we need a dab page in its place. Currently, the term "Five Virtues" goes to an article on Sikhism, however, we have many articles that could be referred to as the "Five Virtues". A quick search on this topic outside Wikipedia will shed some insight on the problem. Viriditas (talk) 06:35, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I can't see any other existing WP article which "could be referred to as the 'Five Virtues'". Which articles did you have in mind? When someone creates an article on Confucius's Five Virtues or any other use, then we'll need a dab page or a hatnote or two to link the articles, but at present there's nothing to disambiguate. Use of the term outside WP is irrelevant. This article makes it commendably clear that it's about a concept in Sikhism, to avoid any confusion. PamD (talk) 07:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The "Five Virtues" does not primarily refer to Sikhism at all, but to philosophical concepts of many different cultures, concepts on Wikipedia that already have articles and require a dab page. When a user does a search for "Five Virtues", they are brought to a page on Sikhism, but this does not appear to be the expected or intended result of such a search term, as the use of it outside Wikipedia demonstrates.  So, it is Wikipedia that needs to be corrected.  For example, sources show that the "Five Virtues" refers primarily to the Five Virtues of Confucianism, (See "Themes in Confucian thought": There is classical Wuchang (五常) consisting of five elements: Ren (仁, Humanity), Yi (義, Righteousness), Li (禮, Ritual), Zhi (智, Knowledge), Xin (信, Integrity); The term also refers to Wu Xing in Chinese philosophy; to the Five Precepts in Buddhism; (see Five_Precepts)) the Five Virtues of the soul as expounded by Plato;; the Five Virtues of Cao Dai, and many others, including hermeticism, Pythagoreanism, etc.  It's a bit odd to be taken to a primary article on Sikhism when the literature shows otherwise. Viriditas (talk) 09:46, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A dab page can only disambiguate between articles which exist. If Wikipedia needs further articles, then it's up to you or another editor to write them. A search on Wikipedia for articles including the words "Confucianism" and "virtues" seems to find no mention of Five Virtues. PamD (talk) 10:06, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I just finished explaining that Wikipedia has multiple articles on the topic of the "Five Virtues" that exist, most notably the Confucianism article where they are listed in the "Themes in Confucian thought" section, and the "Five Precepts" article, which the footnote says is also translated from pañca-sīla as "five virtues." Our current article on the "Five Virtues" is linked to only one source from 1977, a source that is 404.  While more sources could certainly be found, it's also clear that the topic of the "Five Virtues" is not primary, and is only one of many concepts that goes by this name.  It should be moved to Five Virtues (Sikhism), and a dab page should be created pointing to other uses of the term. Viriditas (talk) 10:18, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, you've now mentioned one article, Five Precepts, which includes the phrase "Five Virtues" as an alternative translation of its title. In the 8 years existence of that article none of the editors concerned has bothered to make a hatnote to redirect from that phrase, which indicates to me that it isn't a common alternative name. I've added that hatnote. PamD (talk) 11:08, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile, most users will be searching for the Five Virtues of Confucianism. For some reason, that article refers to them as the "five elements", which is not the most common term in English, so that should be changed. Viriditas (talk) 11:23, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, you say "that should be changed". You know what to do. Then it can be added to the hatnote, or perhaps a dab page made if it then seems appropriate. PamD (talk) 16:19, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

FIXDABLINKS - Kadavu
I try to WP:FIXDABLINKS for Special:WhatLinksHere/Kadavu - but sometimes it is impossible for me to determine what is referred to in the article. The province, the island group, the island? Any suggestions? Schwyz (talk) 12:16, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd add a dn tag and hope that someone else comes along who knows the topic in more depth and can help! PamD (talk) 17:33, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the dn pointer. Schwyz (talk) 12:07, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There are some low-hanging fruit, though, if you look at it on an article-by-article basis. Like Pam said, just tag the ones you can't figure out. -- Ja Ga  talk 17:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Washington State
Should Washington State be a dab, or a redirect to Washington State University with a hatnote for the US state? I noticed on the talk page it is called improper style to disambiguate based on case (so we shouldn't have Washington state redirect to the US state and Washington State redirect to the university). Is this correct? Seems to me anyone typing it with a capital S is looking for the uni. -- Ja Ga  talk 16:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's perfectly OK to disambiguate based on case when the difference is clear; it's done quite often (ex: Red Meat and red meat) and recognized at WP:CAPS. In this particular case, Washington state should definitely redirect to Washington (U.S. state) but I'm not sure if Washington State refers more often to the state or the university, so a dab page might be appropriate. If you go through the incoming links at Special:WhatLinksHere/Washington_State it might give you some idea of which, if either one, most editors think it means. Station1 (talk) 16:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I really wouldn't be surprised if some people typing Washington State were looking for the State of Washington. bd2412  T 16:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, yeah, looking through what links here reveals more than one Washington State that's intended for the US state. Probably best to leave it a dab, then, even though it seems like bad syntax. -- Ja Ga  talk 16:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I would support to create a dab page. It is far worse, that people end up on something they didn't expect than on a dab. Schwyz (talk) 11:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:FIXDABLINKS - Code of honor
WP:FIXDABLINKS says

A code of honor for creating disambiguation pages is to fix all resulting mis-directed links.

''Before moving an article to a qualified name (in order to create a disambiguation page at the base name), click on What links here to find all of the incoming links. Repair all of those incoming links to use the new article name.''

I request adding:

''In case where incoming links to a title that will be a future dab page are intended to links to different articles, or where it is highly likely that wrong links be made, it is fine if a dab page is created immediately, to avoid having people to click on a link and end up on an unrelated topic. It is much better for the reader to end up on a disambiguation page then on an unrelated article. Bots can detect unqualified links, but they cannot detect links to a false article.''

In geography there are lots of things having the same name. In Category:Municipality name disambiguation pages you find a lot.

See the diff for Municipalities of Bolivia, I worked through the list detected lots of links to titles that could be titles for articles the links didn't refer to. In some cases they already linked to municipality article of other countries, thus misleading readers. In those cases it is much better people end up at a dab. Schwyz (talk) 12:34, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Municipalities - templates linking to dab pages
Is it possible to get a list of templates linking to any of the articles in Category:Municipality name disambiguation pages? I am happy to clean up the templates. Schwyz (talk) 12:38, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

SIA + DAB in same article
OK, so what if there's a SIA, but the name is also the name of other things, making it a DAB page? I'm thinking of Victoria Road in particular. –Schmloof 05:31, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Victoria Road looks like a straightforward dab page, not a set index article at all. The SIA tag resulted from a template added about a year ago, which I'll remove. At the time it was added, it would have correctly tagged and categorized the page as a dab page, but the template was changed last March to tag pages SIA.  I can't imagine anything being a set index article and a dab page at the same time. Station1 (talk) 06:17, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * When SIAs were established, there was pretty strong consensus that we shouldn't mix the two: dabs are dabs, and follow WP:MOSDAB, SIAs are list articles that don't follow WP:MOSDAB. There's no middle ground. —hike395 (talk) 07:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I can not figuere out when a page should be a SIA page - should a DAB page be changed when the articles in the list are of the same kind? Like Mount Bullion, California, and Brush Mountain. I usually look at the page Disambiguation pages with links/The Daily Disambig and every day DAB pages is changed to SIA - usually movies with the same name. If so, why? (who is fixing links to SIA pages?) Christian75 (talk) 09:09, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If there is ambiguity among articles, there should be a disambiguation page unless (a) all of the articles are the same type of thing (mountains) and (b) the reader will be helped by having that page not follow the disambiguation page guidelines (a table giving latitude & longitude, elevation, etc. for each mountain). The SIA "project" is not very organized -- in theory, SIA pages are valid link targets. Maybe they should be explicitly named as lists (List of Brush Mountains) and the base name remain formatted as a dab? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:22, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't talk for all SIA pages&mdash;I'm only familiar with the ones pertaining to Russia&mdash;but in my experience, while the SIAs are valid link targets, they are not valid link targets most of the time. As for the actual issue at hand (mixing dabs and sets), I found it works best when SIAs are linked to from the dabs; just like any other dab entry would.  If that means a SIA needs to be moved in order for a dab page to replace it, moved it should be.  If there's only one meaning clashing with the SIA, a hatnote should suffice ("A" in "SIA" stands for "article" for a reason).  All just my opinion of course...ducking from the lightning bolts by the MOSDAB gods.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2010; 15:59 (UTC)

CCTV International
Not really disambiguating anything, just listing the different language channels under which CCTV International broadcasts. Should be a general article on the entity. bd2412 T 21:30, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, they should just be merged. They're just copy-and-paste, too. –Schmloof  01:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Dobbelt redirect and DABs
When someone change a DAB page to a redirect, a robot (user:Xqbot) is changing the "DAB (disambiguation)" page to point to what the new redirrect points to. The same happends for all the page which redirrects to the "DAB (disambiguation)". E.g. DAB page Annuity was changed to a redirect to Annuity (finance theory)], and afterwards the robot changed [[Rente, Deferred Annuity, Annuities and Annuities (disambiguation). Afterwards somebody changed "Annuity" back to a DAB page, but all the redirrects still pointed to the new target (I have changed them back). What to do? Christian75 (talk) 20:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Incorrect redirects ending in (disambiguation) will help interested editors find those to fix them. It's linked from the project page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:12, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't Xqbot handle double redirects? Double redirects are to be fixed, per WP:2R.
 * I suspect those pages listed redirected to Annuity which in turn redirected to Annuity (finance theory). If that's right, then Xqbot would have "fixed" those double redirects. It's not an unusual problem with dab pages; when Foo (disambiguation) is a redirect to the real dab page at Foo then other redirects have to go to Foo, not to Foo (disambiguation) . --AndrewHowse (talk) 21:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

New article but not sure how to name the article due to disambiguation
I am creating a new article for Kit Chan's album, Heartache. There is already a disambiguation page, Heartache and there is a page for another album of the same name, Heartache (album), by another singer.

