Wikipedia talk:Hatnote/Archive 4

Changed Non-existent articles
I'd mentioned a while ago some changed I wanted to make to WP:Hatnote. I went ahead and made those changes. Cheers! Scientific29 (talk) 19:53, 30 June 2012 (UTC)


 * However, I've recently created a free format "distinguish" hatnote with a red link and a blue link, on William Woodhouse (MP). I spent quite a while disentangling the two different men, and didn't want my time to be wasted. There are several incoming redlinks for the Aldeburgh chap but I didn't have time or inclination to create an article for him immediately (not least because my main source for MPs, "The History of Parliament" isn't yet available online for his period). If there were enough William Woodhouses for a dab page, there would be no problem adding a redlink for this one, with bluelink to the constituency, so I feel his presence as a hatnote is equally justifiable. WP:IAR perhaps. I see that the whole Hatnotes page is a guideline, and common sense and occasional exceptions are expected, but I wonder whether this sort of redlink needs to be mentioned? Pam  D  20:54, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Name clarification hatnotes
Can it be noted somewhere that there is currently no consensus whether or not these should be used? Would save editors confusion as to why these seemingly guideline-contradicting templates are all over the place. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:08, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Hatnote templates for names
Category:Hatnote templates for names has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. -DePiep (talk) 11:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The discussion is here. No idea why the template doesn't link to the right place. Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Are hatnotes required when disamb does irrefutably exists?
At Ray Bradbury, the author is the (obvious) undisambig page. There is a work by him, called "Ray Bradbury", located at a disambig page; the work is linked later in the article, but this comes down to whether a hat note to refer a person, potentially searching for the book, from the author to the book, is needed. My understanding of hatnotes that they should be used in exactly a situation like this, but others are arguing that its "obvious" that the article about the author and that those searching for the book can find it by looking through the article. --M ASEM (t) 16:18, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not with the "obvious" reasoning. The book page is called Ray Bradbury (collection), and the very fact that it (obviously) needs a disambiguating addition implies there might be confusion, because of spelling already. The fact that it is eponymous can only add to the confusion. So I think the hatnote is appropriate (check: "user, are you on the right page?"). Even worse: omitting the hatnote might lead to a reader missing the page of the book, while (maybe) looking for it. After all, the reader did type the book title. -DePiep (talk) 16:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant that Ray Bradbury the person is the obvious choice for the undisambiguated page title. --M ASEM (t) 17:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I got that. I tried to say that I disagree with those arguing its "obvious" that ... (no hatnote is needed). I'd say the hatnote should be there. -DePiep (talk) 17:25, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * As the editor who added the hatnote a few months ago, I'd say that it is certainly appropriate. We do the same thing with eponymous albums in performers' articles (see, for example, the hatnote at The Monkees), and the situation here is the same: The title of the work is ambiguous with the name of its creator, so the creator's article should carry a hatnote pointing to the work.-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  16:58, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There absolutely should be a hatnote. It's just a degenerate case of a hatnote pointing from a primary article to a disambiguation page.--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:55, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Piling on, but yes, the hatnote needs to be there. The alternative is to put the disambiguation page at the base name, which is not a great solution in this case. :-) -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:22, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Hatnote for song titles
Hi. I was wondering if I'm wrong about this. I'm challenging another editor's position that a hatnote should be place for a song title to redirect it to the album article. I dont think it should as songs have been titled after infinite things that happen to share a title of a Wikipedia article, and if there isnt any information on the song at the album article, then there's no encyclopedic purpose of having such hatnotes. Dan56 (talk) 17:39, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The hatnote isn't needed, but the Badu song should be moved to Window Seat (Erykah Badu song) (per WP:NCM), its incoming links updated, and Window Seat (song) should redirect to a new dab page, Window Seat (disambiguation) as an R from incomplete disambiguation. Failing that, yeah, the hatnote is needed for readers who are looking for a song titled "Window Seat" who follow the auto-complete suggestion in the search box and find themselves at the wrong song with no navigational aid. (The encyclopedic information at the album article is that the song exists as a track on that album. The third option is to remove that information if it's not encyclopedic.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you sure about that? In my understanding of the guidelines, your "less desirable" option should be the first option: Because the Erykah Badu song is the only song by that title with an article, it should remain at (song), with a hatnote pointing to the album article that mentions the other song. If other songs with this title are discovered, and the hatnote becomes cumbersome, then a disambiguation page would be in order, and the hatnote on the song article should point there.-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  18:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The music naming guidelines are overly brief, but yes, they don't include the qualification with an article: "When necessary, disambiguation should be done using "(band)", "(album)", or "(song)". Unless multiple albums [or songs, one assumes] of the same name exist (such as Down to Earth), they do not need to be disambiguated any further. Disambiguate albums and songs by artist ...." And of course the other songs do also have articles, those articles just happen to be albums. The appropriate redirects could be legitimately created, for example. As with films, there's no halfway point: if there are multiple songs, they appear to need explicit qualification. But I have no skin in it, and I would love to see WP:NCM expanded and clarified in either direction. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:00, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Then perhaps we should invite interested editors from WP:NCM to join the party. I'll drop them a line.-- Shelf Skewed  Talk  03:30, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * This seems impractical as there are always numerous songs with the same title (for the example that led me here, ) If there's only one song article with the title, then it should just be disambiguated with "(song)". Also, that naming convention guidelines is outdated; Down to Earth is now a disambiguation page. And the subsequent example cited in that guideline ("For example, Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album) is fine, but Off the Wall (Michael Jackson album) is unnecessary.") isnt the only album named Off the Wall but it is the only one with an article for it. Dan56 (talk) 15:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If the examples in WP:NCM are out-of-date, then they should be updated. Probably should use fictional examples to illustrate the point rather than real examples which are always likely to grow stale given the ever-increasing scope of included articles as well as the ever-increasing production of new songs and albums. But, to the point, if there are more than one song or album with the same title -- and there are articles on Wikipedia that identify the subjects, we should not make finding the alternative meanings unnecessarily difficult. In such cases -- the options that JHunterJ lays out above are appropos. Either use a hatnote on the one article (assuming there is only one or perhaps two alternatives) or rename the article to be unambiguous, then redirect the ambiguous title to the disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 17:23, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Since Dan is the only one who has a problem with hatnotes, so I'll add them to that song article. I'd be ok with Badu's staying at Window Seat (song) provided we keep the hatnotes, but it seems like a Window Seat (disambiguation) page may be in order. --TheTruthiness (talk) 05:13, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Family name hatnotes
Are Cambodian name, Icelandic name, Indian name, Malay name, and Mongolian name proper uses for a hatnote? For example, on the Natsagiin Bagabandi article:

