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If a disambiguation page is created with several red links, they are there to offer article creation. They may also help to prevent the creation of an article under an ambiguous title. E.g. Calbuco (disambiguation) contained two entries for Calbuco Department. Additionally a DAB page was created at the latter title. One of the departments got an article. The other not. It was a red link. But instead of creating an article for that one, an admin deleted Calbuco Department with violation of deletion policy and then moved the article for the created instance of Calbuco Department to the former DAB page.
Calbuco Department is only a binary case, but you can imagine several entries on a DAB page. Before deleting, wouldn't it be better to put a tag on the page, like "This page contains red links to page titles that are not linked to from articles. For details see MOS:DABRL"? TheCalbuco ( talk) 08:31, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Calbuco, did you previously edit under another name? I see you only created your account a day before posting the above message, a couple of days after another editor was blocked for edit warring on this very point - it all seems a bit strange. MOS:DABRL is pretty straightforward - dabs are navigational tools, and as such shouldn't contain links which don't go anywhere. If you feel that there are articles that should be created, please create them and then add them to the dab. Boleyn2 ( talk) 22:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
"A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when an article (not just disambiguation pages) also includes that red link." - this was implemented only by JHunterJ. No prior talk. And the people did not only delete red links, but also blue ones. TrueColour was ADDING content, see the history, the others deleted. And he was the one who created stubs so the page did not violate the JHunterJ selfmade policy. To block him, while improving on the page and not the other reverters seems strange. Especially since JHunterJ violated WP deletion policy and TrueColour reported him on ANI. And then JHunterJ initiates 3RR block. This is no good behavior. TrueColour really tried to improve. The 3RR block was complete nonsense. At least Calbuco (disambiguation) has a not so bad form now and it is close to what TrueColour was working on.
"I see you only created your account a day before posting the above message, a couple of days after another editor was blocked for edit warring on this very point - it all seems a bit strange." - see User:TheCalbuco - it is not strange at all. Of course the account was not created before the block. I saw how the Calbuco dab page and the user that created it were treated by some users and I also saw the WP deletion policy violation by user JHunterJ. But who got blocked? No, not JHunterJ, nor the deletionist reverter(s) but the CONTRIBUTER User:TrueColour. Is this good? Who stands up against admin right abuses? Out of policy deletion. Content deletion. User:Boleyn2 says User:Boleyn2 is a Veteran Editor. What have you done in all this time to defend justice? To stop admin right abuses? TheCalbuco ( talk) 17:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm forming a proposal for a bot. The intention of this bot is to immediately bring to the page author's attention that the article is linking somewhere other than they thought it would be linking.
The bot would inspect all new main-space articles except for redirects and dab-pages. Redirects are valid to point at dab pages, as are other dab pages. Any new page that has any links to disambiguation pages will have {{dn}} added after each link.
Is this a bad idea? Why? Josh Parris 06:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
After an extensive discussion, the proposal now reads:
(the namespaces are: 0 (mainspace), 6 (file), 10 (template) and 14 (category)). Current proposed message template:
![]() | Links from this article which need disambiguation (
check |
fix): Channel 70, Channel 71, Channel 72, Channel 73, Channel 74, Channel 75, Channel 76, Channel 77, Channel 78, Channel 79, Channel 80, Channel 81, Channel 82, Channel 83, Gothic, Hebron massacre, Hebron massacres, Skating, Term, Witta, Wittan
For help fixing these links, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Fixing a page. Added by WildBot | Tags to be removed | FAQ | Report a problem |
![]() |
If you have any opinion to voice, the discussion is nearing completion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/WildBot Josh Parris 08:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I think {{ Redirect5}} ought to have "redirect here", rather than "redirects here" as it's text. It appears the first free form argument is intended to be a list of multiple items, like {{ Redirect7}}, so the "s" is incorrect grammar. I've already been drawn too far from the article I'm trying to work on right now, so can't do a thorough check up on "real world" uses myself before fixing. So am leaving this note here. -- J Clear ( talk) 17:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I've proposed moving Lincoln → Lincoln (disambiguation) ( Discuss), because the primary topic on Wikipedia of "Lincoln" is Abraham Lincoln, as illustrated by the traffic through the Lincoln (president) redirect created to determine how the readership uses this disambiguation page. There are a lot of Lincolnshire Project members vested in the status quo. Would like to see this project also represented in the discussion. Tangentially related to the section above. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 17:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Can someone take a look at C37. I edited the page layout towards MOS:DAB. Only the Gulfstream bit won't fit in perfectly. Is it okay as I edited it? Or should it be something like this:
* C-37 Gulfstream, the designation used ... family of business jets
in which case C-37 Gulfstream will also be a disambiguation to A and B? (BTW C-37 Gulfstream is now a redirect, and leading to a wrong article)
So my general question: is it eligible to link to a disambiguation page from a disambiguation page? LittleWink ( talk) 20:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Should DAB pages include entries for songs where the only link provided is to the artist responsible for the song? I'm referring to Nexus (disambiguation)#In music specifically.It seems to me as if there's no need for disambiguation in these cases as the songs don't have articles? Cheers, Miremare 14:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Ooops, forgot about this, sorry and thanks for the replies. The question I have now though is how does this reconcile with the guideline's "partial title matches" section which states that DAB pages are not a search index. If pages whose titles are partial matches are not to be included for this reason, why would entries that don't have their own article at all be appropriate? Thanks, Miremare 01:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Related: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#MOSDABot, a suggestion that some dab pages receive some automatic evaluation against the manual of style. Josh Parris 04:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Dear Colleagues,
There is an ongoing discussion on the organization of number pages and number disambiguation pages.
Your comments would be much appreciated!! Please see and participate in:
Thank you for your participation!
Cheers,
PolarYukon ( talk) 15:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
First let me say there are at least two distinctly different views of what is a "primary topic". There is the view that a primary topic usually exists, and there is the view that a primary topic usually does not exist.
Regarding Lincoln, my view is that Abraham Lincoln is not the primary topic. But my reason for this is more complex than I have explained. So let me explain. In my view, Lincoln does have a primary topic, but the primary topic is not the article Abraham Lincoln. That article is one of many relating to President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln is the clear primary topic here, but that topic is a whole set of articles. Similarly in the case of Cocoa, there is a clear primary topic ("cocoa") but it is distributed among a series of articles, from this to this. I am in the middle of repairing many hundreds of incoming links to Cocoa, and I feel the urge to create a sort of primary topic index. What do I mean by that? Here is an example: Poppy. The article Poppy is a problem child, with many inappropriate incoming links and a very large cluster of related articles. Rather than move Poppy (disambiguation) to the ambiguous base name I am considering this.
Back to Lincoln. This is a brief discussion I had with User:Insorak about looking for an article relating to Abraham Lincoln, not necessarily the article Abraham Lincoln. At present, Lincoln does not provide navigation among articles related to Abraham Lincoln. But I think it should.
So, add to the above views of what is a primary topic, a third view: that a primary topic is not necessarily embodied in a single topical article. Consider the concept of set index article as applied to ships. The ship name has an existence apart from the ships that carry it, thus the primary topic is never an article about one of those ships, but rather the set of ships by that name.
-- Una Smith ( talk) 17:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I have proposed moving the disambiguation page at Leno to Leno (disambiguation), so that Leno can redirect to Jay Leno, which literally gets 70 times as much traffic as any other article on the disambig page (at least before Leno's two talk shows were just added there). Input from people familiar with the tenets of disambiguation would be appreciated. Propaniac ( talk) 16:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to propose that the phrase other topic be changed to other topics in the phrase When there is a well-known primary topic for an ambiguous term, name or phrase, much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer. The reason for this change is to make it clear that a primary topic is truly the primary topic. With the current wording, it is possible to 'declare' a primary topic when it does not even have the majority of links. Take the case where we have 11 items on the dab page. If one of them gets 10% of the links or usage, the current wording suggests that it is the primary use. I'm far from convinced that this was the intended outcome of the current wording. Vegaswikian ( talk) 20:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the change to topics, but the whole section seems a bit messy at the moment (I think it used to be clearer). Do we really mean to say that topics are "used"? Don't we mean that they are searched for by readers under that term? Also can we move the stuff about hatnotes and back links to the end of the section, since it logically comes after the decision on whether there's a primary topic? And eliminate the duplication - we don't need to say the same thing about redirects twice (one with a such-and-such example, then with the Danzig example)?-- Kotniski ( talk) 09:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I am in favor of comparing the putative primary topic to the other topics combined. A long discussion of this developed today on Talk:Lincoln. -- Una Smith ( talk) 03:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with deciding primarity by the number of links or usages. In may cases there is truly and logically primary meaning from which completely all other meanings are derived. For example, it may happen that Deicide (band) enormously spings in pupolarity, while the term deicide is mostly used in specialised text. I would disagree that pop-culture will force us to mave page moves "deicide"->"disambig", "band"-> "deicide". (I am sure there are actual examples already, but I am lazy to look for). Mukadderat ( talk) 17:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The current wording doesn't seem too bad. If one topic gets 40% of pageviews and six other topics get 10% each, the one that gets 40% should still be eligible to be the primary topic (notice "eligible to be", not "automatically"). This can be especially relevant regarding personal names and place names. There's also the question of defining "all other topics combined". Is it only articles taking precisely the same name? Or anything on a dab page? With all the weird stuff that gets on dab pages, I'm not even certain that London would be the primary topic when measured against every topic on London (disambiguation) combined. Station1 ( talk) 19:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Been away for awhile -- some thoughts perhaps only tangentially related to the proposed changes. While I agree that page view statistics can be a useful indicator of primary topic, it is not the sole determinant and I suggest we should be a little more careful in how we bandy about wikistats in relation to determining primary topic. Wikipedia is an encylopedia and disambiguation is not merely a matter of optimizing page traffic. Such numerical data has a simplisitic appeal in arguments, but can be given too much weight and lend itself to both systemic bias and recentism. older ≠ wiser 01:32, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd basically agree with that, but I wouldn't use such a strong adverb as "overwhelmingly". You seem to be implying that the additional irritation/dismay caused by finding an undesired article as opposed to a disambiguation page is greater than that caused by finding a disambiguation page as opposed to the desired article. (That somehow having to make two extra clicks instead of one carries a greater emotional cost than having to make one instead of none.) If you are arguing that, then I would possibly agree, but only to a small extent - not so much as to justify your "overwhelmingly". If you're not arguing that, then I don't see how you reach that conclusion. -- Kotniski ( talk) 17:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
That said, I think there might be other factors to consider in primary topic decisions besides numerical reader interest - consistency between similar pages being one. (In fact I came up against this recently - I proposed that the Duke of Wellington should be the primary topic for Duke of Wellington, which he clearly is, but the proposal failed because people wanted to maintain consistency with other Duke of... articles. And having 1 lead to the year AD 1 is another example.)-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I'll stick with simplistic over elegant in regards to traffic statistics. Regardless of what such a tool might indicate, the guidance wisely suggests If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)". Establishing a topic as primary should have a higher bar over having a disambiguation page at the base name because once a primary topic is in place it becomes significantly more difficult to displace it (i.e., editors will dutifully go about fixing links to the page) and since the term is by definition ambiguous, having a primary topic makes repairing incorrect links more difficult. older ≠ wiser 20:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Let's try to sort out the wording for the "Is there a primary topic?" section them. This is the wording from my previous attempt, altered to reflect the conclusions of the foregoing discussion:
Although a term may potentially refer to more than one topic, it is often the case that one of these topics is highly likely – much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined – to be the subject being sought when a reader clicks the "Go" button for that term. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. If a primary topic exists, the term should be the title of (or redirect to) the article on that topic. If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of (or redirect to) a disambiguation page.