I have created an user subpage to hold the new article, User:Xaiver0510/heartache and like to ask for advice on the article name for this article.

Thanks Xaiver0510 (talk) 06:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The usual thing would be to move Heartache (album) to Heartache (Erykah Badu album) and add your page at Heartache (Kit Chan album). --John (User:Jwy/talk) 06:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, will keep in mind for future similar cases! Xaiver0510 (talk) 09:03, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * ... and then redirect Heartache (album) to the disambiguation page and fix any incoming links to it. If it's going to point to Heartache (Erykah Badu album), there was no reason to move the Badu album. (Those steps were done, but in case anyone reads this for a checklist.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:04, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * thx hunter~! understand the rationale behind it, first time dealing with dab, will keep this in mind too Xaiver0510 (talk) 13:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Same term - different languages in "See also"
Should DAB pages link to the same term in other languages? I am thinking of Villeneuve in particular, which links to (in its "See also" section):
 * Neuville
 * Villenave
 * Newton (disambiguation)
 * Newtown (disambiguation)
 * New Town (disambiguation)
 * Newtonville (disambiguation)
 * New City (disambiguation)
 * Newville (disambiguation)
 * Neustadt (disambiguation)
 * Novo Mesto
 * Nové Město (disambiguation)
 * Nové Mesto (disambiguation)
 * Nystad
 * Uusikaupunki
 * Villanova (disambiguation)
 * Villanueva (disambiguation)
 * Hiriberri/Villanueva de Aezkoa

I'm inclined towards only having something like "Villeneuve (English: New Town) may refer to:" in the lead, and removing all the other ones. –Schmloof 06:14, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see any problem with listing them in the See also section. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * In that case, what do you think of something like this template, to try to simplify things? –Schmloof  07:53, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That heading might make people think that the links are to articles in other-language Wikipedias. Hmm... if I'm going to criticize, I suppose I should suggest something else... How about "Other articles whose titles mean pagename"? Also, the "(disambiguation)" shouldn't be hidden, this being for use on dab pages
 * By the way, your heading says "disambiguation pages", but not all the pages you list are dab pages. I don't think they all need to be dab pages (not all the ones in "see also" sections are dab pages), but the heading shouldn't imply that they are. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

How's this, then? I like your idea of "Other articles whose titles mean pagename", but I think it's too cumbersome, and tried to simplify. Also, are there any comments on the layout and style? I tried to make the least flashy as possible. No issues on whether it should float on the right side, or even exist at all? Feel free to edit it and try it out yourself. –Schmloof 19:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer a template built on Collapsible list instead. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible incomplete disambiguations
I've generated a list at User:RussBot/Possible incomplete disambiguations of disambiguation pages that have parenthetical terms other than "(disambiguation)" in their titles; somewhat to my surprise, there are over 2,000 of these. At least some of these pages are likely to violate the guidelines on incomplete disambiguation. If one or more interested parties wants to start reviewing these, feel free to edit the list to remove any pages that have been fixed or determined to be OK. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'd even suggest moving it to WikiProject Disambiguation/Incomplete disambiguations or something, like we do for the malplaced dab lists. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * In an effort to make some sense of this phenomena, I've subdivided the page to break out some common categories of issues, such as "Foo (album)" and "Foo (public transportation)" links. About 3/5 of the list falls into fewer than two dozen categories, although more could be made. There are a substantial number of "Foo (given name)" and "Foo (surname)" pages, which could and should probably be solved by switching out the tag for a  or  tag.  bd2412  T 15:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Moved, as suggested. Would someone like to draft a lede, noting the policy? bd2412  T 15:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll handle that. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Medical degree
This should not be a disambiguation page. It is a list of different types of degrees relating to the practice of medicine, none of which link from article with the words "medical degree" in the title. bd2412 T 18:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Cheers! bd2412  T 20:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Concerns about WP:INTDABLINKS vs. templates
I've brought over a comment made concerning Template:Symphonies by number and name that brings up concerns about intentional dab links in templates. The user has a point about interference with template behavior. Does anyone have any suggestions? -- Ja Ga  talk 08:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

(from Template talk:Symphonies by number and name):
 * I understand the principle of linking to "X (disambiguation)" rather than "X", and for the most part I agree with it, yet I have to register my objection to its application in this particular case. It has been a long-standing practice to clear redirects from navboxes so that a link will appear black and bold when the page to which that link leads is viewed. As the template currently stands, the link remains blue and clickable at all times, and therefore the proper formatting is missing and it becomes possible to click on links in a cyclical pattern, returning to the page of origin through the redirect. In this context, I believe it would be reasonable and appropriate to treat this rare template (as navboxes are rarely used for disambiguation pages) as an exception to the rule, and therefore to have the links therein lead directly to their intended targets. Waltham, The Duke of 00:33, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment: Although rare, this is not an isolated case.  See Geo-Alexander (although these should all be set index articles, they aren't) or my own proposed template, not two sections above, which would have the same problem.  –Schmloof  08:56, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this is less rare than Waltham believes. All the same, unless we can find a workaround, we should probably not apply WP:INTDABLINKS to templates, considering how it affects them.  It isn't easy to say that because that would render some dablinks "unfixable" for the first time since the introduction of the INTDABLINKS policy. -- Ja Ga  talk  09:45, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree - what the reader sees is more important than what's convenient to editors. (One rather unattractive workaround would be to invent a subtemplate that produces  X  when PAGENAME is not equal to X, and  X  otherwise, and use it for each applicable entry in the navbox template.)--Kotniski (talk) 10:18, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, having set it up, it isn't particularly unattrative (it even saves typing). See the D' template and its implementation in the symnphonies template.--Kotniski (talk) 10:37, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a clever solution and I think it works well. Schmloof has a point about set index articles, but it may be the case that some of these disambiguation pages will never change, so this new template will probably remain useful for quite some time. Waltham, The Duke of 11:03, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like a happy ending. Thanks much everyone (especially Kotniski!) -- Ja Ga  talk 12:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

ANI
Just FYI: at ANI a topic is raised about creation of sub-optimal DAB-pages. -DePiep (talk) 09:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Store
I know that there existed a place (town?) called "Store" in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Unfortunately, wikipedia seems to know nothing of it. The DAB page for Store doesn't have it. I wanted to look up Store to find out where it is (or was!), or if it was known by a new (non-German) name now, like Ragusa was renamed Dubrovnik. Googling Ragusa is far more illuminating than googling Store, alas. Any smarter googlers out there know what the DAB entry for this place should point to? Ajd20000 (talk) 01:48, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Possibly found it: Štore, using intitle. Feel free to add it to the Store disambig page. –Schmloof (talk · contribs) 02:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC).

Redirects in hatnotes
Should a bot convert intentional links to disambiguation pages in hatnotes to link to a redirect as suggested in WP:INTDABLINK; for example, where a hatnote now links to the disambiguation page Washington, should it be changed to link to, which is a redirect? If so, should the link be piped or not? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Background
WP:INTDABLINK, which is a section of Disambiguation, says that (a) links to disambiguation pages generally are discouraged, but there are a few special circumstances where they are accepted; and (b) in those circumstances where an editor intentionally links to a disambiguation page, the link should be 'to the title that includes the text "(disambiguation)", even if that's a redirect.'

At the request of another user, I submitted a request to use a bot to convert existing links in hatnotes to the "(disambiguation)" redirect, where applicable (that is, where the context indicated that linking to the disambiguation page rather than a specific articles was intentional, and where the link title did not already include the word "disambiguation"). I also announced the planned bot activity on the project talk page. There were no objections and the bot was approved; however, after each (relatively limited) bot run, a number of users objected to the edits it made, either by commenting on this talk page or by reverting the bot's edits. As a result, the bot is currently inactive, and there are several thousand articles with hatnotes that would be fixed if it were to resume.

The earlier discussion of this issue can be found above.

The purpose of this RFC is to determine whether the WP:INTDABLINK guideline still represents consensus, and if not to determine how to change it. If the consensus is consistent with the existing guideline, then the bot task will resume.

Further, as suggested in the introduction, this RFC seeks to clarify (assuming the existing guideline remains unchanged) the links to disambiguation pages in hatnotes should be piped, or not.

Finally, related to the above, I would like to propose a new bot task that would create a "(disambiguation)" redirect for every disambiguation page that does not already have one, and that does not have "(disambiguation)" in its own title. I would hope that this is non-controversial, based on the principle that "Redirects are cheap"; but, in light of the reaction to the bot so far, I can't assume that to be the case. R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Opinions
In this section, please provide a brief statement of your opinion(s) on the questions posed above. Remember, this is not a vote, so just saying you are for or against something without explaining why will result in your views being given little weight. Please place more extensive comments and responses to other users in the "Discussion" section below.


