Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 9

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Names 2

I have combined Chris Britton into Christopher Britton (think it's one of those 'name cases' over 'disambig'). Should the same be done to Matt Smith & Matthew Smith? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The merger of the Britton pages was fine, but I'd keep the Smith pages separate for lengthiness. I'm sorry that I can't give a better explanation; this is totally based on gut feeling. – sgeureka t•c 18:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, but wouldn't these be Category:Given names or Category:Surnames and not dabs? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
If the name is a "full" name like Matt Smith or Matthew Smith, it's a {{hndis}}, not a surname list or a given name list. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Tillicum

This page needs a lot of help and/or moral support for the editor(s) who will take it on. --Tesscass (talk) 18:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

OMG. Should we just go to AfD and get it over with? There's nothing there! --AndrewHowse (talk) 19:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
There are probably a handful of note-worthy entries, but I don't know which is which. --Tesscass (talk) 19:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Might be useful to cross-post at the Washington/Oregon/Canadian Projects and seek their input. I'll do that later. --AndrewHowse (talk) 19:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
W-O-W. That is impressive. Is it a record for number entries that do not meet MOS:DAB? -Gwguffey (talk) 20:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
The (perhaps overzealous) cleanup/mass-deletion was reverted at Tillicum. Could someone experienced with location-dab-pages please help out? I'm fairly sure many of those redlinks should remain, but I'm not sure which, nor have time to research the criteria.
Abtract: Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Red links and also Wikipedia:Red link. "Good red links help Wikipedia — they encourage new contributors in useful directions, and remind us that Wikipedia is far from finished."
Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh dear ... mos:dab#Redlinks makes it quite clear that A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link. The purpose of dab pages is to assist navigation to existing articles not to list what might be one day. My "overenthusiastic edit" simply removed all the non articles as is common practice (there just happened to be a lot of them!). To solve the problem I have created a page List of potential Tillicum related topics for the redlinked items as a reminder of what needs doing - naturally this page is linked on the dab page. This should do the trick imho. Abtract (talk) 09:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

shortcuts to this talk page

Would there be any issues with my adding {{Shortcut|WT:WPDIS|WT:WPDAB}} to this page? --Gwguffey (talk) 14:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason to oppose. By all means. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 15:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
done. dropped the toc, shortcuts and archive box into a three column table, so that neither the toc or archive box would get pushed down the page. --Gwguffey (talk) 17:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Danny Miller

Is there a reason for the Danny Miller dab page to exist? It doesn't seem to have any actual article associated with it, just a couple of redlinks and links to other topics. Perhaps it should be merged with Daniel Miller or Dan Miller, or maybe all three together? Ashanda (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

There's 1 actual acticle - I fixed the spelling to the radio producer link. But this in no way mean I think the dab page should be kept. --Tesscass (talk) 23:52, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
If I was doing this one, I would create some redlinks because Danny Miller is mentioned in (at least some of) the target articles. Like you I would be very tempted to merge all three but are we sure that Danny Miller is actually Daniel Miller (likewise for Dan). In the end it is your call, just do it how you see it. Abtract (talk) 21:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Incomplete dab?

Anyone think Death (comics) should be merged into Death (disambiguation), then tagged with {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. From what I can see, the SeeAlso section on the comics page should be nuked completely, and the rest would fit quite nicely on the main dab page. – sgeureka t•c 21:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree, go ahead and do it. Abtract (talk) 21:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Template expertise needed

While trying to fix links to the dab page Herzog, I found Template:German title as used in Franz, Duke of Bavaria (and presumably more pages to come). Does anyone here know how to fix this without trashing the template, please? --AndrewHowse (talk) 19:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not seeing what's wrong with it, because it appears to function correctly in Firefox. On the Franz, Duke of Bavaria page and a couple others I looked at, it is used inside ref tags and, when completed with a title after the pipe, produces a boilerplate explanation of that German title that appears in the References or Notes section. What are you seeing?--ShelfSkewed Talk 19:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm seeing that too, and it's probably as its authors intended, but the link then goes to the dab page Herzog (when the template argument is Herzog, of course). I'd prefer it to go to Herzog (name), or even to Herzog (title), so that there's no inbound link to the dab page. In other words, it's a correct implementation of a flawed requirement, not a flawed implementation per se. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Template modified, is it what you wanted ? --NicoV (talk) 20:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I believe it is! Thank you, --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Wiz‎

Anyone want to take a shot at this one? I don't think it needs to be split to Wiz (name) or anything but that's just me. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I split it to Wiz and The Wiz (disambiguation). (John User:Jwy talk) 05:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
So I've noticed, it looks better now. Except what about the primary topic? Like at MGS? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no "automatic" primary topic, since the dab is as the base name. MGS treats MgS as a primary topic as a special case, recently. The question was raised on Talk:MGS without answer. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

