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The WP:PTM section has a dispute tag pointing to the talk section " Appropriate use," but I cannot find any such section on this current talk page or its most recent archive. Is the dispute still active? Which current talk section, if any, is most relevant? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 19:24, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
I see that the discussion has closed. I will chalk it up as a missed opportunity to improve wikipedia. PTM may improve some disambiguation pages. It may even do more good than harm. But the fact is PTM doesn't work as well with adjectives as it does with nouns or verbs. Facts are stubborn things. Hopefully that lesson won't go unnoticed despite the vagueness in the wording of PTM. Oicumayberight ( talk) 22:39, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
I was not involved in the The Dark Knight (film) → The Dark Knight RM discussion [1], and only learned of it, and the RM Review it spawned, yesterday. The review is now closed.
I bring it up here because I did not see very many "title experts" involved in either the original RM, or in the review. I suggest if it ever goes to RM again (and I suspect it will, as this was #5), I think the discussion would benefit with an injection of title policy understanding and knowledge, and probably will warrant a note of it on this talk page.
My view, as stated in the close review, is that this is yet another example of where moving per the WP:Yogurt Principle (determining consensus by evaluating the arguments in terms of their basis in policy rather than by counting !votes) despite the lack of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS will actually lead to a stable and non-controversial title supported by community consensus due to the title's consistency with applicable policy and guidelines. In fact, evaluating the arguments in terms of policy is exactly what the RM closer did to find consensus in support of the move, so I was disappointed to see it overturned. -- B2 C 00:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Should we have a section to Wikipedia:Disambiguation to clarify what is already implied, that Primary Topic doesn't require that an article is titled with the Primary Topic to be Primary Topic, i.e. that a single article with 1 title can by its content occupy 2 or 3 or more Primary Topic claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by In ictu oculi ( talk • contribs) 06:56, 27 July 2013
You example is Danzig and Gdansk. Ego White Tray ( talk) 19:13, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Shouldn't table join window, door, chair as primary topics? That's Table (furniture). RM proposal just to move the DAB and create a redirect (I'm being cautious as I feel it's too obvious) at Talk:Table#Requested move. Widefox; talk 22:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
After the discussion at Talk:America I have noticed that Primary Topics are influenced highly by editors personal views. Two situations that are almost identical are these:
Even though these two situations as per usage are almost identical, no argument has been made at Britain for making the UK the Primary Topic, and would most likely be highly opposed if suggested. This is because Great Britain is almost the same geographic entity as the UK, and the two topics are related whereas the the Americas is a completely different entity to the USA. Not sure if this is significant or not, but it does show inconsistency in reasons for or against choosing a Primary Topic. Regards, Rob ( talk) 15:20, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Across three different Wikipedia language editions, we have articles about three different magazines titled Max:
It is likely that there are or have been other magazines titled Max. The article on the English Wikipedia, Max (magazine), is about the one established in 1991; there are no articles, as far as I can tell, about the other two.
So, then, what is the proper method of disambiguation in a case like this one? Should the article be preemptively disambiguated (e.g., to Max (German magazine)); or, as long as it is the only article on the English Wikipedia about a magazine titled Max, should it remain at its current title?
Thanks, -- Black Falcon ( talk) 16:43, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions and initiative. It's quite refreshing to see. :) -- Black Falcon ( talk) 04:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
I moved Page to Page (disambiguation) in order to promote Page (paper) as the primary topic, but got reverted by User:Bkonrad. I don't agree, so here we are. Comments? Clarityfiend ( talk) 13:05, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
needs to become a disambiguation page: there are at least a physical meaning, a mathematical one and different meanings in informatics-- 92.192.17.16 ( talk) 07:28, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
I have added the following line to WP:DABCONCEPT, which I believe to be uncontroversial:
Cheers! bd2412 T 14:53, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
A recent RM resulted in the move of an article to Temple B'Nai Israel (New Britain).
The problem I see is that the building concerned is not in New Britain, but rather in New Britain, Connecticut. There seems a consensus that the island is the primary meaning of New Britain. Assuming this to be true, the title we ended up with is not recognizable to readers, in that most readers seeing just the title will assume that the building is in New Britain rather than in New Britain, Connecticut.
But I'd like to step back and ask, irrespective of the particular merits of this case, has it shown a tweak that is needed in our documentation? In particular, how does WP:precision apply to disambiguators?
I believe (obviously) that the disambiguator should be sufficiently precise to make the whole title, well, unambiguous. And I'm coming to the conclusion that this is not clear from our current policies and guidelines.
But I'd like other opinions on both of these two points. Andrewa ( talk) 19:22, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
OK, there seems a rough consensus above that under current policy, guidelines and practice, there's no need for a disambiguated title to have a recognizable disambiguator. Is that a fair summary? Or are there policies and guidelines that I've missed or misread?
And there seems to be a very rough consensus (in that it's more a consensus of silence) that this is not good. The longer and more precise disambiguator would have been better in the case of Temple B'Nai Israel (New Britain), despite it being unsupported by current guidelines (except possibly WP:IAR of course). Is this also a fair summary?
And a third question then... Assuming that the longer and more precise disambiguator is to be preferred in this particular example, does this apply only to geographical disambiguators, or is there a more general principle we can apply? Andrewa ( talk) 23:43, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
yes, The article is the place for further discussion. The closer's reading of the policies and the consensus was correct in this case; "New Britain" is equally recognizable and obviously more concise than the longer title.-- Cúchullain t/ c 13:26, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm proposing that we add something like this to the guideline.
When adding a disambiguator, it should match any existing disambiguation. So you would not use Foo (place) when place is ambiguous, instead use Foo (place1) to match the existing titled article being used for disambiguation.
This would address the issue with New Briton above and provide needed guidance for clarity in article names. Vegaswikian ( talk) 21:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Could those following this talk page help out with what to do with Sir Walter Howell and Walter Howell? The latter was created first, the former later (more recently). Both are of marginal notability (IMO), so I don't think either have claims to the primary topic name. Should both be at a disambiguation title (e.g. 'rower' and 'civil servant'), with 'Walter Howell' becoming a disambiguation page? Unless things have changed a lot, 'Sir' shouldn't be used as a disambiguator, IIRC. Or it is easier to leave the rower as the primary topic and just move the civil servant page? I've not checked to see if there are any other Walter Howells that might have a claim to the primary topic title. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:18, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
There was a discussion about the brand-new inclusion of WP:PDAB, which was archived due to lack of activity (it can be found in the archive here. In the discussion it was found this section is and I will cite : "uninformative and potentially confusing/misleading", "vague", and approved with a rare consensus (7-5) at VPP. It was also suggested that its addition is not relevant to WP:D but to WP:AT, and that its inclusion "overlap" and "[is] reduntant" with WP:INCDAB. Which have to be done with this section, rewritten, merged or removed? Tbhotch. ™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I know the explanation is really long, it lasts four pages in Microsoft Word. It was intended to be posted at WP:MRV rather than here, but I modified it for this RFC.
