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I am revising a technical subject, which has become fragmented in Wikipedia and needs consolidation into a single primary topic - or so I believe (I don’t have disambiguation experience). To give a false example for illustration purposes, let us say there is an article about Oranges but not Mandarins, Tangerines or varieties of orange fruit in general (which is not true of the illustration). To allow a coarser granularity of definition, would I create a primary topic called Orange varieties, with redirects from Mandarins, Tangerines etc.? What is best practice on categories when you want to group topics back to a common root?Geneus01 (talk) 18:14, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
It isn't entirely clear what you are looking for, but going by your analogy... I'd suggest doing what we do there. That is the Mandarin orange and Tangerine pages both state that they are varieties of Orange (fruit) in their first paragraph. You can also add various shared categories to the pages to group them that way. If you are looking to have only one page then yes, you'd generally want that to cover the 'high level' topic with redirects from sub-topics to the page or sections of the page covering those specific sub-topics. Actual disambiguation pages are used in cases where multiple things have similar names (e.g. Orange)... not to organize things which are conceptually related to each other. --CBD20:00, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks @CBDunkerson: - I think you got my main thrust - it is one page, so I will do as you suggest - use redirects and qualify the terms commonly used to signify the sub-topics upfront in the lead section. Thanks for the steer.Geneus01 (talk) 07:24, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Does "The" at the start of a title distinguish sufficiently for primary topic identification?
Full disclosure: I started the RM listed below at which a key issue is whether we should consider WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "The Foo" separately from the primary topic for "Foo".
It depends on what is at "Foo" or other topics might use "The Foo". I'd say if its a generic class at "Foo" then "Foo" doesn't have a claim for "The Foo" but other topics might for example Island doesn't have a claim for The Island but Isle of Wight may. Many topics like Isle of Bute are prefixed with "the" as an independent modifier but per WP:THE aren't part of the name and readers aren't likely to type The Isle of Bute when searching for that article and if there is media which does include "The" as part of the name often it can be put there with a hatnote such as Battle of Maldon v The Battle of Maldon though there is The Hebrides (overture) and The Hebrides goes to Hebrides. Compare The Netherlands with The United States, in the 1st case its quite plausible readers will expect "The" to be part of the name (especially since The Bahamas does have it) but this is less likely with the 2nd. The pageviews seem to weakly support this with United States having 1,016,052 views and Netherlands having 274,736 but The Netherlands/The netherlands having 2,476 views but The United States/The united states 757[[1]] meaning with the Netherlands the article redirects get around 1 in 111 of the traffic while the United States article redirects only get 1 in 1342. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:01, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
It can, per point #1 at WP:THE. But whether "The X" has a primary topic, and whether it's different from or the same as the ptopic for "X" will depend on the circumstances (i.e. the usual calculus around the distribution of intended destinations for users searching for "The X"). Colin M (talk) 17:39, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
It depends on the circumstances. In some cases "The Foo" may be a primary topic separate from "Foo"; in others "The Foo" may reasonably refer to "Foo" rather than being a separate primary. I don't think it always needs to be one way or the other; discussion and flexibility tend to produce the most sensible results. ╠╣uw[talk]11:46, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
No, not as stated. Readers are not expected to be familiar with WP:THE, and the risk of astonishment is too great. However, the starting “The ” creates the possibility of DIFFCAPS where the second word capitalisation makes the difference. The PRIMARY MEANING of Blacklist and blacklist is blacklisting. The Blacklist looks like a composition title and so is not to be expected to be the generic blacklisting. The blacklist is ambiguous and is to be expected to be the generic concept of the blacklist. And this is not even allowing much for many readers whose first language does not use definite articles (see here). —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:01, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
It can. While readers might not know the minutiae of our policies, common sense says someone looking for The Blacklist is most likely looking for the television show while someone looking up for the generic term blacklist would not include "the" in their search. This might not be applicable in all instances. -- Vaulter00:31, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
Agreed (with Leschnei). @Certes: It's the film which needs to be moved to the basic title (and that move can't be done simply, I just tried) and the dab isn't needed at all. I have added a hatnote to direct interested readers to the single. The book mentioned at Where the Wind Blows (disambiguation) is not notable and by a non-notable author (it isn't a valid dab page entry) so need not concern us until an article for either Caroline Fyffe or Where the Wind Blows (book) is created. I have put in a "Revert undiscussed move" request. I wonder whether @Dmoyes:@Dbmoyes: misread titles and merged "Where" with "When" when asserting that "There are existing works with the title"? Easily done. (Signing again after correcting misspelled ping, sorry!)PamD14:13, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
There are multiple books that have the name "Where the wind blows" that predate this unreleased film by many a nearly a decade, so this is justified to avoid confusion over the existing titles and this film title.
Where the Wind Blows, ISBN-10: 1612187129 (2012)
Where the Wind Blows (Sailing Adventures), ISBN-10: 0984735623 (2013)
True, they aren't best sellers, but they still do predate this title, and I wanted to resolve an issue with over-zealous search engines matching unrelated pages. Adding (Film) tag to the end of the tile would also resolve this.
I don't see how an unreleased film is anymore noteworthy than published books (or, rather, a published book that people can read now, is any less noteworthy than a movie that has never made it to the screen), so perhaps the page should be removed altogether until the film actually is released? There are numerous unreleased films in existence that, for whatever reason, never made it to the screen, or ended up being direct to video. Dbmoyes (talk) 05:07, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
Because the film is the Primary Topic, and is the only article or subject by that title. We can't have articles on the other subjects if no one has bothered to write them yet, assuming they are notable topics. In addition, Wikipedia articles are not pre-disambiguated, so until those art are written, there is nothing to disambiguate. (Off-wiki search engines aren't our concern, as we have no control over them.) Also, once filming has begun, films are generally considered suitable for an article if notable, and even an never-released film can be meet Wikipedia's notability requirements. BilCat (talk) 05:54, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
Oops, my bad. I swapped the pages and redirected the one I created, things should be good now. That said, if the book series turns out to be non-notable a disambiguation page is not required and should likely be deleted. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 13:27, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
There is some vandalism at the very start of this guideline "can aka bp". I can't see where this is coming from / how to remove it. Is it from one of the templates? Polyamorph (talk) 08:48, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Pure disambiguation pages should contain interlanguage links only where a similar problem of disambiguation exists in the target language; that is, they should refer to another disambiguation page, not to one of the many meanings from the list.
I'm planning to rename this section to Language sidebar links and rewrite it to:
A disambiguation page on the English Wikipedia should be connected to the corresponding disambiguation pages in other-language Wikipedias. These will then appear in the left sidebar (see Help:Interlanguage links § Links in the sidebar). Such links are normally handled at Wikidata, which has guidelines for appropriate linking.
This is to clarify and elaborate the point, whilst avoiding confusion with the question of the use of interlanguage links within dab entries. The latter point is covered further up the same page at WP:DABSISTER. I had made this exact proposal in November 2020: Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 53#Language sidebar links, where it received broad support. There was also some opposition based on the observation that this guideline had come to be commonly (mis)construed as applying to interlanguage links within entries. That latter point was settled in a subsequent RfC, so I don't see anything standing in the way of adopting this proposed rewording any more.
Still, any further proposed changes to this text? Should it within the "Links" section, or is there a more appropriate place for it? – Uanfala (talk) 12:30, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
A minor and tangential point: there are proposals to hide the language links behind a button, possibly top right, so they may not remain in the left sidebar. Certes (talk) 13:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Oh yes, we don't want to choose a wording that's going to quickly become obsolete. How about using "sitelinks" (which, if I recall correctly, is the obscure term of art on Wikidata), or "Linking to disambiguation pages in other languages" (awfully long, but clear)? – Uanfala (talk) 14:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
I cleaned up *** and wanted to add {{in title}} for the many partial title matches, but the search doesn't work. The resulting link correctly reads "All pages with titles containing *** ", and clicking on the link goes to the correct search page with the search filled in, but the search results are blank (shown here. Is there a way to get around this? Leschnei (talk) 13:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
I guess the partial title matches are mostly redirects to expletives. Maybe an in-title search on this page isn't necessary. Leschnei (talk) 13:46, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Since * is a special wild card character it requires special treatment. Try using intitle:/\*\*\*/ -- the \* escapes the wild card and the enclosing / / tells search to treat as regex. older ≠ wiser14:03, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
{{in title}} adds quotes, so Foo bar (disambiguation) can search for "Foo bar" rather than Foo and/or bar. Of course, "/.../" is a quoted string rather than a regex. Certes (talk) 14:32, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
On dab pages for human names, is there a preference for redirecting all forms of a first name (ex: Jim/Jimmy/Jimy/Jimbo/etc. Smith) to the given name (ex: James Smith), or one page for each? I suppose length matters, as well. Is this spelled out somewhere? I dug thru but could not find specifically what I was looking for. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 12:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
I don't know if there's a specific guideline. There's certainly no consistency: Chris Miller contains some Christopher's and Christopher Hill some Chris's; names at the opposite ends of the alphabet (Bill/William, Bob/Robert) often share a page; and some people's birth name is actually a familiar form of a given name. If there's a WP:TOPIC, the name of the DAB page often aligns with that; but there are cases where people with both long and short forms independently have PTOPIC status. For added confusion, there are cases like Jimi Hendrix (full name James Marshall Hendrix but birth name Johnny Allen Hendrix); the many variant spellings of Muhammad (name) and Mahmud (19 between them); and variant transliterations (e.g. Cyrillic Алексей, see Alexey). IMO the commonsense approach is best: keep all related names on one page unless it gets too big to navigate comfortably, usually under the commonest form (e.g. Chris Clements), and redirect variants to it (tagged {{R from ambiguous term}}, plus {{printworthy}} and DEFAULTSORT if the variant name might not be obvious to everyone (e.g. the two pairs I mentioned above)). Narky Blert (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
I'd make a separate page if there are enough items. For example, if a reader knows they're looking for a Jim Jones, why should they have to wade through a bunch of James Joneses to find him? See also's from one to the other get readers where they need to if they are not exactly correct on the common name.—Bagumba (talk) 08:54, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
That was what kind of brought me here: sometimes it was awkward to wade thru a James page for Jimmy, other times it was crazy to have a separate page for 2 Jimmy's. I was hoping to find something that said "10 or more people with a diminutive name (Jimmy) get their own dab page, less than 10 should be on the root name page (James)." I would think if there is a root name page with several nicknames that are 10 or less then they would have their own section header on the root name's page, rather than mixed in with each other (for both readability & dab purposes). Common sense is great, but inconsistent. Would it make sense to codify this situation? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 15:00, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
I tend to err on the side of the reader that knows what they are looking for. So if there were say 3 Jimmy's and 10 Jim's, I'd make a separate Jimmy dab, but maybe not if their are 3 Jimmy's and only 3 Jim's. At some point, non-techies will say it's too prescriptive, and it falls back to "common sense".—Bagumba (talk) 15:33, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
This is a good example. John Williams (dab), Johnnie Williams & Johnny Williams all redirect here. I believe there are 201(!) entries on this page. Confusingly, there are also dab pages for John A., B., C., D., E., F., G., H., J., L., M., P., R. & T. Williams. To me, looking for a John Williams, this page makes me give up. Can this one be streamlined? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 20:20, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
We should trust that the reader knows what they want. If they're looking for Johnny Williams don't make them dig through 200 John Williams to find what they're looking for.
One of the three goals of disambiguation is to help the reader find what they're looking for quickly and easily. Combining different forms of a name on one disambiguation page makes it harder. Let's remove the guidance that suggests combining names on one disambiguation page.--Jahalive (talk) 19:16, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
I think the existing guidance – A single disambiguation page may be used to disambiguate a number of similar terms – is appropriate. Combining disambiguation pages for variant forms of names is desirable where the resulting disambiguation page is relatively short (for example, where there's only a half dozen articles altogether).
Obviously that's different in the case of the John Williams disambiguation page (on which I've done significant work recently). A separate disambiguation page for Johnny/Johnnie Williams (likely both combined) would probably be desirable for the same reason that we have separate disambiguation pages for middle initials (e.g., John H. Williams): it allows readers to bypass the 200-entry disambiguation page to quickly find the article they're looking for. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:36, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
I don't want to remove the guidance you quoted above. Why is it desirable to combine disambiguation pages for variant forms of names?--Jahalive (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
The very nature of variant forms is that a person whose legal or formal name may be "John Williams", but they will be called a familiar form of that name in certain circumstances. For example, Johnny Williams (drummer) was legally "John Francis Williams", and legal documents about him are fairly likely to be under his legal name. BD2412T23:12, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
And you must also remember that people may not know (a) the individual's middle initial or middle name, even if they are most commonly known using it, or (b) what parenthetical disambiguator we have assigned to someone just commonly known as John Williams (or whatever). That's why arranging people within occupational groups chronologically (something that has not been followed on that page) rather than alphabetically using middle initial/name or disambiguator is always a good idea. At least the reader may have an idea of what general occupation they followed and when they were alive. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:17, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
That's a good reason to include a person who is known by a variant form on the disambiguation page of their legal name, but why is it desirable to combine disambiguation pages so the disambiguation page for the variant form doesn't exist?--Jahalive (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Since there doesn't seem to be any reason to combine the variant forms of names into a single page we should remove the 4th point of Combining terms on disambiguation pages. Should we add anything in its place to explain including a person who is known by a variant form on the disambiguation page of their legal name?--Jahalive (talk) 20:39, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
This doesn't seem to have got much attention, so to avoid surprising folks I'll start a new section about the proposed change below.--Jahalive (talk) 07:05, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
Continuing from the discussion above (#Diminutive names, nicknames, etc.), the advice on combining variant forms of names in a single disambiguation page (point 4 of WP:DABCOMBINE) should be removed. Combining different forms of a name on one disambiguation page makes it harder for readers to find what they are looking for. The examples in the discussion above demonstrate this.
I don't agree that combining similar names makes it harder for readers to find what they're looking for. I listen to a lot of audio books and radio and often want to look up a name I've heard mentioned. I've often no idea whether the name is spelled Frederic or Frederick for example. I think difficulty in use is more a matter of scale. Common names such as John Williams (disambiguation) are always going to present a challenge no matter how organized or split. older ≠ wiser00:51, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
That is a reasonable argument for combining variants that are pronounced the same way, but including Frederic and Frederick in the See also sections of those variants could be better in some circumstances. We should not be making it more difficult for readers to find what they are looking for, no matter the scale.--Jahalive (talk) 16:36, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
Sometimes people are referred to by different forms of the same name -- since an article can only have one title, the choice is sometimes made arbitrarily. I think splitting similar names to different pages can easily result in making it more difficult for readers to find what they are looking for. older ≠ wiser21:36, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree splitting sound-alike forms to different pages could make it a little more difficult for readers to find what they are looking for if they don't know which spelling they are looking for. Are there other cases? It would be far easier to find a particular Johnny Williams if they had their own disambiguation page rather than being combined with all the John Williams.