There are no absolute rules for determining primary topics; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic.
Tools that may help determine a primary topic, but are not determining factors, include:
- Incoming wikilinks from Special:WhatLinksHere
- Wikipedia article traffic statistics
- Google web, news, scholar, or book searches
It was suggested previously that we should also retain the existing example of a primary redirect (it's Danzig, though could be any of many), so that could be kept at the end of the section. Apart from that, how do people feel about this proposed wording now?-- Kotniski ( talk) 20:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Further to the section above where I enquired about things with no articles being listed on DAB pages, there seems to be some disagreement about what a DAB page lists. The answers I got above were that it was topics, so it doesn't matter if an entry has an article or not, but the template at the bottom of every DAB page states that it is simply article titles that are being disambiguated. So which one is right? Miremare 17:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I've copied the "primary topic" section of this guideline page to my userspace for the purpose of refining it and presenting a clearer description of the concept. Come brainstorm with me and help me to craft something that we can present here and gain consensus. ...but what do you think? ~ B F izz 08:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Some users want to remove most or all of the text from the {{ disambig}} template. (I prefer to keep that template just as it is.) See Template talk:Disambig#Remove message.
-- David Göthberg ( talk) 00:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Users here may be interested in the Requested Move discussion currently taking place at Talk:Season 4 (30 Rock). Propaniac ( talk) 16:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
We currently have separate disambiguation pages entitled Islip, New York and Islip. Everything on the first one, not surprisingly, is also linked on the second one. This seems like a textbook case of incomplete disambiguation, so I redirected the "New York" page to the more general disambiguation page. Another editor reverted this. Can others please review the situation and offer thoughts on whether these two disambiguation pages are unnecessarily redundant, or whether there is some reason to keep both of them? -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 18:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:DPAGES indicates that dabs for related terms, such as singular and plural versions of an ambiguous title, may be combined. I think, based on some recent history at Perfect Stranger and Perfect Strangers, this may need to be clarified or expanded. I think that it makes to combine them when it is likely that a reader looking for the plural might enter the singular, or vice versa, but when the singulars and plurals are unlikely to be sought using the "wrong" number, then the readers are better served by giving them the shorter lists of entries that match their search, rather than combining the lists just because they have related ambiguous titles. Thoughts? -- JHunterJ ( talk) 14:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Those of you interested in the utility and/or over-emphasis of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC's toolkit on determining primary topic may be interested in commenting on Talk:Memphis (disambiguation)#Requested move and Talk:America#An option for getting some statistics -- JHunterJ ( talk) 12:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Forbidden external link and too much exposition at the top. I didn't want to delete that material outright, as there may be a proto-article there, or perhaps we may merge that part into Julie (given name). Any ideas? bd2412 T 23:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I have been using {{
for2}}
at the top of a subsection to link to a related sub-section in another article. This is effectively a kind of disambiguation, but I am having trouble from an (anon) editor who is claiming this template can only be used as a hatnote. Since the destination link requires a pipe-trick-hidden #-anchor, I cannot use {{
details}}
for the same purpose.
Is there a problem about using {{
for2}}
where one might use {{
main}}
? ('Main' is not appropriate as only a small section of the destination article is relevant.)
EdJogg ( talk) 14:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
{{
for2}}
as a section hatnote. If that is the case, then my task is somewhat easier, as this seems to be the editor's main gripe. (Oh, that and 'over-linking'.)A Wiki search for "The well" does not lead to that disabig page, not sure how to fix this maybe someone here can do it with a few keystrokes? Thx RomaC ( talk) 10:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
There is so much disambiguation that is required relating to the New York City Subway. There have been attempts, but they look rather inconsistent. Rather than give specific examples, I will point you to the section List of New York City Subway stations#Stations with the same name, and look at the column "Name of station." Those entries are links to disambiguation pages, many of which either have the suffix (New York City Subway) or redirect to another general disambiguation page. There are about 100 pages that I am asking to review. Also, there is a separate but related issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation#Two mergers to consider. Tinlinkin ( talk) 13:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
This makes no sense at all:
Requiring the use of a redirect is just plain stupid. If you can link directly, why shouldn't you? Whether or not the link has "disambiguation" in the title is completely irrelevant. This is just process for the sake of process, and is completely instruction creep. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 10:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
While looking for information on the
programming language, I came across
Java (which should have a hatnote redirect linking to the article on the programming language, BTW) and got interested in disambiguation. A quick look through discussion archives turns up the
Georgia case quite prominently, as well as a slew of biography articles. Something that strikes me in all these cases is that a lot of the disagreements could be kept off the individual article discussion pages and collected in a single location (and in some cases, flat-out settled!) if the "bare name" was always a redirect in these cases. For example,
Georgia would (currently) be a redirect to
Georgia (disambiguation) and similarly for ambiguous person names, etc. That way, discussion about where
Georgia should point could be kept on a single discussion page rather than being spread across the discussion pages for a number of different articles. It would also minimize the disruption caused by people changing the redirect (and reverting it back) since it wouldn't involve renaming any of the actual articles. It wouldn't cause any problems for readers, since the redirect is automatic. Links would continue to work just fine — and in fact there'd be the added benefit of easily identifying which links go to an ambiguous name. It seems like a win-win-win all around. Why isn't this the policy? --
Lewis (
talk) 21:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I've clarified my point about the hatnote (which is just a personal opinion, unrelated to my other point here so I'll not mention it again) and my point about minimizing disruption is that when a base name is given directly to an article (the "primary usage") and there's dispute over whether that article really is the primary usage, then when bold editors rearrange things to their liking, actual articles get renamed, their associated talk pages get renamed, and there's generally a big mess to clean up afterwards. If the base name is simply a redirect to a particular article (or to a disambiguation page identified with "(disambiguation)" in the title) then when people disagree about the primary usage and boldly make changes, only the content of the redirect changes, and nothing actually moves around. It's easier to revert because it's just a content page, there's no chance that talk pages will get moved improperly, nobody will accidentally do the move incorrectly because they cut-and-paste content, etc.
My point about keeping the discussion in one place is that, using the case of Georgia as an example, the discussion over where Georgia should point is spread across multiple discussion pages, depending on which article was named " Georgia" at the time the discussion was taking place. If Georgia had always just been a redirect to one of the other article pages (or the disambiguation page) then the discussion could've been kept in one place and wouldn't irritate people working on the actual articles. -- Lewis ( talk) 21:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
In line with the above suggestion, I propose the following change to the wording of the page:
The title of a disambiguation page is the ambiguous term itself followed by the tag "(disambiguation)", as in Term ABC (disambiguation). If there is no primary topic, then a page should be created at "Term ABC" that redirects to the disambiguation page at "Term ABC (disambiguation)".
When a disambiguation page combines several similar terms, one of them must be selected as the title for the page (with the "(disambiguation)" tag added); the choice should be made in line with the following principles:
What do you think? -- Lewis ( talk) 20:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
It solves several problems:
1) Collateral damage caused by improper moves (and reverts) associated with disputes over which article is the primary topic. For example, instead of moving Georgia to Georgia (disambiguation) (over an existing redirect) and Georgia (country) to Georgia (or Georgia (US state) to Georgia), plus all the associated talk pages — and then having to revert it all — all that would happen in such situations is that Georgia would change its redirect destination, and everything else would stay where it is.
1b) It simplifies the process of changing the primary topic in legitimate cases as well.
2) It would give a clear location to hold discussions as to what the primary topic is. This has been a problem for Georgia, as evidenced by the fact that all of the various talk pages for the related articles have a big notice that informs editors where they should hold such discussions.
2b) It would keep such discussions off the talk pages for the articles themselves, which would remove a source of irritation for many editors of those articles.
3) It would take away at least some of the "prestige factor" of having an article at the base name, which would remove some of the tension in these disputes. If none of the articles get to be named with the non-qualified bare name, and it's just a matter of which one the bare name redirects to (for the ease of the readers) then there's less to argue over.
4) It makes it easier to protect against unauthorized changes of the primary topic. Currently this would require protecting an article itself (whichever one has the base name) whereas if the base name were always a redirect, the base name itself could be protected (and thus prevent unauthorized changes) without having to lock down any actual articles. Per JHunterJ's point below, pages can simply be protected against moves without protecting the content, so this is a non-issue. --
Lewis (
talk) 01:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
None of these may be enormously important considerations, but since I can't come up with a single reason in favor of the status quo, I'd ask why not turn the current practice on its head. It doesn't seem to make much sense to keep it the way it is, at least to me. -- Lewis ( talk) 22:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
What reason is there to keep things the way they are, other than avoiding change? I realize that unnecessary change is bad, and that a case needs to be made to institute this kind of change, but I'm genuinely at a loss as to what the benefits of the current setup are. I've outlined a number of positive benefits to the way I'm suggesting, and you can dispute the merits of them, but I'd genuinely appreciate somebody listing some positive benefits of the current setup as well. -- Lewis ( talk) 01:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
have released an album called "for the birds", however I'm unsure how to use disambiguation with For the birds as The Frames have already brought out an album called For the Birds. How should i go about naming The Mess Hall's, "For the birds" album article? Wiki ian 06:21, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Was there any discussion about listing in the given name pages?
For some time I remember the following practice: to list only persons which are commonly known solely by a given name. For example, the page John includes Pope John I, but not John Lennon. Was there formalized somewhere? If not I would like to start a discussion, because this is so in well-watched pages, such as John or Igor, but not so in many other pages.
The same problem is with pages about given names. They are not disambig pages, but many of them contain a section, like, "List of famous people with given name Nnnnn".
An additional issue to consider is that the name is really rare, then listing such people may have some sense.
I am inviting Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy to join this discussion, to set a common style. There are thousands given names, and we better have them in order. - Altenmann >t 20:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I posted a related question in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anthroponymy#First_names, but got no response. I guess it must be decided here. Mukadderat ( talk) 20:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I did a search for an article to help me understand how Jews came to be referred to as "The Chosen", only to be directed to a disambiguation page containg decent sized list on several films and other disambiguations of the term (most actually related to Jews as being considered "The Chosen", yet no actual article on the central question: Why are Jews referred to as "The Chosen"?
Has no article yet been created adressing that central definition? 70.49.69.185 ( talk) 11:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
In many cases there is an ordinary English usage for a term. The specific example that leads me to make this comment is the damages disambiguation page. When I first looked at the page it started with a "Film and television" section; buried lower down was section "Law" with "Property damage", and "Other" with "Water damage". The article did have a link to the Wiktionary article.
In the case of a word like "damage" with a clear and common meaning in everyday English, that meaning should dominate a 2009 film and a band called "Damage"; a routine link to Wiktionary is not enough to inform a reader not familiar with the term of the meaning (a fortiori, it should not be assumed that readers use English as their main language, or that they live in a typical Western culture). A definition of the word (even if this is really a dictionary definition; an exception to the guideline discouraging such definitions should apply to disambiguation) should head the article, and meanings which are just variants of normal English should appear here; in the case of damage, "Water damage", "Property damage", "Fire damage" are applications of the normal meaning, not truly independent terms, and should be grouped with the main definition.