About dab redirects

There's probably been discussion about this in the past so here goes: wouldn't Indian (Americas) (disambiguation) be a more sensible redirect for Indian (Americas) than Indian (Americas disambiguation) is? User:Jerzy creates dab redirects with one parenthesis while I use two, like Freeze (song) (disambiguation)‎. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Freeze (song) should be made into a redirect to Freeze and tagged {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}. Indian (Americas) should likewise be tagged and redirect to Indian. In the case of long dabs, section links can be used. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
So which is preferred, had there been such a situation? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I'm digressing, but it seems to me that Indian (Americas) most likely should redirect to American Indian. --Russ (talk) 00:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC) (I made that comment before looking at all the pages involved in the discussion. Having done so now, I realize that this isn't the best solution. Russ (talk) 20:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC))
Why is nobody answering my question? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The need to disambiguate an already parenthetically disambiguated term should rarely be necessary. IMO, double parenthesis seem bizarre and if such disambiguation is indeed absolutely necessary, some other formulation would be preferable. For example, hypothetically, if there were so many songs named "Freeze" as to warrant a separate page, something titled List of songs named Freeze with a redirect from List of songs named Freeze (disambiguation) would be preferable to Freeze (song) (disambiguation). In the particular case, Indian (Americas) seems an unnecessary fork of Indian, which is itself a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 02:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
So Jerzy's redirects are preferable over mine? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
No, they're unnecessary. older ≠ wiser 02:31, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
What to do? Go through our edits and sort out the "wrong dab links"? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
When you find a disambiguation page that itself has a disambiguating phrase in the title, such as "(Americas)" or "(song)", it should be fixed, yes. There is no need for either Indian (Americas) (disambiguation) or Indian (Americas disambiguation). Indian (Americas) should not be a disambiguation page. Indian (Americas) should either redirect to Indian as an {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} or it should redirect to the non-disambiguation article for that dab phrase, such as American Indian. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
What then would be your understanding of WP:Dab#Generic topic? It seems to me intended to avoid anyone ever being sent from a Dab to another Dab, without being explicitly told that that is the case. You not only want to allow the possibility of lack of such notice, you want to create cases where no reasonable reader could avoid being deceived! There is a long established consensus to the contrary.
--Jerzy•t 20:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Lemme try again, reading more carefully.
--Jerzy•t 21:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I apologize for responding base on my misreading (in the markup, rather than in the rendered or previewed page, where it's clearer) of List of songs named Freeze (disambiguation) as a repetition of List of songs named Freeze.
I nevertheless object both to the effect of suggesting to users that the title List of songs named Freeze was in need of Dab'n, and to muddying the line between pages that embody lists of related topics (related, i would hope, by an encyclopedic similarity) and Dabs (together just bcz of a coincidence of naming that requires dab'n) -- Dabs are already plagued by the addition of long lists of, say, every article that has Freeze in (or what is easier and thus commoner, at the start of) its title, regardless of whether anyone would reasonably abbreviate their titles to "Freeze". Both the use of "List of " for a Dab, and of " (disambiguation)" following a title that is not being Dab'd IMO violate the implicit but clear intent of SAL and SAL, respectively, to reserve the clearly specified formats for the purposes the specifications explicitly apply to.
--Jerzy•t 21:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
JH's proposed treatment of Freeze (song) can only be called cavalier, a case of "Let them eat cake." They advocate inconveniencing users who know they are looking for a song by leaving them to what would have to become a 16-entry dab, wasting their time on sorting thru it, for the sake of ... uh, what what was your reason?
--Jerzy•t 20:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
While i don't have a dog in the Indian (Americas) fight (which not only JH but also User:Bkonrad ("older") responds to above, in responding to an unrelated response), it may be worth explication: I found at Indian a Dab that amounted to my Dabs Indian (Asian) and Indian (Americas) piled end to end. I found that approach to be an impediment to dab'n, e.g., Indus (constellation) is a Latin name for the constellation conceived as an American Indian, not a more proximate reference to the river, and many users would be at a loss which half to search for songs, bands, and films with "Indian" as name or title, so that in the respective cases the user would be likely to give up looking for the constellation's article, and some users would search both halves for the Arts and Entertainment namesakes. In order to minimize the risk of offense to ethnic or national prides in either hemisphere, i recreated, in the form of the two sfx'd-titled Dab pages, the subdivision that i had eliminated from Indian.
The only sense in which i would object to anyone's disposition of Indian (Asian) and Indian (Americas) is that if it becomes an occasion of conflict or leads to attempts to again mis-subdivide the Dab Indian, i won't hesitate to substantially restore the current organization of the three, ref'g this talk section in the edit summaries.
Jerzy•t 20:29 & 20:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
There are several approaches that occur to me:
  1. ''title'' (''sfx''), disambiguation
  2. ''title'' (''sfx'') (disambiguation)
  3. ''title'' (''sfx'' disambiguation)
  4. ''title'' (''sfx'', disambiguation)
  5. ''title'' (''sfx''; disambiguation)
  6. further variants with other internal punctuation marks
I ruled out #1 bcz it is contrary to WP:Dab#Generic topic, i presume bcz it would encourage the labels following lks to un-sfx'd Dabs that i've occasionally seen, e.g.
or
and invites excessive description, shading into excessive explanation, shading into micro-articles being written with Dab entries, to the detriment of clear and quick disambiguation. Likewise #2 (what the 2nd 'graph of "Generic topic" literally prescribes), on the common-sense ground that " )( " is ugly, looks redundant, and is redundant if you recall that the function of parentheses to separate minor concerns from major ones. (Of course, when YMMV, "common sense" amounts to nothing more than a term of abuse, an attempt to bully.) #3 produces, strictly speaking, ambiguous phrases -- is it the sfx or the title that's being dab'd? -- but IMO most of those who will see such lks will grasp what's going on, barely skipping a beat. Now that i've been pushed into formulating it, i like #5 best, but (as long as it isn't #1) i'm more interested in quick agreement being reached on something than in which one wins.
--Jerzy•t 20:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
My $0.02: I agree with JHunterJ and Bkonrad—Indian (Americas) and Indian (Asian) should both be merged back into Indian. It's pointless and discourteous, to say the least, to force users to go hunting multiple places to find the article they want. --Russ (talk) 20:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
You say you looked at the page, Russ, so i don't understand. Do you feel the two lks at the top of Indian force use of the others bcz user may not look beyond those two? Unless others have added or deleted entries, everything on them is also on Indian.
--Jerzy•t 20:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
(after ec) I've already indicated that I think Indian (Americas) and Indian (Asian) are unnecessary and potentially confusing forks. All of the content of both pages is listed at Indian, yet a reader gets to that page and sees these links in addition to the others. And inevitably, over time, the content will become less synchronous, resulting in even more inefficient disambiguation effort for the reader -- do I look on this page or that page? Why are some links links on both pages but not others. Seems to be a recipe for a maintenance mess. That said, I think such double-disambiguations should be rarely if ever necessary. So with respect, I think you may be trying to solve a messy hypothetical which is so uncommon as to not require such a detailed level of instruction creep. older ≠ wiser 21:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