From reading about the Bluelink patrol I think I understand what you mean by "hidden disambiguation": A link to a general article (possibly a WP:Set index article) that should be piped to a more specific article. Is that what it means?--Jahalive (talk) 23:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Many hidden disambiguations are SIAs but others are specific articles on a different topic. For example, links intended for Acre (state) in Brazil or the city of Acre, Israel are often written simply as Acre, not realising that the linked article is about a unit of land area. Certes (talk) 23:19, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
DABRELATED
In the Wikipedia:Disambiguation#What_not_to_include section, everything in the section reads as things we shouldn't include in their titles e.g. Long descriptions, Dictionary definitions, Partial title matches, Lists of names, Abbreviations, initials and acronyms, Sister projects, References, and External links, but when it comes to WP:DABRELATED it reads as if we shouldn't be including related things in the title, but the body is clear we shouldn't include unrelated things. Clearly, the title of that section should be Unrelated subjects to match the list of titles in that section describing things not to include. Huggums537 (talk) 05:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes, it seems inconsistent that WP:DABRELATED, which discusses what should be included, is a subsection of what not to include. Perhaps merge DABRELATED into WP:DABSTYLE, where handling of similarly titles links are covered.—Bagumba (talk) 08:28, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
The problem is with the section heading itself: why is it titled "What not to include" when almost every subsection also enumerates things that can be included. Maybe rename it to "Specific entry types" or something of that sort? – Uanfala (talk) 11:36, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Actually, this is kind of close to what I was saying the problem is, but not quite. The main section heading, and all of the subsection titles are correct since ones like WP:PARTIAL talk about what should not be includedA disambiguation page is not a search index. A link to an article title that merely contains part of the disambiguation page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion between them, is considered a partial title match, and should not be included. and most others such as DABREF are pretty clear about not including references or external links. The one subtitle that stood out to me that seemed to be named incorrectly was the one for DABRELATED because that subsection is really telling us in so many words to leave out unrelated "terms", so why is the title suggesting we leave out "Related subjects"? Now that I'm thinking about it more, I think an even better title for that section than the one I suggested at first - Unrelated subjects, would be better suited for that section as Unrelated terms since it isn't even talking about subjects, but "terms". Huggums537 (talk) 23:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Adding a link to a page while it is listed at Afd
Any thoughts about adding or modifying a list entry in order to add a link to an article that is up for deletion at Afd? In this edit at Female (disambiguation), Tazuco (talk·contribs) made a good faith modification to an existing entry to add a link to newly created article Female (gender), which has an active deletion discussion going on. I wasn't sure whether to revert, so I left the link there (although I unpiped it and removed a second blue link).
How would you handle this situation? I think if the dab page entry was already there and the Afd was created later, I'd leave the dab page alone until the Afd was closed, and then act accordingly. If the Afd was first, I think I'd discourage adding a new link in the DAB page to a page up for deletion while the discussion was still going on (typically a week), perhaps via another bullet in § Usage guidelines. Thoughts? Mathglot (talk) 19:13, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
My thought is that if the article in question is eventually deleted, a bot will remove the link automatically, that's why a temporary link would be okay. — Tazuco✉️19:22, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with adding a link; otherwise no one may remember to add it later if the AFD ends as keep. As Tazuco said, removal of the link will occur if the article is deleted. MB19:29, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. If I'm reading this right, we don't need to add anything to usage guidelines, then. Mathglot (talk) 19:39, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
An article shouldn't be unlinked from a dab page just because it's being discussed at AfD: both for operational reasons (as noted above) and for principled ones (as long as an article exists, we're expected to provide navigation for it). Of course, I wouldn't rush to add an entry if the AfD seems likely to result in deletion. Uanfala (talk) 22:33, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
Definition of a dab page
A disambiguation page is defined at WP:DPAGE as a non-article page that lists and links to encyclopedia articles covering topics that could have had the same title.. It's the second part that I would like to draw attention to: that could have had the same title.
The context I have in mind here is the widespread misconception that dabs should only list terms that appear in an article's title: in its various forms it's common especially, though not exclusively, among new editors and is the reason behind many disruptive dab edits and almost all inappropriate G14 deletions I've seen.
Now, that bit in the guidelines doesn't imply this fallacy, but it certainly encourages thinking along those lines. It is also factually incorrect. First, because the topics being listed on a dab page don't need to have articles of their own (WP:DABMENTION): for example, the dab page Plus has an entry for the plus sign, which is a subtopic of Plus and minus signs – that article could obviously not have had the title "Plus sign". Second, even where a 1:1 correspondence obtains between the topic of interest and an article, that topic can be known under different names, and many of them (though eligible for inclusion in dabs) would be clearly ruled out as possible article titles. For example, Holland (disambiguation) has an entry for the Netherlands and so does America (disambiguation) list the US, though obviously Netherlands could never have had the title "Holland", nor could the article United States possibly have been named "America".
We need a definition that better captures what dab pages actually list and link to: not necessarily articles per se, certainly not article titles, but encyclopedic topics with coverage on Wikipedia. That sort of definition is already provided at the very top of the page, where an example is given of Mercury, a non-article page which lists various meanings of "Mercury" and which links to the articles that cover them. – Uanfala (talk)14:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
It seems true that the topiccould have had the same title. Although we don't have a whole article about it, the plus sign is a topic which might have been called simply "Plus" in the absence of competing topics. Indeed, Plus sign is a redirect to Plus and minus signs#Plus sign, and the idea of splitting that section off as a separate article is not completely ridiculous. Certes (talk) 16:43, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
But that's another of the oddities of the existing text: what does it mean for a topic to have a title? Topics don't have titles, articles do. – Uanfala (talk)17:02, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps "name" would be a better word than "title". "Plus" is an ambiguous name shared by the plus sign and other topics. A dab covers one name, or a small group of similar names; it lists topics which share that name (in real life, though not necessarily in Wikipedia article titles) and have at least a DABMENTION. Certes (talk) 17:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
I don't have much of a problem with the definition. But a disambiguation page is really an index of articles, and fundamentally not "encyclopedic topics with coverage on Wikipedia": there are plenty of other ways of doing that – an outline, or an SIA, or a list, or an article. The WP:INTDAB process is not required for such articles that list coverage of an encylopedic topic. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 18:25, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
The earlier text read A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various meanings of a term and links to the articles that cover them., and the bit about "the same title" was added byJHunterJ in 2017 with summary not meanings of terms, but articles that could have collided on the title. I did not find a connection between this edit and any discussion of the time, so JHunterJ can provide context. Jay(talk)13:05, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
The earlier text turns out to have been added only a few hours before JHunterJ's change [3][4]. So, this particular wording doesn't have the weight of prior consensus, but in its meaning it matches the definition of a dab page provided at the top of the guidelines (around the Mercury example), which appears to have been around for much longer. – Uanfala (talk) 12:00, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
We perhaps need to emphasise that a dab page can include terms which would otherwise be redirects, eg if we have an article Jemima Jane Foo and one for Jemima Mary Foo then either one of them, on its own, would have a redirect from Jemima Foo, but as it this ambiguous a dab page, or dab page entries, is/are needed. Some editors try to delete dab pages on the basis that none of the entries is the title of an article. PamD18:59, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
I don't agree with the text added/restored by Uanfala. Dab pages are emphatically NOT a list of meanings. Some edits may be needed to clarify that entries that do not have a stand-alone article titled with the ambiguous term are acceptable, but we don't want to imply that non-article definitions are valid. older ≠ wiser13:38, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
I think the changes generally go in the right direction. Dabs do listing meanings rather than articles. However, we should state right at the start that only meanings with articles or described in Wikipedia are to be listed. This requirement for coverage in articles is implied several times later in the paragraph, but needs to be explicit and up front. Certes (talk) 13:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
The version that I restored, and that older≠wiser just reverted was (emphasis added):
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various meanings of a term and links to the articles that cover them. The purpose of disambiguation is allowing navigation to the article which describes the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on identifying the meaning of each term
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various existing articles with content that describes the ambiguous topics. The purpose of disambiguation pages is allowing navigation to the article on the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on getting the reader to their desired article.
Your formulation has a conjunction which can be read as implying that both types of entries are acceptable. Your last sentence strengthens the interpretation that entries with non-article meanings are OK. older ≠ wiser14:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
I thought it was clear from the discussion above that "articles" is off the table. As for the potentially ambiguous conjunction, that can be remedied. How about a non-article page that lists the various meanings of a term as covered in Wikipedia articles? – Uanfala (talk) 14:22, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
No, I really do not agree with reframing as meanings. This is going to open a major can of worms. I had not been following this discussion before and honestly I don't really see such a big issue with the previous phrasing. older ≠ wiser14:32, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
@Certes, at risk of going deep into weeds, many, perhaps most, disambiguation entries are not strictly meanings in the sense that they might be found in a dictionary. Rather, in most cases, the entries are specific things of some sort (whether something tangible or more abstract). A song or a film are not strictly speaking meanings. older ≠ wiser14:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
But these are all meanings. Meanings aren't just abstract concepts, they can be concrete denotations, the Beatles song is one of the meanings of the expression Yellow Submarine. Reference (as in "Foo may refer to..") is an aspect of meaning. Or is there a way to choose a word other than "meaning" that won't lead to confusion? – Uanfala (talk) 14:22, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Would "uses" help? We already use "For other uses" in hatnotes pointing to dab pages. PamD14:25, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Sounds good. How about A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various uses of a term, where each use is accompanied by a link to the Wikipedia article that covers it? – Uanfala (talk) 14:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
I don't see a big difference in the two proposed last sentences, but I think we should just drop them: they're about what sort of information is to be included (say, what to mention in the descriptions) and that's a matter for MOS:DAB that doesn't really belong with the definition of a dab page. – Uanfala (talk) 14:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Can we get some uninvolved eyeballs on Female (disambiguation)? There seems to be some edit warring or thrashing going on there, which looks to me like spillover from a lively and long recent Afd on 'Female (gender)', which in turn has roots in years-long simmering controversies at Female, Woman, Gender, Gender identity, and elsewhere. I'd hate to see that strife extended to disambiguation pages as well, but that's what it looks like is happening to me. If someone could take a calm, cold look at it, and bring it into line with WP:DABSTYLE and other guideline provisions, ignoring all the background noise from those other articles, that would be appreciated. Maybe if a few people could add this to your watchlist as well, that might help going forward. Thanks in advance, Mathglot (talk) 20:07, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Primary topics and usage
Background
quick summary: the current guidelines need clarification; skip to the next section for the actual questions being asked.
The guidelines at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC define a primary topic with respect to usage as one that is the most likely be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. For a very long time, that usage was commonly determined via the pageviews, and to a lesser extent from web searches and from the count of incoming wikilinks. The operational assumption was that one article is more likely to be sought by readers than another if it was more popular, or if its topic has more hits in a google search.
Two things have changed in recent years. One, it has gradually been realised that the vast majority of readers of an article arrive there by following wikilinks or via external websites, and only a small fraction (typically much less than 10%) are there after searching for the term on Wikipedia. So, the total pageviews will rarely be representative for the small fraction of them that is due to reader searches: of two articles referred to by the same term, one can get more pageviews because it's linked from a very popular page, whereas the other one can be what most readers want when they search directly for its name.
The second change was the development of the Clickstream and Wikinav, which show the clickthroughs from articles. For one common scenario – when the dab page is at the base title – their data provides a reliable indicator of what readers actually seek when searching for the given term. The pageviews aren't obsolete: they're still useful for example, when the primary title isn't occupied by a dab page. Still, for the cases where relevant Wikinav data is available, comparing total pageviews is now a red herring.
And now the problem. Pageviews, along with Wikinav, links and web searches, are listed as one of the ways of determining usage at WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY, a flat list that doesn't provide and context or explanations for the applicability of each tool. This has led to people arguing, in the context of RM discussions, that each of them could be used, regardless of context. This, in turn, has resulted in some odd RM outcomes (a recent example was an article with less than 15% of the dab clickthroughs that got promoted to a primary topic on the grounds of higher total article traffic).
Ultimately, we need to come up with more detailed guidelines about determining usage. We can't continue taking so much as obvious or self-evident: we need to spell it all out so that it's clear and accessible to all editors. But first, I guess, we need to make sure we still agree on what usage means. Uanfala (talk) 16:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to agree with you here, but in my recent experience, WikiNav has been very unreliable. Most of the time, the upper half of the output is just broken, missing. Sometimes, everything is broken (right now for example https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Selci gives me "An error occurred while fetching data for the current title. Try another one." in all boxes). Sometimes, even the parts that are ostensibly not broken are absolute garbage, like recently I saw https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Bosut saying "21 Jump Street (film)" is the only outgoing item, but that's never linked from the said page and seems entirely implausible. Usually, the results seem way more plausible, but how do we actually trust that they're accurate with this general level of wonkiness? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:24, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Wikinav throws this error when it doesn't have data for the page you've given it. This most commonly has to do with the fact that source-destination pairs with fewer than 10 hits for the month are excluded from the dataset (so as not to risk impacting the anonymity of readers). That's why there's no data for Selci (it's an obscure dab with a total of not even 30 views for the same period [5]). As for Bosut, it appears likely that none of the links on that page would have gotten more than 10 clicks either. The entry for the film is puzzling, but there's no need for it to be present as a link on the page for it to show up in the dataset: the figures for the traffic from A to B will also include readers who were at article A but went to the search box, typed some string and then immediately got taken to article B. I imagine "Bosut" could be a plausible misspelling for a character or another fictional entity associated with the film (though from a quick glimpse I can't spot anything). Uanfala (talk) 21:06, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
What exactly is usage?
Is our definition of usage still adequate? The guidelines say that a primary topic with respect to usage is one that is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. (emphasis added)
Usage here refers to what readers want when they look up a term on Wikipedia. We're not interested in readers who get to an article without searching for it in this way (say, if they're following a wikilink or an external bookmark). We're also not interested in readers who sought that article by searching for a different term (say, a synonym), because that would only be relevant for the usage of that other term. That's still what we understand usage to be, right? Or is there appetite for redefining it to have broader meaning?
One assumption here is that we're looking at what a reader searches for on Wikipedia. What is sought by visitors to other websites should be irrelevant: there's no reason to suppose that visitor behaviour on Google or Bing (presumably inferrable by their ordering of results) should translate into reader behaviour on Wikipedia. Right? (For the record, I think that usage in reliable sources is still relevant: after all, if a topic is more extensively written about then by definition it's more notable, but that relates to the other aspect of primary topics – long-term notability, not usage as defined here). Uanfala (talk) 16:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
"the topic sought when a reader searches for that term": I assume the "search" here does not refer to the Wikipedia search bar only, and refers to external search engines as well. Given that, the definition does not address users who arrive at a page via wikilinks or external webpages. One change that can bridge this gap would be to replace "searches" with "shows interest in". Jay 💬17:17, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
What should be done with the likes of Wills when there is 1 countable meaning like Will and testament (Will (law) redirect) and separate DAB pages exist for singular and plural? At User talk:Clarityfiend#WillsClarityfiend has argued that because the legal meaning is listed at the singular Will DAB it doesn't need to be included but normally if a plural doesn't redirect to the singular it at least is expected to be on the plural DAB. There was also a discussion at Talk:Piers#Singular entries and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 24#Needles. WP:PTM is clear that regardless of the title of the article an article should be included if ambiguous so if the legal meaning isn't primary like Cats is for the animal at least it should be mentioned. For some DAB pages with many countable meanings they yes one of the top entries on the plural DAB may be "The plural of X" but with just 1 or even a few meanings they can just be added to the plural DAB. With Wills I would be fine with the legal meaning in the "Other uses" though I think at the top is best but at least it should be so that readers and editors can find it easily if they search or link to "Wills" wanting the legal meaning. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
I monitored Wills for two years when the surname was inexplicably at the basename, and its incoming links were invariably intended for Will and testament. It's what readers want when they click on a link to Wills, and probably when they type in "Wills" too. We should make their journey as easy as possible. See also Calves, Foodstuffs, Queens, Sandbanks and many more. Certes (talk) 21:41, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
You shouldn't ever need to "request the creation of a dab page", because the editor who created a disambiguated article should have either added a hatnote pointing to it, or created a dab page. In this case, there is already a hatnote at Jake Bird which points neatly to the baseball player, so all is well. This assumes that the serial killer is the "Primary topic", the article most likely to be what the reader wants.