In my opinion, as some people have seen, is the inclusion of WP:PDAB is incorrect, not only for its content, but because in some occasion it is being used as a policy rather than a guideline. This sub guide was recently created under a really obscure discussion which managed to a consensus 7 in favor v. 5 against at VPP (linked to an archive above). The guide is badly written. First it says that if an already disambiguated term (from now “dabbed”) still being ambiguous it should have a further disambiguation, like in Party (album) as it cites, but at the same time it says and I cite: “With some naming conventions, it is appropriate to redirect a partially disambiguated term to an article. If so, a hatnote directing readers to other possible targets (or a disambiguation page) should be used.” This happens in redirects like Thriller (album) or Chicken Little (film) as two of some other examples I have found. Redirecting the articles to Thriller (Michael Jackson album) or Chicken Little (2005 film) is a WP:PRECISION violation, which at the same time is part of a policy, it is like if we move America to America (disambiguation) and left the redirect there, or it’s like if we move “ Central Time Zone back to Central Time Zone (North America) just to avoid confusion with the Australian zone, but at the same time left the redirect at CTZ (NA) as it had happened until last May. The second reason why PDAB is misleading is that in the strict sense articles like Paris, United States are partial disambiguation like in Thriller (album). Oxford defines “disambiguate” as “ remove uncertainty of meaning from (an ambiguous sentence, phrase, or other linguistic unit)”, while Webster “ to establish a single semantic or grammatical interpretation for”. Please fill the gaps (for real):
A normal person would have answered “founded, 250 BC, America, Michael Jackson”, but the correct answers are:
If there is no context the ambiguity is clear. One may argue that they are the WP:PRIMARYTOPICS and, therefore, what readers are searching the most, but why this can/does not apply to PDAB pages, Thriller (album) with a lot more of hits than any of the other two albums (or in fact any page titled “Thriller”, even when already dabbed “Thriller (album)” receives more hits than “Thriller (Michael Jackson album)”: [3] [4], and it is not because those readers are searching Eddie and the Hot Rods or Lambchop albums [5] [6] their hits would have increased since then. Something similar has happened with Psycho (1960 film). Since its move still receiving more hits than its remake, [7] which interestingly now receive less hits than in the past since 1960’s move: [8], [9], [10], [11]. Or Poison (American band) as I linked it Thriller (MJ album) talk page. The same has applied to “Thriller” which after the move still being the page readers searches the most of any other “Thriller”. In fact the only place MJ album should go is at Thriller, but the genre and maybe the MJ song, or its respective video, can be the primary topic. The supposed reason why these full DABs are performed is because of our readers, if this is for the readers, why are we making them go from page to page and not giving them what they are looking for easily and quickly? The best example I have found is Erotica (Madonna album) versus Erotica (The Darling Buds album). The first receives 500 daily hits, while the second receives from 5 to 15 visits, [12] [13]. Are readers looking for the TDB album? Maybe or maybe not, but the lack of readers Wikistats and Google results tell us they arrive there maybe for curiosity or for probable information the article doesn’t has, but it is clear Madonna’s is searched many times more.
In my opinion a reason to “support PDAB” is because confusion is intended to be avoided. And here comes a contradiction. If our readers are “confused” with our title style, that is “If I search ‘Thriller (album)’ in the search bar, why I am redirected to (before its move ‘why do I end at’) MJ album?” First of all a new reader or inexperienced reader will not search “Thriller (album)”, that’s something wiki sites use, but I don’t see the NYT or written encyclopedias using parenthesis; anyway Northwest proves this point. “North West” is the name of the daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, when she did born, “Northwest”, one of its redirects is “North West”, and , therefore, increased its page views and ended semi-protected due to vandalism. If the problem is that “Thriller (album)” is ambiguous, why it is titled like this in the first place, why these pages are not titled “Thriller (album of ‘Insert artist or band here’)”? In the search bar this kind of titles avoid *any* kind of confusion. Also using years disambiguation create confusions. Examples like HMS Speedy (1782), Titanic (1997 film), Cinderella (1950 film), etc makes me wonder if they get the article they are looking for in with the first hit. With this it is assumed the reader already knows the date in which the subject was released/created. For example, if another film(s) titled “Sleepy Hollow” is released, “ Sleepy Hollow (film) should be moved to Sleepy Hollow (1999 film); until last year I didn’t know it was released in 1999, do you think every person in the world already knows when the subject of the article was created? We can’t assume readers come here with already known information about what they came to read here. During multiple RM discussions I asked PDAB supporters any kind of evidence readers are getting confused with the PDAB titles, but it never was presented, even when we have WP:FEEDBACK. Readers have the ability to complain about what happens in Wikipedia asking within Wikipedia or any other place. I’ve seen people discussing Wikipedia, in positive and negative views elsewhere.
Another problem is that some of the PDAB supporters believe pages like WP:D or WP:NCM are policies and not guidelines, [14] in either case a violation of WP:BURO. They tend to cite WP:NCM, but that page a) used to contradict itself with WP:MOSALBUM until last month somebody removed that contradiction without consensus to do so. [15], b) NCM currently contradicts itself (in the Anthrax (band) part where another band with the same name exists), and c) the problem with NCM is that another user added this information about PDABs without consensus back in 2009. [16]. The problem is these people are using these guidelines as policies, and as such, they cannot be changed or questioned by users if they are listed there. Many of these NCX pages were created many years ago ( WP:NCF was created possibly in 2002 and I doubt that with a great consensus to be created), and the creators may be retired, or there is no evidence these things were created with consensus, just that these guides have been edited since then and followed blindly creating a non-action consensus, like ...Baby One More Time (song) which was obviously the primary target of any “ …Baby One More Time” article, but years ago editors were accustomed to create the album page as the primary target, and the title song under the DAB, for example the article Rudebox, which was about the song , was copy-pasted to Rudebox (song) and Rudebox (album) ended there, creating a copyvio mess. I’m not sure if pages like NCM were created with consensus or they were copied from another page (compare WP:NCM part to WP:NCF or WP:NCTV parts, they have a similar writing). Before all of this, it was a tendency that the argument “The Film uses a full dab, this album must follow its style,” but it is incorrect as trying to move a video game page not under WP:NCVG but under WP:NCMAC, each project exists for a reason.
These DABs are also affecting the editors. I found a double dabbed article, Corona de lágrimas (2012 telenovela), when Corona de lágrimas didn’t even has another article, why it had a year and a type of article disambiguation? Because the person who created it thought they were necessary. The same for Lifening which was at “ Lifening (Snow Patrol song) with no other article to be disambiguated. The list of unnecessary further dabs is long (at least in what I’ve found). Or what about the current RM at Talk:All the Wrong Places (song), there is no other article in Wikipedia with this name, why is the internal disambiguation needed when All the Wrong Places (book) doesn’t exit and All the Wrong Places redirects to the song?
I also found Circle the Drain (song) when there wasn’t another article. I find interesting this case in particular, if you are an admin you can verify all of this. “ Circle the Drain” was a disambiguation page which contained two items, one about a song by Katy Perry (located in the article Circle the Drain (song)) and one about a song by 36 Crazyfists from the album Bitterness the Star. In the strict sense “Circle the Drain (song)” still ambiguous as 36’s is also a song; under PDAB arguments it should have been located in the first place at Circle the Drain (Katy Perry song). The same case is being applied to Another Love’s RM, there aren’t other links, but commentators were more worried about having multiple non-article songs than checking simple WP:PRECISION stuff. Also the article Left Behind: The Movie still being ambiguous as the movie Left Behind: World at War exists, should the first be moved to Left Behind: The Movie (2000 film) to avoid ambiguity?
Moving pages like Thriller (album) to MJ album is that I, and other people, asked, asks or will ask: which is the sense of moving Thriller (album) to Thriller (Michael Jackson album) if the redirect will lead there? That doesn’t solve the problem, it is moved from “Should this page be called “Thriller (album)”” to “Should “Thriller (album)” redirect here?” The title is not supposed to tell the reader what s/he is reading, that’s the function of the lead paragraph. Per PRECISION, we don’t move Energy to Energy (physics) and left a redirect of Energy to that page. It’s like moving Thriller to Thriller (disambiguation) and left the redirect there. There is no sense of disambiguate titles like these, as happended with Ohio District (LCMS) or Central Time Zone (North America), if their non-dabbed redirect page still redirecting there, why Revolver (album), Thriller (album) or The Wizard of Oz (film) are redirected to articles and not disambiguation pages? This is done under an argument “it is what they are searching”, but with a hidden message: “we want to inform the reader what s/he is reading with the article title”, why don’t we give them what they look for without redirects? They are readers, they have the ability of read.
According to In Oculi, items like “Primary albums, films, songs, plants, footballers*, cities (I put an asterisk mark to re-take it later)” has never existed in WPs, but who says they cannot be created? PDAB didn’t exist last May. First of all, as I asked before, was any of the WP:NCX created under consensus of their respective projects, or they were taken or copied from another project, or based upon WP:NC? When NC was created, common sense was applied? Because thanks to these guidelines people has lost its common sense as Deadmaus proved in its first move—yes, the “5” is an style, but it is pronounced anyway, it is not just a style, and people now believe WP:MOSTM is a policy.—Retaking the “footballers*”, if WP:FOOTY has not a primary topic about footballers, why Pelé and Pelé (footballer) are where they are when there are other three footballers with the same name, that’s a contradiction.
