Wikipedia talk:Historical archive/MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage

Reformatting
I have put substed "tl"s in the page to make it more readable. I am assuming that any automated processes will cope with the piped links, as implied by the comments. If not, remove the pipes and {}. Rich Farmbrough, 10:50 9 March 2007 (GMT).

Shipindex
Should Shipindex be included here? — Jack · talk · 02:23, Monday, 16 April 2007

Hospital Disambig
Looks like there is a template Hospitaldis that should be added to the list.

Requested additions
Please add hndis-cleanup, and Mathdab and Schooldis, and the two above, Hospitaldis and Shipindex to the "Main templates" section. Thanks. --Quiddity (talk) 22:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done - Nihiltres { t .l } 01:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Another update, please add Template:POWdis and Template:Mountainindex and Template:SIA. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. --- RockMFR 06:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested removals
In the context of the English Wikipedia, the templates and  are no longer associated with disambiguation, but rather with anthroponymy - the study of human names. Several discussions have taken place within WikiProject Disambiguation and WikiProject Anthroponymy and the general consensus is that name-articles and lists associated with name-articles are (generally) not in the realm of disambiguation. The guidelines behind these consensus outcomes are still a work in progress.

I cannot speak myself for non-English Wikipedia instances.

--User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

New templates
Please add NA Broadcast List, because it transcludes Disambig. Also, Fish-dab, same reason. --Russ (talk) 21:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Cheers, PeterSymonds (talk)  22:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Letter disambig
Please add this template too. --Euku 22:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Requests
Per Ceyockey's comment above, please remove given name and surname from the list. Per Euku's comment above, please add letter disambig as well (even though I think it is a useless template, it does exist and is used on disambig pages). --Russ (talk) 12:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Yes check.svg|20px]] Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

More changes
editprotected Please add Airport disambig. --Russ (talk) 14:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done. Cheers.  lifebaka (talk - contribs) 14:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, Template:NRHPdis. Thanks. --Russ (talk) 15:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk)  16:30, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Please add disambig-Chinese-char-title‎ --Russ (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Yes check.svg|20px]] Done — { { Nihiltres | talk | log } } 14:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Regex
Airport disambig|Disambig|Disambig-Chinese-char-title‎|Disambig-cleanup|Fish-dab|Geodis|Hndis|Hndis-cleanup|Hospitaldis|Letter disambig|Mathdab|NA Broadcast List|Numberdis|POWdis|Roaddis|Schooldis|SIA|Shipindex|Mountainindex|Given name|Surname|Dab|Disamb|Diasmbig|Disamb-cleanup|Disambiguation|Bio-dab|Hndisambig

Rich Farmbrough, 10:24 15 October 2008 (UTC).

Template to add
Please add Template:callsigndis to the list of templates. Mlaffs (talk) 23:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --- RockMFR 23:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

No set index templates
Per WP:D, set index articles are not disambiguation pages, so I have removed the following SIA templates from the list:



--R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Re-add ((surname))
editprotected

surname needs to be added here.

See this kind of interwiki edit on fr.wp. All other languages consider pages such as Wassermann as disambiguation pages, because they have no content by themselves and list several articles on different topics. Because of this, such kind of article is considered as disambiguations in other languages.

When en.wp does not list such pages as disambiguations, interwiki bots understand that English articles are different from the articles in other languages: the other wikis pages are disambiguation pages, while English WP does not flag these pages as disambiguations. Logically, the bot understands that content is different, and removes English interwiki links.

As a result, English links are being removed one by one from Surname pages in other wikis. Surname needs to be added as a disambiguation template, for bots.

