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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Zappernapper (talk | contribs) at 18:36, 4 September 2006 (→Collaborative disambiguation at [[Power Point]]: .). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archives: /archive1, /archive2

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.—Wahoofive (talk) 17:26, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguated phrases

I noticed today that we've grown Category:Disambiguated phrases. --RoySmith 21:43, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We might want to do what Wikipedia: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? —Wahoofive (talk) 23:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
(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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Discussion about Miscellaneous disambiguations and disambiguation page categorization

Please see Category talk:Miscellaneous disambiguations --RoySmith 01:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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

Given the scope of this project, someone might also want to have a look at Wikipedia: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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Listed on AfD, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jiffy.--Commander Keane 07:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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. —Oops!—

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.—GraemeMcRaetalk 05:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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 {{2LCdisambig}} to {{disambig}}. 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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Alternatively, what are the arguments in favour of {{TLAdisambig}}? Susvolans ⇔ 16:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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! —Wahoofive (talk) 17:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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)#Abbreviations. Susvolans ⇔ 19:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion about 2LCdisambig

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

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)[reply]
What an intriguing idea. We'd have to clean up all the multi-stub pages, though, such as the recently-created Jiffy (time). —Wahoofive (talk) 16:21, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's an interesting (even, intriguing) idea, but I'm not sure what problem it would solve. --RoySmith 16:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:31, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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#Summary or multi-stub pages — I'd love to get rid of this option. —Wahoofive (talk) 02:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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 —Wahoofive (talk)
  4. Pale colour indicates previously visited links.
  5. 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) —Wahoofive (talk)
  6. A tool-tip title shows the link destination, clarifying piped links.
  7. Self-links become bold text instead of a link.
  8. [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:

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. —Wahoofive (talk) 02:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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

template uses
{{2LA}} 17
{{2LCdisambig}} 202
{{4LA}} 257
{{5LA}} 14
{{acrocandis}} ???
{{Albumdis}} 4
{{Disambig}} 37438
→{{Dambig}} 1
→{{Dab}} 965
→{{Disam}} 17
→{{Disamb}} 331
→{{Disambiguate}} 2
→{{Disambiguation}} 635
→{{Nocatdab}} ???
{{Disambig-cleanup}} 65
{{Exp-dab}} 1
{{Geodis}} 425
{{Hndis}} 243
{{Hurricane disambig}} 236
→{{Hurricanedis}} ???
{{Interstatedis}} 1
{{LND}} 336
{{Listdis}} 3
{{Miscdis}} 7
{{Numberdis}} 125
{{Phrasedis}} 17
{{Rdab}} 2
{{Roadis}} 11
{{Songdis}} 6
{{Substadis}} 14
{{TLAdisambig}} 2618
→{{TLAdisambiguation}} 5
→{{Tla-dab}} 19
{{Townshipdis}} 95

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)[reply]

Holy crap! Delete or redirect these to {{Disamb}}. older≠wiser 16:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Note: a subset of these (far more than simply {{Disamb}} and {{Disambig-cleanup}} are listed on the project page,Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation#Disambiguation templates. older≠wiser 16:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
{{Interstatedis}} is being used on pages like Interstate 205 and Interstate 580. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 00:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I cleant two of the redirect-dabs and voted {{{delete}}}. dambig and diambiguate were only used twice or so. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 06:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Hear, hear! —Wahoofive (talk) 17:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


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)[reply]

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 Talk: 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)[reply]

Good idea, agreed Courtland 02:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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

"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 — or secondary dab pages that only have two links (the second link can be linked to in the header of the primary topic) — 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)[reply]

btw, does anyone mind if I archive two-thirds of this page? Neonumbers 10:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, here's a particular example: Valaoritis. Now, this is a primary dab page, so I guess it's different — the point here not that, but that it has no real dab links on it at all. Neonumbers 11:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment? Anyone? Please? Neonumbers 07:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. Thanks. I'll archive the discussions. Neonumbers 07:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What can a dab page be used for?

Hi all — 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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Actually, upon reading Cutlery it seems a merge/redirect may be in order.—jiy (talk) 11:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

seems this got worked out so is now moot Tedernst | talk 22:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

dab templates without categories

These two dab templates:

apparently were created without consensus in October of 2005. Both attempt to place articles in red-linked categories. On Dec 20th, I redirected both templates to the main disambig template and was reverted on Dec 30th.

I don't see any articles when I click "what links here" for either one. That may because I touched all of the articles that did use each one after I redirected. I can't remember if I did that or not, but the fact that I'm thinking of it makes me think I did do that. According to the table above, there were 6 and 14 pages using each at one point.

Thoughts? Tedernst | talk 22:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

edited to add another one Tedernst | talk 22:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

subcats

Just wanted to make everyone aware of the discussion and polls going on here:Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories Tedernst | talk 22:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stamping out reflexive disambiguation in article titles, take two

I agree with the above comment in /archive2#Stamping out reflexive disambiguation in article titles that it is remarkably counterintuitive and circuitous to have a "page x" be a redirect to "page x (disambiguation)" when one could simply put the disambiguation on "page x" itself because there's no article there. It's always immediately clear when an article is a disambig page, unless it's formatted improperly; that's the entire point of the "disambig" notice to begin with! So is there nothing I or anyone else can do to fight this remarkably useless nuisance of a tendency to move perfectly good disambig pages to the same page with a redundant "(disambiguation)" notice added to the end where not at all necessary? Is there no ongoing debate, no consensus discussion, no way to enforce the Wikipedia guidelines regarding avoiding redirects when possible just because a few people want to arbitrarily impose the very awkward and lengthy "(disambiguation)" name on hundreds of page that don't even need it? Not only can I not move the pages myself 9 times out of 10, not being an admin, but now I can't even ask others to do it because there's no consensus one way or the other on the matter? I feel so impotent. :(

