Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 39

Schauenburg Castle
Not sure if this is the right place but the current Schauenburg Castle article is a strange mixture of information about two different castles, one in Switzerland and another in Germany about 100 miles North. The photos and navbox appear to relate to the Swiss castle, I have photos but little information on the German castle, all good fun! Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    23:24, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The infobox photo is the German castle, the other photo is of the Swiss castle. I'll post on the article talk page to see if there is any response Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    23:27, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No, the picture in the infobox belongs to the Oberkircher Schauenburg, which is German as well. There's a whole raft of those castles, you'll find them on German Wikipedia: de:Schauenburg_(Begriffsklärung). --Midas02 (talk) 05:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the current infobox photo is of the Oberkirch castle, I have more if they are needed. Interesting that the DAB title was removed where it is quite obviously needed. Now it's been flagged hopefully the problem will be straightened out. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)    09:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, in the interest of clarity and avoiding confusion, if you're familiar with the rules of MOSDAB here, Schauenburg Castle would best be redirected to the Schaumburg dab page as an 'incomplete disambiguation'. Then all the castles on WP.DE can be added, doesn't matter if there are existing articles for them, as long as they're being mentioned on WP.EN by MOS:DABMENTION. Or alternatively a separate dab page as Schauenberg Castle, although the name seems to be a synonym for Schaumburg. Don't understand quite why, would have to check German WP for that. --Midas02 (talk) 04:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Douma
Could someone get involved at Douma please. An editor is refusing to accept MOS:DABMENTION, and is using edit warring and insults to have his way. --Midas02 (talk) 04:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * MOS:DABMENTION is about topics that have no corresponding article, which has no relevance here. As an alternate spelling, Douma, Palestine is a valid entry. &mdash;Xezbeth (talk) 08:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * , you should have checked the chronology. That redirect was still a red link at the time it was being pushed in, using false arguments and without making an effort to complement it with a blue link. --Midas02 (talk) 01:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Midas02; we shouldn't list items individually that are also included in a "See also" entry. —Anomalocaris (talk) 23:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Where a subject has alternate spelling it should be included on each applicable disambiguation page regardless of what the article is titled. older ≠ wiser 02:50, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ho, stop. This is getting out of hand. My grief was not about the link. The problem is someone was trying to push in a RED link. When I asked him to respect DABMENTION and complement it with a blue link, he brutally refused, got disrespectful and pretended 'there was an exception for place names'. Which is nonsense of course. It's only afterward he turned that RED link into a redirect, which made it compliant. So the issue is CLOSED.
 * About the spelling. For your information, that word is دوما in Arabic. The و (Waw) is a letter which could be transcribed both as OU or U, or even W, depending on its use and the accent used by the one who pronounces it. So both Douma and Duma would be valid transliterations in English. --Midas02 (talk) 02:57, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Question about a page
Is GPL (disambiguation) a proper disambiguation page in the fact that is has what looks like a stub article in it?--Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk) 05:07, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It now IS a more proper page - I deleted the "stub"... --John (User:Jwy/talk) 05:20, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Conservative Party
Conservative Party violates several dab rules, not least of which is that pipelinks hide names, e.g. what should show as Conservative Party (Czech Republic) shows as "Conservative Party" instead. -- do ncr  am  21:15, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I already reverted it once, but could someone have a look at the latest change. It seems to me that many articles that were removed could also pass as 'Conservative Party' despite not bearing exactly that name. --Midas02 (talk) 03:54, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Richard H. Williams (New York)
The above discussion may be of interest &mdash;Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 14:51, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Rule about adding a link to a disambiguation page to a disambiguation page....
So User:Anthony Appleyard added a link to Nasi to Nazi (disambiguation) and I undid this because I was under the impression that you're not supposed to add a link directing to one disambiguation page onto another disambiguation page. Maybe I am remembering it wrong and there was some way of formatting it where this was allowed? Pandeist (talk) 05:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * We don't generally have habits on disambiguation pages. That's one function of the see also section. older ≠ wiser 12:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think User:Pandeist is thinking about WP:INTDABLINK. It is fine to link from one disambiguation page to another in a "See also" section, but the link must be piped through a "Foo (disambiguation)" redirect to avoid showing up as an error. bd2412  T 13:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Two Draft Disambigs
Hello, there are two draft disambiguation pages (Draft:Women in House of Representatives and Draft:Women in House of Commons) waiting to be reviewed. I have my current opinion on the pages, but I thought I would see if there was a consensus here before making a final decision on accepting/declining the pages. Cheers, Primefac (talk) 02:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Double disambiguation in article namespace
Hi. How do you disambiguate two different types of entity that are both in the same place that also need disambiguated from the same thing in a different place? For example "Castlereagh, County Down" (in Ireland) can refer to a townland (a small area of land) but also to a barony, however there are other baronies and townlands in Ireland called Castlereagh. My personal opinion is to use "Castlereagh, County Down (townland)" and "Castlereagh, County Down (barony)". Another user prefers "Castlereagh (County Down townland)" and "Castlereagh (County Down barony)", which they have also used for "Castlereagh (County Roscommon barony).