 * My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that intentional links to disambiguation pages should be targeted to redirects, as this helps signal to the reader that it is not an ordinary link to an article, and also aids internally in Wikipedia maintenance by making it easier to distinguish between intentional and erroneous links. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree that all intentional links to a disambiguation page "foo" should indicate that they are intentional by linking through a "foo (disambiguation)" redirect. Disambiguators have struggled mightily to bring down unintentional links to disambig pages from over 1.35 million a year ago to under a million today, but our work is still hamstrung by the need for multiple editors to repeatedly review intentional links, because nothing has been done to signal that these are intentional. I also agree that in hatnotes and "see also" sections, these should be unpiped, so users will know beforehand that the page to which they are being directed is, in fact, a disambiguation page. bd2412  T 20:01, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that intentional links to disambiguation pages should be to the "XXX (disambiguation)" link, whether it be a redirect or not, but I don't think it matters too much in hatnotes specifically. If the hatnote was "For other uses of the term XXX, see YYY", then I would immediately assume that YYY is a dab page. Of course, it doesn't hurt to say "see YYY (disambiguation)" either, and I'm leaning toward changing that. On the topic of WP:INTDABLINK, why not have a bot also create "XXX (disambiguation)" redirects to all pages tagged with disambig and don't have "(disambiguation)" in the title?  — fetch ·  comms   20:09, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Dab pages without incoming links don't require that redirect. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:40, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It certainly doesn't hurt to have it, though. I would strongly support an automated process to create "foo (disambiguation)" redirects to every disambiguation page "foo". bd2412  T 17:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't understand that reasoning. There are many, many redirects that it wouldn't hurt to have, but that doesn't mean bots should go create them. Create redirects that it does hurt not to have. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me provide a concrete situation. We have a list of about 25,000 disambiguation pages that link to disambiguation pages, mostly from disambiguation pages with a "see also" section containing links to several similarly names disambiguation pages. We have been switching those direct disambig links for "foo (disambiguation)" links, and have more often than not needed to create the required redirect, a nuisance step that could be automated, which would speed up the repair of those pages a great deal. I suppose, as a compromise measure, we could have a redirect automatically created to any disambig page which does have links, on the theory that some of those links may be intentional, and those will eventually need to be piped. bd2412  T 18:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If it's solving a problem (the bot effort of creating all dab redirects assists the bot effort of fixing links to dabs), then I recant. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * We must have the ability to distinguish intentional dablinks from unintentional ones for the WP:DPL project to succeed. And I define success for that project as zero unintentional links to disambigs. It will take years, but it is attainable, but only if future bots and Toolserver reports can distinguish the good guys from the baddies. WP:INTDABLINK is intended to solve this problem; if someone wants to throw out INTDABLINK, I hope they can provide another solution. Regarding pipes, I would say it's best practice not to pipe, so when a user looks at the hatnote or See also they know immediately it links to a disambig. -- Ja Ga  talk  22:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, hatnotes should use the redirects (and the bot can help make that happen). No, I don't think the link needs to be piped, but at least piping doesn't hinder the project (not piping helps avoid surprise for the readers though). -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As one of the people who previously complained (and having been kindly invited to this discussion), I would:
 * still disagree with the bot action: it's confusing to the reader to read "for other uses see YYY (disambiguation)" and wind up redirected to YYY – although piping the link might avoid this;
 * note that WP:INTDABLINK seems to conflict with the hatnote policy;
 * suggest that the concerns of the disambig community could be met in a less obtrusive way by adding parameters in the hatnote template that indicated that the dablinks were intentional, or simply by assuming that all dablinks in "for other uses" hatnotes were intentional (an assumption that the bot is making anyway). -- Radagast 3 (talk) 23:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Regarding the possibility of readers reading "for other uses see YYY (disambiguation)" and wind up redirected to YYY, why is this is a problem if YYY is, in fact, a disambiguation page? bd2412  T 23:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I also disagree that it is confusing to click through "XXX (disambiguation)" and end up at a disambiguation page titled "XXX". Also, I disagree that WP:INTDABLINK disagrees with hatnote policy -- how do you think it does. Finally, assumptions don't help the people working on fixing links to dab pages; using redirects for intentional dab links does. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it is a bit confusing; you click a hatnote for XXX (disambiguation) and get redirected to XXX, and think, "Why didn't they just link directly to the dab?" I know there's nothing wrong with the policy, that redirects do not need to be "fixed", but all the same, the answer is not immediately obvious and we will have to explain why we do it this way again and again to the many future perfectly-good-faith-but-confused-and-thus-a-little-annoyed editors. -- Ja Ga  talk 22:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "Why didn't they just link directly to the dab?" shouldn't be a point of confusion. Linking to redirects isn't deprecated in general, and linking to redirects to disambiguation pages isn't deprecated in particular. Editors may not be familiar with the redirect and disambiguation guidelines, but the solution there is to familiarize yourself with the guidelines if your edits are contentious. (Linking the guidelines in the edit summary is helpful, which is done here.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Combining three issues, namely 1) that bots need the word disambiguation and 2) that people are surprised to be redirected and 3) that there are fights with page moves about where a dab page should be: Why not having ALL dab pages at "Something (disambiguation)"?. If we really want to do that, I suggest, that the bot currently does not create redirects "X (dab) -> X" Otherwise I think it is a very good task for the bot, since without these redirects intentional links can't be made in a way bots understand. Schwyz (talk) 12:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have not followed this issue in depth, but it does seem cleaner to move all "basename" disambiguation pages to "basename (disambiguation)", rather than having users mildly confused by sometimes being redirected to a pagename different from the one they were expecting from the hatnote. This seems simple, but I expect there must be some reason why it's not a good idea. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 20:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If we were to do that, then the user typing in Mercury would be taken to Mercury (disambiguation), and possibly be just as confused - and all the errant links made to Mercury would be pointing to a redirect rather than an article. Not that it's not doable, and I've even thought about proposing it a number of times, but I can't get over the idea that we should have something other than a redirect at the base page name. bd2412  T 21:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * On balance, and without having a clear knowledge about possible disadvantages, it seems more straightforward to me to have all dab pages be "foo (disambiguation)" rather than a system in which there is no way to know without checking which way the redirects are going. Ben   Mac  Dui  08:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the idea as well, but bd2412 has a point. More importantly, we're diverting this RfC with a good, but still off-topic discussion. I'd say we should assume the foo (disambiguation) question won't be answered in this RfC, and make sure everyone is OK with the plans for the bot. -- Ja Ga  talk 09:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. If and when some future point comes where we decide to move all disambig pages to "foo (disambiguation)" titles, we can cross that technical bridge. As it stands, I'm all for the bot, which will provide a tremendous reduction in labor to disambiguators. bd2412  T 13:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the bot is a good idea regardless of the other question. Abby Kelleyite (talk) 15:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


 * If we absolutely must do this, there should at least be piping so that there's no visible change to hatnotes. If the dab page is Foo, the reader should see "For other uses see Foo." -- Radagast 3 (talk) 09:32, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Visible changes to the redirects may be useful. I think readers will be benefited from seeing that they are heading for a disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion
Would an uninvolved admin please review and close the above discussion? Further background, and some comments by users who did not participate in this reopened discussion, are at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation/Archive_31. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Redirects from "set index article (disambiguation)" to "set index article"
Maybe I was wrong, but I have been tagging redirects from "xyz (disambiguation)" to "set index article" for speedy deletion (when a dab page has been changed to a set index), and some of them have been deleted. But one administrator gave me this message: User_talk:Christian75. What to do? I think its better to have the discussion here, then to argue on my talk page... --Christian75 (talk) 21:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's my two cents: a redirects from "set index article (disambiguation)" to "set index article" is, technically, not much more useful than a redirect from any "non-disambiguated article (disambiguation)" to "non-disambiguated article". On the other hand, it does no harm, and we have many more pressing tasks to deal with then finding, tagging, and deleting these redirects.  bd2412  T 22:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I often check The Daily Disambig for pages which has left the list. And some of them has left bacause they have been changed to set index articles - and then I check the redirect to that article, because they are often wrong (should be linking to a dab page instead). BTW it would be nice to have a list of "pages which isnt a dab page anymore" - I normally get 3-4 pages which has left the list due to vandalism every (and I am only checking the beginning of the list.) Christian75 (talk) 22:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, they should be deleted, and speedily is fine. Set index articles are not disambiguation pages, and (disambiguation) redirects should only target disambiguation pages. Set index articles are valid link targets (they don't need to have incoming links "fixed"), so there is no need to create the parallel "xyz (set index article)" redirect either. The "pressing tasks" argument is no help either. There are more pressing tasks than disambiguation on Wikipedia, and there are more pressing tasks in my real life than editing Wikipedia, but we help wherever we want. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the links should probably all be kept, and perhaps similar links should be set up for all set index articles. Many set index articles are fundamentally unstable and are being switched back and forth from SIA to disambig types. The whole concept of set index articles, as list-articles which look like, smell like, walk like, disambiguation pages is murky at best.  Many editors with long experience in disambiguation express dismay or confusion over what set index articles are supposed to be, including fairly recently in a discussion or two at Talk of wp:SIA.  I would view the "Set index article (disambiguation)" redirects as all helpful to have.  Deletion of them would cause immediate breakage of links wherever they are linked to from articles, and would cause more work down the line when the redirects need to be created again and again.  My best guess for the future would be that disambiguation redirects will be wanted generally.  And, if there magically was clarity on what set index articles should be, and it was determined that all the redirects should be abolished, that could be efficiently accomplished by one intelligent bot run.  Piecemeal deletions would just cause unnecessary, temporary churning.  Like BD says, there is no harm from having these.  So for all these reasons, I think they should be kept. --doncram (talk) 17:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd have to side with JHJ on this one (although I also agree with bd in that it is not worth the time to search for these redirects specifically). There is no logical reason to redirect "Foo (disambiguation)" to a page with is not a disambig page (be it a set index, an article, or a list).  As for the "immediate breakage of links", I would think that a diligent admin would check for incoming links before doing the deletion and correct those which need correction.  Failure to do so is no different from sloppily deleting any other kind of page&mdash;if dependencies are not checked, all kinds of havoc can be wreaked.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 2, 2010; 17:55 (UTC)