There's something terribly wrong with the world when Darwin redirects to Darwin (disambiguation), Titan to Titan (disambiguation), aether to Æther (disambiguation), excelsior to excelsior (disambiguation), expulsion to expulsion (disambiguation), lupus to lupus (disambiguation), and dozens of other blots upon the legacy of mankind, countless other redundant and arbitrary redirects to drive from me all faith in a just and loving God. And don't get me started on other arbitrary inconsistencies, like Agnus Dei redirecting to Lamb of God while the disambig is at Agnus Dei (disambiguation) (even though all that information could simply be in a "in popular cuture" and other similar sections on an "Agnus Dei" or "Lamb of God" article anyway, since it's all derived from the same exact source). Arr. Every time I see one of these pages, a little piece of my soul dies forever. What to do? -Silence 23:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you present a good reason to move a disambiguation page from Fooboo (disambiguation) to Fooboo? Why not just leave the situation alone in each case, doing the move has no benefit as far as I can see. Also, leaving Fooboo as a redirect allows it to redirected easily in the future.--Commander Keane 23:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why do any of the trivial janitorial work that so many Wikipedians do, when the benefit is also seemingly limited (when compared to say, the benefit of contributing five paragraphs of sourced text)? Because when you shrug all the little things off, they begin to add up, and you end up with an inconsistent quagmire trying to come off as an encyclopedia. The reasons have already been stated. It's the same reason why The Beatles should not be reflexively redirected to The Beatles (1960s band): it's sloppy, inconsistent, reflexive, and a redirect that can be avoided.—jiy (talk) 02:35, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you can get some consensus then I'll fix any of these things I come accross, and possibly get someone to use a database dump to help me track them all down. Maybe establish a quick pole at the MoS, since here is rather quiet.--Commander Keane 04:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Given the Generic pages swap checking section below, I'll start fixing these.--Commander Keane 08:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Generic pages swap checking

As you may have noticed, there's been some discussion about Primary versus Generic pages over at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Page naming Generic topic. Therefore, based on discussion, I just changed the text at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Generic topic.

Each "XYZZY (disambiguation)" page in Category:Disambiguation needs to be checked whether it has a Primary topic page. If it hasn't (either it doesn't exist or it's only a redirect), then the page should be moved from "XYZZY (disambiguation)" to "XYZZY".

That shouldn't be too hard, as there are only about 10% pages with "(disambiguation)" and only about half of them are actually generics needing to be moved for consistency. It doesn't require looking at the page for style, but it's as good an excuse as any. Share and enjoy!

--William Allen Simpson 08:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Subpage created

Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages has been created. You will notice the dump report there. I also copied across the discussion that used to be here.--Commander Keane 07:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ordinal directions: cartography articles or dab pages?

I came across Northwest today, which is catted as both a cartography stub and a dab page. It contains some article elements - an image and links to related topics, for example - but the text is mostly either Wiktionary-style definition or disambig elements. The other ordinal directions do not include the disambig template. Thoughts on whether these should be treated as articles or dab pages? dpotter 14:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Southwest is also tagged as a dab page. No thoughts yet about whether they should be dabs or stubs or both or something else. 14:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
This one isn't worth fighting over. Just take off the {{disambig}} template and otherwise leave it alone, because none of the entries are really synonyms of Northwest, so it's not really a dab page. —Wahoofive (talk) 19:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at only those two, and the significant number of links to them, it seems to me that these both need to be Primary topic multi-stub pages, each with (disambiguation) pages for the rest. Most of the references don't appear to be to the ordinal direction, but rather to the regional variation, which is typical disambiguation fare. There's also a new AFD for Northwesterner today that wants redirection there. Heck, I'll do it, over the next day or so....
--William Allen Simpson 23:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

destroying history

There's a serious problem with lack of understanding of history merging!

Today, I worked on Photuris and Photuris (disambiguation). The original Photuris was a multi-stub page of about 20-30 lines and a picture and a see also and some categories, with a dozen or so line history. The "(disambiguation)" page was created with cut and paste instead of move (by Dalf), and the original was blanked to redirect there.

My obvious solution was to revert Photuris, and change "(disambiguation)" to redirect, preserving both histories without any problem.

Unfortunately, here's what Commander Keene wrote on my talk page:

You fixed up Photuris by doing a cut/paste move. Various edits were hidden/lost when you did that, violating the GFDL licence. I have performed a history merge so everyone gets credit for their work. Never perform a cut and paste move, it's that simple.--Commander Keane 05:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

All I did was revert the redirect and fix. Not a single edit was lost on either page. No cut and paste was involved.

So, I'm looking at Photuris and Photuris (disambiguation). Where's the history?

All I see at "Photuris (disambiguation)" is a 1 line "move" history.

All I see at "Photuris" is

  • the 3 line history from the moved "(disambiguation)" page,
  • followed by 1 line from my Photuris revert and edit "(restore Photuris disambiguation here, revised MoS:DP)",
  • followed by 1 line from my "(disambiguation)" edit (which is why it is now a "#REDIRECT Photuris" on the Photuris page, not making any sense),
  • followed by 1 line with my next edit on Photuris again (which only makes sense as the diff past the #REDIRECT),
  • followed by Keane's move work.

All the original multi-stub page history is lost.

Before you think I don't know what I'm talking about or wonder why I should care, try Google.

Now, what's to be done?

