Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 11

cite sources
Unlike a regular article page, don't wikilink any other words in the line, unless they may be essential to help the reader determine which page they are looking for; these pages aren't for exploration, but only to help the user navigate to a specific place

this is against citing culture. WP-references should be wikifyed Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:16, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The pages that the dabpage links to should of course be citing the references. wangi 18:37, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * A dab page is not an article. By definiton, a dab contains no questionable information and hence doesn't need citation. Articles contain information and need citation. Don't forget to make the distinction between a dab page and an article when you are quoting Wikipeida article guidelines/polices.--Commander Keane 18:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * what did I quote? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * "a dab ... doesn't need citation": an alternative view is: a dab should never contain information that is not on the disambiguated pages; therefore, those disambiguated pages are the source for the dab pages. This only works if it is clear which pages are the disambiguated pages, which means there should be only one wikilink per line. Eugene van der Pijll 18:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * what about "AM can mean Armenia" - than I read whole Armenia page to check whether this is right. Faster: link to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code definition. and for "am can mean Armenia" link to ccTLD. Your whole unwikify idea makes it harder to check the correctness of the info. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I can understand what you mean Tobias, but the problem with that is that by introducing the extra wikilink to ccTLD, it makes it harder for otehr readers who are not interested in the the Armenia entry. We have to compromise, attempting to achieve an accpetable outcome (it terms of ease/speed of use) for every reader. This is why the "one link per line" guideline is used.--Commander Keane 19:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Tobias, about the "what did I quote". Your citation related comment seemed to be quoting Cite sources.--Commander Keane 19:34, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * on purpose I said cite-culture, to distinguish it from guide/policy
 * I don't see why additional links (not words) are so bad for the reader that the should be omitted for all readers. one bullit, one dab. the main word is the first word. if you are not interested in Armenia - you skip and that's it? esp. if the explanations are in brackets, it's obvious the links are not the dabbed links itself. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It is certainly up to interpretation, but if there are 15 topics and 15 wikilinks, then there ate 15 choices. These choices are wikilinks, they are blue. If you have more wikilinks, then there could be 30 choices - and it's takes longer to make your descision. Do you disagree with that?--Commander Keane 20:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The representation has to ensure that it is obvoius to the reader _which_ link is the dab link. Now I see your problem. Don't try to fix representation flaws by unwikifying non-dab page. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't get this debate. A disambiguation page is for the lone and sole purpose of disambiguating between ambiguous pages.  Because it is not an article, it has no true information on it whatsoever; rather its purpose is navigational, hence it doesn't really have any sources which therefore don't need to be cited.  Fullstop.
 * I really can't think of a way to expand on that. What is there to cite?  It's just a series of links to potential answers.  The biggest problem with dab pages is that many are too complicated; this manual has pedantic guidelines that lead to a simple page.
 * If whether an entry merits appearance on a disambiguation page is a problem, use the talk page, because this concerns editors, not readers. Neonumbers 03:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * maybe you read the above and you will get it Tobias Conradi (Talk) 08:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I did read it, and I think this whole thread is pointless because it goes off on unrelated tangents. Next time, I will try and phrase things more explicitly.  Neonumbers 08:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Tobias, you're thinking that "unless they may be essential to help the reader determine which page they are looking for" justifies linking to the ISO and other code explanations, right? I disagree. If the page says "Armenia (country code AM)", this is more than sufficient to determine that this is a link to the country of Armenia, and additionally explains that being its country code is what connects the digraph AM to it (even this is not strictly necessary). Whether the link they clicked on actually refers to Armenia has to be determined from the source page's content or context, the disambiguation page merely has to unambiguously identify a link's destination (Armenia or something else). Whether it's an ISO, or NATO, or UN country code is irrelevant to finding the link (although this information should be somewhere in the article about Armenia).