This WikiProjects input here or at the original discussion would be more than appreciated.

Mabuska (talk) 15:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Are we operating under the presumption that neither of these entities is the primary topic of the term? bd2412  T 15:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)


 * We are not operating under any assumption. All that can be said is that entity (townland, barony) and location (County Down, County Roscommon) appear to have an equal claim to be the primary disambiguator. The hope was that people at this WikiProject might have some rule of thumb for determining something like this, or failing that, would just say what you feel is more natural. Scolaire (talk) 22:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The guidelines don't provide an answer as this is quite a rare situation. The general rule is to use the comma for geographical disambiguations, and the parentheses otherwise. I would prefer the latter solution though, for the following reasons:
 * The townland is a geographical entity, thus comma, a barony is less so
 * Is the barony called "Castlereagh" or "Castlereagh, County Down"? Obviously the former, so everything required to disambiguate should go between the brackets.
 * Let's say it's neater not to mix two disambiguation styles, and keep all items required for disambiguation grouped together (like "(footballer, born 1956)" for instance) --Midas02 (talk) 02:23, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe in trying to find a definite standard to use over at the Ireland MOS WikiProject, it could be codified here as well. Personally I still prefer the mixture option, however I can understand the reasoning behind making it neater. Some examples of similar instances elsewhere on Wikipedia would be good if anyone knows of any. Mabuska (talk) 13:10, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Palestine
Some seemed to think it was a good idea to move Palestine around. +5000 links are now out in the open, on top of a messy dab page, and no clear idea on how the link mess can be solved. A dabconcept seems to be urgently required before they make it even worse. --Midas02 (talk) 07:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Product
I just added a large 'Mathematics' section, previously conspicuously absent, in the dab page Product. Unfortunately it is extremely common in mathematics to say "product" (or "times", or with symbols or juxtaposition) without specifying what type of product is used, so this page seems unfortunately likely to be used fairly often.

To avoid taking over the page I kept my additions to this section, which I broke apart into "In foo:" parts and subparts. And no, it's not a typo: the term "wedge product" has two different meanings with their own articles (Exterior product and Wedge sum).

I haven't been very active on Wikipedia lately so I'd appreciate some eyes on this. I'm sure some things could have been done better.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


 * What is the likelihood that someone will simply type "product" when they actually mean "Zappa–Szép product"? I think it would be better for all these kinds of products to be explained, or at least listed, at Product (mathematics), and only leave a link to that article (plus, perhaps, Product (category theory) and Cartesian product) at the disambiguation page. I don't see any mathematicals article linking to the dab page, so there doesn't seem to be a problem. While we're at it, I think Nanoproduct doesn't belong there either. — Kpalion(talk) 16:17, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I think the most likely use case is that an article uses 'product' or a synonym without linking, but the reader doesn't know which type was meant. So yes, I think it's entirely possible for someone to be looking for "Zappa–Szép product" on that page, because they might only know that an article was using some kind of product but not know what type. If they can identify the field in which it was used this narrows it down to a small number of articles.
 * Of course I would have no objection to structuring this information differently, perhaps at Product (mathematics). But at the moment that page doesn't provide much in the way of disambiguation.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Product (mathematics) is also not itself a dab page, so links to it won't be flagged as errors, even if they're highly ambiguous. Hairy Dude (talk) 14:05, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Layout of disambiguation page
I doubt the appropriateness of the layout of Christian Democratic Party (disambiguation). It has a relatively long lead section, too many links not directly related to the political parties of the same name, and even two tables! While it looks nice and organized, it violates the MOS:DAB. --Quest for Truth (talk) 12:39, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the page as it is is very useful. I wouldn't mind it remaining as is, but I can see it being a "slippery slope" for pages where the term is not so clear cut "this is almost the same thing but in a different country" type of thing.  It is more like a "list of political parties called 'Christian Democratic Party'" that could be the primary target of 'Christian Democratic Party' - but then would we have a 'real' DAB page as well?  Interesting one. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 19:18, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Dabfix working again
So I was told to mention Dabfix is running again. — Dispenser 06:47, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Input needed
...at Template talk:Disambiguation. Regards, Bazj (talk) 16:30, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Sound like a good idea?
Last month I'd asked a question at the redirect talk page about creating some redirects for the first settlements in North America. The history behind that is that I was trying to search for the first settlement in Virginia and I was a little surprised to see that there wasn't any such redirect. Of course after I thought about it a little, I realized that there were several "first settlements" so there's the potential for several redirects.