It may be that you are actually suggesting one of two other scenarios:
(a) That we need a disambiguation page because neither the baseball player nor the serial killer is the Primary Topic. In this case, you need to request a move of the serial killer to Jake Bird (serial killer) so that the disambiguation page can be created.
(b) That the baseball player is the Primary Topic, in which case you need to propose a multipage move: of the serial killer as above, and then of the baseball player to Jake Bird
1. Thank you - I was sooooo frustrated by my question being deleted, without an answer. Thank you for addressing that. 2. Thank you as well for the explanation. My thought was that a) the baseball player will see a rise in hits, as he just made the majors; and b) one cannot know how many of the hits to the killer are simply people looking for the baseball player, because he is not name xxx (serial killer), but instead has the name that naturally a reader would input when looking for the baseball player, so all readers who are doing so would naturally land there first on the way to the ballplayer, inflating the killer's stats - though if all of them went through to the desired page after reading the hatnote, we are not yet at parity in real numbers. Thanks for being an excellent and helpful editor. 2603:7000:2143:8500:196:2EF9:E6F2:A9FA (talk) 23:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
Merge and prune. The other possibility is to make the job of warden a BCA, either at the base name or with a qualifier, but I don't think we have enough sourced content about wardens in general to do that. We don't have Foo and Foo (disambiguation) as separate dabs; there's even a report to identify duplicate dabs for attention. Certes (talk) 22:13, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
There definitely should be only one page here. It wouldn't even be worth breaking out the small number of "The Warden" titles. BD2412T14:08, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
I think the list of "Warden" links is useful and, if this page is considered as a dab page, some of them are likely to be disputed/removed as PTMs etc. How about expanding Warden by offering a bit of etymology of the term (and the sort of summary offered by the Britannica item which is linked), and then listing the various uses, leaving the dab page for the places, people, literary works, etc. PamD16:04, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
I've added a few sentences about the meaning and origin of warden to Warden, with references. I'm still not sure that it wouldn't be better to merge it back into the DAB page, but thought I'd give this a try and see how it goes over. Leschnei (talk) 23:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Redirects to dab pages don't cause INTDAB issues—that is, they aren't flagged as links that need disambiguating. What you did was exactly right.—ShelfSkewedTalk19:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
It does work, but it would be a double redirect. But, yes, the incoming links to (surname) need to be changed to (disambiguation).—ShelfSkewedTalk19:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
A wikilink to Vares (disambiguation)#Surname works fine; it goes straight to the Surname section of the dab Vares. A redirect to Vares (disambiguation)#Surname would be a double redirect and wouldn't work. Links to Vares (surname) are reported as needing attention, because the link target doesn't end in (disambiguation). That would still be true even if Vares (surname) redirected to a page ending in (disambiguation). Certes (talk) 20:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Mill Green
I'm looking for opinions on Mill Green, which contains several different red-link entries that are mentioned on the same blue-link list. Given that this a medium length DAB, I'd like to limit the duplicate (blue) links to speed navigation and I question if linking to the same list 4 or 5 times is very helpful. Is it acceptable the way it is, or should these entries be reworked (perhaps rolled into a single entry)? Specifically:
I think it should be left as is, if someone is looking for the Hampshire one then they have the option to click on the list (linked as "location"), if they are looking for the Staffordshire one they also have the option to click on the list link but if we remove the last 3 blue links it could prevent readers wanting to find out about the last 3 places from finding the list as apart from the link having the same title its not obvious from the link that all 4 links go to the same place so readers may not be aware of this. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:17, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Sending readers into an alphabetical list of UK locations is probably one of the least useful things we could be doing. If I wanted to help readers, I'd copy the only information there is in the list (the coordinates) onto the dab page, and then link to the next bigger place that the locality is in (for example, Mill Green, Hampshire (51°22′N1°15′W / 51.36°N 01.25°W / 51.36; -01.25), a locality in Headley, East Hampshire). But before we even get there, there are two fundamental questions to sort out: are there sources? (the list hasn't got any), and are the places noteworthy at all? (you know, we don't need to provide navigation for every patch of grass in an English village). Oh, and there's a third question: is it worth spending time making minor improvements to a dab page that only gets one view every couple of days? – Uanfala (talk) 19:28, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
The Microsoft Lumia example seems out of place compared to the other examples and unnecessarily pedantic. I can see it's ambiguous about how to cover multiple sports called football, or multiple high courts called the Supreme Court. But it becomes ridiculous to give advice that reminds us that all the iPhones / Lumias / Androids are each one thing. It would be like reminding us to write an article about the World Series. What purpose is this serving, and does this really belong at the disambiguation guideline? Jorahm (talk) 20:45, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree. Lumia points to a disambiguation page and is not an example of a "Broad-concept articles". Sinceit has been 30 days without other comment, I will boldly delete this less than stellar example. --Bejnar (talk) 14:35, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
This was never good advice. Most people understand that a product like is a distinct topic, but the advice never applied to Atari (disambiguation) for example. It’s over instruction and it’s often wrong. It is appropriate to cut it. Jorahm (talk) 15:15, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Reverted. You should not to close your own contested proposal unilaterally. We are not about to start creating disambiguation pages for company products with different model numbers. BD2412T16:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
No. Surname pages are a special kind of pages of their own. What is more, wikidata specifically distinguishes disambiguation pages and "family name" pages and disallows merging interwikilinks is some of them are disambigs and others are surnames. For this reason I am splitting the surname pages from disambig pages to provide interwikilinks. Yossi Rimon (talk) 18:58, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Comment You have to go back and read the numerous reverted items on the OPs talk page. In a nutshell, during NPP I saw that a dab page already existed (Ohan (disambiguation)) and there was room in the dab page to merge and redirect Ohana (surname) . Having two landing pages for the same "Ohana" topic is duplicative and per WP:DABNAMEA list of name-holders can be included in a People section of the page. The page exists for that purpose. After numerous reverts by the op I nominated the duplicative dab page for deletion. Hopefully we can all move on. Bruxton (talk) 20:49, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
The creation of Ohana (surname) was definitely not against current practice, though I believe it would be better for readers if that page were merged back into Ohana (disambiguation) (yes, even if that means letting a dab page contain a tiny bit of content about the name). Uanfala (talk) 11:47, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Absolutely not. Surname pages are under Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy, and can and should if possible include references providing information about surname origins and usage. They sometimes get included in disambiguation pages if there are only a handful, but that is not the ideal practice. BD2412T21:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Yes, sometimes, I would guess a huge chunk of surname pages are more akin to disambiguation pages, then actual full-fledged articles. I'd argue only a handful of the most common last names have legitimate articles.--Ortizesp (talk) 16:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
The concept of disambiguation exists in the encyclopedia when multiple things are homonymous in the real world, and then the encyclopedia needs its own way to distinguish these in titles. Anthroponymy concepts like surnames organically already accomplish some disambiguation in the real world, and the encyclopedia can simply describe that. Now, this means this is not necessarily a trivial question to answer - the surname articles can be seen as a logical extension of disambiguation pages, because they almost without fail include lists of people who are referred to with the same name and hence serve a similar purpose as disambiguation pages; or as distinct concepts in and of themselves, because they should typically include etymological explanations and provide more information than just being a navigational aid. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:39, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Sometimes If a page has a description of the name and any sources then its a regular article, if its just a name and a list of people by that name then its pretty much a disambig page.★Trekker (talk) 06:57, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
No Name lists are a list of people that share a common name. They follow the WP:SIA guideline:
A set index article (SIA) is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name
Yes. If they look, walk and quack like disambiguation pages, then they should be treated like ones for most intents and purposes. I believe that "set index articles" are a gross outlier from our policies and a leftover from the early days: "having the same name as other stuff" does not generally constitute a valid WP:LISTN reason, and stuff like Mount Henderson has all the hallmarks of a disambiguation page except that, per some skewed reasoning, we decided it is not. It would be far better to permit some minor information (such as name or toponym etymology) within a disambiguation page than to effectively invent a new class of pages, with a whole slew of rules and new problems, just to circumvent that artificial limitation. No such user (talk) 14:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying "yes" but something should certainly be done. Mount Henderson is indeed a dab in disguise; there's nothing encyclopedic to say about all places of that name collectively. The objection is that some lists contain two types of material which contravenes MOS:DAB. One type, as you say, is information about the name, such as a surname's origin and prevalence. The other is entries which match the name but have no WP:DABMENTION, like Bugry, Russia. The first seems beneficial. The merits of the second seem less clear. There seems to be a rule that we can't have a dab if the entries are all of one type (e.g. all mountains). Perhaps it's time to question that. Certes (talk) 16:44, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Certainly, a lot of pages tagged as SIAs should be dabs instead, Mount Henderson being a great example. But WP:SIA offers examples of pages where a strict dab setup is insufficient – e.g., where there is valuable, citable content about the group as such. However, those pages still serve a disambiguating function, and so most of the dab guidance should apply: the target link should be easy to spot and easy to differentiate from other entries, etc. SIAs have more flexibility than dabs in terms of prose sections, references, formatting, and (maybe) redlinks, but that doesn't mean dab principles don't apply at all. WP:SIA should make two things clear: 1) There needs to be good reason to treat a list of items as a SIA instead of a dab (just being of the same type isn't enough), and 2) Even though SIAs are freer than dabs, MOS:DAB applies except where WP:SIA explicitly says otherwise. —swpbT • go beyond • bad idea17:26, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
People sharing a surname can be listed either in a surname page (an article, usually consisting mainly of the list) or a dab. There have been hybrids of the two but they're rare and probably erroneous; I think Leschneigot rid of the last one a few days ago. Generally, we have an article if there's something to be said about the surname (a referenced paragraph or two on its origin) which would be inappropriate for a dab. Conversely, we have a dab if there are significant non-surname meanings to list (as with Panther). If there's neither, then either format will do: I prefer a dab because it flags up bad incoming links (should lead to Joe Bloggs rather than Bloggs) more clearly, but most editors prefer a surname article. If there's both a surname description and other meanings, we probably need two pages. Certes (talk) 22:37, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Since there isn't really any dispute on this subject, and this thread was opened due to a misunderstanding of current practice by a New Page Patroller (see the discussion: discussion/permalink), I don't think there is a need to continue running this RfC. Elli (talk | contribs) 07:36, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, this is not an RfC matter. Surnames pages can be created separately from the dab, but that doesn't meant this is necessarily a good idea. Most surname indexes serve primarily a disambiguation function, so unless the list of people is really large, it's less inconveniencing for readers to have that list within the dab. Surname pages may also contain some information about the name itself (etymology, popularity, etc.), but in most cases this is secondary. If that were to become the primary function and the surnames indexes were treated like content pages (=articles), then they'd need to pass WP:GNG and the vast majority of existing surname pages would fail that. Uanfala (talk) 11:47, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Good point. Most surname pages like Aabech are completely unreferenced and so technically deletable. They rightly get a free pass in the same way as dabs: the claims they make (e.g. that Hans Aabech was a footballer) are backed up in the linked articles. They're effectively dabs. The only problem from a disambiguation viewpoint is that if someone writes goal scorer: Aabech (42 mins), no one may notice that the link target is incorrect. Certes (talk) 12:18, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
We should be able to train the disambiguation-related tools so they recognize these links, for example they can treat links between anthroponymy articles as likely intentional by default, while links towards them can be suspicious by default if they don't go through a Aabech (surname) internal redirect. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:45, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
This would be a very, very narrow reading of WP:N, though. WP:5P1 allows Wikipedia to include features of conventional encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers, which means a variety of geographical information is included without it being in question, so it could easily be argued that basic anthroponymy features like indexes of notable people are inherently worthy of inclusion, because it's simply a normal thing for a reader to be able to find in the encyclopedia. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:53, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
If surnames indexes aren't held to GNG, that's because of their disambiguation function. If we're going to treat them as a SIAs, then, as WP:SIA makes clear, all the list-related guidelines will apply, which includes WP:LISTN. So, if we view surname indexes as list articles, then we'd require sources discussing the individuals with the name as a group, and that probably sets an even an even higher bar than merely asking for GNG-worthy sourcing for the name itself. Uanfala (talk) 08:24, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
WP:LISTN includes the line Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability; surname lists are an example of that. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I found some very similarly titled articles and feel that they could benefit from a disambiguation page, as they could easily be confused for one another. The only thing I'm not sure of is what to call the disambiguation page, since all the entries have subtly different titles:
No expert, but how about "Stop Me If You've Heard This". Then the lede would be "Stop Me If You've Heard This (and several near variations) can refer to...". I think most people wanting to find these things would get to this page. Herostratus (talk) 22:55, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Well, it might warrant primary topic status by virtue of being the only target that exactly matches the proposed dab title (subtitle aside). If I was looking for that book and I had the main title right, I'd be a bit annoyed at having to click through a dab full of things that aren't quite titled that. —swpbT • go beyond • bad idea19:18, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
The relevant guideline is WP:PARTIAL. It'd be almost harmless if the dab already existed to add {{look from}} to see also. Is there truly a risk of confusion that warrants a new disambiguation page here?—Bagumba (talk) 11:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
This is probably mitigated by the search suggestions as you type. I'll defer to anyone with more personal knowledge or experience on these specific items, but otherwise would be wary of a solution looking for a problem. Best. —Bagumba (talk) 13:22, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Search suggestions would probably meet most of the need, but they won't help if you've misremembered "Stop Us..." as the more common "Stop Me...". I don't have strong feelings about whether that justifies a dab. —swpbT • go beyond • bad idea13:15, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
If all the entries on a dab page are acronyms, it would have an all-caps title (FOO). If there are no acronym entries, it will be in sentence case (Foo). But what do we do when a dab page has entries of both types? There are two relevant bits in the list of suggestions at WP:DABNAME:
A word is preferred to an abbreviation, for example Arm (disambiguation) over ARM. [..] The spelling that reflects the majority of items on the page is preferred to less common alternatives.
We've got two problems here. One is that those two lines contradict each other (the majority of items in Arm (disambiguation) are spelt ARM, not arm). The other is to do with the wording of the first line: it's either confusing or plainly meaningless. This latter point was discussed in a a brief discussion from 2019 and there was agreement that the wording needs to change. Two relevant rules of thumb were proposed in that discussion: we should use mixed case whenever many of the uses we're distinguishing use mixed case, and all-caps when nearly all of those uses are all-caps, and Use the case common to the clear majority of meanings, or sentence case if there is no clear majority.
Also relevant here is one of the other rules in DABNAME, one that's much clearer and almost universally applied: the preference for the simplest form applicable. This means we prefer singulars (Foo) to plurals (Foos), plain forms to forms with diacritics (Fóo), and titles without a definite article to those with one (The Foo). It does appear like the case distinction can fit in here as well: the lower-case form can be perceived as being simpler than the upper-case one. There is also the Wikipedia-wide preference for lower-case titles (WP:LOWERCASE), but it's arguable whether it should apply here as well.
