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I have just initiated a discussion of disambiguation at Talk:Ravi Shankar. Although the immediate subject of the discussion is a particular article, I believe it touches upon the more general question of when an ambiguous title ought to point to a disambiguation page, and when it ought to point to the most article most likely to be intended. -- BostonMA 21:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
In this morning's Doonesbury, the character Elias says, So, props, Bro. Like I do with all bits of jargon/slang that I've never heard of, I typed props into the wikipedia search box, got to the prop page, and quickly found the to give proper respect meaning. The dilemma is that this is a dict-def, and as such, doesn't belong on a dab page. On the other hand, as I demonstrated to myself, it's a valuable entry, and it would be a shame to remove it. The only conclusion I can come up with is that our no dict-defs rule should be changed. Comments? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I have discussed this before, but have wondered if it should be part of the styleguide for disambiguation. There are several styles for disambigauation and I find this the easiest to find what I am looking for: Divided into people, places and things. What do you think?
-- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
-- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Template:Interstatedis and a few redirects have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Interstatedis. Thank you. Tedernst | talk 20:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Just to be sure, disambiguation links (the ones at the top of a page saying "This page is about xx. For yy, go here") are only for
I know these are the examples given on this page, but I have run into a number of pages where the topic is the disambiguation page (no "topic (disambiguation)" page), but then some of the other pages have the links at the top. I planned to remove them, but wanted to be sure there was not a use for them.
Thanks --
Nataly
a 19:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm hoping someone could give me advice or point me to a guideline for the following issue. There are 2 main articles to which the Tamil page point, Tamil people and Tamil language. In most cases, it is quite easy to disambiguate. But what about a Tamil poet? Does a Tamil poet fall under Tamil people but Tamil poetry fall under Tamil language? The same issue arises with a Tamil actress vs. Tamil cinema. My guess is that if the noun in question is a person, point the link to Tamil people, and if the noun is an "art", such as cinema or poetry, point the link to Tamil language. However, I would appreciate other opinions, before I do something foolish.
(On a completely separate issue, the list of links on the disamguation dump page listed 125 links for Tamil. I've already done around 100, and there are easily 300 more. I'm not sure why this would be the case. Any ideas?) -- BostonMA 20:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
The link counts generated by the dump script count main namespace links. Currently there are 168 main namespace links to Tamil, and 264 in total. Since the dump was 6 weeks ago, that count can be expected.-- Commander Keane 22:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Based on long-standing Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links to disambiguation pages, folks were supposed to be adding these names to lists.
Apparently, there is rough consensus that these lists should be converted to categories. The final location of the categories in the heirarchy has not been decided, but that is not needed for cleanup.
Some existing categories were created for these templates, but they do not follow standard naming convention. Also, the old categories are helpful in finding the templates, due to a problem with What links here. Therefore, new categories have been created.
In some cases, the listing work will already be done. In other cases, more than one type may be on the page, so it should be in more than one list. But every case has to be checked.
Is this proposal satisfactory?
Of course, I have posted this outline before. This is just a variant of that posted earlier and on the straw poll discussion page. The current naming convention is "Lists of " as the category prefix for pages that are lists. It's rather standard. I've added the 5 variants from Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 25#Template:Interstatedis, although the TfD isn't done until next Wednesday, and the 6:3 vote is currently not enough to delete. Presumbly folks will take a look there?
Bkonrad's finding caused me to look for more subcategories hidden away via incorrect sort tags and/or use of {{ disambig}} in category space:
As I've been researching the usage patterns of the "(disambiguation)" pages, I've noticed that in many (or most) instances, the Primary topic should not have been created at all! Rather than being a "well-known" topic, I've found that often these topics have only a " plurality" of links, not even a " majority" of links (as required in this guideline).
Most of these pages have been created only in the past few months, and seem to be a work-around to avoid having to disambiguate links, or in an small edit war (often between road and military editors).
In fact, Primary topic pages need more work, not less, as the majority of links have to be sifted to find the more rare incorrect links. This will need to be done over and over.
I'm beginning to think the entire "Primary topic" concept may be a bad idea. Simply having all disambiguation pages at the Generic title would assist in finding all incorrect links (using WP:DPL). Those Primary topic pages would need a lot of work once, but after that would just be part of the regular maintenance.
