Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 3

Help request
I took a stab at cleaning up Tone but would appreciate some further help. The most difficult dab pages to clean up are those in which most of the articles referenced aren't actually named with a variant of the disambiguated term.&mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 17:26, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Basically complete at this point. There are about 3 article space references left. -- Upholder 06:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguated phrases
I noticed today that we've grown Category:Disambiguated phrases. --RoySmith 21:43, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * We might want to do what WikiProject Stub sorting has done and insist that any subcategories be pre-approved by the WikiProject. It may be desirable to subcategorize the dab pages, but I'd prefer that it not be done randomly by individual editors, but as part of a project strategy. What say the rest of you? &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 23:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * (chuckling) Yes, I'd noticed that there's been some proliferation of both category and template variants; I'd suggest that we monitor it for now. Often these bursts of growth run their course and can be trimmed to present a more structured environment over time, with the entire effort benefiting from some information gained by motivations behind the proliferation. In other words, I'm suggesting patience and not to impose the stub model right now; that was put in place to maintain stub-sorters' sanity (I was a stub sorter during the time the change happened) and I don't think we're quite to the point here of people jumping from wiki-buildings out of frustration yet :). Courtland 00:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure by what authority we could insist on pre-approval. What I am wondering about, though, is if we're going to end up with a large number of dab catagories, we might have to rethink the disambig-cleanup idea. The cleanup attribute is really orthogonal to all the other catagories, and the way it's implemented now won't scale to a large number of cats. I wonder if some day we're going to need Disambiguation (disambiguation), to direct people to the right place :-) --RoySmith 00:25, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Discussion about Miscellaneous disambiguations and disambiguation page categorization
Please see Category talk:Miscellaneous disambiguations --RoySmith 01:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

This has expanded to a discussion of disambiguation page categorization in general. Courtland 17:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Given the scope of this project, someone might also want to have a look at List of disambiguation types before it gets further out of hand. I am not a part of WikiProject Disambig, but IMHO the list being created at the aforementioned link (a) undermines the project, (b) duplicates efforts better served by article categories, and (c) is worse than useless in that it encourages catagory cruft, obfuscates dab cleanup, provides no discernable benefit, and pollutes the namespace. But that's just me. --Kgf0 18:49, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Unruly dab pages
I would like to invite you all to help cleaning up some long, unruly dab pages. There is already a process going on to clean up MC (Talk:MC) and I would like to start a similar process on CMS (Talk:CMS). Any others out there? - grubber 16:12, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * We have a cleanup category, discussed in Marking dab pages for cleanup, on the project page. The discussion at Talk:MC was interesting, although my opinion is that if there is a dubious entry you can just be bold and remove it - placing it on the talk page. That way interested parties can see the entry on the talk and put it back in if necessary.--Commander Keane 17:41, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hm... well, the problem is that it's a TLAdisambig page, not a disambig page. I've added the page to the category, but did not change the template. That's the only thing I can think of short of creating a whole slough of new *disambig-cleanup templates. - grubber 21:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Jiffy
Not too sure how to handle Jiffy. It's completely composed of dictionary defintions (which are supplied by wikitonary). So what do I do with it? It doesn't link to any credible articles, I can't think of a redirect, it needs deleting? --Commander Keane 19:10, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I've encountered a number of these. Our guidelines are clear, that dicdefs don't belong on WP, including on dab pages. I'd nominate this one for AFD. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 21:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Not only are they dicdefs, I suspect many of them are made-up dicdefs. Nuke the whole page. --RoySmith 21:42, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Listed on AfD, Articles_for_deletion/Jiffy.--Commander Keane 07:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

template rename: 4LA => 4LAdisambig
If we are going to continue to have 4LA, then I believe it should be renamed 4LAdisambig. See Template talk:4LA for my request for input and discussion. Courtland 05:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Greetings, disambiguators, I have an idea...
Hi everyone. I've been going around "fixing" disambiguation pages, blissfully unaware of this project, and, alas, working somewhat at cross-purposes to it. (I'm on board now, though.) The major unintended disruption that I've caused is moving a whole bunch of dab pages to the subcategories Category:Lists of two-letter combinations and Category:Letter and number combinations using the 2LCdisambig and LND, respectively. Now, I have been informed by User:RoySmith that these templates are rogue templates, not approved, and should not have been used. &mdash;Oops!&mdash;

