Wikipedia talk:Hatnote/Archive 2

Distinguish template
The example above (/* The present article's topic, mention or not */) is not the egregious one, both tell the person about the other choice, because it is clearly labeled as disambiguation. On the other hand, the Distinguish template does not let the searcher know what the choices are at all. The text at Hatnote for Two articles with similar title correctly, in my opinion, suggests the use of otheruses4 which does provide that. I think that Distinguish should be depreciated for the very reason given by Largo Plazo above, namely so that the searcher coming upon the hatnote doesn't have to ask, "What's the other choice?". --Bejnar (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting deletion? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I am suggesting a discussion about when and where Distinguish should be used. For example, as a second hatnote on the Arianism article it may be appropriate, or there might be something better.  I do feel that the absence of guidance on its use is a problem. Because I believe that it is important to assist searchers, I think that the Distinguish template should be depreciated to a secondary status, below About/otheruses4 and For.  --Bejnar (talk) 20:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds demeaning. At the very least, it should be on par with Otheruses. I, however, have never seen a use for that For. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Assuming that you are using the word demeaning in the technical sense of "reduce the status of" and not the pejorative sense, you are correct. But more importantly, I am asking for discussion of the pros and cons of preferring About/otheruses4 and For.  One pro is that those templates provide the information seeker with a basis for choosing the second term.  The   template actually distinguishes between the two terms by the provision of USE1 and USE2.  The For template provides only the second use, but at least the information seeker has the article in front of them about the first usage.  The Distinguish template does neither of those.  One possible con is additional length, since providing more information has a cost; however, as most of these are less than a single line long, I don't think that that ought to be dispositive over the purpose of Wikipedia which is to provide information.  What other plus and minuses are there? --Bejnar (talk) 20:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll admit you make a good point. And now that you mention it, there really isn't a purpose for Distinguish and Otheruses since it may very well be more appropriate to always have a short description in the hatnote. Yeah, those should be scrapped, maybe just redirect them to Otheruses4 or something. Think a bot could that for us? It'd save us all the work ... Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know. There are only ~4400 Distinguish transcluded articles according to David Göthberg in October 2008, and some of them might be appropriate uses. 4400 is really a small number of articles. I inherently distrust bots, because I have seen so many fall flat on their faces despite good intentions.  I doubt that a bot would be good at picking the one or two words that appropriately distinguish between two like sounding articles.  I think a more cautious approach of thinking about and discussing when Distinguish might be useful, putting appropriate guidance on the Hatnote page and let things come out in the wash. I don't quite get your point about Otheruses, as that template does let the individual know that they are going to a disambiguation page, i.e., it does tell them about what their choice is, and a reader can anticipate some attempt at completeness on a disambiguation page.  I would rather for the time being stick with looking at Distinguish and seeing if we can identify the "good intentions" of the creators, and figure out its proper place on Hatnote, although it is possible that it may not have one.  I look forward to others joining in the discussion. --Bejnar (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Hatnotes and infoboxes
Placing a right-justified infobox at the top of a page with a left-justified hatnote arranges the page with both the hatnote and the infobox at the top. I think this results in a more attractive page. See Colorado for example. --Buaidh (talk) 16:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe that right-justified infoboxes are no infringment of our hatnotes at top policy since the hatnotes remain at the top of the page. I think we are being at little overzealous on this issue. --Buaidh (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have reverted these edits for now; please gain consensus first. The reason for the hatnotes first policy is not just because of appearance; screen-readers for the disabled display everything sequentially. Therefore, the hatnote must come first. See Accessibility Dabomb87 (talk) 23:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The use of infoboxes in any article pretty much disables screen-readers. Perhaps we should discuss that issue first. --Buaidh (talk) 23:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Feel free to discuss that issue first. Bring it up on WT:ACCESS and WT:INFOBOX, but please gain consensus first before changing the format. There seems to be very little benefit for a change that is solely based on style. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's illogical too - the hatnote is not part of the content of the article (i.e. it does not provide information about the article subject), so it is better not mixed in with elements of the article proper.--Kotniski (talk) 07:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Redirected links in hatnotes
In reverting the hatnote move mentione in the previous discussion, I've run into a problem with another editor on the Georgia (U.S. state) page. The second part of the note stated For other uses, see Georgia (disambiguation), but the DAB page is at Georgia. I've attempted to correct this to the direct link, but been reverted twice, the second time at this diff, with the reason direct links hinder fixing dablinks. To me, it is confusing not to use a direct link, esp. when the location of the DAB page for "Georgia" is a contentious issue, with the country article having been requested to be moved to the un-DABed page six times. I've read the guideline page here, and the issue of dierect vs. redirect links is not mentioned at all. Are there any existing guidelines on this matter elsewhere? Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 03:28, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think at WP:Disambiguation it says somewhere that such redirects are preferred, or at least allowed, since they make it clear to the reader that the target is a disambiguation page (and they also help with link-fixing projects).--Kotniski (talk) 07:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, Disambiguation covers this quite well. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This brings up another question though, why are there even hatnotes on Georgia (U.S. state) and Georgia (country)? Georgia is a disambiguation page so it's impossible to get to either of these two articles unless you specifically search for them, and they both have what they are about already in the article title so there is no confusion. Furthermore, some people like to make the Google argument for hatnotes, but it doesn't work in this case either because a Google search of "Georgia" returns you both the country and the U.S. state articles. Basically the hatnotes do not aid in navigation at all and this is the sole purpose of hatnotes. So is there any good reason not to just delete the hatnotes from these articles? LonelyMarble (talk) 20:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Hatnoting to links already in the article
What is the situation with hatnoting to links which are already in the article? For example if there is a film adaptation where the article is linked in from the relevant section and mentioned in the lead, as at Watchmen (we don't do the same at Wanted (comics))? Also the question of hatnotes came up at Eddie Brock where it hatnotes to Venom (comics), even though it is mentioned a couple of lines below in the lead. Venom (comics) hatnotes back and to another character who has used the alias even though these are linked in in the relevant areas below and should be linked in from the lead (which should be expanded). In those last two examples it would also make sense to bold the names in the lead which would draw the eye to the relevant links and it seems to make the hatnote redundant. Thoughts? (Emperor (talk) 14:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC))