AM could be linking to the article on Armenia for a thousand different reasons, or just for general reference about Armenia, but the odds that it is specifically to let the reader determine which country codes use AM for Armenia are vanishingly small. —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 17:21 Z 


 * ever thought of wrong entries? ever thought of XY being a country code for Xantustan in codeset1 and a country code for Xylistan in codeset2? Furthermore people do not only click, they can also type. And then they can read about lot of different meanings for say AM. I am also deleting lenghty texts about cities that I saw in geo-dab pages. IMO the entries should be short but do not lose on precision. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Further reading: http://www.statoids.com/wab.html


 * If what I gather is right (and I apologise if it is not), you're worried about unworthy entries creeping their way onto disambiguation pages, which makes it difficult for the editor to check the page is well-compiled. The emphasis is on editor because it does not concern the reader &mdash; or at least, should not.  In this case, I suggest perhaps a comment, or a note on the talk page &mdash; a comment would be better because it would be seen by anyone attempting to edit the page.  I apologise again if I got the wrong idea.  Neonumbers 06:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * readers too, (may) like to check whether what they read is right. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * But not what they read on a disambiguation page. Remember that the purpose of a disambiguation page is to redirect a user to the correct page, not to educate them about the possible meanings of a certain word.  Articles should be sourced; sourcing a dab page is like sourcing the navigation bar.  Neonumbers 04:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * your comparison lacks: the dispute is mainly about wikifying. Furthermore a navbar in general is smaller. BTW I think comparisons like this do not help very much. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * In which case I take back the comparison and remind you again that a dab page exists for the sole and lone purpose of showing the reader to the correct page, not to provide an exploration route nor to educate the reader. I will resist a strong temptation to explain why the comparison is valid.  Neonumbers 02:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * sole and lone purpose of showing the reader to the correct page ... cars are made for driving. take out the radio and cushions. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Now that you've taken a leaf out of my book and made your own comparison that doesn't help very much, I will defend mine.
 * A disambiguation page is a navigational aid and nothing else, like a navigational bar. They are not exactly the same thing, but in the sense that you would not put anything more than necessary (e.g. sources) on either of them, they can be compared.
 * When you add a radio and cushions to a car, it does not compromise its ability to drive (unless you have a driver that is continually distracted by them in which case they should be removed). If you add anything to a disambiguation page that does not support its purpose, the reader has to sift through more text and its fitness for purpose is compromised.  Hence, anything unnecessary on a dab page is harmful.  Neonumbers 10:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

anoying unwikification
Since more or less one week I see Commander Kean and his crew going around and unwikifiing all links they can find if they point to a dab page. THIS IS ANNOYING! Sometimes the pages are not pure dab pages, but have some interesting text and by I don't know which rule have the dab-label. And the label says: If an internal link referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Please read this dab-msg, it does not say unwikify all you can find. Is this organized destruction? Better a link to a dab page than no link at all. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Please don't label editors as a crew or gang, just because more than one disagrees with you. This leads to ugly discussions about each other instead of about Wikipedia.  If most people disagree with you on a question, maybe that says something.


 * "Sometimes the pages are not pure dab pages"—every page should be clearly an article or disambiguation page. This is where the problem lies.  Articles are to be linked to, disambiguation pages are not.  Sometimes a "rich" disambiguation page can be split into an article and separate disambiguation page.


 * The MOS says "don't wikilink any other words in the line", in bold-faced text. I agree that "better a link to a dab page than no link at all", but this this is still an undesirable situation; clearly "better a link to an article than a link to a dab page".  Links to disambiguation pages are to be removed and disambiguated—ideally nothing will point to disambiguation pages.  If non-disambiguating links get removed on a disambiguation page, then just add them to the linked articles, where they belong.  —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 17:30 Z 


 * but it's like crew attack. It did not see them for some days and now they come to articles and templates that already exist for a very long time. A lot of people did not disagree with the way they were before. But now this organized crew comes and changes. They are allways more because they are organized. Fine. My first attention was drawn by nonsense Council-dab at Template:Subnational entity. Now federal was unwikified only because it linked to a page that has a dab-tag. Maybe fix content and create "Federal (dab)" and "Federal (article)" if you think this is fun, but don't hinder people from reading what is said about the word federal in WP by simply unwikifying! That's simply annoying. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict, sorry if I repated stuff) This doesn't really belong here, but Tobias Conradi asked a question above, and I thought I'd answer, feel free to move the discussion somewhere more appropriate - just give me a heads up.


 * I believe you are referring to my work at WP:DPL (link repair). You have asked me to stop WP:DPL on my user page - I will stop if there is community consensus for that, feel free to do a request for comment if you wish (or get some other opinions, I have nothing to hide: all my link repairs have a suitable edit summary, and you should also know that I use a bot). However, I will continue link repair for the time being.