Now, here's my suggestion: add the category Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup to all the templates that are unapproved. That will bring all pages that use unapproved templates to our attention, and we can go like gangbusters fixing them as we clean up the pages they're on.&mdash;GraemeMcRaetalk 05:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. Would some one put a note on these templates' and others' discussion pages too, so no one else starts using them like poor Graeme? —Michael Z. 2005-11-14 06:01 Z 

Ah, frack! I have been very much a spaz this morning. One two-letter disambiguation page (EV) is on my watchlist, and I saw Mr. McRae change the to. When I looked up Template talk:2LCdisambig, there was a dispute on the page, with Mr. McRae writing, "The consensus is that it does not help our readers to have a separate category and different text for 2-letter combinations," and another user, Courtland arguing that this was improperly done and should go through TfD. There was no indication on the 2LCdisambig talk page about where the consensus had been formed. I therefore put up 2LCdisambig on TfD and started restoring some of the 2LCdisambig tags.

I later happened to read an earlier thread on GraemeMcRae's talk page, and saw a discussion about this WikiProject, which is when I started writing this.

I still think it's a good idea to have the template be TfD'ed, if only because it might get more people aware of this project and its goals, and to prevent other me's and other Courtlands from working at cross-purposes to this project. (I certainly wasn't aware of it until just now.)

— DLJessup (talk) 16:19, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * All right, now I'm confused. Since the disambiguation style guide specifically allows TLAdisambig, it seems obvious that the principle should be extended to two-letter initialisms (2LCdisambig), and maybe even to four-letter ones (the 4LA discussion seen above). What are the arguments against 2LCdisambig (beside the specific name)?
 * Urhixidur 22:55, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There is nothing specific about 2LCdisambig; it's just one of many extraneous templates/categories, and just happens to be the first one that came up for deletion, almost by accident --RoySmith 13:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, what are the arguments in favour of TLAdisambig? Susvolans ⇔ 16:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It removes the need to say "FOO is a three letter abreviation..." in the leading line and it removes the need to add a category (about it being a TLA) to the page.--Commander Keane 16:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There is no need to say that FOO is a three-letter abbreviation at all. How can you possibly read "FOO" without knowing that by the time you're done?


 * This information shouldn't be added to a disambiguation page, anyway—disambiguation pages aren't supposed to distract the reader by providing incidental information, interesting facts, or related links—they're just supposed to present the simplest possible set of links so the reader can locate which one he wants and click it, nothing more. Disambiguation pages are between the reader and the encyclopedic information he seeks, not part of it, and should be minimized to the point of disappearing.


 * What is the point of having different disambiguation templates at the bottom of the page? Why even say "this is a TLA"? Half the time it's a TLA and a three-letter word too, so this identification is wrong. And after you've seen two or three disambiguation pages, do you even read the text of the template at the bottom at all?


 * What is the advantage of having two-letter, three-letter, and four-letter words and abbreviations in different categories? Does anyone actually browse these categories, except perhaps for Wikipedia housekeeping? Why would I want to browse a list of two-letter abbreviations without three-letter ones?


 * Clutter, clutter, clutter! Let's not provide an interface because we can. Let's only provide it if it helps the reader. —Michael Z. 2005-11-15 16:54 Z 
 * Hear, hear! &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 17:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the support. Your perspective is welcomed in some recent discussion at Template talk:Disambig. —Michael Z. 2005-11-16 08:02 Z 

I have started discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). Susvolans ⇔ 19:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Discussion about 2LCdisambig
There is an interesting discussion going on at Templates for deletion about the 2LCdisambig template --RoySmith 13:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation name space
After giving the recent discussion at Template talk:Disambig some thought, it occurred to me that a Disambiguation: name space may be useful. It would allow the use of disambiguation pages without having to add " (disambiguation)" to the page title, and the pages could have unique formatting. Something like a distinctiev border style or background colour could be enough to identify them, without having to add all the extraneous template stuff to the page. Any thoughts? —Michael Z. 2005-11-16 08:07 Z 
 * I like this idea a lot. What more can be said? Disambiguation pages are clearly different than articles in many ways and it seems natural for them to have their own namespace. —jiy (talk) 08:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * What an intriguing idea. We'd have to clean up all the multi-stub pages, though, such as the recently-created Jiffy (time). &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 16:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It's an interesting (even, intriguing) idea, but I'm not sure what problem it would solve. --RoySmith 16:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * A side effect: we'd all have to agree that all dab pages go in the new namespace, so principal article titles which are presently dab pages would have to become redirects to the new namespace. Some users have previously proposed that all dab pages named Foo-bar should be redirects to Foo-bar (disambiguation) but this has never gone anywhere. For the new namespace to be useful, though, we'd have to mandate making Foo-bar a redirect to Disambiguation:Foo-bar. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 18:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