 * Hatnotes are purely for navigational purposes. If someone searches for Watchmen they could be looking for either the comic book series or the film since both have the same exact name. That is why there is a hatnote for it. The reason why Wanted (comics) and Watchmen (film) don't need hatnotes is because it's impossible to get to those articles unless you specifically search for them or are directed towards them because of the parentheses clarification. Someone searching for Wanted would go to a disambiguation page. So basically, it doesn't matter whether something is linked further in the article or not. Hatnotes are used when another article could have the same exact or very similar title and therefore a reader may be looking for that article instead of the one they got to. Regarding the hatnote on Venom (comics), that's somewhat of a unique situation; I can see why there is a hatnote since someone searching for Venom (in relation to Spiderman) might actually want the article on one of the two human hosts. This would be a reason to keep the hatnote, as a reader might go to the Venom article but really want one of these other articles, which is what hatnotes are for. Only problem is the parentheses again make it hard to get to that article without going through Venom (disambiguation) first, but I suppose someone might search for Venom comics or Venom (Spiderman), so I'll leave that hatnote alone. LonelyMarble (talk) 19:40, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Hatnote in addition to Disambiguation hatnote
MickMacNee and I are having a discussion about hatnotes on G. MickMacNee has added a hatnote " " because it is notable enough to not be hidden away on line 50 of a dab. The article already has and g-force is one of the entries on the disambiguation page. I do not see any reason to have the additional hatnote because it is just another use of G that is already on the disambig page and it just clutters the top of the article with the other 2 hatnotes on the article. Any input to the discussion would be helpful. A new name 2008 (talk) 12:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Generally, if there a lot of other uses for something, as is the case for G, only the otheruses should be included. In this case, g-force is definitely not necessary, is "g" for g-force more notable than "g" for gram? I don't think so. There are plenty of other notable entries on G (disambiguation) as well. This section implies only the otheruses should be used: WP:Hatnote. It's not implicitly said other entries should not be used, it should just be common sense I guess, but in this case, g-force is definitly not overwhelmingly more notable than other entries on the disambiguation page and therefore should not be included in the hatnote. There are a small amount of exceptions to this rule, two off the top of my head are Plymouth and Worcester. There were long debates whether those article titles should be at the disambiguation page and it was decided to keep them to the city in England, but include the city in Massachusetts in the hatnotes because they are overwhelmingly the second-most-popular usage in both cases. The situation in this case is not the same though, g-force is not overwhemingly the second-most-popular usage. LonelyMarble (talk) 21:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Restrictions on hatnote usage
I'd like to see much greater restrictions placed on the use of hatnotes. To me these are basically low value notes that are taking away valuable real estate from the high value article lead, especially in the case of featured articles. At most the hatnotes should be limited to a single line of text. I've seen hat notes take up two and even three separate lines, sometimes wrapped, and they can become very distracting. It is particularly irksome in the case of "X redirects to this page. See page Y for more..." (for some lesser importance topic X and Y), which basically serves the role of a railway junction. If nothing else, it would be better if they were hidden in an expandable navbox of some type.

My $.02 worth. Thanks.&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Could you point us to an example or two? 98% of the time that I see these, it can easily be fixed by making a disamb page and a single hatnote pointing to it.-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  21:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I don't have one handy because I've worked to tamp down the problem. It just keeps coming up as an issue (at least for me :).&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the problem also arises when a page is a redirect target for several different search terms. In this case too, though, I agree with RJ that this produces too much clutter. I've seen combined hatnotes of the type "Multiple terms redirect here; see also X (disambiguation), Y (disambiguation) and Z (disambiguation)", which seems preferable to having three separate hatnotes. Not sure if there's a specific template for this or if you have to use dablink. (Of course what would be really great would be if the devs could give us a magic word for the current redirect source - then we could display a hatnote relevant only to the term the current user searched for.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * otheruses4 does this.-- Fabrictramp |  talk to me  13:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Not exactly, I suspect. The syntax I have in mind would be like to produce a message like:


 * --Kotniski (talk) 14:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To follow up on your other suggestion, it would be useful if there were a magic word such as REDIRECTNAME that contained the title of the redirect. This could then be used with conditional logic in a template like to automatically produce the appropriate hatnote only when the page is reached by following a redirect. I.e., if the page were reached by a redirect from X, the hatnote would display X redirects here; for other uses see X (disambiguation). And if reached by redirect from Y, it would display Y redirects here; for other uses see Y (disambiguation). And if reached directly without a redirect the hatnote would not display at all. older ≠ wiser 14:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * My thoughts exactly. Worth raising at WP:VPT or on Bugzilla?--Kotniski (talk) 15:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * A most excellent idea! The thought I had was to introduce a tabbed list along the top of the page with a limited set of alternative topics, but this sounds better.&mdash;RJH (talk) 17:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Mentioned at WP:VPT.--Kotniski (talk) 17:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the user-specific hatnote based on the search term would be pretty useful but I'm not sure it is that necessary. One of the things I like doing is maintaining hatnotes so they aren't intrusive and are kept to one line as much as possible, if you could give some examples of where hatnotes are becoming a problem that would be helpful, I haven't been on Wikipedia much lately but I haven't noticed a problem with hatnotes. My guess is this section might have been spurred by the "First planet redirects here", etc. on the planet articles, which I agree, was a bad idea and the redirect hatnotes for these are of a very limited usage. I removed the last one that I saw on the Mercury (planet) article. Problems with hatnotes like that can be dealt with on a case by case basis. Are there any other examples of problems with hatnotes? A user-specific hatnote wouldn't even be desirable or that helpful in a lot of cases because you'd still want to keep the main page (disambiguation) link so any redirects could probably just as easily be added in a one line hatnote without any additional technical changes. LonelyMarble (talk) 09:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * For an example of clunkiness of hatnotes, you could see Holiday greetings, which I fell over when looking up Merry Christmas. Not a pretty sight. PamD (talk) 10:17, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Aaargh - there isn't any route from Happy Christmas (another redirect) to Happy Christmas (album) and various other articles, just to add to the problems here! Dab page needed, no time just right now. PamD (talk) 10:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That was certainly a mess but easily fixable, I think the one line method I changed it to works fine. That article is probably also a rarity having so many terms redirect to it that also have disambiguation pages, but even articles like that can have fairly simple hatnotes. I also created the Happy Christmas (disambiguation) page. LonelyMarble (talk) 15:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Mother and Father are even worse.. -- OlEnglish (Talk) 20:16, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the fact that even the simple fixed proposed above would lead to a long and unwieldy hatnote shows there is something more fundamentally wrong there. What about redirecting Mom, Mommy, Moms, and Mum to their respective disambiguation pages or moving the disambiguation over to those pages? Equally you could make Motherhood a disambiguation. All those pages would link to mother on the first line anyway and so anyone specifically looking for that article can click on. We certainly shouldn't be linking to mother through something like Mom (with the possibility of rare exceptions) and making them disambiguation pages would help clean that up. You could then link to the variants from a see also section in mother (disambiguation) (as is already done at Mom (disambiguation) - it'd be no harm to drop such see also into all of those). So you'd basically be left with just one short and dimple hatnote (the current top one). Same fix for father and looking over Holiday greetings I'd suggest the same - move all the disambiguations into the top slot. I think a reasonable rule of thumb might be that if there is a disambiguation page with a number of non-trivial items in it then the redirect hatnote should be avoided by putting the disambiguation page in the top slot, as long as we make sure the main page it was redirecting too is on the top of the list. (Emperor (talk) 17:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC))

Is there interest here in developing the idea I proposed here? That is, allowing us to change the "(Redirected from Foo)" message to something like "(Redirected from Foo. For X, see Y)". This could potentially remove one of the main source of hatnotes; those that explain redirects. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 13:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Soft to hard redirect
I changed "Hat note" and Hatnote" from soft redirects to hard redirects. I did this because, the link wasn't to a Wiki sister project. ask123 (talk) 22:14, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I changed them back, because the result of the Afd was to make Hatnote into a soft redirect, and Hat note might as well be treated the same way. PamD (talk) 22:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Lots of red links
This project is filled with red links, due to past changes. The problems are in transduced template documentation. This should be fixed. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you referring to the many red links after the word "see" in Hatnote, where template calls with example parameters result in red links? That is not a problem. The links are not meant to go anywhere in those examples and I don't know which past changes you are referring to. The links have always been red as far as I can tell. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is what I am referring to. I found an example of what I wanted at Joe Montana, so I don't need more information right now. I don't understand the point of the example parameters with red links. --DThomsen8 (talk) 13:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The point is to show what the templates will produce with given parameters which should be easy to generalize. With parameter choices like USE1, PAGE1, USE2, PAGE2 it may be easier for many readers to see what happens to the parameters than if arbitrary and irrelevant article names were chosen as examples. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