They seem like unnecessary clutter and the subject of how particular cultural names are used should probably be discussed in their own article. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:36, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Is there a standard that says how to add this information to the regular lead, or in a persons infobox? -DePiep (talk) 16:40, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My opinion is that these should not be hatnotes. There was a brief discussion some time ago at some Village Pump page that was inconclusive. older ≠ wiser 16:54, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I could agree, but we should move the information into the lead or infobox. Not delete it. -DePiep (talk) 16:40, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would probably be best. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think a linked footnote would be a better response to this problem. It is overkill to discuss family naming customs in the main sections of the text for the hundreds of thousands of articles we have on people with non-English names. Family hatnotes are about content, but hatnotes should be reserved for technical matters such as disambiguation. I propose the introduction of a footnote system (similar to the one used at Zersenay Tadese) to mention these issues. The blue NB links are still fairly prominent to the reader, allowing for ease of comprehension. No other non-technical, content hatnotes exist other than these.
 * If there is a collective desire to keep the name templates, then we should introduce guidelines for content-based hatnotes. After all, over twenty thousand transclusions is way beyond what one could consider an "occasional exception" to the guideline. SFB 19:01, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: already hatnotes can be content based (e.g. main, see also). Disambiguation is only one of the reasons to use a hatnote.
 * Using footnotes to me looks elaborate too. I prefer in a persons infobox an option: like family name or wikilinked Naming culture=Icelandic. Since we have lots of personboxes, the solution should work for most of them (generic & simple). -DePiep (talk) 21:07, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with SFB—a hatnote is the wrong location for this information. I like the idea of using footnotes instead. There is no need to aggressively grab the reader's attention to point out a minor stylistic decision. Ideally the reader's attention should be directed to the lead sentence, which is the most important part of the article. The footnote gives interested readers a reasonable place to look if they are confused by the article's style, without beating it over the head of everybody else. We may be an internet-based work, but we should maintain some respect for the old principles of good design. Don't just stack things on top of the page because you can't find a spot for them. —Designate (talk) 22:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * DePiep: I agree that an infobox solution is also a reasonable one. Still, all infobox information should be included in the prose proper regardless. main, see also are for technical matters not content ones. They exist because we can't (or don't) technically display the related information on one page. They essentially say "click this to see X", or "This is X, did you actually want 'x'?". The family name templates say: "The cultural naming system of this subject is probably different compared to the culture you likely come from. Here is a brief explanation of how the subject's name is technically constructed." This could, and should, be discussed in the text, unlike technical concerns. SFB 12:51, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Preliminary proposal: change "Family name"-hatnote into page text
See: Category:Hatnote templates for names As of 28 August 2012 (28 pages):

Outgoing links
relevance legend 0=not wp 1=single lang/cultref (no name link) 2=other lang ref (Ar/mal) xists N=Name name ref gen=generic name ref

Parameters used
family paternal (x), patronymic, second (Port) maternal (x), matronymic, first (Port) transliterated refer to generation personal wrong not: surname -DePiep (talk) 23:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not really sure what you're saying here. Designate (talk) 23:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree, not clear. It is a sequence to this /Archive_4 discussion. So far it is research only. I have made an overview of the templates as is (August, 2012). I also counted the various parameters ("family name" and so) to get a sense of usages. Next step could be a covering alternative template, as was discussed in the link. Afterwardsm not much happened. -DePiep (talk) 10:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for new variety of quasi-disambiguation page being discussed
The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines might be of interest to disambiguators. older ≠ wiser 14:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Hatnotes for disambiguated topics
WP:NAMB uses the example of Tree (set theory) and says: "'Here, the hatnote is inappropriate because a reader who is following links within Wikipedia or using Wikipedia's own search engine would not have ended up at tree (set theory) if one were looking for other types of trees, since tree does not redirect there.'"

I would like to suggest changing this guideline. First of all, it neglects the possibility that a person arrives at a wikipedia article from an external search engine. If the disambiguated term is high in SE results for the general term (as it will be in at least some cases) this outcome is not unlikely. Moreover, when the internal search engine suggests a number of related terms, it is very easy, particularly for a relatively inexperienced user, to click on the "wrong" term. In both cases a hatnote could provide the user with a pointer to the desired article or to a dab page which in turn leads to it, at little cost or problem for readers who are in the right place. DES (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree with DES above regarding Hatnotes. It is true that articles Foo (A), Foo (B), and Foo, C may each one have a completely unambiguous name - but there is no telling to which one a user may arrive when using search, either with Wikipedia's own search mechanism or with outside search engines! This is especially true if the user is not very familiar with the field's terminology, and used "suboptimal" search terms, or uses "obsolete" search terms (e.g. because he's reading a printed book). A few examples:


 * (Hypothetical): The forest next to Griffy Lake happens to be divided into Griffy Lake Nature Preserve and the Griffy Woods section of Indiana University's Research and Teaching Preserve. I've been to both many times, and always was vaguely aware that the forest is some kind of protected area, but until I started writing about Griffy Lake, I had never been quite aware that there are actually two (administratively) distinct nature areas there! If Wikipedia had had articles Griffy Lake Nature Preserve and Griffy Woods, and I had been searching on "Griffy Lake Park" or "Griffy Lake Reserve", who knows which one would be retrieved first! So it seems that it would make sense to have hatlinks in these two hypothetical articles linking them with each other.


 * (Real): Linxia City and Linxia County are two non-overlapping administrative units ("county-level units") in China, both being parts of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture. The government of Linxia Prefecture is in Linxia City, but that of Linxia County isn't. Technically speaking, the three names are absolutely unique and non-confusing; in practice, unless you are a Wikipedia editor who keeps writing about places in China (like me), you probably have no idea how cities, counties, towns, and prefectures fit into each other in China. (Hint: towns are constituent parts of counties, but counties are usually parts of some types of cities, while other types of cities are parts of prefectures or of cities of the first type. Clear now?) Historically, counties, cities, and prefectures, have been reorganized many times; lots of places that are called "city" now were a "county" some years back; and most of the former "prefectures" are now (higher-level) "cities" as well. I didn't check on Linxia administrative history, but I would not be surprised if an older document writing about "Linxia County" were in fact talking about what's now Linxia City or Linxia Prefecture.