I've only found previous discussion of doing away with Primary topic pages at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves/Archive 1#A new theory of dismabig pages? [sic] in 2004. What did the search miss in the archives here?
The "majority of links" standard was sneaked into this guideline without any discussion by William Allen Simpson on January 3, 2006 [1]. Previously the primary meaning was determined by consensus of editors. Now this same user is coming here complaining that many such pages don't have a majority of links. You set this standard unilaterally, buddy! I think we should restore the previous language before we start going around changing any pages to conform to the new standard. — Wahoofive ( talk) 01:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
After discussing it here, and calling for comments, I did change the language from "most editors" (hard to quantify) to "majority of links" (countable). As I recall, I found the language in the archives. But it's become pretty clear that we're not at a standard of "most" (equivalent to majority) or the higher standard of "consensus" (the current language in the Generic topic section). It just seems to be "last editor who touched the article" personal choice.
As Primary topics involve extra and continual work for disambiguators, is the "consensus" standard to be applied by an actual vote of editors? Should the standard be very high, 98% of readers, as suggested by CtS?
I rather like the 4th suggestion last summer, for example "Tree" is a redirect to "Tree (arborial)" — with disambiguation of "Tree" links. That should fix both problems with one solution!
I'm pretty sure that what he means is when there's any doubt at all, the page should be a Generic page. The edit progression should be:
Agreed?
I think after multiple readings it makes sense, but let me just make sure I know what the deal is in less ambiguous terms. I'm going to use "Panda" for an example (It doesn't even matter what the actual status of the page is).
Yes? No? Did I just make everything more confusing, including confusing myself? -- Nataly a 03:24, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
While I bow to your long-standing experience, I think Natalya's description is correct. The problem with switching 3 and 4 is:
Since there is clear consensus on 1 and 2, I revised "Disambiguation links" to be more explicit about those steps, and added subsection headers for clarity.
As I was perusing the text, I brought the consensus language from generic to primary, and expanded the language to:
When the primary meaning for a term or phrase is well-known (indicated by a majority of links in existing articles, and by consensus of the editors of those articles), then use that topic for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top. Where there is no such consensus, there is no primary topic page.
Strong enough emphasis on consensus?
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | → | Archive 20 |
I have just initiated a discussion of disambiguation at Talk:Ravi Shankar. Although the immediate subject of the discussion is a particular article, I believe it touches upon the more general question of when an ambiguous title ought to point to a disambiguation page, and when it ought to point to the most article most likely to be intended. -- BostonMA 21:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
In this morning's Doonesbury, the character Elias says, So, props, Bro. Like I do with all bits of jargon/slang that I've never heard of, I typed props into the wikipedia search box, got to the prop page, and quickly found the to give proper respect meaning. The dilemma is that this is a dict-def, and as such, doesn't belong on a dab page. On the other hand, as I demonstrated to myself, it's a valuable entry, and it would be a shame to remove it. The only conclusion I can come up with is that our no dict-defs rule should be changed. Comments? -- RoySmith (talk) 13:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I have discussed this before, but have wondered if it should be part of the styleguide for disambiguation. There are several styles for disambigauation and I find this the easiest to find what I am looking for: Divided into people, places and things. What do you think?
-- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
-- Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 17:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Template:Interstatedis and a few redirects have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Interstatedis. Thank you. Tedernst | talk 20:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Just to be sure, disambiguation links (the ones at the top of a page saying "This page is about xx. For yy, go here") are only for
I know these are the examples given on this page, but I have run into a number of pages where the topic is the disambiguation page (no "topic (disambiguation)" page), but then some of the other pages have the links at the top. I planned to remove them, but wanted to be sure there was not a use for them.
Thanks --
Nataly
a 19:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm hoping someone could give me advice or point me to a guideline for the following issue. There are 2 main articles to which the Tamil page point, Tamil people and Tamil language. In most cases, it is quite easy to disambiguate. But what about a Tamil poet? Does a Tamil poet fall under Tamil people but Tamil poetry fall under Tamil language? The same issue arises with a Tamil actress vs. Tamil cinema. My guess is that if the noun in question is a person, point the link to Tamil people, and if the noun is an "art", such as cinema or poetry, point the link to Tamil language. However, I would appreciate other opinions, before I do something foolish.