A list article such as List of songs namd Freeze would be fine. A disambiguation page Freeze (song) would be better off redirected to Freeze or a section of that main dab. It's not meant to be cavalier; that's just the conclusion reached the previous times this has come up. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I have fixed it. Abtract (talk) 08:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Since we've come to a solution, I would like to see Indian (Americas disambiguation) and Freeze (song) (disambiguation) deleted, as well as the other erroneous redirects created by Jerzy. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
My thoughts are that there is no point in mentioning who made "erroneous redirects"; those who do stuff sometimes bog up but doing is better than tweaking and criticising. Abtract (talk) 19:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Irrelevant and slightly off-topic. Still, I would like to see Indian (Americas disambiguation) and Freeze (song) (disambiguation) deleted, including the other erroneous redirects. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Its never irrelevant to ask for a bit of magnanimity. --Tesscass (talk) 19:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
As a procedural matter, bear in mind that WP:CSD#Redirects and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion#Reasons for deleting have much narrower views of "erroneous" than what you're likely to be expecting, based on experience with article deletions.
--Jerzy•t 04:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion appears to have died down -- is there general agreement that Indian (Americas) and Indian (Asian) should be redirected to Indian? older ≠ wiser 14:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You may be right but shouldn't Indian be redirected to India just like it would for any other country. Would it not be better to redirect Indian (Americas)]] and Indian (Asian) both to India (disambiguation)? Having said that, I wouldn't be too unhappy with your solution. :) 15:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Educational institution

I'm not sure if tagging the page for cleanup is a good call, since it might just get reverted. Any thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed it. Abtract (talk) 11:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

DMZ

Need a little help on this page. Some time after User:Jerzy brought this up (see page's history) I'm having second thoughts on whether WP:PIPING strictly applies to this dab. Guess a little revamp will do. Maybe not? Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 07:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Issue at the Kamehameha dab

Here is the link to the discussion. Any help is appreciated. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed it for you. Abtract (talk) 19:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for comments—bot to find missing DAB entries

Hi— I'm developing Navibot, a bot to find and remedy missing disambiguation entries. Here's an example of the kind of edit I hope it will be able to make eventually. At the moment, all the bot can do is find such opportunities, I made the actual edit. The example is explicated a little more on the bot's user page, and I'd welcome comments on the whole endeavor here or on its talk page. Thanks! —johndburger 01:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Assistance needed at new dab

Help is needed at updating the new dab, Shinto (disambiguation)‎. Let me admit, I'm not very good when it comes to descriptions for some entries. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation needed: Wali/Wāli