The article as I found it is at [2]; I left it as at [3], though I don't claim my version to be perfect or definitive. [In the particular case of damage I added a brief clarification of the distinction between damage and damages which isn't directly relevant to my point here, though it does clearly belong where it is (there are many cases of misuse like "the earthquake caused damages to a building and a bridge", presumably mainly by non-native speakers of English).]
I suggest that the guidelines on disambiguation pages be modified to cover this, very common, situation. Pol098 ( talk) 15:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Following my comments on the need to include ordinary English use in the previous section, an alternative might be to modify the Wiktionary link, which at the moment is not very prominent, instead of adding a definition. There is a smallish and not very prominent box reading "Look up <word> in Wiktionary, the free dictionary" on the right-hand side. Maybe, instead of the approach I described in the previous section, the {{wiktionary}} template should be modified, perhaps to add prominent text at the beginning of the article "<word> is used in normal English usage; click here to see definitions and notes on usage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary". If this interferes with existing use of the template, a new, more prominent, template could be written for disambiguation pages. Pol098 ( talk) 16:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
WP:dab templates such as Template:About create hatnotes like this one, from Impressionism:
This article is about the art movement. For other uses, see Impressionism (disambiguation).
The essay Wikipedia:Converting to use of see-colon suggests using a colon (:) after "see" in cases like this.
I suggest changing all dab templates to add the 'see-colon'. I will make a preliminary proposal for this in the proper place if there is consensus here. David Spector 14:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I propose appending the following to the end of WP:PT regarding unique, initial-use proper nouns:
Occasionally there may be cases where two or more articles would bear precisely the same title but none are the primary topic using the above criteria. If it's not otherwise clear whether X is a primary topic for T, then the decision is sometimes swung in X's favor by the fact that X is the original use of the name T. For example, if there is a novel, followed by a play derived from that novel, a film derived from that play, and a musical derived from that film — all bearing the same title and with none much more sought — the novel shall be the primary topic. In the case of non-derivative works — proper nouns specifically created by blending multiple words together into a unique word ( Clannad) or as a portmanteau ( Microsoft), creating a new word derived from another ( Dracula) or an entirely new word ( Jabberwocky), or using a truly unique cluster of words ( An American in Paris) resulting in derivative works or an amalgamation of other proper nouns ( Goldwyn Pictures) — the initial creative use and popularization of the title shall be the primary topic when the creative initial use of the term is crystal clear.
₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 23:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I decided to " be bold" and make what I believe is a fair addition to the section " Is there a primary topic?" regarding unique, initial-use proper nouns ( ref) as a result of the discussion in progress here. The argument is that if there is an arbitrary notable group that starts using a devised name (let's say " The Dog" history), as opposed to a word ( Dog), they would be the primary topic (as in June 2004, this was) — but if after their public spotlight wanes, another iteration is discovered or comes along dubbed "more important" or arguably "more popular" by search results or article hits such as The Dog (Goya), one of two things "should" happen:
Making such changes would be a completely responsible thing to do ... for the inevitable situation that more than one person will have the idea to put the article " The" before a noun and name their artistic outlet as such. However: A small group of editors seeing "no strong reason why one article should be favored over the other" (as is the case of Clannad, compared to Clannad (visual novel)) happens by somehow not knowing that the "initial-use creator" (the band) invented a brand new word out of thin air, popularized it, and was the first to be notable, then the initial writers of the anime stuff came along contemporaneously 34 years after the first group in the world to use the word "Clannad" (with all their accumulated acclaim and influence on today's music) and decided to also use the name (a trademark) due to a misunderstanding that it was a "word", rather than in fact a unique "proper noun".
While it's true that "there are no absolute rules for determining primary topics", there are guidelines for what determines a primary topic. However, in all my searching in WP policies, I haven't found anything that directly refers what to do about unique proper nouns: specifically the type that people/groups/companies establish & popularize as "initial use" trademarks. With the article Dracula that used to be in October 2001 erroneously labeled directly synonymous with Vlad Tepes, truly though we know Bram Stoker derived that name from multiple legends including Vlad's, but that derivation is where the unique, initial-use proper noun attributed to Stoker originated — explaining why the article is what it is today, and not simply one of many links on the corresponding DAB page. There is clear precedence *in practice* for what has been done in cases like this, but up to now we're lacking Policy precedence. The very closest thing that's almost relevant enough is WP:Naming conventions (films)#From other topics, but still nothing in WP policy that sufficiently addresses most general forms of newly-created proper nouns. As a result, I made this addition (which I first checked WT:DAB and anywhere else I could search in policies, wikitalk pages, ...with no joy), and added a circumstance that I believe is fair and can be verified to date with many pre-existing primary-source articles (that are NOT DAB).
The action that started this whole mess was also the act of "
being bold"
here, but the change made in that case was imprudent to the spirit of what makes a "primary topic" what it is in an encyclopedia. My goal here then is to set in writing a precedence that thus far has only been spoken and in practice, but now would streamline any decisions that will arise in the future regarding this particular type of "primary topic". ₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 05:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
CelticWonder appears to be getting to the issue of derivative uses. This has come up before in Requested Move discussions. When the normal criteria of "most searched for" don't apply, some editors go to derivation. I don't agree with overturning the current consensus regarding the most-sought topic being the primary topic, but when the most-sought topic is unclear, derivation can be a legitimate criterion. It might be useful to add a short paragraph such as:
(ec) I don't see the "original-ness" of the usage to be pertinent. It MIGHT make sense for articles about works derived from a single source - like a book, its movies and stage derivations - but even then, the "best" to me is to direct them to the article that gives them the most information about the general topic. Take Star Trek and Star Wars for example. If the articles are related only in name (I didn't read the whole articles, but Clannad seems to be an example) and there is no clear primary topic between them using the criteria without the new "original-ness" test, the readers are best served by a dab page. Going to the "original" doesn't improve the situation. (John User:Jwy talk) 23:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Ambiguity isn't involved in the discussion I first proposed, you see?
Lincoln (a proper or surname) and
EA (an inevitable acronym of ANY two words beginning with E and A, as shown on it's dab) wouldn't fall under the category of my suggested amendment concerning "...non-derivative works —
proper nouns specifically created by
blending multiple words together into a unique word (
Clannad) or as a
portmanteau (
Microsoft), creating a new word derived from another (
Dracula) or an entirely new word (
Jabberwocky), or using a truly unique
cluster of words (
An American in Paris) resulting in
derivative works or an
amalgamation of other proper nouns (
Goldwyn Pictures) — the initial creative use and popularization of the title shall be the primary topic." — where it is CRYSTAL CLEAR who the original creator is, which is why
Dumbo,
Dracula,
Clannad,
Microsoft,
Jabberwocky,
Goldwyn, or derivative names specifically using a truly unique
cluster of words like
An American in Paris, and many others I'm not going to waste more time searching for that are currently the Primary Topic for the precise reason I detailed in my most recent revised proposal above. ₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 19:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Genre of "word" | Example(s) | Typical outcome | WP policy/guideline |
---|---|---|---|
English
word
(i.e. noun, verb, etc.) with one dominant meaning |
Apple, Mummy, One, Teacher, Tree | Word is PT,
others on dab |
|
Person/place single proper noun
(limited original usage) |
Byrne, Danzig, Lima, Mississippi, Tallahassee, Zielinski | Person/place is PT,
others on dab |
MOS:DABNAME, WP:2DAB |
Person/place single proper noun
(rampant similar usage, or ambiguous original usage) |
Anderson,
Barnes,
Jackson,
Jenkins, |
DAB,
original/popular usage at top |
MOS:DABNAME, WP:PLACE#Disambiguation |
Unique initial-use name/word
(original use is obvious) |
Batman, Clannad, Dumbo, Dracula, Frankenstein, Goldwyn, Jabberwocky | Original use is primary topic,
others on dab (or hatnote then dab) |
Today: WP:???
In practice: "Encyclopedic nature"? Past decisions supporting my argument for amendment: 1, 2 |
CelticWonder, no disrespect intended, it seems pretty clear that your goal in all of this is to get a "ruling" that the article about the band called Clannad should be considered the primary topic, regardless of how many users are looking for that topic vs. another unrelated meaning of the term (such as the visual novel), because the band was the first to coin the word. I don't think (certainly could be wrong) you're ever going to convince many people here of that argument. If 75% of users are looking for the novel and 25% of users are looking for the band, it doesn't make sense to send everyone to the band article first, simply because the band originated the name. That does not, in any way at all, mean that the novel is better than the band (personally, I'm sure if I sampled each, I'd like the band way more). It just means that there are a ton of manga fans among Wikipedia's user base. Propaniac ( talk) 16:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
As I have said in the past, there is an argument for deciding primary use based on usage in reliable sources. Even if 99% of searches on "Titanic" were for the film (as would likely have been the case if Wikipedia had been around in 1997), we would still consider the ship to be the primary use. Search popularity doesn't capture that; it is too caught up in zeitgeist. Usage in reliable sources does. All of the examples put forward by CelticWonder should be treated as evidence that editors take into account usage in reliable sources when choosing a primary use. "Precedence" is not necessary to explain those examples. Hesperian 03:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
...as I'm officially declaring that I now dgaf. In a book-indexed encyclopedia, issues like this list the first item first, followed chronologically by its derivative uses or works. Understandably, Wikipedia is not paper, but it's still an encyclopedia.
As common practice that I've detailed numerous times above dictates the contrary to what is being done in the case of this article ( Talk) for example, I've asserted a logical uniformity of this minority of articles falling under the specific criteria expressed here. The addition would have been useful to avoid showing a systemically-biased favoritism in some cases like that one and few others for a-derivative-as-pt over the more suitable unique-original-work-as-pt, regardless of "hit totals" as is being used on such topics instead.
I'm sick of tirelessly laboring this point home with research, facts, and examples/comparisons — and mostly just that I've been doing it all myself with no help from anyone here, even when requested. I don't feel that detractors have expressed any valid reasons why this natural way of doing things shouldn't be clarified — and only in this very concise regard — other than that "consensus rules" or "WP hits/GHits rules". If the typical
admins on WP really just get a kick out of their
cabalistic way of doing things "as is", then that's one thing. But a casual editor such as myself doesn't want to resort to this (
1 →
2 →
3) just to ultimately have my point
made clear and then carried out anyway, when a simple
reference to a guideline amendment that could easily exist would have avoided all that and any future related conflicts for OTHERS (as in: I was trying to get this put into the guidelines to serve the use of FUTURE editors from laboriously defending this point, not for my own POV advancement). So fuggit... do as you will. I've made my proposition. I believe it's valid and would serve to improve WP. Decide whether something to that effect should be included in policy. ₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 07:59, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
CelticWonder has spuriously accused me of conflict of interest here. Other input requested. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 21:38, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Users here may be interested in participating in discussion of the move request (to move the dab page to Ebert (disambiguation) and redirect Ebert to Roger Ebert) at Talk:Ebert#Requested move. (There's rather an underrepresentation at the moment of users who have any interest in Wikipedia guidelines, and an overrepresentation of users who wish to make navigation decisions based on which names are most commonly recognized in Europe.) Propaniac ( talk) 15:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
In the last weeks I created lots of disambiguation pages. And I noticed something: an editor can improve his good maners and create the disambiguation pages after creating an article. For example, the second or the third person who created a page with „Dragutin” in the title (let's say that the page was Dragutin Dimitrijević), after creating the page, he/she should look if there exists or it's needed the disambiguation page for Dragutin and Dimitrijević. If the pages exists, he only has to add one or two lines to those disambiguation pages. If not, he will have to create one or two disambiguation pages, that requires 2 or 3 lines each. In either case, it can't take so long. But, if the editors do not behave like that, one day, somebody comes and creates the Dragutin (disambiguation) page, and because it has 20 lines or so, it's very likely he/she will skip adding details to each line. It's exactly my case: I created the Dragutin (disambiguation) page and it looks not so great, because there were too many lines in it, and I created Dragutinović page, and it looks better, because there were only three entries so I had the time to add details to each of them.
