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A particular user, apparently unhappy about the bot that tags intentional links to disambiguation pages in hatnotes, has started tagging "foo (disambiguation)"-type redirects for deletion, such as Delirious and The Choir. The same user has been changing other intentional dab links to bypass the redirects. I have tried to reason with this person on his talk page, but so far unsuccessfully. Other interested editors may wish to monitor these pages to make sure that not too much harm is done, or to try to be more persuasive than I was able to be. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 17:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
The policy is stupid, at least in these two cases. It should be changed. I will withdraw the request and suggest that you change the policy immediately and make it rational. -- Walter Görlitz ( talk) 19:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Since this does crop up from time to time, perhaps we need to expand and clarify the explanation at WP:INTDABLINK, to make it clear why this is necessary and how it helps. bd2412 T 06:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
The traffic statistics are typically the major fact used in primary topic discussions at present, almost to the point of giving it overwhelming weight and ignoring other factors entirely at times. However, the guideline does not indicate this and says that the stats are one of a few measures that should be borne in mind to aid discussion.
This strikes me as a break between the guidance and the current implementation of it: Either the current interpretation of the guideline is drifting away from the community-derived consensus and people are slightly distorting the exact meaning of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or the consensus has changed and its the guideline that is outdated. If the latter is the case, the guideline should be updated to reflect this. In particular, more detailed information on the sort of figures a primary topic should be obtaining should also be written into the guidance IMO.-- Nilf anion ( talk) 08:40, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
An example. Say we were able to get the exact usage statistics coming out of a dab page. In one case:
Header text | Article |
---|---|
A1 | 51% |
A2 | 49% |
and
Article | Percentage |
---|---|
B1 | 51% |
B2 | 7% |
B3 | 7% |
B4 | 7% |
B5 | 7% |
B6 | 7% |
B7 | 7% |
B8 | 7% |
As HJH says, we generally have a dab page for A and not for B. A majority and a significant advantage over any individual article is generally required. NOTE: Some insist the primary should be significantly greater than 50% of the total outlink hits. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 18:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Further, if one topic has 40% but 30 others have 2% each, then "more likely than all the others combined" is not true and so the 40% one is not the primary topic even though "much more likely than any other" is true. Both phrases are needed. Neither is erroneous nor superfluous. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Getting back to the original question. We don't have an easy way to gather the statistics used in the examples here. In special cases, we have set up temporary redirects coming out of a dab page to understand the "real" usage of the dab links, but that is rare. So, in part, the other "non-statistical" tools are used to help approximate the usage. Personally, I believe that is pretty much ALL we should use them for, but I know there are those that disagree. If we could get these percentage statistics, I believe we would have a very effective, useful, understandable and efficient implementation of primary topic matters using a formula similar to discussion above - adjusting the required interval between primary and second choice, and setting an agreed upon level of majority (51%? 60%?). I'm not suggesting we do this - we can't without significant Media Wiki changes and performance issues. But (see the next section) I think discussion of how we would proceed if we COULD do that would be useful in fleshing out what other factors others believe we should use in primary topic determination. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 18:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Please see this diff, where the hatnote links to the DAB page, but displays the undisambiguated title. Is this correct? Why or why not? I have no clue. - BilCat ( talk) 16:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Suppose we had dependable statistics on the use of links out of dab pages (and to articles from the search box) so we have accurate understanding of the relative use of the links to articles associated with a dab page. If the page has all the links it "should", should there be any other input into the primary topic determination? If so, what and why?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwy ( talk • contribs) 18:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Again, I am asking a hypothetical question to capture what other things go into determining a primary topic beyond traffic statistics. Are there any other factors that you see editors generally using when they argue against the statistical choice? --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 04:27, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Can you indicate what some of those "good reasons" might be? If there are some general ones (like weight being added for vital articles), it would be useful to have them listed somewhere. If there are some specific ones that you found especially compelling, I'd be interested in hearing those as well. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 16:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what you guys mean by "editorial judgement". As Jwy says, "editorial judgement" based on what good reasons, exactly? How is that different from a popularity contest in sense (2)? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
The bias issue I mention is probably overstated there. But there are certainly exceptions. The traffic for tea bag is 8K, the traffic for tea bag (sexual act) is 14 times greater. If we determine primary topic solely by navigational utility then clearly the wrong article is primary. Swapping the two would be wrong - the shock value for people looking for info on bags of tea would overwhelm the navigational aid for those with "dirty minds"... Is an IAR exception enough for that one instance or should the potential for similiar situations elsewhere be borne in mind?-- Nilf anion ( talk) 23:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not looking to quantify the non-navigational reasons, just to identify any general categories that we might encounter and have a discussion about their importance without the immediate pressure and passion of a particular dab page. I feel comfortable that favoring vital articles and avoiding shock are understandable categories that we could explain clearly - although there would be some discussion about whether they apply in a particular case. I might identify "avoid being highly offensive" to cover cases like Qur'an example. I'm not sure how to characterize the Night issue. Maybe its the case there that the highly expected article is not the "navigationally correct" article and there is a surprise? --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 02:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed that the following long-standing statement was removed on April 29, 2010 from WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:
I've just restored it as I believe that consensus supports it and that it's an important consideration in any situation in which the issue of primary topic is raised repeatedly, especially if over a number of years. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
In particular, I want to hear Kotniski's take on this challenge to his argument: If there is repeated and extended discussion, such as when WP:RM proposals to move the article in question to a disambiguated name and put the dab page at the name, are repeated multiple times over several years, about whether even just one topic is the primary topic, then that in and of itself is strong (though not definitive) indication that it is not the primary topic (and, thus, there is no primary topic) for the term in question.
So, I hereby propose adding the following:
I understand the concern, but let's not discount the meaning of passion. If there is a lot of passion about a certain topic not being primary, isn't that good indication that it is not primary? Also, this phrase has been in there a long time and was removed as a result of a discussion by a handful of people. There could be many like me who just didn't notice and assume it's still there. The real issue is whether the phrase or its removal better reflects community consensus (not just those participating in that or this discussion); I think the spirit of the removed phrase does reflect community consensus. To incorporate the significant numbers, how about this?
-- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps "passion" is a bit of a red herring. A primary topic is the "obvious" meaning of a term. If there is disagreement in good faith as to what that obvious meaning is, it seems reasonable to decide that there is no primary topic. The consequence in practice is that all users go via a dab page, which is no burden if it is clearly laid out, while the alternative would be that a substantial minority are taken to the wrong page, then have to follow the hatnote to find what they want. Overall user-friendliness is often better served by having no primary topic. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 11:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
This is not a move request, so please do not instruct me in making move requests. What I want to establish now is simply that it is highly likely that a person who goes to Wikipedia and types in p-i-g(s) is highly likely to be trying to find an article about regular, ordinary, domestic pigs. You may say that to do so would in effect be a move request, and that may (or may not) be the case, but exactly which one or series of moves turned out to be a complicated question with several possible solutions and a cascade of ramifications, all of which would have to be thought through before a move request that can create concensous can be properly written. The best way to go about it is one step at a time. First, we must establish what a person who types in "p-i-g-(s)" is most likely trying to do. Then we can get into the sticky question of what do about the problem. Please instruct me in the best way to get concensous that it is safe to assume that they are looking for an article about plain, ordinary pigs. Then we can move on to the next question. Chrisrus ( talk) 18:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the odd external link from dab pages, as they had no WP article and seemed, possibly, to have been put there for promotional purposes. However I can not find any 'rule' on "Wikipedia:Disambiguation" page against this. Perhaps one should be added?
I suggest: "External links are not to be out on Disambiguation Pages, they are for disambiguation of articles only."
-
220.101
talk
\Contribs
13:12, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Why in the article is WP:PT given as a shortcut when it leads to a disambiguation page? Surely a better shortcut is appropriate? pgr94 ( talk) 13:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
I believe that Bosnia should redirect to Bosnia and Herzegovina as the primary topic, but this was reverted by another user. Discussion initiated at Talk:Bosnia#Primary topic. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 19:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I twice attempted
this change and was immediately reverted. My reasoning is as follow:
As a matter of principle, all factual material in wikipedia is subject to WP:RS. No guideline can override that. In this case, the only way to avoid the issue is to guarantee that no factual information is inserted into dab pages. Dab pages usually have an introductory line, followed by a bulleted list of entries. It is quite reasonable to stipulate that there should be no references in the individual entry lines, since all factual information in them should immediately be duplicated in the target article. The introductory line, however, which sometimes grows to an introductory paragraph, may contain factual information which is common to all the following entries, and if it does so WP:RS should apply. A simple example of where this might arise is in giving the pronunciation of an ambiguous word. Are people suggesting that this should be banned? or that it should be allowed but required to be unreferenced?
I've been coming across this sort of problem frequently when creating disambiguation/name pages for Arabic names. Some editors have insisted that where these pages contain the meaning of the name, no reference should be allowed. I've tried the alternative of categorising them just as name pages, even though disambiguation is their main purpose. There, however, I've encountered editors who object to the inclusion in those pages of place names which are also personal names, as one would do in a disambiguation page. Splitting into two pages would in many cases lead either to confusing duplication, or to one of the pages being very short, and in any case to a situation which was less helpful to the reader. I'd be grateful for helpful constructive comments on this issue.
SamuelTheGhost (
talk)
17:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm very grateful for the discussion above. In summary, I think it says that I can produce the sort of name/dab hybrid pages which I have been producing, and that I should categorise them using {{sia}} (which I previously was entirely unaware of). If that's right, I'll introduce that template into the pages concerned and if other editors question what I'm doing I'll point them at this discussion. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 18:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
For the dab page, the question is not whether their names really are longer, its whether someone coming to this encyclopedia will enter simply "Abdul Rahim" to find him (like my Elvis example above). If journalists have not been using the full name and the subject is notable, its likely English speakers will enter "Abdul Rahim" and that is enough to have it on the page. There ARE people just called James (several kings come to mind). The selection of the articles for the dab page should be based on that. I'm not sure what maintenance problems you would have. A page moved would include a redirect from the old item. Can you be more specific? My "looks good" assumed that the dab page entries were appropriately selected as described above. It "looks good" in that the approach appears to be right. The detail as to whether the entries are correct I don't know. . . --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 23:35, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I started this discussion with a request for helpful constructive comments, and have indeed had some, especially early on. They seem to have dried up, however. I notice that Auntof6 offered to help, for which I am grateful. I don't want to behave as WP:OWNER of the Arabic name pages we're talking about, but on the other hand I asked for persuasive advice, not to be told what I must do. So in that spirit I invite Auntof6 to restructure one or more of these pages as she thinks right, preferably without completely dumping good information, and I shall comment. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 17:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
The first thing I notice is that some of these pages (such as Abdul Bari) contain only human name entries. On those, I think all you need to do is remove the dab tag (whether it be {{disambig|hn}} or {{hndis}} or whatever, and turn them into given name, surname, or human name (category "Human names") pages.
Some of the pages (such as Abdul Ghaffar) contain mostly name entries with only one non-name entry. On those, I think you could remove the dab tag and put the non-name entry in a "See also" section.
As for pages with multiple non-name entries, I gave it a shot with Abdul Samad, splitting the name entries off to the new page Abdul Samad (name). See what you think. If it doesn't work, we can revert Abdul Samad to what it used to be and delete the new page.
Question: Are these two-part names considered single names, or name combinations? To me, who knows pretty much nothing about Arabic names, it would seem more accurate to call them name combinations; otherwise, you'd have a page for (for example) Abdul and one for Samad, and they could both list all the name (plus other combinations). You need to guide me there, though. -- Auntof6 ( talk) 06:05, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
There is a rather long discussion at Talk:Football#RFC:_Association_football to which this question relates and I can seem to find any guidance on this. The issue is, is it acceptable to use football or any other ambiguous phrase for that matter and have the user figure out for the rest of the article the sport in question is Association football
or should it'd be explicitly made clear some how.