NicDumZ ~  14:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually I don't even need to explain the reason. If Hndis is included here, the very similar Surname needs to be added too... NicDumZ ~  14:15, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * No, surname pages are not disambiguation pages and are not subject to the same set of guidelines as disambiguation pages, which is the primary purpose of this MW message. How other language encyclopedias address the pages is not particularly relevant for guidance on the English wikipedia. older ≠ wiser 14:29, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, does this MediaWiki message is taken into account for any "guidelines"? If yes, can you show me some pointers?
 * I am a maintainer of pywikipedia bot, and I can tell you, interwiki bots use this message to identify pages that do not hold content by themselves. It's not really about other wikis, it's about how all bots using this information are actually getting that information wrong.
 * Can you show me the guidelines you mention? I don't actually understand the technical difference between Surname pages and human name disambiguation pages. Thank you.
 * NicDumZ ~  16:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * See MOS:DABNAME, in particular Pages only listing persons with a certain given name or surname (unless they are very frequently referred to by that name alone) are not disambiguation pages, and this Manual of Style does not apply to them. In such cases, do not use disambig or hndis, but given name or surname instead.
 * A human name disambiguation page contains persons with the same or very similar names, e.g, John Smith. A given name or surname page is about a particular name and may also list individuals with that name who have articles. For given names, there has never been much support for including these in disambiguation pages unless a person is commonly known by only that name. With surnames, the distinction has always been a little more arbitrary. In various scholarships, individuals may often be referenced by their last name (sometimes only and sometimes with surname and initials). So there has long been some value seen to providing some index of notable people by surname. Short lists of such persons are often included within disambiguation pages, but longer such lists are now generally not treated as being disambiguation pages (despite somewhat unintuitive similarities in appearance). older ≠ wiser 16:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I very much understand that some distinction can be made within the community, for formatting reasons, style guidelines. I'm fine with this.
 * The question, here, is... why does the technical message MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage needs to reflect one of the categories, and not the more generic, global class of articles listing several concepts on one page? Do contributor cares? I don't believe it changes much for them, does it? Why can't we use a Wikipedia: namespace page to explain differences between class of "disambiguation" templates, their related rules, and let alone that message ?
 * Because it actually changes a lot of things for bots.
 * NicDumZ ~  17:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'll try to re-explain this.

The English community seems to distinguish different "disambiguation" pages. Let's say... different "list" pages. I am fine with this, and I'm not trying to argue on this consensus, it's fine with me.

The problem, is that for bots, any kind of such list is the same. A page using Hndis, or Surname, does not hold any content, they just redirect you to several possibilities/meanings. When trying to match interwiki links, knowing if the page holds content or not is VERY important. Two pages not having content can be linked from one language to another (not _has_ to be linked, _can_). Two pages having content can be linked from one language to another. BUT one plain article and a page using Surname should NOT be linked throught interwikis, never: in no possible way their content can match.

Because of this distinction, when a bot finds two linked pages that do not belong to the same category (article vs "disambig"), they remove the existing link

Apparently a different choice is made here. I personally don't agree with the current choice: there is nothing that clearly explains that this convention is different than what is used somewhere else. Because it's a technical MediaWiki message, I suspect that all bot owners assume that this message has the same role on every project of the foundation. I suspect that they could be relying on it for external analysis: "given page xxx on my wiki, is en:xxx a disambig page? If yes, can I extract content from it?", and various assumptions like this. The current choice, in a way, breaks the Principle of least astonishment.

I don't exactly understand WHY a different choice is made, where this list matters for contributors (can you help?!) but I see a problem with the current situation. At the very very least, if the distinction is kept, there should be some list of all templates used to flag pages that are, generally speaking "disambiguation pages", in the way that they don't have any content. A clear explanation of the distinction made on en.wp should be added somewhere, with a link to that more generic list. This information is vital for bot owners, as they cannot afford to dig in en.wp internals to understand what pages are real articles, and what pages only point the readers to different articles depending on the context where the particle term is used.

