Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links/Maintenance

History
The "parent" project of this one, Disambiguation pages with links, has been running for a number of years. If you look in the update history there are many more pages than the ones currently showing on the maintainence list. Pages that have been previously cleared, but have not yet worked their way back up to the threshhold of that project. But they are deserving of maintainence as well. I think an effort should be made to add those pages to the maintainence list as well. I would be wiling to work through, adding them, but I figured I should let it be known what I'm doing. I'll start working on it. My idea is to place them at the front of the list, since they've not had attention for longer than those items steming from the current cycle of link repair. Placing them at the front of the list will put them at higher priority for maintainence. TexasAndroid 14:13, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I think that's a great idea. I only whacked this page up here as a quick and dirty fix to a problem I've perceived (and that should be obvious by the lack of quality and attention to detail in the first version).  One thing that I've noticed is that some dab pages require more frequent attention than others - they attract more ambiguous links, on an ongoing basis, than others.  We need some way of separating them out.  Perhaps if each dab page had it's own move instruction, like:
 * Roman (move 1/4 way down the list)
 * Ettrick (move to bottom)
 * CGI (move 1/2 way down the list)
 * With an instruction to increase or decrease the distance depending on how many links there were when you go to disambiguate it again. Actually, that wouldn't work, because some pages would get lots of attention and some would get none.  Or would they? Josh Parris &#9993; 00:53, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I like the idea. Yes, some pages would get more attention than others, but that's the point.  I don't think any pages would get *no* attention, because the list of pages that would only move part way down would be fairly short, and all the rest would move to the bottom as they are worked, moving everything else up.
 * I would think that for those entries that are going to be moved only part-way down, we should have specific notes on those entries lines. Since the majority will move to the bottom, that would be the default, and we really only need stick notices on those that behave differently. TexasAndroid 11:16, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Roman/German
For a maintainence project like this, do we want a separate list like the one in the Specific Lists section? IMHO those should be wrapped up into the main project list. That way, if this project can gain traction, they'll get regular attention simply by the mechanics of the project. TexasAndroid 21:05, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't quite follow you. Are you suggesting we inject all disambiguated pages into the Disambiguation pages with links Specific Lists section?  Josh Parris &#9993; 00:53, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Mostly just the tem in the first section. If they're in the main list, *and* in the Special list, they're double covered.  I guess that's not a horrid thing, but it seems a bit overkill. TexasAndroid 11:12, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and I subjected the section Roman/German becaus those two are now on both lists, I beleive. TexasAndroid 21:05, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

coverage
sometimes articles link to the disambiguation page purposely, because the alternative meanings cover the actual usage. these links cannot be disambiguated without loss of coverage. 70.29.131.204 07:12, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree with that. I've seen several other editors agree with it too. Maybe we should put something explaining this at the begininning of this project page. --Commander Keane 13:22, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
 * In those cases, link to Foo (disambiguation) . If that's not the disambiguation page, create a redirect from Foo (disambiguation) to Foo . Josh Parris # 00:51, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

U2
I scrolled down the list for something that I knew enough about to be able to do a good job. Looked at U2. That redirects to the band and there is a U2 (disambiguation) page. Should U2 be on this list? Is the task here to make sure that everything that links to it is related to the band? --JimmyTheWig 08:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Probably what has happened is that U2 was origanlly a dab and now goes straight to the band. It should stay on the list, with the objective to go through all of its "What links here" and redirect ones that don't go to the band. --Commander Keane 12:21, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Organisation
This project pages needs some organisation. At the moment there are three sections for links: General, Country adjectives or Non-unique names. I am thinking of adding Acronyms, are there any other notable sections we should have? --Commander Keane 09:51, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Potential automation of this page
I have started working on a bot script that would update this page automatically (perhaps once a week). Please see User:RussBot/Disambig maintenance bot test for sample output. (The link counts on that page are only links from articles in the Main: namespace, although links to redirect pages usually should be counted as well.) Once the script is completed, the output would be written to this page rather than to the User page. Comments, questions, and suggestions for improvements would be most welcome. --Russ Blau (talk) 16:55, 17 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Very nice, Russ Blau! I had done the same in .php--takes about 10-12 minutes to run and was going to put it on a scheduler as well.  The only part I hadn't finished was updating the page at the end.  Since you've gone down the same path, keep going!!  You may want to mark the maintance page as "Inusefor" or something to keep people from adding links to the page while your script is retabulating the results.  Please let me know if I can help at all!!  I'd be interested to hear the technical side of what you've done :-).  >:  Roby Wayne  Talk &bull;  Hist  &bull;  E@ 18:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I knew that if your script was taking 10 minutes and mine was taking 3 hours, I had to be doing something wrong. And I was. :-) I fixed a fairly serious logic error in my script, and now mine runs in about 10 minutes also.  I've updated the test page, and will try to polish it a bit more when I get the time.  --Russ Blau (talk) 00:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Awesome!!! It's interesting..I come back later and look at some of my code and see things that definitely can be tweaked :-).  Lemme know if I can help!!  >: Roby Wayne Talk &bull; Hist &bull; E@ 03:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