They both say "preferred", so I wouldn't say they contradict each other, per se. The question is probably more when should an abbreviation not be used if it's the majority of entries? Perhaps some might want to see a higher percentage than 50% using abbreviations (e.g. 70, 80%...?)—Bagumba (talk) 08:18, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
What is your argument here? In these cases, both the (disambiguation) and the (given name) redirects go to the same page, and the usefulness of the (disambiguation) redirect is that it differentiates intentional links to dab pages from unintentional links that should be fixed. What is the advantage in using the (given name) redirect? —ShelfSkewedTalk08:02, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
The advantage is that we classify the links by type, and so if the anthroponymy entries have potential to become their own list one day, we already built the web of links to help readers to the right place. Destroying this nuance so that they don't appear on the dab solving lists sounds to me like a crude technical limitation that could be fixed in software, no? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:27, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Much of the software was written by Dispenser who is no longer active here. Some of those tools, including Dab Solver, stopped working when the WMF reorganised its databases early this year. We've already asked for replacements in the annual tech wishlists but, of course, there is no resource available. Certes (talk) 15:30, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
After a conversation I had over a beer with User:Edward about some of Dispenser's tools, he put together "Dab Mechanic" (although I am not sure it is fully functioning - or even that he wants me to tell anyone about it yet) - so there is hope for new software tools.— Rodtalk15:40, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
99% of articles articles about names, given names or surnames quack, look and walk like disambiguation pages, and should be treated as (a special case of) disambiguation pages: links to them are in most cases misplaced, and should probably be removed or replaced. Contrary to what the documentation for {{R to disambiguation page}} says, it makes full sense to tag redirects ending with (name), (given name) or (surname) with {{R to disambiguation page}}, both in the case when they lead to a dab page (in the narrow sense) or to a list of names. The edits that triggered this discussion violate WP:NOTBROKEN. No such user (talk) 14:29, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
The edits don't violate NOTBROKEN, because the combination of the previous version of the page and the current software is broken. That situation can be remedied either by writing some new software, which doesn't look likely to happen any time soon, or by making such edits. Certes (talk) 15:33, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
To expand upon Certes' comment, they do not violate WP:NOTBROKEN because they prevent the link from showing up as a false positive on the list of links needing repair. Hunting down those false positives wastes a tremendous amount of time that disambiguators spend fixing the thousands of real errors. BD2412T15:34, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think any report excludes targets just because they have Template:R to disambiguation page. The reports check whether the target title ends in " (disambiguation)". Certes (talk) 16:57, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
The guideline WP:HOWTODAB would need to be updated, as it currently only specifies redirects whose names end with (disambiguation):
To link to a disambiguation page (rather than to a page whose topic is a specific meaning), link to the title that includes the text "(disambiguation)", even if that is a redirect—for example, link to the redirect Springfield (disambiguation) rather than the target page at "Springfield".
Changing something like the name [[Sawa (given name)|Sawa]] to the name [[Sawa (disambiguation)|Sawa]] is a bad idea whichever way you look at it except from the perspective of trying to absolutely minimise the total count in the dablink reports. I really don't like the idea of forcing suboptimal linking in article text just for operational reasons. And is the operational gain worth it? Links to (given name) redirects don't disrupt the link fixing process that much: if you see such a link, just ignore it and move on? – Uanfala (talk) 17:32, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
"Just ignore it and move on" is not helpful when there are literally thousands of errors to fix, and literally tens of thousands of false positives that would show up if we did not regularly employ WP:INTDABLINK. BD2412T17:36, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not arguing against INTDABLINK, just talking about its application to redirects for personal names. How many of the thousands of errors to fix are down to redirects of this type? – Uanfala (talk) 17:50, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I wish I could tell you how many errors of each kind exist. The only way to find out is to go through and fix them. I doubt there are a large number of personal name redirects registering as errors at this time, because so many have been fixed in the past. BD2412T17:53, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Linking via Sawa (given name) (disambiguation) would both mark the link as a given name and exclude it from reports. It's a nasty kludge which I dislike and would oppose; I mention it only in case it prompts someone to improve it into an idea we can support. Certes (talk) 19:06, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
A surname page is not a dab page. It usually holds a list of people who have the surname, and it ought (though often doesn't) to include some information about the name (etymology, geographical distribution, etc) with sources. Dab pages don't have sources. A surname page which today is a bare list of name-holders may, one hopes, eventually get some text and sources. It isn't a dab page, whether or not it has sources and text today. (Given-name pages which are lists of name-holders beyond any mononymic ones are, to my mind, a complete waste of time and energy, but that's another issue.) PamD20:09, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Your first sentence is in contradiction with the rest; it describes the situation as it ought to be, but I've yet to find a surname page which include[s] some information about the name (etymology, geographical distribution, etc) with sources. While such probably exist, I haven't stumbled upon one in my rather long wikicareer. So let's better work from the situation as it is, and that is that 99% of surname pages are actually dab pages in disguise. m:Eventualism is good as a philosophical concept (I largely subscribe to it myself), but we're discussing an area with a deeply rooted practice unlikely to be changed in foreseeable future. And that requires some practical solutions. No such user (talk) 22:07, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
All of the common surnames (Smith, Jones, Wang, Li, García, Silva, etc.) have plenty of sourced information, though not all of them have lists of people. 8,263 surname articles have at least one reference, and they're usually for the name itself rather than a listed individual. Certes (talk) 22:35, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
The issue at hand is that we have lists which are primarily marked as disambiguation but have a secondary component of an anthroponymy set index (because nobody contributed a split-off list which would then contain more information and references). These appear on Dab solver lists and should therefore observe the concepts of the process of disambiguation, but at the same time not being able to tag them as anthroponymy through useful internal redirects is very annoying. If and when someone actually contributes anthroponymy information, we have to go through the links again instead of simply re-pointing the anthroponymy-related redirects to the new places. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:50, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
...we have to go through the links again instead of simply re-pointing the anthroponymy-related redirects to the new places: Technically, the WP:FURTHERDAB guideline does not mention name lists as an exception for linking to a dab page in text.—Bagumba (talk) 07:52, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
I would disagree with that take. John Laing (disambiguation) is the set of people who coincidentally combine the given name "John" with the surname "Liang"; "John" as a given name and "Liang" as a surname are each individually of interest as anthroponymic subjects, but the coincidental combination is not. BD2412T14:27, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
Well, that's a very curious use of "coincidental"... the anthroponymy lists always intend to link to other anthroponymy lists just like the generic+specific geography lists do. We never do it because we expect that e.g. there's a ship or a museum called "Name Surname" that people reading an anthroponymy list would be interested in - it's always linked with the intent to get to human names, to indices of more people known under the same surname or given name, because that facilitates most common reader navigation. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:52, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
WikiNav isn't working at the moment, but I bet most visitors to John Laing are looking for John Laing Group rather than a person. It's a dab rather than an article because there's nothing encyclopedic to say about the combination of John and Laing. Certes (talk) 16:29, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
It is working, maybe not for that page for some reason like not enough data? Anyway I think this argument is nonsensical, it's like you're against the concept of set indices as a whole or something. You should argue that at Wikipedia talk:Set index articles or something, this is pointless. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 18:58, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
A name page has two potential functions: a description of the name and a list of people. The main role of the latter is disambiguation (where's the article on that guy Somebody Abela?) Combining them on one page seems reasonable; they're more closely related than many topics which appear as an article section. However, is the resulting page an article or a dab? It can't be both. Either choice brings advantages for one part of the page but causes problems for the other. Certes (talk) 12:18, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
This is covered by WP:SIANOTDAB. But we can talk about this all day, it's orthogonal to the matter of incoming redirects being restricted to 1 single format in the intermediate state because our tools are a bit poor. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:09, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
The edit summary says "not suitable", which suggest not allowed. If it's "not advisable", it's not clear (at least to me) why it's not advisable. How else would future editors know to check the talk page for additional URLs? Banana Republic (talk) 21:54, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Hi Banaan Republic: Thanks for starting the thread. My edit summary was: WP:HIDDEN only suitable here after frequent issues What I meant is that hidden text should not be automatically added merely because a "helpful" URL was added at the talk page. A common usage per the hidden text guideline might be: Providing information to assist other editors in preventing a common mistake. Generally, I expect a mistake to be made a few times to warrant the addition hidden text. The guideline advises restraint: Avoid adding too many invisible comments because they can clutter the wiki source for other editors. Let me know if there are any further questions. —Bagumba (talk) 04:00, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Here is how I see it:
Since URLs are nownot allowed in disambiguation pages, and the guidelines say if needed, they could be added to the talk page. Then why not add a short hidden text to let editors know about those URLs in the talk page. If there is a consensus that the URLs are not relevant (contrary to the opinon of the editor who inserted them into the talk page) then the hidden text could be removed.
Since all the details would be in the talk page, I don't see how mentioning that there is additional information in the talk page could cause clutter. – Banana Republic (talk) 05:50, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
There are a large number of questions that can be addressed in hidden comments or on the talk page of a dab. I don't see any particular reason to emphasise this specifically for the case of removed external links. I don't even see any point in the existing text To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them on the talk page. – Uanfala (talk) 12:58, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
When the dab page already says Do not include external links, either as entries or in descriptions..., I also cannot understand the existing text and which URLs might still be helpful.—Bagumba (talk) 13:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. The use of hidden comments and talk pages is no different for dabs than anywhere else on the wiki, and I don't see the value in even mentioning them in this guide. —swpbT • go beyond • bad idea15:20, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Where does entry this belong?
Billy Pinnell (died 1977), sports editor of the Bristol Evening Post, pen name "The Traveller"
I'd say "both": the people in the list are all "X the traveller", while he was "The Traveller". PamD15:32, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Just the list, because it has been split from the dab and other real people known as the Traveller or similar don't have dab entries. However, as the list is short, it might be merged into the dab. Certes (talk) 18:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
I think Pinnell is different from most of the list, just as someone with a mononym is distinctive and belings on a dab page. PamD23:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
On notification ... your pings above didn't work: you need to sign the post in the same edit as the ping. PamD05:39, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Area codes?
What are the community's thoughts on including area codes on disambiguation pages for numbers? Examples include 220 (disambiguation), 442, 711 (in this case with a leading zero), and a bonus mention of a fictional area code on 311. I'm a little skeptical that someone would expect to find information on area codes simply by searching for the code without either the prefix or suffix "area code". These inclusions feel like a violation of WP:PARTIAL. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 15:50, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
That's about area codes in telephone numbers, right? Readers seem to find them useful: the link in the area code entry on 442 got 11 clicks in January [8], the one on 888 got 14 [9]. If this sample of two is representative, then readers looking for area codes preferentially search just for the number, not the full phrase (the redirects 442 area code and 888 area code got 1 and 2 hits respectively in the same period [10][11]). One potential problem here that's relevant for both dabs and redirects, is that the same string of numbers can serve as different area codes in different countries, so there's potentially a very large pit of ambiguity that we're digging with these redirects. – Uanfala (talk) 16:14, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
It's hard to see why we should include NANP only, but if we're including Stuttgart (0711) then we open the door to a long list of countries which would swamp the page. It may be best to leave them out. Certes (talk) 21:49, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
The First Disambiguation Page
When and what was the first disambiguation page? According to my research, it was probably around 2003, but I was not a Wikipedia user at the time. Born25121642 (talk) 12:16, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
I've been UW-warned that hatnotes needs references
I've been told it's vandalism to add a hatnote without sources for it. Jack the Dripper is an incoming redirect to Jackson Pollock (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and the Massachusetts Airman Jack Teixeira is indicated as being a person also known as "jackthedripper" at his bio and at the 2023 Pentagon document leaks with references in those articles. Shouldn't a hatnote exist at Jackson Pollock (target of "Jack the Dripper") to handle the user handle ("jackthedripper") of the MA ANG Airman that is much easier to spell than his actual name, so that people can find the topic? And should I reference everything in the hatnote ("Jack the Dripper", "jackthedripper", and the short description of Jack Teixeira) ? -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't see any indication in the message on your talk page or the edit message of the revert that the reverter was saying that the hatnote needed references - they just said the change was "non-constructive". Pinging that editor, @TriskySeskel:, in case they want to elaborate. (Sidenote: it probably would have been better to start this discussion at Talk:Jackson Pollock, but oh well.) Colin M (talk) 17:58, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
The moniker "Jack the Dripper" has only a passing mention deep within the text of Jackson Pollock, and the redirect itself is extremely obscure, receiving barely one view per week [12]. The article about the artist, however, is quite prominent, getting over 2,000 views each day. Cluttering the top space of such a popular article because of something so obscure would be bad. I'd just turn the redirect into a disambiguation page, all the more because it appears that there may genuinely be no primary topic. An alternative, of course, is to just delete the redirect and leave it to the search engine to provide navigation here. – Uanfala (talk) 19:15, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
That all sounds very reasonable to me. I went ahead and boldly created a dab at the name. (Though I don't necessarily disagree with the deletion option either.) Colin M (talk) 20:03, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Handling dated material.
Predictive Text is an example of a technology that is evolving and the Wikipedia entry is out of date. A disambiguation page may be a good way to hold onto the now largely historical, though recent, information while supporting users to find the current usage.
This must be a fairly common scenario in many areas. Guidance on how to handle this would be helpful, especially when the technology, fashion or whatever evolves.
In the example quoted, autocomplete is another relevant term. The predictive text article is focused on earlier mobile phone technologies with physical keys, prior to widespread use of smartphones. So long as this is clear and users are directed to more relevant information for modern smartphones, the article doesn’t need major revision, becoming of largely historical/ academic interest.
I have already made my suggestion on the talk page of the article that promoted this note. However, this note was mainly to suggest there is a wider issue around out of date material and how that is handled, especially including the role of disambiguation. I was hoping to get some feedback on that issue as well. CuriousMarkE (talk) 22:47, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Evolving technology is usually something for the article itself to deal with, possibly by adding a history section. If the change is major and sudden enough to warrant a second article, e.g. splitting Autocomplete into Autocomplete (feature phones), then a disambiguation page may be useful, or we might only need a hatnote per WP:ONEOTHER. Certes (talk) 09:33, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
The Dab Challenge reports are back online, and the others should follow over the next 6-12 hours as regular scripts run. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 00:48, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
effects of WP:NAMELIST on navigation outcomes for anthroponymy entries
I happened to look at Valentina just now and in turn https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Valentina and noticed how in the data for May '23, Tereshkova and Shevchenko actually appear in the top ten list of outgoing clicks, despite not being listed correctly at the disambiguation page (because there's no indiction of mononymous use and the name list was split off into a separate anthroponymy set index article). It also happened despite the fact the 'Names' section was at the time listed after a few other sections containing a fair few items that did not gather sufficient reader interest to appear in the outgoing clickstream.
So despite these list entries being nominally completely wrong to be there according to the sum of our guidelines, actual readers seemed to take an interest in them, and I can't really say that the outcome of having more people read these biographies was somehow bad.
Thinking back, I also recently noticed an interesting discussion at Talk:Rachel#Requested move 24 April 2023 where a similar kind of effective hiding of the anthroponymy list was happening. I previously also happened to notice something similar for Meadows and Vaughan. Also, in the case of Saba we also had a contentious move discussion involving a name list that had not been split off at the time, but is now. There's also been a bunch of discussions between choosing whether to have a name SIA or a disambiguation at the base name for a given name - Julius, Leonardo, Julia, Giacomo come to mind - and despite a lot of them resulting in some form of a local consensus, I'm not really sure the final result is actually where we want to be. So there's a bit of a pattern here.
It seems to me that splitting off large name lists, while obviously being typically helpful for addressing the vaguely obvious issue of large list size, doesn't necessarily lead to better navigation outcomes. Entries that would otherwise probably garner non-trivial reader interest get stashed away behind another click, which likely leads to fewer readers reaching them. In other words, we end up leading fewer people to read biographies compared to other homonymous articles. This outcome seems rather flawed because I'm not seeing how this rather arbitrary circumstance is being helpful to the average reader.