I hope that you understand the issue here. NicDumZ ~  17:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, many surname pages DO in fact contain content other than a list of names. They are part of the WikiProject Anthroponymy. In much the same way, various set index pages are also no longer considered to be disambiguation pages, despite having some superficial similarities both in appearance and function. I don't know what all goes on behind the scenes with bots and honestly I'm not sure what particular impact this page has if any on contributors. I'm just trying to explain why things are the way they are. Whether this is of use to bots or not I couldn't say, but Category:All disambiguation pages was created for pretty much the purposes you describe -- a comprehensive index of disambiguation-like pages. older ≠ wiser 17:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This edit is wrong. You can find many more interwiki edits of this kind. The only reason is the fact that surname is not "officially" a disambiguation page.
 * NicDumZ ~  19:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * While I generally like to be as helpful as possible to bots and their owners, I must decline this request, at least until I can see more consensus. If the change is made, it will cause Special:Disambiguations to contain entries that don't belong according to the English Wikipedia definition of a disambig page.  Thus, I am hesitant to break a special page in order to allow a bot(s) to work a little better.  It seems to me that as a bot owner and developer for pywikipedia you could add in an exception that causes the interwiki bots to recognize the Surname template as a disambig page for English Wikipedia.  Wouldn't that be a cleaner solution than making this change and breaking the Special page?  --CapitalR (talk) 22:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Understood. I'm obviously the anyone pushing for that request.
 * Can you please help me to find, or to build, an up-to-date list of all templates that can be used on set index articles OR disambiguation pages? I should be have been able to do it, but honestly, I tried, and I'm just completely confused by this current system, what template does what or... I find it a bit astonishing to have a system so complex that --sorry to say this-- even technically-aware users like me can be confused when trying to understand it. As an example, Bkonrad just said that Category:All disambiguation pages was created for pretty much the purposes [I] describe -- a comprehensive index of disambiguation-like pages. But Dmbox, which seems to be on every disambiguation-like pages, do not categorize pages to this category if type=setindex. Surname, in particular, sets type parameter to setindex, and as a result none of those pages are in Category:All disambiguation pages. Did I miss anything?
 * NicDumZ ~  10:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) I think your best bet is using dmbox like you said. If the type is equal to "disambig" (which is the default value), then the articles end up in Category:All disambiguation pages. If it is equal to "setindex", then the pages make their way into Category: all set index articles. Luckily, there are only 27 templates that use dmbox, which makes sorting them out by hand possible to do in a reasonable amount of time. Here's a list of all templates that use dmbox:
 * 1) Template:Airport disambig
 * 2) Template:Callsigndis
 * 3) Template:Disambig
 * 4) Template:Disambig-Chinese-char-title
 * 5) Template:Disambig-cleanup
 * 6) Template:Fish-dab
 * 7) Template:Geodis
 * 8) Template:Given name
 * 9) Template:Hawaiiindex
 * 10) Template:Hndis
 * 11) Template:Hndis-cleanup
 * 12) Template:Hospitaldis
 * 13) Template:Hurricane disambig
 * 14) Template:Letter disambig
 * 15) Template:Mathdab
 * 16) Template:Meta disambig
 * 17) Template:Mountainindex
 * 18) Template:Numberdis
 * 19) Template:Plant common name
 * 20) Template:Roaddis
 * 21) Template:Russia disambig
 * 22) Template:Schooldis
 * 23) Template:Shipindex
 * 24) Template:Shortcut disambig
 * 25) Template:SIA
 * 26) Template:Sportindex
 * 27) Template:Surname

Of those the following use "setindex":
 * 1) Template:Given name
 * 2) Template:Hawaiiindex
 * 3) Template:Mountainindex
 * 4) Template:Plant common name
 * 5) Template:Shipindex
 * 6) Template:SIA
 * 7) Template:Sportindex
 * 8) Template:Surname

So, it looks like the ones that will be a problem for your bot are those last 8 I just listed. Let me know if you need more help figuring this all out (but note that I don't really know how it works either). --CapitalR (talk) 10:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Side-notes: The mess of templates is a growing and shrinking problem. We had many more templates for disambig a few years ago, and then many of them got deleted (in 2006/2007 I think). Such as TLA or 3CC for all three-letter-acronyms/character-combinations and Cvdis for computer/video-games (It really was a mess). Recently, the list of templates has been expanding again.
 * Set-index-articles are a fairly new invention - initial discussion (that I can find in a very brief search) is at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)/Archive_32 and Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation/Archive_24 (May 2007) then they were deleted(?) Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation/Archive_24. Next useful thread appears in March 2008: Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 26.
 * I think User:Davidgothberg is possibly the best person to ask for advice concerning dab templates and such, currently. (sorry David!). See his work at Template talk:Dmbox and elsewhere. (ha! edit conflict with him whilst saving this. Well, I'll save anyway)
 * The two templates (surname and given name) that the disambig project shares with WikiProject Anthroponymy are the main confusion. Perhaps they could be rethought/tweaked somehow? Hope that all helps, and doesn't confuse further! -- Quiddity (talk) 18:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I should probably comment, since I built the dmbox and have some understanding of this.
 * My short answer is:
 * We can't add surname or given name to MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage since it will screw up Special:Disambiguations and the article count in Special:Statistics. (As CapitalR partly pointed out above.) But I think that articles with those templates should be allowed to have interwiki links to and from disambig pages on other projects, thus we need to find a solution for the interwiki bots.