Gnevin ( talk) 11:58, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
The "link to the title that includes the text "(disambiguation)", even if that's a redirect" part of this guideline is entirely asinine and unnecessary. Why should we bother to use a redirect? Redirects are for common misspellings or alternate names for articles. Not for dabs or lists.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙) 21:23, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
I really am puzzled by this discussion. I understand, Ryulong, that you don't like these redirects and consider them unnecessary, not to mention some of the less civil terms you've used. That's fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But, I know that you are an experienced and valued long-time contributor to Wikipedia, so surely you are familiar with the principle that "Redirects are cheap." We have redirects all over the place, and as long as they are not misleading or harmful, they are encouraged. A link like [[America (disambiguation)|America]] looks to the reader exactly the same as [[America]], and it takes the reader to the same place, so what is the harm? Even if you don't like it, I don't understand why it gets you so upset. It is not hurting anyone or anything other than your sense of aesthetics. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 11:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Hi all, I happen to have Never Say Never on my watchlist, and noticed this diff. I was a little surprised to see how much text was added to some of the entries. Do you see this as reasonable, or a bit much? -- AndrewHowse ( talk) 23:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Could the article make some recommendation as to the max nr of entries in the list before it is worth splitting the list into say 3 or more sections ? I would suggest 15 or 20. Rod57 ( talk) 19:34, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Some, perhaps many, DAB lists are alphabetical. If this is policy could the article confirm that or say if it is ok or prefered to have the most notable/likely uses near the top (my preference) ? Rod57 ( talk) 19:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Discussion on a proposal to change parts of this guideline is taking place on the Redirect talk page. Handschuh- talk to me 23:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
See Feaster. I removed the broken template but the editor who placed it there (COI editor I'd say), replaced it, along with Feasterville, South Carolina, which I'd removed as it doesn't seem to be a legal entity (if it had any legal status I would have left it on the basis there could be an article for it), and an entry for "John Feaster, very prominent South Carolina Planter and Businessman of whom founded the Feasterville Church along with the Feasterville Male and Female Acadademy, of which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places" - this person seems only to appear in a history of Fairfield County [1] where it says about him only "John Feaster, son of Andrew Feaster, was the founder of Feasterville Academy, and donated 7^ acres of land to Liberty Church, and ^^ acres to the Academy. Tradition says that John Feaster had the first glass windows in the township." Dougweller ( talk) 14:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
To participate in that discussion, go to this link. Thanks. -- HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 22:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Am I misinterpreting WP:TWODABS, or should it not apply in the case of Sephiroth (currently a dab page with two entries) for reasons that I do not understand? See Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)#Requested move for the discussion and reply there please... Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:41, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
The whole point of having a dab page is to help readers find the subject they are seeking with minimal hassle, is it not?
Even if two topics are each perfectly equally likely to be the one being sought when a given term is entered in the Search box, if you toss a coin and put one of the two topics at that term, then half the time the reader will be taken directly to the desired article, while the other half will be one hatnote link click away from their intended destination. So compared to having a dab page, half are clearly better off, while the other half is worse off. But if you put a dab page at that term, then none of the readers searching for that term will be taken directly to the article they are seeking; everyone searching for that term is guaranteed to be a search plus a click away from the desired article.
Frankly, even if you have only three topics and none are primary, if you put the article most likely of the three to be the one being sought at that name, and hatnote links to the other two at the top of that article, then at least 1/3 of the readers will be taken directly to the desired article, while the others will again be only one click away.
The benefit of avoiding a dab page once you have 4 or more articles associated with the term, and no primary topic, starts to diminish rapidly for two reasons. First, because the percentage of readers who get to the desired article becomes increasingly insignificant as the number of entries increases. Second, because the number of hatnote links at the top of the article becomes unwieldy. But none of those problems apply when we have only two or even three articles with topics that are called by the term in question. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand why the absence of a primary topic means there is no place to put a hatnote. If there are two topics the article of one can be at the name in question (just as well as a dab page can be there), and it can have the hatnote to the other one, even though it is not the primary topic (not primary because it is more likely than the other, but not much more likely, to be the one being sought). Wouldn't that be more desirable for the navigational advantages I noted above... no extra clicks for at least half, probably significantly more in most cases, of those searching for the term, while the others are still only one click away? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Similarly, there is no primary topic for Cork, which is a dab page. If someone moved Cork (city) to Cork, that would not make it the primary topic. In fact, if placement determined primary topic, then no one could ever argue that an article should be disambiguated on the grounds that it's not the primary topic, because, by your reasoning, it is the primary topic, by definition, simply by being at the base name.
What I'm suggesting is that in the case where a term has only two uses is special. That that is why we have WP:TWODABS. Obviously if one of the two topics is much more likely to be searched for with that term than is the other, then it is the primary topic, by definition. There is no reason to make WP:TWODABS a special case for that situation; it's standard primary topic determination. Therefore, the only situation in which it makes sense to have a special WP:TWODABS case is when neither use is much more likely than the other to be searched for by the term in question. And, yet, in that case, because there are only two uses, it still benefits the reader for us to treat one of the two uses as if it is primary. That'sthe only I reason I can see to make WP:TWODABS be a special case. Am I missing something?
As to the point that deciding which of two uses should be at the base name would be (and will continue to be) contentious for editors, perhaps, but that's not a good reason to make the encyclopedia less convenient to use for readers (by forcing everyone to go through a dab page even though there are only two uses). It is a reason to make the guideline more clear about this, which, if done correctly, should reduce if not all but eliminate the contention. In fact, we might even say that unless one of the two uses is clearly the primary topic, that article movement (between one being at the base name and the other disambiguated) is not justified (status quo prevails). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Is there someone who loves to create Dabs who could make one of Chatton for all of these? -- Kleopatra ( talk) 07:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Trying to get more into the primary topic section, without making it a legalese brain-hurty mess. Possible approaches:
The second leaves me scratching my head, but the first is one I mostly wrote, so I have no doubt that it makes others scratch their heads. Further ideas sought. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 02:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Kotniski, JHunterJ, PamD, et. al, the point I'm trying to introduce and explain which keeps getting deleted is not exemplified by either Einstein or Danzig. The point is that when you're determining whether a given use of a term is the primary use, you have to consider all uses of the term to refer to other topics in terms of their respective likelihoods to be used to search for those topics. Uses are not to be dismissed or discounted in primary topic determinations just because they are secondary uses. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
No, Defamation does not exemplify the point either because slander/libel is the primary use of "Defamation", and the term defamation is the name the film would use if the legal use was not primary.
Here is a link to a discussion in which the problem is exemplified. See the comment under Important Note and my reply. The term in question there is "Fergie" and the argument made is that the use by Sarah Ferguson (whose nickname is Fergie) is not relevant since the article about her would never be at Fergie no matter what. I want something in here that explains clearly why that's not true. Just because that article would never be at "Fergie" doesn't mean readers will never search for it using "Fergie", and, so, in deciding whether the singer is the primary use of "Fergie", we need to consider the likelihood that that term will be used to search for the Sarah. I run into this flawed reasoning quite often in WP:RM discussions. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree the question of "which of several topics is most likely sought from this title?" is separate from "which of several possible titles is best for this topic?", but that is not relevant to this point because primary topic is not merely about "which of several topics is most likely sought from this title?", but whether that likelihood is sufficiently high relative to the likelihood of other topics being sought when that term is entered into the Search box, and this point is about that likelihood. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Another example of this problem is at Talk:Freston,_Suffolk#Requested_move. The entire basis for proposing the move of Freston, Suffolk to Freston is that "The other entries on this disambiguation page just have the word Freston in them, not as the main title."
What can we write in this guideline to make it clear that just because another "candidate" (or entry on a dab page) for a given term doesn't just have that term alone as its main name does not mean we ignore, or discount in any way, how likely that topic is to be searched for with that term when determining whether another use is the primary topic for that term? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
The main point here is the stated basis -- the term is only part of another use's article title -- is no reason to discount the likelihood of a reader using that term to search for that other use. We can agree to disagree on how likely readers are to be searching for those topics with the term, and that would be relevant, but to simply say that they can essentially be ignored because the term in question is only part of the name used in the title is not correct. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't think any of this can be regulated with hard-and-fast rules - we have no way of knowing (do we?) how many readers are searching for articles under particular search terms; we have to use a certain amount of common sense, and I think we should assume there's going to be a certain tendency among readers to enter real titles (particularly now the search box produces a drop-down list), but exactly how much comes down to our judgement. My personal take is that people are going to search for Albert Einstein under "Einstein" quite a lot, relative to any other use of Einstein they might be searching for, whereas they're going to search for Sarah or Alex Ferguson quite rarely under "Fergie", relative to the singer who's "properly" called Fergie. But it's a judgement call rather than something we can lay down firm rules about. In any case primary topic decisions are sometimes made based on other factors, such as the (in)convenience of disambiguating, rather than strictly on the basis of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - New York probably being the most notable example. -- Kotniski ( talk) 10:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
The Disambiguation page called "HLB" does not refer to the Citrus disease "Huanglongbing". The disease was previously called "Greening" but it was first described in China as "Huanglongbing". This name is not easy to pronounce, so we are used to say "HLB"
This disease is very important. It causes the decay of millions of orange trees in Brazil and Florida since five years. It is spreading through the US and has reached Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina. The whole US orange production is threatened. There are many scientific references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.100.149.242 ( talk) 08:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
When we disambiguate two hamlets in the same district, we disambiguate by the civil parish that the hamlet is in, eg Rose Green, Lindsey and Rose Green, Assington, but what happens when we have a hamlet and a civil parish in the same district, eg Soulby, Kirkby Stephen and Soulby, Dacre, they are both in the Eden district, but Soulby, Kirkby Stephen is a civil parish near the town of Kirkby Stephen, while Soulby, Dacre is a hamlet in the civil parish of Dacre, Cumbria, there is also a similar situation with Newbiggin, Temple Sowerby and Newbiggin, Dacre. Crouch, Swale talk to me My contribs 13:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
General issue from Talk:Freston, Suffolk#Move request. There is only one article that could have the title "Freston", so (IMO) it's the primary or only topic. Surname holders (excepting those who are commonly referred to by the surname alone) are partial title matches per consensus at the disambiguation and anthroponymy projects. Partial title matches cannot be the primary topic for the partial elements of their titles (if they are actually ambiguous with the partial elements, they are not partial title matches, but again, this is not the case for surname holders in general). Instead, the anthroponymy article or list article (if one exists) might be primary, one of the ambiguous entries might be primary, or there might be no primary. If there is only one article that is not a partial title match, there is no ambiguity. A surname that does not also have ambiguous topics and no anthroponymy article or list article might redirect to the only notable holder as an {{ R from surname}}, but if there are multiple notable holders, an anthroponymy list article (at least) would be needed. If instead there are topics that could have the name, the title should lead (directly or redirectly) to one of them (if there's only one, that one; if there's more than one, the primary one) or lead to a disambiguation page if there a ambiguous topics (possibly including an anthroponymy list article) and none are primary.
This is my understanding of the current consensus and guidelines of the disambiguation project and anthroponymy project. Other views on the general case are welcome here, or on the Freston case there in the move request. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 13:46, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm quite baffled by this argument. You just referenced WP:PTM, as if that is relevant here. Well, it does say, "Do not add a link that merely contains part of the page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name", but adds, "where there is no significant risk of confusion". First, that's talking about links on dab pages, not titles of articles or redirects. Second, I'm not sure what it means... so, the 22 persons with surname "Landis" linked at the Landis dab page should be removed because "there is no significant risk of confusion"?
Anyway, even with respect to links, it also states, "add a link only if the article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context. For instance, the Mississippi River article could not feasibly be titled Mississippi, but it is included at Mississippi (disambiguation) because its subject is often called "the Mississippi".. Since any article whose subject is a person "could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term" where "the disambiguated term" is the surname of the person, according to this a link should be added on the dab page for the term matching the surname, as is the case for everyone with surname "Landis" at Landis.
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC could be more clear, but I think it's sufficiently clear to show no basis whatsoever in considering partial title matches (including surnames) a factor in determining primary topic. First, it states how primary topic is determined for a given term: "[when] one of these topics [to which the term may refer] 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 enters that term in the Search box. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. " Note that this definition makes no mention of title, much less states or even implies that somehow partial title matches should be a factor to consider.
Then, once primary topic is established per this definition, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC goes on to state, "the term should be the title of (or redirect to) the article on that topic." I highlight "(or redirect to)" because this clearly indicates that primary topic determination applies just as much to redirects to the topic, including redirects that are partial elements of the full title (as in how McNealy redirects to Scott McNealy), as it does to the article's actual full title. It even goes further to state, "The title of the primary topic article may be different from the ambiguous term being considered. This may happen when the topic is primary for more than one term, when the article covers a wider topical scope, or when it is titled differently according to the naming conventions [note: by convention, articles about persons are at [[Firstname Surname]]]. When this is the case, the term should redirect to the article (or a section of it). The fact that an article has a different title is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary."