At Revolver (album) which was moved to Revolver (The Beatles album) when there was clearly no consensus to move, the moving admin, Tariq, cited PDAB as possibly the “consensus” to move the page regardless the RM decision, when in fact community consensus can override *any* existing policy or guideline (excepting WP:Copyrights, WP:Libel or any other policy that can bring problems to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.). The evidence of this is Star Trek Into Darkness. “Into” is a four-letter preposition and per WP:CT the page should be called “Star Trek into Darkness”, but it was moved per WP:COMMONNAME ( link), a situation ended being discussed in external references like The Independent. The policy WP:Username states that e-mail user names shouldn’t be used, then why accounts with e-mails still editing? Because we can’t obligate them to change their name, especially when this statement was added after their account creation.
Is it better to have pages like Revolver (album) (disambiguation)? I will notify users who have supported, opposed or commented in PDAB-related pages about this discussion (generally we are the same people who comment in similar situations), but also I will notify the projects affected by this, which are mostly those who have NCX pages. The intention of this survey is to see what's next for PDAB, if it is reworded, or merged, or removed with a real community participation bigger than a discussion of twelve users. Tbhotch. ™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
At Revolver (album) which was moved to Revolver (The Beatles album) when there was clearly no consensus to move, the moving admin, Tariq, cited PDAB as possibly the “consensus” to move the page regardless the RM decision, when in fact community consensus can override *any* existing policy or guidelineYeah, ok. Given Tbhotch's gusto against this issue, it should come as no surprise that that's an inaccurate summary of what happened at that RM. What happened was that supporters of the move cited PDAB (or the reasons that led to PDAB), while opponents either claimed that it would be harder to find the articles (which wouldn't actually happen so long as the redirect is there) or, more pertinently, expressed their disgust that PDAB even exists. Tbhotch conveniently didn't link to the very similar RM for Revolution (song), where those motives where even more transparent (with people calling it "dumb" and "a joke"). Yes, local consensus can override guidelines and policies, but there's got to be a legitimate reason to do so; your indignation that the PDAB discussion wasn't closed the way you wanted it to is not a legitimate reason. -- tariqabjotu 10:03, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The rest is background material on the issue presumably to help us answer. -- B2 C 16:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
...where multiple songs exist of the same name (such as Circle the Drain) no such song should exist at the page 'Circle the Drain (song)'. All such articles should exist as 'Circle the Drain (artistname song)'Given your example, it sounds like you actually support PDAB or at least a modification of it. Can you clarify? It doesn't sound like Tbhotch used that example for the same reason you have. -- tariqabjotu 22:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
With some naming conventions, it is appropriate to redirect a partially disambiguated term to an article.Kiss (band can still redirect to Kiss (American band) and Thriller (album) can still redirect to Thriller (Michael Jackson album). So, I'm not sure I understand that line of opposition. Is it just that the guideline, as written, is not clear enough about that? Or do you not see any value in eliminating partial disambiguators while allowing them to redirect to complete disambiguators? -- tariqabjotu 17:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
( edit conflict) I don't think that's against PDAB in function; PDAB currently says, again, that partial disambiguators can redirect to articles in some cases (although I believe this should be rewritten to be clearer). I've noted a couple points that seem to have been made in various PDAB-related discussions that put value in eliminating partial disambiguators while maintaining redirects. On the other hand, your declaration that the redirect is nonsense doesn't shed any light on why you don't see any value. I know you already think it's nonsense, but why? In other words, what harm is there to having an article at Kiss (American band) when Kiss (band) still redirects there? (That's, obviously, entirely different from Kiss (band) redirecting to Kiss (disambiguation), as evidenced by the number of people who think such a redirect inconveniences readers who have to make an extra click.) -- tariqabjotu 18:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't see why using a pdab as a title "prevents discussions about primary sub-topics" any more than using an ambiguous term as the title of the article about that term's primary topic (i.e., none).
Nothing at WP:NATURAL indicates disambiguation needs to fully disambiguate, nor does anything there support the retention of WP:PDAB.
These are not compelling reasons to override conciseness; they're essentially not reasons to do so at all.
This goes back to my main problem with PDAB - it creates conflict (with conciseness) and ambiguity (which should reign?) for no reason whatsoever (much less for a good reason). -- B2 C 22:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree with you, BDD, but Tariq has a valid point in that user inconvenience is not a reasonable objection to PDAB in that PDAB does not say anything against the ambiguous disambiguated term redirecting to the fully disambiguated title.
However, I think the real concern regarding user inconvenience is that once something like Kiss (band) is a redirect rather than the article title it is more likely to be changed to redirect to a dab page, and such a change is likely to to be unnoticed for a long time, and can be a user inconvenience.
Indeed, Revolution (song) already has been changed to redirect to Revolution (disambiguation)#Songs [18]. While this is not explicitly endorsed by PDAB, it is certainly encouraged. That's a problem. -- B2 C 18:26, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary. For example, it would be inappropriate to title an article "Queen (rock band)", as Queen (band) is precise enough to distinguish the rock band from other uses of the term Queen.That seems to be in line with the idea behind PDAB. -- tariqabjotu 18:55, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
No, one can't reasonably argue that more ambiguity in guidance about naming titles will lead to more stable titles. One might argue that a more restrictive PDAB, one that clearly disallowed use of pdabs as titles, would eventually lead to more stability (less ambiguity, more clarity, fewer unanswered questions, more stability), but that's not what we're talking about.
Sure you can find statements in policy which PDAB happens to not contradict; that's hardly an argument for PDAB, much less a strong one. WP:PDAB is written as if WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to pdabs. This is not WP:CONSENSUS. That's the problem, period. -- B2 C 21:46, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
WP:PDAB is written as if WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to pdabs. This is not WP:CONSENSUS.
You're right, I shouldn't have supported that move, and I shouldn't have included it as an example in the WP:Yogurt Principle. I'll take it out. I'm not going to propose it, but the YP does not apply because a strong policy-based argument can be made to move Independence Day (1983 film) back to Independence Day (film). First, the current configuration does not properly treat this film as the primary topic for Independence Day (film), which it clearly is. Second, if it's going to redirect to the film, it should be the title of the film, per concision. -- B2 C 18:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
The title of the primary topic article may be different from the ambiguous term. 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. When this is the case, the term should redirect to the article...
In the first case, WP:CONSENSUS is that it says the primary topic for "Independence Day" is the list national independence days, and, so Independence Day redirects to List of national independence days. That tells us nothing about what WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says about the term "Independence Day (film)". These are separate questions, and need to be answered independent of what we decide about the title for the article about the 1993 film, or any other title.
This is WP:D, not WP:AT. The guidance here is not about what titles should be. It's about how to deal with ambiguous terms. Ambiguous terms like "Independence Day" and "Independence Day (film)". It tells us whether such a term has a primary topic or not. If a term does have a primary topic, then it's a candidate to be used as a title for the article about that primary topic. Whether that term is used as the title, or a redirect to the title, is based on other WP:CRITERIA like concision. -- B2 C 20:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
But in terms of whether the move from Independence Day (film) to Independence Day (1996 film) should have taken place, I'm going to go with a resounding yes for the reasons made during the move request and reiterated by JHunterJ here. As stated by several people here, the idea of primary sub-topics is a minefield once you see what it allows. And I believe, despite what you've said, this has been understood across Wikipedia. In most fields, the idea of disambiguating topics like this wouldn't make sense. Could you imagine if there were a Scott Baker (pitcher) and Scott Baker (left-handed pitcher)? Or a Chris Brown (running back) [not as a redirect] and then a Chris Brown (running back, born 1987)? That's very confusing. And then in the few areas where partially disambiguated titles appear to be existent (music and films), these are against WikiProject guidelines ( WP:NCF and WP:NCM). So, I don't think we're introducing anything novel here; rather, PDAB just clarifies matters and encourages uniformity. -- tariqabjotu 22:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
there must be rules stating when an exception is appropriate, no. It is a fool's errand to attempt to define rules in such a manner for an environment like Wikipedia. The basis for such exceptions is the same as everything else, discussion and rough consensus. We might say something to the effect of describing when exceptions might be appropriate, but rules for exceptions only give rise to wikilawyers and more splitting of hairs. older ≠ wiser 16:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Bkonrad writes, " Although fuzzy guidelines drive some editors batshit-crazy, I think guidelines that imply black-and-white, no exceptions-allowed application very rarely reflect reality." I suggest this presents a false dichotomy. The choice is not between "fuzzy guidelines" and "black-and white, no exceptions-allowed".