"Three or more"
Has it ever been considered why the upper limit for using hatnotes rather than dab pages should be set at precisely two alternative topics (primary and one other)? I mean, is it really preferable to use a dab page when we have a primary topic and (say) two other topics? Take (fairly random examples) O-grade and Lipice. Here we have (at the time of writing) no dab page, but hatnotes on the primary topic page which reference two other articles. According to the guideline, these should be converted into dab pages, but is there really any point in doing so? To me, the hatnotes don't seem particularly intrusive or confusing, and they make navigation easier (they save readers the extra step of going through a dab page). What do others think?--Kotniski (talk) 08:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My view is that you are right to query this; Lipice seems an excellent example of where hatnotes are not intrusive and would save keystrokes provided it is the primary meaning (not knowing any of the three, I have no means of telling).Abtract (talk) 09:20, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Many hatnote templates accommodate several uses and many articles use them. If a guideline says not to, that guideline should be changed. My rule of thumb is when the hatnote wraps to a second line it's time for a dab page. Station1 (talk) 10:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think I probably apply a similar rule of thumb (without being particularly conscious of it - of course line length is dependent on screen size etc. so it can't really be recorded as a guideline). --Kotniski (talk) 16:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

All right, since there seems to be no dissenting opinion, I'm going to update the guideline to try to make it a bit closer to actual practice.--Kotniski (talk) 10:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * If you are going to change the guideline towards saying dabs of 2 or three items should not exist, I oppose that. There are hundreds of place-oriented dab pages which i have contributed to and watchlist which have 2 or 3 items now, but will most probably will grow as more places of the same name are identified.  I will oppose guidelines being changed to suggest that extensive hatnotes should be used, which i tend to dislike, and I will oppose suggestions that the dab pages should be deleted.  I would in general prefer for there to be no change in this area, as i am afraid any change will cause a great amount of unproductive churning.  I am not sure where you are going though.  Could you please discuss here specific changes you might be interested in, if you are seriously interested in pursuing change here. --doncram (talk) 17:51, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying that such dab pages should never exist, just pointing out that there are other possible solutions, which are already frequently and satisfactorily used (we even have hatnote templates for them). --Kotniski (talk) 17:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Using hatnotes without a dab page works very well when there is a primary topic and a small number of other topics but not so well otherwise. The existence of a primary topic is critical. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
 * Yes, that's certainly the case (though it has been hinted at in the past that we might have a greater preference for identifying a primary topic - as opposed to no primary topic - in the case where disambiguation could then be done with just just a hatnote and no dab page, because then most readers are saved one navigation step whereas it doesn't cost the other readers anything).--Kotniski (talk) 09:52, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * What is current guideline about dab pages existing along with hatnotes. I have encountered editors seeking to delete 2 item dabs because they say the dabs are not needed, given hatnoting present.  About place names, I would always want for the dabs to be kept, because there are always more of any place name out there, to be added, and I don't like to see the churning of deletion and recreation.  I do not understand any rationale for not having a dab page even of two items, even when one is primary and has a hatnote.  There's no harm in having the dab, and it creates appropriate structure for further growth, and its Talk page provides place for discussion of the disambiguation topic (such as for any reconsideration of primaryusage status of the one). --doncram (talk) 19:14, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The current guideline is to add the disambiguation page after the ambiguity occurs on Wikipedia, not in anticipation of it. They're navigational pages, not structures for future growth. WP:RM can be used to reconsider primaryusage status of the one on the one's talk page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree on the goal and all else should follow
I'm wondering if we can agree on what is the goal of disambiguation pages and primary topic. The article intro has the following text:
 * Ensuring that a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily, whichever of the possible topics it might be.

Would you agree this is the goal? The goal is based on what is easiest and quickest for the user?

If that is the case then current text in primary topic should be deemphasized and quickest and easiest for the user should be better emphasized. If users are searching for a term A 10x times more often for then term B, then shouldn't primary topic be term A with 10x more hits? Because 9 out 10 wikipedians are more likely to be searching for term A then term B, and that would be quickest and easiest for our users. In other words primary topic should not be so based on "importance" or "long term meaning", but what is best for our readers.

Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 22:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Optimizing navigation is not the sole objective of disambiguation (though I suspect there are some who would disagree with that). The intro states "quickly and easily" not "quickest and easiest". Page view counts are only one indicator of whether there is a primary topic. Your hypothetical example is a red herring, as a single page that gets 10x the page views of any other ambiguous page would likely face little opposition as primary topic. There might be some exceptions -- Madonna comes to mind -- but many would point to that as an example of precisely why page view statistics shouldn't be followed blindly. Your calculation that 9 of 10 wikipedians more likely to be looking for topic A than topic B applies only if there are only exactly two ambiguous topics, A and B -- and in such a case it would be even more unlikely that there would be significant opposition to having A as the primary topic. The problematic cases are typically more complex and not reduceable to such simplistic examples. older ≠ wiser 23:50, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Take a look at Android. The OS gets 25x or more hits than the robot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Android_%28robot%29#Requested_move   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please understand what JHunterJ is saying. Raw hit counts alone are a poor indicator. On the other hand, if Android were the disambiguation page, and there were unique links on the disambiguation that identified both the robot and the OS meanings and those links existed only on the disambiguation page, then measuring the hit counts of those two links would constitute a more reliable indicator of how many readers going to the disambiguation page opt for one page or the other. But even then, the differential would need to persist over time before one could conclude that a new usage is primary over a long-established usage. older ≠ wiser 01:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * And if this is related to the discussion around the Android move, note that again the hit counts you're working from are not a measurement of how many readers are looking for each article from the search term "android". Otherwise, yes, I agree with the idea that importance and age are not as key as usage, but I am also happy with the idea (so far unimplemented) of placing "vital" articles ahead of both of those. In that case, "encyclopedia-ness" trumps "popular usage", but "popular usage" still trump (other) "importance" or "age". -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, not a measurement, but a strong indication of. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not even a strong indication of. The traffic stats that are available for the android options are statistically unrelated to the traffic of people through the "android" search term. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia's goal is to be a universal knowledge tool. If there is a disparity between "most commonly-understood subject linked to a given term" and "most Googled for subject linked to a given term" then this indicates a cultural bias in the type of person who visits Wikipedia via Google. If we decide that we want to optimise for this traffic then we're only reinforcing Wikipedia's already-well-known systemic bias towards subjects that interest technically-minded Western twentysomething males. Whether we want to do that is maybe something to be discussed, but right now NPOV suggests that we don't. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with the Google vs. Wikipedia disconnect, but I'd like to note that NPOV is an article content guidelines, not a navigation (disambiguation and primary topic selection) guideline. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * NPOV is one of the five pillars, and should be considered when any decision is made on the project. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors." Like I said, it's a content guideline. A cornerstone and pillar guideline of content, but a content guideliens. Disambiguation pages are not encyclopedic content or articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:39, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't agree; parsing the language of the guideline ignores its clear intent. If we allow the navigational processes of the encyclopedia to be swayed by the point of view of editors or a particular constituency of readers, it is likely to be off-putting to other readers who don't share that particular POV.  For example,  is a redirect to an article about an ancient Germanic tribe; if it were changed to show readers an article about a late 20th-century Western subcultural movement (along, presumably, with many other renamings or redirections that might result if mere popularity were the guiding factor), it would create a perception of a systemic bias in Wikipedia regardless of whether the content of each article was strictly neutral.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not ignoring its clear intent. If we need NPOV on disambiguation (representing without bias all significant views), then all disambiguation pages need to be moved to the base name; there will be no primary topics, because any primary topic would represent a bias towards that article. Goth (disambiguation) would be moved to Goth. That's not the guideline's clear intent, because the clear intent is to ensure that article content is neutrally presented. I realize that saying NPOV is not a navigational guideline seems odd, but it is how Wikipedia operates. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I also don't buy that reductio ad absurdum argument you always trot out whenever this comes up. It is certainly possible to have primary topics without implying bias.  Stalin and Mao, for example, are significant figures in world history whose importance does not depend on the cultural or ethnic background of a particular reader.  Just because some primary topic selections would imply bias does not mean that all would.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It isn't a reductio ad absurdum, and I feel no need to apologize for seeing it consistently (or "trotting it out whenever this comes up", if you want to cast it in non-neutral personal terms). Either the selection of primary topics has a bias to be avoided (we don't want recentism or US-centrism, or later India-centrism, to determine the readership's usage stats, so we opt against primary topics since that will "bias" the encyclopedia in the direction of whichever topic is primary) or it hasn't (and we figure out what the primary topic is but cover all topics neutrally on their articles, which all the readers can find through the navigation of hatnotes and disambiguation pages). And absolutely, there are other criteria for primary topic than importance -- I'd like to make the "vital articles" bit carry some actual weight, for instance. But that is not part of NPOV. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:35, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you're confusing "undue bias" with "unequal weight". We are most certainly not required to treat all viewpoints equally. NPOV requires that we assign some more weight than others. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you're confusing "neutral" with "neutral unless I agree with the viewpoint". Which viewpoints do we assign more weight to? -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * *boggle* Err, the ones put forward by the greatest proportion of reliable sources, as per WP:WEIGHT? Am I missing something here? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. You are proposing a change to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to drop the listed criteria and rely instead on proportion of reliable sourcing. Which is a fine proposed change, but not the current consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not, and please don't be absurd. PRIMARYTOPIC explicitly says that there are no hard rules, but what with NPOV being a hard rule (one of the very few around here) it should always be taken into consideration. It is certainly not to be discarded as a mere content guideline. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Wanting the guidelines different without changing the guidelines is absurd. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to say I agree with Chris and Russ on this. Expecting article titles and disambiguation to follow principles such as NPOV and avoiding undue bias are quite reasonable andit does not logically follow that this entails a change to the disambiguation guideline. older ≠ wiser 02:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If the guidelines don't need to be changed, then we all agree. The criteria listed at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC are sufficiently unbiased and can be used to determine the primary topic for the Wikipedia readership's use of a title. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Others believe that the PRIMARYTOPIC pointers are fine as they are because they do not believe that they are contradicted by WEIGHT. You believe they are fine because you do not believe WEIGHT applies to the subject of disambiguation. I would think it rather disingenuous to refer to that as "agreement". Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe that the PRIMARYTOPIC guidelines do not need to be changed, and so can be applied. Bkonrad agrees that the guidelines do not need to be changed. If you also agree that they do not need to be changed (and so can be applied), then we are in agreement, not at all disingenuously. If you believe that the guidelines need to be changed to also apply whatever concerns from WEIGHT might not be already included, then you do not agree that the guidelines do not need to be changed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:40, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * >Wikipedia's goal is to be a universal knowledge tool.
 * Agree. What is implied by this, is how to find the knowledge in the easiest and best fashion.
 * >If there is a disparity between "most commonly-understood subject linked to a given term" and "most Googled for subject linked to a given term" then this indicates a cultural bias in the type of person who visits Wikipedia via Google.
 * Irrelevant. How people search for and find information is a technical issue and not one that should imply bias.
 * >If we decide that we want to optimise for this traffic then we're only reinforcing Wikipedia's already-well-known systemic bias towards subjects that interest technically-minded Western twentysomething males.
 * Would you agree we want information easy and quick to find? Why does this have to imply bias?  What is the most commonly searched term?  That should show up on top of the search results, should it not?  Search result order shouldn't imply importance of the topic, or how long the topic has existed, or any other bias that people are concerned about.
 * >Whether we want to do that is maybe something to be discussed, but right now NPOV suggests that we don't.
 * NPOV is very important as you know, but it shouldn't apply to search result. What should apply is most commonly searched term on wikipedia.
 * Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:46, 11 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think its strange that the goal is only about searching - I think that its more important that the user get the right article when pressing a wiki link in an article (i.e. the right information, the right person, the right country, town, chemical compound etc.). The Android example: If a user is searching for the operating system, and an Australian band comes up - I think the user will quickly recognise that the operating system is the wrong article if the user was going for the Australian band. But it could take longer time to recognise (if ever) if its a wiki link and the user didn't know what to hit (its misinformation which is hidden).  Christian75 (talk) 18:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Sub-primary topics
Sorry, I know this has been discussed before on multiple occasions, but I don't recall what the consensus is, if any. Can there be a primary topic for a disambiguated term? For example, if there are multiple films called X, and one of them is clearly primary with respect to the others (but not with respect to other non-film topics called X), can that one be called simply "X (film)", with the others being titled more specifically ("X (2001 film)" etc.)? The issue arises with the move request at Talk:Double Take (film).--Kotniski (talk) 11:39, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, from a disambiguation perspective those titles have been disambiguated. The content project may or may not have specific guidelines for these cases, however. I believe that the film project is neutral on film vs. 2001 film, while the book project opts for adding author-surname to both articles rather than leaving novel vs. Dickens novel, for example. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * They've been disambiguated badly. One is still ambiguous. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Once the articles have unique disambiguators, they are no longer ambiguous. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not correct. There is a subtle difference between "unique identifier" and "label which identifies a subject uniquely". Were there two films called "Casablanca", Casablanca (film) would quite plainly still be ambiguous as, taken by itself, it could refer to any film called Casablanca. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The subtle difference is that the disambiguator is not part of the title. "Casablanca" refers to the film. "Casablanca (film)" is just the title of an article about a film referred to as "Casablanca". No reliable source refers to the film as "Casablanca (film)". -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * We could name them Casablanca (1) and Casablanca (2) or indeed Casablanca (jfbsfbs) and Casablanca (sjfhskf) if we only cared that the disambiguator were unique; however, our naming conventions are such that we want people to be able to figure out, just from looking at a disambiguated title, which subject it refers to. You can't do that if the disambiguator still wouldn't help you decide between two articles. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly! Instead of using (sjfhskf), though, the film project specifies which disambiguators they would like to use instead. WP:NC(F) -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not a solution, it's just punting the problem to a smaller group of editors. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just leaving the problem to the appropriate group is a solution. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's best not to. That would mean having to maintain several levels of hierarchy in some cases (particularly football players, who can be disambiguated by any of DOB, nationality or position). One level of disambiguation is simple and straightforward. I don't see any pressing reason to think it's unsuitable in the case that's been brought up. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * But it would mean, for example, that if someone made a new very obscure film called Casablanca, say, that just managed to scrape over the notability requirements, then we would have to rename the vastly better known Casablanca (film) to distinguish it. (And rename it back if the other one gets deleted.) In extreme situations like that, it just seems wrong (for much the same reason as it would seem wrong to rename an article like Barack Obama just because another person with the same name now happens to have a Wikipedia article).--Kotniski (talk) 12:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * But that's precisely how it works: we have a primary topic, and then we disambiguate the rest, because once you've disambiguated you're basically reliant on people going to dab pages / hatnotes to find the article anyway. Imagine trying to decide which John Smith (politician) deserved precedence, and in which order. Right now the rule is very simple, and it seems unnecessary to go complicating it for the sake of edge cases. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, we have to disambiguate the rest. And they might be disambiguated (film) and (2010 film), or they might be disambiguated (Dickens novel) and (Steele novel). It's precisely up to the content project's naming conventions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That doesn't address the point I was making, nor does it explain why adding another layer of complexity here is a net benefit. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Avoiding making the additional rule here and leaving it to the content projects is removing another layer of complexity, not adding one. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That most certainly does not reduce the complexity. Editors should not have to go grepping around various corners of the encyclopedia looking for project-specific guidelines because the MoS decided to punt the issue. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * As long as there are content-specific guidelines, editors who work on article in multiple content areas will have to go "grepping around". Editors who aren't familiar with the guidelines for the articles they work on will need to be cleaned up after. Not over-reaching is not a punt. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) I suppose we can imagine someone looking for the famous film Casablanca, not knowing what year it came out - as soon as they see the title "Casablanca (film)" (on a list of topics, or in the drop-down search box we now have, or simply at the top of its article), they can be pretty sure they are in the right place. If they see "Casablanca (1942 film)" instead, it gives them pause for doubt. The many such readers should not be inconvenienced just in order to provide a benefit (if there even is a benefit) to the far far smaller number of readers who might be looking for the hypothetical obsure second film called Casablanca.--Kotniski (talk) 15:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * We already suffer for this with, say, our many John Smiths, or any number of some-more-famous-than-others footballers. The question is whether introducing a whole new level of complexity into the naming guidelines is worth the effort. I would argue that it isn't; you get one shot at WP:COMMONAME, and if you're not the common name then tough luck, you get the least worst alternative that uniquely distinguishes you from any other alternatives. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, avoiding introducing another level of complexity. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is just flatly false. Asking additional questions is by definition introducing more complexity. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Since I have not proposed any additional questions, this is just flatly false. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Since I've now looked up the appropriate guidelines: for films, see Naming conventions (films) and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films). Although they appear to possibly contradict each other. :-) -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It does seem that the film project have decided not to do sub-primary topics, but I don't really see why - what are the arguments to counter the advantages I've set out above? (I don't really believe that "it would be too complicated" is a valid argument - it's no more complicated than deciding on primary topics is ordinarily.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course it's more complicated, because it brings in hundreds of thousands of new discussions. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Except when they decide to do sub-primary topics, such as Independence Day (film). I don't know what other arguments they might have, but that's a good question for Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films). And a good reason for not trying to put in a parallel and likely contradictory guideline here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The two RMs on Talk:Independence Day (film) are both train wrecks, but even then my reading of the second one is that there was reasonable consensus to move to a dated title (which I imagine will eventually happen). Hardly a great example. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I was not using it as an model of how the projects should handle their naming conventions. I was using it as an example of where the conventions are handled (i.e., in the project). It is a great example of that. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

For me, "bringing in [many - surely not 00000's actually] of new discussions" is not necessarily a bad thing, if those discussions (or simply uncontested moves, in practice) lead to improvements to the encyclopedia. And laying down a general rule (assuming it had consensus) would actually avoid many such discussions, or speed them up (notice we are having the discussions at Independence Day, Double Take and so on anyway).--Kotniski (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * There already is a general rule. Notwithstanding a weak close to the second ID4 RM and that the Double Take one hasn't finished yet, it appears that the discussions which do pop up tend to favour the status quo. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: There was a similar discussion here last April, now in Archive 30. — Station1 (talk) 23:00, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The model
A good way of describing the difference between the status quo and the proposal, so as to highlight why the proposal is more complicated:


 * Current system:

One primary topic, and N secondary topics.

Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, a primary topic can live at a non-disambiguated title, say Bob. All secondary topics use a disambiguator which uniquely describes them. For instance, there is Bob (actor), Bob (policeman), Bob (painter born 1982), Bob (painter born 1964), Bob (Scottish politician) and Bob (English politician). Now Bob is a politician as well: he's an Irish politician, and indeed has his own redirect at Bob (Irish politician) which points at Bob. Bob (disambiguation) links all of these.