I don't want to just revert and squash name lists back in en masse, but it does seem like we should take a bit of time to think about this. --Joy (talk) 14:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
I'd say we should normally combine the name list with the dab, only separating them where necessary. One reason for separation is that a combined page would be excessively long, though opinions vary on what length is excessive. Another reason for separation is the name being described in more detail than is suitable for a dab: detailed etymology, geographical range, references, etc. One disadvantage of a combined page is that intentional links to a name within a dab have to be written as [[Foo (disambiguation)#People]] rather than the more obvious [[Foo (name)]] (which can exist as a redirect but should not be linked per WP:INTDAB) but I don't see that alone as sufficient reason to split. Certes (talk) 11:36, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Maybe we could ponder a coherent guideline for the hard cases where the entire list never can be included, and a separate anthroponymy list would be appropriate, but there are still entries on that long list that merit helping reader navigation. For example, top 5 entries in based on the two parameters we'd otherwise use for WP:PTOPIC determination, usage and significance? Obviously it could lead to some churn - people would haggle about why top 5 and not top 5 or top 20, and then haggle about #6 as well, and then haggle about who is eligible based on which criterion, but we at least the process would result in a possibility of better navigation for at least some of the average readers, as opposed to the status quo.
Some context: the dab Valentina averaged only 16 views/day, while the namelist Valentina (given name) had 3×.Valentina_(given_name) There's something to be said for not cluttering dabs, and also having dedicated namelists that can have see also links to other similarly-named namelists, without having readers having to navigate another dab to find the name they are seeking. —Bagumba (talk) 05:41, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, it is. I don't think any of those people have a double name like John Paul, and I doubt that any other than the aviation owner are known commonly as "Peter Vincent". The page looks more like the output from Special:Prefixindex/Peter Vincent. None of the legitimate entries has a full article, though there are plenty of DABMENTIONs with varying amounts of information. Certes (talk) 11:33, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
@Quiz shows Yes, and I have WP:BOLDly reworked the page. Anyone concerned about providing access to the various Peter Vincents should create redirects from the full forms of their names, which will then show up in the "Look from" link provided in "See also": therre seem to be about five missing. Note that the page was largely created by a now-blocked sockpuppet. PamD11:47, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Michael Lee/Mike Lee
Hi again, not to load up this page with questions, but I am curious about Michael Lee. On this page, it is formatted with Mike Lee as the MOS:PRIMARYTOPIC. Is this correct? It seems like, to me, that the bold should be reserved for if the primary topic matched the title, like Michael Lee. With this, we could generally assume that nicknames could always go at the top if they aren't disambiguated, even if it is not the same title. I did read the MOS guideline, but I didn't really see if it was clear on this or not. Thanks, --Quiz shows17:51, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
No, that's only the correct format for dabs where the dab is called Something (disambiguation) and the primary topic lives at (or occasionally has a primary redirect from) the base name. We should probably revert last June's edit to restore the correct format. An alternative is to split Michael and Mike into two dabs, but that might be a poor choice if some subjects are referred to using both forms. Let's revert most of last June's edit to the dab, keeping the change that links Mike Lee directly but leaving him in #Politics. Certes (talk) 18:17, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm no expert but I think the monoid candidates are all variants of the same two topics. The nearest to a third topic is probably trace monoid and history monoid – computer science rather than maths – but really they're just applications of the algebraic structure, and PTMs too. Certes (talk) 14:28, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
In some cases 2 local authorities have the same class and are named after a place of the same name but one of them may have an additional status which may mean the name of the authority has a different name even if it doesn't otherwise affect the status or functions of the authority. I England there are 3 main types of local authorities, county councils (for administrative as opposed to ceremonial counties), district councils and parish councils, see Category:Local authorities of England by type. A district council can just be called "X District Council" like Harlow District Council but if the district has borough status it is called "X Borough Council" (unless it is also a unitary authority) like Eastbourne Borough Council and if it has city status it is called "X City Council" like Cambridge City Council even though all 3 are non-metropolitan district councils. Parish councils can just be "X Parish Council" like Buxted Parish Council but if it has town status it is "X Town Council" like Weston-super-Mare Town Council and if it has city status it is "X City Council" like Salisbury City Council even though all 3 are parish councils.
Would these likely be consider unambiguous enough for the basic names (those without borough or town status) to require disambiguation per WP:SMALLDETAILS? Googling Sudbury Parish Council from Suffolk it returns the Derbyshire one first however Hastings District council returns the English one first though the New Zealand one does come up almost as much. Also with a different example namely Colchester City Council which was Colchester Borough Council until earlier this year but there are mentions of Colchester District Council and it does seem plausible people may search for "X District Council" for all district councils if they don't know which have borough or city status. Thoughts? Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Readers might well expect Hastings District Council (NZ) to be about Hastings, England, so the {{about}} hatnote there seems both necessary and sufficient. There's no such note atop Hastings Borough Council (England), but if NZ doesn't have boroughs then no one seeking the NZ council will land there. Perhaps we need to assess each case on its merits. Certes (talk) 22:19, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Disambiguation is only needed for the two ambiguous redirects, not for the vast majority of unambiguous redirects. fgnievinski (talk) 08:48, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
The correct way to deal with WP:D is the existing {{redirect}} hatnote atop Wikipedia:Disambiguation. That way, readers interested in alternative meanings of Disambiguation and other readers interested in alternative meanings of D can be directed to two separate, short lists of pages relevant to their different quests. Certes (talk) 14:38, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I've condensed the dab hatnotes. The question still lingers on, though: couldn't we point the reader to a single dabpage, where the ambiguous redirects would be noted? fgnievinski (talk) 01:24, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
We could do things that way but, by consensus, we don't. Legal redirects to Law, whose hatnotes link to two dabs. One guides the reader who typed "Law" to Law (band), Law (surname), etc. The other guides the reader who typed "Legal" to Legal, Alberta, Legal (song), etc. Neither of those readers is interested in items on the other list, so a combined list would just hinder their search. Certes (talk) 10:53, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
OK, it seems the time is not ripe to amend WP:DABCOMBINE. But I believe it's only a matter of time for it to allow redirects to be noted in a DAB page. It'd mitigate against DAB hatnotes becoming increasingly obtrusive. fgnievinski (talk) 05:17, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
I liked it better the way it was. The convenient link to MOS from the main guideline was very helpful. older ≠ wiser11:44, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
I like 3, as it is now; #1 is bad because WP:HATCHEAP: "hatnote overuse can leave the reader feeling peppered with undesired information, similar to online ads". fgnievinski (talk) 05:13, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
As WP:NOCONSENSUS seems to apply here for the hatnote changes, I've mostly reverted back to the stable version. I agree with Bkonrad that explicit MOS links are more helpful (and a likely target) than forcing a click to a dab.—Bagumba (talk) 06:52, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
There is a possible issue with a disambiguation finder on toolforge. I have started a discussion here and am asking for assistance/input if possible. Thanks! Primefac (talk) 09:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Yassi Ada – Yassiada
Slightly confusing situation here (but I guess that's the nature of WP:D):
Article Yassi Ada: an island in the Aegean Sea off Bodrum, Turkey where 2 shipwrecks were discovered (4th c. AD Roman; and 7th c. AD Byzantine).
Various academic articles on the shipwrecks, like "Yassıada Roman Shipwreck Excavation", which spell it as one word (Yassiada: the "wrong" way), even though others (like this one) spell it as two words (Yassi Ada). From what I can glean, most scholarly articles spell it as two words, but not 100% of them (check scholar search).
I'm guessing, hatnote at each one, and maybe use of "[sic]" after the title of citations to the minority of academic sources about the shipwreck site that use the one-word spelling? Mathglot (talk) 05:25, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
I've added a couple of hatnotes - they could probably be improved on, but I think we do need to have hatnotes rather than just a mention in the lead paragraph. PamD11:40, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi, I am admittedly not that experienced with disambiguation pages, so I would like some input. I made moved the MBZ, Mbz, and mbz to redirect to Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and moved the disambiguation list in the MBZ page to MBZ (disambiguation), which currently redirects to MBZ. My edits were reverted by @Pppery and noted "WP:DABMENTION fail" in the revert summary.
I think my edits were appropriate since they follow MOS:PRIMARYTOPIC. He is definitely the primary topic from the disambiguation list, and he is widely known in the press by his initials. NY TimesLe MondeWSJAxios
@Vyvagaba: you "moved" the disambiguation page by cutting and pasting the content. That is not the correct way to move a page. While you might be right that UAE president is the primary topic for this, you've presented no evidence that readers searching on Wikipedia for the initials 'MBZ' are more likely to be looking for the UAE president than any of the other entries on the disambiguation page. You were bold, and you've been reverted. You are trying to discuss, which is good, but this really is not the right place. If you want to move the disambiguation page, the instructions are at WP:requested moves (and this is not an uncontroversial move, so a full move discussion is needed). older ≠ wiser12:42, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Best practices when a similar name is massively less notable
These are both cases where, in a vacuum, the correct answer is a hatnote. It's entirely plausible that a reader would be looking for Mr. Winsor but think there is a 'd' in his surname, or be looking for the leader of the medieval kingdom and be surprised to wind up on an article about a baseball player. But because of the massive disparity in notability and pageviews, in both cases the potentially hatnotable article's editors have objected to a note (courtesy ping Wehwalt per request). And I think that's pretty reasonable. The problem is, though, because of the rules of what can be included in a DAB page, there is currently nowhere else for these plausible-but-infrequent similar names to go.
I've been mulling this over for some time prior to running into it in practice today, and I think the best solution would be to just put them in the DAB page's See also? E.g., for Charles III (disambiguation):
Charles Winsor, not to be confused with Charles Windsor, an alternate name for Charles III of the United Kingdom
Sultanate of Swat, not to be confused with Sultan of Swat, a nickname for the baseball player
It more or less falls under the second bullet point at MOS:DABSEEALSO, and even if it doesn't, guidelines are guidelines; there's room for some flexibility, and the rules for See also standards have always been looser than the main DAB page rules. The one catch is that this wouldn't handle the case of a primary topic that doesn't have a DAB page, but in practice I'm not sure if that would come up, since highly visible articles will usually have associated DAB pages.
My practice has been to remove hatnotes under such circumstances as Tamzin describes, where the space for links to little-viewed articles at the top of heavily-viewed articles cannot be justified. Beyond that, I don't greatly care what becomes of them, and Tamzin's idea is as good as any. Wehwalt (talk) 23:56, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
I cannot disagree more strongly with removing navigational aids completely - doing so is fundamentally incompatible with our primary purpose of being a widely accessible and free encyclopedia, specifically the "widely accessible" part. I also disagree that relative popularity of articles does or should matter for the existence of hatnotes, and where there is no (scope for) a disambiguation page then a hatnote must be provided regardless of the relative views etc of the articles. Where a disambiguation page exists, and is linked from the article in question, then Tamzin's see also suggestion is acceptable. Thryduulf (talk) 09:39, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
I also disagree with removing the navigational aid. The number of pageviews of the two topics is irrelevant. There must be a navigational path from "Charles Windsor" to "Charles Winsor". A hatnote at the top of the article is a perfectly good solution, if no better one is available.--Srleffler (talk) 16:36, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
I broadly agree with Thryduulf. Every topic must have a navigation route to it from each of its correct titles which has a page, whether that page is correctly about (or redirects to) a different primary topic or is a dab. It's certainly acceptable for the route to be via a disambiguation page, but only if it's a path the reader is likely to take. Few readers seeking the engineer and landing on Charles III would expect any of the dabs in its hatnote to list other people called Charles Win[d]sor. However, we're not obliged to provide a route from every possible misspelling, and the overwhelming primacy of the king over the engineer probably excuses us from doing so here. Sultanate of Swat lists two sultans, who could plausibly be sought using the term "Sultan of Swat", and there's no route to there from Sultan of Swat (aka Babe Ruth). However, neither sultan has any information beyond their names and dates, and Sultanate of Swat is about the kingdom rather than the post or role of its sultans. I think these are borderline cases which can be left as they are, without undermining the important principle that we must provide a route where the term is valid and we have actual information on the topic. Certes (talk) 11:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
I tend to agree: if this other person was called Charles P. Windsor, then unquestionably there should be a hatnote on the King's page because "Charles Windsor" would then ambiguous with the King as the primary topic. For the misspelling, although other things being equal there could be a redirect from the misspelled version, I think here we can omit it: we don't redirect from every misspelling. I've added "See also" links from Windsor (surname) and Winsor (surname) to the other. PamD12:00, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Is Chinese characters allowed in the naming here? The only guidelines I could find is WP:TRANSLITERATE which states "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such ... Chinese ... must be romanized. Established systematic romanizations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred" which basically means it must be romanized in which the few examples below isn't.
(tapping foot 😀) Just two sections above I asked whether that this is permitted when appropriate should be covered expressly in the disambiguation guidelines but I haven't received any feedback yet. Your question shows that it's needed. With the added support of Bkonrad's response here, I may be bold and add it myself. Largoplazo (talk) 11:42, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Which shortcut for dropping a link to a page that isn't a feasible search result?
I recently dropped "a resident assistant..." from Don (disambiguation), and I wanted to link a DAB shortcut in the edit summary to explain my reasoning, but couldn't find one. Instead, I ended up leaving the wordy, "...appears to be a duplicate of "Don (academia)", and is not used either as a redirect or a bolded synonym or in cited content on the page". Is there a shortcut I could have linked, at least for the second part of that (the part after the comma)?
Note: the "resident assistant" entry was there first, and I only just added Don (academia) after noticing its creation today, and also noticing minor edit-warring (just good-faith correction, really) at University don. Is everything as, and where it should be, now, and what's that pesky shortcut I'm looking for? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 23:27, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Resident assistant shouldn't appear on the dab because it's not a meaning of the word "don". A footnote in that article claims that A resident assistant may be referred to as...residence don, but it's marked {{cn}} and is at best a PTM. (From outdated personal experience, resident assistants form a separate rank below dons, but titles do vary between institutions.)I don't think we have an actual guideline against making multiple entries for the same topic. It's obviously a bad idea in general but might occasionally be useful. For example, Foo#Films might have an entry to Foo (1987 film) and Foo#Music to Foo (soundtrack), a redirect to Foo (1987 film)#Soundtrack. Certes (talk) 10:12, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Spell out the treatment of titles with non-Latin characters
A user posted the disambiguation page 板橋 at WP:Pages needing translation to English. I responded that there was nothing to translate and that the title itself was fine, as it provides the name in shared Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters for several places in China and Japan, in which the anglicized versions have different spellings. I based my reaction on (a) it made sense and (b) it seemed an obvious extension of the guidance for similar titles in the case of redirects, WP:FORRED.
Still, I decided to see if this guidance is provided directly for disambiguation pages. If it is, I'm not seeing it. I did come across this brief discussion in the archives where someone asked about this and two editors used the same reasoning as mine, based on the guidelines for redirects.
So that others don't have to go looking into the archives for confirmation of this, then, can we put a section about it on WP:Disambiguation? It can be short, only needing to cover the following considerations that leave the details to cross-referenced, existing, guidance.
Only include targets where, if the other items on the page didn't exist, a redirect would be admissible under WP:FORRED.
If the result of applying the previous step leaves only one target, make a redirect instead.
If the result leaves two targets, follow the guidance at WP:TWODABS.
If the result leaves three or more targets, create the disambiguation page, with only those targets.
@Largoplazo: I got here from your mention a couple of sections below. My understanding would be that the title 板橋 is invalid at en-wiki, whether as an article or a disambig page. WP:SPEEDY criterion A2 may apply in such cases (Foreign-language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project), and since zh:板橋 exists (auto-translated to English), imho it is a clear candidate for {{Db-a2}}, and should be thus tagged.
However, that won't always be the case, and what then? Imho, we cannot open up en-wiki to this, as it's not the purpose, and not a reasonable search term, thus 板橋 fails bullet three of the lead, as well as WP:D2D. Note that neither one mentions English-language searches, but I think that is implied, and if we need to make it explicit, then we should. The alternative is that we might need to add DAB pages for three hundred Wikipedia languages, and that would be a ridiculous waste of time and space. But do we really have to say,
Ensuring that a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term available in English sources can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily ?
