Wikipedia talk:Hatnote/Archive 8

Hatnote to a search
Should we allow a hatnote to a search? For context, see Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 2 where one argument made to delete the redirect Ballyholme Bay (which targets a ship, SS Ballyholme Bay) is to allow uninhibited searching. I think this could be a good solution in cases where that is the primary/only reason to delete a redirect. User:Thryduulf says that this is possible, whereas User:Narky Blert says it is not permitted due to this page. I feel that whether or not it is currently permitted that it should be permitted, and that if it is decided that it is not (and should not be) permitted, then it should be added as an "example of improper use" in case this comes up again. Thanks. A7V2 (talk) 05:55, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. This could be a slippery slope, encouraging bad hatnotes which leave readers at a loss. Narky Blert (talk) 06:06, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. I've been thinking about this, and I can't really think of any occasion where it will be useful - if we have one article we should link to it directly; if we have multiple articles we should link to a dab page, set index or list; if we have no articles then searching wont help. Thryduulf (talk) 10:42, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The fundamental purpose of a hatnote is to say "you've landed at this article, but you might have wanted that article...". If "that article" doesn't exist then there's no point in linking to it (which is why redlinks aren't allowed). The Search box is right there for readers to use and I don't think we need to provide an alternative to it. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:57, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Note that while dabs may have intitle in a "see also", non-ambiguous terms don't have the same option to have a convenient search link. Not sure if that is good or bad. There's always the search box.—Bagumba (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose, particularly per the reasons by . – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:56, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Language hatnotes
We have a template: Family name hatnote, that includes numerous links to things like surname, given name, and various language links. I'm not that it's compliant with the guidelines here. If someone arrives at Fidel Castro looking for Fidel Ruz having links to Spanish name and surname isn't going to help that reader. The notice is fine; the links add nothing but confusion. Should the links in these be removed? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:40, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * , see Wikipedia_talk:Hatnote above for related discussion. There is widespread sentiment that the notice is inappropriate, because it doesn't fit with the intended gives extremely prominent placement to what is essentially trivia. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 19:51, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Pseudo-hatnotes
I would appreciate the views of another editor familiar with hatnotes at Talk:List of 5th-century religious leaders please. Thanks, Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 15:48, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I would appreciate the meaningful discussion on the part of Shhhnotsoloud at the same. Why don't you try replying to my comments there? tahc chat 17:24, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

New improper use proposal
Hi. I'd like to propose the improper use below, to be listed as a new subsection of Hatnote. The motivation is the perceived spam about artists in articles about common concepts. For example, in the case below, the artist's name is irrelevant, as there are no other similarly titled albums. fgnievinski (talk) 06:06, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Excessive detail
Do not include details unnecessary for disambiguation; for example, instead of:



Vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags...

Give preference to:



Vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags...
 * have you come across editors opposing you simply changing the links? It seems rather uncontroversial to do so. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:59, 29 May 2021 (UTC)


 * This seems pretty reasonable. Hatnotes occupy precious space at the top of an article and shouldn't be given more space than necessary. I'm not sure I'm strongly opposed to saying "Deadman5 album" rather than "music album" (what if there's another music album of the same name that's not notable?), but "of the same name" and lines like that should certainly go. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 10:25, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I think a single mention of the artist is not in any way excessive. But it does not need to be repeated in both the description and the link. older ≠ wiser 10:39, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The hatnote should mention additional detail only if necessary for disambiguation, following the same rules as for titles. Here's another example:
 * It should be just:
 * Or better yet:
 * fgnievinski (talk) 03:15, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that a single mention of the name is excessive. I don't particularly care in any of the specific examples given here, but I strongly object to making it into a rule. 08:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * fgnievinski (talk) 03:15, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that a single mention of the name is excessive. I don't particularly care in any of the specific examples given here, but I strongly object to making it into a rule. 08:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that a single mention of the name is excessive. I don't particularly care in any of the specific examples given here, but I strongly object to making it into a rule. 08:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Hatnote templates for biography articles
Hello hatnote people. I was thinking that for a biography article it's better to use About other people ("This article is about foo. For other people with the same name, see Bar (disambiguation)." instead of About ("This article is about foo. For other uses, see Bar (disambiguation)." But a recent change of mine along those lines, here, was reverted. Is there a guideline for this, and if so, where is it? Thanks. (Pinging ). — Mudwater (Talk) 21:51, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand why you were reverted. Hatnote templates with this wording are widespread: Other people, for example, has over 33,000 transclusions. Generally, I feel that "for other people with the name" reads better than "for other uses" and is often preferable. From a different point of view, I guess it can be argued that hatnotes should be as short as possible, and so "for other uses" would be better. The one case where the "other people" wording is clearly not appropriate is when the linked dab page has at least one entry that's not for a person. The really tricky bit here is that at the time when the hatnote is added, a dab page may only list people, but subsequently get expanded with entries for other things (like films or fictional characters with the same name), and then the hatnote would immediately become misleading, with no clear way to track down this sort of problem. – Uanfala (talk) 22:27, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * For user Mudwater -- The original version of the hatnote was sufficient, and adding additional wording wasn't explained in the edit. Stan Lee also goes into brand name/trademark territory. However, it's not that big of a difference -- now that you've explained your reasoning, I wouldn't oppose your new version if you re-did it. --GimmeChoco44 (talk) 18:53, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay. Thanks.  — Mudwater (Talk) 23:32, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Hatnotes to dab pages
Hello, I'm quite an experienced Wikipedia editor but I've never quite understood the whole "hatnote to dab page" question. When to add a hatnote? When not to add a hatnote? I've read WP:HAT but it doesn't make things too clear. Case in point:

Geoff Thompson is a disambiguation page without a primary topic. If you do a Google search on "Geoff Thompson", you get the writer's wiki page (Geoff Thompson (writer)) at top of list, followed by the karateka's wiki page (Geoff Thompson (karateka)), but none of the others. So if you were searching for the NZ politician, for example, you might find him by following the link to the writer's article, or the karateka's article, then clicking on the dab link in the hatnote and going via the dab page. If a hatnote isn't provided, then you're a bit lost. Surely the whole point of the hatnote is to direct the reader to the dab page where they might then find the article they were actually seeking in the first place. That was my understanding anyway.