--William Allen Simpson 07:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My problem was that Photuris was where the articles Photuris (genus) and Photuris (protocol) were started. When Photuris was split into these two new articles, the history remianed at Photuris. To maintain GFDL I think that the full history of Photuris (genus) and Photuris (protocol) should not be hidden/lost at Photuris, but rather fully exposed at Talk:Photuris (genus)/Early history.
Talk a look at Talk:Photuris (protocol) and Talk:Photuris (genus). I was annoyed that you would carry out your dodgey revert rather than let an admin provide the best solution, given that it was obvious that I (an admin) was working through the list that contained the problem that was Photuris.--Commander Keane 07:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you did save some of the history somewhere! AFAICT, it was lost (nobody goes looking for history on another page's talk subpage). Indeed, that seems like a lot of work for little benefit, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Dodgy? Whenever a multi-stub page is split, the old history remains behind at the original page. It's neither "hidden" nor "lost".

The only "problem" was that the original splitter did it with cut and paste, instead of move. IMHO, this split should have been done as a Primary topic page, instead. But still, the original history remained in situ.

Now, the history is an incomprehensible muddle of alternating lines from two different pages. (heavy sigh) Well, I suppose that nobody else but me will look at it anyway.

--William Allen Simpson 08:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When looking at the history of Photuris I can't see an incomprehensible muddle of alternating lines, since I did a near clean splice. What are you talking about?--Commander Keane 08:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Start at the first "(last)" and do the "newer edit" navigation. The splice is by date and time. So, it alternates between (prior to move) "(disambiguation)", "(disambiguation)", "(disambiguation)", my photuris, my "(disambiguation)" redirect, my photuris, your moved "(disambiguation)" copy of my redirect, then your copy of my most recent version of photuris. It's schizoid.

But it doesn't matter. Seems like I'm the only one who reads this stuff. I'll live.

--William Allen Simpson 08:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of Disambiguation at Talk:Ravi Shankar

I have just initiated a discussion of disambiguation at Talk:Ravi Shankar. Although the immediate subject of the discussion is a particular article, I believe it touches upon the more general question of when an ambiguous title ought to point to a disambiguation page, and when it ought to point to the most article most likely to be intended. --BostonMA 21:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument is definitely much broader than just Ravi Shankar. It extends to the very concpet of a primary topic, or main article or whatever it is we call it when there's a Topic disambiguation) page rather than just having the main name be the disambiguation page. I'd like to see that discussion happen here since it's not specific to Ravi Shankar. Other opinions? Tedernst | talk 21:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with having the discussion here. The reason why I began at Talk:Ravi Shankar is because I am fairly new, and Commander Keane suggested that the discussion happen at the article talk page. --BostonMA 22:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Images

Is there a general consensus with respect to whether or not to include images on dab pages? Referring specifically to corn and plasma but I'm sure there are others. -- Krash (Talk) 02:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are others. Zephyr is particularly questionable because it seems to be a disambiguation page combined with a merged stub. I've also been wondering about this. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with an image or two to help decorate and elaborate on the entries of some of the lengthier disambig pages, especially if they're free-use images. As long as it doesn't get out of hand.. There are more important (and commonplace) disambig-page screwups. -Silence 02:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would tend to think that it shouldn't be within the nature of a disambiguation page to be decorated. And it should be the primary goal of the articles themselves—not the text or images on the disambiguation page—to elaborate on the entries. Like overlinking, images could be considered needless clutter, confusing the purpose of the dab page. But if people like the images and/or see a valid need for them, I don't really care either way. Just looking for consistancy. -- Krash (Talk) 04:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help me

I have two little problems with disambiguation project:

  1. When disambiguating links, there are a lot of user and talk pages when using "what links here" which I have to skip. Is there an easy way to filter them?
  2. Is there a semi automatic bot that can help? I'd like to go through all disambig pages and make sure that do confirm to MoS. I had a random look and many of them dont.

Mahanchian 21:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For (1): a good solution would be a namespace filter (as found in "my contributions"). I have just submitted a bug report requesting this feature. If you would like the feature, I recommend that you vote for it.
For (2): there is a bot to help with link repair (m:Solve_disambiguation.py). However, there isn't a bot to help with page style - because it would be rather complicated.--Commander Keane 01:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm now using WP:AWB which does both jobs! Mahanchian 22:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Severn (disambiguation)

Could someone from the Wiki Dab Project take a look at this page. I fixed it but I think I went overboard on the number of links. I really need a second opinion. If it's wrong, please make it right (even if you have to take a hatchet to it).
(Side note: I've been working informally for this project, but after one of my edits was reverted and deemed "ridiculous" by the reverting editor — this in spite of the fact that I had closely adhered to the rules at Wikipedia:Disambiguation and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) — I've had second thoughts. Since I prefer a certain measure of harmony when editing, I won't be actively fixing any more disambiguation pages; except perhaps for the odd one here and there.)
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 00:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC)  Sorry for the rant.[reply]

It appears to look pretty good - I wouldn't say you went overboard on the number of links, there are just a lot of relevant links! They seem to be well organized. The only thing I'm not sure about is the rivers section - since Severn River is a disambiguation page, I don't know if it should stick to what is there now (linking to the disambiguation page) or if all the rivers on the Severn River disambiguation page should also be listed on this page. It seems like that might be rather redundant, but I'm not sure how linking to a disambiguation page from another disambiguation page goes over. -- Natalya 03:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Severn River dab page is a thorny issue. I suppose there would be nothing wrong with redundant entries; but there would be the problem of maintaining them on two different dab pages (and what if other "Severn Rivers" suddenly turn up — or maybe a few dry up because of global warming [!] ).
    -,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 03:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple pages with differently capitalised names

I just came across a pair of articles, Lingua franca and Lingua Franca, which are on totally different topics but have near identical titles (the latter is an obscure and apparently short-lived magazine, the former is the better-known linguistic concept). What is the general feeling on such article pairs? Is it better to leave them be (pointing to each other using dab templates) or disambiguate them in the same way as if the titles were actually identical (i.e. make a dab page or move one to a dab title, in this case Lingua Franca (magazine))?