 * And here's the long answer:
 * First, here is the technical background:
 * 1: I built the to make many of these things easier to handle. But theses things are still partly a mess.
 * 2: There are three kinds of pages that use message boxes with the same style. (And now all those boxes are built by using the .)
 * A: Strict disambiguation pages. That is pages that list and links articles that have the same (or at least very similar) name. Such as the page Salt (disambiguation) that lists and links Salt and Salt (cryptography). The rules for disambig pages are very strict (which I think is unfortunate).
 * B: Set index articles. These pages have a more free form than disambig pages. They do list and link articles that has the same or similar names. But they can also contain background information about the name, more explanation next to each name and they can even list items which still do not have an article (and might never even get an article). There seems to be the limitation that a set index article should not list all articles with the same name, but only all articles of the same type. Such as only ships with the same name. For instead for the word "enterprise" there is the strict disambig page Enterprise and then two different set index articles about ships named "Enterprise": Ships named USS Enterprise and ships named HMS Enterprise.
 * C: Then there are articles about for instance a human name. I don't mean strict "human name disambig pages" that use the hndis template, but pages that explain the history of a name, like what the name originally means. Like the article about the name Zorn. Those articles of course often do have a list of persons and other items with that name, and link those names if there are articles for them. I don't think these pages really are "set index articles", rather they are simply articles about a name. But since they contain a list of names they often are marked with the surname or given name templates.


 * Note that "set index articles" really are more articles than disambig pages. And it is currently unclear if we should consider the articles about human names to be "set index articles" or simply "articles". So type B and C perhaps are the same type. Anyway, the difference between type B and C above is not especially important, instead the important part is that they are not strict disambiguation pages. See below for the reasons why that is important.


 * 3: When you edit a disambig page then the editintro disambig editintro is displayed. It reminds the user of the very strict rules for what a disambig page may contain. Technically it works like this: All the strict disambig boxes use, which makes dmbox set the CSS id "disambig". The id tells the javascript in MediaWiki:Common.js to display the editintro . Also, when dmbox is used with "type=disambig" it categorises the page into Category:All disambiguation pages and if in main (article) space it also adds Category:All article disambiguation pages.


 * 4: The set index article boxes such as shipindex instead use dmbox with "type=setindex". That does not trigger the disambig editintro when editing a page. (Because this instead sets the CSS id "setindexbox".) And it makes dmbox instead add Category:All set index articles.


 * 5: Since hndis is for strict disambig pages it uses dmbox with "type=disambig". But since surname or given name instead are for articles about names, they use dmbox with "type=setindex", so they won't trigger the display of disambig editintro. As a side effect that currently means that pages that use surname or given name are added to Category:All set index articles. (How the name articles should be categorised is a separate issue, but at least they are not disambig pages.)


 * 6: People tend put disambig boxes, set index boxes and boxes on the same page. Usually each box in the proper section. Personally I do find that logical, since the messages in those boxes do fit in those different sections. But currently it does break the technical side of these things. (Although we can fix the technical aspects so it handles those cases nicely.) And I bet it angers the people who enforces the strict disambig rules.


 * 7: As far as I know MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage has several functions:
 * It is used by Special:Disambiguations to show any pages linking to disambiguation articles.
 * I think I have read that it is also used by Special:Statistics so it doesn't include the disambig pages in the article count.
 * And as NicDumZ pointed out above, this page is also used by interwiki bots to know what pages are disambig pages.