The writer has 2,764 pageviews in last 60 days, compared with the next most popular, Geoffrey Thompson (businessman), who has 1,620 views, Geoff Thompson (karateka) has 501, Geoff Thompson (football executive) has 187, etc. I accept that the writer is not a clear winner and does not warrant being the primary topic (i.e. renaming his article "Geoff Thompson") BUT what I'm confused about is whether we should or should not be putting hatnotes to the dab page. I added some hatnotes and they've all been reverted by User:Paora. I thought the whole point of a hatnote was to aid the reader in navigating to other similar articles if they landed at the wrong one in the first place? Please see this version with hatnote to dab page, compared to the current version without. Thanks, Rodney Baggins (talk) 08:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The general guideline for this is at WP:NAMB: "It is usually preferable not to have a hatnote when the name of the article is not ambiguous." So for example "Geoff Thompson (writer)" is not ambiguous, it's the Geoff Thompson who's the writer -- therefore it's better in that case not to have a hatnote on that article saying "For other people named Geoff Thompson, see Geoff Thompson (disambiguation)."  So, that's the short answer, I think.  Note however that in some cases it *is* helpful to the reader for such a hatnote to be there, and the guideline talks about that too.  — Mudwater (Talk) 11:33, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, the guidelines are explicit that there's no consensus on this matter. If we think only of Wikipedia and exclude the rest of the internet, then I'd agree with you: those sorts of hatnotes are not needed. However, a very large number of readers arrive here from Google (or other search engines) and I don't think we should completely discount their navigational needs. The situation described by Rodney Baggins is relatively common and in those cases it definitely makes sense to keep the hatnotes. – Uanfala (talk) 00:23, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Leon exemption?
Can anybody take a look at the article Léon: The Professional for me? I've applied WP:ITHAT there twice, now, but is saying it's exempt for unclear reasons. It looks to me like any other article where I've italicized the hatnote. I don't want to risk that user's ire; I'm just hoping somebody can see what I'm not. Thanks! —  Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 20:40, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Clearly, communicating through edit summaries isn't working. Try opening up a Léon: The Professional talk page section to ask MB to elaborate. If you're still at a loss after that then then feel free to come back here. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:08, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, sure. I just wanted to make sure I myself am not missing something before taking that step.  —   Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 22:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * And it turns out that I was wrong. This is the right place. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:26, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The hatnote is already italicized by default. You un-italicized parts of it. Was that your intention? There is code in the template that checks if a term actually redirects to the article, and your markup caused this check to fail (the name must match exactly) putting the article into Category:Missing redirects. That category is normally empty, so there are no other articles that do this with the first parameter (the redirecting article). MB 21:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I intentionally applied deitalicization to the film name. The manual of style on titles says that film titles should be emphasized, and the editing guideline on hatnotes says that when hatnotes link to an otherwise italicized title, deitalicization is applied to retain the due emphasis.  That's how I read those manuals and guidelines; I've been applying them as such for years now and I'd hate to only now find that I'm doing it wrong.  —   Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 22:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * That's my understanding of WP:ITHAT, which guideline MB seems to be unaware of, and they are wrong to revert you completely. I'm not sure if their other objections have merit, however, but if they do, we just need to figure out how to follow ITHAT in a way that doesn't break the categorization. BilCat (talk) 22:35, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think it needs a redirect template. Perhaps a simple or . older ≠ wiser 23:02, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The example in WP:ITHAT does not show deitalicization of the first parameter, which causes the categorization problem. (Yes, I've never seen this before - it's commonly not done - e.g Moby-Dick). The workaround is to just use  instead of . , here is another similar case to the other ones with special markup. MB 23:07, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh! I didn't realize that previously you were referring to the first parameter of that hatnote.  Now I understand what you were saying about categorization.  I don't actually think I've run across redirect-distinguish before, so I apologize for not realizing its extra functionality as you described.  —   Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 05:14, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * When you refer to a film, then you'd use the opposite italicisation to the surround text, so Fourthords would be right. However, does that also need to happen when you're quoting (rather than using) the name of a redirect? I'm less sure about that. Imagine if it were a song title, which is typically surrounded in double quotes (example). But the "redirects here" hatnote also surrounds the name of the redirect in double quotes, so if you followed that, then the hatnote will need to begin with a sequence of two double quotes, and that would be a bit confusing. Another issue is that this bit of text is right at the start of the hatnote. If it's unitalicised, then it may be a tiny bit less immediately easy to recognise that what follows is indeed a hatnote (rather than part of the article's text).  Unrelated to that, am I the only one who finds it a little bit odd that at the top of an article we should have a string like "The Professional (1994 film)" redirects here.? The Professional (1994 film) is the sort of artificial name necessitated by Wikipedia's naming conventions. Doesn't it feel a little bit awkward using it so freely? If it were up to me, I'd follow Bkonrad's suggestion and just replace the hatnote with something like Not to be confused with other films titled "The Professional". (Though I'm sure I'm getting some bit of the formatting completely wrong :) ). – Uanfala (talk) 23:21, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Not to be confused with Léon: The Professional. is the hatnote on the 1981 film (another example with the film name left in italics). Since there is also a 2003 film by the same name, using 's suggestion on all three is probably a good idea. MB 03:48, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Would work?  —   Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 05:14, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe that does work. You may want to consider Not to be confused with other films titled The Professional(s), or something similar, and use it on the two The Professionals as well. MB 13:56, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Italics
The hatnote on the article Texas Heartbeat Act mentions Roe v. Wade. As the name of the US court case, Roe v. Wade is italicized in running text per MOS:ITALICS. Since the text of the hatnote is already italicized, should it be un-italicized there? Neither WP:HATNOTE nor MOS:ITALICS seem to have conclusive guidance. Rublov (talk) 15:26, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If WP:ITHAT instructs to italicize the hatnote links themselves, I assume it also covers the rest of the hatnote, too? —   Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 15:54, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. I'd format that as . SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨  18:01, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Template renaming for clarity
I've been meaning for years to do a broad rename of a bunch of hatnote templates. Historically, a lot of the templates took the form of "namen", e.g. "about2". I've done a bunch of work that's made a lot of the numbered hatnote templates go away, by condensing them and simplifying them away, but a number of the remainder remain, particularly ones in the "2" family. Most of these are variants that allow supplying custom text, so I propose renaming them so that their titles make it evident what they do. Here's the full list of renames I'm proposing:


 * about-distinguish2 →
 * for2 →
 * further2 →
 * redirect-distinguish2 →
 * redirect-distinguish6 →

Two notes:
 * 1) Redirect2 is not included because its "2" indicates two redirects, not a text option. It should probably be merged into redirect-multi, but that's a different discussion.
 * 2) I'm putting this discussion here because this should be an all-or-nothing rename.

Do you have any questions or concerns about this proposal? Thanks for your interest. {&#123; Nihiltres &#8202;&#124;talk&#8202;&#124;edits}&#125; 22:18, 16 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm all for renaming templates to make it clearer what they do. Merging them is even better, but that would be difficult in this case. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 22:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Seems reasonable. I note that the uses of these have to be explained because they are not intuitive: MB 23:00, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

If no one objects in the meantime, I'll perform the moves approximately a week after my original post, on October 23. {&#123; Nihiltres &#8202;&#124;talk&#8202;&#124;edits}&#125; 00:31, 22 October 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅ {&#123; Nihiltres &#8202;&#124;talk&#8202;&#124;edits}&#125; 16:38, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * We can add these changes to AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects to slowly cause the actual hanotes to be updated as genfixes are run. MB 20:16, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ MB 17:08, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

"space-saving"
, perhaps I'm missing it, but where is "space-saving" among the WP:HATNOTERULES when WP:DABLINK explicitly advises not to pipe hatnotes? czar 14:44, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Neither of my reasons is properly documented, but I recall at least one discussion at WT:DPL, WT:DAB or WT:WPDAB. They are implied in the distinguish documentation (and possibly elsewhere). (BTW, I completely agree that non-DAB hatnotes should never be piped.) Narky Blert (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Moving "Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous" to another toplevel section?
With the recent change to that section, I believe it no longer belongs under Examples of improper use but I'm not sure whether to move it to Examples of proper use or to create a new toplevel section, perhaps "Example of uses to be evaluated case by case". I'm leaning toward the latter for the time being, but what do others think? The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 14:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That change resulted from the discussion at . I agree that if there are other appropriate ways, besides disambiguation, that hatnotes "benefit readers" these other ways should be listed in the section on proper use. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

New improper use proposal
Hi. I'd like to propose the improper use below, to be listed as a new subsection of Hatnote. The motivation is the perceived spam about artists in articles about common concepts. For example, in the case below, the artist's name is irrelevant, as there are no other similarly titled albums. fgnievinski (talk) 06:06, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Excessive detail
Do not include details unnecessary for disambiguation; for example, instead of:

<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: red; border:1px solid black; padding: 1em;">

Vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags...