(copied from Wikipedia talk:Suggestions for name disambiguation) --Tesscass (talk) 18:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Wali and Wāli appear to need disambiguation. The Wali (= "friend") article has a disambig link to Wāli (= "governor"), but not vice versa, and the majority of the uses I find in a search that refer to a governor and should therefor link to Wāli are actually linked to Wali. Agricolae (talk) 23:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The hatnote at Wali appears to suffice. It does not appear that readers seeking Wali will reach Wāli inadvertently. The question may be "Should Wali be a redirect to Wāli (after moving the existing article)?". If the primary topic for Wali is indeed Wāli, then yes, but I do not have a suggestion for the new name for the friend meaning. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess the problem I wanted to bring up was not so much the articles themselves, but all of the links to Wali, that should be to Wāli - in fact, in a quick search, I found numerous instances of Wali being used for governor, and directly linking to the inappropriate Wali, rather than to the correct Wāli. I am not sufficiently familiar with the subjects of most of the articles (nor do I have the time) to do the cleanup, but there is clearly a good bit of cleanup that needs done. Agricolae (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
The two possible fixes are:
  1. Move Wali to another name and then redirect Wali to Wāli
  2. Edit the pages that incorrectly link to Wali to link to Wāli instead. WT:AWB may be able to help. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Gog (disambiguation) → Gog and Magog (disambiguation) → Magog

Discussions are going on at WP:RfD regarding the deletion of the redirect page Magog. In the course of the discussion, proposed moves were posted at WP:RM for the move of two disambiguation pages (noted above) to two names not currently used by articles or redirects. This is not a canvassing. With the discussion being dominated by a few editors from the WikiProject that covers Gog and Magog, it could use a few more perspectives, preferably from those who deal most with dab pages. B.Wind (talk) 00:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I deal mostly with dab pages, and I have weighed in already, B.Wind. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. The more participating from across Wikipedia, the more representative the consensus. B.Wind (talk) 03:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Guidance needed at Mallory

Hi there, Mallory is a disambiguation page, largely for the surname, but someone has created List of places named Mallory. I have suggested a merge, but the list is a little more extensive than the typical disambig page. Expert opinions are welcome at Talk:Mallory: dramatic (talk) 10:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

So I finished the P's (pretty much)

After 18 days, and about 3750 edits, I've cleaned up pretty much all of the 5000 disambigation pages starting with P. Pretty much...

They're not perfect, I didn't make them all shining examples of what a disambiguation page should look like, I focused instead on speed. I removed the extra blue links, periods at the end of entries, made sentences into sentence fragments, moved the link to the beginning of the entry if it was not too hard to do so, removed external links, fixed inappropriate piping, and removed obvious entries which didn't belong. I did not mess with the introductions generally (some contain overly long introductions), I did not check most of the redlinks, I sometimes left 2 blue links in an entry if I had no idea which was appropriate and didn't want to spend time figuring it out, I did not organize the entries into a better order than they were already in, etc.

I also added disambig-cleanup to about 50 of the really bad ones, and didn't mess with them at all. Generally these were some ugly cross between an article and a disambig page, or otherwise contained large amounts of text which didn't belong.

But all of that said, the P's now actually look like disambiguation pages, and not whatever random format someone happened to type in 3 years ago which everyone since then followed. And, if one person can clean up 5% of our disambiguation pages in only 18 days, then it is in fact possible for them all to get done. I'm moving on to the Q's now [May 9th update, I've finished the Q's as well, and have started the R's], we'll see how long I keep this up before I lose interest. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 20:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Three words: You are crazy. :-) I managed 200 dab pages in two months when I was totally into dabbing, but then again, I went straight for the {{disambig-cleanup}}s. – sgeureka t•c 20:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Heh, I have a lot of free time on my hands. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 08:36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Airport disambiguation

The template {{disambig}} typically is used to categorize the disambiguous page itself. Also, WikiProjects normally categorized Disambiguous pages via the disambiguous talk page. Category:Disambig-Class aviation pages and Category:Disambig-Class airport pages contains such talk page categorization. However, WikiProject Airports and/or WikiProject Aviation also categorizes the disambiguous page itself. See Category:Airport disambiguation. Is there really a need to segment Airport disambiguous pages from Category:Disambiguation? If not, please consider changing {{Airport disambig}} to {{disambig}} on the so tagged disambiguous pages. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 20:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Dab-Class Mountain articles

There appears to be some overlap between Category:Dab-Class Mountain articles and Category:Disambiguation lists of mountains. Is Category:Disambiguation lists of mountains really needed in view of Category:Dab-Class Mountain articles? GregManninLB (talk) 21:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Note for anyone who wondered about this, a response to this question was given at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mountains#Dab-Class_Mountain_articles. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 02:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation page cleanup drive?

I saw a good quote over at the Help Desk today: "It's much easier for people to point out work that needs doing, than to actually do the work." This was in terms of various backlogs of articles needing "X". Whenever I run across disambiguation pages that are in disarray, I either add the cleanup tag, or do the cleanup myself. Sadly, the majority of the time it is the former. And I do work on things at Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup on a regular basis, but never make a very good dent.

In the spirit of making a better dent, would there be any interest in having a disambiguation page cleanup drive (or something of the like)? Alas it's not the start of the month or anything, but we could make a goal of having "x or fewer disambiguation pages needing cleanup" by, say, the end of the month. I know at least for me, if it was a known collaboration, I would have more drive to work on them - perhaps others too?