 * Now for my conclusions:
 * 8: I think that in most cases it probably is correct to put interwiki links between disambig pages at other projects and set index articles in the English Wikipedia. And I think we can also do interwiki links between disambig pages in other projects and articles that use surname or given name.
 * 9: But we can't add or  to MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage since it will screw up Special:Disambiguations and the article count in Special:Statistics.
 * 10: I am not a bot owner, but I can imagine several ways we can solve this for the interwiki bots:


 * 10.a: The interwiki bots can use Category:All disambiguation pages and Category:All set index articles to find out which pages are allowed. However, or  probably will not use Category:All set index articles in the future, and instead use a third category.


 * 10.b: We can easily make it so the dmbox puts all pages that use it in one single hidden category, named something like: Category:All disambig, set index and name pages. And we should of course explain on that category page exactly what it is for.


 * 10.b: We can make a separate page where we list all the disambig, set index and name boxes that the interwiki bots should consider allows doing interwiki links to and from disambig pages on other projects. Unfortunately that page needs to be maintained, and considering how bad the disambig template area has been maintained so far...


 * 10.c: The bots can check if the page uses dmbox. The pages don't use directly so it isn't visible in the page code, but it is visible in several other ways: In the rendered XHTML page code there is a table with the "dmbox" class. In the edit preview dialogue the  is of course listed below among "Templates used in this preview". And the bot could check "What links here" for.


 * NicDumZ: Which of the solutions would work well with your and the other interwiki bots?
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 18:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * To add an 11th point to David's 10, there are other bots besides the interwiki bots that use this list to determine which pages are disambiguation pages; for example, my bot that maintains WP:DPM. These bots will still need to distinguish between disambiguation pages and set index articles, even if the interwiki bots don't adhere to that distinction.  So the pywikipediabot framework, which now has a single isDisambigPage function, probably needs to have more than one function (or an optional argument) added to recognize this distinction. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Solution?
I just realised there is a much simpler solution: It is easier to have all related information on the same page. And it says right there at the top of MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage: "Any links to Template:... will be treated as links to disambiguation templates." And of course, that is the way that the different tools and bots know what items on the page are templates.

So let's add the set index templates back, but without links. Like this:
 * &lt;nowiki>&lt;/nowiki>
 * &lt;nowiki>&lt;/nowiki>

Which renders like this:

It will probably be pretty easy to update the interwiki bots to also recognise the  notation.

--David Göthberg (talk) 18:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I just had a chat with NicDumZ on IRC about the "simpler" solution above. Apparently the  tags make it hard to modify the pywikipedia bot library to identify the braces   notation. Instead we have two other suggestions:
 * Same as 10b above: Have a separate page that lists and links the set index boxes. That is the easiest solution for the pywikipedia bot library. But I think it will be harder for humans to maintain a separate page, so it will cause confusion.
 * Instead use parenthesis  notation for the templates. Like we often do in other places where using braces   is not a good option. Thus the set index template list can be at the same page as the disambig template list, but the set index list would look like this:
 * ((SIA))
 * ((Shipindex))
 * That is easy for humans to read and edit, and reasonably easy to implement in the pywikipedia bot library. And I think that probably will be fairly easy to implement in any other non-pywikipedia bots too.
 * And I think there might be issues with adding a separate page, since I would like if other language Wikipedias could reuse our solution. But some other Wikipedias don't allow adding new MediaWiki pages just like that. So it could be some trouble to decide what to name the other page and what namespace to place it in. Instead using the parenthesis  notation should be much more language neutral.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 19:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * David explained this perfectly :)
 * A few notes:
 * We can add as much text as we want to MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage without Mediawiki performance overhead. Mediawiki parses the message ONCE when saved, and then only the pagelinks SQL table is checked for links from the message to templates.
 * Introducing a new "syntax", may, or may not, look "hackish" to some people. But I see no easier way of listing all templates for interwiki bots. As David said, we thought about using a separate page, listing all "disambiguation-like" templates, for interwiki bot usage, but it seems to us that maintenance would be made harder, and that the system could be even harder to understand for new comers. The MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage page is well known, everyone knowns where to find it, it seems like the place to list templates, not another page.
 * As long as the difference is clearly explained on the message page (why does enwiki feels the need to use two different sort of 'disambiguation' templates? what is exactly the difference between the two kinds? why one kind is linked from the message page, and not the other one?), the solution seems reasonable to me.
 * NicDumZ ~  06:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done - I have readded the set index boxes and the related name templates, but now with double parenthesis notation. So people can see how it looks, and so you can start testing your bot code.
 * And I added some explanation to the page. But I can't add an explanation why we differentiate between disambig pages and set index articles here on the English Wikipedia, since a decent explanation of that would take pages, sorry. But I added a link to Disambiguation.
 * Thanks for everything NicDumZ. (For instance your patience with this, and your work with the pywikipedia bot library which enables the interwiki bots. Interwiki links are a fantastic tool for us non-native English speakers.)
 * We of course still want comments from others what you think about this solution.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 10:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Still missing
The list further above contains a few templates not currently included on the main mediawiki list: 2 set index: 2 disambig: and 2 internal/meta disambig templates:
 * Hawaiiindex (only 1 usage, should probably be redirected or deleted)
 * Plant common name (most uses appear to be using the redirect Disambig-plants currently)
 * Hurricane disambig (is unused, and deprecated according to note here, and should probably be redirected somewhere)
 * Sportindex (only 7 uses, should possibly be redirected?)
 * Meta disambig
 * Shortcut disambig