"See also" as a hatnote at the top of an article?
At Template:See_also, it says that this template is "used for small sets of see also information at the head of article sections according to Layout." However, Layout doesn't actually say this. Could you please clarify whether these templates can be used at the top of an article? As an example, I have in mind Judicial_review_in_the_United_States. Agradman (talk) 05:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * See also for sections is mentioned at Layout. I don't think it belongs at the top of the lead. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that see also is not right for an article lead. older ≠ wiser 10:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify: what I had in mind was to mention this somewhere in the policies and guidelines (i.e. which templates may ONLY be used under sections, vs. which ones can also be used at the tops of articles). Agradman (talk) 13:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to interject, based on a disagreement over at Radon transform, it is not appropriate to use some other template as though it were a See also template at the top of an article either. For instance, although otheruses4 could conceivably be used to point a reader to related topics, it is strictly intended for purposes of disambiguation. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Notable featured articles with hatnotes to unimportant articles.
The Atheist dab with 4 links that was created to prevent a hatnote to a unimportant band was deleted. Now, Atheism, which is a featured article about a very important and basic philosophical concept, has a hatnote to a band that would never be in a real encyclopedia (one where notability is not decided on by people who've never even seen an encyclopedia, but base notability on blog posts and twitters). This would be like having an article like death start with a hatnote to a band called "Death". Can we add to this page that real encyclopedic articles should link to dab hatnotes instead of starting important subjects with links to silly pages no one will care about in 10 years? -- Jeandré (talk), 2009-07-18t20:33z

Progress
It is a sign of Wikipedia's progress that we no longer see things like the following. Someone creates a page titled Bishop. It says (1) A bishop is a certain ecclesiastical official; and (2) A bishop is a chess piece. Then someone expands point (1) so that there's a long long long article on bishops, the ecclesiastical officials, and after you scroll down through many many screenfuls of material on that, you find a lone paragraph that says only that a bishop is a certain chess piece (with a link to that article). Down there at the bottom, where it will not be seen by those arriving at the article. Nor do we still frequently see articles consisting of several paragraphs on each of several unrelated topics (e.g. a section on ordained bishops, then a section on chess pieces, then a section on Alfonxe Bishop, a rock star, etc. Back in 2004 and 2005, I used to clean up situations like that all the time. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate Hat Note?
Do editors here feel the hatnote at Scientific opinion on climate change is appropriate (I do, but it's not really covered by this WP:HATNOTE article)? In this case, the article title is refined, and limited, for what is essentially a list article - to specifically 'disambiguate' (dictionary def'n) what is or isn't suitable for inclusion in the list. If this is a valid use (and I think it should be) then perhaps this type of usage should be included in the article here. --Jaymax (talk) 02:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That is not even a hatnote, it explains what the article is, which should be the job of the lead. Hatnotes are purely for navigation. LonelyMarble (talk) 04:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not in total disagreement - however, the point is many users come to the article thinking it's about something else. I've reworked the hatnote into an about template including links to the most often 'confused-with-other-pages' articles, and moved out part of the text.  Regards purely for navigation, I also refer the following from WP:HATNOTE In many cases the hatnote also includes a brief description of the subject of the present article, for readers' convenience.  In summary, the hatnote serves to disambiguate, but we at SOoCC should probably have paid more attention to 'where you need to go' as 'why what you're thinking should be here isn't' - and your edit there hopefully helps us head in the right direction.  --Jaymax (talk) 06:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd also still appreciate other editors input - specifically with regards hatnotes (or not) for disambiguation (dictionary def'n again) (ie: what the article IS NOT). --Jaymax (talk) 06:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The hatnote is better now that there are two clear article links which could possibly be confused for the article title, which is the point of a hatnote. Before the edit it was simply explaining what the article is and isn't which usually should be for the lead. The brief description thing is basically because it doesn't make sense to have a "For other uses go here" hatnote when the reader doesn't know what the current article is about, but the keyword is "brief" description. And this is mainly useful when viewing on a mobile phone or similar device when you can't readily see the lead paragraph to see what the article is about. I still think the hatnote seems to be catering to fringe views a little bit as usually you should work dissenting opinions or criticism of an article subject into the article, rather than link to a dissenting article in a hatnote, but I don't know how these articles developed and I'm sure there are some edit wars that go on that lead to this. LonelyMarble (talk) 19:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Started a discussion at Talk:Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change following your comments. Thanks. --Jaymax (talk) 09:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Follow-up: I'd still like to hear other editors' opinions on this. The section linked directly above was archived at (Archive9) The hatnote / disambiguation -- apparently there was no discussion there, only later at (Archive10) hatnote removal. The hatnote currently stands at 2-3 lines long and seems to be an exception to general hatnote guidelines -- which I'm fine with, ftr. - PrBeacon (talk) 06:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The hatnote at the moment seems OK to me - needs to be that long because of the complex situation with several articles dealing with similar topics.--Kotniski (talk) 09:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Lists alternate for 'about'
Since the about template kicks off This page is about is there advantage in having a syntax-identical variant with the leadin text This page lists or similar. Just a passing thought - I suspect the usage would be too low to justify implementation, but after I saw there was an otherhurricaneuses template, I thought I'd mention it... --Jaymax (talk) 06:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC) or maybe not - on reflection, this idea is too friendly to the kind of stuff that User:LonelyMarble talks about avoiding above, and might promote same --Jaymax (talk) 06:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Notification of Bot Request for Approval regarding WP:NAMB enforcement
Hi, I'm requesting approval for bot-assisted editing to help enforce WP:NAMB by removing article name disambiguation templates on articles with names that are not ambiguous. The relevant request is Bots/Requests for approval/CobraBot 3. Any comments, etc. would be appreciated at the request page. --Cyber cobra (talk) 11:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

does, or should, the ban on "external" links include WP sister sites?
The content of Na'vi language was moved to Wikibooks, and the WP article rewritten to cover the history and reception of the language rather than the language itself. The WP article had been a popular reference for fans learning the language (for example a basic reference at LearnNa'vi.org), and so an editor added a hatnote directing them to WB for language info. This was then removed with the argument that the policy on hatnotes prohibits "external links".

Is that what is meant? It would seem to me that an ex-Wikipedia article now at a sister project is not exactly "external", esp. when we're redirecting readers who come to WP specifically for that article—indeed, a moved WP article would seem to be the perfect use for a hatnote. kwami (talk) 12:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd have thought so. We could perhaps make some templates that create appropriate hatnotes to sister sites (Wiktionary is another one, where we want to direct people to definitions of a word). If they looked a little bit different from standard hatnotes, they might be more acceptable to the blind rule enforcers.--Kotniski (talk) 13:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sister sites/projects are external links. They belong in the external links section. I'd remove the hatnote on that article and put a link in the external links section instead. Hatnotes are meant for internal navigation on Wikipedia. LonelyMarble (talk) 18:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * People are looking for a WP article, so IMO we should direct them to it. The fact that it's no longer on WP is irrelevant to those of our readers who are looking for it. The example that the policy was agreed on apparently did not have such things in mind. From that, I'd say there was no agreement on sister sites, and so they are simply not covered by our policy. That said, a specially formatted link like we have for WT would be nice.