 * In the course of link repair I do occaisionally de-link a wikilink, becasue I believe it gives no benefit to the article. There are the following the guidelines: MoS, Make only links relevant to the context. I also make mistakes, and they get fixed. I don't see that as reason for me to stop.--Commander Keane 17:46, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * At first you should unwikify your above post. Go on with link repair. That's great thing. And of course errors happen - no problem. But stop the destructions. You go with a bot and others that don't have one must reinsert lots of links by hand. simply halt destruction. thanks Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you define destruction as de-linking a wikilink. Read the guidelines: MoS, Make only links relevant to the context. In my opinion (and it seems the community's looking at those guidelines) if a link doesn't yield any useful information then I de-link it. I am improving the article. If someone comes along and re-links then they are degrading the article. I'm sorry if my work means that inexperienced editors spend time degrading articles. An example is Foundation used in the context of "the business was founded in 1996". There is no appropriate article so I would de-link that. --Commander Keane 18:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * maybe better ask whether there can be an article one day. and link to this. So you avoid re-linking to the wrong place by others. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

You might also be seeing members of Wikiproject:Disambiguation at work. I guess we are loosely organized, but please don't characterize this as an attack. It's an effort to clean up disambiguation pages and make them conform to the intent and word of the conventions.

I think a lot of these problems and misunderstandings result from a lot of poorly-formatted disambiguation pages with lots of encyclopedic content and non-disambiguating links mixed in. People have seen too many bad examples and work on the basis of them. This project aims to clean this up. Please join. —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 18:23 Z 


 * you are calling me inexperienced, but how can you be so arrogant? You make articles worse by unwikifying. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I assume you are responding to someone else, because I am not calling you anything. Can we stick to the subject and get over any perceived personal slights?  This line of discussion is counter-productive.  —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 20:20 Z 

BTW I also worked a lot on dab-pages and corrected links and added other meanings. I agree with Michael that part of the conflict seems to stem from mixed-pages. But I found a contradiction: on the one hand the CommanderCrew states the dab-pages should never be linked to. On the other hand they are super-eager to guide the people that on occasion click to such a page as fast as possible. But the majority of people that are on these pages maybe are not people that want to leave as fast as possible. Because lot of those possible fast-leavers never come there. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Tobias, I have never considered you to be inexperienced - I have seen your highly experienced dab related edits on my watchlist. On your comment above, we have the random article button for those who want to aimlessly meander Wikipedia. The encyclopeida should be easily accessible for all, which means avoiding links to dab pages and creating efficient dab pages.--Commander Keane 19:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * :-) but federal has some interesting info. it's not only dab. what would you suggest? IMO the dab-tag should be removed. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The usual procedure is to discuss this at Talk:federal, my comments are there.--Commander Keane 19:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Macedonia (disambiguation)
I need to walk away from the Wikipedia. I know I do. And yet, here's another example of editing to conform to style and being reverted. Help? Tedernst | talk 23:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I feel your pain, but don't know what I can do about it. At least the editor didn't call it vandalism, when that happened to me I was far from pleased.--Commander Keane 23:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * {Walking away from the Wikipedia} :-) Tedernst | talk 23:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I re-inserted some of your changes. But I can understand the reverter since some valuable info was deleted. The hyphen vs. comma vs. bracket thing could maybe be fixed. Write a good guide an point to it. maybe next time do changes in steps, each explained, the less controversial at the end - so revert for the whole is less likely. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You could give using the edit summary "Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)" a go, if you come back.--Commander Keane 01:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you both (Tobias Conradi and Commander Keane). Those are excellent suggestions. Tedernst | talk 17:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I meant to mention that that edit summary is more intimidating to new editors, I know you already link to the MoS, but not in it's most brtual form.--Commander Keane 20:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Name dab's - full name vs. surname only
Surname dab pages seem to be going in a couple different directions:


 * 1) Lewis (disambiguation) includes a list of people with the last name of Lewis.  In cases where a full name occurs more than once - like George Lewis - and there is another dab page for that full name, the full name dab page is the only link for that full name.
 * 2) Morgan includes a list of people with the last name of Morgan.  In cases where a full name occurs more than once - like John Morgan - each individual instance of that name is listed in the surname dab and the full name dab while John Morgan is not linked at all.

Is there some standard that covers this situation? Personally, I don't like 2 above because then John Morgan is simply a subset of Morgan which means redundancy, extra maintenance, etc. But, when I changed a surname dab to be like 1, I got yelled at.

One idea I had was to keep standard 2 above and then make the full name dab into a redirect back to the surname dab.