Basically here's what I proposed and I had someone say that this would potentially be beneficial:

We create specific redirects like First Dutch settlement in North America (which would redirect to Fort Nassau (North River)) and First Swedish settlement in North America (Fort Christina). We would then create a general dab page at First settlement in North America, which would contain links to these first settlements. This would differ from general topics like British colonization of the Americas because it would be a dab page rather than an article. It'd be useful/beneficial since it'd give people a chance to find very specific information for a variety of groups without having to scan through the major articles for this one specific piece of information.

We could, of course, include the more general topic pages in the dab page as well. Here's what I think it'd look like, as a very rough example:

This is a list of the first known settlements for various races and ethnicities in North America.


 * Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America
 * Fort Nassau (North River), the first Dutch settlement in North America

See also
 * British colonization of the Americas
 * European colonization of the Americas
 * Settlement of the Americas

There will be more to add to this, but it'd require some time to compile. What do you guys think? I just figure that if I'm looking for this, others likely would be as well. Because this would be a big undertaking (somewhat) and I'm sort of unsure if it'd be appropriate or not, I thought I'd ask before doing anything. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 13:38, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid you're mixing up redirects with search strings. Redirects are for topics which are known under different names (e.g. "Napoleon Bonaparte" and "Napoleon I of France"), but they are not be created in lieu of search strings. --Midas02 (talk) 03:01, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Mass sorting dabs
User:Sweepy has been mass a-b sorting dabs (and adding several punctuation variants in the lede arguably against the MOSDAB advise not to include all). At least two of us have informed the editor not to: User:Intgr and me. Some may be OK, but I've asked the editor to stop. I suggest reverting them all before they are further edited (admins can mass undo I believe). Thoughts? Widefox ; talk 10:57, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I've manually reverted several, mass revert sounds like a good idea. What a mess. &mdash;Xezbeth (talk) 12:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Or not, since some of these edits are months old. Manual reverting it is then. &mdash;Xezbeth (talk) 12:38, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Good work Xezbeth. I've asked Sweepy to not sort again until discussed here, plus the usual MOSDAB yada yada. Widefox ; talk 19:26, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Noting here that this user is still mass sorting dab pages despite being told not to and being pointed to this talk page. Looking more like disruptive editing to me. &mdash;Xezbeth (talk) 07:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Sweepy please discuss here. Widefox ; talk 11:28, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The editor hasn't stopped. Reported to WP:ANI. Xezbeth I've undone one or two, maybe better if an admin just mass undoes these fresh ones. Xezbeth? Widefox ; talk 22:33, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Trivial, tangential entries on dab pages
I am getting so tired of seeing long lists of fictional characters or fictional objects cluttering up dab pages that don't have their own articles. Aggie is a case in point. Is anyone really going to look up "Aggie" in order to find Summer of '42? Are we going to list every character in every book, play and film mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia? Aether is another case. Seems to be commonly the name of a weapon or other object in video games and other fiction. Unlikely that people are going to try and find information by this route. More likely they would search for the name of the work, and thus directly get the article they are looking for. There's a similar issue with titles of music tracks (the Aether dab provides an example), although that's more debatable, people may look up a track title. But are we really helping our readers if all the article tells them when they get there that it is the title of a track? They probably new that already. We should have a guideline on this sort of stuff. Perhaps we already do and I just have not seen it. SpinningSpark 16:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Does WP:DABRELATED's "Include articles only if the term being disambiguated is actually described in the target article." not cover the track thing? If the article linked just repeats the track's name, it shouldn't be linked. WP:PTM may cover other cases where characters have "similar" names to the dab page. LjL (talk) 16:24, 20 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Seems to be a duplicate of an issue I recently brought up as well: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages. Seems there is a discrepancy, and a lack of clarification in general, between WP:DABRELATED and MOS:DABMENTION which needs to be dealt with. --Midas02 (talk) 16:45, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * DABRELATED and PTM don't really address the issue I am perceiving. For instance, one could delete the Nanny McPhee entry in Aggie on the grounds that it is a partial match (Aggie Brown), but not the Summer of '42 entry since that article fails to give the character's surname.  Both make it past DABRELATED as they are described in the article.  Neither of those criteria are the real issue; are readers going to be searching for them.  As for DABMENTION, it should be destroyed with fire. SpinningSpark 19:17, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually I think that yes, if someone knows a character by their common name and perhaps don't remember the work the character comes from, they may search for that name. WP:DABRELATED weeds out the gratuitous stuff that doesn't help this kind of reader since even after clicking, they still find no information about the wanted character. The rest, well, maybe the rest belongs. LjL (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Per my comment here, we do not have to list all entries (dabmention or not) per WP:D "reasonably likely". Some guidance what is "reasonably likely" (somewhat subjective as it is broader than WP:N) may be worth it so we're all on the same page. Widefox ; talk 12:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd also like to raise a question about nicknames. That Aggie page lists/listed people who aren't named Aggie at all, but who are claimed to have that as nickname (or, even more indirectly, have names that are said to be potentially shortenable to Aggie). WP:NAMELIST mentions first names and last names, saying they should only be linked if the person is "reasonably well-known" by it. At the very least, the same should reasonably apply to nicknames, even though that's not explicitly mentioned, or perhaps a even stricter standard should apply to those. --LjL (talk) 12:15, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Aggie needs a normal cleanup, possibly including splitting the first name and nicknames out of the dab. I agree that a nickname may indicate they are known solely as the ambiguous term more than just a first name. I'm sure someone else can point to how we're meant to handle them from a previous discussion. Widefox ; talk 13:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Death by a thousand dabs cuts
More opinions are welcome about correct entries (per MOSDAB) at Talk:Death by a thousand cuts. Widefox ; talk 02:48, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I overlooked the obvious primary topic, so per User:Spinningspark's suggestion it's moved to Talk:Death by a thousand cuts (disambiguation) (without a talk redir). Widefox ; talk 12:20, 30 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Coming back to MOSDAB, the issue is about redirects on dabs. Specifically parenthetic alternative name redirects on dabs. Two points:

Take a simple example: I consider MOSDAB currently slightly discourages (measured) use of redirects at the expense of utility.
 * Creating redirects for alternative names is policy per WP:ALTTITLE "should usually"
 * My interpretation of the wording is that if ambiguous, then an entry on the dab is sufficient rather than creating a redirect. That indicates some room for common sense and user preference. I personally prefer a redirect, which is more useful for readers/writers than that important info just being on a dab and the article. As the search interface prompts for the redirect, the dab can even be circumvented saving one click.
 * As redirects can't be used until created, it's difficult to know how synthetic creating one is e.g. Caishikou Execution Grounds links " death by a thousand cuts ". It could have used death by a thousand cuts and can now use death by a thousand cuts (to summarise, I created the redirect death by a thousand cuts (torture), then a primary topic was suggested, so death by a thousand cuts was used)
 * Things change: On stubs and for other reasons, the article title may not be correct, primary topics are created, company names change, so having an alternative name redirect may be a stepping stone or historical artifact. I tend to prefer using them on a dab.
 * e.g. Fermi (unit) -> Femtometre on Fermi (disambiguation)
 * Summary:
 * death by a thousand cuts (torture) - creation:yes, use on dab:yes
 * death by a thousand cuts (psychology) - creation: weak yes, use on dab:weak yes Widefox ; talk 11:26, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