Give preference to:

<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: green; border:1px solid black; padding: 1em;">

Vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags...

or:

<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: green; border:1px solid black; padding: 1em;">

Vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags...


 * have you come across editors opposing you simply changing the links? It seems rather uncontroversial to do so. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:59, 29 May 2021 (UTC)


 * This seems pretty reasonable. Hatnotes occupy precious space at the top of an article and shouldn't be given more space than necessary. I'm not sure I'm strongly opposed to saying "Deadman5 album" rather than "music album" (what if there's another music album of the same name that's not notable?), but "of the same name" and lines like that should certainly go. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 10:25, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I think a single mention of the artist is not in any way excessive. But it does not need to be repeated in both the description and the link. older ≠ wiser 10:39, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The hatnote should mention additional detail only if necessary for disambiguation, following the same rules as for titles. Here's another example:
 * It should be just:
 * Or better yet:
 * fgnievinski (talk) 03:15, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that a single mention of the name is excessive. I don't particularly care in any of the specific examples given here, but I strongly object to making it into a rule. 08:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * fgnievinski (talk) 03:15, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that a single mention of the name is excessive. I don't particularly care in any of the specific examples given here, but I strongly object to making it into a rule. 08:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that a single mention of the name is excessive. I don't particularly care in any of the specific examples given here, but I strongly object to making it into a rule. 08:42, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to follow up on this proposal. Here's another real example with excessive level of detail:

It'd have sufficed to say:

The additional details would only be necessary if there were multiple similarly titled music albums. This follows from WP:PRECISION, which says: "Usually, titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that." And fgnievinski (talk) 23:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I disagree that a mention of the artist and year is excessive. While there might only be one album that we have an article about, there might be others with the same (or similar) names we don't either because they aren't notable, nobody has written the article yet, or simply it hasn't been linked in a hatnote for some reason (I see this more often than ideal). When arriving at an article someone has the combination of the title and lead to determine if they are where they want to be, but with a hatnote they have only what we write so we should give them enough detail to know if the link is worth following. If someone is looking for an album by someone else they aren't going to be happy to find that they've gone to a second wrong article, and we should avoid implying we have content about something we do not. Remember that clicks aren't free and can sometimes be expensive in time and/or money (slow connections, metered internet access, etc). Thryduulf (talk) 02:25, 8 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid your view is bordering on WP:CRYSTALBALL and directly contradicts WP:NOARTICLE. fgnievinski (talk) 05:55, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * How? This is only about making it clear what the other article(s) we have are about. Neither of those guidelines do or should require us to pretend that non-notable things don't exist, or require readers to know what articles we do and don't have from a potentially ambiguous title.
 * The first example you give,
 * For the 2008 album by Jóhann Jóhannsson, see Fordlandia (album).
 * Makes the subject of the article clear regardless of whether there are other albums by this name or not, while
 * For the music album, see Fordlandia (album).
 * Requires someone to know that there is only one notable album by that name that we have an article about. If someone is looking for a different article by that name (people are allowed to, and do, look up things we don't have articles about) then in the first example they know we don't have what they are looking for, in the second they have to follow a link to find that out - potentially wasting time and/or money doing so. There is absolutely no benefit to us from the shorter hatnote so we would be making things harder for readers for no reason at all, which is about the last thing we should be doing. Thryduulf (talk) 11:18, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The consideration for limited data access and the like goes both ways. Hatnote links are followed by only a tiny proportion of the readers of a given article, and saving one of them from loading one article they don't need means forcing a very large number of other readers to load an article that's slightly bigger. That hatnote link at Fordllandia, for example, is followed by 0.5% of its visitors (according to March 2021 clickstream data; this looks like a typical number). How many of the readers looking for the album will actually be interested in the hypothesised other album with the name? At most an order of magnitude fewer. So for every one reader that we're saving from having to load an unwanted 50-KB article, we're adding 25 B to the article loaded by thousands of others. – Uanfala (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Requiring people to read up to a dozen words and download an extra few tens of byes extra on a multi tens- or hundreds-of-kilobytes article so we don't mislead people is not at all comparable to requiring people to load tens or hundreds of unnecessary kilobytes and then read up to a paragraph or so of the article lead to determine that we've mislead them. Thryduulf (talk) 00:45, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with Thryduulf. I don't think a mention of the artist is excessive. The year is not essential in most cases. While the article title might be technically unique, we still usually provide some minimal additional information when listing it on a disambiguation page. A hatnote is similar. older ≠ wiser 11:18, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Let's leave this to the editor's discretion. Knowing whether a link would lead to the desired topic helps the reader. Certes (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I oppose formalizing this rule, since there are subleties in how much information hatnotes should reveal based on the relationship between the two articles (specifically the closeness of their titles and subject matter; whether it is an "X redirects here" hatnote). Editors have generally gotten it right, and erring on the side of too much information seems like a better outcome than too little. — Goszei (talk) 23:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I disagree because I'd go further. With the Forlandia example I would say "For another use, see Fordlandia (album)". "the music album" is superfluous because it's obvious from the title that it's an album. My solution is just a single version of the . If there were 2 choices I'd say "For other uses, see Forlandia (album) and Forlandia (tree)". I certainly wouldn't use "Not to be confused with" unless it was something like "Not to be confused with Ford Landia". Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Why would it be excessive to mention the artist? While the term "album" does distinguish the article title from all non-albums, by itself it is not particularly helpful. On a disambiguation page, we would generally include the artist and year -- why treat a hatnote differently. And before you mention space, consider that many disambiguation project regulars routinely trim dab page entries to a bare minimum -- and yet I think most would still include the artist's name in an entry for the album. older ≠ wiser 18:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with Certes and that we should let editors decide based on the context. If you, for example, know there are several albums with the name, then you should be free to add the distinguishing details to the hatnote. But if there aren't such albums, then like Shhhnotsoloud, I don't see a reason for these details. Hatnotes are different from dab pages. All the readers of a dab page are there to find something else, whereas almost all of the readers of an article have already found it: hatnotes are needed by a small number of the article's visitors: almost always less than 5%, and typically less than 1%. Couple that with the fact that hatnotes occupy such prominent space at the top of articles, and you'd appreciate why brevity is so much more important there than it is on dab pages. – Uanfala (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * How different is it really? If there were two or three things known as "Fordlandia" there would likely be a disambiguation page with some details that are not any more necessary on the disambiguation page than in the hatnote. Are the miniscule additional bytes in the hatnote really significant? older ≠ wiser 21:00, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I've addressed the minuscule byte difference in my response to Thryduulf above. But it's not about the bytes, it's about the prime visual space that's taken up. And again, articles are different from dab pages: only a tiny proportion of the visitors to an article arrive after searching for its name on Wikipedia (either through a link on a dab page or by using the search bar). Most of an article's traffic (typically well in excess of 95%) comes from incoming links or directly from external search engines, like Google. That's why dab pages, even ones occupying the primary topic, will typically receive one or two orders of magnitude less traffic than the articles they link to. If I could use an analogy, a dab page is like a product catalogue: it's used by people who browse it looking to find one or another of the things listed inside. Hatnotes, on the other hand, is like an advertisement on a web page: most of the readers of that page have already found what they were looking for and the ad doesn't help them.  – Uanfala (talk) 21:20, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't buy it. MOS:DABENTRY says and yet we routinely include additional information that is not strictly necessary. A hatnote is absolutely not advertising. Although understandably, some editors might view the relative disparity in notability between a primary topic and something linked in a hatnote as somehow giving undue weight to what they see as obscure or unworthy topics. The purpose of a hatnote is the same as that of a disambiguation page -- to help a reader who has arrived at the "wrong" article find what they were looking for. If a couple of extra bytes or a tiny bit of text can help, I don't see the issue. Just as some editors seem to see the hatnote as somehow taking up precious spaces, other editors complain that it is too easy to overlook. I suggest what is good enough for a disambiguation page is good enough for a hatnote.
 * The problem is not the additional bytes, it's the additional time required by the average reader to parse the dab hatnote and decide it's not relevant for them. Plus the effect on search-engine optimization of having a particular name slapped onto a high traffic Wikipedia article. Hatnotes are indeed like an ad and superfluous details are like spam. We should not oblige the average reader to get to know the existence of a particular band or artist just because they've recorded an album or song with a random name. fgnievinski (talk) 02:31, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * A very closely related topic is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. fgnievinski (talk) 02:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The extra time required to read 2-3 words is excruciatingly trivial, and much, much better for people to become aware of something they didn't know (educating people is our primary goal after all) than mislead other people into thinking that we have information about a topic when we do not, but use of can remove that problem too - if someone sees "this article is about [topic they are looking for]" they don't need to read any further. A hatnote is very much not an advert, it is a navigation aid that is in place to help readers find the content they are looking for. Thryduulf (talk) 00:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