Opinions? &mdash;preceding unsigned comment by Wknight94 (talk • contribs)


 * Good question. Because dab pages are navigational aids, I favour number 2.  Though I guess it could depend on the length of the page.  Maintenance is, well, annoying but not more important than navigational purpose.  Neonumbers 06:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * full name dab should stay. because if you look for a John Morgan why bother the reader with Morgan Counties etc? But the Sub-dab (full name dab) should have a ref to main-dab (surname dab) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I am hoping the solution will involve the List of people by name, thus relying on one central list. There some disucssion about this before, I don't know what the outcome was.--Commander Keane 12:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

On Morgan, you may want to place replace all "John Morgan"s with John Morgan (disambiguation). Possibly, the entry on Morgan could be limited to a link to List_of_people_by_name:_Mor. -- User:Docu
 * IMO the replacement with John Morgan (disambiguation) is not a good idea. maybe you search for a guy called Morgan, so better to have it in one page, otherwise you would have to click through several subpages. nevertheless a ref to the subpage could be made. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 14:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It's something I've steered clear of so far, but is the list of people called Morgan as a first name really needed? I'm sure there are some exceptions, but generally an article never gets its title from someone's first name, and it's unlikely that someone is searching for someone by their first name.--Commander Keane 15:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * most first names are IMO irrelevant. Maybe Jesus ("Christ") can go under first name. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * _ _ If i worked on Morgan & found a list of people given-named Morgan (they are at the top of the Dab, for gods' sake), i would suppress the instinct to simply delete them, and apply the See-also provision of the MoS (Dabs) by moving them to the See-also section: the main list at the top is for "Morgan" when used as a lk that would have been well advised, if it had not turned out that there are multiple contnders for the role of being the topic covered by Morgan, or for being the target of a rdr with that title. In contrast to the given-name Morgans, people with surname Morgan are contenders for Morgan as a rdr, just as Immanuel Kant is the sole contender, i think, for the rdr Kant, which indeed rdrs to him. People with given name Morgan are not legitimate contenders for an article or rdr titled Morgan, so (despite my inclination to drop them) i move them under the See also hdg at the bottom.
 * _ _ Alert readers will have thought of exceptions: Madonna (entertainer) and Prince (musician) are more like given names than surnames, but are widely enuf used to be contenders for the article; that's not bcz the names "Madonna" or "Prince" are different from "Morgan": Madonna Wayne Gacy and Prince Johnson IMO clearly belong under the "See also" entries of the respective Dabs.
 * _ _ (In Prince (disambiguation), i for one would admittedly be grateful to find PJ -- rather than have him deleted -- since my confidence in his surname was low enuf that i might have tried Prince Jones first, and gone on to Prince (disambiguation) upon that failing. So i just added a surname to a Dab page -- in the See-alsos -- as my first time doing so.) --Jerzy•t 17:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

_ _ I also prefer duplication between dabs over having the main section of the Dab lk to other Dabs, for two reasons: _ _ (But as a hypothetical example (sorry i don't have a real example in mind), i think i have put a dab like Franc under see-also on a Dab page like Frank; and even if i didn't let adding the reciprocal lk distract me, i'd probably support Franc lk'g to Frank from its own See-also. To me it makes a difference that "John Morgan is "subordinate" to "Morgan", whereas "Franc" and "Frank" are more like equals: a "positive" reason for using See also for Franc under Frank & vice versa is that it helps break the closed loop from Frank to Franc back to Frank; a "negative" one is that including "John Morgan" is guaranteed not to double the size of "Morgan", while adding everything on Frank or Franc to the other could double  one or both of them.) --Jerzy•t 17:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) A big  Dab page can be daunting, but even more daunting is the knowledge that somewhere on a seemingly small page there are 5 lks to other dabs of unknown size.  Give the user a clear picture of how deep the water they're in as soon as they hit the dab, rather than foster Monster-Dab anxiety.
 * 2) Unless they're on the wrong Dab page (see next 'graph), or on a really huge page (uh, more than a screen? more than a screen and a half?), let them use their eyes more and the mouse less, making navigation efficient; don't insert an easily avoided link into the process.