This is a flat hierarchy, with one page "first amongst equals". It doesn't really matter whether the primary topic is actually at Bob or whether Bob redirects to Bob (Irish politician); we've simply picked one primary topic for the entire space. Should the most famous Bob change, it's a one-step process to swap which article is at Bob; all other pages are already unambiguous.

If a new Bob, also an English politician, comes along, this disrupts the system a bit. Bob (English politician) is now ambiguous, as it could refer to either. So what we do is move the existing article to Bob (English politician born 1959) and add a new article at Bob (English politician born 1970). Bob (English politician) could redirect to either, with a hatnote, or it could go to Bob (disambiguation).


 * Proposed system:

A hierarchy of topics based on notability.

Each of the Bobs is ranked in order of notability. They are then assigned titles which are as unambiguous as possible compared to those higher in rank. So you might have Bob (the Irish politician), Bob (painter) (born in 1964), Bob (painter born 1982), Bob (English politician), Bob (actor), and Bob (Scottish politician).

An order of rank is maintained. Should the 1982-born Bob become more famous than the 1964 Bob then his article is moved to Bob (painter) and 1964's Bob to Bob (painter born 1964). If he becomes even more famous then he might become just Bob and the Irish politician moved to Bob (Irish politician).

This time, when our new English politician comes along, there's an immediate question as to whether he is more or less famous than the present Bob (English politician). If it's decided that he's better-known, the old Bob is moved to Bob (English politician born 1959), and the new one to Bob (English politician)


 * Conclusion:

The proposed system does, in fact, introduce a significant new level of complexity, as it is a new model for disambiguation. Rather than a one-level system where all the secondary topics are of equal standing, you now had secondary topics, tertiary topics, ternary topics and so on. New articles must be compared with every existing page to check their relative standing and assigned the least ambiguous titles available at their level.

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it doesn't have to be that complicated in practice. Most times it will be intuitive, like with these films. Under normal circumstances people will just disambiguate in the simplistic way you prefer; but occasionally someone will notice that a title reached in that way is being made oddly precise because of the existence of something much more obscure - and once you know that's the case you ought to be able to solve the problem in the obvious way without having people quoting rules at you saying that's not allowed. (Oh, it's not a question of "more famous/less famous", but a question of "much, much more famous". It's not going to arise except in a small minority of cases.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see that theoretical edge cases really need concern us (in neither of the real-life examples presented does there seem to be consensus that the present rule is broken). We have a simple rule right now which is broadly supported. Codifying exceptions to it simply muddies the waters. For those sitations where there is genuine consensus that we should buck the trend for the sake of user-friendliness we already have a solution. The exceptions prove the rule. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Rather inconsistent that you point to IAR as a reason not to cover every possible eventuality in the rules; but when a situation does come up where we could use an arguably more user-friendly solution, you argue against it purely on the grounds that the rules don't permit it.--Kotniski (talk) 09:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess I don't see the examples in question as being important enough to warrant ignoring the rule. Nevertheless, "simple rule with occasiona exception" is far better than "considerably more complicated rule". Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * thumperward, the "proposed" system is from the current naming conventions. You should propose the change to WP:NC(F), then, and also the other naming conventions that would need to be changed (or created), since those guidelines are the source of complexity you're observing. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:19, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That is simply an untruth; not only does WP:NC(F) support my interpretation, but no good argument has yet been advanced to suggest that anyone thinks WP:PRIMARYTOPIC applies to disambiguated titles as well. I find this gainsaying tiresome, and won't be responding to it any more. If you feel the need to refute my points again, do so with evidence rather than simply reversing my words or inverting my conclusions. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:45, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The disambiguating text (the stuff in the parenthesis in the title) is generally seen 1) on the top of the article page, where it is (probably) generally ignored or 2) on a disambiguation page, where there is further guidance to disambiguate it. So for a reader, its not SUPER important what it is.  Editors would be interested in knowing how to provide a string that is unambiguous and somehow "makes sense," but that would vary on the type of article it is - thus having projects workup reasonable guidelines for a subset of articles makes sense.
 * We would not have "secondary" primary targets unless we had "secondary" disambiguation pages. That Bogart gets "Casablanca (movie)" and my Uncle Ralph's home video gets "Casablanca (1967 movie)" is of little real importance and shows extremely small bias (if any) given how many people would pay attention.  I have seen a few actual "secondary" disambiguation pages (Anthology (album) comes to mind), but they are rare and don't (usually?) have a "secondary" primary target but are "straight" disambiguation pages.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 19:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * (after ec) Great, if those naming conventions support your interpretation, we should be all set. I do agree that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC doesn't apply to disambiguated titles -- the primary topic is only ever the article at the title without any disambiguator. Currently, the selection of the disambiguators is left to content guidelines' naming conventions such as WP:NC(F). Whether they want to use (film), (movie), or (motion picture) is up to them, as is whether they want to allow Independence Day (film) alongside Independence Day (1983 film), or whether they want to enforce a distinction like Titanic (1997 film) alongside Titanic (1953 film), or even if they want to do it different ways for different titles. But it's up to those naming conventions. From a disambiguation perspective, any or none of those conventions is needed, as long as the non-primary-topic articles get disambiguators or some sort. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I completely disagree with the premise of this section (The Model). What are labeled "Current system" and "Proposed system" are almost exactly reversed. Substitute "usage" for "notability" and what is labeled the proposed system is very nearly what has been normal in WP for years, especially for books, albums, songs and films, but also for some other topics. There are numerous instances (I don't want to guess how many) of articles of the type "ABC (qualifier)" and "ABC (more specific qualifier)" with a hatnote on the former, and guidelines have allowed if not encouraged that. It's only recently that one editor has moved a large number of films that used the "(film)" qualifier to "(year film)". It's true some editors prefer this method, but it's hardly a consensus, and is closer to a "proposed change" from the status quo than a "current system". As to the "Conclusion", there is no greater difficulty in deciding if there is a primary topic between "ABC (qualifier)" and "ABC (more specific qualifier)" than there is in deciding between "ABC" and "ABC (qualifier)". There is always either one or no primary topic for any specific phrase that can be searched for or linked to. If there is one primary topic, there are one or more secondary topics for the phrase that need to be (further) disambiguated, but there's never a hierarchy beyond that. Station1 (talk) 06:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Where have the guidelines "allowed if not encouraged that"? I accept that some of the WikiProject guidelines might do (though I disagree with that), but the general naming guidelines don't allow for anything of the sort on my reading of them. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The more important point is actual usage over time, but to answer the question, I was thinking primarily of WP:PRECISION, which is policy that says "When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. Be precise but only as precise as is needed," and disambiguation guidelines referenced from there, specifically WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which currently says "Although a term may potentially refer to more than one topic, it is often the case that one of these topics is highly likely – much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined – to be the subject being sought when a reader enters that term in the Search box. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. If a primary topic exists, the term should be the title of (or redirect to) the article on that topic." Notice it refers to "a term" that can be entered "in the Search box". "ABC (film)" is just as much a term that can be entered in a Search box (or linked to from another article) as "ABC". If "ABC (film)" is much more sought than "ABC (1923 film)", that suggests to me the name of the former not be changed. Station1 (talk) 08:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * "As needed" still implies that titles should uniquely identify their subjects. "As simple as possible, but no simpler", to quote clever men. And regardless of how you parse the current wording of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, it is made very clear in that guidelines what its scope is and this is broadly understood by the community. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:35, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If titles always had to "uniquely identify their subject" we would never have a primary topic. Changing a title is only one way of handling ambiguity. Another is hatnotes that direct the minority to a lesser-sought topic. Station1 (talk) 22:32, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Over 4000 pages are in Category:Redirects from incomplete disambiguations. 69.3.72.9 (talk) 15:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes? -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This relates to the above section Sub-primary topics. Many pages in the category are the result of lengthy discussions about how to disambiguate X (film) et cetera.  The size of the category is a small measure of the size of the problem, and review of talk pages may help to crystalize the concept of sub-primary topics. 69.3.72.9 (talk) 19:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Cowman Publishing Company
I am confused. Why should we create a red link for an article whose subject is not Notable? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:11, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please don't duplicate questions on user spaces and WP Talk. Or at least not my User talk. Cut-and-pasted answer from my Talk:
 * The red link is used in the article space. The red link guidelines can be used to determine if that should be there. As long as it is there in the article space, however, that's the only criterion for using it on the disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your less-than-polite message. It is snippiness like that which drives away editors, including (for a long time), yours truly. Sincerely, your friend. GeorgeLouis (talk) 22:37, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Duplicating questions wastes the time of the person whose talk page you duplicate it on, and so is less than polite. But, you're also sincerely welcome for the answer, which was polite after the other problem was pointed out. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Spare me. GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * [REDACTED. Never mind.] -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Help with how to handle a mixed language scenario
I have started a discussion at the talk page for New River (Mexico-United States) that involves disambiguation that I've not had to deal with. In a nut shell, because this river crosses a border from a spanish speaking country to an english speaking country, and the border regions of both tend to use words that are hybrid terms from both languages, this river is also called Rio Nuevo, R&iacute;o Nuevo, Nuevo River, etc. etc. with most of these terms redirecting to this article (but not New River which links to a dab page). However there are also other "New Rivers" that are known by the spanish title, including one in Jamica and Puerto Rico. I propose that all of these should be handled by the New River dab page, but not having dealt with "bi-lingual" redirection before, would like some input from the experts. Thanks. Dave (talk) 00:31, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Style clarification, please
WP:DAB states "For a prime example of an actual disambiguation page, see Lift." (emphasis mine) These last two versions contradict WP:MOSDAB in style. I enthusiastically prefer the MOSDAB style, because it prevents the intrusive introduction of a table of contents, and presents the list of links most clearly in a compact space. So, if the prime example is intended to be #1 above, the article should link to that version directly. Where are we at, consensus-wise? --Lexein (talk) 11:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) This old version used the WP:MOSDAB(2010-09-12) style throughout - simple bolded text, same size as link text, without == or === wikisections.
 * 2) The next edit introduced ===sections=== (3=).
 * 3) The current version of Lift uses ==sections== (2=) to separate groups of links.
 * I would agree with your view, though I suppose some people think the table of contents is a good thing (for very long dab pages) - if so, then I prefer the ===sections=== (lower level), as the higher ones are too intrusive for separators within what is relaly a single list.--Kotniski (talk) 11:33, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I also prefer bold-text-headed groups instead of sections unless the dab page is long. If sections are used, however, I prefer 2= headings because otherwise it looks like a subheading and (since the page is "long enough" to warrant sections), I might scroll up to see what the parent section is, in vain. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * For me the problem with the 2= headings (as we have at Lift today) is that they make it look - or rather, the first of them makes it look - as if the original list of things lift can refer to is now complete, and the rest of the page is going to be about something else. To make me satisfied with the logical structure, it would need another line just above the first 2= heading, to the effect of "and many other meanings, organized in sections below:" (or else an extra 2= heading, like "==General==", right at the start of the list under the introductory line).--Kotniski (talk) 12:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I see the same problem with 2= - the dividing bar breaks up the list continuity. There's no prose, so no strong conceptual need for Stop! This topic is now different! --Lexein (talk) 17:02, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Compare with this 4= ====version====, with TOC at the top right, which visually complies with WP:MOSDAB, and hangs together, for my money, rather well. Note that it's been copyedited for single-line description on a 1024x768 display. I feel that the visual notion of DAB-as-list should prevail over Wikipedia-page-as-article-with-big-divisions here. --Lexein (talk) 17:02, 13 September 2010 (UTC) -- updated 03:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:ACCESS (as well as good HTML structure) recommends that section headings should not skip levels. I agree that with short lists (or lists containing many sections with only a few entries), the == style headings can overwhelm the page. But how long is too long? Headings do help to structure a page and the bold only heading do not encode any structural information into the page that can be used by screen readers and similar applications. older ≠ wiser 03:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Wenz
WENZ vs. Wenz vs. Wenz (disambiguation). Where should be disambig? (I think on the Wenz.) --Snek01 (talk) 21:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the dab page should be at Wenz, and have moved it, added a new entry, tidied up the hatnote on WENZ. PamD (talk) 22:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Does WP:PRIMARYTOPIC trump WP:V?
Please answer this simple yes/no question:

Does WP:PRIMARYTOPIC trump WP:V?

This deals with my attempts to change the first sentence of the page Pig (disambiguation).

Thank you in advance for your kind short answer, along with any comments you might like to make. Chrisrus (talk) 01:14, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The answer to your question is "No". WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is a guideline, while WP:V is policy. However, I don't see the connection to Pig (disambiguation). The first sentence of any page titled "Xyz (disambiguation)" must link back to the article "Xyz". Station1 (talk) 03:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Same question, same timestamp was also asked at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. There's a lot going on at Talk:Pig, including a requested move. --doncram (talk) 03:48, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Talk:Pig.... Pig Talk.... Pig Latin? ....sorry. Going away now. –Schmloof (talk · contribs) 04:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Objection to "See also XXXX (disambiguation) on disambiguation pages themselves
I guess I missed the discussion or even the existence of WP:INTDABLINK until the robots started going after my disambig pages, so I suppose its too late to do anything, but I do not agree with the robots altering "See also XXXX" to "See also XXXX (disambiguation)" on disambiguation pages themselves.

In my opinion, the word "disambiguation" is 1) only marginally a real word, and 2) is certainly not a common word, and 3) is a long word and difficult to parse. I consider it likely that many, or at least some, readers would read these two entries as being essentially identical: In other words, as nonsense. "Disambiguation" is Wikipedia editor's jargon. And let's not forget that the Wikipedia editor demographic skews quite a bit more educated than the general populace. I would be unsurprised for many, or at least some, readers reaction to be "XXXX disambiguation? That sounds like a machine or maybe something from philosophy; I just want the football team".
 * See also: XXXX (disambiguation)
 * See also: XXXX (antidisestablishmentarianism)

I think it's entirely appropriate in hatnotes but not on disambig pages. I would think that the robot could easily skip disambig pages since they are labled as such. I would think it highly probable that references to disambiguation pages that are on disambiguation pages are intentional.

Well OK if that's what you people decided, we can't discuss things for ever. Just my tuppence. Herostratus (talk) 23:45, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Let me further elucidate. The situation with hatnotes is entirely different from the situation with disambig pages. Hatnotes really only come into play when there is a preferred outcome for a given term. For instance, searching on "Winston Churchill" will take you to the page for the erstwhile PM. The hatnote couldn't say "For other uses, see Winston Churchill" because there is no disambig page named "Winston Churchill"; there's only one page with that name, and you're on it. And to imply otherwise would be confusing, so you have to say something, and (disambiguation) is probably the best way to say it. Disambig pages themselves, entirely different situation. Herostratus (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason we do this is twofold. First, you may have noticed that we have nearly 900,000 links to disambig pages - down from 1.35 million a year ago, thanks to the efforts of our hard working disambiguators. The vast majority of these are errors, intending to point to an actual article. In order to fix these links, we have programs that generate lists of all of the links to disambig pages. These programs can not tell if the author intended to point to a particular article, or to the disambig page, so if the sentence is " There are many people named Jeff Jorgenson ", there's no way to know that this is actually intended to point to the disambig page unless a pair of human eyes fall on it and make that determination. However, we have many editors going over these lists all the time, and every time a disambig page is intentionally linked, every one of the editors going through that list will have to take the time to independently review that link and determine that it is intentional. In order to make it clear to the list-making programs (and editors running through the lists by hand) that these links are intentional, we pipe them so that they read " There are many people named Jeff Jorgenson ". Look at the "What links here" list for the disambiguation page, James Smith. We can tell right away that all of the articles that are shown on that page to redirect to "James Smith" through James Smith (disambiguation) are intentional links to that page, and don't need to be checked. Multiply that time savings by the fifteen-thousand or so disambiguation pages (that we know of so far) that have, collectively, hundreds of thousands of intentional incoming links. Second, more straightforwardly, using that redirect and having that redirect link unpiped alerts the reader up front to the fact that the page they are being taken to is a disambiguation page. 00:50, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is from the Webster's dictionary built into my Mac System X software: "disambiguate |ˌdisamˈbigyoōˌāt|verb [ trans. ]remove uncertainty of meaning from (an ambiguous sentence, phrase, or other linguistic unit). DERIVATIVES disambiguation |-ˌbigyoōˈā sh ən| noun." So I guess it is now an accepted word, and one can always guess from the context what it means. Your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:31, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

First of all, let me thank you for this excellent and difficult and probably underappreciated task that you are doing. Hats off. And I feel bad about adding to your workload and taking you away from your important tasks.

As to the other: Yes, I'm sure its a real world, just not common. One can guess its meaning from the context in a hatnote, but not in a "see also" link on a page, I would think.

You say "...The vast majority of these are errors, intending to point to an actual article". But is this true of links on disambiguation pages? I bet not. And if it was deemed desirable, could not the robot distinguish between disambiguation pages and regular articles? I would think this would be easy since disambiguation pages are in Category: Disambiguation pages.

And now I am confused. Take for instance the page Still Waters, a disambiguation page. There is a "See also" section which contained the entry Stillwater. The robot changed this to Stillwater (disambiguation). Am I permitted to use editor discretion to change this back? In WP:INTDABLINK, in the subsection "How to link to a disambiguation page", it says not to do this. (Although the "Montgomery" example at Disambiguation doesn't reflect this; I assume that it's just not been updated.) Herostratus (talk) 15:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to change it into a piped link (like " Stillwater ") I don't think anyone will care. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:13, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, the Montgomery example at WP:DDAB does use Montgomery (disambiguation) and Montgomery County (disambiguation). I expect these were piped to make the running text clearer. Perhaps these should be unlinked. Personally, while I wouldn't get worked up about piping an intentional disambiguation link in the See also section, I would most likely correct these as I came across them. WP:FURTHERDAB clearly states Links in most hatnotes and in the "See also" sections of articles or other disambiguation pages should not be piped; that is, the word "(disambiguation)" should be visible in the link to alert the reader to the nature of the linked page. In other contexts, links to disambiguation pages may or may not be piped, depending on the same considerations that apply to the formatting of other links. older ≠ wiser 16:55, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * IMHO we should allow disambiguation pages to pipe links to other disambiguation pages. The word is indeed pretty clumsy and repeating it endlessly in the visible text serves no real purpose. A see-also section of a disambiguation page is expected to be linking to other disambiguation pages. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 17:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Re A see-also section of a disambiguation page is expected to be linking to other disambiguation pages -- A see also section may include links to any type of page, not only to other disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 17:24, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll add to that the fact that our disambig pages are imperfect. There are many instances, for example, where the disambig page for "Foo" will include a list of persons with the surname "Foo", and will have on that list " Joe Foo, a Canadian footballer" when Joe Foo is in fact a disambig page, and there are a half dozen people by that name, only one of whom is Joe Foo (Canadian footballer) . Last year, we put together a list of all disambig pages linking to other disambig pages, and so far it seems that about a third of those links are genuinely bad links requiring disambig fixing. bd2412  T 17:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * "If you want to change it into a piped link (like " Stillwater ") I don't think anyone will care." But no, per WP:FURTHERDAB, Links in most hatnotes and in the "See also" sections of articles or other disambiguation pages should not be piped; that is, the word "(disambiguation)" should be visible. I am not concerned about this one link but the policy and the robot in general. I think that "and in the "See also" sections of articles or other disambiguation pages" should be stricken. Although I haven't really considered the case of non-disambiguation article pages; that might be different, but probably not.