 * Actually, the WT links belie this argument: they are hatnotes to what you're calling an 'external' link, yet no-one complains that they violate hatnote policy. kwami (talk) 22:16, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * What Wiktionary "hatnotes" are you talking about? And consensus is definitely that sister sites are external links, that's why they are always included in the external links section. Of course it's relevant that this text is no longer on Wikipedia, it was deemed unencylopedic, and it's not like it would be hard to find in the external links section. LonelyMarble (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, it would be hard. That's the whole point. People aren't approaching this for the article it is, but for the article it was. It's appropriate to redirect them up front, not tuck a link down at the bottom, where they're not going to see it unless they read an article that they didn't come here to read. kwami (talk) 00:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is just pure speculation. And it's very easy to use the table of contents or simply scroll to the bottom where 99% of people know external links lie. If you think the content on Wikibooks is so essential, you should be arguing that it be reincluded in the Wikipedia article. You are having the wrong argument because this is a very obvious misuse of hatnotes. LonelyMarble (talk) 01:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I assume this is in reference to the wiktionary template that is often placed at the top of the source of an article, but will actually appear on the righthand side of the article when it is displayed. This isn't really a hatnote, any more than an infobox is.--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That template is what I figured he meant. And those are usually not included at the top of articles, except on disambiguation pages. I prefer these not be at the top of articles either. LonelyMarble (talk) 23:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't follow how it's so obviously inappropriate. WP policy appears not to address it at all. Sister projects are treated differently than run-of-the-mill external links: we don't have templates for links to the BBC that we place in the middle of breaking-news WP articles, for example, yet it's common to link to WT that way. Consensus would thus appear to be that sister projects are not treated as other non-WP links are, and hatnote policy does not mention them at all. kwami (talk) 06:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The way I see it is that this guideline specifically mentions not having external links in hatnotes. There also seems to be a silent consensus that sister sites are external links because they almost always are included in that section. You are right that we sometimes see sister site boxes on the right hand side in other places than the external links, but that practice seems to be somewhat deprecated because I don't see it that often anymore. I am not sure why this guideline does not specifically mention sister sites, but I have a feeling they were simply overlooked because this situation with Na'vi language is very rare if not unique. LonelyMarble (talk) 18:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to be specific here, the test case is Na'vi language. As originally written, this was an exceedingly (and from WP's perspective excessively) detailed guide as to the grammar and vocabulary of said constructed language. The decision was taken to move most of the less notable material to Wikibooks. At that point, people started edit warring over whether or not the article should have a hatnote guiding them towards that transwikied material, or whether a normal wikibooks template was more appropriate. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

User: 174.3.98.236
FYI, has been going around replacing one hatnote template with another, and nominating hatnote templates for deletion at WP:TFD for the last few weeks.

70.29.210.242 (talk) 08:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * FYI-2 -- user has new IP address - see below. -- EdJogg (talk) 22:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Major characters in The Railway Series
I am in a dispute with an editor who insists on using as a main-article-link instead of a hatnote. Please help resolve.174.3.99.176 (talk) 16:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It would be courteous to allow both sides of the story. The article in question makes use of to link a subsection in one article with an equivalent subsection in a second article. Neither article is 'main' relative to the other, and neither subsection is a summary (in the 'main' sense). The two articles present different sides of the same characters -- this arrangement was reached through consensus of a group of editors several years ago. The particular template is used since it allows the anchor link to be hidden, a requirement of WP:LINKING and none of the other templates, including  allow this. It is appropriate in a disambiguating sense, since each character section acts as an anchor point from external articles -- a user may find themselves arriving at any section depending on the link in the original article. Frankly, I don't see what the problem is!


 * Please also see Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation where I asked for clarification that there was no problem.
 * EdJogg (talk) 22:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hatnote question
There is now a hatnote at the top of Meet the Parents linking to Meet the Parents (soundtrack). I say it should not be there because clearly links to an article that is highly WP:RELATED to the topic. There is already information in the main article that "summarizes [the subarticle] in a subsection in conjuntion with the {main} template" at Meet the Parents. Another user claims that the tag should be there because it has a similar title. Your opinions are welcome at Talk:Meet the Parents. Thanks, Reywas92 Talk 16:29, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Hatnoting
FYI, there's a discussion on the need for hatnoting at Talk:Full Metal Jacket. 70.29.210.155 (talk) 00:06, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Should these be hatnotes?
It seems to me that Korean name and Chinese name should not be hatnotes. The information they contain is not so important that they should be allowed to occupy such an prominent/intrusive position. __meco (talk) 07:15, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

"Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous": Change the example
I recently had a discussion on my user talk page about the "Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous" section of Hatnote (aka WP:NAMB). Basically, the idea was that the example given (tree) was not a good one - it failed to convey the point. Considering that I encounter this a lot with place articles (e.g. on an article for One Horse, Nevada, a hatnote would say, for other places by this name, see One Horse (disambiguation).), supplementing or replacing the existing example with a place name would be quite helpful. SchuminWeb (Talk) 14:17, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Place names and people are tricky and may sometimes benefit from having a hatnote, even though the title is technically fully disambiguated. For example, there are two articles on a place named Larch Mountain in Oregon. They are currently disambiguated by county name, Larch Mountain (Washington County, Oregon) and Larch Mountain (Multnomah County, Oregon), but for readers not familiar with Oregon counties, there is still considerable potential for confusion. As there are only two possibly ambiguous Oregon places with the name, a hatnote on both articles refering to the other might be helpful. A hatnote to the general dab page is not needed in this case. Similarly, the disambiguating term used for people may not always be sufficient to clearly identify an individual -- but in general the practice should be for the hatnote to link to the other ambiguous articles directly rather than a dab page, unless there is potential for confusion amongst multiple entries. older ≠ wiser 17:00, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm actually more referring to the example on this page, and about adding a second example, about hatnotes like this, where it's quite unambiguous, yet people still want to put an unnecessary hatnote on the pages. SchuminWeb (Talk) 01:42, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The existence/use of otherpeople, otherplaces, Other hurricane uses, etc. make the applicability of WP:NAMB to such cases less clear. The guideline conflicts with actual in-the-wild use of said templates in this respect (although cases where there are no such analogous specific templates are unambiguously against the guideline). I would likewise very much like this contradiction to be resolved. --Cyber cobra (talk) 03:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Which article is more appropriate?
There's a situation wherein a term links to a disambiguation page, but I feel it would be more appropriate for the term to link to one of the specific pages, and to include a hatnote linking to the disambiguation. Then again, it might be construed as bias, but I truly feel one article is more appropriate - or at least more popular - than the other. Thoughts? --Arielkoiman (talk) 10:05, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It sounds as if this is a discussion about which article is the WP:Primary topic for the term Could you show us which term or hatnote you're concerned about here? PamD (talk) 07:40, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposal
I propose the following:

From:

Summarize or not?
Some hatnote disambiguation templates include a summary of the present article's topic; others do not. For instance, in the article Honey, one might use the template to produce:


 * This article is about the insect-produced fluid. For other uses of the term, see Honey (disambiguation).