Whenever we're discussing guideline changes or proposals, the real choice is often between "guidelines that provide more ambiguous guidance" and "guidelines that provide less ambiguous guidance". Some of us strongly believe that WP would be greatly improved, at least in the area of title stability, if we tended towards the latter choice whenever reasonably possible. That approach suggests favoring #2 in Powers' summary. -- B2 C 17:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
When the applicable rules conflict we have a situation where arguments on both sides can be made that are based on the rules. Since the rules conflict, the outcomes of any such discussions are often not much better nor more predictable or stable than decisions made by tossing a coin. This is why many of us favor improving the polices and guidelines by removing or at least reducing conflicts and ambiguities where reasonably possible - so more titles can be decided in a way that is likely to be uncontroversial and stable. -- B2 C 20:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Of course the are not all-encompassing, closed, deterministic system... for special cases we have IAR, WP:COMMON, etc. But that's for special cases. In general, the rules in the one sense that you specified should and do give good guidance on what to do. Every instance where these rules don't give us a clear guidance on what title to use is a likely opportunity to improve the rules; improve them by addressing the holes, conflicts or ambiguities that are causing the lack of clear guidance. When there is a clear opportunity to make the rules more clear, what's the reason to not? The fact that you specified only one sense of the rules suggests there is no other sense (please correct me if I'm wrong). Putting aside the rare special cases (especially with regard to title issues) where IAR is invoked, for better or for worse, the rules is all we have to go on. So, let's make them as good, clear, and unambiguous as we can. Okay? That's all I'm saying. -- B2 C 21:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
My positions are well documented, even on my own user page. If we want to expand the scope of this discussion please feel free to quote me from there or anywhere else and address that as well as what I'm saying here. But if you're going to argue with some impression you have of what you believe my position is or has been ("rules are part of an all-encompassing, closed, deterministic system"), that's not going to work.
That said, let's look at this statement, "In so many cases where there actually is no single answer that is correct or incorrect in any absolute sense, it makes no sense to pretend that some rule-based algorithm will determine what is best in any given situation better than informed discussion among editors". If the rules don't provide a single answer in a given situation, then of course no algorithm based on those rules will determine what is best in that situation. However, it might be possible to improve the rules so that they do provide one clear answer. What's the alternative? You call it, "informed discussion among editors", begging the same question, again: informed discussion based on what (if not JDLI)? What is this mysterious basis-for-title-decision-making to which you seem to keep referring ("confusing different senses of 'rules'"; "informed discussion among editors") without specifying, and how is it different from JDLI? -- B2 C 22:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I have been trying to read through this RfC and discussion and find myself having a hard time to understand it. I do not think the opening is neutral and brief as it should be and the following explanation is way too long to be much of an explanation. Then the survey section stating "You can add modify (rewrite), merge or remove and a reason or explanation, or you simply add your comments." is not neutral by eliminating options for editors who think there is no change needed. Overall, a briefer, more concise explanation would probably help attract more editors to this discussion because I think people seeing a wall of text will not bother reading through it to figure out what is going on to give their opinion. Aspects ( talk) 19:45, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
As usual, one editor, being unaware of what an RFC is for, attempts to dominate the discussion, with almost as many edits as everyone else put together. per contributors tool. Dicklyon ( talk) 01:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Is a parenthetical explanation for purposes other than title disambiguation allowed? Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:30, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I recently found myself asking "why the parenthetical" when I tried, unsuccessfully, to move
Anna Graceman (entertainer) to
Anna Graceman. I gathered something about suspect writing and dubious notability regarding a minor, which may no longer be the case.
Here's another thing. Hopefully, one of these days, I can get back to identifying and starting articles on notable people from
my hometown, since the collection of names found in that article is somewhat of a joke,
any good intentions notwithstanding. From what I've seen, the primary topic for "Harold Gillam" would be the elder Harold Gillam, the bush pilot. As for the younger Harold Gillam,
the mayor, I'm not sure that
Harold Gillam, Jr. would work in this case, since his father died during his early teens, and resultantly, he was only rarely known as "Junior".
Harold Gillam (mayor) or
Harold Gillam (politician) would make more sense. Given that the coverage of Alaska aviation is in far more of a shambles than coverage of Alaska politics, what happens if an article for the younger Gillam is written first?
RadioKAOS –
Talk to me, Billy
23:25, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I guess I would say that if a parenthetical explanation is absolutely forbidden, that needs to be spelled out somewhere as a MOS guideline. One problem is that these names are not Foo (indeclinable), they are Fooia, Fooius, and Fooii, which is why there is an inherent ambiguity, not a potential ambiguity, unless the scope/title is delimited with the word gens. I think everyone agrees that the word gens must be included in the title, because otherwise, it's a woman's name. I brought the issue here because someone had moved Annaea (gens) to Annaea, on the grounds that no disambiguation was required. But gens is part of the article title/scope, not a disambiguating phrase. So the issue is not disambiguation per se; it's that dab policy was used as the basis for a move that, if carried out randomly on some gens articles and not others, would cause taxonomical chaos. Since the naming of the gens articles is based on consistent nomenclature within a taxonomy, just as in scientific nomenclature, I've been in search of a way to title these articles that (a) can be used with taxonomical consistency throughout; (b) provides the most efficient access for users; and (c) doesn't make us look like illiterati in matters of Latinity. In an alphabetical index in a modern work of scholarship, an entry on a gens would appear as Fooia, gens (like "Shakespeare, William"). We don't do that for article titles. But because there are 200+ articles, using the correct Latin form (gens Fooia) would result in a search-box drop-down menu of little use to users, who are far more likely to be typing in the gens name first. That's the dilemma, because Fooia gens is not standard Latin. The current Fooia (gens) is meant to provide the accessibility of Fooia, gens as found in an index, without resorting to the non-standard Latin of Fooia gens. So here's where I'm going to leave it: there are about 230 articles titled Fooia (gens). There are two or three that are inconsistently titled, and need to made consistent. I, alas, lack the stomach for moving all these articles to the non-standard Latin Fooia gens, let alone the sheer stamina to move so many articles and fix any attendant problems. If it's important to make the moves to Fooia gens instead of Fooia (gens), lest the world of MOS come to an end, I applaud the diligence of any editor who takes on the job. If no one is willing to go to that trouble, then I read that as "no consensus" on the necessity of a move for all these titles, since if it's important and necessary, someone will do it. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:07, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Currently, pages like 10th meridian and 10th parallel are disambiguation pages. There are hundreds of these, each showing two links accompanied by two maps, noting for example the 10th parallel north and 10th parallel south, or 10th meridian east and 10th meridian west. I am dubious about these being disambiguation pages at all, as I think that it is arguable that a "10th parallel", for example, is any parallel that varies by ten degrees from the equator, and that these are simply WP:DABCONCEPT to that definition. Thoughts? bd2412 T 21:23, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
Could someone clarify the meaning of WP:DABCONCEPT in relation to WP:PTOPIC? For a body of works under a single owner, should the main incoming link be the broad-overview of the whole or should it be the most popular work/character bearing that name? For Star Trek this would result in the original series being Star Trek instead of the topic overview of what Star Trek is and contains. Currently, two disputes are ongoing with implications to switch the topic level to the "most popular" material or "original" material when the work contains numerous entries of the same exact name, similarly prefixed or directly related by ownership. This seems illogical and confusing to the uninformed readers and probably not the purpose of DISAMB. Specifically, PTOPIC appears to be for ambiguous, but unrelated terms that cannot be served by DABCONCEPT and sufficiently rare and limited that a disambiguation page is not necessary for organizational purposes. ChrisGualtieri ( talk) 15:59, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
I just noticed the comment from B2C on Talk:On My Way (Charlie Brown song) that "ambiguity [on WP] has no meaning other than WP article name conflict", as stated in the first sentence of WP:D. --B2C 06:27, 12 August 2013 (UTC)"
Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles.
Perhaps we should expand "covered by Wikipedia articles" to "covered by the text of Wikipedia articles" since B2C (a self proclaimed "title expert") is reading "covered by Wikipedia articles" as "covered by the title of Wikipedia articles" - ? Seriously. Is this sentence open to this misunderstanding? In ictu oculi ( talk) 07:26, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Contrary to what In ictu oculi thinks I think, I know "covered by WP" does not mean "covered by the title of Wikipedia articles". Some topics are covered in subsections of articles. WP's process of disambiguation applies when a term can be used to refer to more than one topic covered by WP, whether that topic is the main topic of an article or a sub-topic of an article.