TOC right misbehaving?
Suddenly every table of contents moved using TOC right is generating lots of blank space - see [{Aether]] or Leed (disambiguation). Have I managed to mangle some settings, or is this happening for everyone - in which case what's gone wrong with the template and can someone please fix it? Pam D  18:07, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Also mentioned this at Template talk:TOC right. Pam  D  18:14, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a known problem - see Village_pump_(technical). Not just me. Pam  D  18:26, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation (disambiguation)
I stumbled across a primary topic RM at Talk:Disambiguation (disambiguation). More opinions welcome. Widefox ; talk 04:37, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * , would have automatically left a message here if this WikiProject were not subscribed to receive WikiProject Disambiguation/Article alerts. – Wbm1058 (talk) 09:40, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This special case, special nom affords alerting in my opinion, as...special. Widefox ; talk 17:46, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Molenbeek
Molenbeek is in the news at present but our article is a long disambiguation page with loads of redlink-only entries, while Sint-Jans-Molenbeek is surely the primary topic. Anyone feel like sorting this out? Ta, Qwfp (talk) 20:28, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've made a start by moving "places" above "rivers and streams", which has the serendipitous effect of making Sint-Jans-Molenbeek the first article listed. But perhaps it needs to be the primary topic, and the dab page to be moved to "... (disambiguation)"? Pam  D  22:20, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Until 4 April 2012 it was a redirect to Sint-Jans-Molenberg! Pam  D  22:33, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps someone shold WP:BOLDly move the dab page, retarget the resulting redirect, add the appropriate "Redirect" hatnote, and drastically prune the dab page down to its single-digit number of legitimate entries? Pam  D  22:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * After a night's sleep I've done that myself. Thanks PamD. Qwfp (talk) 07:01, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Paris attacks
Paris attacks and 2015 Paris attacks may be useful and high traffic, but they appear to be WP:PTM (and as dabs both aren't needed per WP:MOSDAB). so suggest merge to a single list article (don't know about inclusion criteria). Ping editors User:Just Chilling, User:Triggerhippie4. Widefox ; talk 11:14, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There is very little doubt that the primary meaning of this term will quickly become the November attacks. bd2412  T 20:32, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Where to ask : Should fusiform be a disambiguation page
It looks more like a dictionary definition - I ask here because talk:Fusiform has the project template. - Rod57 (talk) 15:56, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yup, looks like dict def. Suggest PROD. Widefox ; talk 18:59, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * At one point, we had a large number of dicdefs for anatomical terms that we resolved by section-redirecting them to Anatomical terms of location. I propose a similar resolution for terms describing anatomical shapes. bd2412  T 20:49, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm, write the article first applies, so how about soft wikt redirect until then? The items will be safe in the history too. Widefox ; talk 15:07, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This type of article is very easy to write. Can we get together a list of terms like this? bd2412  T 16:31, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I patched up the dab a bit in the meantime. Widefox ; talk 19:31, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Adjectives etc - new non-dab page type?
There are quite a few discussions about dab pages for adjectives. The latest is about Interracial. There's no primary topic, no legitimate dab page entries, several partial title matches, and it's currently at AfD. The consensus seems to be that there needs to be "something" there although it doesn't fit the dab page criteria.

Do we need a new kind of entity: a non-disambiguation "signpost" page comprising:
 * link to Wiktionary
 * in title
 * look from
 * any appropriate See also links
 * Nothing else. (If there's more to be added, then it needs to become a dab page, or a set index page, or an article)