OK I have today (29 Oct) replaced the content of this page with the results of my bot run. I merged in all the new pages from the 20-October dump, which accounts for the increase in the numbers of articles and links. After it has run for a few weeks, I may add some refinements such as removing perenially inactive pages. Any comments on the 15-link cutoff? Frankly, I picked "15" for one reason only -- so that the "Non-identical personal names" section wouldn't be empty. I'm not sure this is a good enough reason, though. It might make more sense to have a higher cutoff and focus attention more on the pages that need it most. --Russ Blau (talk) 17:25, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Some info on what "Active" means for the stats would be useful.--Commander Keane 19:33, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
 * So Russ, the inactive pages are stored in the bot, and not on the project page?--Commander Keane 16:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The inactive pages are actually stored on the page, in HTML comments. If you edit the page (or do a diff from the History page), you will see them all.
 * I should have checked that, silly me.--Commander Keane 17:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Page move proposal
This page isn't really "Disambiguation pages maintenance". It really just the broom closet for Disambiguation pages with links.

I think a new page location of Disambiguation pages with links/Maintenance would be appropriate.

It also make more sense with things like Disambiguation pages with links/Guide applying to this page just as much as WP:DPL.


 * Support and propose.--Commander Keane 18:42, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Support as the original creator of this page. With a bot in place to automate the listing of maintenance tasks, the world has become an easier place to dab in. Josh Parris 03:26, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Support and propose -- S iva1979 Talk to me  17:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support; I'd almost forgotten about this. Just give me some warning when you do it so that I can update my maintenance bot.  --Russ Blau (talk) 19:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support; It has to be mainstream, as it is important part of Wikipedia usability. I would add that it deserves to have a shortcut - WP:DPL/M. -- Goldie (tell me) 19:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support; Two pages for the same goal is confusing. So, when is ot going to happen? Proposal is over a year ago. Edokter 15:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary of languages
Dictionary of languages must be one of the most useless lists ever. Unfortunately, it's not quite nonsense and not quite original research. Can anyone think up a good reason for deletion so we don't have to fix all its dab links? Bo Lindbergh 02:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't these have been added to List of languages? You can't just make a parallel article like this. I'd say move it to a subpage or even the Wikipedia: namespace (which would stop the need for link repair) and drop a note at List of languages to see if anyone feels like adding appropriate entries.--Commander Keane 06:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * So nominated. Articles for deletion/Dictionary of languages. BD2412  T 05:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * ... and it's gone, per the above AfD. Cheers! BD2412  T 20:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Robot help for ISO?
Everything that links to ISO and is in a subcategory of Category:ISO standards should link to International Organization for Standardization. Can/should this be done by a bot? Kusma (talk) 21:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Forget about that. I just changed ISO into a redirect to International Organization for Standardization, which fixes the problem. Kusma (talk) 17:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Purpose of this page
It is not clear to me, what is the purpose of this page. How does it differ from Disambiguation pages with links? I finished Kingdom on that page and marked it with a strikethrough. What should be done with Kingdom on this page? &bull;DanMS 00:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Nothing should be done with it here - the purpose of this page is to keep editors alerted to disambig pages that tend to crop up as problems; the purpose of the other page is to set and conquer specific goals of fixing a set list of the worst pages, which is renewed an a fairly regular basis. bd2412  T 00:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Counting
Is there at least a semi "quick" or "easy" way for me to tally all the links to a specific disambig page? I know I can click on "What links here" and see everything that ...links there, but I'd like to be able to get a total so I can see how much of a dent I'm making doing DAB fixes. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks, --Naha|(talk) 23:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I have a MATLAB script that I use to count up the links, and seeing the dent can be very satisfing. If you happen to have MATLAB I can give you the script, or if you use msn/icq/yahoo/irc chat (and I'm awake) then I could do the count for you. The pywikipedia bot can also count them up, although using it just for that purpose is a bit clumsy (ie: hard to do) in my opinion. Lightdarkness has some php to do the count, useful if you can use php (he can also count up how many of your contribs are link repairs - if anyone is interested he's happy to check for you).--Commander Keane 12:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) --Naha|(talk) 05:17, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