 * (Real) Vologda District (a.k.a Vologodsky District) and the city of Vologda are both located in Russia's Vologda Oblast; Vologda City is the administrative center of Vologda District, but not a part of it. Confusing enough? (By the way, I have no idea why Wikipedia's convention is to translate Chinese sheng and qu as "province" and "district", but to translate Russian oblast and raion as "oblast" and "district". I have no problem obeying by it, but I am afraid not a lot of non-Russian speaking casual users would know right away what an "oblast" is...) In my view, a hatnote in each of these three articles linking to some Vologda (disambiguation) page would only help navigation for a casual user. (And, come to think of it, such a hatnote would not hurt Vologda River either).


 * (Real, with a rule-abiding but not very user-friendly edit to show) The articles Min River (Fujian) and Min River (Sichuan) are, of course, perfectly unambiguous for anyone who known which province the river in question is on. Google search on Min River gives in fact the first 4 links as follows: our Min River (Fujian), our Min River (disambig page), our Min River (Sichuan), and Brittanica's "Min River (river, Fujian, China)". A user who does not happen to know the province would of course do right if he follows the second link; but what if he follows the first link while really having the Sichuan River in mind? Again, a hatnote would not take much space, but would alert the user that there are other options.


 * (Real) Articles such as Bloomington, Indiana presently don't have hatnotes referring to Bloomington. But if I do a Google search on "Bloomington", the only Wikipedia page within the top 10 results is Bloomington, Indiana! (Now, I am in Bloomington, Indiana at the moment, and I am aware that Google is user-location-aware; results no doubt would be different if I were in IL or MN). Of course, the majority of English Wikipedia users are either from the USA or from the comparatively well-educated groups in other English speaking countries, so they are aware of the US geography (thus, probably know what state the desired Bloomington is in) and of the "City, State" convention, and probably they would try to do a web search that include the state name. But... again, I don't think we can rely on this for 100% - or even 90% of web searches.

To summarize, I think it would not be a bad idea to completely abolish the rule Hatnotes. But even if we keep it, it make sense to somewhat "weaken" it, by saying something to the effect that a hatnote connecting "Foo (A)" with "Foo" or "Foo (disambiguation)" is allowed if it appears not too unlikely that some users really looking for some other "Foo" may get to "Foo (A)" instead as a result of search of some kind. -- Vmenkov (talk) 01:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

-- Vmenkov (talk) 01:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * First, a note on Google and Bloomington: here in the UK, the top hit is a Bloomington source of flies, the second our WP article on Bloomington, Indiana and the third an IMDb hit for a 2010 film. No other Wikipedia articles on front page, though Illinois and Minnesota cities' official sites are there.  So someone looking for a WP article on a city called "Bloomington" is likely to go to the Indiana one, which has no link to the dab page and thus to the many other Bloomingtons in the USA and Canada.


 * I think we should have a discussion about this. The note cited above seems to come from a past era where Wikipedia did not dominate Search Engine hits. We need to recognise that the person who searches on an ambiguous name might not find the article they want first time, and we need to help them to get to the article they need. I think I agree that we should offer a hatnote to the disambiguation page from any article which has a disambiguated title, though I am interested to read arguments pro and con and consider them. Pam  D  08:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * We also have a problem with a huge number of articles at disambiguated titles which are not currently linked from the base name article - someone creates "Name (occupation)" and doesn't make a hatnote at "Name" or add the new item to the dab page there or at "Name (disambiguation)". I see these while stub-sorting.


 * Another example: Google "John Marshall Leeds" (not in quotes) and you get John Marshall (industrialist) as top hit, but no mention in the top hits of John Marshall (MP for Leeds, died 1836), and no link to him from the former article (except, right at the end, his name as a son). If you're looking for the MP of the 1830s, a link to John Marshall would be very helpful. At the cost of a small amount of extra text on every disambiguated page, I think we would be helping our readers to find what they want. (And also, of course, helping our fellow editors to avoid creating duplicate articles because they didn't find the existing one). Pam  D  08:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As a sidenote, since this question addresses a do (not) disambiguate rule, most likely it should be changed through WP:DISAMB. The hatnotes only express a disambiguation rule. -DePiep (talk) 08:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * We're not talking about changing the disambiguations, just about one route to find articles through a hatnote. I think this is probably the appropriate place for discussion, but have added a note at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Disambiguation to alert disambiguation enthusiasts.  Pam  D  10:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The use of hatnotes on unambiguously titled articles is not a disambiguation issue. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Right. -DePiep (talk) 12:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Some of these might be handled by a distinguish, but in any event, I think that if there is a question about whether a navigational hatnote should be placed (or remain) on an unambiguously titled article, a comment next to it identifying the navigational problems -- some external search or other path to that article when another might be meant -- should suffice in ending the issue. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Even though the guideline says these hatnotes are unnecessary, I see them relatively frequently in fixing links to disambiguation pages. IMHO, most of these hatnotes are harmless, and might sometimes be helpful to someone, so I generally leave them alone despite the guideline, unless they are confusing or misleading.  I'd have no objection to a change in the guideline. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Would it be enough to use plain see also &tc. in such cases, and adjust the rule to allow so. It might come down to careful wording of the hatnote. -DePiep (talk) 17:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * But what problem is there with just allowing "For other uses see Foo (disambiguation) " as a hatnote on every page with title "Foo (something)"? Pam  D  18:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I assume the guidelines is intended to avoid unnecessary clutter. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * JHJ, didn't you just say you thought it OK provided good explanation? Say, from the example, article Vologodsky District can have hatnote See also the city of Vologda and Vologda Oblast? -DePiep (talk) 18:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. The good explanation would change the "unnecessary clutter" to "necessary clutter". That's different than putting the hatnote on every article with a qualified title. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:21, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree. I got it: Last note by PamD suggests like every page could have one. That would be fogging pages indeed. Still, I prefer a sophisticated wording in the guideline, to a separate hatnote for these situations. -DePiep (talk) 23:14, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Aha. My suggestion for a comment was for a wiki markup comment, embedded "beside" the hatnote, that would be visible to anyone (like me) going through and cleaning them off. Not for a separate hatnote template. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * A comment in the page code? That is not a hatnote. To cut things short, JHJ, what proposal would you do to answer this OP, or are you against anyway? -DePiep (talk) 00:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)-DePiep (talk) 00:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't recommend any change to the guidelines. In cases where the hatnote would be useful anyway, I would add the hatnote and add a wiki markup comment with the usefulness explanation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I see. But that comment could not prevent someone to delete it anyway, citing the guideline. I remember very little recent WP:ignoreallrules breaks that survived long. There is gonna be long discusions per page, usually ending in "undecided, so follow the guideline". Would you yourself defend such an example as I made for Volgogda? OTOH, I see some virtue in the hatnotable examples here. It supports the main hatnote goal: show the reader whether they are on the right page. I just Googled Vologda, and the Vologda_Governorate page was not visible at first (while Sokol, Vologda Oblast was at #3). So the base line "A reader who arrives on this page has already chosen the specification" is not true in this. -DePiep (talk) 08:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I haven't read enuf of this section to ask an intelligent question yet, but i do note that SEO does not appear on the page (and SE appears only once). And i dunno that much abt SEO, beyond a sense that this subject sounds a lot like SEO reasoning, and perhaps therefore SEO-like techniques may be relevant: we may want Google to consider presenting results that would not follow from what's appropriate to put in our classic Dabn mechanisms: what's not useful to those reaching an article other than via an external SE. Isn't this like a merchant who wants to be found via SEs (external to their own respective sites), but not to distract or creep out their customers by plastering pages with rendered text for all the search terms that good prospects are likely to use? If so, isn't it likely that SEOs have invented mechanisms that can solve these issues without our changing to HatNote/Dab guidelines? Would MediaWiki servers, or some kind of other support software be able to detect the situations we're worried about, e.g. by analyzing each article that is reachable from Dabs including HatNotes, and on that basis serve to Web crawlers information that reflects more than what is displayed on that page, or even than what is in its markup? (By the way, do we dare even think about the feedbacks that would occur if we try to recognize "errors" imposed on users by SEs, and try to and remediate them by trying to influence the SEs?) --Jerzy•t 04:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * From my point of view, the problem is not with search engines per se. My starting this discussion is based on a fairly common experience (both mine and of other people I know): when you are really looking for some concept A, you find a different concept A', with a similar but not identical name, and reading the article about A' sometimes may not even give you a clue that there is also an article about A. Such "mis-finding" is more likely to happen when you aren't very familiar with the terminology and/or "ontology" of the particular field. (Such as the knowledge of the geographical framework in geography, or of taxonomy in biology). This is why I feel that  a hatlink from A' to A would often be useful to "real users" even when the rules say we don't need one. -- Vmenkov (talk) 01:46, 23 October 2012 (UTC)