If the general feeling is that it should be moved, then that's what I'll do, else Talk:Lingua Franca (which was redirected at the same time the parent page was moved) should be RfD'd. Hairy Dude 03:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend maintaining the current situation - there is no need for added complexity. I deleted Talk:Lingua Franca, as the redirect was incorrect--Commander Keane 05:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you didn't lose any significant edit history there... :/ I think I've since come across another example of exactly the same, but it seems to have disappeared from my history. If I find it again I'll let you know. Hairy Dude 07:40, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am careful with page histories, in this case there was only ever one edit - the erroneous redirect.--Commander Keane 09:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using parentheses to explain, rather than disambiguate and distinguish, article titles?

Did I miss some memo or policy proposal or other thing where it suddenly became OK to use parentheses to explain what an article is about even when there's no other article title that could be confused with the article in question? Am I the only one to whom this seems a little bizarre? Is there some new trend starting that will lead to nigger being moved to nigger (term), Zionist Occupation Government to Zionist Occupation Government (fictional organization)?!

I am referring to Islamofascism (term)—which Islamofascism is a mere redirect to. The page seems too embroiled in POV disputes and unreasonable extremist disagreements (e.g. "I don't think this page should be moved to Islamofascism because I think it should be deleted") to understand how absurd, arbitrarily inconsistent, and inconvenient it is to have a non-parenthesis page redirect to a parenthesis page with the same name (rather than the other way around), so I've come here hoping for some illumination and wisdom on the matter, after what a great success my last plea for clarification/aid here was (the discussion of malplaced disambig pages that led to the creation of the beautiful Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages). So, am I missing something here, or what? -Silence 22:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another example I found of this strange practice seems to be at property (ownership right), which is redirected to from property. However, the critical differnce between this and Islamofascism is that there are other articles with the name "property" that could be confused with this article, as shown by property (disambiguation), so while it's still a mistake either way, there are two ways to solve the mistake if there's a disambig page: either move property (ownership right) to property (if its noteworthy enough), or move property (disambiguation) there (in which case this is an issue of malplaced disambiguation pages). Depends on how noteworthy and central the legal meaning is vs. other possible meanings. -Silence 16:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not ideal, but until monkeys learn to type we are stuck with it. It's very hard to fix in a dynamic place like Wikipedia. Even something as simple as Malplaced dabs has 5 created every day, 7 days a week.--Commander Keane 17:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Er? I really don't understand. Why is this any more hard to fix than any other error on Wikipedia? I've only seen 3 or 4 pages that use parentheses like this in my entire time on Wikipedia, out of many, many thousands of articles. It's not in any way a rampant issue (though it could become one if we don't nip it in the bud with articles like this before the practice spreads virally!), like the malplaced disambig pages are. And my problem isn't with the manual labor of moving the pages (I can put in a Requested Move or ask an admin if I need a page moved to overwrite a redirect) so much as with responding to editors on Talk:Islamofascism (term) (and anywhere else this crops up in the future) who claim that the added parenthetical is the preferred way to handle such an article. It's at best inconsistent, at worst outright hypocritical, considering that no other article about a term feels the need to specify this with "(term)" in its title except for disambiguation purposes. -Silence 17:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it is possible to do, I'm probably still a little negative from the disgusting growth rate at Malplaced dabs. Now I'll add something constructive. Some places (for example Australian Wikipedians) has descided that all places will automatically have a term in parentheses. For example Ballarat, Cairns etc. I'm sure they have some good reasons, and won't appreciate someone changing the format. It's difficult to clean these things up if you are fighting consensus.--Commander Keane 18:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5 March 2006 #1 Help request

Am a new contributor. Am trying to disambiguate references to Crawford Castle. I wrote the article on Crawford Castle, however, there is a ship named Crawford Castle referred to in a Henry Blogg and another building named Crawford Castle in the Spetisbury article. Thanks (Lawnmowerman 03:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Repaired. See those pgs, & the crucial element of Dab'n: connecting the common name for the topics to each of them, in this case with a ToP Dab & Crawford Castle (disambiguation).
--Jerzy•t 01:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5 March 2006 #2 Help request

Someone may want to check my additions to the disabiguation page for Crawford --Lawnmowerman 03:44, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done.
--Jerzy•t 02:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Root pages

I think that this project should take note of the proposed policy on Wikipedia:Root pages. The spartan disambiguation style promulgated by MoS:DP works very well to route incoming links and searches, but discourages comprehensive treatment of ambiguous terms. Root pages are quite the opposite. --Smack (talk) 06:44, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Homonymdis

I just found some pages using this template, which seems to be rather redundant to just {{disambig}}. Or is there any use for this that I am overlooking? Kusma (討論) 12:09, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The MoS only allows one dab template: {{disambig}}. So this one should be deleted. They can use the category if they think it is useful, but I don't think it is.--Commander Keane 13:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Does this mean that all the pages with {{TLAdisambig}} or other templates should be changed to {{disambig}}? Mahanchian 22:29, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. --Commander Keane 23:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You might consider adding Category:Ambiguous three-letter acronyms though, if you think it's useful.--Commander Keane 00:49, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting dab pages