Therefore, being a nice editor and creating one or two small disambiguation pages, or at least adding one-two lines to the already existing disambiguation pages can increase the number of needed disambiguation pages and their appearance and usefulness. Of course there should not be any obligation - we are doing voluntary work here - but maybe some "ranking" can be invented for those who prove their advanced good manners - Ark25 ( talk) 03:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm back. The questions: What would be the best arguments for deleting pages like Dražen, Dragutin (disambiguation), Dragutinović ? Other question: what should I do to bring those 3 pages closer to perfection? For example at the Drazen page, should {{ disamb}} and {{ given name}} coexist? or better to have only a {{ hndis}} ? Also, it looks to me that Dragutin (disambiguation) should be renamed into Dragutin (name). But then, at the Stephen Dragutin of Serbia, the disambiguation note should be changed. Is there an equivalent to {{ redirect}} that generates "(name)" instead of "(disambiguation)" ? Thanks - Ark25 ( talk) 13:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, now some few observations: at Dragutin (name), having both {{ surname}} and {{ given name}} in the page doesn't look so great (to me). I don't know how many other pages are in this kind of situation, but if there are many, then I think it is needed for a new single template to be created in order to mix the both of them.
I checked the Mary page and it doesnt have {{ hndis}} as you said it should.
Also, it looks like the content of John Smith (name) should be moved at John Smith, because John Smith is a name page.
Now, talking about the descriptions, I have to come back to the original discussion - editors with advanced good manners have to create the disambiguation or name pages when there are 2-4 items that make those pages needed. A club of "elite" editors should be created (without any privileges, ofc), and membership must be based on continuously proving the advanced good manners. I am quite sure, there can be identified more criteria to be elite, other than creating dab pages at the right moment. But it's just a suggestion of course. Ark25 ( talk) 03:13, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
FYI, {{ otheruses4}} has been nominated for deletion at WP:RFD
65.94.253.16 ( talk) 05:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
We've got a move discussion going as to whether Wild Horses (Rolling Stones song) should be at Wild Horses (song) when there are other songs with that title (at least one of which, Wild Horses (Garth Brooks song), has an article). What's the deal here? Are we allowed to have "Article name (qualifier)" and "Article name (more specific qualifier)"? It just seems stupid to me. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ( Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 19:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arbre. Is this really what people want to do with dab pages? The arbre page has two articles that could legitimately be written someday, but don't exist now (the Belgian place names), and it has one phrase that could marginally be a hatnote somewhere (the planet in Anathem), but wouldn't make an article on its own (in my estimation). The rest of the entries are all partial matches.
I note that the current text of WP:DISAMBIG is somewhat different from the way I remember it (the wording I remember is something along the lines of the purpose of disambiguation pages is to help readers navigate among articles that have the same name). When was this changed, and how much was it discussed? Is this really the outcome people had in mind? If this is what consensus genuinely wants, then OK, but it seems a bit of a stretch to me. -- Trovatore ( talk) 08:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure why two different dab pages exist, but if I can make the mistake between the two (wondering what happened to half the dab terms), then undoubtedly it could happen with the regular user. I propose we merge them, but I've never really hear about merging dab pages before. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 22:51, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
A list of items, especially growing to around six or more, should be listed (by date if especially significant or) in alphabetical order as standard. It doesn't say that on the guidelines. There is no hit for "alphabetical". I want to quote the guideline that says, "Order the list alphabetically rather than how you feel the items are more relevant." Some lists are quite long including disambiguation pages. Is this intentionally missed? ~ R. T. G 18:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
There was a recent discussion about moving Independence Day (film), an article about the 1996 film, to Independence Day (1996 film) because there was a 1983 film. The discussion was closed as having no consensus. Those who supported the move did not believe that the 1996 film was the primary topic, already being disambiguated from Independence Day, which was considered to be the only primary topic. Those who opposed the move believed that "Independence Day (film)", including the "(film)" term to disambiguate from the original primary topic, was the primary topic of the two films because the film is more well-known than the 1983 film. This seems to me to mean a hierarchy where we have a secondary "primary topic" in a set of articles disambiguated from the first primary topic. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not talk about disambiguation terms, but where it has been applied, it seems to me that the primary topic is the one that does not receive any disambiguation. We have naming conventions for films that says simply, "When disambiguating films of the same name, add the year of its first public release." How should this be clarified when it comes to films that have to be disambiguated from a/the primary topic, but one is more well-known than the other? What are others' thoughts about this? Erik ( talk | contribs) 03:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we all agree that most searchers are going to type in "Independence Day" or "Elephant" or "Avatar" even if they want the films. The issue under discussion here does not affect that majority one way or the other. The question is what article the minority who type in " Avatar (film)" or " Avatar film" or " Avatar (movie)" or " Avatar movie" should be sent to. They add up to only 3% of the viewers of Avatar (2009 film) (the above stat s/b 0.89%, not 0.089%) but still represent 35,000+ searchers last month. All 35,000 were sent to a dab page when almost all of them wanted Avatar (2009 film), the primary usage of those 4 phrases by the criteria suggested at WP:PT. That's a lot of people even if a small percentage. Whether readers get where they want directly or via a redirect doesn't really matter, but the primary usage for those 4 search terms is fairly clear to me. Station1 ( talk) 04:13, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I read this whole discussion and it seems to be utterly ridiculous. Basically, the only reason to carry the move out is:
"If we move this article to Independence Day (1996 film), we'll never have to talk about moving it again because there will never be another film with that disambiguated title... On the other hand, it is still possible for there to be another film called Independence Day."
— Erik, on explaining the necessity of the move
This is preposterous. If this were a legitimate reason to make a move, then all movies would have dates attached to their titles. Should The Departed be placed under The Departed (2006 film)? Who is to say there will never be another film called The Departed? The notion that this is a legitimate reason to move the page lacks common sense. The page's location, right now, has caused absolutely NO PROBLEM. None whatsoever.
The supposed conflict is because of Independence Day (1983 film). Well, lets see the scenarios:
There is absolutely no problem with where the article stands right now. There is no confusion as there is a disambiguation page and a hatnote leading to the other movie. The move, other than ridiculous, is also unnecessary. Feed back 21:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Basically, what I'm trying to say above is that 100% of all readers, no matter what they type in the search box, will get to the article they want regardless if they had to follow disambiguation or not. There is no problem with the current way of how the article title is decided and no amount of arguing and reasoning will create a problem. All articles are fine where they are as people can still tend to them. The only reason we should discuss this is if there is the possibility of the disambiguation leading to a "dead end" which is obviously not the case. Feed back 03:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
What's the view on if surname-only pages (i.e. not those containing other dabs) are still regarded as disambiguation pages and whether WP:DABSTYLE applies. In particular, note the recent changes I made at Powell (surname) relating to not piping. Is there a consensus for whether article names in surname lists should be piped or not? Eldumpo ( talk) 18:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Just to keep you in the loop, I have made Independence day the dab page instead of Independence Day (disambiguation) and a couple of related changes. Abtract ( talk) 19:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Why do you say there's no primary topic? There does seem to be one: The general concept of "a day commemorating national independence", which is currently handled by the article List of countries by Independence Day. The primary-topic article doesn't need to be called Independence day in order to be considered the primary topic for that term.-- ShelfSkewed Talk 22:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I would like to propose a modest change to the primary topic guideline, that I would see as merely a clarification but I realize it's possible others here may see it as more controversial.
Here's my paraphrase of how I read the guideline, particularly the sentence I've quoted in the heading: "The primary topic is the article most likely to be sought by users. If there is extended discussion about which article is most likely to be sought by users, that may indicate there is no article significantly more likely than the others to be sought, and thus no primary topic."
But many times, in recent move discussions, I've seen this misapplied. What I've observed (in my view) is that users will essentially ignore the part of the guideline that defines the criteria for the primary topic, and say that some other criteria -- such as which topic originated earliest -- is more important. And then they point to this sentence in the guideline: "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic" to say that because there is argument over whether the topic most likely to be sought, or the topic that originated earliest, is the primary topic, then therefore there must be no primary topic.
So the change I'm suggesting (which, again, I see as only a clarification of the existing text) would be to replace this paragraph:
There are no absolute rules for determining primary topics; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic.
With this rewritten version (changed text is bolded for clarity):
There are no absolute rules for determining which topic is most likely to be sought by readers; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the most likely target, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic.
Thoughts? Propaniac ( talk) 20:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but I have a problem with the language as amended by Kotniski; without the clause he deleted, there is clearly an implication that there must be a "most likely" target, and the only task for editors is to agree on what it is. In fact, we all know from experience that there are many disambig page titles for which there is no primary topic. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 21:05, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Here's an interesting suggestion that's been raised since I proposed to move John Leland (antiquary) to John Leland. When trying to prove the lack of primary usage, User:Novaseminary came up with some grok stats. As the stats didn’t quite support his/her case, Nova went on to challenge their usefulness on the basis that the high number of views for John Leland (antiquary) may be due to lots of incoming wiki-links. Such readers did not click the Go-button, as the guidelines otherwise insist. If this is an acceptable interpretation, then it looks like our guidelines contradict themselves about the way primary usage (or the lack thereof) can be determined. Cavila ( talk) 19:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
When the primary topic link redirects to a section of an article, should the hatnote to the dab page be at the top of the article, as usual (and per WP:LEAD and WP:HNP), or at the top of the section? The example I recently came across is The, which redirects to English articles#Definite article. But the hatnote is at the top of the article, not immediately findable by a user. Is it acceptable to put the hatnote at the top of the section? This seems more sensible to me. Alternately, should the anchor be removed from the redirect so that the link would simply take users to the top of the target article?-- ShelfSkewed Talk 05:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
I think this should be an article including a list, and not a disambiguation page at all. bd2412 T 13:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
FYI, there's a discussion on the need for hatnoting at Talk:Full Metal Jacket. 70.29.210.155 ( talk) 00:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
And editor has questioned whether Dreamweaver should continue redirecting to Adobe Dreamweaver (current behavior) or if it should be changed to redirect to Dreamweaver (disambiguation). The question was originally posed at WP:AN then moved to the redirect's talk page as it isn't an administrative matter. Extensive discussion has followed, with two editors feeling the redirect should be changed to the disambig so readers can access all meanings, and four feeling it should remain per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. At this point, all the discussion is becoming somewhat circular and it is agreed that more views would be useful, so posting a note here asking for additional views at Talk:Dreamweaver. -- AnmaFinotera ( talk · contribs) 20:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Discussion about refactoring of AnmaFinotera's original post |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
![]() | 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 25 | ← | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | Archive 31 | Archive 32 | → | Archive 35 |
If a disambiguation page is created with several red links, they are there to offer article creation. They may also help to prevent the creation of an article under an ambiguous title. E.g. Calbuco (disambiguation) contained two entries for Calbuco Department. Additionally a DAB page was created at the latter title. One of the departments got an article. The other not. It was a red link. But instead of creating an article for that one, an admin deleted Calbuco Department with violation of deletion policy and then moved the article for the created instance of Calbuco Department to the former DAB page.