To interpret that last statement in terms of the Freston discussion, the fact that the article Tom Freston has a different title from "Freston" is not a factor in determining whether the topic at Freston, Suffolk is primary. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree with User:Born2cycle on this. A reader coming to Wikipedia looking for the term "Freston" is as likely to be looking for Kathy or Tom (or more so) than the tiny village. That is ambiguous usage and disambiguation is appropriate. older ≠ wiser 23:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
And of course the name is ambiguous. That's the point. It's unclear, ambiguous, whether "Freston" refers to Tom, Kathy or the village. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 04:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
If those really are the only three topics, I would suggest a good solution would be to title the village article Freston, and have a hatnote with links to the two people. That way everyone wins (or at least doesn't lose). In general, though, I would say that the fact that a topic isn't going to have its article titled using a particular term is a valid (though weak) reason for preferring some other topic as the primary topic for that term; but it becomes a stronger reason if no-one could even reasonably expect the article to be so titled (which I think is the case with both "Freston" for Tom, and "Fergie" for the Duchess). -- Kotniski ( talk) 07:14, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
J & K, honestly, what are you two going on about? Back and forth posts with no references to policy or guidelines whatsoever in any of your arguments amounts to I like it/don't like it rambling. Let's raise the bar, shall we?
The definition of primary topic is quite clear: "one of these topics [that are referred to by the term] 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 enters that term in the Search box.". The term Freston ambiguously refers to one of three topics in Wikipedia, the village, Tom and Kathy, and, based on page view counts, only Tom comes close to meeting the criteria. The idea that even a modicum of consideration should be given to the fact that "Freston" is a "partial title match" for "Tom Freston" is not only completely unsupported by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or any policy, guideline or style guide, it is expressly contra-indicated in at least three statements of this guideline:
Why are you ignoring all this?
As to the idea of putting one of the three ambiguous topics at Freston despite none meeting primary topic criteria, that might be worth considering, except that the topic meeting the criteria most closely is the one which should either be at Freston, or to which Freston should redirect, and that of course is Tom Freston. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:24, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
And I don't understand why you think "that the fact that 'Freston' could not be expected by anyone to be the title of Tom Freston's article is a factor". Are people even thinking about titles when they search for something? I sure don't. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:22, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Readers are not supposed to figure out how WP titles work and construct their searches accordingly. Rather, editors are supposed to title articles consistent with how readers tend to do searches.
I agree we can have a philosophical discussion about what is "right" that would ultimately be pointless, but that's exactly why I've been trying to get us to talk about what the guideline says and means, and just follow that. I mean, it explicitly states, "The fact that an article has a different title is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary."
Not a factor. That seems very clear. There's nothing to talk about, except whether to follow that, or ignore it for some good reason. I vote follow. You? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Born2cycle, your elevation of the Google test to absolute authority isn't borne out. Note that Amazon is a disambiguation page and Hunter redirects to Hunting, despite the Google test's results that would make Amazon redirect to Amazon.com and Hunter a disambiguation page. I understand what you have put forth. You need to understand that it isn't the consensus. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 01:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Kotniski that this discussion is about how primary topics are determined (both what the guideline says and what it should say) and not about what is linked or not on dab pages. I also generally agree with Kotniski's formulation of the positions above except he has his terms and topics reversed.
Primary topic is about which one, if any, among several topics is primary for a single given term. Primary topic determination is never about "any string which a reader might type", but about only one specific string: the term in question (like "Fergie" or "Cliburn"), and how likely it is that a reader might type that term to search for each of the topics to which that term might refer.
So instead of:
I would say:
Further, I suggest that (a) is the only reasonable interpretation of those words on this page, is supported by other statements on this page (like, "The fact that an article has a different title [different from the term in question] is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary"), and challenge positions (b) and (c) as having no basis whatsoever on this page or any other policy or guideline (except WP:IAR, perhaps, but even that requires "good reason" to make the encyclopedia better, which I have not seen here), and so amount to being rationalizations of personal preference. I mean, the qualifications in (b) and (c) are, as near as I can tell, pulled out of thin air (not from any guideline). Because editors of Kotniski's and JHJ's stature are not clear about this, I seek wording on this page that makes it even more clear that what is meant here is (a).
Without bringing clarity on this point to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC the encyclopedia is worse off in two ways:
I might be wrong, so I'm also open to a change in wording that clarifies (b) or (c) as the actual guideline, but I really think those interpretations are so inherently vague that any such change would make primary topic discussions only more contentious, and can only lead to poorer search results for readers relative to (a). But, again, I might be wrong, so if there is a way to convey (b) or (c) that will make primary topic determinations less contentious, and will improve search results for readers, I'm open to it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
"The qualifications in (b) and (c) are pulled from the guidelines." Excuse me, but I've asked repeatedly for this and you have not provided any support for this claim whatsoever. I ask again... Please indicate in which guideline and with which specific words the guideline indicates that the topics considered for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC should be limited to only those topics "for which the term is commonly used as a "self-contained"(?) name" (qualification (b)) or "for which the term could be reasonably conceived as the title of an encyclopedia article on the sought subject" (qualification (c)). If you can't do that, then please stop claiming these qualifications are "pulled from the guidelines."
Now, let's look at what you claim is pulled out of thin air: "the view that the guidelines about disambiguating ambiguous topics switch from "ambiguous topics" to "any topics that might be sought by a search term" for the purposes of determining primary topic appears to be pulled from thin air. Thin air? Modeling the kind of answer I expect from you, here is specific wording from actual guidelines supporting this view.
Now, can you provide specific wording from guidelines at all, much less this much, which provides support for your view that the the topics considered for primary topic (not for consideration as a title or for listing on a dab page - those are separate issues) should be limited to only those topics subject to qualification (b)? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Anyway, These are your words: "The qualifications in (b) and (c) are pulled from the guidelines". Back that up, or retract it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry. I thought it was understood that I'm not in charge and that nothing I say could possibly be an order. Why would you interpret it that way? It should be obvious that the point is that you're making claims about ideas being "pulled from the guidelines" when they're actually pulled from thin air.
Anyway, since the only way to address that is to concede the point and that seems to be highly unlikely, let's go on to your most recent claim. Even if we accept the view that "the guidelines in question are specific to ambiguous topics", given that...
... how do you define "ambiguous topic" such that a person "which Wikipedia covers" is not an "ambiguous topic" for the ambiguous term that is that person's surname? I mean, you keep declaring that persons are not "ambiguous topics" for their surnames as if it is obvious, but what is the source of that definition of "ambiguous topic"? What exactly is that definition? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I seriously doubt anyone is reading your words as closely as I am, and I'm really trying to understand. But your use of "ambiguous topic" remains undefined, your claim that qualifications (b) and (c) are "pulled from the guidelines" remains unsubstantiated, and your assertion that persons in general are not "ambiguous topics" for their surnames remains unexplained. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I just reread your response to Kotniski and have the following comments/questions.
In short, if an "ambiguous topic" is any topic to which WP:D applies, then persons are "ambiguous topics" for their surnames whenever the surname is an ambiguous term since the first line of WP:D states that it applies to terms "that may refer to more than one topic", and surnames definitely are used to refer to persons who have those surnames. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:38, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Question; is it useful to proactively add hatnotes to linking articles with potentially confusingly similar titles to each other? For example, below are listed pairs of similarly title U.S geographical articles. Is it of general benefit to add Template:About hatnotes to them? - TB ( talk) 16:09, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Can someone explain exactly what ambiguous topics are and how they relate to disambiguation? Now if we are talking about ambiguous page names it could make sense. Vegaswikian ( talk) 21:23, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Merriam-Webster defines "ambiguous" as "capable of being understood in two or more senses or ways", so "ambiguous topics" is a misuse of the term "ambiguous". It's the term "Acid" that is capable of being understood, not the topic of the article at Lysergic acid diethylamide, and so the topic cannot be an "ambiguous topic" of "acid" or anything else. "Ambiguous topic" is nonsensical. That topic is, however, one of the uses of the ambiguous term acid. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
By the way, that's another wording change I made today. I changed:
I agree some of the terminology is sloppy, but not sure I agree with your solutions. Its possible that we could define "primary topic" as the article that gets treated such - i.e. that the article on the page the disambiguation term takes the reader to. Then are discussion are not "which article is primary topic" but "which article shall we choose as primary topic." In that case, "Art" would be the primary topic in any event. But in practice, I have not found this subtle issue to be enough of a problem to get too worked up about it. For some of the other terms, we might want to work out consistent terminology for the following concepts (and what I generally call the concepts):
There are probably other concepts it would be useful to have a common term for. Perhaps a small glossary? --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 02:33, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we should be talking about "ambiguous topics" - that would mean topics that have more than one meaning, and topics don't have meanings, so the phrase seems entirely illogical. Let's keep it clear and talk about "ambiguous terms" - it's terms that have meanings.-- Kotniski ( talk) 11:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Whether that term is a title or redirect is a separate matter. The main point is: first we determine whether there is a primary topic for a given term, only when we have established a primary topic do we decide if the article about that primary topic should be at that term as its title, or that that term is a redirect to that primary topic article.
A related point is that when we determine which if any of the topics to which a given term may refer is primary, that we look at the relative likelihoods of readers entering that term to seek each of these topics.
Another point is that when determining primary topic we have many factors to consider when deciding whether a given topic meets the criteria ("much more likely than .."), and, there seems to be some disagreement about how much weight should be given to readers taking into account whether a given term is likely to be the Wikipedia article title of the topic's article they seek when deciding what to enter in the search box. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:05, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I just boldly reworded two sections and the intro of this page using the term homograph. The intended meaning of the words has not changed, but I think using homograph conveys it more clearly. Thoughts? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
The problem with using more familiar but less specific terminology is everyone thinks they understand what it means, but many understand the same words differently. That's why more specific jargon has to be used in every field I can think of, from sports to engineering, from law to fashion, from medicine to acting. The same is true here, this is just a new one to this context, and so initial ambivalence or worse about its use is to be expected (frankly, I'm surprised it's taken someone so long to object). But please give it a chance, I think you'll find it works quite well. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Can one of the meanings of an ambiguous term be a person whose surname is that term?
A specific example is being discussed here. Basically, I've added the following hatnote to Cliburn to help readers who search for the pianist Van Cliburn by just his surname:
This hatnote keeps getting replaced with a more generic one:
The two reverts were accompanied by the following comments in edit summaries:
Since persons are commonly referred to by surname, the assertion that "there is no pianist 'Cliburn'" is absurd. Google for "pianist Cliburn" and see what you get! I suppose it could mean, "There is no pianist with a claim on the title 'Cliburn'", but if there were no other uses of the term "Cliburn", Cliburn could very well be a redirect to the article about the pianist, just as McNealy is a redirect the only use of that name in WP, a person with that surname.
The assertion that "name holders are not ambiguous" is also absurd. I've asked for explanation here, but it has been refused unless someone else asks.
Prior to the relatively recent creation of Cliburn (currently an article about a small village that gets a few hundred views per month), there was no article there, so anyone searching for the pianist by surname would immediately find the link to Van Cliburn (an article with thousands of views per month) and could click on it. Now, the same user will find himself at the article about the village with the hatnote to the dab page, so he will have to click on that, and then click on the appropriate link on the dab page, before getting to the wanted article.
I see nothing at MOS:DABNAME (which addresses how to format dab pages) or Talk:Cliburn which explains why a popular article about a person should not be linked in a hatnote of the article whose title is the person's ambiguous surname.
It seems blatantly obvious to me that one of the meanings of an ambiguous term can be a person whose surname is that term, but this is the very point being disputed, even in the context of one the most famous American pianists whose surname is an ambiguous term that does not mean anything else remotely as popular (in terms of page views and ghits).
Any help to resolve this would be much appreciated. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
However, you are still even with this post missing the larger point... "ambiguous" is an adjective that can only apply to concepts that are interpreted, like terms, words, phrases, facial expressions, tones, etc., yet above you say, again, "name holders are not ambiguous". Name holders are not interpreted. Name holders cannot be ambiguous. That phrase is just as nonsensical as is "ambiguous topic". Is it going to take another week for you to get that too?