What is the process to delete dab pages? Is there any specific policy? Or is it similar to any other page? This page AAK for example has only three external links and one red link, so why should it exist? Mahanchian 22:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No special procedure exists. Wikipedia:Deletion policy applies (WP:CSD, WP:PROD, WP:AfD). However, in this case I can see a reason for the page - the articles just haven't been created yet.--Commander Keane 00:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So are you suggesting that the page should remain? MoS prescribes that external links should only be used exceptionally on dab pages therefore the external links must be removed which mean a page with only one red link will remain that I don't think will be categorised as a dab page. What's the benefits o having such a page at all? Mahanchian 18:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I probably would have written three stub articles (using the external links given) - that's why I thought the dab should remain. However, now I'm wondering if the entries are relevant. Does someone search for All About Kids via AAK? Anyhow, that was my reasoning.--Commander Keane 19:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lattice

I found Lattice on Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup. I trimmed it mercilessly to conform to MoS:DP. Then someone decided that it should be an article rather than a disambig. I raised the question on the talk page, got a couple of replies that didn't resolve anything, followed by silence. What to do? --Smack (talk) 01:54, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The page seems to be dab. See my comments on Talk:Lattice#Page_organization. Mahanchian 20:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Massive red linking on disambiguation pages of abbreviations

Is there an consensus as to deleting/keeping the incredible number of redlinked articles on disambiguation pages of abbreviations? Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup has recently recieved a lovely number of these such pages, and it would be good to know if there are any general guidelines in cases as drastic as these. I would say keep the ones that could have an article written about them as per usual, but there are so many that even then it may be hard to tell (though I'd much rather do that then leave them all in). And on AED (disambiguation) as an example (though there are many more), 25+ redlinked kings of various places? They don't seem to even belong in List of people by name, since there are no articles on them. Is it reasonable to remove all the links that are obscure people/organizations? -- Natalya 00:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Standards of notability always apply, but let's not get into a crusade against redlinks. They've acquired a stigma recently, probably because of their increasing rarity, but there's really nothing wrong with them. --Smack (talk) 04:13, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like redlinks - if the redlinked article is going to be created eventually. For these kings I'm not sure if they will be each get an article - best to ask an expert. Whether or not these kings were all known as "Aen" and should be on the dab page is also a mystery. But redlinks are useful. As in the AAK case above, two redlinks were turned into articles.--Commander Keane 06:03, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's likely enough for someone to link to a "King [[Aen]]" - in the event that anyone would mention one of them in the first place. --Smack (talk) 06:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. Unless they're absolutely non-notable, they should be good to hang out on the pages, and I'll just see about making articles for some of them. Thanks, everyone, for other perspectives! -- Natalya 11:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been repairing a few of the links to Director (a disambiguation page with a lot of links to it), but a problem I've found along the way is that for many articles I'm unsure what to repair them to. For example, Foire Brayonne is a music festival in France, and the link to director refers to the director of the festival. I can't find a suitable article to link to for this, and several others. Any suggestions? Thenugga | talk 14:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, looks like someone's created a Festival director stub - well that's one solution. Cheers for that. Thenugga | talk 15:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You might get more bites for this question at WT:DPL. --Commander Keane 18:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

enquiry about disambiguation in connection with Black Patch or Black Patch Park

Can you assist with resolving confusion between Black Patch and Black Patch park. It seems to me and others with whom i have spoken about these two articles that it would make things a lot lot more straightforward if the two were combined under the heading "Black Patch Park". I say this becasue that title is rarer and therefore less ambiguous than "Black Patch" which occurs (as you'll see if you google 'Black Patch"). Can you establish who is the main author of Black Patch so that I can suggest this? The person who is the local history expert and who i thought had written most of it is not the author (Ted Rudge) and Ted agrees with my proposal. Can you help?Sibadd 21:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since Black Patch Park and Black Patch seem to be about the same thing, I have added merge tags to both pages. The discussion about merging can continue on Black Patch Park's talk page.
Also, for the most part, on Wikipedia there is no "main author" of an article. The best place to bring up questions or suggestions about an article is on the talk page of the article, where all contributing authors can discuss it. -- Natalya 01:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Basketball (disambiguation)

Quick gathering of opinions: is there a point in basketball (disambiguation)?

The film entry is a redlink, and to be honest, I don't think it'll ever earn itself an article, at least not in the foreseeable future. "The Basketball Diaries", in my opinion, has no risk of confusion — someone that wants to find out about "The Basketball Diaries" will probably search for "The Basketball Diaries" or perhaps "Basketball Diaries"; most people if not all would be able to figure out a mere "basketball" won't get them anywhere in a search. The final entry, "BASEketball", has a different spelling and I find this unlikely to be confused with the sport.

Just wanted to see what others think. Neonumbers 12:38, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's important to keep. Although the redlinked movie is questionable (it is not even listed under the director's credits at IMDB, the other entries are valid. The Basketball Diaries maybe not, but certainly BASEketball. The spelling difference take a minute to notice, could certainly be confused when searching, and is therefore important to include in the page.
Because of the questionable existance of the redlinked movie, and the difference in title of The Basketball Diaries, I guess I could see putting a disambiguation link on Basketball linking to BASEketball, but it seems to be better as a disambiguation page. -- Natalya 17:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, thanks. I can see why BASEketball is a reasonable entry (kind of), but I maintain that the others are not — I can't be bothered changing that hatnote link, so we'll just see how things go. Neonumbers 09:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments invited on Ptolemy disambiguation page

I would be grateful for advice on issues concerning Ptolemy (disambiguation). I have summarised the editing history and centralised links for discussions at Talk:Ptolemy (disambiguation). If you have any advice or comments, please leave them there. Thanks. Carcharoth 00:39, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[Refactored and edited discussions copied here from the Help Desk and Category talk:Lists of ambiguous human names - please note I have copied these comments - apologies if this breaches any etiquette, though I think refactoring like this is OK.]