NAMB doesn't make sense
WP:NAMB says "hatnotes should be used when they benefit the reader" but doesn't give any guidance or examples. As I understand it, we are no longer limiting ourselves to thinking about navigation within Wikipedia, but instead want to make it easy for the reader to find the right article no matter how they ended up at the wrong article, and we want to do this without making them use the search function.

So then the first example seems wrong. It says that the hatnote on Water (Wu Xing) can be removed because you can't get there by searching for "water" on Wikipedia. But that explanation is no longer valid, so the example should be removed, or the explanation changed.

What's missing is an example of when the hatnote could benefit the reader who arrived by some other route. In the discussions, Margaret Hamilton (nurse) came up, maybe that could be put in here. If we need hatnotes for Margaret but not for Water then there should be some discussion as to why. GA-RT-22 (talk) 05:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that update is a nonstarter – there have been multiple objections to it in multiple sections of this talk page. I've reverted to the status quo, version of 13:28, 21 December 2021. I'm not sure at this point how to reboot the discussions about the matter. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:58, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I suggest working out the wording to everyone's satisfaction here on the talk page first, then changing the whole subsection at once, rather than experimenting with different versions on the doc page. I haven't been following the discussion, but the changes have been confusing to those of us who are just trying to follow the guidance. GA-RT-22 (talk) 17:48, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Hatnotes in articles with unambiguous titles
Could we please delete from WP:NAMB:
 * The presence or absence of hatnotes in articles with disambiguated titles has been a contentious issue, and this guideline doesn't prescribe one way or the other. There are cases where some editors strongly believe that such hatnotes should be included, such as the various articles about treaties called Treaty of Paris.

Any such contentiousness has dissipated over time and the particular case of Treaty of Paris could be treated as WP:IAR. At the moment the statement introduces unnecessary ambiguity: it is enough to say "It is usually preferable not to have a hatnote when the name of the article is not ambiguous.". Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any recent contention, so I think it's ok to remove. Rather than the double negative in "It is usually preferable not to have a hatnote when the name of the article is not ambiguous.", how about A hatnote is only used when the name of the article is ambiguous.? SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 17:49, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * See above for why hatnotes on apparently non-ambiguous articles can sometimes be useful too. – Uanfala (talk) 19:01, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Sometimes it's quite helpful to the reader to have a hatnote on an article with a title that is not ambiguous. For example, the article Saving Christmas (2017 film) has a hatnote that says, "This article is about the movie starring Edward Asner. For the movie starring Kirk Cameron, see Saving Christmas."  The article title for the 2017 film is unambiguous, but the hatnote can help the reader find the article they are looking for.  I would therefore oppose having the guideline say "A hatnote is only used when the name of the article is ambiguous."  — Mudwater (Talk) 19:30, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