talk pages
i've noticed sometimes users associating themselves with this project disambiguating links on talk pages e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_%28China-related_articles%29&curid=372158&diff=39697521&oldid=38767448 i feel somewhat uneasy about the idea of people editing others signed comments like this even if they aren't making any substantial changes Plugwash 11:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't like the practice either. Maybe we could discourage it more in the instructions. I have come across some very experienced editors who see no problem in changing others signed comments, so I don't bother complaining.--Commander Keane 12:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I see no problem with it. I do it for one reason: So I have less pages to sift through while trying to maintain particular disambig pages. Cutting out all the mislinks from talkpages makes this so much easier for me its incredible. Also, I've done it to dozens of pages and I've had zero complaints and 2 or 3 "thank yous."  If it ever becomes a problem, I will not continue, or at least make a note not to do it to that particular user's page.  I also have no problem with anyone editing any of my user space or any of my comments on any talk pages as long as the edits are of a productive nature and do not change the context of anything that has been written. --Naha|(talk) 05:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ideally we would have a namespace selector (like "my contributions" has). The feature probably exists but is turned off for performance (=server load) reasons.--Commander Keane 10:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
 * That would be great. --Naha|(talk) 23:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

New tool - filtering out the main namespace in "Whatlinkshere"
Yes we have a new tool to filter out the talk namespaces when doing link maintenance. Here are the details.--Commander Keane 07:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

templates
hi, is there any way for the 'what links here' tool to not count links in templates, should links in temlates even lead to Disambiguation pages?--Johnny 0 22:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

"Hidden" disamBUGuation
I've just added a workaround section in the page for "Ford". Some  have moved the disambiguation page and is edit-warring to protect the redirect. As result hundreds of links point to Ford but it is a redirect and nobody cares. I've trimmed them down to 681 by now but started well above 750 (keeping the silver medal). The moved "Ford (disambiguation)" is having just few links and therefore is not caught by the scanner. For me this is a temporary solution until the problem is fixed. Hope this case is an exception but who knows, more AI to the scanner might help (as well as may not). -- Goldie (tell me) 16:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