Alternatively, one might use to produce:


 * For other uses, see Honey (disambiguation).

Either of these two styles is acceptable; the choice of style in a given article is based on editors' preference and what is likely to be clearer and easier for the reader. Where an article already has a hatnote in one of these styles, editors should not change to the other style without good reason.

To:

Summarize or not?
Some hatnote disambiguation templates include a summary of the present article's topic; others do not. For instance, in the article Honey, one might use the template to produce:


 * This article is about the insect-produced fluid. For other uses of the term, see Honey (disambiguation).

Alternatively, one might use to produce:


 * For other uses, see Honey (disambiguation).

Either of these two styles is acceptable; the choice of style in a given article is based on editors' preference and what is likely to be clearer and easier for the reader. Where an article already has a hatnote in one of these styles, editors should not change to the other style without good reason.

If the first style is chosen, keep the summary as short and succinct as possible. For example, instead of using:


 * This article is about the Irish novelist. For 19th century Scottish author, see James Hannay. For Irish judge and politician, see George Birmingham.

use


 * This article is about the novelist. For the author, see James Hannay. For judge and politician, see George Birmingham.

This also avoids pov issues. 199.126.224.245 (talk) 02:00, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I re-added this suggestion by a banned user because I think it has some merit and would be useful to discuss. Dcoetzee 02:47, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Eh, "This article is about the novelist. For the author, see ..." Is that really helpful? Is a novelist not an author? Is the nationality really so controversial? I realize it can be at times, but usually is not. In sum, I don't see that the examples help clarify anything. older ≠ wiser 03:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Quite. I'd add the sort of info found in a dab page, including dates when one or more of the persons named is dead or there is a large difference in date of birth enough to distinguish people - eg "This article is about the Irish novelist (1900-1920); for the Scottish author (1800-1899) see ....; for the Australian cricketer (born 1990) see ... ". This allows someone to see at a glance whether the target of the hatnote is likely to be the person they are looking for. PamD (talk) 07:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That would make the hatnote too long, in my opinion. I like to keep them as brief as possible - they're an unnecessary distraction at the top of the article for the vast majority of readers. Dab pages are different - each entry gets a whole line to itself, so there's room for contextual info like dates.--Kotniski (talk) 07:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But if the first words identify clearly the article on the page, then "the vast majority of readers" will skip the rest of the hatnote because they'll be told that they're on the right page (because the hatnote will be on the page for the primary topic), so it won't be an "unnecessary distraction" for them. For other readers, distinguishing details are useful. PamD (talk) 12:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose it depends how likely people are to be looking for the other topics, and how essential the distinguishing information is. But as someone opined in a recent discussion, once the hatnote starts going onto a second line, I prefer a dab page (or a more concisely written hatnote) instead.--Kotniski (talk) 13:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

We are debating something posted by a banned user?

Banned for making a huge fuss over trivial issues

We don't need this instruction creep. Banned == banned. No discussion needed.  Chzz  ► 16:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:NAMB nonsense
As visitors don't exclusively come from within Wikipedia but commonly come from search engines this section is nonsense. I propose it's removal entirely. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That observation doesn't make it nonsense, just weakens its argument ever so slightly. I still don't think we should start putting hatnotes on all disambiguated articles (it would be a change of approach involving hundreds of thousands of articles) just for the benefit of a very small proportion of readers who have somehow managed to get to the wrong article from an external search engine. Hatnotes provide slight irritation to all readers of an article; I don't think that's outweighed by the benefit you refer to. As with any web page you might get to from a search engine, if it turns out to be the wrong page you can search again (in this case using Wikipedia's own engine, if they prefer).--Kotniski (talk) 09:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * According to Alexa Internet 45% of Wikipedia traffic is external. This WP:NAMB section is being used to remove otherwise perfectly sensible hatnotes. I'm not advocating any effort on adding hatnotes only the removal of this nonsense clause that is used to remove them. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:50, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you give an example of a hatnote you consider sensible but others want to remove?--Kotniski (talk) 15:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I don't see the connection between saying that 45% of Wikipedia traffic is external and removing/keeping hatnotes. Simply because there are any number of ways that readers can get to the wrong article doesn't necessarily justify keeping hatnotes when the search box is a more viable option in that we as editors can never fully anticipate all the possible things people may have been intending to find. older ≠ wiser 16:07, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * (This is about the WP:NAMB section for anybody in doubt). People can always end up at the wrong page from an external search, regardless of whether the page has a disambiguation name in parentheses (a Wikipedia-specific practice). The first two Google hits on are Bill Gates and Bill Clinton. Do you also think they should have a hatnote to Bill to help Google searchers? Google displays the page name. From the point of view of an Internet searcher, clicking Bill Gates when they are looking for another Bill seems similar to clicking Tree (set theory) when they are looking for another Tree. I think we would end up with an unreasonable and annoying number of hatnotes if we try to help all searchers who made a bad choice in an external search engine. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:21, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Bill is a good example. If your looking for a Bill (the payment request type) here in the UK and type Bill into Google it lists firstly Bill (proposed law) then Bill Gates followed by a whole page of none wikipedia links starting with Meet Bill (2007) from IMDb. No Bill Clinton by the way, I guess that's because he's US focused. Anyway, you clicking the top link, come to the Bill (proposed law) article and helpfully it has a hatnote, "For other uses of the term, see: Bill" - in ther you can find what you want. So that's all good. The problem is that such useful hatnotes are being removed with WP:NAMB being given as the reason. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If I am looking for information on the payment request type of bill, why would I click on "Bill (proposed law)", the Google summary for which is "A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does ..." ? Or, more to the point, how far do we want to go to cater to someone who, looking for information about invoices, chooses to visit a page that is so clearly not about invoices?
 * If I am looking for proposed laws, and accidentally type "coleslaw" (thanks, iPhone!), it would help me at that point if there were a hatnote on the "Coleslaw" page saying "For information about proposed laws, see Bill." But it would be incrementally detrimental to everyone else who came there to read about tasty shredded cabbage.
 * Again: we should not inconvenience the actual target audience of a page by going out of our way to help the (presumably) small number of people who choose to click on the wrong search term. For those folks, each page does have a search box. WP:NAMB is already written to agree that hatnotes are appropriate for reasonable remaining title-driven ambiguity, and "Bill (payment) v. Bill (proposed law)" is a pretty good example of a place where there is not much, if any, ambiguity, IMO. Cheers, NapoliRoma (talk) 22:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You'd click on Bill because there is nothing else remotely relevant, you could simply give up.
 * We seems to have an interpretation of what is reasonable, I think it's perfectly reason you don't. The WP:NAMB wording misleads with it's example to only think about following links within Wikipedia, without mention the alternative links from elsewhere. This has lead some editors to start wholesale removal of these hatnotes.
 * To be clear, I'm not advocating any effort on adding hatnotes. All I am asking for is that those that exist are left alone. If they want to be removed, remove it case by case with consensus. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * No, the WP:NAMB wording does not mislead; it just does not accommodate people who got to the page by choosing the wrong page, at the expense of inconveniencing everyone else. Your example visitor could just as easily have been searching for information on duck bills; there's nothing about them on the first UK Google results page either, so by your reasoning, we should be ready for someone who clicks on legislative-related pages when they're really looking for the straight dope on waterfowl appendages.  For these people: Search box.  Solved.
 * I have no idea whether people are doing wholesale deletions of hatnotes based purely on WP:NAMB, but if they are, there's a major leap from that happening to proposing removing WP:NAMB entirely, as you have.--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think WP:NAMB as it's written is very clear and flexible, and serves to prevent over-proliferation of non-relevent material. As others have said, the reader looking for information on tall woody plants is not likely to come to "Tree (set theory)" by accident, even from external searches, and if they do, we've got a search box for them.  There is no need to clutter the set theory page with a link to a non-mathematical page.
 * However, WP:NAMB also recognizes that there may be pages where even a disambiguated article name is still ambiguous enough that a hatnote would be useful and gives the example of "Matt Smith (comics)" vs. "Matt Smith (illustrator)." ( Romance novel vs. Romance (genre) was used as an example the last time around ).--NapoliRoma (talk) 07:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Maximum number of Hat Notes?
I would like to propose a maximum number of hat notes (or at least a reference to some common sense...) or even a new lay-out for the hat notes. The articles: Mother, Father and Danube have four hat notes. I personally notice I start reading all the hat notes without thought because they seem part of the article, which is very annoying. Compare the English Danube with the German Donau. The German version seems much clearer to me. Any thoughts? Joost 99 (talk) 19:23, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree - I like to combine everything into one (or in extreme cases a maximum of two) hatnotes. In a case like Mother, it would be enough just to say "For other meanings, see..." followed by all the links that are currently listed.--Kotniski (talk) 09:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean like I just attempted at Mother? I agree with both of you by the way. older ≠ wiser 14:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's exactly what I mean. (I might even dispense with the "Numerous terms redirect here" at the start, to make it shorter still.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice :-) I will go for Danube myself. Joost 99 (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I recently put them here. 70 templates (think 3 variants per template). And subcategories. Please follow TfD's -DePiep (talk) 22:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed addition
I propose this addition - "When an article’s subject is nearly synonymous with another article’s subject, or when it is sometimes but not always used as a near synonym, placement of a hat referring to that other subject should be made. When a subject is a part of another subject, that other subject should be in a hat, but if the subject has parts, the parts should be in hats for that part's section in the article.  When the other subject is only very relevant to the article’s subject, but not nearly synonymous or does not fully contain the article’s subject, it should go in the “See also” section, not in the hat."