✅ as proposed. Thanks everyone. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:04, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Surprisingly, you reverted my edit "I think you've missed the latter half of the discussion." The latter part of the discussion was about changing the existing text "It is usually preferable not to have a hatnote when the name of the article is not ambiguous." to SchreiberBike's proposal "A hatnote is only used when the name of the article is ambiguous." I have not changed that text which is not part of what I removed. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 13:15, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The latter part of the discussion here pointed out cases where editors strongly believed hatnotes on unambiguously titled articles are desirable. Your edit removed the bit of the guidelines that stated that some editors strongly believe such hatnotes are desirable. That's why I reckoned you might have missed it.  The section could do with some rewriting (including a better integration of that paragraph into the rest of it – it's currently quite awkward), and some explanation of the factors at play. It may even make sense to have a bigger discussion on where the community stands here, but in the meantime I don't think it's productive to make big changes just because 2 out of 4 people didn't disagree with them. – Uanfala (talk) 17:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * and pinging and . Have a wider debate if you like. My question was simple: "Could we please delete...?" No-one disagreed with that (I did not interpret your comment as "I disagree"): I therefore have a consensus for my limited question. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 19:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the guideline should be enhanced to explain more clearly that it is sometimes desirable to have hatnotes on articles with unambiguous titles. I might propose something here, or other editors can do so. See my previous post for a bit more on this subject. — Mudwater (Talk) 21:36, 21 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree with Mudwater. Hatnotes should be used when they benefit the reader, regardless of whether the title is technically ambiguous or not. The current text does a mediocre job of explaining this imo, but a much better one than "A hatnote is only used when the name of the article is ambiguous". Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I have made changes, deleting the sentence per my suggestion, and adding "Hatnotes should be used when they benefit the reader, regardless of whether the title is technically ambiguous or not". Improvements, rather than reversion, are welcome. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 13:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Where is the list of appropriate other ways, besides disambiguation, in which hatnotes benefit readers? wbm1058 (talk) 15:53, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Two are discoverability and ease of navigation. The latter is especially relevant to anyone with a motor disability affecting fine use of hands. There are probably others. See this (archived) help desk discussion for some background. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 05:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Anyone with a motor disability affecting fine use of hands should really try using Alexa or Siri. Voice recognition assistants have gotten really powerful. After reviewing the discussions about Margaret Hamilton and Geoff Thompson and skimming the several other discussions found in the archive search of NAMB, I believe I understand the issue, and will start a new section to propose a more focused solution. "Improving discoverability and ease of navigation to benefit readers" isn't the sort of language that's going to help. Stay tuned while I compose my proposal. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:51, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Word to the wise: 1- it's very poor form to give advice to people with disabilities or about working around disabilities unless the people you're giving advice to or talking about have explicitly asked you or given you permission for that, and 2- some medications affect speech (up to and including aphasia), and so do some causes of motor disabilities, such as cerebral palsy. See eg, benevolent ableism in Ableism. Could you, before embarking on proposing a solution, describe here what you think the problem is, so we can try for consensus on that first? The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 20:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I support this recent removal of "but hatnotes should be used when they benefit the reader, regardless of whether the title is technically ambiguous or not." WP:IAR is always an option, and this is too open-ended to offer any useful guidance, while inviting misuse. I do support some verbiage for cases where Wikipedia's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is different from a real-world primary topic (e.g. top Google search result).—Bagumba (talk) 08:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Also, thanked me for that edit. You make a good point, a member of the Arbitation Committee recently pointed out to me that the real-world primary topic for backsliding differs from the meaning of Wikipedia's article on the topic. Let's endeavor to keep this guideline from backsliding into Hell ;) wbm1058 (talk) 17:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Near-primary topics
Not all readers search for articles using Wikipedia's "Search Wikipedia" box. Many use external search engines, which always identify the primary topics for a particular title, in contrast with Wikipedia. For example, while Margaret Hamilton is an ambiguous name on Wikipedia, Google Search finds two primary topics: Margaret Hamilton (actress) and Margaret Hamilton (software engineer). Margaret Hamilton (nurse) is buried deep in these results and locating pages about that person will be tedious if the user doesn't search for a more specific term such as "margaret hamilton nurse". Users may punt and click on one of the primary topic links taking them to Wikipedia, rather than re-searching for a more specific term. Wikipedia may help them find their search target when the external engine failed them.

A topic which appears as one of the top two results on a major search engine generally should link to the disambiguation page for the base title, even when it is parenthetically disambiguated.

There is no need for hatnotes on lesser-viewed topics (e.g. Margaret Hamilton (nurse)) as readers are highly unlikely to unintentionally land on such pages. — wbm1058 (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * There is no need for hatnotes on lesser-viewed topics (e.g. Margaret Hamilton (nurse)) as readers are highly unlikely to unintentionally land on such pages. I smell OR for the latter and SYNTH for the former. Do you have evidence for either? The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 22:56, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The burden isn't on me to do the impossible – prove a negative – but rather on you to assert a plausible scenario for that unintentional landing. C'mon now, I'm accepting your scenario for landings on Margaret Hamilton the actress or software engineer. Speaking of "OR" is your talk about "working around disabilities" OR or are you personally disabled? wbm1058 (talk) 00:30, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The |Margaret_Hamilton_(actress)|Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer)|Margaret_Hamilton_(nurse)|Margaret_Hamilton_(publisher)|Margaret_Hamilton_(educator)|Maggie_Hamilton pageviews analysis shows which are the co-primary topics. The others barely register. Which is consistent with how far buried they are in the Google Search results. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Taking your points in order:
 * - The burden isn't on me to do the impossible – prove a negative – but rather on you to assert a plausible scenario for that unintentional landing. I don't agree I need to provide anything other than evidence of > 0 pageviews for all the pages under discussion which the tool you linked me to already provides, and certainly not to speculate on the cause for those mislandings (which is how I interpret "plausible scenario").
 * - C'mon now, I'm accepting your scenario for landings on Margaret Hamilton the actress or software engineer. I cannot and will not hazard a guess about your intent in writing this, but regardless, it's coming out with an extremely patronizing connotation of "I did you a favor by accepting your point when I didn't have to". (This isn't about doing favors, in case that needed saying.)
 * - is your talk about "working around disabilities OR" A fair question, but no, it's not OR.
 * - are you personally disabled? That's none of your business, and it's at best very dubiously relevant anyway, given that different types and degrees of disability, alone or in combination, require different workarounds, so having a certain disability to a certain degree wouldn't allow me to speak authoritatively about or on behalf of people with disabilities differing in nature or degree.
 * - The others barely register. Which is consistent with how far buried they are in the Google Search results. Knowing how often mislandings happen is only part of the picture; an equally important part is how to get from there to the intended page, and we appear to have circled back to discoverability and ease of use (or in many cases, ability to use at all).
 * The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 04:28, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
 * In practice, I often place hatnotes to the dab page from the top search result. I hope we can agree that is helpful. I'm not as certain about needing it for the 2nd result and on; as always WP:IAR can apply there.—Bagumba (talk) 07:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Topics which are only disambiguated by year
The year an event occurred or a work was created provides weak disambiguation as some readers may not know or recognize the year of the event or production. Such titles (e.g. Treaty of Paris (1783) and Saving Christmas (2017 film) may use a hatnote to distinguish from other titles which only differ by year. — wbm1058 (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Probably applies to bios with "born" disambiguators, unless the era (think centuries) of those years is a clear disambiguator.—Bagumba (talk) 07:16, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree with both of these. Hatnotes linking to them directly (i.e not via disambiguation pages) should use some description in addition to the year as well in most cases. Thryduulf (talk) 13:10, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

sentence case
At Talk:Autogas, Widefox@undefined and myself are having a discussion about whether a hat note should be

or

To my mind, having that capital letter in gasoline halfway through a sentence (technically, a sentence fragment) is wrong. The MOS text doesn't seem that clear to me. Comments?  Stepho  talk 23:21, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I read the hatnote as referencing an article, not a petroleum product. Confusing autogas with gasoline would be a mistake in which chemical to use, but in a hatnote, to confuse Autogas with Gasoline would be to read the wrong article. I hope that helps, SchreiberBike &#124; ⌨ 23:29, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't go too far in drawing inferences from the formatting used in the single example of this page: I doubt much thought or discussion would have gone into such a minor point. The template documentation has examples of both types of capitalisation. I think you may be able to get more feedback if you ask at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters. My own thinking here is that when you refer directly to an article name, it will usually have sentence case: For the unrelated fuel, see Gasoline. However, with the "distinguish" hatnotes, I find that it's often (though not always) more natural to see the link as referring to a topic (and not directly to an article name), so using normal case is better: Not to be confused with gasoline. It may be easier to see the point of that if you try a slight variation on the wording: Not to be confused with the more popular fuel gasoline: here an upper-case G will obviously not work. – Uanfala (talk) 23:59, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have asked the question at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters.  Stepho  talk 22:34, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Hatnote-like text with inter-language links
I'd be grateful for another opinion at Talk:Wadi el Maleh please. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 13:53, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * There's also a relevant ongoing discussion at Template talk:Interlanguage link. – Uanfala (talk) 16:58, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

