Wikipedia talk:Unnecessary disambiguation

Untitled
May I suggest taking this to Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation and proposing any changes needed to that policy? Fagstein 21:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't really understand what you're suggesting. Should Delta IV rocket be called Delta IV? I believe it's already in the MOS to not use parenthetical disambiguation unless strictly necessary.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  16:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed, Delta IV rocket should be moved. I couldn't find anything in MOS, but if you can, please let me know as I only had a quick look. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 12:01, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Why should it be moved? What is inaccurate about Delta IV rocket?  They are called by that phrase (e.g. The Seattle Times, August 23, 2006, Pg. C1, "Expansion pushes tug giant into East; Profile - Foss Maritime, Seattle-based marine-services company", Alwyn Scott, Seattle Times business reporter). -- JHunterJ 14:59, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Why don't you read what we are talking about before commenting on it. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 13:03, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I did. Please don't assume ignorance where there is simply disagreement. -- JHunterJ 19:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see the need for this. Avoid instruction creep. There is a case to be made for consistency in naming similar types of things, even though it might entail unnecessary disambiguation for some of the items. Although there are many who despise it, the U.S. city naming convention specifies including the state name with the city/town/village name. This has been challenged on a case-by-case basis to allow some of the most well-known places to appear at the simple name. There is fairly strong support for some modification of the rule to avoid having to address on a case-by-case basis, but such proposals seem to get hijacked by extremists and end up going nowhere. Similarly, there was recently a big to-do over U.S. state road naming conventions, where mobocracy prevailed and there are now prescriptive and preemptively-disambiguated naming conventions in place for each state. I think royalty is another case where the article titles are often more fully disambiguated than strictly necessary. Now, for the particular case mentioned here, the problem does appear to be one of consistency. Why is Delta II not disambiguated where and Delta IV is. Simply because Delta III required disambiguation? I mean, personally, I don't see any problem at all with naming them all as "Delta 'N' rocket", but at the same time, I don't have any problem with them all being at simply "Delta 'N'" and using a hatnote to disambiguate the Delta III Russian submarine. And I certainly don't think we need yet another rule developed to address a special case. older ≠ wiser 13:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

If I understand this correctly, I'm against this. But "disambiguation in the title" is, well… ambiguous. How does one decide what part of a title is disambiguation? Are you saying that a title should always be as short as possible not to be ambiguous? So, for example Skokie, Illinois would be at Skokie because there is no other Skokie, but Evanston, Illinois would be at Evanston, Illinois to disambiguate from other Evanstons? Seems like a bad idea. Better to put a redirect at Skokie. And at Delta IV. Both of which I see we have. - Jmabel | Talk 19:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

We need something like this
I agree we need something like this. There is too much ambiguity, and resulting conflict, about when what is appropriate in a title where. The rules should be more clear.

Personally, I think that when the most common name of a given subject is identifiable and does not conflict with others uses of that name, it should be used. If the most common name is not identifiable, or there are conflicts with its use, then, and only then, would category-specific naming guidelines come into play. --Serge 04:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)