Of course, if it sounds like just a loony idea, then I'll just keep plugging along. :) -- Natalya 20:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this comment will be helpful, but... We have probably 20,000 disambiguation pages which require major cleanup, and 50,000 more which require at least some minor cleanup. The articles in Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup do tend to be the worst of the worst, though. Probably 1/3 of the articles in that category were put there by me, as I'm doing a major cleanup project (See "So I finished the P's (pretty much)" previously on this page). I'm adding articles to that category at the rate of 100 or so a month, and will continue to do so until I burn out on this project.
I'm not sure what my point is here, just putting things into context. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 20:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
You are sort of crazily impressive to tackle all the disambiguation pages starting with a letter, rather than just the tagged ones. That certainly is the way to make sure they all get cleaned, rather than wait for then to be tagged! (For general sanity) I may stick to the tagged ones, but you are in my awe. -- Natalya 21:15, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
When I joined this WikiProject about a year ago, there were about 350 pages in Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup, and when I and some others had gotten down to 50 pages, a user ran a bot and filled the category again to ~400 pages. The pages were cleaned up by and by, and for several months, the level was again below 50 pages. The cat got filled again only recently. What I want to say is that no cleanup drive is really necessary, the problem will desolve by itself. At least for me, I just need to be in the mood, and I'll clean up five or ten pages in one go. – sgeureka t•c 15:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, there was no intent to start any sort of war with this! I just thought some kind of initiative to get the pages cleaned up would be fun/helpful... not decisive. And yet I learn! Sgeureka, your description of the ebbing and flowing of pages is hopeful; I do recall previous times when there have been many fewer pages in the category. Hopefully it will continue as such then. -- Natalya 17:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
That's fine. :-) I also want to add that there are editors like me who really enjoy cleaning up dab pages. My ratio of cleaning-up versus cleanup-tagging must be something like 10:1 or higher, and I only add {{disambig-cleanup}} when I am really out of time, will or skill. Wouldn't want someone to take my pleasure away from me. – sgeureka t•c 18:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
:D Woot! -- Natalya 18:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Anthroponymy

Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy has been warned that unless we get on the ball and start splitting disambiguation pages into dab and name pages that the name content will be wiped away by this cleanup drive. That is neither an appropriate nor constructive tone - it smacks of a 'lead, follow or get out of the way' mentality that is way outside the bounds of cooperativity that makes this whole project work. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anthroponymy#Rial. There is a mechanism for informing the Project of articles that are in need of splitting; see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anthroponymy#Articles_that_could_be_split. The attitude taken by xyzzyplugh in the post to the wikiproject brings up the notion of the reverse - that the Anthroponymy project could just as easily wipe away disambiguation content in favor of name content. I don't think we want a war starting here. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Until summer 2007, it was widely considered appropriate to not split off names at all, and the efforts to split them originated in the dab WP, so it is the job of the dab cleanup'ers to responsibly split off names. xyzzyplugh's note was off. – sgeureka t•c 15:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I've moved this discussion into its own section, as it actually had nothing to do with the previous section. I've responded to this on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anthroponymy#Rial, but to briefly explain here what this is about - essentially I was joking, and it came across poorly. See the discussion linked to above for more details on that. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 18:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Two dabs

Does anyone think that Darkest Night and Longest Night should be tagged for cleanup? Just a thought. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

At first glance, not particularly. Though I could easily be missing something. At least one song on Darkest Night does actually have its own article, though. I don't freak out when I look at them, at least. And debating of we even need to list all of those songs... maybe? Do you have particular concerns about them? -- Natalya 00:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Follow up: That may not have been the clearest response ever - apologies. Basically, there are probably some things that could be done to improve it, but I did feel that they were glaringly awful. -- Natalya 00:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Maxwell School

Maxwell School currently directs to secondary school by that name in Malaysia, while the graduate school in New York that commonly goes by that name is under the heading Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. While this is its full name, I have to think that there should be a disambig page for ¨Maxwell School" that would direct the reader to both. After all, English language users are much more likely to be looking for the American graduate school than the Malaysian secondary school when they search ¨Maxwell School¨. Iś appreciate if someone could make this disambig page as I´m pretty busy at the moment. Thanks. -Plasticbadge (talk) 17:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There's already a hatnote on the Singaporean school; that should do it for now. If there get to be a further number of notable schools of that name, then we'll need a dab page. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Devilman (disambiguation)

New dab needs attention. For example, the red links (each?) need a good description and blue link. Or perhaps a different layout which conforms with MoS:DAB#Red links? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps there could be a link to Devilman#Remakes.2C_Sequels.2C_and_Live-action_movie saying something along the lines of "Adaptations of the film", instead of all the red links? That section of the article seems to talk about all of them, and in more depth than the disambiguation page does/can. -- Natalya 10:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Since the redlinks would all point back to the primary topic Devilman, they aren't too useful on the dab page. I've commented them out. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Otaki

How's it looking? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 02:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Taylor County

Discussion moved to Talk:Taylor County. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Flash (comics)