(On a completely separate issue, the list of links on the disamguation dump page listed 125 links for Tamil. I've already done around 100, and there are easily 300 more. I'm not sure why this would be the case. Any ideas?) -- BostonMA 20:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
The link counts generated by the dump script count main namespace links. Currently there are 168 main namespace links to Tamil, and 264 in total. Since the dump was 6 weeks ago, that count can be expected.-- Commander Keane 22:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Based on long-standing Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links to disambiguation pages, folks were supposed to be adding these names to lists.
Apparently, there is rough consensus that these lists should be converted to categories. The final location of the categories in the heirarchy has not been decided, but that is not needed for cleanup.
Some existing categories were created for these templates, but they do not follow standard naming convention. Also, the old categories are helpful in finding the templates, due to a problem with What links here. Therefore, new categories have been created.
In some cases, the listing work will already be done. In other cases, more than one type may be on the page, so it should be in more than one list. But every case has to be checked.
Is this proposal satisfactory?
Of course, I have posted this outline before. This is just a variant of that posted earlier and on the straw poll discussion page. The current naming convention is "Lists of " as the category prefix for pages that are lists. It's rather standard. I've added the 5 variants from Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 25#Template:Interstatedis, although the TfD isn't done until next Wednesday, and the 6:3 vote is currently not enough to delete. Presumbly folks will take a look there?
Bkonrad's finding caused me to look for more subcategories hidden away via incorrect sort tags and/or use of {{ disambig}} in category space:
As I've been researching the usage patterns of the "(disambiguation)" pages, I've noticed that in many (or most) instances, the Primary topic should not have been created at all! Rather than being a "well-known" topic, I've found that often these topics have only a " plurality" of links, not even a " majority" of links (as required in this guideline).
Most of these pages have been created only in the past few months, and seem to be a work-around to avoid having to disambiguate links, or in an small edit war (often between road and military editors).
In fact, Primary topic pages need more work, not less, as the majority of links have to be sifted to find the more rare incorrect links. This will need to be done over and over.
I'm beginning to think the entire "Primary topic" concept may be a bad idea. Simply having all disambiguation pages at the Generic title would assist in finding all incorrect links (using WP:DPL). Those Primary topic pages would need a lot of work once, but after that would just be part of the regular maintenance.
I've only found previous discussion of doing away with Primary topic pages at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves/Archive 1#A new theory of dismabig pages? [sic] in 2004. What did the search miss in the archives here?
The "majority of links" standard was sneaked into this guideline without any discussion by William Allen Simpson on January 3, 2006 [1]. Previously the primary meaning was determined by consensus of editors. Now this same user is coming here complaining that many such pages don't have a majority of links. You set this standard unilaterally, buddy! I think we should restore the previous language before we start going around changing any pages to conform to the new standard. — Wahoofive ( talk) 01:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
After discussing it here, and calling for comments, I did change the language from "most editors" (hard to quantify) to "majority of links" (countable). As I recall, I found the language in the archives. But it's become pretty clear that we're not at a standard of "most" (equivalent to majority) or the higher standard of "consensus" (the current language in the Generic topic section). It just seems to be "last editor who touched the article" personal choice.
As Primary topics involve extra and continual work for disambiguators, is the "consensus" standard to be applied by an actual vote of editors? Should the standard be very high, 98% of readers, as suggested by CtS?
I rather like the 4th suggestion last summer, for example "Tree" is a redirect to "Tree (arborial)" — with disambiguation of "Tree" links. That should fix both problems with one solution!
I'm pretty sure that what he means is when there's any doubt at all, the page should be a Generic page. The edit progression should be:
Agreed?
I think after multiple readings it makes sense, but let me just make sure I know what the deal is in less ambiguous terms. I'm going to use "Panda" for an example (It doesn't even matter what the actual status of the page is).
Yes? No? Did I just make everything more confusing, including confusing myself? -- Nataly a 03:24, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
While I bow to your long-standing experience, I think Natalya's description is correct. The problem with switching 3 and 4 is:
Since there is clear consensus on 1 and 2, I revised "Disambiguation links" to be more explicit about those steps, and added subsection headers for clarity.
As I was perusing the text, I brought the consensus language from generic to primary, and expanded the language to:
When the primary meaning for a term or phrase is well-known (indicated by a majority of links in existing articles, and by consensus of the editors of those articles), then use that topic for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top. Where there is no such consensus, there is no primary topic page.
Strong enough emphasis on consensus?