Can you please figure out how to state your position without using the word "ambiguous" in a nonsensical context in which it modifies something that is not interpreted? If you did that in our first discussion about Freston there would have been no need for all these splinters. Since you seem to be ignoring what I say no matter how reasonable I am, you leave me with little choice but to enlist assistance, which is why I start these splinters.
Now, I realize that this might seem like a pointless semantic exercise, but it has important consequences. For example, now that the nonsensical phrase "ambiguous topics" has been replaced with "these topics" at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, you can no longer claim that primary topic determination applies only to topics that meet some poorly conceived notion of what qualifies as an "ambiguous topic". Instead, "these topics" can only reasonably refer to the topics referenced in the previous paragraph. That paragraph, the first one at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, starts with, "Although a term may refer to more than one topic, ...", therefore "these topics" can only mean "the topics to which the term may refer".
This distinction gets to the heart of our disagreement. You want it to say the nonsensical "ambiguous topic" so you can define it as excluding persons whose surname is the term in question, but when it says "these topics" you are forced into a position of saying that surnames are not used to refer to persons with that surname, which is absurd, and you know it. And please don't bring up titles again, because determining primary topic for a given term has nothing to do with titles, something else I've been pointing out repeatedly and you've been ignoring. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Second, the article about Cliburn has by far the highest page view statistics and ghits of any use of the term "Cliburn".
I thought the implications of these two points with respect to whether a hatnote link to the pianist at Cliburn would be useful were rather obvious. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 04:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
No where do the guidelines intend to say or imply that links to articles with partial titles matches, including to articles about persons with surnames that match the homograph being disambiguated, should not be on the dab page, unless there is "no significant risk of confusion". The plethora of examples of surname redirects to articles about persons, as in McNealy, and the countless dab pages that list links to persons on them due to surname "partial matches" (see Armstrong), clearly indicates consensus about the "significant risk of confusion" that people with a given homograph as surname have with other article topics to which that homograph might refer. But of course when the list becomes so long as to warrant a split out to a list article, that's fine, but that has nothing to do with articles about the topic of the surname in question, which, as you like to point out, are not dab pages (and therefore should not list the persons that need to be disambiguated - those belong on the dab page). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I find that a rather Pointy move given that the topic is still in dicussion here. But if you are going ahead with it, I suggest you also notify the Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy project as they have a lot of experience and interest in such pages. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 05:38, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy I noticed a list of resources at the top, including a link to Wikipedia:Deletion policy/names and surnames which is a discussion about surnames that reached, among others, the following conclusion relevant to this discussion:
Isn't the statement that "articles on surnames are useful as disambiguation" based on the premise that people are likely to search for articles about persons using just surname? Note this comment from one participant:
and this from another:
I see no qualification here (or anywhere else) that this applies only to articles about persons that meet the "Einstein" criteria (widely known to be referred only by surname). As far as I can tell, there has never been any support, much less consensus support, for JHJ's claim above that "Most name holders are not ambiguous [sic] with either their given name(s) or their surname." -- Born2cycle ( talk) 06:26, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
There's a discussion regarding disambig templates over at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_December_7#Disambig_templates. Mhiji ( talk) 02:32, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
The recent changes by Born2cycle put too much emphasis on "being a search term" at the expense of "being referred to as". I have disagreed with this clearly and repeatedly over the recent explosion of topics, move requests, deletion requests, and other talking points. But I am taking a break at least for the Christmas season -- I'll check back to see what the new direction of "disambiguation" is to be on Wikipedia, whether it will include more unexceptional name holders, other partial title matches, other search destinations without risk of confusion, etc. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 19:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Where I think I might have come closest to actually making a non-trivial change is with the nutshell summary. It used to say:
If anyone can suggest an alternative to "homograph" that is better than "ambiguous term" and at least as precise as "homograph", I'm open to it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
It might be helpful here to consider the deleted contributions of SpringSummerAutumn, an editor on Australian wine topics who, in their first days of editing, created numerous redirects to Howard Park Wines. For example, since the article discusses the joint venture Marchand & Burch Wines, SpringSummerAutumn created redirects from "Machand and burch wines", "Machand and burch", "Machand burch", "Marcharnd burch", "Marchand burch", "Marchand and burch wine", "Marchand wine", "Machandburch", "Marchburch", and even "Mandb". These are legitimate search strings, but not legitimate names.
Perhaps even more relevant to this discussion, SpringSummerAutumn also created redirects from search terms like "Biodynamic wine great southern", "Burgundian australian wine" and "Riesling western australia". These were problematic because various companies offer products related to these search terms, so it is completely inappropriate for Wikipedia to redirect them to a specific one. My question, then, is whether, rather than deleting the redirect from Riesling western australia, we should have converted it into a disambiguation page listing all the topics relevant to that search string? It seems to me that the old version of this policy would firmly answer "No", whereas B2c's new version offers a "Yes". Hesperian 02:30, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Anyway, do you think the problem is inherent in all/most of the edits I made, or only in the nutshell summary and maybe a couple of other spots? Without checking the text I'm expecting to find the latter to be true. Thanks very much. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
If unexceptional surname holders are ambiguous, they should be listed on disambiguation pages regardless of the existence of an anthroponymy article (lame or full) -- the two pages would serve different functions. If unexceptional surname holders are not ambiguous, they should not factor in to the determination of the primary topic for an ambiguous title. So far, since the formation of the anthroponymy project, unexceptional name holders have not been considered ambiguous. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 15:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
And I don't see how any of the wording at {{ R from surname}} supports JHJ's argument that his position reflects policy. No one is suggesting anything other than what that template calls for. Of course a redirect from a surname to an article about a person is not a disambiguation redirect; disambiguation redirects take you to disambiguation pages. Not sure what the point is there either. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
This incident discussed on Bkonrad's talk page is specific to the wording at thje WP:INTDABLINK section of this page, but I suggest the problem of being unclear is sprinkled throughout this entire guideline page. I tried to improve it, and believe I did, but all that work was reverted for what I believe to be insufficient basis (improving what I had, especially with respect to the "search string" problem discussed above, would have been the better way to go but maybe we can still do that).
Note that Bkonrad's interpretation (that intentional internal links to dab pages that are at [[Name]] rather than [[Name (disambiguation)]] should go to the redirect at [[Name (disambiguation)]]) was correct, but this was not clear to the user in this discussion until I changed the wording (which has now been reverted). So now it and other sections are less clear again. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:42, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Great discussion, folks. The nutshell summary (now reverted to the version prior to my changes) currently states:
Since we "provide links or a disambiguation page" (and redirects) not only when an actual article title could refer to several things, but when a topic name or any reasonable conceivable title could refer to several things, I propose the following wording to convey this:
I suggest this solves several problems without introducing the problems of the "search string" nomenclature I used before, and hopefully without introducing any other problems. I think we need to say "or description of a topic" because many of our articles titles are not names, but descriptions (the family of "List of ..." articles, is one obvious example, but there are myriads more).
I also contend this version reflects the consensus view about how surnames of unexceptional people and other partial title matches are handled: the hurdle that needs to be met is, "reasonably likely to be the title of an article".
Thoughts/comments? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Certainly the current nutshell isn't quite right, but can we reword it without making it more complicated? Nutshells are supposed to be short and sweet. Or if we can't manage that, then why not just ditch the nutshell? People can read the first sentence of the guideline if they want to know what it's about. I don't really know why people insist on putting nutshells on project pages anyway - they can oversimplify to the point of being highly misleading, and at best just duplicate the function of a well-written leading sentence/paragraph. -- Kotniski ( talk) 12:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I've always thought that including dictionary definitions was frowned on -- in the " Dos and Don'ts", it's pretty clear about this: "Don't add dictionary definitions." Big red X and everything.
However, if you follow the link, you find the sentence: "A short description of the common general meaning of a word can be appropriate for helping the reader determine context." Which pretty much undercuts the policy, to my mind.
This is followed by "Otherwise, there are templates for linking the reader to Wiktionary", but this is not the same as explicitly saying "but don't write one in the page itself; link to Wiktionary."
In WP:MOSDAB, it's a little more straightforward and helpful: "When a dictionary definition should be included (see What not to include), then rather than writing a text entry, create a cross-link to Wiktionary"
I would suggest we change the wording here (specifically, here) to align with the wording in MOSDAB. Any objections?-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 00:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Proposed new wording:
A disambiguation page is not a list of dictionary definitions. If a description of the common general meaning of a word is considered appropriate for helping the reader determine context, add a link to Wiktionary, the wiki dictionary; see Template:Wiktionary.
-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 00:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Pursuant to the discussion here, I'm wondering if we could add some language either on this page or WP:MOSDAB to clarify when translations of foreign language terms are appropriate for inclusion on a disambiguation page. Brief summary: an editor added an entry to Pine Valley as
I removed the entry, as at the time there was no article for Kedrovaya Pad and neither of the linked articles made any mention of either "Kedrovaya Pad" or "Pine Valley". A series of reverts took place. Evidently, the name "Kedrovaya Pad" can be translated as either Cedar Valley or Pine Valley (the plant is the Korean Pine). An editor created a stub for Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve and included a reference to calling it Pine Valley. While it still is questionable to me whether the place is commonly known in English as Pine Valley, the reference seems enough to justify a mention in the see also section of the disambiguation page Pine Valley.
I think this is already implied by the content of WP:DAB and WP:MOSDAB, but what I'd like to suggest is clearer language that disambiguation pages should not introduce information that is not supported existing articles. A further question is should disambiguation pages include entries for translations of foreign language terms where there is no indication in any article that the subject is known in English by the translated title? older ≠ wiser 19:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, let's talk about this edit which changed the wording of the twodabs section from this:
to this:
The edit summary is: "this wasn't right - once we have a primary topic we know that people looking for that topic are going straight to where they want to be, it's the others this helps"
Let's take an example, say Birmingham Airport. The primary topic is Birmingham Airport, West Midlands and so that is at Birmingham Airport (actually Birmingham Airport redirects to Birmingham Airport, West Midlands, but that's moot here). The second use is Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport for which there is a hatnote at the top of the primary topic article.
So, of those entering "Birmingham Airport" those seeking the primary topic are taken straight to their article, and those seeking the second topic are one click of a hatnote link away.
Now, if we make Birmingham Airport a dab page, everyone entering "Birmingham Airport" is taken to the dab page, not to any article. From the dab page, those seeking the second topic are still one click (of a dab page link this time) away from their article, but now the primary topic users are also one click away from the article they seek.
So, it seems to me that, going backwards, by getting rid of the dab page we are helping the primary topic seekers; it's a wash (one click either way) for the seekers of the second topic, contrary to what the edit summary and changed wording above says. That is, if we have a dab page then even primary topic seekers are not being taken straight to where they want to be (they're taken to the dab page first). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I get it now. In the case of a primary topic there is no option to put the dab page at the title. But, I daresay, the first paragraph explains why readers benefit from hatnote links even when neither of the two actually meets primary topic criteria. This is why I always thought twodabs applied even when there is no primary topic. I mean, what's the downside in randomly picking one to be "primary" and the other to be linked by hatnote? The upside is that at least the readers seeking one of the two topics get there directly, while the others are still only one click away. All upside no downside seems like an obvious improvement to me. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I think what really happens is when there are only two uses the criteria for primary topic is looser. In other words, when there are only two topics to which a given term may refer, then the normal criteria for primary topic, "much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined " often seems to be compressed and softened to simply be, "more likely than the other".