I need a little help on this page. User:J Greb is insisting that the hatlink there should not use a redirect over the direct link. I've pointed the guidelines to him several times (especially WP:D#Links to disambiguation pages), but he seems to not get it. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like you've cited all the appropriate guidelines for why the link should be to Flash (disambiguation). Perhaps wait and see with what he replies? -- Natalya 22:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
He won't settle for anything else. Should I undo the edit per our discussion? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I find it's almost always best to wait and resolve the issue first, rather than start a psuedo (or real) edit war. In hopes to be helpful, I've posted my thoughts on his talk page, so hopefully we can find a resolution. -- Natalya 23:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Per his (J Greb's) talk page, it looks like there's a better understanding on the issue now. I'll go ahead and change it back. -- Natalya 01:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I guess it's possible that he overlooked something. Alas, glad to hear all was settled ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Torres (disambiguation)

There any rule on using two similar looking "disambig" tags? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no actual rule against it. Arguably it looks weird to have two similar messages at the end of the article, but there are many articles with multiple stub tags. I would avoid it unless there's a specific justification for it.  Randall Bart   Talk  19:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
There should not be multiple disambiguation tags on a page. older ≠ wiser 19:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I've dealt with it. :) Abtract (talk) 19:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Airport codes and radio stations

On a related subject, but not wanting to start a war between two projects not being sure what the rules are... The guidelines mention that dab pages are supposed to show alternatives to article TITLES which might have the same meaning. I do a lot of searches on radio stations, and frequently bump up against dab pages listing an airport ICAO code as an alternative article KSYR as an example. The general public would never do a "Go" article search with an ICAO code to find the article on the Syracuse International Airport. If they know the code, they could "Search" to find the article, since the code appears in the article. For a radio station (in the U.S. at least), the call sign IS the name of the station - it isn't an acronym or a code - it's the only reasonable name for the article. People looking for the AM radio station in New York on 770 khz are going to search for WABC or perhaps WABC-AM if they know the naming convention used by the radio station project and know there is a WABC-TV.

I also notice similar pages where the 4 character word that overlaps a radio station call sign is a character name in a literary work, a "move" in a martial art, a word from another language... None of those are article titles - just words used in the target article. Am I on safe ground removing those kinds of disambiguations? If so, what do I refer to as the policy I'm basing the change on?StreamingRadioGuide (talk) 10:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

No, do not remove those entries. In general, they should be listed below entries such as those for radio stations, in which the dab term appears in the article title, when there is an article for the radio station.
  • KSYR appears to serve no purpose -- there is only one blue link on it, so it should redirect to the airport or the radio station article stub should be created.
  • WABC needs cleaning to remove the bare red links.
  • An entry like this, from APC, is fine:
  • Or use a hatnote like the one on KMCI if there is only the radio station and the airport.
Let us know if this helps. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:57, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
As a follow up, the Manual of Style for disambiguation pages discusses having entries on a disambiguation page that are part of an article, not an article themselves. For more information, you can take a look at the sections in the Manual of Style on red links and URL anchor notation. -- Natalya 14:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Species epithet disambiguation pages

I have created a few disambiguation pages that list articles that share the same species epithet, including canus and miserabilis. The rationale behind creating such pages as these is that a person will often only know part of the name of the species for which they are looking. By typing "canus" or "miserabilis" into the search bar, they are provided with either a short list to choose from or a long well-structured list by which they will easily find the specific species they desire. These pages are not supposed to indicate that there is some connection between the species listed. Instead, they serve as disambiguation pages that distinguish between unrelated but similarly-titled articles. The validity of these disambiguation pages has been questioned, so I thought that the WikiProject Disambiguation community would be able to help in the discussion. Please voice your opinion and your reasons so that we can determine whether or not species epithet disambiguation pages in general should be created. Neelix (talk) 01:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... I can see the use, but isn't that sort of what the search function is for? If I don't know the whole species name, and I just know "Canus", I'll type it in the search bar, and all the things with the name will come up. I'm not sold one way or the other yet, but that's my first thought. -- Natalya 02:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
There are a huge number of specific epithets in the world, particularly when one considers all the names that have been used for the same organisms. Further, some of them have been used for hundreds if not thousands of taxa. Check out alba or crassa or hispida, etc. Having access to the type of disambiguation tool you discuss might well be helpful. I'm not at all sure, though, that this project fits within the space envisioned for Wikipedia. I would advise much more discussion before creating pages except as sandbox tests. Tim Ross (talk) 10:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems fairly reasonable that a readers might type in Canus or Miserabilis when looking for any of the entries on these pages, if they had half remembered the name. Indeed they may even think that the thing they are seeking is actually called by that name. The fact that there are potentially huge numbers involved should have no bearing. "Are the pages useful in a disambiguating way?" is surely the only question of significance and IMHO the anser is "Yes". IMHO this is an acceptable, if slightly marginal, use of a disambiguation page. Abtract (talk) 11:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm. As the person who tagged the Miserabilis article for deletion, I feel like I ought to be against this, but I think I'm liking this idea. First of all, when a search is performed, I don't enjoy weeding through each result and several hundred pages to find the one I'm looking for, or even to find out I don't know what I'm looking for!
Second of all, it occurred to me that there are many species which are renamed or have controversial names, so this could be a useful way to locate those species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs)