Wording of the disambig template.
In a recent discussion I found that the translation of the German disambig has a MoS guidline:
 * "The entries should restrict themselves to a specific definition and each entry should only be linked to one article"

Having this on the EN disambig could help out.--Commander Keane 16:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiment, but I think it would be the wrong thing to do. The template is meant to be read by users to explain the page they're looking at. The above text is really instructions to editors. --RoySmith 18:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * agree with Roy. BTW the Germans sometimes have very hardcore comments to their readers/editors. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I too agree with Roy, possibly what caused me to bring it up is the current inclusion
 * "If an internal link referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article"
 * which is also an instruction to editors. Even though I have done a few link repairs in my time, I don't think I've ever used that message. Should it be removed too?--Commander Keane 17:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I see these as two different items. The German instruction is for editors of the dab page.  Then English instruction is for readers of another page that linked them here, inviting them to become editors.  I will not fight this if others decide it doesn't belong, but I like it as-is. Tedernst | talk 17:45, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I like the english friendly invitation. WP is still in progress. The final edition can take this out ;-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:19, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Ditto with those who point out that notices to editors should not be on the template. Neonumbers 10:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I defend the en: invitation to readers as distinct from the de: instruction to editors. We solicit monetary contribs from readers, and -- since the Science (magazine) article estimates 10% of our readers are editors (hell, do they mean only 10% of the people who ever read ever edit, or that 10% of traffic is by people who've never edited, and what makes them think they have any idea in either case, but never mind) -- i think of the Dab's solicitation to edit, and the similar one in the stub tag, as valuable ways of encouraging readers to become editors, which should be an important process. --Jerzy•t 17:47, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

dab at top of page
the italiens have the dab-template at the top of the page. I personally like this. Sometimes I don't use "XYZ may refer to" but instead place the dab-template at the top of the page. I do so many dabs, it's really faster for me. Well, a robot can repair this. But what do you think, wouldn't it be nicer for readers to have the dab msg at the top? On long pages you only see it at the very and. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't like it at the top because it is essentially wasted space. For medium length lists that would otherwise fit on one screen, it forces one to scroll down to see the whole list. older≠wiser 16:13, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * this fit-in-screen-or-not is only true for exactly one length, per screen length.
 * If it is regarded as wasted space, this would mean the message is waste in itself?
 * As discussed above (or perhaps at the template talk page) there are many who feel that the message should not get in the way of the primary function of the page, which is to direct a user to the correct link as efficiently as possible. older≠wiser 18:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * can the XYZ may refer to be dropped, so it is less waste? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * After my "Wording of the disambig template." suggestion above was rejected, I'm thinking of a new disambig template, with just one line. It would take up the same amount of room as the "XYZ' may refer to:", and therefore could go at the top. It address Tobias' three concerns. It would look like:

This is a disambiguation page &mdash; a list of articles associated with the same title.


 * The issue with this is that you don't get the "...may refer to:" leader. But "may refer to" is not agreed upon (and even despised by some). I'm putting this idea here becasue I'm sure there will be a fatal flaw and I'd rather here it from my comrades at MoS rather than the harsh wilderness that is Template talk:Disambig.--Commander Keane 17:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If we could agree on a one-line template, perhaps--though I'd want to lose the double-rules at top and bottom (which I have always disliked). Also, there would be considerable inconsistency for quite a while, and I think there would always be some who insist on some sort of lead-in line. older≠wiser 18:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I like it. I don't mind the double-rules, though perhaps we could get away with simply italics the way we link from a page to it's same-named disambiguation page? Tedernst | talk 19:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The double-rules are not important to me, it's the philosophy of the singe line at the top. At Template talk:Disambig there are murmurings of adding an icon to disambig, which would forever force the template to the bottom. And if you are going to have an icon, you may as well have all the pointers about internal links and MoS. The template would blow out in size, like the German disambig.--Commander Keane 20:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