But instead of having two different criteria for 2 dabs and 2+ dabs, we could change the existing criteria from saying "much more likely than any other" to just "more likely than any other": "more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined ". After all, if one topic is more likely than any other and more likely than all the others combined, to be the one being sought, isn't it the primary topic? Since it already must be more likely than all the others combined to be the one being sought, why does it also have to be much more likely than any other? Why isn't merely being more likely than any other, as well more likely than all the others combined, sufficient to be primary? If it was that, which I suggest accurately reflects how primary topic is usually interpreted regardless of what is said here anyway, then in the case of only two uses, this criteria would logically compress to "more likely than the other", which also accurately reflects reality. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Any objection to removing the "much" from "much more likely than any other" at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
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A particular user, apparently unhappy about the bot that tags intentional links to disambiguation pages in hatnotes, has started tagging "foo (disambiguation)"-type redirects for deletion, such as Delirious and The Choir. The same user has been changing other intentional dab links to bypass the redirects. I have tried to reason with this person on his talk page, but so far unsuccessfully. Other interested editors may wish to monitor these pages to make sure that not too much harm is done, or to try to be more persuasive than I was able to be. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 17:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
The policy is stupid, at least in these two cases. It should be changed. I will withdraw the request and suggest that you change the policy immediately and make it rational. -- Walter Görlitz ( talk) 19:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Since this does crop up from time to time, perhaps we need to expand and clarify the explanation at WP:INTDABLINK, to make it clear why this is necessary and how it helps. bd2412 T 06:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
The traffic statistics are typically the major fact used in primary topic discussions at present, almost to the point of giving it overwhelming weight and ignoring other factors entirely at times. However, the guideline does not indicate this and says that the stats are one of a few measures that should be borne in mind to aid discussion.
This strikes me as a break between the guidance and the current implementation of it: Either the current interpretation of the guideline is drifting away from the community-derived consensus and people are slightly distorting the exact meaning of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or the consensus has changed and its the guideline that is outdated. If the latter is the case, the guideline should be updated to reflect this. In particular, more detailed information on the sort of figures a primary topic should be obtaining should also be written into the guidance IMO.-- Nilf anion ( talk) 08:40, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
An example. Say we were able to get the exact usage statistics coming out of a dab page. In one case:
Header text | Article |
---|---|
A1 | 51% |
A2 | 49% |
and
Article | Percentage |
---|---|
B1 | 51% |
B2 | 7% |
B3 | 7% |
B4 | 7% |
B5 | 7% |
B6 | 7% |
B7 | 7% |
B8 | 7% |
As HJH says, we generally have a dab page for A and not for B. A majority and a significant advantage over any individual article is generally required. NOTE: Some insist the primary should be significantly greater than 50% of the total outlink hits. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 18:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Further, if one topic has 40% but 30 others have 2% each, then "more likely than all the others combined" is not true and so the 40% one is not the primary topic even though "much more likely than any other" is true. Both phrases are needed. Neither is erroneous nor superfluous. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Getting back to the original question. We don't have an easy way to gather the statistics used in the examples here. In special cases, we have set up temporary redirects coming out of a dab page to understand the "real" usage of the dab links, but that is rare. So, in part, the other "non-statistical" tools are used to help approximate the usage. Personally, I believe that is pretty much ALL we should use them for, but I know there are those that disagree. If we could get these percentage statistics, I believe we would have a very effective, useful, understandable and efficient implementation of primary topic matters using a formula similar to discussion above - adjusting the required interval between primary and second choice, and setting an agreed upon level of majority (51%? 60%?). I'm not suggesting we do this - we can't without significant Media Wiki changes and performance issues. But (see the next section) I think discussion of how we would proceed if we COULD do that would be useful in fleshing out what other factors others believe we should use in primary topic determination. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 18:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Please see this diff, where the hatnote links to the DAB page, but displays the undisambiguated title. Is this correct? Why or why not? I have no clue. - BilCat ( talk) 16:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Suppose we had dependable statistics on the use of links out of dab pages (and to articles from the search box) so we have accurate understanding of the relative use of the links to articles associated with a dab page. If the page has all the links it "should", should there be any other input into the primary topic determination? If so, what and why?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwy ( talk • contribs) 18:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Again, I am asking a hypothetical question to capture what other things go into determining a primary topic beyond traffic statistics. Are there any other factors that you see editors generally using when they argue against the statistical choice? --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 04:27, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Can you indicate what some of those "good reasons" might be? If there are some general ones (like weight being added for vital articles), it would be useful to have them listed somewhere. If there are some specific ones that you found especially compelling, I'd be interested in hearing those as well. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 16:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what you guys mean by "editorial judgement". As Jwy says, "editorial judgement" based on what good reasons, exactly? How is that different from a popularity contest in sense (2)? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
The bias issue I mention is probably overstated there. But there are certainly exceptions. The traffic for tea bag is 8K, the traffic for tea bag (sexual act) is 14 times greater. If we determine primary topic solely by navigational utility then clearly the wrong article is primary. Swapping the two would be wrong - the shock value for people looking for info on bags of tea would overwhelm the navigational aid for those with "dirty minds"... Is an IAR exception enough for that one instance or should the potential for similiar situations elsewhere be borne in mind?-- Nilf anion ( talk) 23:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not looking to quantify the non-navigational reasons, just to identify any general categories that we might encounter and have a discussion about their importance without the immediate pressure and passion of a particular dab page. I feel comfortable that favoring vital articles and avoiding shock are understandable categories that we could explain clearly - although there would be some discussion about whether they apply in a particular case. I might identify "avoid being highly offensive" to cover cases like Qur'an example. I'm not sure how to characterize the Night issue. Maybe its the case there that the highly expected article is not the "navigationally correct" article and there is a surprise? --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 02:00, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed that the following long-standing statement was removed on April 29, 2010 from WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:
I've just restored it as I believe that consensus supports it and that it's an important consideration in any situation in which the issue of primary topic is raised repeatedly, especially if over a number of years. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
In particular, I want to hear Kotniski's take on this challenge to his argument: If there is repeated and extended discussion, such as when WP:RM proposals to move the article in question to a disambiguated name and put the dab page at the name, are repeated multiple times over several years, about whether even just one topic is the primary topic, then that in and of itself is strong (though not definitive) indication that it is not the primary topic (and, thus, there is no primary topic) for the term in question.
So, I hereby propose adding the following:
I understand the concern, but let's not discount the meaning of passion. If there is a lot of passion about a certain topic not being primary, isn't that good indication that it is not primary? Also, this phrase has been in there a long time and was removed as a result of a discussion by a handful of people. There could be many like me who just didn't notice and assume it's still there. The real issue is whether the phrase or its removal better reflects community consensus (not just those participating in that or this discussion); I think the spirit of the removed phrase does reflect community consensus. To incorporate the significant numbers, how about this?
-- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps "passion" is a bit of a red herring. A primary topic is the "obvious" meaning of a term. If there is disagreement in good faith as to what that obvious meaning is, it seems reasonable to decide that there is no primary topic. The consequence in practice is that all users go via a dab page, which is no burden if it is clearly laid out, while the alternative would be that a substantial minority are taken to the wrong page, then have to follow the hatnote to find what they want. Overall user-friendliness is often better served by having no primary topic. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 11:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
This is not a move request, so please do not instruct me in making move requests. What I want to establish now is simply that it is highly likely that a person who goes to Wikipedia and types in p-i-g(s) is highly likely to be trying to find an article about regular, ordinary, domestic pigs. You may say that to do so would in effect be a move request, and that may (or may not) be the case, but exactly which one or series of moves turned out to be a complicated question with several possible solutions and a cascade of ramifications, all of which would have to be thought through before a move request that can create concensous can be properly written. The best way to go about it is one step at a time. First, we must establish what a person who types in "p-i-g-(s)" is most likely trying to do. Then we can get into the sticky question of what do about the problem. Please instruct me in the best way to get concensous that it is safe to assume that they are looking for an article about plain, ordinary pigs. Then we can move on to the next question. Chrisrus ( talk) 18:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I have removed the odd external link from dab pages, as they had no WP article and seemed, possibly, to have been put there for promotional purposes. However I can not find any 'rule' on "Wikipedia:Disambiguation" page against this. Perhaps one should be added?
I suggest: "External links are not to be out on Disambiguation Pages, they are for disambiguation of articles only."
-
220.101
talk
\Contribs
13:12, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Why in the article is WP:PT given as a shortcut when it leads to a disambiguation page? Surely a better shortcut is appropriate? pgr94 ( talk) 13:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
I believe that Bosnia should redirect to Bosnia and Herzegovina as the primary topic, but this was reverted by another user. Discussion initiated at Talk:Bosnia#Primary topic. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 19:39, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I twice attempted
this change and was immediately reverted. My reasoning is as follow:
As a matter of principle, all factual material in wikipedia is subject to WP:RS. No guideline can override that. In this case, the only way to avoid the issue is to guarantee that no factual information is inserted into dab pages. Dab pages usually have an introductory line, followed by a bulleted list of entries. It is quite reasonable to stipulate that there should be no references in the individual entry lines, since all factual information in them should immediately be duplicated in the target article. The introductory line, however, which sometimes grows to an introductory paragraph, may contain factual information which is common to all the following entries, and if it does so WP:RS should apply. A simple example of where this might arise is in giving the pronunciation of an ambiguous word. Are people suggesting that this should be banned? or that it should be allowed but required to be unreferenced?
I've been coming across this sort of problem frequently when creating disambiguation/name pages for Arabic names. Some editors have insisted that where these pages contain the meaning of the name, no reference should be allowed. I've tried the alternative of categorising them just as name pages, even though disambiguation is their main purpose. There, however, I've encountered editors who object to the inclusion in those pages of place names which are also personal names, as one would do in a disambiguation page. Splitting into two pages would in many cases lead either to confusing duplication, or to one of the pages being very short, and in any case to a situation which was less helpful to the reader. I'd be grateful for helpful constructive comments on this issue.
SamuelTheGhost (
talk)
17:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm very grateful for the discussion above. In summary, I think it says that I can produce the sort of name/dab hybrid pages which I have been producing, and that I should categorise them using {{sia}} (which I previously was entirely unaware of). If that's right, I'll introduce that template into the pages concerned and if other editors question what I'm doing I'll point them at this discussion. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 18:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
For the dab page, the question is not whether their names really are longer, its whether someone coming to this encyclopedia will enter simply "Abdul Rahim" to find him (like my Elvis example above). If journalists have not been using the full name and the subject is notable, its likely English speakers will enter "Abdul Rahim" and that is enough to have it on the page. There ARE people just called James (several kings come to mind). The selection of the articles for the dab page should be based on that. I'm not sure what maintenance problems you would have. A page moved would include a redirect from the old item. Can you be more specific? My "looks good" assumed that the dab page entries were appropriately selected as described above. It "looks good" in that the approach appears to be right. The detail as to whether the entries are correct I don't know. . . --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 23:35, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I started this discussion with a request for helpful constructive comments, and have indeed had some, especially early on. They seem to have dried up, however. I notice that Auntof6 offered to help, for which I am grateful. I don't want to behave as WP:OWNER of the Arabic name pages we're talking about, but on the other hand I asked for persuasive advice, not to be told what I must do. So in that spirit I invite Auntof6 to restructure one or more of these pages as she thinks right, preferably without completely dumping good information, and I shall comment. SamuelTheGhost ( talk) 17:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
The first thing I notice is that some of these pages (such as Abdul Bari) contain only human name entries. On those, I think all you need to do is remove the dab tag (whether it be {{disambig|hn}} or {{hndis}} or whatever, and turn them into given name, surname, or human name (category "Human names") pages.
Some of the pages (such as Abdul Ghaffar) contain mostly name entries with only one non-name entry. On those, I think you could remove the dab tag and put the non-name entry in a "See also" section.
As for pages with multiple non-name entries, I gave it a shot with Abdul Samad, splitting the name entries off to the new page Abdul Samad (name). See what you think. If it doesn't work, we can revert Abdul Samad to what it used to be and delete the new page.
Question: Are these two-part names considered single names, or name combinations? To me, who knows pretty much nothing about Arabic names, it would seem more accurate to call them name combinations; otherwise, you'd have a page for (for example) Abdul and one for Samad, and they could both list all the name (plus other combinations). You need to guide me there, though. -- Auntof6 ( talk) 06:05, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
There is a rather long discussion at Talk:Football#RFC:_Association_football to which this question relates and I can seem to find any guidance on this. The issue is, is it acceptable to use football or any other ambiguous phrase for that matter and have the user figure out for the rest of the article the sport in question is Association football
or should it'd be explicitly made clear some how.