The Leonardo (disambiguation) page has a bit allowing people to see all articles starting "Leonardo", or rather to see a list of AllPages starting from Leonardo, as seen here. This is the first time I've seen this, though the Leonardo disambiguation talk page led me to Robert, which does look a bit overdone, but also has the "AllPages" link. My question is whether this is a common practice, or whether it falls foul of the "no self-reference" rule about not linking to non-article space in Wikipedia (creates problems with mirror/redistribution sites)? Carcharoth 18:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Special:Allpages link from Leonardo (disambiguation) strikes me as a self reference (which WP:ASR says to avoid) and I don't think this is common. [...] I think a good place to discuss this would be Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:27, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, the allpages list isn't usual. Bad idea. All those pages should be listed on the disambiguation page. William Allen Simpson 07:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[end quote]

So is using Special:AllPages a bad idea? It is a useful tool to find articles to put on disambig pages, but it seems lazy not to list them on the page itself. If the complaint is "there are too many", then that suggests something is wrong anyway. Carcharoth 01:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think using Allpages is bad, but using Special:Prefixindex/Leonardo etc. for first names could be useful. The Dutch nl:Sjabloon:Dp actually has this link on their version of the {{disambig}} template (which only works if the dab page is Foo, not for Foo (disambiguation)). Kusma (討論) 02:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately Special:Prefixindex/Michael doesn't really work, since the "next page" link doesn't do what it should. In that case, Special:Allpages/Michael is more useful. Kusma (討論) 02:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, Kusma, you are missing the point. No links to any form of Special Pages are acceptable. One of the reason for WP:ASR is because Wikipedia content is widely distributed under the GDFL to other websites. A good example is Answers.com. This link will hopefully show you their version of the Wikipedia disambiguation of the name Leonardo (you may need to scroll down the page): answers.com disambiguation page for Leonardo. As you can see, the "See also: List of all pages beginning with "Leonardo"" link does not work there. I doubt it works on other mirror/redistribution websites either.

Which brings me to another point. The pervasiveness of Wikipedia results on web searches should be emphasised as widely as possible to all editors of Wikipedia - maybe even in the editing boilerplate text. I fear that people who are not aware of how widely the content is redistributed will "check facts" using web pages that are just regurgitating the thing they are trying to check! A horrendous exercise in circularity. Carcharoth 02:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do understand your point and your concern, but still want to argue a bit why this idea should at least be thought about for a little while before it is dropped again: That "Special" pages don't work on mirrors is something the people who run mirrors should worry about, or that could be amended by putting these links into special CSS that makes the mirrors not use it. While a hand-made list of all people whose first name is Michael could be prettier, that list will never be up-to date. The alphabetic indices on Special:Allpages and Special:Prefixindex can be useful in some circumstances like this one, but are rather hidden from the casual user, who will probably only see them when searching for a nonexistent page. Perhaps at the very least a Special pages link should be on the talk page of disambiguation and some other pages (like first name pages), to be checked every now and then to see if more content needs to be added to the page. Kusma (討論) 03:27, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(reply to Carcharoth after edit conflict with Kusma)Then perhaps we should emphasize that any such special pages links should use Template:Selfref, then at least reusers who at least make an effort at making the content usable can simply strip out such self-references. Now whether and when links to Allpages are appropriate probably merits some discussion -- it has come up before on one of the disambiguation-related talk pages. Personally, for things like first names (like Leonardo or Robert), I think the dab page should only list persons who are commonly referred to solely by that name. However, for people who might want to browse all the articles beginning with "Robert", a link to Allpages allows that (we really can't expect novice users to know about Allpages--and it is not so unreasonable to think that a disambiguation page for "Robert" might direct one to such a tool).
Similarly, there are some terms that can be used as adjectives which are not commonly known solely by the term (only in a combined form). A link to Allpages is a way to forestall those who want to list all those numerous terms that don't really belong on the dab page and which are dynamic (but again it is not so unreasonable to think that a disambiguation page for the term might direct you to such a tool).
If we envelop such links within the Selfref template, for example, {{Selfref|[[Special:Allpages/Leonardo|List of all pages beginning with "Leonardo"]]}} which renders as
List of all pages beginning with "Leonardo"
, I don't think there should be too much concern about self-references. Responsible re-users will be able to easily remove such references. older ≠ wiser 03:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with what both Bkonrad and Kusma say here. Didn't know about the Selfref template. Does that also apply to linking to category pages from an article, or is that allowed now? (ie. Are categories supported by all reusers?) Carcharoth 03:42, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Numberdis}} and Category:Lists of ambiguous numbers

The template and the category title read like they should be used for "ambiguous numbers". I think that means only 666 (disambiguation) or 2600 and similar pages. However, the category currently mostly consists of disambiguation pages whose title starts with a number. I fail to see how any of

qualify as "number-oriented articles". These articles do fit the category description, though: "This category consists of titles that begin with numbers." So should we amend the template, or recategorize some of the articles? Kusma (討論) 22:35, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for inviting me over here, Kusma. I'm not sure this is the best place to discuss, as it seem a style issue, but I agree the template language needs to be updated. (Reminder, I can point to several places where I asked what are we going to do about numberdis.) How about matching {{geodis}}:

This page of titles that begin with numbers is a disambiguation page....