VPR discussion on method of surname clarification
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Method of surname clarification. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 05:18, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

As the proposal at Village Pump has been archived, its transcluded version is shown here below. Alexcalamaro (talk) 07:56, 2 April 2022 (UTC) :

Village Pump discussion

Clarification
Is to distinguish Sam Phillips and Sam Phillips (musician)? Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:59, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Likely a good thing. Although the founder of Sun Records was not known as a musician, his fame is directly connected with the music industry and the unmodified term "musician" could cause some confusion. older ≠ wiser 19:29, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Timeline
Should Template:For timeline be included? Magnolia677 (talk) 21:41, 15 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Included where? Since you are asking here, did you see in the documentation for that it says The use of this template in a hatnote at the top of an article should be avoided... <b style="color:#034503">MB</b> 21:55, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It also says, "The template can be used at the top or below a narrative section", and the first line of this article says, "Hatnotes are short notes placed at the very top of...a section". Magnolia677 (talk) 23:07, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Hatnote for most recent instance?
Is it a valid to include a hatnote from x to the most recent instance of x? For example, NBA Finals currently includes the hatnote:
 * For the most recent series, see 2022 NBA Finals.

It doesn't seem to be for disambiguation, as "NBA Finals" is simply the main topic, however I could see that it might be useful for directing people based on readership bias towards ongoing and recent events. Any thoughts on this? --Jameboy (talk) 15:57, 10 July 2022 (UTC)


 * It's commonly done, and very helpful for the reader. There are examples at The Championships, Wimbledon and The Boat Race, though London Marathon only has an infobox link to the 2022 version, which is a redirect back to that article (it hasn't happened yet, so is "next" rather than "most recent"). Pam  D  18:09, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * And it's quite difficult to find a route from Grand National to 2022 Grand National - although the winners are displayed in an image box, the only link to the race is in a table a long way down. I think the article would be improved with a hatnote linking to the most recent. (I'm not a sports fan: those four are just about the only sports events in which I take any interest, having spent the afternoon watching Wimbledon.) Pam  D  18:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * ...might be useful for directing people based on readership bias...: The important point is to direct readers to the actual page they could reasonably be searching for. I might remove it once the specific "recent" event has sufficiently passed.—Bagumba (talk) 00:52, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

"Hatnote" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Hatnote and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 31 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. F Adesdae  378  20:26, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

"Hat note", "Hatnotes" and "HATLINK" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirects Hat note, Hatnotes and HATLINK and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 31 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 17:52, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Multiple hatnotes
Multiple hatnotes are not, per se, "rare", but it is indeed very rare for that to be ideal. Hatnotes are supposed to be as minimalistic as possible, and having multiple ones is invariably a bad idea. Just combine the hatnotes and get readers to the actual article quicker. Red  Slash  23:46, 22 July 2022 (UTC)


 * That's a gross oversimplification, especially when there are multiple topics to disambiguate, which does happen often enough. Perhaps we need a hatnote "wrapper" that can handle multiple separate hatnotes, but display them together to save space, much like multiple issues does for maintenance tags. It might be worth considering, especially if it hasn't been proposed before. BilCat (talk) 01:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

The existing guidelines are at Hatnote:

I don't think I see any need to change them, though being able to combine some (not all) hatnote statements in a single template, as suggested by BilCat, would be useful. – Uanfala (talk) 08:45, 23 July 2022 (UTC)


 * There is a multiple hatnote wrapper, hatnote group. I don't believe it is mentioned anywhere in the guidelines. There should be info on when to use it. <b style="color:#034503">MB</b> 14:44, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding that! It is exactly what I had in mind. But yes, we could use some guidance on when it's appropriate to use it. I would think possibly for three hatnotes, and probably for four or more, though I've rarely seen more than 4 legitimately necessary hatnotes at the top of one article. BilCat (talk) 20:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That's the first I've heard of that template, and it seems like I'm not the only one since it looks like it's used on only 46 articles in all of WP. It seems far more useful than that number would indicate. Pompey is a good example. I've added a sentence to the guideline. Station1 (talk) 21:31, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it's an improvement ( and it self-describes as "experimental"). Too soon to instruct editors to use it, without discussion. Different hatnotes, for different functions, each starting on a new line, is clearer for the reader.
 * OTOH we do need to deprecate multiple uses of for, which I've sometimes seen: a single about with multiple fields does the job. Pam  D  05:48, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The template seems to work fine, so I would not be too concerned with it being marked "experimental". Since it is 7 years old, I think that can be removed. The author,, should be able to comment on that. The real issue seems to be whether grouping is an improvement. I think it is. WP:1HAT says There should be as few hatnotes as possible. One single hatnote, which can accommodate several links, is greatly preferable to two or more. This allows one hatnote without an endless variation of combined templates (e.g. redirect & redirect-distingish). It eliminates whitespace and makes the "hatnote" more concise. The majority of readers are already at the correct pages and skip the hatnote. For others, I don't think removing line breaks makes the hatnote too difficult to read. <b style="color:#034503">MB</b> 17:26, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd previously left it marked "experimental" because I wasn't sure that the 2016 discussion had established that it would be acceptable to use hatnote group; it's certainly not so much "experimental" as "not officially supported for broad use"; I just hadn't updated the documentation since the time when it was experimental. It should be reasonably stable so long as the default classes included on hatnote templates remain the same; I should probably tweak Module:Hatnote to export its default classes to help bypass that particular fragility. If its use becomes more formally accepted and normalized, which I generally support, I'll probably do an AWB pass to simplify a lot of ugly uses of "text" parameters that combine hatnotes by embedding the second as raw text in the first. {&#123; Nihiltres &#8202;&#124;talk&#8202;&#124;edits}&#125; 21:02, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it's correct to say that it's "clearer" to use two hatnotes on separate lines. The two purposes of a hatnote are that:


 * 1) upon arriving at the wrong article, a reader can find the correct article quickly
 * 2) upon arriving at the correct article, a reader can get to the content quickly

Person 1 (the minority of readers) need a bunch of blue links with as few extra words as possible (while still providing context). Person 2 doesn't want any hatnotes and therefore the hatnotes should be as unobtrusive as possible. For both cases, condensing hatnotes is the best way forward. Red  Slash  22:59, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a good idea to have more than one hatnote for the same title. But titles are not the same as articles. Condensed or combined hatnotes are not always possible when some of the hats are for redirects rather than for the main article title. In those cases, multiple hatnotes may be necessary. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * With respect, I disagree. I have personally never once seen an article that needed multiple hatnotes. Can you provide an example? Red   Slash  17:48, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The obvious case, as already set out on the page, is where article "X" has a disambiguation hatnote (linking to "X (DAB)"), and a redirect hatnote from "Y", pointing back to "Y (DAB)". Those can still be combined if one is happy with "Generic hatnote:  slightly handwaving form of words, see X (DAB) or Y (DAB)."  I think that's sacrificing clarity and any sort of natural-reading text for brute-force concision, personally.  109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:01, 18 October 2022 (UTC)


 * So let me put this to a direct question about the wide-spread and general use of hatnote group, given it represents a noticeable change of layout and there are both 'pro' and 'con' comments in this discussion. Should it genenerally be used? Does it depend on the number or specific types of hatnotes? DMacks (talk) 15:22, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I support general use. Note that usage is up to nearly 300. At least once, I have added it and been reverted, so I would like to see a consensus documented. While I think that condensing hatnotes in this way is generally an improvement, I have elected not to use it at times when the resulting hatnote was just too awkward to parse. There are so many different hatnotes that can be combined in different orders that I think it would be difficult to specify exactly when to use or not use it. <b style="color:#034503">MB</b> 16:50, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

This guideline needs to expressly address puns and homonyms
I am seeing many editors adding hatnotes involving puns, such as Shepard's Citations and Sherardising (which I disagreed with).