– I hope not. Just the fact that this ie English Wikipedia should be enough; and if it isn't, then WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY should point the way, because it says:
Usage in English reliable sources demonstrated with Google Ngram viewer, Books, Scholar, News, and Trends.
Although this is about determining PRIMARYTOPIC, nevertheless it is pretty clear that 板橋 will never be the PRIMARYTOPIC for anything in English, and shouldn't be the title of a DAB page (or a DABENTRY on some other Dabpage) in English Wikipedia.
What about Chinese speakers who end up here by mistake, intending to go to Chinese Wikipedia, shouldn't we have DAB pages for them? No. It will be pretty obvious they are in the wrong place pretty much immediately, and we simply shouldn't be spending editor resources here to accommodate that mistake; other methods, including the passive method of doing nothing, are better, and cheaper in resources.
As far as the DAB guideline page, imho, we should include a new subsection under § What not to include, something like:
==== Foreign translations ====
Unless commonly found in English sources, do not include expressions in foreign languages or scripts that are unlikely ever to be used by users searching English Wikipedia for content.
In very rare cases (and I can't envision a good example of this), maybe we could allow a foreign-titled page to be a soft 404, so that 板橋 would display a pge with an interwiki link to the Chinese Wikipedia page zh:板橋 (whether a DAB page, or not). But there would have to be some justification for this, otherwise we're open to anyone who would want to do this for any of 300+ languages.
Pages such as 板橋 should either be A2-speedily deleted, or tagged {{not English}} and perhaps listed at WP:PNT.
One possible exception is in template space: a template in a foreign language or script may allow a user to copy-paste text directly from a foreign Wikipedia article while translating it, and then, by dint of an identically named template at en-wiki, instead of ending up as some mysterious, red-linked template with no clue what it does or what it's for, instead does something useful here for English-speaking readers at en-wiki. These should be allowed, imho. One example is Template:Публикация, which redirects to Template:Cite web/Russian, which will render a Russian citation copied word-for-word from ru-wiki correctly at en-wiki. (This is a special case of a whole constellation of foreign templates that work in this way at en-wiki via redirects; see Module:CS1 translator for details.)
Some sister projects, like meta, or mediawiki, explicitly allow foreign languages, at least at Talk pages, but en-wiki is not one of them. Our pages should be in English, within the bounds of exceptions spelled out in policies and guidelines, and the statements in guideline pages like WP:Disambiguation pages should be assumed to be talking about English, unless otherwise specified.
P.S. I guess I should add that I reject the recommendations at WP:FORRED—an essay (neither a guideline nor policy) in which five editors are responsible for 70% of its content. The opinions at FORRED are just that: their opinion about the topic (just as my statements above are mine). Mathglot (talk) 01:10, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
The number of page authors isn't really relevant; it's whether the advice in the page agrees with and encapsulates the broader consensus about how to do redirects, and it does. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 01:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Mathglot, I haven't read your full response yet, but addressing the beginning of it: 板橋 doesn't qualify for WP:A2 because the page is in English, not Chinese or another language. It would be like submitting Académie Française for deletion under WP:A2. In addition, regardless of its status, I agree with the principles of WP:FORRED. Largoplazo (talk) 11:53, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
WP:FORRED is longstanding consensus. In respect to this DAB page, Chinese/Japanese/Korean is a bit of a special case because the characters are identical (except for some special cases in each non-Chinese language), but have completely different pronunciations and therefore romanizations/transliterations. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions19:52, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, this is particularly about CJK situations. In contrast, there shouldn't be a disambiguation page Майдан because that Ukrainian word is "maidan" is "maidan" is "maidan", so the disambiguation it would call for is properly carried out Maidan (which contains items from other languages and from outside Ukraine as well, but even if this were a strictly Ukrainian word and there was only Ukrainian entries at Maidan, the conclusion would be the same). As you note, it's most markedly in the CJK situation that there can be a need for disambiguation that can't be achieved by a dab page with an English title. Largoplazo (talk) 22:09, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
RfC about capitalizing after dash or colon, also involves disambiguation
Should be a disambiguation page, since this does not logically form a "set" of anything. They just coincidentally have similar, rather descriptive, titles. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 22:58, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I think particularly with initialisms the threshold is usually pretty high for a PT. Not sure how that could be worked into the guideline, as traffic stats showing just over 50% are sometimes embraced as showing a PT and in other cases, like UPS they are held to a much higher standard. older ≠ wiser12:51, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
WikiNav, which can compare outgoing traffic from a given disambiguation page.
I think this is insufficiently clear. We should explain it better, for example:
WikiNav, which shows a graph of incoming and outgoing traffic from a given page, as well as other graphs. It can be used to compare incoming and outgoing traffic patterns, but doesn't show the long tail of traffic well because it anonymizes data that is more scarce. The top graph shows only a single month of historical traffic, so it's fair to consider it over a longer period of time before suggesting changes.
These are very generic interpretation hints that are unlikely to be biased. In addition, I would suggest that we add the following as well:
A rule of thumb is that it's unlikely that there is a primary topic by usage if the top WikiNav graph shows a spread of multiple significant usages, or if there is so little traffic that few or no graphs are shown. Conversely, a rule of thumb is that it's likely there is a primary topic by usage if the top graph shows a single significant usage that maps to almost all of the incoming traffic and overwhelms all other usages.
These are more likely to be biased by various circumstances, but they do match my experience over the last few years. --Joy (talk) 11:04, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
This case has a couple of unusual factors. One is that the parcel service is marketed almost exclusively in the U.S., so 95% of people (though not 95% of enwp readers) would not associate the initials with that company. The other is the unproven but plausible claim that a TLA requires a higher threshold for PT then other titles. Certes (talk) 12:26, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
I doubt it's almost no one, but I do think the ratio of those among the average English readers is debatable. The closing statement there dismissed assertions of U.S.-centrism in favor of data, which was presumably the Google search of the BBC website where they use the same acronym mostly in reference to the politician. I don't know why nobody responded to this, possibly because it was made in an off-the-cuff comment that seemed to be less in the spirit of consensus-building than what is desirable. Also, the spirit of WP:NOT#NEWS could have been considered the obvious retort there, too. In any event, the exact WikiNav data there wasn't recorded by anyone (ISTR it was somewhere around 90% in->out to the proposed primary topic), and it's now lost because the tool doesn't support history or redirects well enough (and nobody's responding to inquiries about it, cf. [17]). This also makes me wary of leaving the mention of WikiNav in the guideline as is, it's just not refined enough to be obvious for the average user. --Joy (talk) 16:05, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi, for background context Chrysanthus exists as a redirect to the disambiguation page Chrysanthos. Last year I wrote the article Father Chrysanthus about a priest and who is regularly referred to by sources as "Fr. Chrysanthus" or "Father Chrysanthus" in English-language texts (and "P. Chrysanthus" or "Pater Chrysanthus" in Dutch/German-language texts). Recently the page was moved to Chrysanthus Janssen, merging together his religious name and birth name in a way sources do not use, with the edit message unusual connection of "Father" and religious name (there may be many more "Father Chrysantus"es elsewhere. I realize "Father" is uncommon in article titles (though see Father Damien), but I thought this seemed a natural way to disambiguate since sources regularly use this title to refer to him and no other priests by that name have Wikipedia articles. The alternative option is to use a parenthetical; Chrysanthus is known for his research in arachnology so Chrysanthus (arachnologist) would be natural and already exists as a redirect to this article. I have no strong feelings between Father Chrysanthus and Chrysanthus (arachnologist) (I do have strong feelings againstChrysanthus Janssen), but since the article has to be moved since it's now not at a WP:COMMONNAME, I wanted to get some additional opinions since I was unsure if I could use "Father" to disambiguate in this way since that's what sources use, or if a parenthetical is best. I have started discussion at Talk:Chrysanthus Janssen#Title but feel free to respond here as to the general topic of a title being used to disambiguate. Thanks! Umimmak (talk) 22:17, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
I need some advice regarding Dubia. I recently added a dab entry pointing to redirect Dubia (Catholicism). I have several questions:
The fact that "Dubia (Catholicism)" is a redirect to Responsa is okay, right? Couldn't find guidance about this at WP:DAB (I might've missed it; the token redirect occurs 90 times) or at MOS:DAB.
The first entry is Dubia (butterfly) (red), which contains a blue link to Moncina, and Moncina has a red link to [[Dubia (butterfly)|Dubia]], so that one's okay due to WP:DABRED, right?
I question whether the last two entries (Blaptica dubia, Nomen dubium) should be there: both on account of WP:PARTIALMATCH (or, do they fit the "North Carolina" exception?), and 'Nomen dubium' doubly so, as it doesn't even contain the term, but the singular version of it.
There's a -dubia suffix in Wanano language; is this too arcane for an entry? Seems unlikely anyone would search for it, but I wouldn't know how to evaluate that.
There are also dab pages like, A. dubia, C. dubia, and others; do they go in "See also"?
There seems to be an additional meaning of dubia as "work of doubtful authorship", as in Eubulus (poet), Annales (Ennius), and maybe a few more, but no clear article to link that sense to, so I presume no dab entry for this?
Nomem dubium should not be excluded because the plural is nomina dubia, and in a clear enough context, these can be shortened to just dubium/dubia. However, it would make much more sense on the DAB page to use the redirect nomina dubia, for clarity. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 22:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Turns out there are ten, similarly-named genus-species disambig pages of the form "X. dubia", where 'X' is any one of ten letters (example: H. dubia). I pondered how to handle this, and came up with a sparse, non-standard solution that I think works; it's in the § See also section, and it avoids repetitive explanations on every entry that would've looked like copypasta. I think this provides all the information needed, without being overbearing. See what you think. Mathglot (talk) 23:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure that quite works. I've had another go; please revert if necessary. We should use the (disambiguation) redirect to species dabs, unpiped, per WP:INTDAB (middle example). Certes (talk) 08:24, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
"most commonly refers to" on disambiguation pages
Is there any real policy out there for "commonly refers to" settings on disambiguation pages?
I came across The Game today, and at the top it says the game "most commonly refers to" Triple H and the rapper The Game. Isn't it arguable in other directions? The Fincher movie and the mind game "The Game" also get well over 1000 daily pageviews, which isn't far off from the rapper at least, and Triple H may not be best known as "The Game" (at least it isn't mentioned much in his article). When you have multiple topics, is this even useful? --Quiz shows02:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
As a reader, I find long dab pages a chore to read through. It's helpful to call out the most common targets at the top - if we can show that they really are the most common. The two extra targets you've called out seem like they could be legitimately added to the "commonly refers to" for The Game. That section probably shouldn't ever grow to be more than 4 or 5 items. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:34, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Regular
Am I missing something, or is Regular a massive violation of WP:PARTIAL? I can see keeping the Badfinger song, Regular character, maybe "Regular customer", but honestly, I don't understand why there are dozens of entries there that all seem to be violations of PARTIAL. I haven't even gone through every entry in detail, but of the ones I've looked at, I'm not sure there are more than a small handful that I'd keep. Mathglot (talk) 00:18, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
I think the dab page is excessive, but we need to trim it with care. Adjectives are always tricky, as the reader looking for the concept of a "Regular X" may find that it is in Wikipedia as "Regular Y", a term which they will recognise from the dab page (though there should be a redirect). I have a gut feeling that Regular is different from, say, Green in terms of PTMs: Regular has very different meanings in different contexts and we need to help the reader.
A large expansion, especially in maths, was made in this 2012 edit by an editor who did quite a lot on maths but hasn't edited since 2019.
I've added the "look from" and "in title" See Also links, which should help.
Thanks, these comments are helpful, but either I need to study WP:PARTIAL some more, or maybe it needs additional explanation, of the type made here regarding searching and what's being clicked on? Because there seems to be a tension or conflict, the way I read it, between the current state of PARTIAL, which, if I hewed to it strictly, would seem to lead me to cull everything except half a dozen or so links, and what I'm hearing above. I'm all for no CREEPing guideline instructions when that works, but if reasonable editors of good faith (moi? ) can't determine what's appropriate on that page (or other pages) without a nuanced discussion at WT:D, then maybe that means it's too vague and more is needed?
Related to your mention of "regular army", my entry point to all of this was "Regular forces", which didn't exist at all until yesterday.
My sense heretofore, was if the term could be used by itself in some reasonable context, then it could be included (standing outside "Joe's Bar & Grill" and hearing, "He's a regular" ⟶ "regular customer" (red) ⟶ "regular customer") then perhaps it's admissible. Or do click statistics weigh heavily in decisions about inclusion?
As things stand now, I hesitate to remove any of them, because I don't feel I have clear guidance, even though it seems like 90% of them should disappear, and because I have no familiarity with most of the specialized domains. I do know a fair bit about regular expressions, and the term "regular" by itself seems like a very unlikely search term if that's what they are looking for. I presume that's the case also for "regular algebra", "regular code", "regular graph", "regular language", "regular map", "regular matroid", "regular paperfolding sequence", and "regular tree grammar", to take only the entries in the § Combinatorics section within which "regular expression" appears, and I'd like to remove all of them, but who knows if that's what the guidance implies. Therein lies my real issue, all such pages, of which Regular is the example in front of me. Mathglot (talk) 21:02, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
There’s further disambiguation guidance on MOS:DAB including a nod to IAR. Regarding these guidelines, it says: Usefulness to the readers is their principal goal. So there seems to be room for the argument that a PTM can stay if it’s useful. Wikinav could provide evidence of usefulness. In my view, IAR-like arguments should only be deployed in unambiguously exceptional circumstances. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 22:01, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Something to keep in mind is whether or not an a particular entry on the DAB page is ever used in just the short form "regular", including in specialist material. If it is, then it stays; if it's not, then it probably should go. E.g. "the regulars" or "regular" as an adjective is used in military jargon to refer to regular army; a regular customer is often referred to as "a regular". — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 08:24, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I don't see any harms or disadvantages of keeping these as separate disambiguation pages, so I am fine either way. But things should be consistent here, either merge all of them or keep all of them. It is the inconsistency that is causing confusions, not the qualified titles themselves. If a consensus is needed to revise the guidance, then we should start seeking for that. Đại Việt quốc (talk) 23:25, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
There may be a case for keeping just some of them. Long Lake (New York) seems useful as it saves the reader wading through a long list of Long Lakes in which the NY entries are split between #Cities and #Lakes. Others will be less useful, as the full dab is not much longer than the page in question. Certes (talk) 23:52, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Why? If I encounter "Grew up on a farm near Long Lake, New York" I have no idea, and may need to sift through both a city and a lake article and the original source material for clues about which one was meant. We generally shouldn't try to assume what the reader knows or what their intent is. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 06:44, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Well, by using subject-area sections at all, we're making an assumption about the readers' knowledge, with the idea that it benefits more readers than it disadvantages. But sub-dabs could ameliorate that by providing an orthogonal organization, in this case by location first rather than type of entity (city or lake). I don't think that's a strong reason for sub-dabs, but it may be a factor for some people. —swpbT • beyond • mutual19:26, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
For the first case, comma is tempting because parenthetical qualifiers usually denote an is-a relationship but Secret Story has-a season rather than being a season. However, we've chosen to use Series (season n) for article titles, so dabs should probably match. The second case looks correct because Sweden isn't part of the COMMONNAME. Certes (talk) 09:32, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
I am going to propose that all TV season titles be moved from parenthetical disambiguation to comma disambiguation, but considering the scope of the change I will make the proposal at the village pump. BD2412T04:03, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
That might well be the "inspiration" for this stuff, but it says "This kind of disambiguation is relatively rare on Wikipedia", and the example provided if of Montgomery and Montgomery County, where the second natural name is itself ambiguous. This isn't the case here; rather the unnatural combination "Arteaga (footballer)" is itself ambiguous, and I can't see any rationale for not merging to Arteaga#Footballer. Even a lot of cases like the Montomery sort are actually redirs to sections at a main disambiguation page; we seem to be keeping things like Montgomery County when there are a lot of things to disambiguate. Montgomery is basically DAB page that has been intentionally split into a bunch of side pages for length/utility reasons. That doesn't seem to apply to something like Arteaga. We should probably clarify in the guideline why the Montomery [County] sort of case is rare, what sorts of case qualify, when to do this, and how to do it (should it be split pages without duplicate entries, or should the entries in the "side" page also appear, probably by sectional transclusion to avoid content-forking, in the main DAB page? And so on. Just remove doubts and uncertainties and misleading ideas that any time a seperate subtopical DAB page could be created that it should be. But that would probably need to be done in a separate proposal. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 18:51, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
If you're doing sectional transclusion, please consider {{Transclude list}}, which will just grab the entries without "Foo may refer to:", templates, etc. It's designed for putting a small page into a big one (where it might form a section), which I think is the better way to do things. However, it could be enhanced to transclude a section of a big page to form the bulk of a small one if considered preferable. Certes (talk) 19:04, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
"for length/utility reasons" hits the nail on the head. WP:DOUBLEDAB should note that as the main (possibly the only?) reason to do this. I see a three-part division: in cases with less than some number of entries, micro-dabs should be merged up. Beyond that, double disambiguation becomes justifiable, but entries should be transcluded up, to a point. Once the top-level dab gets extremely large or lopsided, it makes sense to have the entries in question appear on the second-level dab only. I think this is basically current practice, and WP:DOUBLEDAB should reflect that. Beyond that, the next step would be putting numbers of entries to that division, but that may be something we should leave to editorial judgement. —swpbT • beyond • mutual19:18, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes. I think that's what we've been doing, perhaps subconsciously, but that may be the first time anyone's documented our practice explicitly. Certes (talk) 22:46, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
I think perhaps the definition of double disambiguation has changed. The entities at Montgomery County are named exactly that -- they are not typically referred to as simply "Montgomery" except in casual mentions or where the context has already been established and the "County" is dropped to avoid repetition. I don't think we would ever want to upmerge such types of double disambiguation -- these would typically be mentioned in a See also section or within another section as a see also type of reference.