--William Allen Simpson 23:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That indeed describes the current use of the template, and would be a better description. I just don't quite understand why this template makes sense. I mean, how is this really different from {{diacriticdis}}:
This article containing a diacritic in its title is a disambiguation page...
or maybe {{LetterAdis}}:
This article whose title starts with the letter A is a disambiguation page...
I think I would prefer to see the scope of this category narrowed. If 2001: A Space Odyssey belongs in any category, it should be something like Category:Titles used for more than one work or something like that. As I am trying to point out with my silly examples above, the connection to "numbers" is quite arbitrary. Kusma (討論) 23:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The long-existing category was recently renamed (to conform to policy) after a CfD that chose to keep these numerical lists in a separate category. In fact, there was only a single delete vote (unsurprisingly, Tedernst). Arguing about the wording of the template, sure I'll help with that. But the template should match the contents of the category as clearly as possible.
Meanwhile, let's ponder the wording for a few days, and see whether there are better suggestions.
--William Allen Simpson 00:30, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see. I hadn't followed the categorization of disambiguation pages, and hadn't read Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 March 16. Maybe rescoping this shouldn't be done right now, then, so let's just keep this category and template for now and only edit the explanation. How about this?
This article about topics that share the same name and start with a number is a disambiguation page...
--Kusma (討論) 00:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dab'g suffixes for Bios

I'm pretty sure i recall at least a discussion (possibly a guideline) regarding putting a year (or vital stats or range of reign) in paren as the Dab'g suffix on an ambig name. IIRC the practice was at least denounced and not defended. But i haven't found again anything about it. Help!
--Jerzy•t 16:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, my use of a variation on that (see The boxers Davey Moore and Davey Moore) when i broke up a joint bio, seems to have gone unchallenged for going on a year; it continues to strike me as a rare (and perhaps enlightening) exception to the rule that there is virtually always something better than dates to distinguish people. IMO, this case justifies it bcz the time periods are more likely to be both recalled and clear (for any but serious fans) than anything else (like weight class or form of trauma ("(beaten)" vs "(crushed)"?). Comments welcome.
--Jerzy•t 16:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm posting my three (initial) 'graphs for this section at both Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Dab'g suffixes for Bios and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Dab'g suffixes for Bios. If someone comments, it would probably be good if the first one would also put a note at the top of the section at the other location, urging that the responses be centralized. (Also good:

*put a note after this 'graph, on the same page that has your response, saying "done as to Moores" or "done as to years in general"
*indicate on the non-centralizing page which of the two topics has/have drawn responses.)

--Jerzy•t 16:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does this count as a disambiguation page?

Does rationing count as a disambiguation page? If not, is there a suitable category to put it in as an article that gives an overview of the use of a term in many different subject areas? Carcharoth 13:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It looks suspiciously like a multi-stub page to me... -- Natalya 16:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Help Request for Marcus Claudius Marcellus

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for a help request, so I apologize if I'm out of place. Regardless, I have discovered there is a need for a disambiguation page for Marcus Claudius Marcellus. If you follow the link, the details are in the discussion page. Thank you for your time.--ScottieB 00:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It turns out only disambiguation links were needed, and it has been taken care of. :) -- Natalya 02:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WTF? Still needs cleanup?

I came across WTF and it didn't seem to still need cleanup, but I have little expierence in this area, so I thought I'd ask here. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

If you take a look at the Manual of Style for Disambiguation Pages, you'll probably notice that WTF is substantially different that what disambiguation pages are supposed to look like. It's not *all* that bad, but mainly the problems are the long descriptions for each article. It makes it a big harder because What the fuck redirects to WTF, though there is no appropriate article. I'd suggest moving the "What the fuck" information to a separate article, but what do other people think? -- Natalya 01:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's enough here for at least one split, but I'm too prudish to do it myself. Also, several of the entries are unencyclopedic and need to be eliminated altogether. --Smack (talk) 01:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bosnia

Disambiguating links to Bosnia (disambiguation) is pretty difficult, because it's hard to tell which ones should point to Bosnia and Hercegovina, and which to plain old Bosnia. What should we do about this tough case? --Smack (talk) 03:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help on dab for Sths

As a newbie, I thought I should ask for help on this: Sths currently redirects to Santa Teresa High School. However, the abbreviation is also used by Sydney technical high school. Can the redirect be removed, or changed into a disambiguation page with links to both pages? TIA Winterelf 03:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had a go at this myself. Actually, I redirected Sths to STHS, and put the disambig page there. You're welcome to check. Many thanks. Winterelf 10:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on minor change to text of WP:D

On Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Primary topic links, I'm proposing to remove some confusing (and apparently often ignored) sentences from the guideline. Any comments are welcome. If there are no objections, I will remove the sentences after a week or so. older ≠ wiser 14:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Input requested at Democracy (disambiguation)

I'm starting to tidy up the Democracy (disambiguation), and would appreciate some input. I've removed some links such as First Party System, but they are being defended as articles people interested in democracy need "disambiguated". This seems (to me) to clearly be what a disambiguation page is not, but some other views would be appreciated. The discussion thread is at Talk:Democracy (disambiguation)#Weeding_the_links- David Oberst 16:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lisa Tucker

I was going to create a new article about the writer Lisa Tucker (well-known novelist of young adult literature), but the Lisa Tucker currently on Wikipedia is the American Idol contestant/singer. First thought was- make Lisa Tucker (disambiguation) and use the singer as the main Lisa Tucker. On second thought, they both seem to share equal, average, notability on Google search result pages. In fact, the writer Lisa Tucker has more news that override the singer Lisa Tucker (whom, the only news the singer has is when American Idol or Star Search is referenced.) What should be done? Should the current Lisa Tucker be moved to Lisa Tucker (singer)? Or should a new page, Lisa Tucker (disambiguation) be created? User:Arual 20:40, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Since it doesn't seem like there is any obvious primary topic, it seems most appropriate to have the disambiguation page be at Lisa Tucker, move the current article there to Lisa Tucker (singer), and create the article you want to create at Lisa Tucker (author). -- Natalya 22:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

McQueen (thunderbolt)

This is an embarrassing example of "We forgot!"...