To be clear, this is just an idea, not something I'm strongly advocating or proposing a vote on yet. The above is the kind of brainstorming we need to do to see if the idea has merit. I guess the most general purpose would be to differentiate disambiguation pages (which are intended to be strictly content-free navigational interface elements) from articles (which are encyclopedic content). Currently there's much confusion about this among readers and editors, and all kinds of hybrid sorta-disambig pages keep popping up. —Michael Z. 2005-11-16 21:20 Z 
 * Eliminating hybrid pages is a very attractive aspect of this idea. See WP:D &mdash; I'd love to get rid of this option. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 02:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

A rather interesting advantage of this approach is that, in theory, it allows filing dab pages into a "disambiguation pages with links" category automatically, simply by finding which ones have links from the article namespace (obviously this would need a software change, but it would probably be quite trivial to do). At the moment you have to discount links from meta-disambig pages, which legitimately link to other dab pages - with a namespace for dab pages you can discount those. Hairy Dude 12:39, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Bah, I just realised that "other uses"-type links are also legitimate, so unless we add to those templates to make the software ignore those too, it wouldn't work. Hairy Dude 12:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

What does this accomplish? Isn't it just an attempt to solve the political problem of disagreements about a gray area, by making the system less adaptable, and thus less suitable to real problems? What is gained that justifies the many redirects needed between namespaces, and the developer burden of two more namespaces, and the confusion about where to discuss related issues? (That's not just an editing burden, but a processor one as well.) --Jerzy•t 02:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Indicating disambiguation links
As long as I'm on a brainstorm, here's another idea which could go with the above, or stand alone: visually indicating links to disambiguation pages. Currently, special links are identified in different ways:


 * 1) Normal links are blue.
 * 2) Red links indicate missing articles.
 * 3) Deep red links indicate stub-sized articles.
 * I believe these are actually visited redlinks &mdash;Wahoofive (talk)
 * 1) Pale colour indicates previously visited links.
 * 2) Icons indicate external links (and a few other rare types), although these are usually restricted to the "External links" section.
 * These are a different color, too, supposedly green (though it's light blue on my Mac) &mdash;Wahoofive (talk)
 * 1) A tool-tip title shows the link destination, clarifying piped links.
 * 2) Self-links become bold text instead of a link.
 * 3) [What else?]

Why not visually indicate disambiguation pages? In practice, most such links should get pipe-dabbed to point to the correct article anyway, so there ought to be few or none of them on pages. The link colour could be similar to a colour used in the disambiguation pages themselves. What colour would we use: orange, green, other?

[Please add any more items to the lists below.] —Michael Z. 2005-11-16 21:51 Z 

Advantages:
 * Reinforce the conceptual difference between articles and disambiguation pages.
 * Help editors spot links needing piped disambiguation.

Disadvantages:
 * More colour may start to make the page look like someone spilled a box of Lucky Charms cereal on it.