Gnevin ( talk) 11:58, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
The "link to the title that includes the text "(disambiguation)", even if that's a redirect" part of this guideline is entirely asinine and unnecessary. Why should we bother to use a redirect? Redirects are for common misspellings or alternate names for articles. Not for dabs or lists.— Ryūlóng ( 竜龙) 21:23, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
I really am puzzled by this discussion. I understand, Ryulong, that you don't like these redirects and consider them unnecessary, not to mention some of the less civil terms you've used. That's fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But, I know that you are an experienced and valued long-time contributor to Wikipedia, so surely you are familiar with the principle that "Redirects are cheap." We have redirects all over the place, and as long as they are not misleading or harmful, they are encouraged. A link like [[America (disambiguation)|America]] looks to the reader exactly the same as [[America]], and it takes the reader to the same place, so what is the harm? Even if you don't like it, I don't understand why it gets you so upset. It is not hurting anyone or anything other than your sense of aesthetics. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 11:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Hi all, I happen to have Never Say Never on my watchlist, and noticed this diff. I was a little surprised to see how much text was added to some of the entries. Do you see this as reasonable, or a bit much? -- AndrewHowse ( talk) 23:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Could the article make some recommendation as to the max nr of entries in the list before it is worth splitting the list into say 3 or more sections ? I would suggest 15 or 20. Rod57 ( talk) 19:34, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Some, perhaps many, DAB lists are alphabetical. If this is policy could the article confirm that or say if it is ok or prefered to have the most notable/likely uses near the top (my preference) ? Rod57 ( talk) 19:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Discussion on a proposal to change parts of this guideline is taking place on the Redirect talk page. Handschuh- talk to me 23:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
See Feaster. I removed the broken template but the editor who placed it there (COI editor I'd say), replaced it, along with Feasterville, South Carolina, which I'd removed as it doesn't seem to be a legal entity (if it had any legal status I would have left it on the basis there could be an article for it), and an entry for "John Feaster, very prominent South Carolina Planter and Businessman of whom founded the Feasterville Church along with the Feasterville Male and Female Acadademy, of which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places" - this person seems only to appear in a history of Fairfield County [1] where it says about him only "John Feaster, son of Andrew Feaster, was the founder of Feasterville Academy, and donated 7^ acres of land to Liberty Church, and ^^ acres to the Academy. Tradition says that John Feaster had the first glass windows in the township." Dougweller ( talk) 14:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
To participate in that discussion, go to this link. Thanks. -- HXL 's Roundtable, and Record 22:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Am I misinterpreting WP:TWODABS, or should it not apply in the case of Sephiroth (currently a dab page with two entries) for reasons that I do not understand? See Sephiroth (Final Fantasy)#Requested move for the discussion and reply there please... Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:41, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
The whole point of having a dab page is to help readers find the subject they are seeking with minimal hassle, is it not?
Even if two topics are each perfectly equally likely to be the one being sought when a given term is entered in the Search box, if you toss a coin and put one of the two topics at that term, then half the time the reader will be taken directly to the desired article, while the other half will be one hatnote link click away from their intended destination. So compared to having a dab page, half are clearly better off, while the other half is worse off. But if you put a dab page at that term, then none of the readers searching for that term will be taken directly to the article they are seeking; everyone searching for that term is guaranteed to be a search plus a click away from the desired article.
Frankly, even if you have only three topics and none are primary, if you put the article most likely of the three to be the one being sought at that name, and hatnote links to the other two at the top of that article, then at least 1/3 of the readers will be taken directly to the desired article, while the others will again be only one click away.
The benefit of avoiding a dab page once you have 4 or more articles associated with the term, and no primary topic, starts to diminish rapidly for two reasons. First, because the percentage of readers who get to the desired article becomes increasingly insignificant as the number of entries increases. Second, because the number of hatnote links at the top of the article becomes unwieldy. But none of those problems apply when we have only two or even three articles with topics that are called by the term in question. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand why the absence of a primary topic means there is no place to put a hatnote. If there are two topics the article of one can be at the name in question (just as well as a dab page can be there), and it can have the hatnote to the other one, even though it is not the primary topic (not primary because it is more likely than the other, but not much more likely, to be the one being sought). Wouldn't that be more desirable for the navigational advantages I noted above... no extra clicks for at least half, probably significantly more in most cases, of those searching for the term, while the others are still only one click away? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Similarly, there is no primary topic for Cork, which is a dab page. If someone moved Cork (city) to Cork, that would not make it the primary topic. In fact, if placement determined primary topic, then no one could ever argue that an article should be disambiguated on the grounds that it's not the primary topic, because, by your reasoning, it is the primary topic, by definition, simply by being at the base name.
What I'm suggesting is that in the case where a term has only two uses is special. That that is why we have WP:TWODABS. Obviously if one of the two topics is much more likely to be searched for with that term than is the other, then it is the primary topic, by definition. There is no reason to make WP:TWODABS a special case for that situation; it's standard primary topic determination. Therefore, the only situation in which it makes sense to have a special WP:TWODABS case is when neither use is much more likely than the other to be searched for by the term in question. And, yet, in that case, because there are only two uses, it still benefits the reader for us to treat one of the two uses as if it is primary. That'sthe only I reason I can see to make WP:TWODABS be a special case. Am I missing something?
As to the point that deciding which of two uses should be at the base name would be (and will continue to be) contentious for editors, perhaps, but that's not a good reason to make the encyclopedia less convenient to use for readers (by forcing everyone to go through a dab page even though there are only two uses). It is a reason to make the guideline more clear about this, which, if done correctly, should reduce if not all but eliminate the contention. In fact, we might even say that unless one of the two uses is clearly the primary topic, that article movement (between one being at the base name and the other disambiguated) is not justified (status quo prevails). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:10, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Is there someone who loves to create Dabs who could make one of Chatton for all of these? -- Kleopatra ( talk) 07:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Trying to get more into the primary topic section, without making it a legalese brain-hurty mess. Possible approaches:
The second leaves me scratching my head, but the first is one I mostly wrote, so I have no doubt that it makes others scratch their heads. Further ideas sought. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 02:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Kotniski, JHunterJ, PamD, et. al, the point I'm trying to introduce and explain which keeps getting deleted is not exemplified by either Einstein or Danzig. The point is that when you're determining whether a given use of a term is the primary use, you have to consider all uses of the term to refer to other topics in terms of their respective likelihoods to be used to search for those topics. Uses are not to be dismissed or discounted in primary topic determinations just because they are secondary uses. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
No, Defamation does not exemplify the point either because slander/libel is the primary use of "Defamation", and the term defamation is the name the film would use if the legal use was not primary.
Here is a link to a discussion in which the problem is exemplified. See the comment under Important Note and my reply. The term in question there is "Fergie" and the argument made is that the use by Sarah Ferguson (whose nickname is Fergie) is not relevant since the article about her would never be at Fergie no matter what. I want something in here that explains clearly why that's not true. Just because that article would never be at "Fergie" doesn't mean readers will never search for it using "Fergie", and, so, in deciding whether the singer is the primary use of "Fergie", we need to consider the likelihood that that term will be used to search for the Sarah. I run into this flawed reasoning quite often in WP:RM discussions. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree the question of "which of several topics is most likely sought from this title?" is separate from "which of several possible titles is best for this topic?", but that is not relevant to this point because primary topic is not merely about "which of several topics is most likely sought from this title?", but whether that likelihood is sufficiently high relative to the likelihood of other topics being sought when that term is entered into the Search box, and this point is about that likelihood. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
Another example of this problem is at Talk:Freston,_Suffolk#Requested_move. The entire basis for proposing the move of Freston, Suffolk to Freston is that "The other entries on this disambiguation page just have the word Freston in them, not as the main title."
What can we write in this guideline to make it clear that just because another "candidate" (or entry on a dab page) for a given term doesn't just have that term alone as its main name does not mean we ignore, or discount in any way, how likely that topic is to be searched for with that term when determining whether another use is the primary topic for that term? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
The main point here is the stated basis -- the term is only part of another use's article title -- is no reason to discount the likelihood of a reader using that term to search for that other use. We can agree to disagree on how likely readers are to be searching for those topics with the term, and that would be relevant, but to simply say that they can essentially be ignored because the term in question is only part of the name used in the title is not correct. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't think any of this can be regulated with hard-and-fast rules - we have no way of knowing (do we?) how many readers are searching for articles under particular search terms; we have to use a certain amount of common sense, and I think we should assume there's going to be a certain tendency among readers to enter real titles (particularly now the search box produces a drop-down list), but exactly how much comes down to our judgement. My personal take is that people are going to search for Albert Einstein under "Einstein" quite a lot, relative to any other use of Einstein they might be searching for, whereas they're going to search for Sarah or Alex Ferguson quite rarely under "Fergie", relative to the singer who's "properly" called Fergie. But it's a judgement call rather than something we can lay down firm rules about. In any case primary topic decisions are sometimes made based on other factors, such as the (in)convenience of disambiguating, rather than strictly on the basis of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - New York probably being the most notable example. -- Kotniski ( talk) 10:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
The Disambiguation page called "HLB" does not refer to the Citrus disease "Huanglongbing". The disease was previously called "Greening" but it was first described in China as "Huanglongbing". This name is not easy to pronounce, so we are used to say "HLB"
This disease is very important. It causes the decay of millions of orange trees in Brazil and Florida since five years. It is spreading through the US and has reached Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina. The whole US orange production is threatened. There are many scientific references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.100.149.242 ( talk) 08:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
When we disambiguate two hamlets in the same district, we disambiguate by the civil parish that the hamlet is in, eg Rose Green, Lindsey and Rose Green, Assington, but what happens when we have a hamlet and a civil parish in the same district, eg Soulby, Kirkby Stephen and Soulby, Dacre, they are both in the Eden district, but Soulby, Kirkby Stephen is a civil parish near the town of Kirkby Stephen, while Soulby, Dacre is a hamlet in the civil parish of Dacre, Cumbria, there is also a similar situation with Newbiggin, Temple Sowerby and Newbiggin, Dacre. Crouch, Swale talk to me My contribs 13:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
General issue from Talk:Freston, Suffolk#Move request. There is only one article that could have the title "Freston", so (IMO) it's the primary or only topic. Surname holders (excepting those who are commonly referred to by the surname alone) are partial title matches per consensus at the disambiguation and anthroponymy projects. Partial title matches cannot be the primary topic for the partial elements of their titles (if they are actually ambiguous with the partial elements, they are not partial title matches, but again, this is not the case for surname holders in general). Instead, the anthroponymy article or list article (if one exists) might be primary, one of the ambiguous entries might be primary, or there might be no primary. If there is only one article that is not a partial title match, there is no ambiguity. A surname that does not also have ambiguous topics and no anthroponymy article or list article might redirect to the only notable holder as an {{ R from surname}}, but if there are multiple notable holders, an anthroponymy list article (at least) would be needed. If instead there are topics that could have the name, the title should lead (directly or redirectly) to one of them (if there's only one, that one; if there's more than one, the primary one) or lead to a disambiguation page if there a ambiguous topics (possibly including an anthroponymy list article) and none are primary.
This is my understanding of the current consensus and guidelines of the disambiguation project and anthroponymy project. Other views on the general case are welcome here, or on the Freston case there in the move request. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 13:46, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm quite baffled by this argument. You just referenced WP:PTM, as if that is relevant here. Well, it does say, "Do not add a link that merely contains part of the page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name", but adds, "where there is no significant risk of confusion". First, that's talking about links on dab pages, not titles of articles or redirects. Second, I'm not sure what it means... so, the 22 persons with surname "Landis" linked at the Landis dab page should be removed because "there is no significant risk of confusion"?
Anyway, even with respect to links, it also states, "add a link only if the article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context. For instance, the Mississippi River article could not feasibly be titled Mississippi, but it is included at Mississippi (disambiguation) because its subject is often called "the Mississippi".. Since any article whose subject is a person "could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term" where "the disambiguated term" is the surname of the person, according to this a link should be added on the dab page for the term matching the surname, as is the case for everyone with surname "Landis" at Landis.
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC could be more clear, but I think it's sufficiently clear to show no basis whatsoever in considering partial title matches (including surnames) a factor in determining primary topic. First, it states how primary topic is determined for a given term: "[when] one of these topics [to which the term may refer] 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 enters that term in the Search box. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. " Note that this definition makes no mention of title, much less states or even implies that somehow partial title matches should be a factor to consider.
Then, once primary topic is established per this definition, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC goes on to state, "the term should be the title of (or redirect to) the article on that topic." I highlight "(or redirect to)" because this clearly indicates that primary topic determination applies just as much to redirects to the topic, including redirects that are partial elements of the full title (as in how McNealy redirects to Scott McNealy), as it does to the article's actual full title. It even goes further to state, "The title of the primary topic article may be different from the ambiguous term being considered. This may happen when the topic is primary for more than one term, when the article covers a wider topical scope, or when it is titled differently according to the naming conventions [note: by convention, articles about persons are at [[Firstname Surname]]]. When this is the case, the term should redirect to the article (or a section of it). The fact that an article has a different title is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary."