Calbuco Department is only a binary case, but you can imagine several entries on a DAB page. Before deleting, wouldn't it be better to put a tag on the page, like "This page contains red links to page titles that are not linked to from articles. For details see MOS:DABRL"? TheCalbuco ( talk) 08:31, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Calbuco, did you previously edit under another name? I see you only created your account a day before posting the above message, a couple of days after another editor was blocked for edit warring on this very point - it all seems a bit strange. MOS:DABRL is pretty straightforward - dabs are navigational tools, and as such shouldn't contain links which don't go anywhere. If you feel that there are articles that should be created, please create them and then add them to the dab. Boleyn2 ( talk) 22:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
"A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when an article (not just disambiguation pages) also includes that red link." - this was implemented only by JHunterJ. No prior talk. And the people did not only delete red links, but also blue ones. TrueColour was ADDING content, see the history, the others deleted. And he was the one who created stubs so the page did not violate the JHunterJ selfmade policy. To block him, while improving on the page and not the other reverters seems strange. Especially since JHunterJ violated WP deletion policy and TrueColour reported him on ANI. And then JHunterJ initiates 3RR block. This is no good behavior. TrueColour really tried to improve. The 3RR block was complete nonsense. At least Calbuco (disambiguation) has a not so bad form now and it is close to what TrueColour was working on.
"I see you only created your account a day before posting the above message, a couple of days after another editor was blocked for edit warring on this very point - it all seems a bit strange." - see User:TheCalbuco - it is not strange at all. Of course the account was not created before the block. I saw how the Calbuco dab page and the user that created it were treated by some users and I also saw the WP deletion policy violation by user JHunterJ. But who got blocked? No, not JHunterJ, nor the deletionist reverter(s) but the CONTRIBUTER User:TrueColour. Is this good? Who stands up against admin right abuses? Out of policy deletion. Content deletion. User:Boleyn2 says User:Boleyn2 is a Veteran Editor. What have you done in all this time to defend justice? To stop admin right abuses? TheCalbuco ( talk) 17:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm forming a proposal for a bot. The intention of this bot is to immediately bring to the page author's attention that the article is linking somewhere other than they thought it would be linking.
The bot would inspect all new main-space articles except for redirects and dab-pages. Redirects are valid to point at dab pages, as are other dab pages. Any new page that has any links to disambiguation pages will have {{dn}} added after each link.
Is this a bad idea? Why? Josh Parris 06:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
After an extensive discussion, the proposal now reads:
(the namespaces are: 0 (mainspace), 6 (file), 10 (template) and 14 (category)). Current proposed message template:
![]() | Links from this article which need disambiguation (
check |
fix): Channel 70, Channel 71, Channel 72, Channel 73, Channel 74, Channel 75, Channel 76, Channel 77, Channel 78, Channel 79, Channel 80, Channel 81, Channel 82, Channel 83, Gothic, Hebron massacre, Hebron massacres, Skating, Term, Witta, Wittan
For help fixing these links, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Fixing a page. Added by WildBot | Tags to be removed | FAQ | Report a problem |
![]() |
If you have any opinion to voice, the discussion is nearing completion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/WildBot Josh Parris 08:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I think {{ Redirect5}} ought to have "redirect here", rather than "redirects here" as it's text. It appears the first free form argument is intended to be a list of multiple items, like {{ Redirect7}}, so the "s" is incorrect grammar. I've already been drawn too far from the article I'm trying to work on right now, so can't do a thorough check up on "real world" uses myself before fixing. So am leaving this note here. -- J Clear ( talk) 17:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I've proposed moving Lincoln → Lincoln (disambiguation) ( Discuss), because the primary topic on Wikipedia of "Lincoln" is Abraham Lincoln, as illustrated by the traffic through the Lincoln (president) redirect created to determine how the readership uses this disambiguation page. There are a lot of Lincolnshire Project members vested in the status quo. Would like to see this project also represented in the discussion. Tangentially related to the section above. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 17:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Can someone take a look at C37. I edited the page layout towards MOS:DAB. Only the Gulfstream bit won't fit in perfectly. Is it okay as I edited it? Or should it be something like this:
* C-37 Gulfstream, the designation used ... family of business jets
in which case C-37 Gulfstream will also be a disambiguation to A and B? (BTW C-37 Gulfstream is now a redirect, and leading to a wrong article)
So my general question: is it eligible to link to a disambiguation page from a disambiguation page? LittleWink ( talk) 20:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Should DAB pages include entries for songs where the only link provided is to the artist responsible for the song? I'm referring to Nexus (disambiguation)#In music specifically.It seems to me as if there's no need for disambiguation in these cases as the songs don't have articles? Cheers, Miremare 14:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Ooops, forgot about this, sorry and thanks for the replies. The question I have now though is how does this reconcile with the guideline's "partial title matches" section which states that DAB pages are not a search index. If pages whose titles are partial matches are not to be included for this reason, why would entries that don't have their own article at all be appropriate? Thanks, Miremare 01:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Related: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#MOSDABot, a suggestion that some dab pages receive some automatic evaluation against the manual of style. Josh Parris 04:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Dear Colleagues,
There is an ongoing discussion on the organization of number pages and number disambiguation pages.
Your comments would be much appreciated!! Please see and participate in:
Thank you for your participation!
Cheers,
PolarYukon ( talk) 15:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
First let me say there are at least two distinctly different views of what is a "primary topic". There is the view that a primary topic usually exists, and there is the view that a primary topic usually does not exist.
Regarding Lincoln, my view is that Abraham Lincoln is not the primary topic. But my reason for this is more complex than I have explained. So let me explain. In my view, Lincoln does have a primary topic, but the primary topic is not the article Abraham Lincoln. That article is one of many relating to President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln is the clear primary topic here, but that topic is a whole set of articles. Similarly in the case of Cocoa, there is a clear primary topic ("cocoa") but it is distributed among a series of articles, from this to this. I am in the middle of repairing many hundreds of incoming links to Cocoa, and I feel the urge to create a sort of primary topic index. What do I mean by that? Here is an example: Poppy. The article Poppy is a problem child, with many inappropriate incoming links and a very large cluster of related articles. Rather than move Poppy (disambiguation) to the ambiguous base name I am considering this.
Back to Lincoln. This is a brief discussion I had with User:Insorak about looking for an article relating to Abraham Lincoln, not necessarily the article Abraham Lincoln. At present, Lincoln does not provide navigation among articles related to Abraham Lincoln. But I think it should.
So, add to the above views of what is a primary topic, a third view: that a primary topic is not necessarily embodied in a single topical article. Consider the concept of set index article as applied to ships. The ship name has an existence apart from the ships that carry it, thus the primary topic is never an article about one of those ships, but rather the set of ships by that name.
-- Una Smith ( talk) 17:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I have proposed moving the disambiguation page at Leno to Leno (disambiguation), so that Leno can redirect to Jay Leno, which literally gets 70 times as much traffic as any other article on the disambig page (at least before Leno's two talk shows were just added there). Input from people familiar with the tenets of disambiguation would be appreciated. Propaniac ( talk) 16:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to propose that the phrase other topic be changed to other topics in the phrase When there is a well-known primary topic for an ambiguous term, name or phrase, much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer. The reason for this change is to make it clear that a primary topic is truly the primary topic. With the current wording, it is possible to 'declare' a primary topic when it does not even have the majority of links. Take the case where we have 11 items on the dab page. If one of them gets 10% of the links or usage, the current wording suggests that it is the primary use. I'm far from convinced that this was the intended outcome of the current wording. Vegaswikian ( talk) 20:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the change to topics, but the whole section seems a bit messy at the moment (I think it used to be clearer). Do we really mean to say that topics are "used"? Don't we mean that they are searched for by readers under that term? Also can we move the stuff about hatnotes and back links to the end of the section, since it logically comes after the decision on whether there's a primary topic? And eliminate the duplication - we don't need to say the same thing about redirects twice (one with a such-and-such example, then with the Danzig example)?-- Kotniski ( talk) 09:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I am in favor of comparing the putative primary topic to the other topics combined. A long discussion of this developed today on Talk:Lincoln. -- Una Smith ( talk) 03:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with deciding primarity by the number of links or usages. In may cases there is truly and logically primary meaning from which completely all other meanings are derived. For example, it may happen that Deicide (band) enormously spings in pupolarity, while the term deicide is mostly used in specialised text. I would disagree that pop-culture will force us to mave page moves "deicide"->"disambig", "band"-> "deicide". (I am sure there are actual examples already, but I am lazy to look for). Mukadderat ( talk) 17:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
The current wording doesn't seem too bad. If one topic gets 40% of pageviews and six other topics get 10% each, the one that gets 40% should still be eligible to be the primary topic (notice "eligible to be", not "automatically"). This can be especially relevant regarding personal names and place names. There's also the question of defining "all other topics combined". Is it only articles taking precisely the same name? Or anything on a dab page? With all the weird stuff that gets on dab pages, I'm not even certain that London would be the primary topic when measured against every topic on London (disambiguation) combined. Station1 ( talk) 19:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Been away for awhile -- some thoughts perhaps only tangentially related to the proposed changes. While I agree that page view statistics can be a useful indicator of primary topic, it is not the sole determinant and I suggest we should be a little more careful in how we bandy about wikistats in relation to determining primary topic. Wikipedia is an encylopedia and disambiguation is not merely a matter of optimizing page traffic. Such numerical data has a simplisitic appeal in arguments, but can be given too much weight and lend itself to both systemic bias and recentism. older ≠ wiser 01:32, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd basically agree with that, but I wouldn't use such a strong adverb as "overwhelmingly". You seem to be implying that the additional irritation/dismay caused by finding an undesired article as opposed to a disambiguation page is greater than that caused by finding a disambiguation page as opposed to the desired article. (That somehow having to make two extra clicks instead of one carries a greater emotional cost than having to make one instead of none.) If you are arguing that, then I would possibly agree, but only to a small extent - not so much as to justify your "overwhelmingly". If you're not arguing that, then I don't see how you reach that conclusion. -- Kotniski ( talk) 17:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
That said, I think there might be other factors to consider in primary topic decisions besides numerical reader interest - consistency between similar pages being one. (In fact I came up against this recently - I proposed that the Duke of Wellington should be the primary topic for Duke of Wellington, which he clearly is, but the proposal failed because people wanted to maintain consistency with other Duke of... articles. And having 1 lead to the year AD 1 is another example.)-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I'll stick with simplistic over elegant in regards to traffic statistics. Regardless of what such a tool might indicate, the guidance wisely suggests If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)". Establishing a topic as primary should have a higher bar over having a disambiguation page at the base name because once a primary topic is in place it becomes significantly more difficult to displace it (i.e., editors will dutifully go about fixing links to the page) and since the term is by definition ambiguous, having a primary topic makes repairing incorrect links more difficult. older ≠ wiser 20:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Let's try to sort out the wording for the "Is there a primary topic?" section them. This is the wording from my previous attempt, altered to reflect the conclusions of the foregoing discussion:
Although a term may potentially refer to more than one topic, it is often the case that one of these topics is highly likely – much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined – to be the subject being sought when a reader clicks the "Go" button for that term. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. If a primary topic exists, the term should be the title of (or redirect to) the article on that topic. If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of (or redirect to) a disambiguation page.