See also:
 * Tools/Navigation popups
 * This would only be possible if we went with the namespace idea above, because otherwise how could the system know whether a page is a dab? The wiki system doesn't know about dab pages; we only know because of the template and the associated category. It would be impractical for the system to actually inspect the content of every linked page (or do a category lookup) while formatting an article. But if the namespace were enacted, we wouldn't need the color; the namespace designation would make it obvious. That's one argument for the namespace; it would be difficult to link there by accident, except in the case of redirects, where the color wouldn't work.
 * I'm in favor of brainstorming, but I suspect this idea won't go anywhere. We don't have different colors for any other namespace links. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 02:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, an example. If you had a Disambig: namespace, and someone used the wikilink French, wouldn't French redirect to Disambig:French, and hence the wikilink French in the article will still be blue, not orange or whatever colour? So the new namespace doesn't help in the WP:DPL respect.--Commander Keane 04:09, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think I might have mentioned this somehwere else, but we coudl get most of the advantages here if, rather than changing how links to DAB pages are displayed in articles (which would be to expensive to check for every link) we only checked on new links when someon clicked preview. In such a case a warning that they have added a link to a DAB page coudl be added just below the save page button with a list of the articles that they may have actually wanted to link to. This has the advantage of only checking if a page is in Category: Disambiguation when the user clicks preview and also only for links that appear as part of their diff. Dalf | Talk 07:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguating Editor
Editor and Editor (software) (currently not marked as disambiguation pages) do seem to act as disambiguation pages. I'm not sure how to handle this, so I thought I'd ask the master disambiguators here. I could do Editor (software), but it seems to me the job should be done properly. --Kusma (talk) 02:31, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There is now a discussion underway at Talk:Editor, basically on whether Editor should be a disambiguation page or a summary page for several related concepts. Are there any precedents or useful comments for this? Kusma (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Just following up on this Editor turned into a redirect. Editor (software) hasn't been touched since 15 Nov. I'm turing it into a dab now. Tedernst | talk 22:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion at MoS talk
There are discussions going on here and here at Mos talk regarding splits of Category:Disambiguation. Participants in this project may be interested.

Extra templates
I'm not quite sure where we are at with the extra templates floating around, but I found an old list, and attenion may be required.--Commander Keane 16:36, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Holy crap! Delete or redirect these to Disamb. older≠wiser 16:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Note: a subset of these (far more than simply Disamb and Disambig-cleanup are listed on the project page,WikiProject Disambiguation. older≠wiser 16:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * And anyone interested might want to check out Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of disambiguation types older≠wiser 17:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The ever venerable Bo Lindbergh provided me with a table with template counts (above right). Data is from the Nov 13, 2005 dump. Note: some of the templates are just redirects.--Commander Keane 10:33, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Interstatedis is being used on pages like Interstate 205 and Interstate 580. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 00:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I cleant two of the redirect-dabs and voted . dambig and diambiguate were only used twice or so. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 06:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and some busy beavers have added 3CC, →3LC, 4CC, →4LC. Will the madness never stop? —Michael Z. 2006-03-11 02:45 Z 

Use your watchlist
I'm pretty sure most of us do, but when you clean up a dab's style, make sure you place it on your watchlist. I've just experienced a reversion because my cleanup of a dab was considered vandalism. Of course after informing the editor about the MoS, my version was restored - only to undergo the dreaded "wikify" (insertion of excess wikilinks). I spoke to the editor again and finally the dab is ship-shape. When I started out I didn't use the watchlist, but we all should.--Commander Keane 09:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear! &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 17:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've run into a number of editors of like sentiment to those you've encountered reverting your edits. I've been violently reverted and admonished as a vandal for applying the MoS by unwikifying things and been told "the MoS is wrong, it should be changed" as justification for the reversions, among other things. Because of this, I've completely given up even trying to convince any editor that their particular edit is "stylistically challenged" because it is impossible to even consider enforcing the style guideline as contrary edits are by no means vandalism nor in bad faith. Logic certainly does not work and we've no sticks (i.e. this is not policy); so if you (insert editor-name here) who changes a page to conform with the MoS is subsequently reverted by a person with a strong feeling about the page they obviously feel ownership or stewardship for ... just leave it. It's not worth spending a single keystroke or breath over it to try to convince any such editor of the worth of consistency or style guidelines or anything of the kind. Just walk away and don't look back. There's plenty of work to occupy us on pages that will not be subject to such close, unyielding and personal observation. If you feel compelled to return to a page reverted after you've cleaned it up, try coming back in a year ... or at least a month. Courtland 02:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Template for Disambiguation link repair
In anticpation of the next dump for WP:DPL, I've created a template for the talk of disambiguation pages to deal with disambiguation link repair. The purpose of the template is to alert editors to the link repair situation of the dab, and to promote discussion about the link repair.

The first example usage is at Talk:Italian.

Note:
 * The template will only be used in the  namespace
 * It doesn't link to this project, since there isn't much here for link repairers
 * Perhaps it should link to Maintenance, since the dab will end up there eventually
 * What happens if the dab becomes an article? The template will simply be removed, but it could be forgotten and hence misleading
 * It encourages a disucssion section, which can be used to enrich link repair by providing alternatives not available on the dab itself

If approved, the template will go on 200 dabs from the next dump.