This would have helped avoiding the same discussion being repeated on different talk pages of several pages I made edits to. PPdd (talk) 20:34, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Without some tangible examples, I'm not even sure what that all means, let alone whether I agree with it. older ≠ wiser 21:21, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is one example. I intended to to an edit about geological pseudoscience, as used by the president of Association of Engineering and Environmental Geology discussing a court case, and read about pseudoscience in the courts. I learned that at Wikipedia, this is called junk science, not pseudoscience. "Junk science" did not even exist in the pseudoscience article (I have subsequently corrected this). It would have been very helpful if I did not have to read the entire pseudoscience article, but simply saw a hat at top, so I put one there. But the hat content was then moved to the "See also" section at the bottom, which vioates the very purpose of a hat being at the top so a reader looking for something very similar can quickly get to the article they want, withtout having to scour the merely related stuff in "See also", or hunt down a link that may or may not be in the article. But "See also" should be about merely related articles, not synonyms or things of which the aritcle is a part. I am fairly sure I can convince others there to move it back to the top in a hat, but I have already had to so argue before in other articles, and it is a waste of time repeating the same arguments over and over. PPdd (talk) 21:40, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah but that presumes the reader understands the distinction between pseudoscience and junk science (which to a certain extent is peculiar to Wikipedia). Both articles should have some indication of the distinction and the links in the See also section is appropriate. Hatnotes should really be limited to distinguishing articles with ambiguous titles, not merely related topics. older ≠ wiser 21:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * They are ambiguous titles. Synonyms sometimes have subtly different useages by some, and no different usage by others, "Junk Science", "Pseudoscience", "Hoodoo Science", "Voodoo Science", and "Pathological Science" are frequently synonyms, although not everyone agrees, hence the ambiguity. E.g., here is an example in which pseudoscience is considered a pathological science, but my edit about this was deleted on the grounds that they are not always so related, causing an ambiguity, and here are examples where "pseudoscience" is synonymous with "hoodoo science", although some Wikipedians might argue that hoodoo science only applies to social science. PPdd (talk) 21:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd consider these to be related topics, not ambiguous topics. By convention, related topics go in a see also section. older ≠ wiser 22:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Must say, and can say: no more hatnotes, no more rules. The Guideline should be: If there might be confusion about meaning or content, place a hatnote. From there on, do disambiguation, redirects, main articles ad more. Confusion can come from: Now this could be at article or section level. All in all a dozen of hatnotes could do. Now what happens? Today, there are ~70 hatnote templates. Imagine an editor wanting to use one (as I was). (Background: recently I started to round up & cleanup the Hatnote template world. Already 20 are removed for being duplicates &tc. Documenting (inccluding: help finding the right template) is a horror. -DePiep (talk) 22:13, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * - Same spelling of the title, different meaning (disambiguation)
 * - Associated meaning of the title (use see also)
 * - More elaborate article of the title (use main)
 * If that's a proposal, it would have been helpful in some cases I had to deal with. Mabye change to "sometimes associated meaning". PPdd (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In general, those are reasonably succinct. But I also agree with the current guidance that related topics with unambiguous titles are better summarized in the article or listed in a see also section rather than placed in a hatnote. older ≠ wiser 22:28, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If they are, or can be, summarized in the text -- no hatnote needed. Agree. Still: 70 templates left. -DePiep (talk) Must say, I might be evading the original question by PDdd. May be back on that. -DePiep (talk) 23:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If that was a serious proposal, it in no way evades my original qustion, but resolves the problem. PPdd (talk) 23:31, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Another example is the article Feminism; I had my edit about bad faith there reverted as being best of Feminist theory, for which feminism is a synonym in academia. So no one made the same "sometimes a synonym" mistake, I put a hat on top, not in "see also", which included related articles, but not "near synonyms". PPdd (talk) 23:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC) Modified proposal - "''If there might be confusion about meaning or content, place a hatnote. Confusion can come from: This can be at article or section level. Related topics with titles that are unambiguous to everyone are better summarized in the article or listed in a see also section rather than placed in a hatnote." PPdd (talk) 23:26, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * - ''Same spelling of the title, different meaning (disambiguation)
 * - ''Associated meaning of the title (use see also)
 * - ''More elaborate article of the title (use main)
 * Of course, I agree. My current issue with hatnotes is: diff between Guideline and practice. Old Guideline seems to be from "(disambiguation)" and "redirect" age only. No main, while that is so valuable. In general: hatnotes should be simple. -DePiep (talk) 23:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a different issue, but I like "guidelines", as long as they have qualifications per the Doctrine of Absurdity. PPdd (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If you push this into a WP:HAT proposal, I'll support it. For now, I am cleaning up the cat:Hatnote templates. Your contribution would be well appreciated. -DePiep (talk) 23:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I think clarification is needed to show that "main" is only going to be used on sections, not on full articles.PamD (talk) 06:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. There are more similar minor points, like using misspelling. I just want to get rid of these technical variants re "redirect", and adding "... (disambiguation)" in every variant. -DePiep (talk) 18:11, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