There are no absolute rules for determining primary topics; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic.
Tools that may help determine a primary topic, but are not determining factors, include:
- Incoming wikilinks from Special:WhatLinksHere
- Wikipedia article traffic statistics
- Google web, news, scholar, or book searches
It was suggested previously that we should also retain the existing example of a primary redirect (it's Danzig, though could be any of many), so that could be kept at the end of the section. Apart from that, how do people feel about this proposed wording now?-- Kotniski ( talk) 20:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Further to the section above where I enquired about things with no articles being listed on DAB pages, there seems to be some disagreement about what a DAB page lists. The answers I got above were that it was topics, so it doesn't matter if an entry has an article or not, but the template at the bottom of every DAB page states that it is simply article titles that are being disambiguated. So which one is right? Miremare 17:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I've copied the "primary topic" section of this guideline page to my userspace for the purpose of refining it and presenting a clearer description of the concept. Come brainstorm with me and help me to craft something that we can present here and gain consensus. ...but what do you think? ~ B F izz 08:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Some users want to remove most or all of the text from the {{ disambig}} template. (I prefer to keep that template just as it is.) See Template talk:Disambig#Remove message.
-- David Göthberg ( talk) 00:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Users here may be interested in the Requested Move discussion currently taking place at Talk:Season 4 (30 Rock). Propaniac ( talk) 16:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
We currently have separate disambiguation pages entitled Islip, New York and Islip. Everything on the first one, not surprisingly, is also linked on the second one. This seems like a textbook case of incomplete disambiguation, so I redirected the "New York" page to the more general disambiguation page. Another editor reverted this. Can others please review the situation and offer thoughts on whether these two disambiguation pages are unnecessarily redundant, or whether there is some reason to keep both of them? -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 18:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
WP:DPAGES indicates that dabs for related terms, such as singular and plural versions of an ambiguous title, may be combined. I think, based on some recent history at Perfect Stranger and Perfect Strangers, this may need to be clarified or expanded. I think that it makes to combine them when it is likely that a reader looking for the plural might enter the singular, or vice versa, but when the singulars and plurals are unlikely to be sought using the "wrong" number, then the readers are better served by giving them the shorter lists of entries that match their search, rather than combining the lists just because they have related ambiguous titles. Thoughts? -- JHunterJ ( talk) 14:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Those of you interested in the utility and/or over-emphasis of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC's toolkit on determining primary topic may be interested in commenting on Talk:Memphis (disambiguation)#Requested move and Talk:America#An option for getting some statistics -- JHunterJ ( talk) 12:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Forbidden external link and too much exposition at the top. I didn't want to delete that material outright, as there may be a proto-article there, or perhaps we may merge that part into Julie (given name). Any ideas? bd2412 T 23:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
I have been using {{
for2}}
at the top of a subsection to link to a related sub-section in another article. This is effectively a kind of disambiguation, but I am having trouble from an (anon) editor who is claiming this template can only be used as a hatnote. Since the destination link requires a pipe-trick-hidden #-anchor, I cannot use {{
details}}
for the same purpose.
Is there a problem about using {{
for2}}
where one might use {{
main}}
? ('Main' is not appropriate as only a small section of the destination article is relevant.)
EdJogg ( talk) 14:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
{{
for2}}
as a section hatnote. If that is the case, then my task is somewhat easier, as this seems to be the editor's main gripe. (Oh, that and 'over-linking'.)A Wiki search for "The well" does not lead to that disabig page, not sure how to fix this maybe someone here can do it with a few keystrokes? Thx RomaC ( talk) 10:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
There is so much disambiguation that is required relating to the New York City Subway. There have been attempts, but they look rather inconsistent. Rather than give specific examples, I will point you to the section List of New York City Subway stations#Stations with the same name, and look at the column "Name of station." Those entries are links to disambiguation pages, many of which either have the suffix (New York City Subway) or redirect to another general disambiguation page. There are about 100 pages that I am asking to review. Also, there is a separate but related issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation#Two mergers to consider. Tinlinkin ( talk) 13:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
This makes no sense at all:
Requiring the use of a redirect is just plain stupid. If you can link directly, why shouldn't you? Whether or not the link has "disambiguation" in the title is completely irrelevant. This is just process for the sake of process, and is completely instruction creep. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 10:09, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
While looking for information on the
programming language, I came across
Java (which should have a hatnote redirect linking to the article on the programming language, BTW) and got interested in disambiguation. A quick look through discussion archives turns up the
Georgia case quite prominently, as well as a slew of biography articles. Something that strikes me in all these cases is that a lot of the disagreements could be kept off the individual article discussion pages and collected in a single location (and in some cases, flat-out settled!) if the "bare name" was always a redirect in these cases. For example,
Georgia would (currently) be a redirect to
Georgia (disambiguation) and similarly for ambiguous person names, etc. That way, discussion about where
Georgia should point could be kept on a single discussion page rather than being spread across the discussion pages for a number of different articles. It would also minimize the disruption caused by people changing the redirect (and reverting it back) since it wouldn't involve renaming any of the actual articles. It wouldn't cause any problems for readers, since the redirect is automatic. Links would continue to work just fine — and in fact there'd be the added benefit of easily identifying which links go to an ambiguous name. It seems like a win-win-win all around. Why isn't this the policy? --
Lewis (
talk) 21:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I've clarified my point about the hatnote (which is just a personal opinion, unrelated to my other point here so I'll not mention it again) and my point about minimizing disruption is that when a base name is given directly to an article (the "primary usage") and there's dispute over whether that article really is the primary usage, then when bold editors rearrange things to their liking, actual articles get renamed, their associated talk pages get renamed, and there's generally a big mess to clean up afterwards. If the base name is simply a redirect to a particular article (or to a disambiguation page identified with "(disambiguation)" in the title) then when people disagree about the primary usage and boldly make changes, only the content of the redirect changes, and nothing actually moves around. It's easier to revert because it's just a content page, there's no chance that talk pages will get moved improperly, nobody will accidentally do the move incorrectly because they cut-and-paste content, etc.
My point about keeping the discussion in one place is that, using the case of Georgia as an example, the discussion over where Georgia should point is spread across multiple discussion pages, depending on which article was named " Georgia" at the time the discussion was taking place. If Georgia had always just been a redirect to one of the other article pages (or the disambiguation page) then the discussion could've been kept in one place and wouldn't irritate people working on the actual articles. -- Lewis ( talk) 21:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
In line with the above suggestion, I propose the following change to the wording of the page:
The title of a disambiguation page is the ambiguous term itself followed by the tag "(disambiguation)", as in Term ABC (disambiguation). If there is no primary topic, then a page should be created at "Term ABC" that redirects to the disambiguation page at "Term ABC (disambiguation)".
When a disambiguation page combines several similar terms, one of them must be selected as the title for the page (with the "(disambiguation)" tag added); the choice should be made in line with the following principles:
What do you think? -- Lewis ( talk) 20:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
It solves several problems:
1) Collateral damage caused by improper moves (and reverts) associated with disputes over which article is the primary topic. For example, instead of moving Georgia to Georgia (disambiguation) (over an existing redirect) and Georgia (country) to Georgia (or Georgia (US state) to Georgia), plus all the associated talk pages — and then having to revert it all — all that would happen in such situations is that Georgia would change its redirect destination, and everything else would stay where it is.
1b) It simplifies the process of changing the primary topic in legitimate cases as well.
2) It would give a clear location to hold discussions as to what the primary topic is. This has been a problem for Georgia, as evidenced by the fact that all of the various talk pages for the related articles have a big notice that informs editors where they should hold such discussions.
2b) It would keep such discussions off the talk pages for the articles themselves, which would remove a source of irritation for many editors of those articles.
3) It would take away at least some of the "prestige factor" of having an article at the base name, which would remove some of the tension in these disputes. If none of the articles get to be named with the non-qualified bare name, and it's just a matter of which one the bare name redirects to (for the ease of the readers) then there's less to argue over.
4) It makes it easier to protect against unauthorized changes of the primary topic. Currently this would require protecting an article itself (whichever one has the base name) whereas if the base name were always a redirect, the base name itself could be protected (and thus prevent unauthorized changes) without having to lock down any actual articles. Per JHunterJ's point below, pages can simply be protected against moves without protecting the content, so this is a non-issue. --
Lewis (
talk) 01:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
None of these may be enormously important considerations, but since I can't come up with a single reason in favor of the status quo, I'd ask why not turn the current practice on its head. It doesn't seem to make much sense to keep it the way it is, at least to me. -- Lewis ( talk) 22:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
What reason is there to keep things the way they are, other than avoiding change? I realize that unnecessary change is bad, and that a case needs to be made to institute this kind of change, but I'm genuinely at a loss as to what the benefits of the current setup are. I've outlined a number of positive benefits to the way I'm suggesting, and you can dispute the merits of them, but I'd genuinely appreciate somebody listing some positive benefits of the current setup as well. -- Lewis ( talk) 01:23, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
have released an album called "for the birds", however I'm unsure how to use disambiguation with For the birds as The Frames have already brought out an album called For the Birds. How should i go about naming The Mess Hall's, "For the birds" album article? Wiki ian 06:21, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Was there any discussion about listing in the given name pages?
For some time I remember the following practice: to list only persons which are commonly known solely by a given name. For example, the page John includes Pope John I, but not John Lennon. Was there formalized somewhere? If not I would like to start a discussion, because this is so in well-watched pages, such as John or Igor, but not so in many other pages.
The same problem is with pages about given names. They are not disambig pages, but many of them contain a section, like, "List of famous people with given name Nnnnn".
An additional issue to consider is that the name is really rare, then listing such people may have some sense.
I am inviting Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy to join this discussion, to set a common style. There are thousands given names, and we better have them in order. - Altenmann >t 20:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I posted a related question in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anthroponymy#First_names, but got no response. I guess it must be decided here. Mukadderat ( talk) 20:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I did a search for an article to help me understand how Jews came to be referred to as "The Chosen", only to be directed to a disambiguation page containg decent sized list on several films and other disambiguations of the term (most actually related to Jews as being considered "The Chosen", yet no actual article on the central question: Why are Jews referred to as "The Chosen"?
Has no article yet been created adressing that central definition? 70.49.69.185 ( talk) 11:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
In many cases there is an ordinary English usage for a term. The specific example that leads me to make this comment is the damages disambiguation page. When I first looked at the page it started with a "Film and television" section; buried lower down was section "Law" with "Property damage", and "Other" with "Water damage". The article did have a link to the Wiktionary article.
In the case of a word like "damage" with a clear and common meaning in everyday English, that meaning should dominate a 2009 film and a band called "Damage"; a routine link to Wiktionary is not enough to inform a reader not familiar with the term of the meaning (a fortiori, it should not be assumed that readers use English as their main language, or that they live in a typical Western culture). A definition of the word (even if this is really a dictionary definition; an exception to the guideline discouraging such definitions should apply to disambiguation) should head the article, and meanings which are just variants of normal English should appear here; in the case of damage, "Water damage", "Property damage", "Fire damage" are applications of the normal meaning, not truly independent terms, and should be grouped with the main definition.