For example, we don't have an article about the kidnapper named James Dimaggio, but he is a sub-topic of Kidnapping of Hannah Anderson. Therefore, if we we ever need to cover another James DiMaggio, that name will be subject to our process of disambiguation. But, for now, despite the known existence of many other James DiMaggio's, as long as none have sufficient notability for coverage on notability, this James DiMaggio remains the primary topic, and James DiMaggio redirects to the article that covers him as a sub-topic.
To clarify this, we could change the current wording to say the following:
Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles (either as the main or a secondary topic of an article). Terms that are ambiguous only with uses not sufficiently notable to have coverage on Wikipedia are not subject to Wikipedia's process of disambiguation.
I should note that almost every endeavor, from science to politics to law to engineering, requires specialized terminology that includes "redefining" commonly used words to have specific narrow meanings in the relevant contexts. Remember, this is not terminology that readers encounter - it's terminology for efficient communication among the editors. Insisting on using the dictionary definitions of these words rather than the specialized WP meanings in WP editorial discussions is not helpful. -- B2 C 21:00, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
That's just plainly wrong, BDD. Any topic may be the primary topic for a number of different terms. Only one of those terms can be the title for the article about that topic - all the other terms for which that topic is the primary topic must redirect to that article. For example, New York City is the title, but the primary topic of "New York, New York" is also that article, and so New York, New York redirects to New York City despite the existence of many other uses of "New York, New York". If it were true that "We shouldn't have an article Foo (topic) without an article Foo", then we couldn't have New York, New York (film) since we don't have an article at New York, New York. -- B2 C 05:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
By the way, the relevance of your sweeping statement error to song articles is that we have New York, New York (Moby song) even though we have no article at New York, New York (song) (it's a redirect to the Music section of New York, New York (disambiguation)). -- B2 C 06:21, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
So let's get on and add it? In ictu oculi ( talk) 23:26, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people) as suggested. | ||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | ||
The questions for this RfC are: 1) should we continue to encourage/allow the use of "(entertainer)" as a disambiguator in entertainment-related articles, and 2) if so, under what circumstances. Dohn joe ( talk) 06:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC) Recent months have seen a number of requested moves to replace the "(entertainer)" disambiguator. Results have been mixed. Each individual RM has had relatively limited participation, so it would be nice to see if we can come to wider consensus on the issue, or if going case-by-case is necessary.
Why drop (entertainer)? It can be a vague, ambiguous catchall that in itself is not very descriptive. It's often only used sparingly in sources to describe a given person. One editor has suggested that the term only rightly applies to jesters, vaudevillians, burlesque acts and the like. Why keep (entertainer)? In the case where a person is notable across multiple areas of entertainment (i.e., as a singer and a dancer), choosing one of those areas to disambiguate may be misleading or less accurate than using an umbrella term. There are two fundamental questions to answer first. One is the definition of the word itself. One definition of "entertainer" is "a singer, comedian, dancer, reciter, or the like, especially a professional one". This would seem to at least allow for the possibility of its use on WP. The second question is how important WP:AT is in choosing a disambiguator. We rely heavily on sources for the actual name of a subject. Is that reliance lessened when we choose disambiguation? Does "entertainer" itself need to be found in sources, or can it be used to disambiguate when it makes sense otherwise? What are the options?
Please feel free to alert the relevant WikiProjects or others. Dohn joe ( talk) 06:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC) SurveyPlease indicate the number(s) of your preferred options here, along with a brief explanation if you wish.
Discussion |
I spent a few minutes googling "how to create a disambiguation page" and variations thereof. There's no simple, easy-to-follow guide for how to figure out how to change an old redirect https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Britten&redirect=no to a simple disambiguation page that also includes /info/en/?search=John_Britten and /info/en/?search=Britten_Motorcycle_Company and /info/en/?search=Britten_V1000 If we on Wikipedia want more and new users, these arcane and complicated information pages really need to be streamlined and user-friendly and convenient. Spending half an hour learning intricate syntax is fine if you want an exclusive boys club, but not terribly convenient for the amateurs. Could also start with automatic signing of posts like this one, lest I forget the four tildes. Pär Larsson ( talk) 14:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Foo may refer to:
{{disambig}}
Second opinion and action requested on this from experts in MOSDAB. Staszek Lem ( talk) 16:24, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
An attempt to modify, keep, or remove the partial guideline would have resulted no consensus, especially since no one closed it. Also, I tried to rename The Price Is Right (U.S. game show), but the proposal failed. This calls for further discussion before we can make a survey. -- George Ho ( talk) 04:15, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Where should the WP:PDAB shortcut be retargeted now that the section no longer exists in the guideline? Should it point to the archived discussion? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 23:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
( edit conflict) I gree with BD2412. Kiss (band) is an important example. It's no outlier. It's typical of exactly what PDAB is about. When one use of a common word is very well known, then it's almost certainly the primary topic within its topic area. -- B2 C 01:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Relevant to the ongoing saga of partial disambiguation, there is a discussion at Talk:Wrecking Ball (Miley Cyrus song)#Requested move which may be of interest. older ≠ wiser 16:36, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
As someone who was around when TWODABS was drafted, I know that the intention to write the guideline was to avoid removing the link to the non-primary article from the primary one. Thus inserting in the text that the DAB page can exist "instead of a link directly to the other article" would reverse the very reason why the guideline exist. The link to the other article should not be removed. Diego ( talk) 16:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
an {{ about}} hatnote can be used to link to a disambiguation page, in addition to a link directly to the other article.suggests that is is OK if the hatnote does not link to the disambiguation page. It seems completely pointless to me to have a disambiguation page that is not linked from the primary topic. We'd be better off suggesting that these be speedily deleted. While my preference would be to only have a direct link to the alternate topic in the hatnote, if there is a disambiguation page and there is consensus (for whatever reasons), I don't think it is so terrible to have the hatnote link only to the disambiguation page. Of course, if after some time the dab page is still only two dabs, it should IMO be deleted and a direct link to the alternate article placed in the hatnote. older ≠ wiser 20:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Here is another case: Nagina Masjid (disambiguation). Nagina Masjid only links the disambiguation page in the hatnote, which seems pointless to me. bd2412 T 13:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks to User:R'n'B, we now have a more precise grasp of how much of this project involved WP:TWODABS pages. Per R'n'B, " User:RussBot/Two-link disambiguation pages/001 is the beginning of a list of over 43,000 pages. That is, out of 235,400 total disambiguation pages, almost 20% contain only two (or fewer) links". That is quite a lot, in my opinion. bd2412 T 16:46, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Here is another issue that irks me: ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction. There is a comic book, and there is a film based on the comic book. I do not consider these to be "ambiguous". I consider the original media introducing the story to be the primary topic, and the adaptation of that story into other media to be an extension of that topic. bd2412 T 15:09, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't see anything here about homophones, e.g. whether we would expect to see "knap" added to the see also section of Nap (disambiguation). It would be good to have a guideline on this as I'm not sure whether to make this type of edit or not. -- Jameboy ( talk) 15:38, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
- Someone familiar (musician), American jazz singer
- Someone familiar (footballer), English footballer
This would help Users read and understand what TWODABS is saying. In ictu oculi ( talk) 00:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
Personally, I disagree with the primary topic requirement. If there is no primary topic, and even if we put the wrong topic at the base name, it's still no worse than the dab page situation (2 clicks).
Now, if a third use arises, that can change everything, but we should wait until we actually have a third use on WP to address that in each case. -- B2 C 00:43, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
If a disambiguation page does not appear to be needed because there are only two articles with the same title (one of them a primary topic), but there could reasonably be other topics ambiguous with the title on Wikipedia now or in the future, the {{ about}} hatnote should be used to link to the disambiguation page. At the same time, the {{ Only-two-dabs}} template should be added to the top of the disambiguation page, which will inform users that the page has only two ambiguous terms, and may be deleted if, after a period of time to allow readers and editors the opportunity to expand the disambiguation page, additional disambiguating terms are not found. The {{ Only-two-dabs}} template will also list the article in ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:Disambiguation pages containing one non-primary topic, allowing other editors to locate these pages and help in expanding them.