Another issue is I Ran and Iran, which are close homonyms in American English. Like many Americans, I was surprised to realize the classic New Wave song is not actually about Iran (it's confusing because many Second British Invasion songs were actually about the Middle East, such as Rock the Casbah). Then I found a source on that (on how many Americans actually mistook the song as one about Iran) and added it to the article on the song.

We need a consensus on this. Coolcaesar (talk) 20:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

unusual hatnote
Came across UMC (company) just recently. It's a redirect to a Taiwanese company called United Microelectronics Corporation. Thing is, this company has (or used to have) an American subsidiary called Unicorn Microelectronics Corporation.

Had never come across this case before, where I want to use a redirect variant, but with no link elsewhere. If you get here expecting the California Unicorn, there needs to be a hatnote saying you're on the right page (despite it being about a foreign company). I checked out ALL of the hatnotes I found relevant, none of them could do what I wanted to do: Redirect, Redirect2, Redirect-multi, Redirect-several, Redirect-synonym, Redirect-distinguish, Redirect-distinguish-text, Redirect-distinguish-for, Distinguish, About-distinguish, About-distinguish-text...

Feel free to give my solution a look; I would appreciate learning if there's a better way. CapnZapp (talk) 19:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I would tell you to use for however, unless I put it in wrong, the subsidiary doesn't seem to have an article. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Blaze Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="margin-left:-22q;">Blaze Wolf#6545 19:41, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The subsidiary is mentioned at the target page of the redirect. That is, the redirect redirects to the correct page no matter whether you were looking for UMC i.e. United Microelectronics Corporation or UMC i.e. Unicorn Microelectronics Corporation. CapnZapp (talk) 19:48, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Then is a hatnote really necessary then? ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Blaze Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="margin-left:-22q;">Blaze Wolf#6545 19:50, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * A valid question. I made the judgement call that it is conceivable that a user looking for, say, old chips from Unicorn Microelectronics or even just "UMC", finds UMC (company) and gets confused when presented with an article on a Taiwanese company. I mean, it is far from obvious that the article will eventually mention Unicorn. Let's take a specific example: the article on MOS Technology 6507 is illustrated by a UMC chip. It is far from obvious that this is an American chip and not a Taiwanese one. At the same time, to a reader somewhat versed in semiconductor history, it would have been unexpected to use a foreign chip as illustration (and indeed, it was made by Unicorn in the US, not United abroad). That said, I'm open to alternative solutions. In fact, my primary reason for coming here was to a) showcase what I found to be a very special use case: This appears to be an instance where a given redirect can have two separate meanings that still lead to the same page! A hatnote to explain that XYZ leads here but that XYZ can mean two things are common - but how often do the same article explain both of those two things? And b) satisfy my curiosity: has this sort of thing happened before? is it actually so rare that my generic solution suffices or should I have looked longer and harder for a specialized hat note already existing? Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 11:59, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm... well what doesn't help is that Unicorn MC doesn't have its own section on that article (although the article is quite poorly written inmo) so we can't just make a hatnot that takes users to that section. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Blaze Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="margin-left:-22q;">Blaze Wolf#6545 13:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there are other UMC's that are companies at UMC. I'm not a big fan of parenthetically disambiguated titles
 * still being ambiguous
 * being used as "primary topics"
 * Ideally, I'd say to redirect UMC (company) to the dab page as an incomplete disambiguation of UMC. Barring that, this "primary topic" needs a hatnote that goes to UMC (disambiguation), which should have an entry to Unicorn Microelectronics Corporation, which should redirect to its parent, United Microelectronics Corporation. —Bagumba (talk) 14:37, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I do agree that UMC (company) should redirect to UMC as incomplete dab since that doesn't seem to be the primary topic. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Blaze Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="margin-left:-22q;">Blaze Wolf#6545 14:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Feel free to start a discussion, ideally involving the editors that partook in the 2019 Redirects for Discussion. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 14:56, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I looked at that and it confuses me. Why was there even an RFD if both editors agreed that the redirect was fine as is? ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Blaze Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="margin-left:-22q;">Blaze Wolf#6545 16:23, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I can't answer that. CapnZapp (talk) 17:17, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

It appears that out of my two topics, only one is generating discussion. But isn't the discussion about how to handle this particular case better held elsewhere?