At the top it justs get in the way of the real content - the links to the actual articles. Keep it at the bottom. wangi 20:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree, I like having it at the bottom. The French have a nice small one at the top, see fr:Modèle:Homonymie, but I prefer having a short bolded-subject lead in.  &mdash; Catherine\talk 21:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm going to come in on Tobias' and Keane's side on this one. His proposed template, shown above, could replace the existing leader line, and therefore wouldn't take up any significant additiional space. I've never been happy with the "may refer to" wording and neither have a number of others. We may be able to agree on a wording of a template like the one shown above which would serve the purpose of the introductory line as well as supplying a distinctive appearance. For example, we might want to include the name of the disambiguated term in boldface. The only thing we'd be missing is the exhortation to fix links leading to the page, which we could put on a separate template for the bottom, so we'd have dab-top and dab-bottom, somewhat like the afd closing tags. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 22:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * About the exhortation to fix links, is it really the helpful? Although I've done a few link repairs and am very conscious of the problem, I don't think I've ever arrived at a dab page then gone back to fix the link.--Commander Keane 22:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I do so, not always, but regularly. I'm almost certain I started doing it because I read that exhortation.  Since then, I've considered it very routine maintenance, that's easy to do in passing. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I could (albeit grudgingly) live with a one-line template at the top, if (and only if) the double rules are lost and the template is shaded with some (light) colour (and it is limited to one line). If this is to be done, all pages should be changed as quickly as possible using a robot, which should also take care of the leading line.
 * However, I still prefer it at the bottom, and with the leading line; I feel this is clear enough for those that just need to get to a page and don't really care about what a disambiguation page is. In this way, the interested notice it and the uninterested don't encounter it.  Neonumbers 02:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Arriving on an ambiguous link is the MAIN reason I fix the link. It often causes me to take a gander at the "What links here" and fix them, too. Moreover, I don't believe that utter uniformity in the top line is useful, there are already several examples, especially when there are several groupings of links on the page.  Please leave the long notice at the bottom. --William Allen Simpson 15:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * for me it would not be a problem if it has two lines and includes the invitation to fix links. For coloring maybe take care what skins other people use. The extra dab-bottom template could be a good idea, this could have the invite. Can be robot added and nobody has problems if it is missing for a while. One suggestion above was to include the title. For the TLAs we have several, and there are other cases where several titles (spell variants) use the same dab-page. I don't know whether this is a prob. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I maybe created 100 or 200 or more pages like The  is really good because it is minimal typing. Someone moved the  down, but did not write the "Blabla may refer to:" intro. Seems he was to lazy too. Additional I do not like the different wordings "may refer to", can "refer to", "refers to", "refers to one of the following" etc. It distracts me. IMO a standardized dab intro should be used. Even for "blabla may refer to" a template could be used. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * _ _ I doubt we can settle on a top standard wording.
 * _ _ I have personally argued that grammar problems prove that "refer" (rather than "be") is the only wording that can always work right. Yet i strongly prefer
 * Blah-blah may be:
 * (in all but those pathological cases) since virtually all articles are about the thing and not the word, and should and do begin with the title as the subject of a sentence about what the thing is or was or does, not what the word means.
 * _ _ "Refer" or "mean" also promotes turning Dabs into wordy dict-defs.
 * _ _ Having the Dab tmplt at the bottom may confuse readers encountering their first or second dab, or rather let them stay confused longer, but the "may"/"can"/"might"/"one of"/etc., the terseness of entries that comply with the MoS so that attention is focused on the single lk per entry, and the format as a list or categorized list all support quick comprehension, with the Dab tmplt at the bottom available for backup for those who still don't get it.
 * _ _ The Dab tmplt belongs at the bottom bcz it is a detail, not the main business, and it needs the boxing to draw enuf attention that users are aware it exists (even if they don't read it the first dozen times they hit a dab) so that they can make a decision (based at least on how hurried they are) about whether to glance at it beween finding the entry they needed & lk'g out to it.
 * _ _ If you think variable wording at the top is distracting, think abt our current recent "otherwise" wording for a moment, and about what "associated with the same title" could mean ("associated" in what sense?; associated by whom?; with what title? -- isn't an article "associated" only with its own title, the one that appears at the top of its text?; what is an article (perhaps distinguished from a topic, a page, a dab, a rdr, a discussion, a policy abt articles....)? Write this on the inside of your eyelids: Dab pages raise to very close to the surface the very confusing issues & paradoxes of map vs territory, thing vs name, and of conditions contrary to fact and subjunctive case, that human culture tries to avoid outside of jokes and philosophical self-flagellation.  (I for one eventually gave up, a year or so ago, not just trying to correct the (until recently, long-standing) wording "pages that otherwise might share the same title", but also even thinking about whether "otherwise" and "might" are subtly semi-redundant (did we mean "would otherwise", and if so, is "otherwise" unnecessarily vague?) and what the really accurate wording might be.) Don't give anyone the impression that any at-all-specific reason for having a dab is important enuf to appear at the top of the page; the most valuable explanation for dabs is the unconscious one you have after using two or three of them. --Jerzy•t 18:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)