 * NAMB makes sense when articles with the same name are completely different concepts, such as Tree (set theory) and Tree (Gaelic Storm album); but it falls short when have disambiguation parentheses in the same category - such as Tree (graph theory) and Tree (set theory), or HMS New Zealand (1904) vs HMS New Zealand (1911). In this case an otheruses or confused template will make it easier to find the right article after arriving to the wrong one.
 * :I suggest adding that criterion to WP:NAMB; that would solve the main problems with this guideline and allow for hatnotes where there's real ambiguity, without requiring them at all articles with parenthesis disambiguation in the title. Diego (talk) 12:23, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * As I asked there, how does this hypothetical reader reach HMS New Zealand (1911) in error? And if the topics are in the same category and you don't know that you're on the "wrong one" without reading the article, how is forcing the user to scroll back to the top an improvement over putting the set index in the "See also" section where it belongs? -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Write "HMS New Zealand" at Google. 2) Follow the first result link. 3) The user can reach HMS New Zealand (1911) in error if she knows there's a ship called "HMS New Zealand", and doesn't know which year it was built; my gut feeling says that's the most likely case. Every user looking instead for the 1904 ship would be lead to the wrong page by Google. When reaching this article, having the external link at the top makes it clear that there are several ships with the same name, so the error can be corrected as soon as possible. Diego (talk) 13:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This is a good reason to include the hatnote. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:44, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You're welcome :-) Diego (talk) 21:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I've also witnessed one case where Google 'picks a winner' for an ambiguous term and never links our disambiguation page, I can't remember the exact one now, but I know it happens. This kind of 'redundant hatnoting' should be integrated into the mediawiki engine, rather than being done manually, because it's a lot of work to switch from one set of rules to another here, and in the meantime, we're inconsistent. It should also be noted that this exact search behavior can be specifically detected: the HTTP referer field contains something reasonably easily parseable with a regular expression, for example for Google that would be on the order of google.com/.*[?&]q=([^&]+) So, our engine can start detecting this automatically and offering navigational assistance only to those users who arrive in that particular manner. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:12, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Featured article with incorrect hatnote
Please see Talk:HMS New Zealand (1911). -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Replacement guideline

 * I've not seen a single person support the guideline as written, either here or at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation, so I deleted it. However, if someone can craft an alternative, I would encourage that. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * There are 250+ incoming links to WP:NAMB. As the section has been removed, these now link to the top of WP:Hatnote but will be very confusing for anyone following them as part of looking at an old discussion. I've re-targetted the redirect to link to this talk page for now - not sure what the long-term solution should be. Perhaps a subpage of WP:Hatnote which mentions the previous guideline and links to various (by then archived) discussions? Pam  D  08:32, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Is there a discussion I missed? Where were persons asked to "support" this line? Does deletion mean we can or even should give Tree (set theory) (the example page) a disambiguation hatnote? -DePiep (talk) 09:51, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Discussion happened here. There's an emerging consensus that hatnotes are not needed when the topics are widely different (such as with Set (mathematics) and Set (game)), but they're needed when there are disambiguated topics that belong to the same class (e.g. Treaty of Paris). Rather than completely removing NAMB, it would be great to rewrite it to be more fine-grained in this respect. Diego (talk) 10:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think that there's clear consensus that it's about sets. Rather, it seems to me to be about pages where a external search engine is highly likely to take a user to a page they weren't looking for. A person who searches for tree will find the plant, and there is no doubt about that. With Treaty of Paris, there is no telling which one a Google search would point to. In general, if there is a primary topic, you probably don't need the hatnote on the others, but if there is no primary topic, probably all should have hatnotes. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:17, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with Diego. The general principle still applies, but some refinement and clarification will help. Previously, this had been used as a rather blunt instrument. older ≠ wiser 11:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I just drafted up a new guideline, placed in the "appropriate use" section. Please comment or boldly revise. If you change the section title, don't forget to update the shortcut. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:29, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * All fine. I see drafts appear. -DePiep (talk) 15:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I for one don't agree that having a primary topic is the defining criterion for having hatnotes. In the given example, say next week there's a new TV show called Treaty of Paris featuring Paris Hilton, and that is made the primary topic; you'd still need hatnotes from the current peace treaty articles to the dab pages - nothing has changed for having a primary topic, the problem is still the same for someone looking for "treaty of paris history" or "peace treaty of paris" and arriving to an article at random. (This is a contrived example, but the situation can be fairly common - every time some ambiguous topics have a related meaning and some others do not, you'll have this problem). Diego (talk) 14:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually, Trees are a pretty bad example here - they really illustrate why a link to Tree (disambiguation) from each and every "Tree (foo)" might be useful. There are articles Tree (set theory) and Tree (descriptive set theory), both linked from the dab page, neither having a hatnote to link to the other. I'm sure there must be sufficient overlap or relatedness to merit a pair of hatnotes, at the least!