To interpret that last statement in terms of the Freston discussion, the fact that the article Tom Freston has a different title from "Freston" is not a factor in determining whether the topic at Freston, Suffolk is primary. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
I have to agree with User:Born2cycle on this. A reader coming to Wikipedia looking for the term "Freston" is as likely to be looking for Kathy or Tom (or more so) than the tiny village. That is ambiguous usage and disambiguation is appropriate. older ≠ wiser 23:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
And of course the name is ambiguous. That's the point. It's unclear, ambiguous, whether "Freston" refers to Tom, Kathy or the village. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 04:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
If those really are the only three topics, I would suggest a good solution would be to title the village article Freston, and have a hatnote with links to the two people. That way everyone wins (or at least doesn't lose). In general, though, I would say that the fact that a topic isn't going to have its article titled using a particular term is a valid (though weak) reason for preferring some other topic as the primary topic for that term; but it becomes a stronger reason if no-one could even reasonably expect the article to be so titled (which I think is the case with both "Freston" for Tom, and "Fergie" for the Duchess). -- Kotniski ( talk) 07:14, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
J & K, honestly, what are you two going on about? Back and forth posts with no references to policy or guidelines whatsoever in any of your arguments amounts to I like it/don't like it rambling. Let's raise the bar, shall we?
The definition of primary topic is quite clear: "one of these topics [that are referred to by the term] 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 enters that term in the Search box.". The term Freston ambiguously refers to one of three topics in Wikipedia, the village, Tom and Kathy, and, based on page view counts, only Tom comes close to meeting the criteria. The idea that even a modicum of consideration should be given to the fact that "Freston" is a "partial title match" for "Tom Freston" is not only completely unsupported by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or any policy, guideline or style guide, it is expressly contra-indicated in at least three statements of this guideline:
Why are you ignoring all this?
As to the idea of putting one of the three ambiguous topics at Freston despite none meeting primary topic criteria, that might be worth considering, except that the topic meeting the criteria most closely is the one which should either be at Freston, or to which Freston should redirect, and that of course is Tom Freston. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:24, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
And I don't understand why you think "that the fact that 'Freston' could not be expected by anyone to be the title of Tom Freston's article is a factor". Are people even thinking about titles when they search for something? I sure don't. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:22, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Readers are not supposed to figure out how WP titles work and construct their searches accordingly. Rather, editors are supposed to title articles consistent with how readers tend to do searches.
I agree we can have a philosophical discussion about what is "right" that would ultimately be pointless, but that's exactly why I've been trying to get us to talk about what the guideline says and means, and just follow that. I mean, it explicitly states, "The fact that an article has a different title is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary."
Not a factor. That seems very clear. There's nothing to talk about, except whether to follow that, or ignore it for some good reason. I vote follow. You? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Born2cycle, your elevation of the Google test to absolute authority isn't borne out. Note that Amazon is a disambiguation page and Hunter redirects to Hunting, despite the Google test's results that would make Amazon redirect to Amazon.com and Hunter a disambiguation page. I understand what you have put forth. You need to understand that it isn't the consensus. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 01:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Kotniski that this discussion is about how primary topics are determined (both what the guideline says and what it should say) and not about what is linked or not on dab pages. I also generally agree with Kotniski's formulation of the positions above except he has his terms and topics reversed.
Primary topic is about which one, if any, among several topics is primary for a single given term. Primary topic determination is never about "any string which a reader might type", but about only one specific string: the term in question (like "Fergie" or "Cliburn"), and how likely it is that a reader might type that term to search for each of the topics to which that term might refer.
So instead of:
I would say:
Further, I suggest that (a) is the only reasonable interpretation of those words on this page, is supported by other statements on this page (like, "The fact that an article has a different title [different from the term in question] is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary"), and challenge positions (b) and (c) as having no basis whatsoever on this page or any other policy or guideline (except WP:IAR, perhaps, but even that requires "good reason" to make the encyclopedia better, which I have not seen here), and so amount to being rationalizations of personal preference. I mean, the qualifications in (b) and (c) are, as near as I can tell, pulled out of thin air (not from any guideline). Because editors of Kotniski's and JHJ's stature are not clear about this, I seek wording on this page that makes it even more clear that what is meant here is (a).
Without bringing clarity on this point to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC the encyclopedia is worse off in two ways:
I might be wrong, so I'm also open to a change in wording that clarifies (b) or (c) as the actual guideline, but I really think those interpretations are so inherently vague that any such change would make primary topic discussions only more contentious, and can only lead to poorer search results for readers relative to (a). But, again, I might be wrong, so if there is a way to convey (b) or (c) that will make primary topic determinations less contentious, and will improve search results for readers, I'm open to it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
"The qualifications in (b) and (c) are pulled from the guidelines." Excuse me, but I've asked repeatedly for this and you have not provided any support for this claim whatsoever. I ask again... Please indicate in which guideline and with which specific words the guideline indicates that the topics considered for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC should be limited to only those topics "for which the term is commonly used as a "self-contained"(?) name" (qualification (b)) or "for which the term could be reasonably conceived as the title of an encyclopedia article on the sought subject" (qualification (c)). If you can't do that, then please stop claiming these qualifications are "pulled from the guidelines."
Now, let's look at what you claim is pulled out of thin air: "the view that the guidelines about disambiguating ambiguous topics switch from "ambiguous topics" to "any topics that might be sought by a search term" for the purposes of determining primary topic appears to be pulled from thin air. Thin air? Modeling the kind of answer I expect from you, here is specific wording from actual guidelines supporting this view.
Now, can you provide specific wording from guidelines at all, much less this much, which provides support for your view that the the topics considered for primary topic (not for consideration as a title or for listing on a dab page - those are separate issues) should be limited to only those topics subject to qualification (b)? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Anyway, These are your words: "The qualifications in (b) and (c) are pulled from the guidelines". Back that up, or retract it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry. I thought it was understood that I'm not in charge and that nothing I say could possibly be an order. Why would you interpret it that way? It should be obvious that the point is that you're making claims about ideas being "pulled from the guidelines" when they're actually pulled from thin air.
Anyway, since the only way to address that is to concede the point and that seems to be highly unlikely, let's go on to your most recent claim. Even if we accept the view that "the guidelines in question are specific to ambiguous topics", given that...
... how do you define "ambiguous topic" such that a person "which Wikipedia covers" is not an "ambiguous topic" for the ambiguous term that is that person's surname? I mean, you keep declaring that persons are not "ambiguous topics" for their surnames as if it is obvious, but what is the source of that definition of "ambiguous topic"? What exactly is that definition? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I seriously doubt anyone is reading your words as closely as I am, and I'm really trying to understand. But your use of "ambiguous topic" remains undefined, your claim that qualifications (b) and (c) are "pulled from the guidelines" remains unsubstantiated, and your assertion that persons in general are not "ambiguous topics" for their surnames remains unexplained. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
I just reread your response to Kotniski and have the following comments/questions.
In short, if an "ambiguous topic" is any topic to which WP:D applies, then persons are "ambiguous topics" for their surnames whenever the surname is an ambiguous term since the first line of WP:D states that it applies to terms "that may refer to more than one topic", and surnames definitely are used to refer to persons who have those surnames. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:38, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Question; is it useful to proactively add hatnotes to linking articles with potentially confusingly similar titles to each other? For example, below are listed pairs of similarly title U.S geographical articles. Is it of general benefit to add Template:About hatnotes to them? - TB ( talk) 16:09, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Can someone explain exactly what ambiguous topics are and how they relate to disambiguation? Now if we are talking about ambiguous page names it could make sense. Vegaswikian ( talk) 21:23, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Merriam-Webster defines "ambiguous" as "capable of being understood in two or more senses or ways", so "ambiguous topics" is a misuse of the term "ambiguous". It's the term "Acid" that is capable of being understood, not the topic of the article at Lysergic acid diethylamide, and so the topic cannot be an "ambiguous topic" of "acid" or anything else. "Ambiguous topic" is nonsensical. That topic is, however, one of the uses of the ambiguous term acid. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
By the way, that's another wording change I made today. I changed:
I agree some of the terminology is sloppy, but not sure I agree with your solutions. Its possible that we could define "primary topic" as the article that gets treated such - i.e. that the article on the page the disambiguation term takes the reader to. Then are discussion are not "which article is primary topic" but "which article shall we choose as primary topic." In that case, "Art" would be the primary topic in any event. But in practice, I have not found this subtle issue to be enough of a problem to get too worked up about it. For some of the other terms, we might want to work out consistent terminology for the following concepts (and what I generally call the concepts):
There are probably other concepts it would be useful to have a common term for. Perhaps a small glossary? --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 02:33, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we should be talking about "ambiguous topics" - that would mean topics that have more than one meaning, and topics don't have meanings, so the phrase seems entirely illogical. Let's keep it clear and talk about "ambiguous terms" - it's terms that have meanings.-- Kotniski ( talk) 11:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Whether that term is a title or redirect is a separate matter. The main point is: first we determine whether there is a primary topic for a given term, only when we have established a primary topic do we decide if the article about that primary topic should be at that term as its title, or that that term is a redirect to that primary topic article.
A related point is that when we determine which if any of the topics to which a given term may refer is primary, that we look at the relative likelihoods of readers entering that term to seek each of these topics.
Another point is that when determining primary topic we have many factors to consider when deciding whether a given topic meets the criteria ("much more likely than .."), and, there seems to be some disagreement about how much weight should be given to readers taking into account whether a given term is likely to be the Wikipedia article title of the topic's article they seek when deciding what to enter in the search box. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:05, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I just boldly reworded two sections and the intro of this page using the term homograph. The intended meaning of the words has not changed, but I think using homograph conveys it more clearly. Thoughts? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
The problem with using more familiar but less specific terminology is everyone thinks they understand what it means, but many understand the same words differently. That's why more specific jargon has to be used in every field I can think of, from sports to engineering, from law to fashion, from medicine to acting. The same is true here, this is just a new one to this context, and so initial ambivalence or worse about its use is to be expected (frankly, I'm surprised it's taken someone so long to object). But please give it a chance, I think you'll find it works quite well. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Can one of the meanings of an ambiguous term be a person whose surname is that term?
A specific example is being discussed here. Basically, I've added the following hatnote to Cliburn to help readers who search for the pianist Van Cliburn by just his surname:
This hatnote keeps getting replaced with a more generic one:
The two reverts were accompanied by the following comments in edit summaries:
Since persons are commonly referred to by surname, the assertion that "there is no pianist 'Cliburn'" is absurd. Google for "pianist Cliburn" and see what you get! I suppose it could mean, "There is no pianist with a claim on the title 'Cliburn'", but if there were no other uses of the term "Cliburn", Cliburn could very well be a redirect to the article about the pianist, just as McNealy is a redirect the only use of that name in WP, a person with that surname.
The assertion that "name holders are not ambiguous" is also absurd. I've asked for explanation here, but it has been refused unless someone else asks.
Prior to the relatively recent creation of Cliburn (currently an article about a small village that gets a few hundred views per month), there was no article there, so anyone searching for the pianist by surname would immediately find the link to Van Cliburn (an article with thousands of views per month) and could click on it. Now, the same user will find himself at the article about the village with the hatnote to the dab page, so he will have to click on that, and then click on the appropriate link on the dab page, before getting to the wanted article.
I see nothing at MOS:DABNAME (which addresses how to format dab pages) or Talk:Cliburn which explains why a popular article about a person should not be linked in a hatnote of the article whose title is the person's ambiguous surname.
It seems blatantly obvious to me that one of the meanings of an ambiguous term can be a person whose surname is that term, but this is the very point being disputed, even in the context of one the most famous American pianists whose surname is an ambiguous term that does not mean anything else remotely as popular (in terms of page views and ghits).
Any help to resolve this would be much appreciated. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
However, you are still even with this post missing the larger point... "ambiguous" is an adjective that can only apply to concepts that are interpreted, like terms, words, phrases, facial expressions, tones, etc., yet above you say, again, "name holders are not ambiguous". Name holders are not interpreted. Name holders cannot be ambiguous. That phrase is just as nonsensical as is "ambiguous topic". Is it going to take another week for you to get that too?