I lean toward up-merging these. We're not creating "micro-disambiguation" pages in any kind of systematic way (people are just really randomly creating them), and they're highly likely to content-fork, with entries being added to the separate page but not the corresponding section (if it even exists!) of the main DAB page for the name, or vice versa. I understand the "urge", if you will, to create a micro-disambiguation page, but it seems unmanageable in practice. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 06:44, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
What do you mean by "from the upstream list"? Would Foo transclude the text maintained in Foo (footballer), or vice versa? I'd recommend the former for two reasons. Firstly, some general dabs currently link more specific dabs, e.g. Abu has an entry for Abu Salim (disambiguation), and it's just a matter of replacing the wikilink by the template. Secondly, having the specific dab transclude a section of the general one would need both to be marked up using labeled section transclusion, which is awkward and might not get maintained. ("Section" here means any part of a page, not necessarily corresponding to a ==Section==. Transclude list doesn't work that way round, because it can't guess which part of the list to transclude.) Certes (talk) 20:03, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, definitely it would be trancluding the list items from "Foo (footaballer)" into "Foo", since the non-footballer entries in "Foo" would have nothing to do with "Foo (footballer)". But this "if there's a section" thing is a red herring. Just make one. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 20:43, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
It's not a red herring, I've used this template where it just doesn't make sense to make a new section, for example in anthroponymy lists where it would make no sense to break up the list of say three dozen names with separate sections for "John Foo" and "Charles Foo" with two or three items each. --Joy (talk) 15:47, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, of course the former, it wouldn't make sense otherwise, because that would be transcluding unrelated Foo meanings at Foo (footballer). --Joy (talk) 15:45, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
It could be done the other way, by marking up the larger dab with <section> tags, but I think there's consensus not to. Certes (talk) 16:46, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
I remember trying to use labeled section transclusion at least once, but it never seemed to be the best choice. --Joy (talk) 17:09, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Text proposal
Since there hadn't been any comment in several days, I rewrote the first para of WP:DOUBLEDAB as follows. Bkonrad mostly undid this, so let's break it down. Dark red was removed by Bkondrad, green added in its place:
A double disambiguation is an entry on a disambiguation page pointing to a more specifically named disambiguation page, rather than to an article. This kind of disambiguation is relatively rare on Wikipedia. Ordinarily, secondary disambiguation pages and their entries should be merged up into the primary disambiguation page. If there are a large number of entries conforming to a more specific name, a secondary disambiguation page can be created and its entries transcluded onto the primary disambiguation page with {{transclude list}}. If the primary disambiguation page is extremely large or lopsided, this transclusion can be skipped, so that the entries on the secondary disambiguation page appear there only.In some cases, entries from the secondary page can be transcluded onto the primary disambiguation page with {{transclude list}}.
The edit summary was "there are only some cases where upmerging would be expected for double dabs". I'd argue that the cases where upmerging from small secondary dabs is not appropriate are few to none and currently undefined, so "Ordinarily" is sufficient hedging, especially if we change it to "Ordinarily, small secondary [dabs]...". Bkonrad's summary doesn't address the latter two cases (secondary dab with transclude, and secondary dab without transclude) at all, so I don't know what the concern is there.
Generally, I think we can and should be more specific than "in some cases you can do this"; I think there is broad agreement, notwithstanding this revert, that 1) the size of the dab and potential secondary dab are the key (if not only) factor in determining treatment (with size limits determined by editorial discretion), 2) the smallest secondary dabs should be merged up, and 3) where a secondary dab is justified, transclusion is advisable, with, again, size being the limiting factor. Which of those am I wrong about and how? —swpbT • beyond • mutual14:43, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
All three of those seem pretty reasonable to me, though people perpetually complain when things are left to editorial discretion and not given a specific limit (and a different class of editors will complain when the opposite happens). — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:32, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
I think it is quite inaccurate to claim the cases where upmerging from small secondary dabs is not appropriate are few to none -- the very existence of a double dab is that the second set of topic have a distinct title separate from the base name. Yes, it is true that where there are only a few of the secondary topics or where the secondary topics might reasonably referred to by the base name alone that we might include the secondary topics on the base name. But in general we would not upmerge the topics. Entities known as 'Montgomery County' are only known as simply 'Montgomery' in casual mentions or where context is already established. Similar for 'Montgomery Street', 'Montgomery Township' or 'Montgomeryville'. Sure we could transclude these to the Montgomery page, but I would not present this as the preferred option. Yes, transclusion should be an option, but the bulk of the addition implied that double dabs were routinely upmerged.
Also, while not part of the addition, I think the statement that such double dabs are 'relatively rare' is a bit misleading, as there are numerous county/township/street/university/school double dab pages that exist separate from the base name page. older ≠ wiser16:03, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Point taken on the county/township/street/university/school-type secondary dabs, where the topic's common name is actually different from the base dab name. Even then I think merging is often advisable, but in fewer cases. How about this then:
A double disambiguation is an entry on a disambiguation page pointing to a more specifically named disambiguation page, rather than to an article. This is often done when the title of the secondary disambiguation page is a more specific variation of the topic name; for example, a disambiguation page "X" may have entries for secondary disambiguation pages "X County", "X University", etc., where the entries on those pages are sometimes called simply "X". When there are only a few entries on such a secondary page, it may be advisable to merge it up to the main page.
On the other hand, it is more unusual to have a secondary disambiguation page whose title is only different from the main title in a parenthetical qualifier; for example, a disambiguation page "X" with an entry for a secondary disambiguation page "X (politician)". In this case, it is usually advisable to merge such a secondary disambiguation page up (the resulting redirect being an "incomplete disambiguation" as described below), unless it has a large number of entries. If the number of entries on such a secondary disambiguation page is large but not tremendous, it is advisable to transclude those entries onto the main disambiguation page with {{transclude list}}.
This is better, but I think mentioning the parenthetical dabs here may cause further confusion with incomplete disambiguation. Double dabs with parentheticals are truly rare exceptions. A page titled as 'John Doe (politician)' where there is more than one politician named 'John Doe' is just incomplete disambiguation, not double dab. My recollection is foggy but I think this section on double dab was intended in part to address the issue of intentional dab linking. older ≠ wiser17:36, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Ok, now I'm a little lost: how can we not mention parenthetical dabs? Secondary dabs differ from the main dab in either the main part of the title (the X County etc. type you pointed out), or in a parenthetical. That's it. If "John Doe (politician)" lists multiple people, and is linked from the "John Doe" dab, we have double disambiguation; if it just redirects to "John Doe", we have incomplete disambiguation. Maybe I can make that clearer by adding the underlined bit here: "In this case, it is usually advisable to merge such a secondary disambiguation page up (the resulting redirect being an "incomplete disambiguation" as described below), unless it has a large number of entries." The intentionality of either a double or incomplete dab has no effect on the recommended handling. The two sections will still be in concurrence. When you say "Double dabs with parentheticals are truly rare exceptions", I think we're in agreement: my text is saying they should be rare, to anyone tempted to create one. So, this:
"X County", etc.
just a few entries
merge and redirect (incomplete dab)
more than a few entries
link (double dab) and possibly transclude based on size
"X (politician)", etc.
most cases
merge and redirect (incomplete dab)
large number of entries
link (double dab) and possibly transclude based on size
That confusion is a problem. Is there an actual X (politician) page that is an actual double dab and not simply an incomplete disambiguation? An actual double disambiguation with a parenthetical would be something like Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist–Leninist) where apparently multiple communist parties in Nepal use the parenthetical qualifier in their names (or at least, that is what has been claimed -- I have no interest in trying to decipher the sources for that). If "John Doe (politician)" lists multiple people that is likely a case of incomplete disambiguation and should be treated per WP:INCOMPLETEDAB before considering any double disambiguation.
I think the only confusion here is over terms, with no actual effect on what we recommend. If "John Doe (politician)" lists multiple people and is linked from "John Doe", to me, that is a double dab, that should (usually) be turned into an incomplete dab (i.e. redirect). Do you actually have any disagreement with the clade breakdown I made? —swpbT • beyond • mutual19:56, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
No, but I think it is introducing confusion unnecessarily to have an example that would always be an incomplete disambiguation. In particular I think X (politician) would never be anything other than an incomplete disambiguation. Giving something like that as an example would only be used to justify creation of such incomplete disambiguation pages in the guise of double dab. older ≠ wiser20:39, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
I mean, disambiguation pages with parenthetical qualifiers that are valid disambiguation pages rather than incomplete disambiguation are vanishingly small. I'm not sure there is any need to mention them here because they are so exceptional. At the very least, if we are going to give an example, it should reflect something that exists (or might plausibly exist). older ≠ wiser20:52, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
The whole point is that there shouldn't be a lot of dabs with parentheticals, yet there are a lot, probably mostly illegitimate, as you pointed out, in Category:Disambiguation pages with (qualified) titles. Mentioning them, and how rare they should be, is the entire point of this. The text discourages creating "X (politician)" as a dab, and neither encourages or discourages it as a redirect. So I really don't know what your complaint is anymore. And since I know what I (and I think the others) mean by "double dab" and "incomplete dab" but I'm not sure what you mean, I'm going to do this:
I'm not (knowingly) confused. I think we should be following the advice in the underlined text. I'm less convinced that we do follow it, but I see consensus emerging that we should start following it. Certes (talk) 22:05, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
If the whole point is to describe how rare they should be i.e, parenthetical double disambiguations -- I'm really not getting that from this addition. I think using something that is an incomplete disambiguation as an example of double disambiguation simply makes for confusion. older ≠ wiser22:55, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not confused by it, but I can see how certain individuals might be, for the reason Bkonrad raises. It might be better to find an example like the communist party one above perhaps, that is not an incomplete dab but something the real name of which contains a parenthetical. Then treat incomplete dabs separately. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 03:15, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I think if you're going into this much detail, then the section part should be mentioned as well. For example, we have Clyde River with over a dozen entries, its transclusion in Clyde which already has over a dozen other non-county entries should only be done if it's possible to maintain complete clarity to the readers looking up "Clyde River" - e.g. by having a section about rivers there, which would allow for #REDIRECT [[Clyde#Rivers]].
(I suppose you don't have to insist on a section but only on a named anchor, but I'd want to see how that looks in practice before signing off on that, I've never seen that done.)
The main point would be to avoid dumping people who specifically looked for "Clyde River" into a huge list containing things other than rivers. That would be very much unhelpful for their navigation, which would defeat the point of having a navigational aid.
Secondly, we also want to make sure that the transclusion actually makes sense - does calling each of the entries at "Clyde River" just "Clyde" match the reality, or are there actually exceptions, where a Clyde River is never referred to as just "Clyde", perhaps? I don't know if that's a pertinent example, but it seems like something that could plausibly happen.
Sure, I'm happy to add in that the transcluded entries should generally be in their own section. With that added, do you think I'm accurately describing what we want editors to do? I'm trying to get past Bkonrad's concern, which I don't really understand, so I'm asking if it's a concern anyone shares. —swpbT • beyond • mutual21:42, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
In the original reply it seems like the focus was on the concept of the distinct title. In other words, it's what I mentioned in my final paragraph as well - does the incomplete term actually apply well to all items, is it actually reasonable to assume that readers do refer to every Foo River as just Foo? Or are we on a slippery slope of bloating the Foo disambiguation list with more tangentially related items? It's a legitimate concern that we shouldn't overlook - because huge lists may appear trivial and unwieldy to readers.
And later you guys seemed to delve into which of the two sections should describe these concepts, but I honestly didn't have time to examine the entire wall of text :) it looks to me like the current guideline text focuses on the mechanics of how we do it, but the rationale is missing, so we should probably proceed with adding the rationale whatever it means for the sectioning (again, with the caveats mentioned above explained as well). --Joy (talk) 08:36, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not assuming readers refer to each "Foo River" as "Foo", I'm stating, with the text "where the entries on those pages are sometimes called simply 'X'" that to be appropriate as an entry on the dab page "Foo", at least some of the Foo Rivers must be called Foo at least some of the time. The burden of verifying that is on the editor just as now. PTMs have always been a problem, but I'm certain my proposed addition here doesn't encourage adding more PTMs. —swpbT • beyond • mutual20:31, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Also, if size or number of entries is the main criteria now, what about something like Life (album) or Ten (album) or Reflections (album) which had previously been merged but certainly have so many entries that they would easily satisfy any numerical or size-based criterion? Are we OK if editors start to go around de-merging these based on this guidance? older ≠ wiser12:07, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Another one I came across in the archives: would we want to encourage the creation of secondary disambiguation pages at John Smith (footballer) (currently a incomplete disambiguation redirect to John Smith#Sports)? Such a page could be transluded back to the main listing, but I'm not sure we've fully considered trade-offs between ease of use vs ease of maintenance. older ≠ wiser16:07, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Ok, examples, I like this approach. So keeping in mind that I'm wary of putting numbers of entries into this guidance, here's how I personally would handle these pages. I've highlighted changes from status quo. I think my assessments here are in line with 1) what's best for the reader, and 2) what's recommended in my proposed guidance (although not to the exclusion of other possible assessments). Please tell me where you disagree.