 * The more I think, the more I prefer the idea of allowing a link to the dab page in a wide range of cases. Or perhaps even add it in every case: no scope for timeconsuming debate.


 * If a reader Googles not just on the primary topic, but something like "Joe Smith football", they will not find the dab page (Joseph Smith (disambiguation)) within their first pages of Google hits. They will find various footballers such as Joe Smith (footballer born 1889), but not necessarily the one they want. If they are looking for Joe Smith (footballer born 1953), they won't find him in the first few pages of their ghits. (Unless they try again, using "footballer" ... but why should they think of that, when they've found several footballers already?)  If they click on one of the "wrong" Joe Smiths, it would be helpful if we offered them a link to the dab page, where they will find a carefully constructed finding aid to help them find their target Joe/Joseph from among the many who have Wikipedia articles and share that name, some of whom play various different kinds of football.    We do our readers a disservice by not offering a link to the dab page from the disambiguated page.


 * I'm not sure we can predict or define the set of circumstances in which this sort of thing might happen, so I think the very minor negative of "adding clutter" is probably outweighed by the potential advantage of directing readers clearly and easily (clickably) to the dab page which will list the article they want if it exists in the encyclopedia. Pam  D  17:06, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Draft 1
I move the draft here, so that it's discussed before placing it on the guideline. Diego (talk) 14:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

  Non-ambiguous titles likely to cause confusion


 * For other treaties also known as a "Treaty of Paris", see Treaty of Paris (disambiguation).

The Treaty of Paris of 1898,, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...

Even thought the article title, Treaty of Paris (1898), is unambiguous, there is no primary topic for Treaty of Paris. As a result, people using external search engines, such as Google, may end up at any of these articles, and there is no way to predict what such a search engine will do. Therefore, the hatnote is necessary here to let our readers know that this isn't the only Treaty of Paris.

Hatnotes in this case are not always justified. Tree (set theory) does not require one, since the plant is clearly the primary topic and search engines will always point readers there.

Borderline cases can be decided through bold editing or by consensus if disputed.

Draft 2
And here's my suggested revision. It's not true that search engines will always point to the primary topic even if there's one, because searches using several terms can exclude it and point to a secondary topic instead. Diego (talk) 14:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

  Titles likely to cause confusion


 * For other treaties also known as a "Treaty of Paris", see Treaty of Paris (disambiguation).

The Treaty of Paris of 1898,, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...

The article title of this example Treaty of Paris (1898) is not completely unambiguous, as there are other treaties of the same name at different years. As a result, people using external search engines, such as Google, may end up at any of these articles not knowing if they are at the right article because of this, and there is no way to predict what such a search engine will do. Therefore, the hatnote is necessary here to let our readers know that this isn't the only Treaty of Paris.

Hatnotes in this case are not always justified. Tree (set theory) does not require one, since search engines will point to the plant when searching for the simple term, and a search for "tree mathematics" or similar is needed to arrive to the mathematical theory.

Borderline cases can be decided through bold editing or by consensus if disputed.

Draft 3
I do not think we need a separate section here, just a note within the existing section on "Linking to a disambiguation page". I suggest that we expand that section to Draft 3 below. Pam D  23:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC) 

 Linking to a disambiguation page  
 * For other uses, see Monolith (disambiguation).

A monolith is a monument or natural feature such as a mountain, consisting of a single massive stone or rock. Erosion usually exposes these formations...

When a term has a primary meaning and two or more additional meanings, the hatnote on the primary topic page should link to a disambiguation page. other uses may be used for this.

In many cases the hatnote also includes a brief description of the subject of the present article, for readers' convenience: 
 * This article is about the maze-like labyrinth from Greek mythology. For other uses, see Labyrinth (disambiguation).

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate maze-like structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur...

The template about may be used for this. In this case the parameterization was.

To help readers who may have found the wrong page using an external search engine, a hatnote may be added to an article at a disambiguated (non-primary) title to point to the relevant disambiguation page, so that they can be alerted to other articles which may include the topic they seek.



(In the article Treaty of Paris (1898))

The Treaty of Paris of 1898,, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...



(In the article Joe Smith (footballer born 1889)) Joseph "Joe" Smith (25 June 1889 – 11 August 1971) was an English professional football player and manager. ...