The article as I found it is at [2]; I left it as at [3], though I don't claim my version to be perfect or definitive. [In the particular case of damage I added a brief clarification of the distinction between damage and damages which isn't directly relevant to my point here, though it does clearly belong where it is (there are many cases of misuse like "the earthquake caused damages to a building and a bridge", presumably mainly by non-native speakers of English).]
I suggest that the guidelines on disambiguation pages be modified to cover this, very common, situation. Pol098 ( talk) 15:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Following my comments on the need to include ordinary English use in the previous section, an alternative might be to modify the Wiktionary link, which at the moment is not very prominent, instead of adding a definition. There is a smallish and not very prominent box reading "Look up <word> in Wiktionary, the free dictionary" on the right-hand side. Maybe, instead of the approach I described in the previous section, the {{wiktionary}} template should be modified, perhaps to add prominent text at the beginning of the article "<word> is used in normal English usage; click here to see definitions and notes on usage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary". If this interferes with existing use of the template, a new, more prominent, template could be written for disambiguation pages. Pol098 ( talk) 16:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
WP:dab templates such as Template:About create hatnotes like this one, from Impressionism:
This article is about the art movement. For other uses, see Impressionism (disambiguation).
The essay Wikipedia:Converting to use of see-colon suggests using a colon (:) after "see" in cases like this.
I suggest changing all dab templates to add the 'see-colon'. I will make a preliminary proposal for this in the proper place if there is consensus here. David Spector 14:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I propose appending the following to the end of WP:PT regarding unique, initial-use proper nouns:
Occasionally there may be cases where two or more articles would bear precisely the same title but none are the primary topic using the above criteria. If it's not otherwise clear whether X is a primary topic for T, then the decision is sometimes swung in X's favor by the fact that X is the original use of the name T. For example, if there is a novel, followed by a play derived from that novel, a film derived from that play, and a musical derived from that film — all bearing the same title and with none much more sought — the novel shall be the primary topic. In the case of non-derivative works — proper nouns specifically created by blending multiple words together into a unique word ( Clannad) or as a portmanteau ( Microsoft), creating a new word derived from another ( Dracula) or an entirely new word ( Jabberwocky), or using a truly unique cluster of words ( An American in Paris) resulting in derivative works or an amalgamation of other proper nouns ( Goldwyn Pictures) — the initial creative use and popularization of the title shall be the primary topic when the creative initial use of the term is crystal clear.
₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 23:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I decided to " be bold" and make what I believe is a fair addition to the section " Is there a primary topic?" regarding unique, initial-use proper nouns ( ref) as a result of the discussion in progress here. The argument is that if there is an arbitrary notable group that starts using a devised name (let's say " The Dog" history), as opposed to a word ( Dog), they would be the primary topic (as in June 2004, this was) — but if after their public spotlight wanes, another iteration is discovered or comes along dubbed "more important" or arguably "more popular" by search results or article hits such as The Dog (Goya), one of two things "should" happen:
Making such changes would be a completely responsible thing to do ... for the inevitable situation that more than one person will have the idea to put the article " The" before a noun and name their artistic outlet as such. However: A small group of editors seeing "no strong reason why one article should be favored over the other" (as is the case of Clannad, compared to Clannad (visual novel)) happens by somehow not knowing that the "initial-use creator" (the band) invented a brand new word out of thin air, popularized it, and was the first to be notable, then the initial writers of the anime stuff came along contemporaneously 34 years after the first group in the world to use the word "Clannad" (with all their accumulated acclaim and influence on today's music) and decided to also use the name (a trademark) due to a misunderstanding that it was a "word", rather than in fact a unique "proper noun".
While it's true that "there are no absolute rules for determining primary topics", there are guidelines for what determines a primary topic. However, in all my searching in WP policies, I haven't found anything that directly refers what to do about unique proper nouns: specifically the type that people/groups/companies establish & popularize as "initial use" trademarks. With the article Dracula that used to be in October 2001 erroneously labeled directly synonymous with Vlad Tepes, truly though we know Bram Stoker derived that name from multiple legends including Vlad's, but that derivation is where the unique, initial-use proper noun attributed to Stoker originated — explaining why the article is what it is today, and not simply one of many links on the corresponding DAB page. There is clear precedence *in practice* for what has been done in cases like this, but up to now we're lacking Policy precedence. The very closest thing that's almost relevant enough is WP:Naming conventions (films)#From other topics, but still nothing in WP policy that sufficiently addresses most general forms of newly-created proper nouns. As a result, I made this addition (which I first checked WT:DAB and anywhere else I could search in policies, wikitalk pages, ...with no joy), and added a circumstance that I believe is fair and can be verified to date with many pre-existing primary-source articles (that are NOT DAB).
The action that started this whole mess was also the act of "
being bold"
here, but the change made in that case was imprudent to the spirit of what makes a "primary topic" what it is in an encyclopedia. My goal here then is to set in writing a precedence that thus far has only been spoken and in practice, but now would streamline any decisions that will arise in the future regarding this particular type of "primary topic". ₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 05:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
CelticWonder appears to be getting to the issue of derivative uses. This has come up before in Requested Move discussions. When the normal criteria of "most searched for" don't apply, some editors go to derivation. I don't agree with overturning the current consensus regarding the most-sought topic being the primary topic, but when the most-sought topic is unclear, derivation can be a legitimate criterion. It might be useful to add a short paragraph such as:
(ec) I don't see the "original-ness" of the usage to be pertinent. It MIGHT make sense for articles about works derived from a single source - like a book, its movies and stage derivations - but even then, the "best" to me is to direct them to the article that gives them the most information about the general topic. Take Star Trek and Star Wars for example. If the articles are related only in name (I didn't read the whole articles, but Clannad seems to be an example) and there is no clear primary topic between them using the criteria without the new "original-ness" test, the readers are best served by a dab page. Going to the "original" doesn't improve the situation. (John User:Jwy talk) 23:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Ambiguity isn't involved in the discussion I first proposed, you see?
Lincoln (a proper or surname) and
EA (an inevitable acronym of ANY two words beginning with E and A, as shown on it's dab) wouldn't fall under the category of my suggested amendment concerning "...non-derivative works —
proper nouns specifically created by
blending multiple words together into a unique word (
Clannad) or as a
portmanteau (
Microsoft), creating a new word derived from another (
Dracula) or an entirely new word (
Jabberwocky), or using a truly unique
cluster of words (
An American in Paris) resulting in
derivative works or an
amalgamation of other proper nouns (
Goldwyn Pictures) — the initial creative use and popularization of the title shall be the primary topic." — where it is CRYSTAL CLEAR who the original creator is, which is why
Dumbo,
Dracula,
Clannad,
Microsoft,
Jabberwocky,
Goldwyn, or derivative names specifically using a truly unique
cluster of words like
An American in Paris, and many others I'm not going to waste more time searching for that are currently the Primary Topic for the precise reason I detailed in my most recent revised proposal above. ₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 19:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Genre of "word" | Example(s) | Typical outcome | WP policy/guideline |
---|---|---|---|
English
word
(i.e. noun, verb, etc.) with one dominant meaning |
Apple, Mummy, One, Teacher, Tree | Word is PT,
others on dab |
|
Person/place single proper noun
(limited original usage) |
Byrne, Danzig, Lima, Mississippi, Tallahassee, Zielinski | Person/place is PT,
others on dab |
MOS:DABNAME, WP:2DAB |
Person/place single proper noun
(rampant similar usage, or ambiguous original usage) |
Anderson,
Barnes,
Jackson,
Jenkins, |
DAB,
original/popular usage at top |
MOS:DABNAME, WP:PLACE#Disambiguation |
Unique initial-use name/word
(original use is obvious) |
Batman, Clannad, Dumbo, Dracula, Frankenstein, Goldwyn, Jabberwocky | Original use is primary topic,
others on dab (or hatnote then dab) |
Today: WP:???
In practice: "Encyclopedic nature"? Past decisions supporting my argument for amendment: 1, 2 |
CelticWonder, no disrespect intended, it seems pretty clear that your goal in all of this is to get a "ruling" that the article about the band called Clannad should be considered the primary topic, regardless of how many users are looking for that topic vs. another unrelated meaning of the term (such as the visual novel), because the band was the first to coin the word. I don't think (certainly could be wrong) you're ever going to convince many people here of that argument. If 75% of users are looking for the novel and 25% of users are looking for the band, it doesn't make sense to send everyone to the band article first, simply because the band originated the name. That does not, in any way at all, mean that the novel is better than the band (personally, I'm sure if I sampled each, I'd like the band way more). It just means that there are a ton of manga fans among Wikipedia's user base. Propaniac ( talk) 16:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
As I have said in the past, there is an argument for deciding primary use based on usage in reliable sources. Even if 99% of searches on "Titanic" were for the film (as would likely have been the case if Wikipedia had been around in 1997), we would still consider the ship to be the primary use. Search popularity doesn't capture that; it is too caught up in zeitgeist. Usage in reliable sources does. All of the examples put forward by CelticWonder should be treated as evidence that editors take into account usage in reliable sources when choosing a primary use. "Precedence" is not necessary to explain those examples. Hesperian 03:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
...as I'm officially declaring that I now dgaf. In a book-indexed encyclopedia, issues like this list the first item first, followed chronologically by its derivative uses or works. Understandably, Wikipedia is not paper, but it's still an encyclopedia.
As common practice that I've detailed numerous times above dictates the contrary to what is being done in the case of this article ( Talk) for example, I've asserted a logical uniformity of this minority of articles falling under the specific criteria expressed here. The addition would have been useful to avoid showing a systemically-biased favoritism in some cases like that one and few others for a-derivative-as-pt over the more suitable unique-original-work-as-pt, regardless of "hit totals" as is being used on such topics instead.
I'm sick of tirelessly laboring this point home with research, facts, and examples/comparisons — and mostly just that I've been doing it all myself with no help from anyone here, even when requested. I don't feel that detractors have expressed any valid reasons why this natural way of doing things shouldn't be clarified — and only in this very concise regard — other than that "consensus rules" or "WP hits/GHits rules". If the typical
admins on WP really just get a kick out of their
cabalistic way of doing things "as is", then that's one thing. But a casual editor such as myself doesn't want to resort to this (
1 →
2 →
3) just to ultimately have my point
made clear and then carried out anyway, when a simple
reference to a guideline amendment that could easily exist would have avoided all that and any future related conflicts for OTHERS (as in: I was trying to get this put into the guidelines to serve the use of FUTURE editors from laboriously defending this point, not for my own POV advancement). So fuggit... do as you will. I've made my proposition. I believe it's valid and would serve to improve WP. Decide whether something to that effect should be included in policy. ₪—
CelticWonder (
T·
C) " 07:59, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
CelticWonder has spuriously accused me of conflict of interest here. Other input requested. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 21:38, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Users here may be interested in participating in discussion of the move request (to move the dab page to Ebert (disambiguation) and redirect Ebert to Roger Ebert) at Talk:Ebert#Requested move. (There's rather an underrepresentation at the moment of users who have any interest in Wikipedia guidelines, and an overrepresentation of users who wish to make navigation decisions based on which names are most commonly recognized in Europe.) Propaniac ( talk) 15:43, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
In the last weeks I created lots of disambiguation pages. And I noticed something: an editor can improve his good maners and create the disambiguation pages after creating an article. For example, the second or the third person who created a page with „Dragutin” in the title (let's say that the page was Dragutin Dimitrijević), after creating the page, he/she should look if there exists or it's needed the disambiguation page for Dragutin and Dimitrijević. If the pages exists, he only has to add one or two lines to those disambiguation pages. If not, he will have to create one or two disambiguation pages, that requires 2 or 3 lines each. In either case, it can't take so long. But, if the editors do not behave like that, one day, somebody comes and creates the Dragutin (disambiguation) page, and because it has 20 lines or so, it's very likely he/she will skip adding details to each line. It's exactly my case: I created the Dragutin (disambiguation) page and it looks not so great, because there were too many lines in it, and I created Dragutinović page, and it looks better, because there were only three entries so I had the time to add details to each of them.