Bkonrad, I know this might sound pedantic, but can you explain your reasoning without using the term, "primary topic"? So instead of saying, "if there is no primary topic, why pretend there is one?", you would ask: "if there is no topic that is most likely to be sought, why pretend there is one?" We can answer that: Because then seekers of that topic get to their desired article right away, without any cost to others.
I don't buy the page traffic complication argument. That assumes significant numbers of people seeking topic B give up when they reach the article for topic A, rather than click on the hatlink to the article they are seeking. -- B2 C 19:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
However, when searching via the WP Find/GO feature, especially without autosearch enabled for some reason, then titles are critical to helping users find the articles they seek. Those are the users we want to help find the articles they seek in the fewest number of clicks. This is absolutely critical to understanding and appreciating how we choose titles, dab pages and redirects on WP. -- B2 C 00:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
As to whether it's a "bad" practice for a non-primary topic to sit on an undisambiguated title, let's remember that it's common practice for WP articles to be at ambiguous titles. That is, anyone using internal search to find a non-primary topic, and searches with that topic's ambiguous name, is going to end up at the wrong article. So when this happens, we don't consider it "bad". At worst, it's non-optimal for those users, but for everyone involved, it's the most optimal configuration. We consider it better than sending everyone to the dab page at the ambiguous base name, because if we have the primary topic article at the base name, at least most users will get to their article with one click, while others will be two clicks from the dab page, and three clicks from their desired article. We consider that acceptable, not bad. But a TWODAB situation is different, because there the worst case is everyone being two clicks from their desired article (one click to dab page; second click to their article). So it's already better than the acceptable situation for the non-primary topics where an ambiguous title has more than two uses and a primary topic. What we're talking about is whether this already better-than-acceptable situation can be even better. What if we cause everyone to go to one of the two articles? At worst, that's identical to landing on the wrong article when searching for a non-primary topic. In fact, it's better, because the person landing on the wrong article is one click (on a hatnote link) from being at their desired article; no worse than they would be if they landed on a dab page. How is that "bad"? -- B2 C 22:32, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
anyone using internal search to find a non-primary topic, and searches with that topic's ambiguous name, is going to end up at the wrong article.Well, not necessarily. Unless they have the drop-down listing disabled for some reason, they will see a listing of articles with the title. Now if there is an obvious primary topic, most people will realize this and won't expect some other article at the base name. The parenthetical disambiguating terms will help in selecting the desired article. Also if I understand correctly, these articles are displayed in a ranked order by popularity, not by simple alpha sorting. In most cases, this means the disambiguation page appears lower in the listings, even when it is at the base name. Counting clicks, is in my opinion a completely misleading criteria for titling articles in an encyclopedia. I remain convinced that if there is no basis for choosing a primary topic we are doing readers a disservice by pretending that there is one. older ≠ wiser 00:03, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
I just don't see how it's any more of a disservice to take someone to an article with a hat note link to their desired article than it is to take them to a dab page with a link to their desired article. Fundamentally, why is the latter preferred at all, much less enough to warrant taking everyone to the dab page? -- B2 C 00:43, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Well here's a real example stumbled on by chance two days ago:
There's no way one of these can claim to be primary, primary depends on whether you like Broadway or opera, and I thought (and judging by edits so did other editors) that they were the same person. Why shouldn't this, or something like this, be in the guideline to show that we do use twodabs. In ictu oculi ( talk) 01:09, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Aha! John Quested.
John Quested may refer to:
- John Quested (producer) (born 1935), film producer and owner and chairman of Goldcrest Films
- John Quested (aviator) (1893–1948), English World War I flying ace
Both are moderately substantial articles on people of limited notability confined to a single field. There is no likely primary topic between them. bd2412 T 15:43, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Bkonrad, I don't understand how putting either at the base name is a violation of neutrality, since putting an article at a base name is not a statement conveying relative importance or anything else we need to be neutral about. Besides, we can do the "coin toss" alphabetically (aviator comes before producer), which of course would be totally neutral. -- B2 C 21:01, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Since you think placing one article at a name without disambiguation and another at a title with a parenthetical term very strongly suggests there is some relative difference in importance between them...
I mean, if the lack of parenthetic disambiguation in John Quested would strongly suggest that that John Quested is more important than John Quested (aviator), why doesn't the lack of parenthetic disambigution in Nicholas Campbell strongly suggest that that Canadian actor with surname Campbell is more important than Douglas Campbell (actor)? Why doesn't the lack of parenthetic disambiguation in Britz strongly suggest that that Berlin locality is more important than Spandau (locality)? -- B2 C 00:13, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
This is where my concern comes in. I agree that in a TWODABS situation "where there is no basis for choosing a primary topic", we should not assert one. However, I would say that where there is just about any for choosing one, then we should choose that one. I would contend, for example, that a 57/43 split in average page views or Google hits favoring one over the other is sufficient. bd2412 T 19:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
So, more generally, in a case of TWODABS, either article, not the dab page, should be at the base name, regardless of whether either actually meets the primary topic criteria.
A while ago we seem to achieve consensus that an article at a base name does not necessarily mean the article's topic is the "primary topic" of that base name, most notably in the "only topic" case. For example, the topic of Thomism is not the primary topic of "Thomism" even though its article is at Thomism - because that use is the only use of "Thomism". So we already have countless precedents of articles about topics that are not primary being at the base name. So let's not get hung up on that. Being at a base name title does not necessarily means that article's topic is the primary topic. It might be the only topic, or it might be the winner of a 57/43 TWODABS situation, or it might be the winner of a coin toss 50/50 TWODABS situation.
Bkonrad, saying "it's a matter of principle" is evading the question. How much, quantified on the 1-10 "matter scale" I presented above, does it matter if we present this "bias" to readers? How much does it matter? -- B2 C 20:01, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't feel "that there is something inherently bad about having a disambiguation page at the base name where there is no primary topic"! I'm saying that when there is just one other topic, it's better to have either topic at the base name, then a TWODAB dab page at the base name. It's better for two reasons:
Do you get the value of landing directly on the article which you seek rather than on a dab page with a link to the article you seek? Rather than on an article with a hatnote link to the article you seek? These are the values at conflict here. Now, unless these values are quantified somehow (hence the Matter Scale and question), how can we make a reasoned decision? -- B2 C 00:48, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
As to your questions, yes, of course I get "that there is more to an encyclopedia that helping half of the persons looking for a page?". That's why I want to make sure those other things are not significantly compromised.
And, of course I "understand that including the disambiguating term in such marginal cases does help readers avoid landing at the dab page and get to the article they want?" But that's irrelevant because the disambiguated term can exist as a redirect and will thus be just as helpful as when it's part of a title. -- B2 C 19:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, Bkonrad, that distinction is indeed self-evident to us WP title wonks. But not to anyone else. To others, the distinction is artificial. Either parenthetical disambiguation diminishes importance, or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. -- B2 C 00:58, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
I like the usage of the term WP:COINTOSS and that would make a good shortcut to the section of WP:TWODABS dealing with 60/40 situations. A real example in a grey box John Quested would still be visually helpful. I don't see any substantive reason above for not giving an example, nor against this example. In ictu oculi ( talk) 23:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
You referred to improving "recognizability to the unfamiliar" as a good thing, yes? If that's not acceptance and outright advocacy for "the argument that a title could be 'improved' by making the title more recognizable" (which would lead to title changes such as those listed above), then please explain... for I misunderstood. I don't see where or how you draw the line. -- B2 C 01:54, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
"A title that is mistakenly recognized as something else by a reasonable set of readers familiar with the something else, is bad." But, then, aren't most primary topic titles, excluding the ones about widely known topics like Paris, "bad"? I mean, given that the term is ambiguous, won't it be recognized as one of the other uses by a "reasonable set of readers familiar with" one of the other uses?
Yes, I like bright lines. Bright lines are the antidote to bickering about issues that ultimately don't matter. When a bright line is possible, I prefer that to vague and ambiguous guidance, for that reason. -- B2 C 19:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
In other words, a primary topic should be recognizable to most readers, or at least recognizable to most readers who recognize the similarly titleable other topics.
Paris is (or should be) recognizable to all educated people in an international context, so there is no astonishment in someone searching an international encyclopedia for "paris" to upload the article Paris.