I like this one best. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:07, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I like this approach as well.--Trystan (talk) 17:33, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I fear this is too ambiguous; it could result in nearly any article getting an obtrusive hatnote to a disambiguation page. If we are going to start condoning dablinks on already-disambiguated topics, their use must be carefully circumscribed.  Powers T 19:05, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * "Must" they? Why? If they might help a reader, why not add them? Pam  D  19:45, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Because of the possibility they might harm more readers than they help. Hatnotes are distracting and take up screen space; their use must be careful, not indiscriminate.  Powers T 20:59, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Lt, how about proposing a counterexample where we should not include a hatnote? I know Solaris (film) has been used, as has Tree (set theory). Adding a counterexample should reduce frivolous hatnotes. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:37, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I would say that in the vast majority of cases we should not include a hatnote; it's difficult to identify just one representative example. Powers T 00:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Strong disagree. The clutter of a hatnote is minimal, the help to users is huge, so I don't see a problem with it on just about any page as long as it only links to a disambiguation page (and not to 3 or 4 pages). Ego White Tray (talk) 02:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see a strong case for a "huge" help to users, except in some limited cases as being discussed above. Are there really legions of people checking out the article Mercury (planet) and saying "Oh, darn, I really wanted Mercury (element) and I don't know how to get there"?  Powers T 15:42, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, probably so. Thanks for a great example of a page that needs the hatnote. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:24, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * In this case I have to agree with LtPowers. I can't think of any common way that people looking for the metal could arrive to the article about the planet instead by error. There could be a case for disambiguation, for which people looking for the astrological sign could arrive to Mercury (planet) instead. But this case is well covered; since both concepts are related, the link to Mercury in astrology is included at the "In culture" and "See also" sections and thus is easy to find. Diego (talk) 17:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I can. A person types "Mercury" into Google and clicks I Feel Lucky. I don't know what Google's first result is. It could be Wikipedia pages on the planet, the God, the chemical, or maybe even the car. We can't predict what search engines will choose in a case like this, but we can help the reader who lands at the wrong page. Also, the astrology in culture link is not very helpful since it forces the reader to browse the entire page to find it, unlike a hatnote which is seen immediately - and the planet likely doesn't link to the element at all. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:43, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * ... and will find themshelves reading Mercury Marine manufacturers. Mercury (planet) is not the first Google result - and even if it were, Google no longer does I Feel Lucky - the default is Instant Search, so readers can evaluate to what page they're navigating. In any case, that's not a common scenario, nor it is realistic. There may be cases were a Google search likely misleads readers to the wrong Wikipedia page, but Mercury (planet) is not one of them. Diego (talk) 12:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Diego. A person using "I'm feeling lucky" should not be surprised to end up an an unexpected page and it is unrealistic to try to design Wikipedia to accommodate such randomness. older ≠ wiser 13:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "I'm feeling lucky" is a bit of an extreme example, but we do know that people don't navigate the web by careful deliberation; they click on the first thing they see that looks like a somewhat close match (e.g., containing both "Mercury" and "Wikipedia"), and consequently often end up in the wrong place. Any good UI is designed to accommodate that typical user beahviour and get them as quickly as possible to where they actually want to be. My Google search results for Mercury are 1) the element, and 2) the planet. The next WP link is the god, coming halfway down page two; the DAB is on page 5. We can therefore expect that a lot of people arriving at the first two articles are actually looking for some other meaning. It doesnt strike me as unreasonable that someone would expect to be able to get from one Mercury article to another. We can either judge their search strategies as insufficient and refuse to assist them, or provide a quick note that tells them where to go if they are in the wrong place.--Trystan (talk) 15:19, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia UI includes a Search function to address those arriving at mistaken articles through means that cannot be easily anticipated. There is diminishing value to trying to accommodate every possible way users might be confused. older ≠ wiser 15:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with the analysis and concur with the sentiment. But hatnotes are not the best interface anyway; the ideal interface would require a modification to MediaWiki to provide an unobstrusive, always available link to all disambiguated pages in the navigation panel. Since we can't have it, I understand the argument by those willing to reduce the use of hat notes, and we're obligated to reach an agreement with them per WP:CONSENSUS. Diego (talk) 15:51, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * @Bkonrad: But it can be very easily anticipated that people will arrive at the wrong article if it is very high in search engine results, based on everything we know about search behaviour. We can also conclude that "Repeat your search using Wikipedia's own search engine in the hopes of finding a different parenthetically disambiguated article or a disambiguation page," is only going to be the intuitive next step for a small fraction of users. It presupposes half a dozen concepts that the user is unlikely to be familiar with.--Trystan (talk) 15:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that The results returned by search engines vary over time and from one search engine to another. It is extremely unrealistic to expect editors to stay on top of whatever results might come up at any given time and try to guess at how people might make a mistake. I think it is entirely reasonable to encourage people to use Wikipedia's internal search function to find articles. Search functions are commonplace in most computer and web applications. Why should we "presuppose" that readers will expect Wikipedia to be different? older ≠ wiser 17:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Which brings the question back around to how much one dislikes hatnotes. For those of us that really dislike them, it would be a lot of work to try and prove exactly where they aren't necessary so that they can be removed wherever possible. For those of us that find them helpful and unintrusive, the only investigation that would be necessary is some simple evidence that one article dominates search engine results and is therefore likely to get lots of incoming traffic meant for other articles. For those that dislike them, the cost of making users repeat their search in Wikipedia (knowing that many will simply abandon their search instead, since that happens at every step of information seeking) is reasonable in order to keep the article uncluttered. For those that like them, providing the prominent DAB link is a good use of article real estate.--Trystan (talk) 00:00, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Summary of the above as I see it: The pro-hatnote group is saying that the way users search on Google or other search engines means that hatnotes are necessary to get to the intended article. The anti-hatnote is essentially saying that the users are doing it wrong. This is a user-hostile attitude, and I don't think it has any place here. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:45, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, that's one way to look at it. Another is that there is no demonstrable benefit to adding hatnotes to unambiguously titled topics that some editors subjectively feel some users might get to through unanticipated means and condescendingly think these readers incapable of finding a different topic without the assistance of a hatnote which for 99.9% of other users would be completely superfluous. older ≠ wiser 04:10, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Break - about search engines

 * The Google argument is completely fucking stupid. We can't run this site based on what a 3rd party site may or may not do.