War Machine (disambiguation)

Shouldn't WARMACHINE be a second primary topic for this dab, like how streetfighter is one for Street Fighter (disambiguation)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:32, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

No, streetfighter shouldn't be a primary topic on Street Fighter (disambiguation); there are not multiple entries that would have gone on to a hypothetical Streetfighter (disambiguation) page for it to be the primary topic of and kept so after being merged; and there are not multiple entries that would have gone on to a hypothetical WARMACHINE (disambiguation) page for it to be the primary topic of and kept so after being merged to War Machine (disambiguation). As we've discussed before, and Abtract agreed (or at least conceded), at WT:MOSDAB#Primary topic after that edit at the Street Fighter dab. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Conceded lol. Abtract (talk) 13:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Dab pages for countries

I was removing the incoming links for Greek and noticed that not all Greek related pages are added on the page (e.g. Greek Music or Greek Religion). I checked other country related dab pages and saw that mostly only the country, the people and the language is mentioned, sometimes history and culture. However I couldn't find a policy relating to it. is there any reason why these pages are missing? --Mdebets (talk) 22:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Is someone looking for Greek Music going to enter Greek in the search box and hit "Go"? Is an editor intending to link to Greek Music going to call it Greek in an article? If not, there's no reason to put it on the disambiguation page. The country, the language, and the people are likely to have "yes" answers to those questions. Music and religion are less likely, but vary by the term. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
The only country I can think of which might need a country dab page is Korea (which already has one here). You might need one for America as that could refer to a number of locations, but that page is already a dab page. There may be others, but that's what I can think of off the cuff. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
There's also Macedonia. :) --Tkynerd (talk) 02:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
China, Madagascar, I'm sure there are many (especially if someone made a movie about it!). (John User:Jwy talk) 02:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't know if many people will type "Greek" in the search box and hit "Go" when looking for Greek music, but for sure people will link just the word "Greek" in such circumstances. I've disambiguated several language/ethnicity pages, and frequently there are links to music or cuisine. I often link those to the culture article, but if there is a music article and/or there is a cuisine article, those articles belong on the dab page.  Randall Bart   Talk  20:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

So I finished the P's, Q's, and R's

As I mentioned above , I'm doing a massive cleanup on disambiguation pages, going through and checking each page one by one. I've finished the 10,000 or so pages in the P's, Q's, and R's, having done at least some cleanup on probably 70% of them.

As before, I'm not completely polishing these pages to perfection, just removing the worst of the problems, the excess blue links, periods at the end of entries, inappropriate bold text, entries which obviously don't belong, fixing inappropriate piping, moving the blue linked term to the beginning of the entry if possible. Also, the worst of the pages, 100 of them or so by now, are getting disambig-cleanup tags.

I've made a new section on this here rather than simply updating the previous one as I want to insure this cleanup is noticed, partly just to keep editors informed, but also hopefully to inspire someone at some point to join in or take over when I inevitably burn out on this. If I could somehow keep this up for the next 10 months, I'd finish them all, but the odds of that seem low.

I noticed that editors in this project were spending time debating over the minutiae of the various finer points of the manual of style, having crafted a well thought out set of guidelines over what disambiguation pages should look like... but 25% of the pages were radically divergent from the guideline and another 50% were somewhat off. Things were (and still are) such a mess that it becomes almost futile to try to enforce the guidelines on any page, since any editor could easily point out that in general the guidelines aren't really being followed anyway.

Well, they're being followed on the pages beginning with P through R now. And I'm onto the S's next. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 21:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like what you're doing is quite beneficial. Yeah, I've noticed that recently, there's been a bit of disagreeing back and forth over pages that, in relation to other disambiguation pages, are in pretty good shape. I like your attitude of getting the pages managable, but not obsessing over minute details, so that a lot can get done. Right now, I'm still focusing on the pages tagged for cleanup, but I may take up your task also. You initially started with the P's, right? -- Natalya 13:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I have been working slowly back from the Zs. Abtract (talk) 14:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps eventually I'll make it far enough to reach the portion you've done, and I'll be able to skip forward to the A's. If I'm still at this, some months from now. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 16:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I started with the P's. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 16:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to start going backwards from you... which puts me at the O's. -- Natalya 17:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Groovy. You might want to consider using some software to help you out, if you're not doing so already. I find wikEd to be helpful, there may be other software which is better, I'm not sure. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 20:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I just looked over several of your pages. It looks good, though in some cases you are being too strict in removing secondary links. If there are just a few links, and the secondary links are potentially useful, you can leave them. In Sell Sell Sell you should have just left it as it was. In the former version I could hover Barenaked Ladies or David Gray and have popups tell me a little of the article, which might be enough to tell me which one I want.  Randall Bart   Talk  21:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I disagree in general. On longer pages (beyond the two there), having a bunch of links on the page make it difficult to find the one thing most people coming to the page are looking. If they are interested in looking at BNL, then they can click on Maroon and get there that way. Most people looking for BNL would have entered Bare Naked Ladies rather than Sell Sell Sell. But on a shorter page, I'm not that concerned. (John User:Jwy talk) 03:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Mick / Mike / Michael Hill