Therefore, being a nice editor and creating one or two small disambiguation pages, or at least adding one-two lines to the already existing disambiguation pages can increase the number of needed disambiguation pages and their appearance and usefulness. Of course there should not be any obligation - we are doing voluntary work here - but maybe some "ranking" can be invented for those who prove their advanced good manners - Ark25 ( talk) 03:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm back. The questions: What would be the best arguments for deleting pages like Dražen, Dragutin (disambiguation), Dragutinović ? Other question: what should I do to bring those 3 pages closer to perfection? For example at the Drazen page, should {{ disamb}} and {{ given name}} coexist? or better to have only a {{ hndis}} ? Also, it looks to me that Dragutin (disambiguation) should be renamed into Dragutin (name). But then, at the Stephen Dragutin of Serbia, the disambiguation note should be changed. Is there an equivalent to {{ redirect}} that generates "(name)" instead of "(disambiguation)" ? Thanks - Ark25 ( talk) 13:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, now some few observations: at Dragutin (name), having both {{ surname}} and {{ given name}} in the page doesn't look so great (to me). I don't know how many other pages are in this kind of situation, but if there are many, then I think it is needed for a new single template to be created in order to mix the both of them.
I checked the Mary page and it doesnt have {{ hndis}} as you said it should.
Also, it looks like the content of John Smith (name) should be moved at John Smith, because John Smith is a name page.
Now, talking about the descriptions, I have to come back to the original discussion - editors with advanced good manners have to create the disambiguation or name pages when there are 2-4 items that make those pages needed. A club of "elite" editors should be created (without any privileges, ofc), and membership must be based on continuously proving the advanced good manners. I am quite sure, there can be identified more criteria to be elite, other than creating dab pages at the right moment. But it's just a suggestion of course. Ark25 ( talk) 03:13, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
FYI, {{ otheruses4}} has been nominated for deletion at WP:RFD
65.94.253.16 ( talk) 05:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
We've got a move discussion going as to whether Wild Horses (Rolling Stones song) should be at Wild Horses (song) when there are other songs with that title (at least one of which, Wild Horses (Garth Brooks song), has an article). What's the deal here? Are we allowed to have "Article name (qualifier)" and "Article name (more specific qualifier)"? It just seems stupid to me. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ( Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 19:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arbre. Is this really what people want to do with dab pages? The arbre page has two articles that could legitimately be written someday, but don't exist now (the Belgian place names), and it has one phrase that could marginally be a hatnote somewhere (the planet in Anathem), but wouldn't make an article on its own (in my estimation). The rest of the entries are all partial matches.
I note that the current text of WP:DISAMBIG is somewhat different from the way I remember it (the wording I remember is something along the lines of the purpose of disambiguation pages is to help readers navigate among articles that have the same name). When was this changed, and how much was it discussed? Is this really the outcome people had in mind? If this is what consensus genuinely wants, then OK, but it seems a bit of a stretch to me. -- Trovatore ( talk) 08:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure why two different dab pages exist, but if I can make the mistake between the two (wondering what happened to half the dab terms), then undoubtedly it could happen with the regular user. I propose we merge them, but I've never really hear about merging dab pages before. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 22:51, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
A list of items, especially growing to around six or more, should be listed (by date if especially significant or) in alphabetical order as standard. It doesn't say that on the guidelines. There is no hit for "alphabetical". I want to quote the guideline that says, "Order the list alphabetically rather than how you feel the items are more relevant." Some lists are quite long including disambiguation pages. Is this intentionally missed? ~ R. T. G 18:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
There was a recent discussion about moving Independence Day (film), an article about the 1996 film, to Independence Day (1996 film) because there was a 1983 film. The discussion was closed as having no consensus. Those who supported the move did not believe that the 1996 film was the primary topic, already being disambiguated from Independence Day, which was considered to be the only primary topic. Those who opposed the move believed that "Independence Day (film)", including the "(film)" term to disambiguate from the original primary topic, was the primary topic of the two films because the film is more well-known than the 1983 film. This seems to me to mean a hierarchy where we have a secondary "primary topic" in a set of articles disambiguated from the first primary topic. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not talk about disambiguation terms, but where it has been applied, it seems to me that the primary topic is the one that does not receive any disambiguation. We have naming conventions for films that says simply, "When disambiguating films of the same name, add the year of its first public release." How should this be clarified when it comes to films that have to be disambiguated from a/the primary topic, but one is more well-known than the other? What are others' thoughts about this? Erik ( talk | contribs) 03:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we all agree that most searchers are going to type in "Independence Day" or "Elephant" or "Avatar" even if they want the films. The issue under discussion here does not affect that majority one way or the other. The question is what article the minority who type in " Avatar (film)" or " Avatar film" or " Avatar (movie)" or " Avatar movie" should be sent to. They add up to only 3% of the viewers of Avatar (2009 film) (the above stat s/b 0.89%, not 0.089%) but still represent 35,000+ searchers last month. All 35,000 were sent to a dab page when almost all of them wanted Avatar (2009 film), the primary usage of those 4 phrases by the criteria suggested at WP:PT. That's a lot of people even if a small percentage. Whether readers get where they want directly or via a redirect doesn't really matter, but the primary usage for those 4 search terms is fairly clear to me. Station1 ( talk) 04:13, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I read this whole discussion and it seems to be utterly ridiculous. Basically, the only reason to carry the move out is:
"If we move this article to Independence Day (1996 film), we'll never have to talk about moving it again because there will never be another film with that disambiguated title... On the other hand, it is still possible for there to be another film called Independence Day."
— Erik, on explaining the necessity of the move
This is preposterous. If this were a legitimate reason to make a move, then all movies would have dates attached to their titles. Should The Departed be placed under The Departed (2006 film)? Who is to say there will never be another film called The Departed? The notion that this is a legitimate reason to move the page lacks common sense. The page's location, right now, has caused absolutely NO PROBLEM. None whatsoever.
The supposed conflict is because of Independence Day (1983 film). Well, lets see the scenarios:
There is absolutely no problem with where the article stands right now. There is no confusion as there is a disambiguation page and a hatnote leading to the other movie. The move, other than ridiculous, is also unnecessary. Feed back 21:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Basically, what I'm trying to say above is that 100% of all readers, no matter what they type in the search box, will get to the article they want regardless if they had to follow disambiguation or not. There is no problem with the current way of how the article title is decided and no amount of arguing and reasoning will create a problem. All articles are fine where they are as people can still tend to them. The only reason we should discuss this is if there is the possibility of the disambiguation leading to a "dead end" which is obviously not the case. Feed back 03:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
What's the view on if surname-only pages (i.e. not those containing other dabs) are still regarded as disambiguation pages and whether WP:DABSTYLE applies. In particular, note the recent changes I made at Powell (surname) relating to not piping. Is there a consensus for whether article names in surname lists should be piped or not? Eldumpo ( talk) 18:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Just to keep you in the loop, I have made Independence day the dab page instead of Independence Day (disambiguation) and a couple of related changes. Abtract ( talk) 19:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Why do you say there's no primary topic? There does seem to be one: The general concept of "a day commemorating national independence", which is currently handled by the article List of countries by Independence Day. The primary-topic article doesn't need to be called Independence day in order to be considered the primary topic for that term.-- ShelfSkewed Talk 22:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I would like to propose a modest change to the primary topic guideline, that I would see as merely a clarification but I realize it's possible others here may see it as more controversial.
Here's my paraphrase of how I read the guideline, particularly the sentence I've quoted in the heading: "The primary topic is the article most likely to be sought by users. If there is extended discussion about which article is most likely to be sought by users, that may indicate there is no article significantly more likely than the others to be sought, and thus no primary topic."
But many times, in recent move discussions, I've seen this misapplied. What I've observed (in my view) is that users will essentially ignore the part of the guideline that defines the criteria for the primary topic, and say that some other criteria -- such as which topic originated earliest -- is more important. And then they point to this sentence in the guideline: "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic" to say that because there is argument over whether the topic most likely to be sought, or the topic that originated earliest, is the primary topic, then therefore there must be no primary topic.
So the change I'm suggesting (which, again, I see as only a clarification of the existing text) would be to replace this paragraph:
There are no absolute rules for determining primary topics; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic.
With this rewritten version (changed text is bolded for clarity):
There are no absolute rules for determining which topic is most likely to be sought by readers; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the most likely target, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic.
Thoughts? Propaniac ( talk) 20:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but I have a problem with the language as amended by Kotniski; without the clause he deleted, there is clearly an implication that there must be a "most likely" target, and the only task for editors is to agree on what it is. In fact, we all know from experience that there are many disambig page titles for which there is no primary topic. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 21:05, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Here's an interesting suggestion that's been raised since I proposed to move John Leland (antiquary) to John Leland. When trying to prove the lack of primary usage, User:Novaseminary came up with some grok stats. As the stats didn’t quite support his/her case, Nova went on to challenge their usefulness on the basis that the high number of views for John Leland (antiquary) may be due to lots of incoming wiki-links. Such readers did not click the Go-button, as the guidelines otherwise insist. If this is an acceptable interpretation, then it looks like our guidelines contradict themselves about the way primary usage (or the lack thereof) can be determined. Cavila ( talk) 19:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
When the primary topic link redirects to a section of an article, should the hatnote to the dab page be at the top of the article, as usual (and per WP:LEAD and WP:HNP), or at the top of the section? The example I recently came across is The, which redirects to English articles#Definite article. But the hatnote is at the top of the article, not immediately findable by a user. Is it acceptable to put the hatnote at the top of the section? This seems more sensible to me. Alternately, should the anchor be removed from the redirect so that the link would simply take users to the top of the target article?-- ShelfSkewed Talk 05:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
I think this should be an article including a list, and not a disambiguation page at all. bd2412 T 13:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
FYI, there's a discussion on the need for hatnoting at Talk:Full Metal Jacket. 70.29.210.155 ( talk) 00:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
And editor has questioned whether Dreamweaver should continue redirecting to Adobe Dreamweaver (current behavior) or if it should be changed to redirect to Dreamweaver (disambiguation). The question was originally posed at WP:AN then moved to the redirect's talk page as it isn't an administrative matter. Extensive discussion has followed, with two editors feeling the redirect should be changed to the disambig so readers can access all meanings, and four feeling it should remain per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. At this point, all the discussion is becoming somewhat circular and it is agreed that more views would be useful, so posting a note here asking for additional views at Talk:Dreamweaver. -- AnmaFinotera ( talk · contribs) 20:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Discussion about refactoring of AnmaFinotera's original post |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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