Google changes their algorithms all the time, and do we also accommodate for Bing, John Doe's Tumblr, etc? If we do this then every article that starts with tree needs a hatnote to the tree disambig page, ditto for literally every word: star, planet, Bob, car, etc. Every adaptation of another work would need it too by those accounts. The Da Vinci Code (film) doesn't need a hatnote to the novel just because Google might take them there instead, especially since there's a link to it in the first paragraph (and usually the first sentence) of the lead. Our decisions should be based on what happens within Wikipedia, as that's the only thing we control and should be responsible for. Let's not pretend our readers are so stupid that they can't put "Treaty of Paris" into the friggin' search engine. I'm all for hatnotes when they're reasonable but this will have almost every article on the site with a hatnote. --TheTruthiness (talk) 21:18, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The argument is not exclusively about Google. The example of "Treaty of Paris" in particular is confusing even using Wikipedia's own internal search engine, so your contentions don't apply. Let's not pretend that no problem exists here. Diego (talk) 06:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * As for the previous version of the guideline, it used a terrible example. Tree (set theory) is ambiguous with Tree (descriptive set theory). Let's write by consensus a guideline we can all agree with. A good example of when a hat note is not required: The Da Vinci Code (film). An example where it's needed: War of the Worlds (2005 film). What attributes set them apart? Diego (talk) 06:50, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Truthiness - One, a search engine that points the word "tree" to a mathematical concept won't be popular for long. We should try to accommodate search results that are reasonable for what someone searched for, but no need to accommodate a completely disfunctional (or bribe-taking) one. Second, you complain about hatnotes on every page. What's wrong with having a hatnote on a page? Third, I'm re-deleting the section you restored, since there is a clear consensus, read above, that the current text is not only incorrect, but actively harmful. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The biggest problem with WP:NAMBLA is that the majority of inbound traffic to any given page is through a search engine. The MW search has gotten progressively better, but it is still highly lacking (ask Wikia Search). Often even within WP, I will double-click to highlight and right-click a word to "Search for "***" in Bing", because there is no wikilink on it. If I am looking for the film Nikita, Google and Bing will both bring me to Nikita (TV series) (not to be confused with the series La Femme Nikita, which was also the American title for the film). This is a situation where confusing terms for similar topics should call for hatlinks, but our policies prohibit them. While I acknowledge the importance of improving our search engine and maintaining internal wikilinks, we cannot keep pretending that Wikipedia isn't at the top of most search results, and that many if not most inbound traffic is from search engines. This is detrimental and exclusionary. We already acknowledge that every page with (parenthetical) disambiguation has an ambiguous title, so why do we not have a hatlink on every one of these pages? What is the harm being done by allowing readers to quickly find the topic they were looking for? What is being gained by making readers feel like they are using the site wrong, that they should feel stupid for searching for the wrong combination of words? ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  21:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The biggest problem with the policy you cited is it encourages underage... er, what the?
 * Back on track: the problem with your assumption is that it assumes not only that the majority of arrivals are from a search engine, but also that the majority of arrivals have arrived at the wrong page, and further assumes that they'll be hopelessly lost without a hatnote.
 * In your example, the search result page shows quite clearly that the page is called "Nikita (TV series)" -- so, in your example someone is clicking on this knowing in advance that it's not about a film.
 * If they go ahead and click on it anyway, the lede calls out not only the film Nikita (clickable link), but also La Femme Nikita (also clickable). And of course, there's also a search box.
 * What you are asking for, then, is yet another link, prominently featured, for one subclass, "People looking for the film Nikita", of the class "People who click on links that say TV series when they're looking for something that's not a TV series", to the detriment of the presumably much larger class "People visiting the Nikita (TV series) page because they want to read about a TV series called Nikita.--NapoliRoma (talk) 22:42, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does say (TV series) in the search results, but that is the only Wikipedia link in the top results. How would a link saying "For other uses, see Nikita." be detrimental? ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  23:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Clutter is always detrimental.
 * Not to get all slippery slope, but maybe instead of Nikita, they really meant to search for Leonid or Mikhail, so perhaps we should also add "See also List of leaders of the Soviet Union"? It's wafer thin!
 * I am against adding stuff on the assumption that someone will click on an obviously wrong link rather than go to the next page of search results. Call me a heartless bastard, but I say, "Let them use the search box." We cannot predict what kind of wrong thought process brought them to an obviously wrong page.--NapoliRoma (talk) 07:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * If they meant to search for a soviet leader by given name, they'll can find it through Nikita (disambiguation) -> Nikita (given name). Even if you were aiming for a slippery slope argument, the disambiguation page is in a different league than any other kind of navigation targets. We can predict that the DAB page will be a more reliable index to content located within Wikipedia than a search engine, since its contents are decided by editors instead of a stochastic algorithm. The net benefit of giving readers a quick way to recover from error from unreliable search algorithms, far outweighs the minor inconvenience of an one-line, separate, dithered link. The human brain is known to be good at filtering that "clutter" anyway (such as ads and navigational banners - see banner blindness), so readers tend to filter out the hatnote and not notice it when it's not needed. (Also, "the assumption that someone will click on an obviously wrong link rather than go to the next page of search results" is exactly how people have been proven to use search engines - Google for Google's own research papers if you don't believe it. That's the reason why in recent years search engines have been adding all kind of stuff to the top of their first results page - search refinements, info boxes, maps... having contextualized navigational information at the top of target pages just makes sense). Diego (talk) 10:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * For me it is a matter of degree, and the rub is in finding the happy medium between putting dozens of hatnotes on every pages, either because multiple terms redirect to a page or because readers may fail in their searches in various ways and if we're going to accommodate some unlikely failures, then why not others. I think there is sound reason to include a hatnote on such opaquely titled pages such as John Smith (footballer, born 1922), as it is quite understandable that a reader might mistake that one for John Smith (footballer, born 1925). However, in a case like Nikita (TV series), where the related film is prominently mentioned in the lead (as is typical for such situations), I don't see any need for a hatnote On the other hand, if the series were unrelated to a similarly titled work, that might be good reason to include a hatnote. I guess, I would not want the guideline to come down to strongly either to either endorse adding or removing hatnotes for titles where there might be some residual ambiguity. Whether to include a hatnote and what form it should take should be discussed on the talk page(s) of the relevant articles. older ≠ wiser 13:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * In most cases, if you need more than one line in a hatnote you're doing it wrong. I think that most hatnotes are too verbose; readers don't need to know the reasoning behind every link. "*** redirects here" or "This page is about ***" are usually unneeded. Just "For *** see ***. For other uses see ***, *** or ***." I don't think readers are upset by seeing a hatnote that they don't realize is relevant for one reason over another, they just know when they are irrelevant and ignore them appropriately. If most articles had one line of hatnote at the top, people would be used to it and ignore it until they have an issue. Most ignore the giant sidebar on the left side of the screen filled with links that are totally useless except for the fraction of times someone might need them, and you don't really see readers complain about it. Hatnotes are far more useful than the main page or the community portal.▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  17:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * And as soon as I hit Save page, I realized that all hatnotes would be better served by being moved to the otherwise-useless sidebar, just under the logo, above the other links. That, of course, is a separate discussion... ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  17:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You don't address the slippery slope aspect that once we start attempting to accommodate unlikely search failures, where do we stop and on what basis? I remain very strongly convinced we should be encouraging readers to use the search function rather than attempting to predict the various open-ended and largely unpredictable ways in which readers might get confused. older ≠ wiser 17:08, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it's reasonable, as I mentioned, to give hatnotes to all parenthetically disambiguated articles to their primary topic or to a disambiguation page. I don't think that's a slope at all. As far as other search terms, that probably is a hard to define slippery slope and I haven't thought on it, I don't have an answer right now. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  17:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Many times a term with a parenthetical disambiguator is a redirect to a different title as it may be an alternate name. That second title might not be ambiguous, but the first term is. So, should the unambiguously titled article have a hatnote for the other term? After all, readers could easily end up at that title by searching for the ambiguous term and making a mistake. That is only one type of slippery slope your line of reasoning opens. older ≠ wiser 18:12, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm with Bkonrad that the guideline should not be prescriptive. I prefer guidelines and policies that, instead of mandating a desired outcome, simply enumerate the usual arguments that influence decisions one way or the other. In this case the relevant concerns that are considered relevant by various editors should at least include:
 * several mechanisms can lead a reader to a wrong page with a disambiguated title - search engines, misplaced internal links (some of them are more likely than others to produce a wrong hit). Those users would greatly benefit from a hatnote to the DAB
 * The hatnote invades part of the article space, and in some cases can become a huge collection of links.
 * When several articles belong to the same class/set index but are not directly related, the disambiguation parenthesis does not provide enough information to guide readers to the desired article between a collection of similar article titles.