Welland is a better example of bad. The Ontario city is obscure and unrecognized to an international audience. Many readers will be familiar with a competing Welland, yet have no knowledge or interest in the Ontario city. The people of Adelaide may very well assume that their Welland is unique, and will be astonished to upload the link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welland and be astonished that they have uploaded a large article on a completely unrelated place. Possibly, they wouldn't be astonished, due to familiarity with Wikipedia's North America bias, but this bias is bad.
Neither Someone familiar (musician), American jazz singer, nor Someone familiar (footballer), English footballer, are presumably broadly internationally recognized, so neither should be presumed to be primary, regardless of the ratio of their respective negligible non-local recognizabilities. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Welland is not atypical. It is but one in a myriad of such examples. Your position is that primary topics should not be at base names unless they are "recognizable to most readers". If adopted in policy, this position would require renaming most titles of primary topic articles (since most primary topics are like Welland... not "recognizable to most readers". Thankfully, there is no consensus support for your view. -- B2 C 01:34, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Welland is indeed a common inocuous example, looking just at Welland, Ontario and Welland, South Australia, ignoring the other significant related and unrelated Wellands. Millions of South Australians are likely to encounter mention of Welland in reference to Welland SA, and should they have reason, if they go to Wikipedia, they'll be astonished to find themselves taken to Welland ON, a largish page, downloading for them at backwater speed. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:29, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
How is it more accurate? Accurate with respect to what? -- B2 C 01:34, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Contentiousness about what, exactly? The original use would remain at the base name unless and until another use was the primary topic, or there was a total of three or more uses. Let's take a closer look at #A hypothetical TWODABS example. -- B2 C 15:50, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
No basis for choosing between the two? Excuse me? "Whichever was created first" is the basis. You may not like it, but it is a valid basis for choosing which one of two articles should be located at the undisambiguated title. Not only is it valid, but it is contention-proof, since only one of the two can possibly meet the created first criterion. -- B2 C 20:26, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
But perhaps you too are conflating "primary topic" with "title is base name" (why do people do that?).
My position is this: we are certainly able to determine which of two articles that share the same common name was created first. There can be no dispute about our ability to determine this. We can also agree that we can determine whether we have consensus about either of TWODABS topics being the primary topic, and, that if consensus about that is in the affirmative, then that topic should be at the base name.
The only dispute is about what to do if neither topic is primary. In that case your position is that both titles should be disambiguated and there should be a dab page. And my position is that the article that was created first should be at the base name, and the article created later should be the one and only one that is at a disambiguated title (and that there is no need for a DAB page). We also disagree on the "cost" of landing on the "wrong" article, the "cost" of landing on a dab page, the benefit of landing on the sought article instead of on a dab page, and the benefit of landing on the sought article instead of landing on the "wrong" article. At any rate, I certainly do not hold that opinion "that we should always be able to determine a primary topic". -- B2 C 06:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
If people would do search queries with reasonable information input, the search engines (internal or external) wouldn't send them to DAB pages. This practice, of assuming that most inadequate searchers want the most popular page serves as bad confirmation bias. Inadequate searchers should learn to search a little better. Placing the ambiguous but most popular page at the undisambiguated title defeats the search engine's cleverer algoriths because our default search box will take you to the title of exact match by default. It confuses external searchers because they look first at the list of returned page titles. If the most popular topic were at a disambiguated title, a search for that title would take the searcher there if the search algorithms and current data supported it, and if the decision is a mistake, modern search engines can detect that, and learn. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:19, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Before there was a TWODABS shortcut this is what the relevant paragraph said [19]:
If there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic, then a disambiguation page may be used; an alternative is to set up a redirect from the term to one of the topics, and use disambiguation links only.
I'm not sure when that got usurped by the current much more restrictive language, by I am not aware of a single case where anyone would be better served by a dab page than by a variant on the alternative described here (the variant is: put either of the two articles at the term; a hatnote link to the other at a disambiguated title). -- B2 C 01:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
additional section on an important subject which was hidden away on MOSDAB; however, at that point in time, I could find no exact correlate on MOSDAB. The closest I could find was here, though the content is quite different. A short time after Kotniski's edits, there was a very relevant discussion of that specific text. That discussion referenced an earlier, inconclusive discussion here (which by the way has an interesting statistical analysis based on some informal usability testing). Also, precipitating the former discussion, the text was modified 14:13, 22 September 2008 by JHunterJ to require a disambiguation page if there is no primary topic. Shortly after, Kotniski reverted and flagged the section as disputed. A few days later, Kotniski revised the text to
However if there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic, then a disambiguation page is used.older ≠ wiser 02:05, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
On the other hand, I am open to the idea that plant names should be presumed PT over song titles (natural world topics over human commercial products). However, exceptions would be where a plant is named after a song. A plant may be a new designer hybrid, a commercial product, and named after a song for marketing purposes. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:01, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
I essentially concur with SmokeyJoe's reasoning, and I find it a very reasonable interpretation of "highly likely to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term": if there are different significant audiences around the world and one of them is likely to have never heard about the primary topic, it can't be a primary topic - as those readers are not looking for it with any probability. I think distinguishing between "primary topics" (those recognizable by almost anyone that knows the name) and "high volume topics" (those looked for by many people, but that a significant number of readers would recognize as a different topic). The first could safely be placed at the base name; for the latter, I think the optimum would be achieved by having disambiguation pages ordered by number of visitors - thus the high volume topic is easy to spot, but those looking for other topics still get a helpful navigation page (instead of the wrong article plus a tiny hat note). Diego ( talk) 12:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Building on the discussion above, let's consider the effect of the two TWODABS approaches being discussed,
on the following hypothetical but realistic situation:
Under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, we would have:
Under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, we would have:
Now, which scenario is simple, more stable and less contentious? Which is more complex, less stable and more likely to foster contention?
Consider that under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, nothing changes between stages 2 and 3, so there is no need for the community to even evaluate when that happens. But under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, the community is required to ascertain that point, to decide when to disambiguate the title of the plant article to make room for the dab page at the base name.
-- B2 C 15:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
there needs to be consensus that the first use is not the primary topic before its title is disambiguated. Any admin can make such an evaluation and BOLDly move the articles (or non-admins can as well, if the new name doesn't already exist). Or non-admins might make a technical request if it appears uncontroversial. Unless you're suggesting that any change of primary topic is automatically controversial and therefore must be discussed before moving. Of course, such BOLDness might be challenged (or if it happened some time ago, someone might question whether circumstances have changed. Point is, that whomever creates the second page has to consider what sort of disambiguation to use, and in that process is very likely to consider whether the second topic is equal to or surpasses the first article. It need not be a big production. Consideration of the applicability of TWODABS by the community only really arises when the existing arrangement is questioned. WP:STATUSQUO (which is an essay, BTW, only really applies in the context of reversions) and it DOES NOT mean change does not happen -- it quite explicitly calls for discussion to establish consensus. Similarly, WP:TITLECHANGES primarily applies to controversial title changes. Many would consider that the need to disambiguate a title because there is another article that could have the same title and no obvious primary topic would be a good reason to change the title. I think the clearest, most readily comprehensible guidance to editors is that if there is no primary topic, use a disambiguation page at the base name. older ≠ wiser 17:38, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
there needs to be consensus that the first use is not the primary topic before its title is disambiguated.
And for consensus to exist in a given situation does not mean some significant number of editors more than one have to look at the situation and agree. If policy supported by consensus clearly indicates a certain decision in a given situation, then consensus supports that decision, by definition, even if only one person (like the creator of an article) is even aware of the situation. -- B2 C 08:06, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Diego ( talk · contribs) makes the following claim above:
The third step is: Some time later, as the size and notability of the corporation grows, there is no primary topic. That doesn't necessarily mean "more visitors will be interested in the company than in the plant, but not enough to make its article primary", but let's assume that is the case, because it is possible. Let's say the distribution of interest is 60% for the company, and 40% for the plant, and consider what happens to those entering "Climpaton" in the WP search box and clicking on Go in each case.
Under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, we would have:
Under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, we would have:
I fail to see why the dab page scenario is a "better compromise". -- B2 C 17:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
The analysis is complete with respect to all that mattersStrongly disagree for the reasons already stated.
Users using the drop-down list are just as irrelevant as Google searchers - the article will be selected through the search mechanism and the sought article will be reached directly-- unclear what this is supposed to mean. For the record I strongly disagree that internal search is as irrelevant as external searches.