The "Further" hatnote
Input would be appreciated regarding further, which is currently at TfD. --Cyber cobra (talk) 08:33, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Section hatnotes
According to the lead, "Hatnotes are short notes placed at the top of an article." But hatnotes are frequently also placed at the top of sections. Is this frowned upon? Either way, the article should make this point clear.—Biosketch (talk) 15:36, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Non-disambiguating hatnote
I started a discussion at the help desk regarding hatnote usage that I am vague about. If anyone would be willing to skip over there and take a look, I would appreciate it. Thank you! –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  18:27, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Hatnote for similar disambiguated title
Can someone jump in at Talk:Physical education? I am at a loss for why this user opposed the hat-note for Physical Education (Community) on Physical education, besides that the user doesn't appear to like the show. Thanks.  X  eworlebi (talk) 11:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Navbox hatnote templates
Navbox hatnote templates is duplicated at the bottom. This seems to be because it's also included in Hatnote templates documentation. I was going to remove it from here, but perhaps it'd be best removed from there instead. Therefore, I've not touched it. Maybe someone who was involved in setting these things up knows the best way to handle this. Thanks. --Trevj (talk) 09:19, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Homophones?
User:JesseRafe has seen it fit to add disambiguation hatnotes to the articles on former New York mob boss John Gotti and Biblical figure John Gaddi. At first I thought it was a bad accent joke and reverted on the former article, but he's serious.

Do we have a policy for this? Is this a likely point of confusion in a text-based medium? --Lenin and McCarthy |  (Complain here) 18:25, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

How short is "short"
Can the hatnotes on the Century article be considered "short"? How about on the article Man? To me they strike me as excessively bloated and distracting from the main article. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:09, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * In both cases they convey a lot of useful information and I can't see how they could be made shorter and still offer as much navigational aid. (Wasn't it Einstein who urged that everything should be "As simple as possible but no simpler"? Substitute "short" in the case of hatnotes.) I don't see them as a distraction from the article. PamD (talk) 22:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, it's a matter of perspective, I suppose. To me the Hatnote is the least important aspect of the material being presented, if only because most readers won't need to see it. It's comparable to the "See also" section, which is usually at the end of an article (for good reason). It's unfortunate the "what links here" information can't be limited so that it only appears if you pass through a redirect. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:35, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Personally I prefer shorter hatnotes (in both cases I would compact the two hatnotes into one), though sometimes it's inevitable that you need quite a lot of text to help everyone who might be arriving at the page though seeking a different article. I've also thought in the past that it would be good if hatnotes could be displayed only to those who need them (i.e. we ought to be able to make display text conditional on whether and which redirect was followed) - has anyone ever suggested this to the devs?--Kotniski (talk) 13:54, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I posted a query to the idea lab. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 14:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Where there are a lot of redirected terms, rather than list them all twice -- in the X redirects here and in the link to the disambiguation page -- seems it might be less redundant to simply say "Multiple terms redirect here, for other uses see X (disambiguation), Y (disambiguation), Z (disambiguation)." older ≠ wiser 15:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I really have a difficult time seeing the benefit of reporting what redirects to an article. If you arrived by a redirect then you're already aware of this. Otherwise, why would you care? This just seems like a list of miscellanea. For the Man article, why not say something like:
 * This article is about adult human males. For related terms and alternative meanings, see Man (disambiguation).
 * Regards, RJH (talk) 14:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If a reader arrives via a redirect and is looking for something else, I don't think it is obvious that he or she will expect to find what they are looking for at Man (disambiguation). A reader might be looking for something that is neither a related term nor an alternative meaning of "man". For example, Manhood Peninsula is not directly related to and is not an alternative meaning of "man". I still think the text could be edited to be more concise than at present. older ≠ wiser 20:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Breaking story
HN for "Breaking story" is my specific problem, but think it used commonly enough for mention in the article. --Pawyilee (talk) 10:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think a breaking story does not need a hatnote, but the box . Also, I don't know which hatnote template would be used. -DePiep (talk) 10:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That's what I wanted. --Pawyilee (talk) 16:03, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

On lists: proposal to separate hatnotes from maintenance notices
See Category talk:Hatnote templates for lists. Proposal to separate hatnotes from maintenance notices. -DePiep (talk) 20:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Surname/given name notice
I've posted a discussion here. I believe the notices about surnames/given names should not be hatnotes, as they're not disambiguation-related and they are not critical enough to be above the lead. They could be footnotes or built into the article, etc. Please check out that discussion and voice your opinion. Designate (talk) 03:57, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous
This really needs to get removed it's getting on my nerves, I'm sorry but do it for all or none at all. That's how it needs to go I'm getting sick of arguing that on the LeAnn Rimes song "I Need You" that there needs to be one as there are SEVERAL songs that go by that name (and a lot of them DON'T have pages), regardless if they got this (Artist song) beside there name or not PLEASE REMOVE THIS. It needs to be for all or none no half or pick and chose cause that's ridiculous. It does nothing but cause problems and edit wars. JamesAlan1986 *talk 18:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * AND DON'T BASH ME! I've had enough of that. I'm allowed to give my opinion the first person who does it I'm reporting to an admin as I'm tired of giving my opinion and getting personally attacked I'm done playing that game. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 18:53, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Another point I want to make here is this. There's an article for the album Speak Now by Taylor Swift and the song by the same name by her too. The Speak Now album has a hat because the same name and same artist thing. I Need You is an album and a song by LeAnn Rimes both using the same name but they can't have a hat over there's no other album under that name WHAT SENSE DOES THAT MAKE? It should need a hat as there's the album by Rimes and the song by Rimes JUST LIKE Speak Now. Like I've said this pick and chose stuff is dumb and it needs to be all or none. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 19:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Hatnotes are only needed for examples such as Speak Now. They are used to show direction in which is which. I Need You (album) separates itself with (album). — Status  &#x7B;talk<sub style="margin-left:-3.5ex;">contribs 21:04, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well what about the song I Need You specifically. It seems to me that it'd be need there as there are songs that do not have pages. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 21:13, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The page I Need You is a disambiguation page. I Need You (LeAnn Rimes song) is an unambiguously titled article. A hatnote is superfluous on that page. There is perhaps a tiny possibility of confusion with the LeAnn Rimes album of the same name. If you wanted to use on the song article and  on the album article, that would likely be unobjectionable. Though it seems overkill since both are prominently cross-referenced in each article. older ≠ wiser 21:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

That seems to make more sense to me but I'm still not understand where the section says it's inappropriate cause the example nor anything on there says it's misuse to me. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 21:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The guideline uses a different sort of example but the idea is the same. For a different example, consider that there are many places and things known as "London". But London, England, is by the most common meaning and so its article is at London and a hatnote there directs those readers who might be looking for a different London to a disambiguation page. If there were only one or two other ambiguously titled articles, the hatnote could link directly to them rather than to a disambiguation page. In the case at hand, I Need You (LeAnn Rimes song) is unambiguously titled. It is highly unlikely that a reader would get to that page when they were actually looking for one of the other unambiguously titled songs listed at I Need You. older ≠ wiser 21:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