I'll let you figure out what to actually do with them. I need more coffee.. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

(oh, also, POWdis (currently included on the main list) is just a redirect to the normal Disambig.) -- Quiddity (talk) 17:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Based on the template code, Sportindex appears to be a SIA, not a dab, template. And it looks like a user has protested against the deprecation of Hurricane disambig.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Whoops. Told ya I needed coffee ;)
 * Last edit lost POWdis altogether. Not sure if you meant to do that. Quiddity (talk) 21:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Have another shot of espresso. :) It's still there, in the redirects section. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Weeding through the underbrush
2CC-cleanup, 3CC-cleanup, and 4CC-cleanup have been nominated for deletion. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Request addition
I leave this message so that the Biology disambiguation template can be added to the list on the corresponding page. This is important for the proper functioning of bots and the user interface. Thank you. --Nono64 (talk) 13:24, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

✅ R'n'B (call me Russ) 02:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Statistics

 * This discussion was moved here from David's (my) talkpage. It concerns the number of "Content pages" listed at Special:Statistics and the number of articles as reported by the magic word . (Which on last save of this talkpage reported articles.) --David Göthberg (talk) 17:27, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering on what facts you based this edit on. Nowhere in the code does the statistics take disambiguation pages into account. Q T C 07:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Someone (a developer or admin or so) told me that MediaWiki does not count disambig pages as articles. And the description of the magic word at mw:Help:Magic words also seem to say that is so. But now that you mention it I also checked mw:Manual:Using custom namespaces which doesn't mention disambig pages but does mention several other things that MediaWiki checks to figure out if a page in main space should be counted as an article or not.
 * --David Göthberg (talk) 17:10, 19 September 2011 (UTC)


 * There was a discussion somewhere about "correcting" the count with something like, but (IIRC) it was quietly rejected as they were still considered articles.  — Dispenser 14:17, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Mathdab
Mathematics disambiguation => Mathdab needs changing to Mathdab => Mathematical disambiguation. Lmatt (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ FYI, in future, you should write, instead of , if you want your request to be seen by admins promptly. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 22:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Template:Road disambiguation
Please add Template:Road disambiguation to disambig templates Sokirko (talk) 02:58, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ out of an abundance of caution... Note that this page is now obsolete and is no longer being used by the MediaWiki software to identify disambiguation pages (see mw:Extension:Disambiguator), but just in case some third-party tools still rely on it, I've made the requested update.  --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:36, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

set index articles on wikidata
wikidata has decided that items should either be disambiguation pages or not. so the 'set index articles' can not be linked to disambiguation pages on other wikipedias via wikidata. maybe you want to add this to the hints on the front side. (guidelines)--Akkakk (talk) 12:22, 20 April 2014 (UTC)