CFD
There's a CFD on Category:Lists of ambiguous place names. --Dhartung | Talk 12:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Dynamic Custom reports?
I'm wondering if it would be possible (or worthwhile) to use the same processes that generate the reports on this page in order to to format the Wikipedia talk:Adopting disambiguation pages in such a way that the "adopted pages" table is read, dab page names are picked off, and then a (currently non-existing) column is written to... the data written out would be the current number of links in the main namespace for that dab page... Thanks for your time --Ling.Nut 15:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Could be. I wrote the script that maintains this page, so I will take a look at the new project and see if it's do-able.  --Russ Blau (talk) 15:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Tks for taking a look! --Ling.Nut 15:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Counting
Do the numbers on this page include the talk/user/wikipedia pages? For example Dutch shows over 300, but there was only around 70 if not including talk/user/wikipedia pages. Since most disambiguation work does not touch those pages, doesn't it make sense to not include those pages in the count, so that we have a better idea of how we are doing? -- Jeff3000 04:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No, the numbers on this page are main-namespace links only. They may look wrong because the link counts can change between the time the bot runs (once a week) and the time you access the page -- in the case of Dutch, I was working on that page myself at the same time you were!  --Russ Blau (talk) 13:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Minor Edits?
A potentially stupid question from a new editor... I've repaired a few links ("article" to "article (publishing)", for instance) over the last day or so, each time marking it as a minor edit. Anyway, it just now occurs to me that this might not meet the criteria for a minor edit. Would a more experienced editor give me his/her opinion on this matter? I'd like to follow wikiquette. Thanks. Wayne Miller 14:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Adding or fixing a link is a minor edit. You'll find more information about what is a minor edit at Help:Minor edit. CarolGray 08:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Disambig pages maintenance: total articles
I understand what causes the number of active articles or the number of total links to rise and fall (hopefully fall), but what has been causing the number of "total articles" to fall? Do they then reappear when their maintenance becomes a problem, or are they manually added? Dekimasu 06:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Articles can "fall off" the list if they have fewer than 25 incoming links for five straight weeks; or if they have been edited so that they are no longer disambig pages. In either case, they will reappear on the list if they show up on a future database dump. --Russ (talk) 14:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * So does the large jump in new pages this week after several weeks of slow decline mean that all of those "new" pages became problems just in the last week? It seems more like there are two steps here... a crawler that finds new pages, run irregularly, and a separate analysis of the contents of the pages that are already in the list, run weekly. Is that right? Dekimasu 05:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * What happened this week was the November 30 database dump. The weekly script scans two sources: this page (well, actually Disambiguation pages with links/Current list) and User:RussBot/DPL.  The latter page only changes when there is a new database dump to download, which happens irregularly.  --Russ (talk) 10:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

2006 statistics
The link to a page for the 2006 statistics has a problem. Has the 2006 data gone to Wikipedia heaven, or can it still be seen somewhere? Dekimasu 09:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed; thanks for pointing out the problem. --Russ (talk) 13:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

DPM vs. DPL/M
There's a long-standing request above to make DPM a subpage of DPL. It had a lot of support at the time it was proposed, but we never followed through on moving it to Disambiguation pages with links/Maintenance. Any problems with making that move? Is it too much of a pain to alter the target for the bot? Dekimasu よ! 07:46, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not a pain to alter the target for the bot; just give me some notice before you make the move (and don't do it on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, because that's when the bot runs). --Russ (talk) 11:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll switch it over after I see the next run go up. Dekimasu よ! 08:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Question
Do completed dab links automatically get the bullet and bold text, or should the editor(s) responsible for the disambiguating do it? --Milton 23:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * We shouldn't edit anything on this page, since it's updated automtically... only at WP:DPL. The bulleted pages are the ones being marked as special problems. Did you notice that a lot of them were fixed? A fair percentage of them get solved in that week because when there is such a large jump from one week to the next, it usually indicates that a redirect has changed or the word is being included in a high-traffic template, and those types of problems are quick to straighten out. For example, in this case I contacted the editor who had added a link to "Division" to a protected template related to Indian territories. Russ got things done before me by just leaving an note on the talk page of that template. And then I realized that the remaining links were really easy to fix, so I knocked it down to (if I remember correctly) about 20 after that. When the next scan goes through on Sunday, it will just drop off the visible list again by itself. Dekimasu よ!  00:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the reason I asked was I noticed a couple articles I disambiguated were bolded/bulleted - Russian, Gutenberg, Eve, Jonathan Kent were bolded - all of them are finished except Eve. But your answer makes sense, thanks again for your help! --Milton 01:07, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

No update next week -- and bot source code available
I will not be able to run the bot next week (15 July) for the regular weekly update, and the following week (22 July) may be somewhat delayed. However, if someone else would like to run it in my absence, and has the PyWikipediaBot framework, you are welcome to do so using the script available at User:RussBot/dabmaintbot.py. Just be prepared for the script to run for 6 hours or longer! Also, be aware that there is a little problem with Python's networking code; on relatively rare occasions, a call to socket.get simply hangs indefinitely and never returns. This is not usually a problem, but when you are loading several thousand URLs as this script does, there is a not-insignificant risk that you will hang at some point. I have a kludgy fix for this that allows you to Control-C out of the socket call and retry the URL, but this means (a) you have to monitor the script while it is running and (b) you have to be patient and be really sure that the program really is hanging before you hit Control-C or you may abort the whole thing and have to start over! If it sounds like a pain in the neck, well, it is, but at least you've been warned. --Russ (talk) 19:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)