The other discussion (that I see no other place for than here) is: if you review the example case (permanent link), do you agree the need for, let's see if I can phrase this coherently; a "redirect-disambiguate" that does not link is... uncommon? In other words, are there really no specialized hat notes suitable for such cases? Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 14:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, it seems uncommon. Use the free-form Hatnote if there is a legitimate one-off case. Otherwise, follow my above suggestions specifically for UMC (company). —Bagumba (talk) 15:13, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Use the free-form Hatnote if there is a legitimate one-off case. Just to be clear, I did. CapnZapp (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Hatnotes gone wild
If you'd like an example of when hatnotes go too far, please take a look at Science Publishing Group. The hatnote list is almost as long as the article. I just don't see how this can be a time saver for anybody. Praemonitus (talk) 18:55, 13 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Most of those terms shouldn't redirect to the article as they are not mentioned in the article, and most of what they are potentially confusing with don't have articles either so that mess is a big WP:NOTDIR violation. Thryduulf (talk) 12:09, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Looking further there are 1162 redirects to that page that are not mentioned in the article, some of them having names that probably have better targets. There is also a discussion about some of them at Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 March 13. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I see the list has been trimmed a bit, so thanks for that. I thought about making a disambig page and sending the redirects there. Praemonitus (talk) 13:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggested fix for this issue and others
There's one concept which would solve this problem and many others. Which is to say hatnotes are only for when there is a reasonable expectation that the person who landed at the article thought they were going to the article mentioned in the hatnote. Another problem which I encountered (which this would solve) is illustrated by this example. Let's say that there is a wp:notable garage band named "Joe Biden" someone creates the Joe Biden (band)  article. There is nothing in this guideline to prevent or even discourage putting a hatnote at the top of the Joe Biden article which says:   "This article is about the President of the United States. For the garage band Joe Biden see Joe Biden (band)" Sincerely, <b style="color: #0000cc;">North8000</b> (talk) 19:29, 13 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Assuming that the band is notable, why would we not want a hatnote to it? If there were enough other uses of "Joe Biden" for there to be a disambiguation page then we wouldn't exclude it so I don't understand why doing something different for hatnotes would benefit the encyclopaedia or its readers? Thryduulf (talk) 12:06, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, first, I agree that a hatnote to a disambig page is always fine. That means that there are multiple articles/topics involved. Now first noting a few things about my example, that it was placed at an ultra prominent topic article, and the target of the redirect is obscure, (albeit  still meeting the wp:notability requirement which doesn't require real world notability) and so practically nobody that lands at Joe Biden article was expecting to land at the band article. My argument is that making the first "sentence" of the Joe Biden article being a mention of a garage band is inappropriate use of the spot and promotional and not something that we should be making every reader of the Joe Biden article read.  But my idea would also prevent want was noted in the OP.  In essence putting the "see also" section before the lead where it is clear that those aren't what the reader expected to land on. <b style="color: #0000cc;">North8000</b> (talk) 13:35, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * While very few people wanting the band article will expect it to be at Joe Biden, they will have gone there because they don't know where it is and know that there will be a prominent link. Except because someone has deemed it "promotional" (and you will have to explain how a hatnote to an article about a notable topic can be promotional, and would you say the same thing about Joe Biden (racehorse), Joe Biden (Bahamian politician), Joe Biden (academic), Joe Biden (statue), Joe Biden (asteroid), Joe Biden (beetle), etc, etc? Who, using what objective criteria, would get to decide which articles are so notable they need protection (for want of a better term) and which articles are not notable enough to grace the hallowed pixels of a super-notable topic's article?) there isn't a link. Adding a link to the see also section would not be helpful to those people looking for the other article, or compatible with MOS:SEEALSO's requirement that . Hatnotes are not the first sentence of the article, they are not even part of the article, they exist only because of the technical limitation that two pages cannot have the same name. Thryduulf (talk) 14:16, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I seem to remember a furore about Book of Mormon when a hatnote pointing to the musical was first added, which people felt was disrespectful to a sacred text (there's now a dab page to point to). It happens. Yes, a band could get itself more conspicuous by calling itself "Joe Biden" ... but only if it was Wiki-notable, and the article non-promotional, etc. It's just the way Wikipedia works, and I don't at present see a better way to do it. Pam  D  15:39, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * FWIW My idea was just "hatnotes are only for when there is a reasonable expectation that the person who landed at the article thought they were going to the article mentioned in the hatnote." And the opening of my post discussed that it would solve the OP problem.    Everything beyond that was just another example and answering questions about the other example.   But once I did have a case like my example.  A relatively obscure band named an album the same name as a major musical genre and via a hatnote got their album listed at the top of the main article on that genre. On the flip side, Thryduulf's "they will have gone there because they don't know where it is and know that there will be a prominent link." is a valid one for my example.  Sincerely, <b style="color: #0000cc;">North8000</b> (talk) 19:38, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

NAMB not being 'prescribed by the guideline'
I just had an interaction about WP:NAMB at that hasn't happened to me in... decades? In that case, I would be really surprised if there was an average English reader who managed to land on a gazetteer entry for a tiny village and then really needed a hatnote to get back on track to look for other eponymous topics.

But upon closer look at the phrasing, I found it weird to have a guideline on this but one that also says 'ehh I'm not really a guideline'. This seems to have come about as a result of which seems to have followed Wikipedia talk:Hatnote/Archive 5. (And before that edit there was a lot of edit-warring about it.) This was almost a decade ago, though, and I've been dropping these kinds of redundant hatnotes without even knowing something had changed. Reading through the discussion with fresh eyes, I see a handful of people wanted to actually encourage these kinds of hatnotes in a discussion of 20 people, though. A guideline means there are logical exceptions already, so I'm not sure why we would want to claim there's a proper lack of consensus on what to do, it just doesn't really seem like an accurate description of what's the practical reality. --Joy (talk) 08:40, 21 May 2023 (UTC)


 * That RfC was 9 years ago, and you make good arguments for why consensus may have changedI think another RfC could be a good idea. Snowmanonahoe (talk &middot; contribs &middot; typos) 20:43, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I mean, the previous one wasn't really done in a way that built an actual consensus. If the discussion closer had been the person amending the guideline, that would have been much better than what happened, that it was the proposer, and there was a fair bit of edit warring about it, too. --Joy (talk) 18:55, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @Joy Hey, wanted to chime in on this. I've noticed variability on the issue because the Manual of Style isn't set in stone and had been wondering the same as you.  I fall in the "Include hatnotes" camp because most of the time, the traffic comes from search engines, my own searches included.  And when I land on an article that might not be my intended, I want a link to follow "back up the tree" so to speak.
 * @Snowmanonahoe I think starting up an RfC on this would be excellent. Jasonkwe (talk) (contribs) 17:32, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think I saw such arguments back then, but even back then I think some noted that this could be an automated feature instead of yet another thing requiring maintenance at the top of the page. Maybe something could be implemented in a template to make it more configurable? --Joy (talk) 18:03, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
 * If the previous RfC was "no consensus", no changes should have been made per WP:NOCONSENSUS: No consensus to change a guideline should not render the existing guideline to then be effectively obsolete. As WP:IAR always applies, the caveat for edge cases did not need to cast the whole guideline into doubt.—Bagumba (talk) 18:32, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Proper hatnote to point to topic/disambig of similar word
Satisfactory is a video game, and appears to be the only topic named "Satisfactory" on WP. However, it is close to the word satisfaction of which there is a reasonable disambiguation page with numerous topics. Because there may be an off chance that a user searching for "satisfaction" may stumble upon "satisfactory" first, I think a hatnote on the video game page to the disambiguation page is reasonable (and certainly can't hurt), but none of the templates here given seem the best first, or at least what wording to use.

Is there a good hatnote to use for this purpose? I have something there now but would want to know if there's an established route here. M asem (t) 13:36, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * for and about allow customized text for the other uses of the term, so its mostly a matter of how to word it. Otherwise, there's the generic other uses —Bagumba (talk) 16:07, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

==Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation § Best practices when a similar name is massively less notable== You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation § Best practices when a similar name is massively less notable. -- Tamzin  &#91;<i style="color:#E6007A">cetacean needed</i>&#93; (she&#124;they&#124;xe) 23:49, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Hatnote use for biography title clarification
So I recently noticed an issue with Template talk:Family name hatnote which led to the discovery how this whole class of hatnotes is not really documented in the WP:HAT guideline since over a decade ago, and it's not clear which parts of the current guideline text are supposed to apply to them at all.

Since the previous few discussions about this at the village pump and at this talk page were never properly decided, I suggest we have a WP:RFC for it here. Does anyone see a better venue for this? --Joy (talk) 20:16, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * RfC for what, exactly? What is the question to pose?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @SMcCandlish as I said above, to what extent is the hatnote guideline supposed to apply to these anthroponymy hatnotes? Right now the guideline mentions something at WP:HATFAM but only footnotes, not hatnotes, which doesn't really match the reality. This in turn links to a pretty odd text in the template documentation that sort of just describes a lack of consensus. That is just not an actual guideline. --Joy (talk) 14:54, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

"Hatnote" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hatnote&redirect=no Hatnote] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:36, 1 September 2023 (UTC)