It's something called "McQueen". In light of recent movies, what does that mean...

Lightning McQueen.

And somebody forgot to put it at McQueen (a disambiguation page).

I did it because:

Imagine. Somebody is looking for the Lightning McQueen article, and they just type "McQueen". The disambig that comes from there did not have Lightning McQueen, thus being a dead-end to the search. The article Lightning McQueen existed, but it now is also linked from the aforementioned disambiguation page. -Tracker <small>([[User talk:TrackerTV|>talk)</small>]] 02:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

new disambiguation subcategories

In case you don't have Category:Disambiguation on your watchlist, there's some discussion at Category talk:Disambiguation#Secondary disambiguations of some new subcategories which may be of interest (or concern). older ≠ wiser 22:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When to use disambig-cleanup?

I looked through the talk archives and couldn't find the answer. Do we use {{disambig-cleanup}} for pages with style problems only, or do we also use it for pages that (pretty much) follow MoS:DP but are missing content. For example, see Orlando. --Usgnus 07:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Grass

Anyone else want to comment at Talk:Grass? --Usgnus 15:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Georgetown

I seem to be getting into an edit war over whether universities should be listed above capital cities at Georgetown. Any advice from those more experienced? Also look at the talk:Georgetown talk page for a related issue. Thanks. --Scott Davis Talk 23:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not worth fighting over. As long as it stays a dab page, and people can find the place names easily, leave it be. Besides, universities are often referred to without the "university": Harvard, Oxford, McGill, Johns Hopkins, etc. --Usgnus 00:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no doubt that in context, "Georgetown" means Georgetown University. I'm not sure whether that's true when the context is "Encyclopaedia", but I'll accept the advice "not worth fighting over" for now. Checking the examples:
  • Harvard redirects to Harvard University, but none of the "cities" named Harvard have a population as big as the student body at the university or any sort of capital status. A number of the places named Georgetown are larger than the university — two have 250,000 people.
  • Oxford is a city, and mentions Oxford University in the lead paragraph. Oxford (disambiguation) lists places before education.
  • McGill redirects to McGill (disambiguation) which lists the university first, but it's bigger than the town.
  • Johns Hopkins is a person. His article has dab links to a university and a hospital which are also both in the opening paragraph. Incidentally, I'd never heard of the university, but had heard of the hospital.
--Scott Davis Talk 00:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A term that needs disambiguation...and advice

OK. I'm not sure who I should talk to about this, but I think there should be a disambiguation page for the phrase "Romana". It should definitely include the two most obvious choices: Pax Romana and Romana, the companion of The Doctor. But where do I stop? Should I include La Romana province? Romana d'Annunzio? Pedro Caro y Sureda, Marquis of La Romana? Any advice? 74.226.201.126 19:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead. Be bold. I think it should obviously include Romana, Pax Romana, La Romana and Romana d'Annunzio. --Zoz (t) 22:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. You probably don't need the redlink to the Marquid os La Romana, since La Romana would be included anyway. Let us know if you need any help. -- Natalya 23:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As an anon they can't start a new page, so I created the page for them. --Zoz (t) 01:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

separate dab from disease

It's a bit above me to do, but the disambiguation page for amelia is meshed in with amelia the disease. Could someone extricate it & add a link to Amelia (novel)?--Ibis3 13:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. --Interiot 14:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks so much. It looks much less confusing now. --Ibis3 17:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked through the disambigutation policy and didn't find anything that really addressed this question: should the relative important of the pages to potentially be disambiguated matter? The two pages in question are scope creep and scope creep (relationships) Antonrojo 16:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just realized the article had been deleted making this an academic question. Antonrojo 17:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, it does matter, because you will have to decide if there is a primary topic or not. For information primary topics, you can take a look at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary_topic and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Linking_to_a_primary_topic. -- Natalya 17:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Disambig engine feature. Please READ!

Hi, I just made available a new mediawiki engine feature: From now on, the MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage page is a regular wiki page with the list of all disambibuation templates. It should have a short description, plus links pointing to all templates used for disambiguation. The page may be in any format, and contain any number of links, but only links to the Template: namespace will be treated as disambiguation templates.

Once you change it, the Special:Disambiguations will start showing all the pages linking to disambiguation pages, thus allowing users to correct links - and point them to the specific topics. That list gets regenerated every week (might be more often - need to check with admins).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. --Yurik 19:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. The page Wikipedia:Disambiguation Templates is no longer needed, as it contains the same information. --Yurik 19:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Collaborative disambiguation at Power Point

Hello, I am TrackerTV from WP:PCP. We need to collaborate with you on the new disambiguation Power Point. Please talk with us at WT:PCP. Tracker/TTV (myTalk|myWork|myInbox) 20:21, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has actually now been moved here because it was getting off-topic at the original talk page. The problem is essentially the varied pages you get sent to via Powerpoint/Powerpoints, Power point/Power points, PowerPoint/PowerPoints, and Power Point/Power Points. The talk page has more detailed info. -Zappernapper 18:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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