What do you think?--Commander Keane 11:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. How about a sentence highlighting what needs to be done (for those too lazy to follow the link to WP:DPL)? For instance, "Articles that link to this page should be reviewed to see if a more specific link would be preferable." --Russ Blau (talk) 14:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Definately. I've added a sentence to the template (see above). Should we also have a short introduction to link repair in the talk section?--Commander Keane 16:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a great idea...it will help curb traffic from my talk page when I dab a list of articles. -- Kaiserb 18:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Good idea, agreed Courtland 02:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks great to me. Tedernst | talk 01:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

"Disambiguation pages for deletion"
I haven't been the most active member here, so I don't plan to push this too hard.

Has anyone found they've had to put a few pages up for deletion? Namely, ones that only have one real link &mdash; or secondary dab pages that only have two links (the second link can be linked to in the header of the primary topic) &mdash; or some other reason? Or, that they've had to move some pages?

I've only had one of each: I requested a move for Bummer and I'm about to request deletion for Abdomen (disambiguation), which only has one real link, which is back to its primary article.

Incidentally, this does bring up the point of: if there is only one article apart from the primary one, would it be better to just say, "This article is about this meaning. For this other meaning, see Thingy (other context)"? This can be discussed elsewhere if necessary. (I haven't checked discussions so nudge me if it's already been discussed.)

Anyway, if so, and I don't know if there is a problem at all so if there isn't just say so, would it be an idea to establish a "disambiguation pages for deletion" page? Just an idea, not expecting anything. Neonumbers 10:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * btw, does anyone mind if I archive two-thirds of this page? Neonumbers 10:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * In fact, here's a particular example: Valaoritis. Now, this is a primary dab page, so I guess it's different &mdash; the point here not that, but that it has no real dab links on it at all. Neonumbers 11:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Comment? Anyone? Please? Neonumbers 07:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * What's the problem? There are at least two different possible meanings and Wikipedia doesn't currently have an article on either one. Hardly a reason to delete the page. older≠wiser 13:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I think there should be a page for dabs for delete. For example I believe 2166 can be deleted. Mahanchian 23:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, please archive old discussion. Regarding your initial query, you can usually boldly fix such problems by turning them into redirects and adding the hatnote yourself. It's a trickier question if the only second meaning is a redlink, however. Anyway, I don't think there are enough deletions to warrant a separate page. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 23:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool. Thanks. I'll archive the discussions. Neonumbers 07:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

What can a dab page be used for?
Hi all &mdash; take a look at Utensil. Neither of the links there are really disambiguated, they're more just redirections. Now, I begin to see why the signpost articles category used to exist; I do admit that I voted for its deletion...

Anyway, would you consider this a "disambiguation" page, remembering what its original intent is? I wouldn't, but I don't know what it is... what does everyone think? Neonumbers 11:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It must be a signpost article. How can we bring back that category - I didn't get a chance to discuss it before it was deleted.--Commander Keane 11:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I turned utensil into a stub article. The page is certainly not serving to disambiguate, and I believe the topic is more than a dicdef (maybe the creator was afraid it would be interpreted as such, and so made it a dab page instead). To brainstorm, the article can be expanded to be a survey of the major utensils used throughout the world's cultures, explain the situations or cultures that do not use utensils (e.g. eating with hands), note when utensils were first used by humans, archaeology, explain why in movie scenes at formal parties they have 10 different utensils to eat with, and so on. The subject is clearly encyclopedic in my eyes.—jiy (talk) 11:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, upon reading Cutlery it seems a merge/redirect may be in order.—jiy (talk) 11:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Er, no. The meaning of "utensil" goes beyond cutlery. There are also writing utensils and probably other sorts of uses as well. older≠wiser 22:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point, I forgot about things like writing utensils. I've changed it back to a proper disambiguation page.—jiy (talk) 02:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Help on King James Version
At Wikipeida talk:Disambiguation there is discussion about not having a top dab on King James Version that leads to King James Version (album). Could someone look into it, I was reverted when I put the top dab back in and the discussion makes me feel sick. --Commander Keane 10:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * seems this got worked out so is now moot Tedernst | talk 22:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)