So going by what you're saying then Speak Now probably shouldn't have a hatnote as if they were looking for the song it wouldn't be likely that it might be unlikely that they'd do that as the other one is "Speak Now (song)"? <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 22:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No James, Speak Now needs one, because when you type "Speak Now" it goes to the album, not the song. London also goes to the UK city, so it also needs a hat note."I Need You (LeAnn Rimes song)" does not need a hat note, because you aren't going to type in "I Need You (LeAnn Rimes song)" and be looking for "I Need You (The Beatles song)". Understand? C T J F 8 3  22:33, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I Need You (LeAnn Rimes song) doesn't need a hatnote per simple application of WP:NAMB and its lack of any confusable redirects. --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 22:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I think I'm getting it a little. But I do think they need to post that better on there so there's no confusion on it. And CTJF83. You're awesome dude! <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 22:38, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * But for arguments sack lets make sure I'm getting it. Blue (LeAnn Rimes album) should have a hatnote as the song page is also called Blue (LeAnn Rimes song). Right? <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 22:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, you're not going to type in "Blue (LeAnn Rimes album)" and be looking for the song. See how London goes the UK city. It needs a hat note because you may type in "London" and be looking for London, Ontario. However, you're not going to type in "London, Ontario" and be looking for the UK city...see the difference? C T J F 8 3  22:45, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If for some poor reason Blue (LeAnn Rimes) redirected to the song or the album, then you could use a hat note...but that would be a poor redirect anyway. C T J F 8 3  22:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Well I figured that because of Speak Now because if you were looking for the Speak Now song you'd type that in in the search right. Though I do wanna point this out there are those like me (and I've done this goof up a lot) who type it but not in full as the search usually pulls up all pages associated with the search and I've accidentally hit the wrong one cause the mouse wasn't actually on the one. Speaking of redirect I Need You (album) was originally on I Need You (LeAnn Rimes album) but got redirected to I Need You (album). <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 22:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * What you say kinda makes sense...but I'm usually lazy, and only type in the title, I won't add "song", "album", "episode", "character", etc. I may have heard "Speak Now" on the radio, and just type that in assuming it will go to the song, as I'd be unaware there is an album titled that also. C T J F 8 3  23:00, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Exactly that's why they should have them in case of that type of accident. LOL! LeAnn Rimes should have a hatnote though right? As there is also LeAnn Rimes (album). <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 23:02, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * LOL, you can easily retype in case of accident...Ya, although it is listed at LeAnn_Rimes, you shouldn't have to scroll through the page to find the album. C T J F 8 3  23:07, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

LOL! Okay. Let me try another one Sparks Fly (album) by Miranda Cosgrove & Sparks Fly (song) by Taylor Swift? <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 23:10, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ...you need to answer if they should or shouldn't have a hat note lol. C T J F 8 3  23:11, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

From what you said on your talk page album/song no lol <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 23:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Correct, but don't misconstrue what I said as true in every situation, that was for that specific one...because again, you won't type in "Sparks Fly (album)" and be looking for the Swift song. C T J F 8 3  23:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * But they probably both need a ? <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk  23:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, those are only for closely, but different titles. C T J F 8 3  23:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Like "Heroine" redirects to Hero which has a not to be confused with Heroin, because they are two very similar words, but completely different things. C T J F 8 3  23:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

LOL! I accidentally mistaked them once. But that's when Sparks Fly (album) was just Sparks Fly. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 23:31, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A hat note would be appropriate if it was still just titled "Sparks Fly", but since it isn't, no hat note is needed. C T J F 8 3  23:34, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It'd seem that would be appropriate for it though cause of one of them being an album and the other a song and by 2 different people. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 23:40, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, how would you confuse an album by one person with a song by another? C T J F 8 3  23:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Well if you're not a fan of Taylor Swift you wouldn't know that she had a song out called "Sparks Fly" and might mistaken it as a song by Miranda Cosgrove or vise versa. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 23:56, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well probably the Sparks Fly (album) should have one so you don't have to scroll down to the track listing. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 23:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That's why Sparks Fly is a dab page instead of a redirect. C T J F 8 3  23:58, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

True, but I do have a feeling those don't get used much I know I never use the disambiguation page and half the times I forget they exist. I also want to note that the disambiguation pages aren't always reliable, I've noticed things missing on them that should be on there and have existed for awhile. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 00:01, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want me to be honest I don't understand why we got disambiguation pages anyway for that reason. Cause I know I don't want to go and add all the pages that need to be add that are missing especially when I don't know how many pages there are. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 00:07, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * HUH??!?! It's so you can find other Londons C T J F 8 3  00:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I know, that's not my point. My point is that there are some of the disambiguation pages that are unreliable because they are incomplete. <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 00:11, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia will always be a work in progress, so incompleteness is a pretty lame criticism. If you find a disambiguation page that is missing entries with existing articles, you could fix it yourself. older ≠ wiser 00:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * 99% of articles on Wikipedia are incomplete...essentially if it's not a FA/FL, it's incomplete. C T J F 8 3  00:18, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay slow down here, two confusing things what is WP:SOFIXIT suppose to do? And what is FA/FL? <b style="font-family:Arial; color:red;">JamesAlan1986</b> *<sup style="font-family:Arial; color:darkred;">talk 00:20, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:SOFIXIT is a Wikipedia epigram/link sometimes used as a reminder that there is no "they" that fixes things here. There's only "us".
 * FA is Wikipedia jargon for a "featured article", an article that is considered to be so well written that no one will ever find anything to change in it again. These are so rare that they're considered worthy of showcasing. Similarly, FL is a "featured list".--NapoliRoma (talk) 13:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Hatnotes for typos?
This one is (hopefully) simple: Do we use hatnotes to link to similarly spelled words? Say, a hatnote linking to Furies from Furries, or (assuming those would be actual articles) one linking to Grove from Groove? There's a silly dispute going on currently and I'd like some general opinions on this. --Conti|✉ 08:51, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I would say not, unless there's some genuine reason to expect people to be confused between the two words (for example, if they're very similar in form and have similar meanings). We don't want to clutter the top of articles with hatnotes any more than necessary.--Kotniski (talk) 08:57, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Just some months ago this one was deleted; Template:Misspelling. The TfD discussion noted that covers the need, while Distinguish can apply to both meaning and spelling. The same can be said about:,  and  (four alikes is a lot, but out of this topic).
 * For names, where spelling is not defined by a language, there is the hatnote, which allows for differently spelled names.
 * As for myself, I do not support creation of such a hatnote. On top of the reasons mentioned above, the next problem will arise: where to draw a line between relevant/irrelevant misspellings (that is: do/don't add the hatnote)? For a single title, the variants can be multiple. There are no stabilizing critaria. It would clutter the article top indeed.
 * What we could use is a google-style search engine, one that asks "did you mean Furries?" with the search results for Furies. I don't think this is within Hatnote-territory. More like a long-term WP development strategy. -DePiep (talk) 12:26, 19 October 2011 (UTC)