Does anyone see a good reason why I shouldn't merge the 3 dab pages Mick Hill, Mike Hill, Michael Hill into one? It wouldn't be unbearably long, I suggest. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Only issue may be that the Micks aren't all actually named Michael or Mike. See the archived discussion on Danny Miller for dab pages with a similar issue. --Tesscass (talk) 21:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Quite so; I'll try to find a form of introduction that doesn't imply that they're completely interchangeable. --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
You might also check with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy folks. They have thought long and hard about name pages and might have a different (but hopefully not inconsistent) view of things. (John User:Jwy talk) 22:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)-
Thanks for thinking about the Anthroponymy WikiProject. The focus of that Project is on one-name studies (e.g. Mick, Mike, Michael ... all of which need some work) rather than full names. I do no think you should feel constrained by origin-relatedness in the case of {{hndis}}-type dab pages. (a note has been cross-posted referring to this discussion to invite further comment) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for cross-posting. --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Suggestion withdrawn. There are see also links from each to the other two, and it didn't seem that there was much confusion among the inbound links to each of the 3. --AndrewHowse (talk) 13:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Mark I, Mark II, Mark III, Mark IV, etc.

Under the aegis of the WP:WikiProject Military history, I recently proposed a series of "Mark {Roman numeral}" disambiguation pages that cite variants of weapons, vehicles and products, along with other pages that fall under the particular dab heading. The first handful of these are already in place, except for Mark II which is currently a radio telescope article. I've been working on Mark I, Mark III, Mark IV, Mark XIV, Mark XV and Mark XVIII, and intend to continue fleshing out and adding where needed. Redirects along the lines of Mk I, Mk. I as well as Mk 1 and Mk. 1 will be added up through the various Arabic and Roman numerals.

The Mark II and Mark X pages will have to be taken away from the current articles that are there now. Mark II (radio telescope) can be created (similar to Mark III (radio telescope)), and Mark X (musician) will have to be created as well.

Mark 1 through Mark 16 are set up as chapters of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. I don't have the slightest problem with this: they can stay where they are. I'll add Mark 17 and up as redirects.

The basis for this new project is the assumption that some readers will be coming here looking for an article on an item only knowing its 'mark' number. To help these readers, a number of piped links will be necessary to bring the variant to the fore. For instance, Merkava Mark III is the piped link that brings the reader deeper into the appropriate section of the Merkava article. Binksternet (talk) 17:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems fairly reasonable, although I'm not sure if we could fully defend the notion that it's "primarily" found in military hardware. But thanks for bringing this here. Please note that each line/entry on a dab page should only have one blue link and that any other text should be the bare minimum needed to allow the reader to find the article s/he seeks.
And, of course, when you move Mark II and Mark X, you'll need to clean up the redirects before you build your new page! Feel free to ask for help here if need be. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Looks like User:Swpb set up Mark III to line up with the DAB Project guidelines. I'll use that page as the template for all the other dab pages. Binksternet (talk) 18:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I suspect that all sorts of things that have a Mark 3, for example, will be added here from time to time - and from time to time we'll delete 'em all since nobody is likely to search for a Canon Eos by typing Mark3 in the search box. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I would like help in moving Mark II and Mark X to their new pages. I would prefer not to bother the editors involved in those articles until the rest of the 'Mark' dab pages are in place. That way, the "owners" of the already-established pages will see the scale involved and resist the move less strongly. Binksternet (talk) 18:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Up to you entirely. It's not the article per se, so much as all the other articles that link to it that will need to be changed. If one goes to Mark II and clicks on 'What links here' in the toolbox, one sees all the articles that will (eventually, and wrongly) link to the new dab page unless we fix that; that's what I'm getting at. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, yes, the Alt-J links. Binksternet (talk) 20:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Hang on. It should not be automatic that these dab pages replace an existing page of the same name. There are general (not super specific, but still. . .) guidelines for whether a dab page should be at X or whether X is a primary article and X (disambiguation) is the dab page. You should look at each in turn and not assume that you have precedence. Or maybe I've missed something? (John User:Jwy talk) 20:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? I've never understood how one can objectively determine the primary topic. It could be determined by consensus, or just by chronological precedence, of course. Binksternet, perhaps you should propose a move, on the talk pages and at WP:RM, and hope that a consensus emerges. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I'll check for notable instances of Mark II and Mark X that would add leverage to consensus at those article's talk pages. I'll start the process of gaining consensus when it seems appropriate in terms of progress on the total project. Binksternet (talk) 21:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
The current Mark II has 21 incoming links, of which at least this and this are false. The current Mark X has 5 incoming links, and this one is false. That's pretty low move impact. Go ahead and move them and fix the links.  Randall Bart   Talk  20:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Fixed the bad links. I'll do a find and replace for the remaining good links in AWB after the moves if you like; it'll be easier and faster than doing it manually. --AndrewHowse (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)