Can you please figure out how to state your position without using the word "ambiguous" in a nonsensical context in which it modifies something that is not interpreted? If you did that in our first discussion about Freston there would have been no need for all these splinters. Since you seem to be ignoring what I say no matter how reasonable I am, you leave me with little choice but to enlist assistance, which is why I start these splinters.
Now, I realize that this might seem like a pointless semantic exercise, but it has important consequences. For example, now that the nonsensical phrase "ambiguous topics" has been replaced with "these topics" at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, you can no longer claim that primary topic determination applies only to topics that meet some poorly conceived notion of what qualifies as an "ambiguous topic". Instead, "these topics" can only reasonably refer to the topics referenced in the previous paragraph. That paragraph, the first one at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, starts with, "Although a term may refer to more than one topic, ...", therefore "these topics" can only mean "the topics to which the term may refer".
This distinction gets to the heart of our disagreement. You want it to say the nonsensical "ambiguous topic" so you can define it as excluding persons whose surname is the term in question, but when it says "these topics" you are forced into a position of saying that surnames are not used to refer to persons with that surname, which is absurd, and you know it. And please don't bring up titles again, because determining primary topic for a given term has nothing to do with titles, something else I've been pointing out repeatedly and you've been ignoring. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Second, the article about Cliburn has by far the highest page view statistics and ghits of any use of the term "Cliburn".
I thought the implications of these two points with respect to whether a hatnote link to the pianist at Cliburn would be useful were rather obvious. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 04:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
No where do the guidelines intend to say or imply that links to articles with partial titles matches, including to articles about persons with surnames that match the homograph being disambiguated, should not be on the dab page, unless there is "no significant risk of confusion". The plethora of examples of surname redirects to articles about persons, as in McNealy, and the countless dab pages that list links to persons on them due to surname "partial matches" (see Armstrong), clearly indicates consensus about the "significant risk of confusion" that people with a given homograph as surname have with other article topics to which that homograph might refer. But of course when the list becomes so long as to warrant a split out to a list article, that's fine, but that has nothing to do with articles about the topic of the surname in question, which, as you like to point out, are not dab pages (and therefore should not list the persons that need to be disambiguated - those belong on the dab page). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I find that a rather Pointy move given that the topic is still in dicussion here. But if you are going ahead with it, I suggest you also notify the Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy project as they have a lot of experience and interest in such pages. --John ( User:Jwy/ talk) 05:38, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy I noticed a list of resources at the top, including a link to Wikipedia:Deletion policy/names and surnames which is a discussion about surnames that reached, among others, the following conclusion relevant to this discussion:
Isn't the statement that "articles on surnames are useful as disambiguation" based on the premise that people are likely to search for articles about persons using just surname? Note this comment from one participant:
and this from another:
I see no qualification here (or anywhere else) that this applies only to articles about persons that meet the "Einstein" criteria (widely known to be referred only by surname). As far as I can tell, there has never been any support, much less consensus support, for JHJ's claim above that "Most name holders are not ambiguous [sic] with either their given name(s) or their surname." -- Born2cycle ( talk) 06:26, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
There's a discussion regarding disambig templates over at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_December_7#Disambig_templates. Mhiji ( talk) 02:32, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
The recent changes by Born2cycle put too much emphasis on "being a search term" at the expense of "being referred to as". I have disagreed with this clearly and repeatedly over the recent explosion of topics, move requests, deletion requests, and other talking points. But I am taking a break at least for the Christmas season -- I'll check back to see what the new direction of "disambiguation" is to be on Wikipedia, whether it will include more unexceptional name holders, other partial title matches, other search destinations without risk of confusion, etc. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 19:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Where I think I might have come closest to actually making a non-trivial change is with the nutshell summary. It used to say:
If anyone can suggest an alternative to "homograph" that is better than "ambiguous term" and at least as precise as "homograph", I'm open to it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
It might be helpful here to consider the deleted contributions of SpringSummerAutumn, an editor on Australian wine topics who, in their first days of editing, created numerous redirects to Howard Park Wines. For example, since the article discusses the joint venture Marchand & Burch Wines, SpringSummerAutumn created redirects from "Machand and burch wines", "Machand and burch", "Machand burch", "Marcharnd burch", "Marchand burch", "Marchand and burch wine", "Marchand wine", "Machandburch", "Marchburch", and even "Mandb". These are legitimate search strings, but not legitimate names.
Perhaps even more relevant to this discussion, SpringSummerAutumn also created redirects from search terms like "Biodynamic wine great southern", "Burgundian australian wine" and "Riesling western australia". These were problematic because various companies offer products related to these search terms, so it is completely inappropriate for Wikipedia to redirect them to a specific one. My question, then, is whether, rather than deleting the redirect from Riesling western australia, we should have converted it into a disambiguation page listing all the topics relevant to that search string? It seems to me that the old version of this policy would firmly answer "No", whereas B2c's new version offers a "Yes". Hesperian 02:30, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Anyway, do you think the problem is inherent in all/most of the edits I made, or only in the nutshell summary and maybe a couple of other spots? Without checking the text I'm expecting to find the latter to be true. Thanks very much. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:47, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
If unexceptional surname holders are ambiguous, they should be listed on disambiguation pages regardless of the existence of an anthroponymy article (lame or full) -- the two pages would serve different functions. If unexceptional surname holders are not ambiguous, they should not factor in to the determination of the primary topic for an ambiguous title. So far, since the formation of the anthroponymy project, unexceptional name holders have not been considered ambiguous. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 15:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
And I don't see how any of the wording at {{ R from surname}} supports JHJ's argument that his position reflects policy. No one is suggesting anything other than what that template calls for. Of course a redirect from a surname to an article about a person is not a disambiguation redirect; disambiguation redirects take you to disambiguation pages. Not sure what the point is there either. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:49, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
This incident discussed on Bkonrad's talk page is specific to the wording at thje WP:INTDABLINK section of this page, but I suggest the problem of being unclear is sprinkled throughout this entire guideline page. I tried to improve it, and believe I did, but all that work was reverted for what I believe to be insufficient basis (improving what I had, especially with respect to the "search string" problem discussed above, would have been the better way to go but maybe we can still do that).
Note that Bkonrad's interpretation (that intentional internal links to dab pages that are at [[Name]] rather than [[Name (disambiguation)]] should go to the redirect at [[Name (disambiguation)]]) was correct, but this was not clear to the user in this discussion until I changed the wording (which has now been reverted). So now it and other sections are less clear again. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:42, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Great discussion, folks. The nutshell summary (now reverted to the version prior to my changes) currently states:
Since we "provide links or a disambiguation page" (and redirects) not only when an actual article title could refer to several things, but when a topic name or any reasonable conceivable title could refer to several things, I propose the following wording to convey this:
I suggest this solves several problems without introducing the problems of the "search string" nomenclature I used before, and hopefully without introducing any other problems. I think we need to say "or description of a topic" because many of our articles titles are not names, but descriptions (the family of "List of ..." articles, is one obvious example, but there are myriads more).
I also contend this version reflects the consensus view about how surnames of unexceptional people and other partial title matches are handled: the hurdle that needs to be met is, "reasonably likely to be the title of an article".
Thoughts/comments? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:22, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Certainly the current nutshell isn't quite right, but can we reword it without making it more complicated? Nutshells are supposed to be short and sweet. Or if we can't manage that, then why not just ditch the nutshell? People can read the first sentence of the guideline if they want to know what it's about. I don't really know why people insist on putting nutshells on project pages anyway - they can oversimplify to the point of being highly misleading, and at best just duplicate the function of a well-written leading sentence/paragraph. -- Kotniski ( talk) 12:32, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I've always thought that including dictionary definitions was frowned on -- in the " Dos and Don'ts", it's pretty clear about this: "Don't add dictionary definitions." Big red X and everything.
However, if you follow the link, you find the sentence: "A short description of the common general meaning of a word can be appropriate for helping the reader determine context." Which pretty much undercuts the policy, to my mind.
This is followed by "Otherwise, there are templates for linking the reader to Wiktionary", but this is not the same as explicitly saying "but don't write one in the page itself; link to Wiktionary."
In WP:MOSDAB, it's a little more straightforward and helpful: "When a dictionary definition should be included (see What not to include), then rather than writing a text entry, create a cross-link to Wiktionary"
I would suggest we change the wording here (specifically, here) to align with the wording in MOSDAB. Any objections?-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 00:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Proposed new wording:
A disambiguation page is not a list of dictionary definitions. If a description of the common general meaning of a word is considered appropriate for helping the reader determine context, add a link to Wiktionary, the wiki dictionary; see Template:Wiktionary.
-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 00:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Pursuant to the discussion here, I'm wondering if we could add some language either on this page or WP:MOSDAB to clarify when translations of foreign language terms are appropriate for inclusion on a disambiguation page. Brief summary: an editor added an entry to Pine Valley as
I removed the entry, as at the time there was no article for Kedrovaya Pad and neither of the linked articles made any mention of either "Kedrovaya Pad" or "Pine Valley". A series of reverts took place. Evidently, the name "Kedrovaya Pad" can be translated as either Cedar Valley or Pine Valley (the plant is the Korean Pine). An editor created a stub for Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve and included a reference to calling it Pine Valley. While it still is questionable to me whether the place is commonly known in English as Pine Valley, the reference seems enough to justify a mention in the see also section of the disambiguation page Pine Valley.
I think this is already implied by the content of WP:DAB and WP:MOSDAB, but what I'd like to suggest is clearer language that disambiguation pages should not introduce information that is not supported existing articles. A further question is should disambiguation pages include entries for translations of foreign language terms where there is no indication in any article that the subject is known in English by the translated title? older ≠ wiser 19:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, let's talk about this edit which changed the wording of the twodabs section from this:
to this:
The edit summary is: "this wasn't right - once we have a primary topic we know that people looking for that topic are going straight to where they want to be, it's the others this helps"
Let's take an example, say Birmingham Airport. The primary topic is Birmingham Airport, West Midlands and so that is at Birmingham Airport (actually Birmingham Airport redirects to Birmingham Airport, West Midlands, but that's moot here). The second use is Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport for which there is a hatnote at the top of the primary topic article.
So, of those entering "Birmingham Airport" those seeking the primary topic are taken straight to their article, and those seeking the second topic are one click of a hatnote link away.
Now, if we make Birmingham Airport a dab page, everyone entering "Birmingham Airport" is taken to the dab page, not to any article. From the dab page, those seeking the second topic are still one click (of a dab page link this time) away from their article, but now the primary topic users are also one click away from the article they seek.
So, it seems to me that, going backwards, by getting rid of the dab page we are helping the primary topic seekers; it's a wash (one click either way) for the seekers of the second topic, contrary to what the edit summary and changed wording above says. That is, if we have a dab page then even primary topic seekers are not being taken straight to where they want to be (they're taken to the dab page first). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I get it now. In the case of a primary topic there is no option to put the dab page at the title. But, I daresay, the first paragraph explains why readers benefit from hatnote links even when neither of the two actually meets primary topic criteria. This is why I always thought twodabs applied even when there is no primary topic. I mean, what's the downside in randomly picking one to be "primary" and the other to be linked by hatnote? The upside is that at least the readers seeking one of the two topics get there directly, while the others are still only one click away. All upside no downside seems like an obvious improvement to me. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I think what really happens is when there are only two uses the criteria for primary topic is looser. In other words, when there are only two topics to which a given term may refer, then the normal criteria for primary topic, "much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined " often seems to be compressed and softened to simply be, "more likely than the other".
But instead of having two different criteria for 2 dabs and 2+ dabs, we could change the existing criteria from saying "much more likely than any other" to just "more likely than any other": "more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined ". After all, if one topic is more likely than any other and more likely than all the others combined, to be the one being sought, isn't it the primary topic? Since it already must be more likely than all the others combined to be the one being sought, why does it also have to be much more likely than any other? Why isn't merely being more likely than any other, as well more likely than all the others combined, sufficient to be primary? If it was that, which I suggest accurately reflects how primary topic is usually interpreted regardless of what is said here anyway, then in the case of only two uses, this criteria would logically compress to "more likely than the other", which also accurately reflects reality. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Any objection to removing the "much" from "much more likely than any other" at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)