This would help the reader more than the search they get at present, and could be upgraded to a dab page if any appropriate entries were created (moving the dab page to "... (disambiguation)" if the new topic was appropriate for Primary Topic as title or redirect). Thoughts? Pam D  13:02, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I would redirect Interracial to Sociology of race and ethnic relations. For most adjectives, I think there is an article to which the term can most appropriately redirect. In some cases, we are missing articles on some admittedly very abstract and difficult to write subjects, such as "proprietariness" (for which I have created Draft:Proprietariness). bd2412  T 13:26, 24 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Agree with PamD that dabs with adjective titles are a problem, due to them naturally turning into dictionary pages and a unclear boundary with WP:PTM entries. We have some important ones, e.g. British, etc. Agree search isn't optimal, best avoided but it's a can of worms maybe best handled with a MOSDAB example rather (e.g. British or something simpler) than a new page. Hand crafting these pages is highly beneficial, and non-trivial. Widefox ; talk 12:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Rail transport dab pages
There are dab pages in need of attention, perhaps combining and splitting, at Railway (disambiguation) (includes "Railroad", which I suggest shouldn't be on the same dab page), and Railways (disambiguation) (vastly better than what was created a day or two ago, but full of Partial title matches and should probably be combined with "Railway", singular, into one page (minus "Railroad"). I haven't the energy right now, but if anyone fancies a spot of dab page cleanup... (Pinging, as the editor who's put a lot of work into Railways (disambiguation)).  Pam  D  23:12, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * And at present Railways redirects to Rail transport (as do Railway, Railroad, and Railroads), which has a link to Railway (disambiguation) but not to Railways (disambiguation).  Pam  D  23:16, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think two separate dab pages are needed. bd2412  T 01:10, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Having talked with several non-Wikip. railroaders (professional, retired, railroader buffs, amateur, and railroad engineers) several years ago as an invited non-railroader guest to a gathering, they did mention how distinct and different the singular and plural forms in the railroading industry are. We had quite a discussion with laughs at the confusion of it all from the public's point of view. Separate dab pages would be appropriate for rail, rails, railroad, railroads, railway, and railways. Altering some redirects and consolidating all down to 1 page would be interesting (a killer task!). Consolidating down to 3 with perhaps the singular form above and the plural below would be a task as well. I think 6 would be best due to the quantity. In any case, the prefix/title search entries in the See also sections would be most helpful to the WP user. The RAIL acronym entry in See also is still important. Any thoughts? Thor Dockweiler (talk) 02:22, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you mean that "Railway" and "Railways" (currently split) needn't be separate, or "Railway" and "Railroad" (currently combined)? Pam  D
 * I mean that "Railway" and "Railways" (currently split) should be a single page. bd2412  T 13:28, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The combined dab isn't too large, so don't see a need to split. (I do see a need to fix the primary topic entry on the former.) Widefox ; talk 12:55, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I have now boldly split Railroad (disambiguation) out of Railway (disambiguation). The latter was then virtually empty ... but I found several "The Railway" entries which needed to be in a dab page (they weren't before), so have bulked it up again. I've tweaked the hatnote on Rail transport to point to the two dab pages. But I'm pretty sure "Railway" and "Railways" should be in a combined dab page, and conventionally it should be at the singular. Pam D  15:23, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Good work as that's a better arrangement in the long-run. Widefox ; talk 16:41, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have proposed to merge Railway (disambiguation) and Railways (disambiguation). The discussion is at Talk:Railway (disambiguation). Cheers! bd2412  T 17:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Cleaned up a bit, I would just merge. Widefox ; talk 18:00, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Done. Have a look. bd2412  T 18:07, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Neat (and tidied). Widefox ; talk 18:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Easier access to biography articles via subject surname?
Recent edits and discussions at Leeds (disambiguation) led me to discover the recent (May 2015) change to WP:MOSDAB which now specifies that surname-holders, where there isn't a separate "... (name)" page, should be listed under "See also" rather than in a separate "People holding the name" section. I disagree with the decision and would have chipped in to say so if I'd noticed the discussion between 6 people which led to this change, but that's water under the bridge.

It got me thinking, though, about an idea I'd had before. Wouldn't it be brilliant if we could add a link which would pick up every biographical article whose DEFAULTSORT begins with the string concerned? We can do it for living people already - see this listing for living people with surname Leeds (and where someone has bothered to add a DEFAULTSORT).

A link to such a listing, perhaps using a template with carefully-useful wording, would be an asset to the "See also" section of any dab page whose topic is ever used as a surname. And would be much more complete, and threfore useful, than manually-maintained lists of names. This morning I moved the surname-holders from Leeds (disambiguation) into Leeds (surname) but found several new "living peope" to add - I don't know how many unincluded dead people there are because it's so hard to search for biographical entries for a surname which has other uses. I cited Higginbottom as an example of a surname which has no other uses - but was shocked to find that while there were 5 people listed in that surname page there were 11 or so in the encyclopedia.

I've floated an idea at Village pump (idea lab). Do come and offer your thoughts. Pam D  18:18, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Coming back on the first point you were making. I vaguely remember there was no clear consensus about adding name holders to a See Also section, other than with less than a handful of editors, and I was unaware that had been enacted. I've therefore reverted it. It clearly goes against the layout of all existing dab pages and will only confuse ill-advised editors. --Midas02 (talk) 02:08, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Midas02 The only problem is that revert is that it restores something ill-defined ("main disambiguation list" - is that before or after the "Other uses"?) that isn't what's commonly on dab pages either. The new way isn't brilliant either as it results in an unusual style - subsections of "See also" sections. What seems most common is a "People" section. If we're just documenting the common usage then it should be that, ...but... there's no right here - there's a spectrum of entries from commonly, primary topic-ally, solely known as XXX, to only in the article referred to as XXX (for say surnames).  Widefox ; talk 21:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the fact is that all current dab pages do not list people in See Also. So just changing that overnight would outlaw literally thousands of dab pages, which is a clear no-go. The current wording may be vague, or may need some finetuning, but I can't say I have come across many dab pages where the listing of people led to heated discussions. Live and let live... --Midas02 (talk) 02:56, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That logic applies to both versions, and so by that same logic the most common "People" section should be reverted to until there's consensus for anything else. I will propose some wording to do that. Widefox ; talk 00:05, 29 November 2015 (UTC)