 * @ User:BD2412: Ah. Interesting point. And there is also the possibility of inline links in the text of disambig pages, although these are heartily discouraged. Well, I would think that altering the robot to use logic such as "IF (it's an unpiped disambig link) AND (it's on a disambig page) AND (the preceding string is "*" or "* ") AND (it's followed by a linefeed) THEN (leave it alone)" should take care of that, and should be doable (granting that IANAP).


 * Is this OK? Does anyone object if I contact the robot's human master with this request? Herostratus (talk) 12:44, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * (Responding to first paragraph above): Well, I have seen plenty of cases where the "See also" section of a disambiguation page contained lines like "* Foo (disambiguation)" or "* Foo, a disambiguation page" or even more elaborate variations of these. I'd rather see plain old Foo (disambiguation) than any of these.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:50, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Herostratus, unfortunately, that won't help. Disambiguators still need to manually review the "what links here" page to be sure disambig pages have been cleared of incoming links. Unless there is some way to prevent disambiguation pages in "see also" sections from showing up when a user clicks "what links here", these still need to be parsed out to save the reviewing time. That's an issue to take up with the developers. bd2412  T 14:16, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear from my previous comments, I think the guideline is fine the way it is. That is, in general terms on disambiguation pages should not be piped (even those in the See also section) and intentional links to disambiguation pages should be formed with "(disambiguation)" in the link. older ≠ wiser 15:08, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

These "see also" sections are indeed necessary. There are many words that sound alike or similar, and one may come to one DAB page looking for something that will end up being on the other. You may think everyone is a spelling expert, but not everyone is. Also, there are variations on everything. An example is Light (disambiguation), Lite (disambiguation), and The Light (disambiguation). All of these are so long, you cannot combine them. Still, it is very likely someone will come to one looking for an entry on another. Tatterfly (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Fab Five
How should Fab Five be dealt with? It is disambig-tagged, I can see why it is tagged this way, but I (would) have great diffuculty cleaning it up to comply with WP:MOSDAB. Does someone have an idea? – sgeureka t•c 10:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * To start with, I would remove the references. As for the groups, if there is a link for the group (e.g., Spice Girls), I would unlink the individual members' names (you could leave the names there, just not linked). The others might take a little more thought. --Auntof6 (talk) 10:39, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, it doesn't look like a dab page at all to me. Except for the first and last bullets, none of these entries are -- or likely would be -- titled Fab Five. This looks like a set index article, a list of things that might be referred to by the same nickname, as the first sentence states. Refs are appropriate for that kind of list because they probably aren't in the linked articles. I've replaced disambig with SIA, but if anyone disagrees feel free to revert. Station1 (talk) 22:51, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

primary topic and recentism
How, if at all, should WP:RECENTISM be considered with respect to primary topic determination? It seems to me that primary topic determination should be concerned with what people are most likely to be looking for when entering a given term in the Search box, without judging why they are doing it, including recentism. In other words, if our purpose is to serve our readers as well as possible (in this case to configure our titles such that people get to articles directly rather than via dab pages as often as reasonably possible) just because recentism is the reason many are looking up some particular topic should not be a reason to not make that topic primary. Any objections to adding something to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC along these lines? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I would not want to move articles around daily based on only yesterday's usage (or tomorrow's anticipated usage), but I agree with the point: the primary topic is the primary topic whether or not it is the recent-est. As long as all ambiguous encyclopedic topics are given encyclopedic coverage (no more or less), I believe WP:RECENTISM is met, regardless of which topic is primary, so the two are not in conflict. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that recentism is irrelevant. Sure, just because a particular topic is recent does not disqualify it from being a primary topic, but a topic also doesn't become "primary" just because of a short-term burst of interest among some group of readers.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * A short-term burst of interest among some group of readers shouldn't result in page moves, correct. But a year-long surge of interest, which is still short in terms of encyclopedic coverage, should be fine for a move, even though it's only the most recent year and all the years before that would have had a different primary topic. Maybe we can specify some minimum time period with the traffic measurement link. Twelve months, or six, or eighteen, or whatever. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction of Primary topic guidelines
On Disambiguations for discussion Tatterfly would like to list the criteria from WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as reasons not to make a topic primary. I pointed out the disconnect on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguations for discussion, but no response. It could probably use some other eyes to make sure we don't introduce other contradictions with the new guideline. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal - Disambiguations for discussion (Dfd)
Here is a new idea: Disambiguations for discussion. It would be the same format as Cfd, Rfd, Tfd, etc. except it would be for disambiguation-related topics. Some examples of what would be discussed here woudl be:


 * What should be included or not on a disambiguation page, if no agreement can be made any other way
 * Whether a plain title should be used for an article with its most common usage or as a disambiguation
 * Whether disambiguation should be done through a hatnote or a disambiguation page
 * Whether two disambiguation pages with similarly spelled words should be merged
 * If a disambiguation page should be deleted. Though disambiguations are technically in mainspace, they are not actual articles, so it does not make sense for them to go to Afds. (Please note that redirects in mainspace are discussed at Rfd, not Afd)

Tatterfly (talk) 14:30, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the first four items are appropriately discussed on the talk page. Perhaps a more formal mechanism to notify parties interested in DAB activities that such discussions are in progress would be useful.  Having it on the talk pages keeps the discussion and reasons for various choices with the page for future reference rather than a click or so away.  The problem with the last item is that usually the discussion of a DAB page deletion often overlaps with discussion of whether another article would take its place.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 14:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I think creating and having Dfd is too bureaucratic. In my experience, it is really rare that more than two editors are interested in a certain dab page and need outside input to come to a conclusion. The few times that there is a deadlocked DAB discussion, it's easy to leave a note to request more input. Dfd would just be a solution looking for a problem. – sgeureka t•c 15:08, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It is true. The existence of most DAB pages is relatively uncontroversial. Even if they have just two entries that borderline belong, they are seen as cheap in the same way as redirects and not challenged. But this does occasionally happen. I once created a DAB page that I had all the reason in the world belonged. What I did not know is that someone had created it before, and it was deleted via Afd. It ended up in deletion review, was restored, then deleted via Afd again. After that, it ended up in DRV again, but was not restored. But I later recreated it with some changes, and it has remained to this day.


 * What is usually more controversial is whether the plain title should be used for a common meaning or DAB. I have been involved in quite a lot of sometimes heated discussions about that. These are far more common altogether.


 * In all, I do believe that if Dfd did exist, there would be a comparable number of entries every day to what there is for Cfd, Rfd, and Tfd. That is what is most important in determinining if this should exist. Tatterfly (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You haven't articulated how your suggested mechanism would improve things, only that it is like something else and there are discussions that might occur there. Why move them from the talk pages?  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 21:04, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this proposal. It would allow people who are generally interested in disambiguation pages to have a centralized location to discuss issues, thereby supporting a consistency in results. Currently, problematic disambiguation pages are discussed in diverse places, including this page along with Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation, and of course the individual disambig talk pages. The three Wikipedia-space talk pages, in particular, typically have several discussions on particular pages going at any one time, and it is not so easy to follow them all and keep outcomes consistent and policy-driven. A Dfd setup would allow us to resolve, in a single place, disputes relating to disambig content and arrangement, primary topic disputes, and disputes as to whether a page should be a disambig at all (I have highlighted examples like High priest, Fatal Fury, Tekken, Mars symbol, and Venus symbol at WP:DPL as pages that should be articles, rather than disambig pages). It would also reduce the clutter on project-space talk pages, leaving only general purpose policy discussions. bd2412 T 02:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think such a page might be useful as an escalation point, but most of these issues should be handled on the individual talk pages. And perhaps, instead of adding a fourth place to discuss such things, we could more formally suggest escalation to either the project or mos talk pages.  --John (User:Jwy/talk) 17:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I am starting to work on a DFD page as a proposal. Anyone is welcome to give their input and modify it as they feel is necessary. Tatterfly (talk) 16:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Where would this be found? -> Disambiguations_for_discussion --John (User:Jwy/talk) 17:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I am working on it now Disambiguations for discussion. Tatterfly (talk) 17:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Why not just have it at Redirects for Discussion? There have been several proposals to add disambiguation pages to WP:RFD. In essence, a disambiguation page is a redirect with multiple targets... 76.66.200.95 (talk) 06:45, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have suggested combining the two into NfD (navigations for discussion) before. That's more the common "essence" of the two. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:54, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure of that, since Wikipedia has alternate navigation schemes, composed of indices, TOCs and topic lists... which are nothing like redirects and dab pages. Though they seem to have been deleted more and more over recent years as people forget that Wikipedia ever had such things. The new XfD should probably cover redirects, dab pages, and set indices. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 09:48, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Set indexes are list articles and should be remain covered by AfD. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:45, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the point is that calling it "Navigations for discussion" might cause confusion since there are a number of other things considered to be navigational aids besides redirects and disambiguation. As for the proposal itself, I'm afraid I really don't see the point. There's already a defined process for proposing and discussing moves, which already works OK. Discussion of the content of a disambiguation page belongs on the talk page of that disambiguation page. The only marginal value might be to have a centralized listing or directory linking to discussions taking place on various talk pages. And what I see of the proposed page now seems mostly to be a somewhat problematic duplication of content from this page. older ≠ wiser 12:08, 18 October 2010 (UTC)