If these and several other concerns are included and explained in the guideline, editors can address them at each particular talk, and consistent outcomes can be achieved without having a bureaucratic process that should decide each possible case in advance. Diego (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Heh, well, I would not hold out much hope for achieving consistent outcomes . . . but I agree the guideline can give both pros and cons with examples and leave it to specific discussions to determine particular usage. older ≠ wiser 19:31, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 11:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Hatnote → Headnote – Hatnote is not in any major dictionaries as a commoly used word. Also, headnote pairs with footnote (commonly used on WP and elsewhere) and is a recognised word. We also have to rewrite the page and expunge WP of the usage of "hatnote" -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * comment Hmm. I came here ready to vote this down. But am I clinging to hatnote out of tradition? I think I still like the sound of hatnote better, but headnote does have dictionary definitions. Hmm... still on the fence.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose as this isn't about headnotes, it's about Wikipedia's hatnotes, so is about a thing found on Wikipedia, not the generic thing found in the real world. As with many things Wikipedia, it's not found in dictionaries, like any Wikipedia-jargon. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Trouble is for newbies (and rather slow witted editors like me) hatnote is confusing. Also, the term hatnote spills over into reader help documentation (eg it was in Help:Disambiguation) and it is imperative we maximise the "Reader Experience". If it was solely a term used by editors I would be less concerned. Anyway, aren't Wikipedia's hatnotes simply a headnote? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * comment The difference between hatnote and headnote, to my mind, is that an article may contain prefatory material as part of its content. That would be a headnote. The term hatnote refers to metacontent, navigational material that is not really about the subject of the article, but instead is part of the infrastructure of Wikipedia.
 * Headnotes would fall under the rules of content. Hatnotes would fall under rules of structural control. As 65mumble said, this is a thing found on Wikipedia, and giving it a name implying it's not a special Wikipedia thing may itself be confusing.--NapoliRoma (talk) 00:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't get the "spill over" problem, especially since it is not a "disambiguation" note per se (should be edited outof thehelp page?). Second, a headnote is an existing (print era) concept. As for newbies: problems are with the concept of, not with the name of. Most important: a headnote (like a footnote) is part of the article content, as NapoliRoma says. A headnote is not (it is a Wikipedia thing). -DePiep (talk) 02:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment If you worried about confused new editors, I would call it a disambig note, you know, a name that accurately states its purpose. I won't vote yes on this particular proposal, but I'm open to other ideas. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The term was originally "disambiguation links". I do not remember the exact discussion where shorter "hatnote" term was decided, but my understanding on its origins of the term: these links are placed at the top of an article, like a hat is placed on top of the head. And I agree, it's not really a "headnote", a brief summary pertaining to a major point in the article's content. It's more of something only really found on Wikipedia. Zzyzx11 (talk) 11:45, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Now way going back to a "disambiguation" meaning. it is more than that. For example, all "main"-like hatnotes have nothing to do with disambiguation. -DePiep (talk) 02:10, 7 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose. A headnote is something different (as noted by NapoliRoma). Other issues, such as with newbies, do not relate to the name. Also my other comments here. -DePiep (talk) 02:25, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose, better a reasonably clearly defined neologism than potentially confusing readers by appropriating an existing term in a way that doesn't quite align with common uses. older ≠ wiser 02:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * To increase confusion even more, was created last month. I'll be nominating it for deletion as inappropriate. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:28, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I can add: last September, in the test2-wikipedia there was created a WP:LUA module that started the same name change. . (Lua is the new namespace that can speed up template code) -DePiep (talk) 22:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose, for the reasons explained above. The use of hatnotes is a Wikipedia convention distinct from the concept of headnotes.  Using the latter term would only increase confusion.  —David Levy 02:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment has been nominated for deletion, see Redirects for discussion/Log/2013 April 7 -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose: a hatnote sits on top of the article, separate from it - like a hat on a head. It's a little piece of Wiki jargon, but nothing like as obscure as many. It ain't broke, so don't fix it. Pam  D  07:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose: It's about a thing on Wikipedia called a hatnote. Theoldsparkle (talk) 14:43, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Notice in the body of the article
I frequently see "For further information, see (link)" posted underneath topic headings within the body of an article. The wording is exactly the same as that listed in some of the examples. Are these also considered to be "hats" and do the same guidelines apply? Or is there a different name and guideline when these notices do not appear at the top of the page? 69.125.134.86 (talk) 19:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * They are indeed hatnotes; but whilst most hatnotes apply to the whole article and so must appear at the very top, certain hatnote templates can be used in sections, where they should appear just below the section header. These include and  but there are several others. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:23, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

"Noble" in ELHAT
My (admittedly misguided) attempt to remove "though noble" from the "External links" section was reverted. Upon further thought, what I really meant was that the sentence could be reworded to more clearly discourage all external links, regardless of whether they are "help" links or whether the NPOV issue is obvious. Does this make sense, and does anyone have some ideas? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 17:41, 5 June 2013 (UTC)