I did some delving into the history of the sections for WP:DOUBLEDAB and WP:INCOMPDAB. The section for double disambiguation was added to the page by Radiant! back in 29 Oct 2005. Apparently this was simply merging a standalone page WP:Disambiguation of a disambiguation that had been created by User:SuperDude115 who was subsequently blocked as a sockpuppet of banned User:Nintendude. I don't think there had been any discussion about the contents of that standalone page before the merge, and while the text has been modified somewhat since, some elements remain, such as the assertion that These kind of disambiguations are relatively rare. And the original phrasing is incredibly vague:
A disambiguation of a disambiguation is a disambiguation that is linked from another disambiguation. This kind of disambiguation is typically more specific than one with a simplified name. These kind of disambiguations are relatively rare on Wikipedia.
In Jan 2012 at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 36#Incomplete disambiguation (again), there was discussion confirming incomplete disambiguations are pages with parenthetical qualifiers where the parenthetical qualifier isn't sufficient to identify a topic uniquely. "Natural" titles like Adams, New York or HMS Victory are legitimate, unqualified titles. I.e., double dab doesn't apply to disambiguations with parenthetical qualifiers.
Note: there were several extremely lengthy discussions of partial disambiguation that often referenced incomplete disambiguation -- I've omitted these as mostly tangential to the point here. However, the discussions did perhaps affect the understanding of parenthetical qualifiers that might have some relevance for double dab and incomplete dab -- although sifting through those walls of text is a herculean task I've no interest in.
One thing I notice is that both of these are subsections under Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links. The language in double dab was largely about how and when to create such links -- and I think is really just a specialized variant of WP:INTDABLINK. The section on incomplete disambiguation is less about links to such pages, but rather about creating redirects for such pages. The last two paragraphs in the section does provide some guidance about linking to pages that look like or are similar to incomplete disambiguation (i.e, lists or set indices and partially disambiguated titles). older ≠ wiser16:01, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for this background. I think I have a better understanding of the terminology confusion. To me, a dab page that links to a more specific dab page is a double, and a redirect to a dab page is an incomplete, regardless of the form the titles take. To you, I think, a dab linking to a more specific dab is only a double dab if the difference in titles is "real"; if it's just parenthetical, it's an incomplete dab, even if the secondary dab page exists. Do I have that right? If so, then I think the issue isn't what we recommend, but where in the page we recommend it, and I'm happy to cede that ground. —swpbT • beyond • mutual21:37, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I mean that is the original question that prompted this. I may be an old-timer, but originally, incomplete disambiguation was a title that had a parenthetical qualifier but that was still ambiguous. However, there appears to be an increasing number of such disambiguation pages and my question is whether this is because the guidance no longer matches with practice. I mean, it is fine if the community wants this change, but if it is just something that is slipping in unnoticed, that is something else. older ≠ wiser21:46, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I’m unclear as to what specifically there is an increasing number of. To me, a PDAB has always been a title with parenthetic disambiguation but is still ambiguous. The quintessential example is perhaps Thriller (album). If what is increasing in number is PDABs with primary topics (PTs), that’s fine, because such titles have community consensus and are not a change. If it’s PDABs without PTs, that’s a problem. The key is whether the PDABs in question have PTs. I don’t see that crucial distinction discussed here. —В²C☎08:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Partial disambiguation is something different from what is being discussed here which is incomplete disambiguation, which is when a disambiguation page has a title that contains a parenthetical disambiguating phrase, for example Arteaga (footballer). older ≠ wiser11:13, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Are "partial disambiguation" and "incomplete disambiguation" normally distinguished in that way? I think everyone agrees that
both terms refer to a title such as "Foo (qualifier)" or "Foo, qualifier" which is still ambiguous despite the qualifier
some such titles have a primary topic, and should be given to or redirect to an article
some such titles have no primary topic, and should be given to or redirect to a dab
Are we consistent in how we apply the terms "partial disambiguation" and "incomplete disambiguation" to such titles and pages? Certes (talk) 11:40, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, they are clearly related, but are the terms used consistently? -- I doubt it. In the discussion above, I'm not concerned about partially disambiguated primary topic titles such as Thriller (album) but with disambiguation pages that are incomplete disambiguation (there is another disambiguation page without the parenthetical qualifier). I'm also not overly concerned about similar pages with a comma-separated qualifier. These are often less clear as the subjects may actually be known by the name including the comma qualifier (for example, Adams Township, Michigan) -- parenthetical qualifiers are nearly always an artifice based solely on Wikipedia naming conventions and as such, Disambiguation pages with (qualified) titles are nearly always exceptions to WP:INCOMPDAB. older ≠ wiser12:06, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
So what you mean by “incomplete disambiguation” is a PDAB without a PT, which is used as the title for a dab page itself, rather than as a redirect to the full dab page at the base name (or at the “<base name> (disambiguation)” if the base name itself has a PT).
I think dab pages with PDAB titles like that are fine, and prefer them to redirecting to a busier full dab page. —В²C☎14:48, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
FWIW, incomplete disambiguation was part of the guideline long before WP:PDAB was a thing. WP:PDAB became an issue largely because of specific conflicts with WP:INCOMPDAB. If the community wants to further loosen the exiting guideline for incomplete disambiguation, that's fine -- but the guideline really should be revised to reflect consensus and actual practice. Or perhaps we are OK with a free-for-all approach? older ≠ wiser15:17, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
To editor Bkonrad: (In reply to your 11/9 comment) Practice has clearly evolved in ways good and bad (evidenced by the content of that category) while the guidance has stayed the same, and vague. There seems to be broad agreement that the guidance should match the {{clade}} diagram I made above. While my text does that, it doesn't align with your (and I guess others) understanding of the terms "double disambiguation" and "incomplete disambiguation". But I think if I split it between those two sections and tweak the wording a bit, it can. I've presented a fresh version below. —swpbT • beyond • mutual20:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
I dunno. I really think a more fundamental re-organization is needed. Why are these two sections (Double disambiguation and Incomplete disambiguation) grouped together under the main heading of Links?
Initially, the undiscussed and poorly written Double disambiguation section did describe linking to secondary dab pages -- but this advice about linking has largely been superseded by WP:INTDABLINK.
I'm not sure Incomplete disambiguation ever really had much of anything to say about "links".
I think the use of transclusion on dab pages may merit a separate section that can be referenced wherever appropriate. Although the how-to may aspect fit better on MOSDAB than here. And some examples and perhaps some mention of advantages and disadvantages would be helpful.
In sum, while I think I largely agree with your intent in these updates, I think it is something of a band-aid approach that doesn't really address the underlying issues. More specifically, this needs to be clearer about whether "Incomplete disambiguation" is still an actual practice or if it is optional. Some concrete examples illustrating appropriate/inappropriate usage would be helpful ("large number" and "not tremendous" are uselessly vague). older ≠ wiser13:07, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
We're getting really "perfect is the enemy of good" here. Can we please get the overdue advice into the guide, and discuss rearranging things later? I don't know why the sections are currently under "Links", but I don't think we need to answer that to move forward. For examples, how about some from the table above? I don't think there is or will be consensus to specify numbers of entries, so adjectives like "large", supplemented with an example or two, will have to be enough; it's certainly better than the nothing we have now. —swpbT • beyond • mutual15:50, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
There's a world of difference between "perfect is the enemy of good" and making a bad situation worse (or at least only applying a superficial remedy). older ≠ wiser16:12, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Text proposal 2
Did a slight rewrite to align with existing understanding of terms. This involves repeating the last sentence in two sections, but it keeps things straight:
[At the top of the section "Double disambiguation" (This is identical to the first paragraph of my previous proposed version)]
A double disambiguation is an entry on a disambiguation page pointing to a more specifically named disambiguation page, rather than to an article. This is often done when the title of the secondary disambiguation page is a more specific variation of the topic name; for example, a disambiguation page "X" may have entries for secondary disambiguation pages "X County", "X University", etc., where the entries on those pages are sometimes called simply "X". When there are only a few entries on such a secondary page, it may be advisable to merge it up to the main page. If the number of entries on such a secondary disambiguation page is large but not tremendous, it is advisable to transclude those entries onto the main disambiguation page with {{transclude list}}.
[In the section "Incomplete disambiguation", just after the "Aurora" example]
In rare cases, where there are a large number of entries corresponding to a qualified title, it may be appropriate to create a separate disambiguation page at the qualified title, linked from the disambiguation page at the unqualified title (example: Blue Line (New York)), rather than a redirect. If the number of entries on such a secondary disambiguation page is large but not tremendous, it is advisable to transclude those entries onto the unqualified disambiguation page with {{transclude list}}.
@SMcCandlish, Certes, and Joy: I know Bkonrad isn't quite happy yet, what about you guys? Is this an improvement on the (lack of) guidance we have now? If it is, then to me, I think we should get it into the guide before we lose all momentum here; we have infinite time to make it better later. —swpbT • beyond • mutual16:01, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
More than not quite happy, I think this doesn't actually fix the issues raised here but is more of a tangential accretion. older ≠ wiser16:14, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
I want to know how the other participants feel. I'd love to get a consensus that includes you (I've spent lots of time so far trying to address your concerns, and I'm willing to spend more) but, with all due respect, a consensus that doesn't include you works too. —swpbT • beyond • mutual17:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Can you suggest a revision, and identify more clearly what the issues are with the wording above? I support generally this effort to distinguish these two classes clearly and to provide advice about how to handle them, but I'm not "wedded" to any particular language to do it so far. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 17:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Not sure what you're asking me; the text at the top of this section is my suggested revision. Only Bkonrad can shed clarity on his remaining issues with it. —swpbT • beyond • mutual18:02, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I mis-indented; that was meant for Bkonrad, in response to "More than not quite happy, I think this doesn't actually fix the issues raised here but is more of a tangential accretion." — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 18:54, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
I assume you mean me here. To be honest, my preference would be to simply extend what had been the previous understanding and limit incomplete disambiguation pages to exceptional cases. However, that there are so many such pages that appear to have some degree of acceptance makes me question whether or to what degree the current guidance on incomplete disambiguation is still the accepted norm. So, on the one hand, I could revise to tighten up the current confusing language to clarify when such rare exceptions might be appropriate. Or the alternative is criteria with language using "large number" and "not tremendous" -- I'd prefer to just present these as different options that can be used without any vague simulation of a policy-based preference. older ≠ wiser18:36, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
But I think there is broad agreement that size should be the deciding factor between options, but that we shouldn't put specific numbers to that. Qualitative terms are how you do that. —swpbT • beyond • mutual18:46, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Are you (or is anyone) saying size should not be the deciding factor? Or that the size bar for a qualified secondary dab page should not be higher than for a naturally titled one? If not, we can put that to bed. Yes, most of the pages in that category should probably be merged. —swpbT • beyond • mutual21:06, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Among the miniscule number of participants here, no. But other than Đại Việt quốc (who was ambivalent, but appeared to have slight preference for the multiple small secondary dab pages), we have had no input from the creators of the several dozens of pages in that category. older ≠ wiser21:12, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
And to be honest, if {{Transclude list}} is a workable alternative, that really removes one of the main arguments for merging as there would not be duplication of content with concomitant risk of content drift. older ≠ wiser21:17, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Transclusion ameliorates but does not remove the argument for merging; more dab pages is still more maintenance. E.g. someone adds an entry to the parent dab that belongs on the sub-dab. The mere possibility that someone may disagree is not a reason against a change, even to a guideline. What's more, the "use size" guidance reflects what's already mostly standard practice, it just makes it explicit. I don't see any substantive reason to not tell people to use size. Even if it's vague, its less vague than not giving any guidance at all, which is where we are now. —swpbT • beyond • mutual21:44, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
I guess it is the existence of many small secondary dab pages that raises question about just how "mostly standard practice" it is. Re transclusion maintenance, what you mention is different type of maintenance issue that transclusion introduces -- I still think a separate section (either here or in MOSDAB) is needed to provide some clearer instructions and pros/cons of the method). older ≠ wiser12:16, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Let's take on a smaller question. Is there any reason not to add the two sentences "This is often done when ... merge it up to the main page" into the first paragraph under "Double disambiguation" right now? —swpbT • beyond • mutual21:51, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
1) The phasing "large but not tremendous" is opaque (and "tremendous" is an odd term to use in describing anything on most disambiguation pages).
"Large" and "tremendous" do not appear in the sentences I'm asking you about. The only qualitative language is "only a few", which to me means less than 5, but again, we're trying to avoid numbers. So I ask the question again. Can we add those two sentences? —swpbT • beyond • mutual15:20, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I can no longer make heads or tails of what is being proposed now. BTW, I find it EXTREMELY difficult to read and compare differences in the underlined text in the proposals. older ≠ wiser15:50, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Just this:
A double disambiguation is an entry on a disambiguation page pointing to a more specifically named disambiguation page, rather than to an article. This is often done when the title of the secondary disambiguation page is a more specific variation of the topic name; for example, a disambiguation page "X" may have entries for secondary disambiguation pages "X County", "X University", etc., where the entries on those pages are sometimes called simply "X". When there are only a few entries on such a secondary page, it may be advisable to merge it up to the main page.
I'd refrained from commenting as I also felt overloaded with information. The text I'm replying to seems perfectly reasonable. The only point I'd make is that a secondary page which plucks specific entries from a mass of more general entries can be useful even (or perhaps especially) if it contains only a few entries, but the word "may" covers that. Certes (talk) 16:06, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Apart from comparing (which I would consider essential in any such change to see the context even if it is only an addition) -- the underlining of long passages makes them EXTREMELY difficult to read. older ≠ wiser16:12, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
The sentence being replaced is "This kind of disambiguation is relatively rare on Wikipedia." The underlining indicates insertion; it will not be underlined in the guideline. If you still can't understand what I'm saying, I'll just make the edit and you can examine the diff. —swpbT • beyond • mutual16:28, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
All I'm saying is that the manner in which you've presented these proposed changes by using underlined text for long passages makes them hard to read. older ≠ wiser16:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
The first sentence is unobjectionable. I hesitate with the second as it implies that merging small pages is the recommended advice (even though qualified as "may be advisable". I'd suggest presenting as a more general option such as In some cases, especially where there are only a few entries for the more specific name, the contents of the more specific page may be merged with the base name disambiguation page.older ≠ wiser16:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Merging small pages is the recommended advice. We're not trying to say they "may" be merged, but that they usually should. Everyone here (but you?) is on board with that. "may be advisable" says that perfectly and leaves plenty of room for discretion. —swpbT • beyond • mutual16:29, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
I do not agree that should be recommended for pages that have a distinct name (which is what double dab is). It may be OK in some cases, but not as a general recommendation. older ≠ wiser16:43, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
We'll come back to that. Do you agree that merging should be the general recommendation when the title is parenthetically qualified and there are only a few entries????? —swpbT • beyond • mutual16:51, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
Also, it is not only matter of how many or how few entries there are on the secondary page -- but the overall size of the base name disambiguation is also a consideration -- and perhaps for incomplete disambiguation, that might be more important than the number of entries on the secondary page. That is, I think readers might find it significantly easier to find the desired topic on a small(-ish) secondary page rather than having to sift through a large(-ish) combined disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser16:59, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
(replying to earlier question)
This seems much better to me than the previous proposal. I haven't reviewed the entire discussion surrounding it, but in the case of Arteaga (footballer) that list itself confuses me, because it's not obvious whether all of those people were known mononymously as Arteaga or were some of them just generally referenced mononymously under their surname, in which case it's not really clear why they should get primacy in navigation over WP:NAMELIST-split surname list. --Joy (talk) 09:46, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Few results with WikiNav
WP:DPT says "it's unlikely that there is a primary topic by usage ... if there is so little traffic that few or no graphs are shown".
Does this mean that having a rarely used DAB page counts as evidence that usage does not suggest a primary target, or does it just mean that WikiNav provides less evidence when there are few results? Thanks.