In a TWODAB case, at least one of the two titles will be disambiguated, and will either be recognized as the one being sought, or the one not being sought. In the latter case, if the one being sought is undisambiguated, it will be known to be the desired articleAnother fine example of shortsighted binary black/white reductionism resting on a dubious presumption that an undisambiguated title can be recognized as correct equally easily as a parenthetically disambiguated title. I suggest it is far easier for a reader to recognize the desired title in such situations when it is disambiguated rather than having to do a mental calculus -- not X, therefore it must be Y (although maybe Y is something else...I guess I'll just have to click on it to find out). older ≠ wiser 21:27, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
You wrote: an undisambiguated title can be recognized as correct equally easily as a parenthetically disambiguated title
That's out of context. I'm not suggesting anyone will recognize the title from the undisambiguated title all alone. The context is choosing between the undisambiguated title and the title disambiguated with something that either matches or doesn't match the desired topic. If it matches, the disambiguated title is it; otherwise the undisambiguated is it.
For example, consider Alunite. You may be looking for the mineral, or the town in Utah. Your choices are Alunite and Alunite, Utah. If you're looking for the mineral, even if you don't know about the town, you'll know that Alunite, Utah is not about the mineral, so Alunite must be your article. Similarly, if you're looking for the town and you don't know about the mineral, you'll know Alunite, Utah is your article, not Alunite. There is no need to move Alunite to Alunite (mineral). And there is no more benefit to anyone in disambiguating both titles in any other TWODABS situation, including when neither is primary. -- B2 C 04:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't deny the benefit, just as you cannot deny that the benefit would apply for primary topics too, especially for any primary topic that is not broadly recognized. Like Allunite.
So now we're back to the Matter Scale, because this is really about how much it matters. Yes, it might take a bit longer "to process the scenario in which one option is clearly marked and one is unmarked than the scenario in which both options are marked", but how much longer, and, more importantly, how much does that bit more matter? If you're still unwilling to try to quantify the answers to these qualitative questions in a manner that allows for relative comparisons and weighings, I don't see how the discussion can reasonably proceed. -- B2 C 17:00, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Anyway... you claim that "no one familiar with what the town in Utah is would be surprised that something else is at the unmarked base name". Fair enough. But check it out. What you're saying is that anyone familiar with a (non primary) use in a TWODABS situation (like the town of Alunite) would not be surprised to find another use at the base name, even if they're not familiar with it (like the mineral Alunite). I agree again. Let's call this the Bkonrad Principle, okay?
Now, shouldn't this Bkonrad Principle apply to a TWODABS case where neither use is primary? I mean, whether the use at the base name is primary or not can't matter to someone who is unfamiliar with that use. Therefore, whether the unfamiliar use at the base name is primary can't be a factor in whether they are surprised by it being at the base name. And, so, per this principle, anyone familiar with one of the non primary uses should be no more surprised to find the other (unfamiliar) non-primary use at the base name than he or she would be if that unfamiliar use was primary.
This is exactly my point, and one of the main reasons I support, If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name for TWODABS cases. It shouldn't be any more surprising, nor any more problematic in any way, for anyone to find the other (unfamiliar) use at the base name in a TWODABS case if it is not primary, than it is for someone looking to find the town of Alunite to find the (unfamiliar) mineral at Alunite, which you agree is acceptable. -- B2 C 04:38, 4 October 2013 (UTC) added "which you agree is acceptable" for emphasis. -- B2 C 06:36, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Alunite is not a relatively obscure mineral. We know little of your geological knowledge, so " I, for one, never heard of it" means little. How long is your list of recognized minerals? List of minerals reports that there are only 4700 of them. Alunite is mined commercially around the world.
Alunite is the primary topic for the term "alunite", discounting the town, for multiple reasons. Ambiguous non-primary-topics, where the competing topics are unrelated and individually significant, should be disambiguated, per the principle of least astonishment. The town is not unrelated.
No. The Born2cycle-Bkonrad Principle is not looking very worthy. It is introduced on a false premise (that someone could reasonably be familiar the town of Alunite but not familiar with the mineral Alunite). Familiarity implies holding some non-negligible amount of information. If a term evokes recognition of a familiar topic, and a competing topic is unfamiliar, then this competing topic should not be ascribe "Primary Topic" status. Given that the convoluted argument begins with a dubious invented principle, its not worth further study. It amounts to an arbitrary bright.
Arbitrary bright lines are bad. They would mean that Wikipedia would be run according unnatural rules. This hurts accessibility of the project to new editors, and remaining accessible to newcomers is an even more important principle than anything mentioned so far. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:51, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, these people are not familiar with the town, they have just stumbled upon it. As soon as they know just the first little bit, they will have encountered mention of the mineral. Alunite is not very interesting an example. A more challenging example is Welland. Consider Welland ON vs Welland SA. I consider both obscure, and that a whole lot of biases are at play. Also consider Welland ON vs Colin Welland, or any other unrelated pair.
"The point is that being familiar with only one of two topics named X does not mean one would be surprised to find the unknown topic at the base name X."
The contrary is exactly my point. If someone can reasonably assume that their X is the only X, they will be astonished to find X udisambiguate is something completely unrelated. This can occur very easily for obscure topics both named ofter sometime historically distant, like Welland. (unlike Alunite).
"Finding an unfamiliar topic at the base name of the non-primary topic being sought is simply not problematic in any significant way."
This sounds like you don't value the principle of least astonishment.
I have never said that all of your arguments are wrong. However, you conflate arguments, and some of your arguments are not palatable.
"nor does it hurt accessibility of the project to new editors or to anyone else"
Here you are denying what someone else has already said to you from experience. It is also my experience. If you search for something you expect to find, and find something else, unexpected, unrelated, unfamiliar, then you are astonished, and astonishment has a discouraging feedback to the searcher. This discouragement is a negative contribution to accessibility. Have you read much about the principle of least astonishment? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 08:02, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
The claim that there is extra time required to "recover" from landing on a "wrong" article, as compared to landing on a dab page, is pure fiction, as far as I can tell. Do you need this extra time when it happens to you? I know I don't. Do you know anyone who needs the extra time? -- B2 C 20:56, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
The claim that there is extra time required to "recover" from landing on a "wrong" article, as compared to landing on a dab page, is pure fiction, as far as I can tellAnother faulty presumption. Have you ever watched a well-formed usability test? I have and I'd say it is far more likely to disorient a reader to end up at the "wrong" article than to arrive at a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 21:20, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
The claim that there is extra time required to "recover" from landing on a "wrong" article, as compared to landing on a dab page, is pure fiction, as far as I can tell- It is not. As Bkonrad pointed out, this old discussion had an editor who found people requiring up to 30 seconds to find out the hat note, and others not discovering it at all; this mirrors my experience when arriving to the wrong article. If you try to optimize the hatnote, you start acting against the purpose of the article, which is allowing the content of the article to be read. If you make the hatnote more salient, you hurt those readers who have arrived to the right article. The way to help readers is to not force them into the wrong article from the start. As DAB pages are optimized for browsing and are more lightweight than articles, they load faster and finding the right link is easier. If you allow each type of page to be used for its main purpose (disambiguation pages to decide ambiguous titles, articles to read content), instead of mixing their goals, each page can be used to its best. Diego ( talk) 22:42, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Quite a few reader don't give much thought to what will be on the other end of the link when they type?. Yes. This is even my behaviour when working on a good computer with fast connection speed. Should we title articles to anticipate common clumsy searching? I think we should weight the principle of least astonishment highly, and rely on search engines to interpret search queries. I suggest that fast and easy internet access encourages clumsy searching, and that we are not working for quality if we optimize for clumsy searching. (google will always beat us in that race)
Quite a few editors don't give much thought to what will be on the other end of the link when they type it? I appreciate that this is a source of irritation, including to people like you who fix misdirected links. I can well imagine that not-so-careful editors dealing with popular topics will often link to the undisambiguated title regardless of whether the undisambiguated title hosts a DAB page. This is an editor issue that requires education, and I think it is bad practice to alter the product (compare Wikipedia:Product, process, policy) to ameliorate editors' bad habits. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 03:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
What about someone searching for the town of "Alunite" and ending up on an article about the mineral at Alunite? Do you believe that article should be moved to Alunite (mineral)? Why or why not? -- B2 C 04:43, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
OK, a lot to take in here since I last checked, and a whole lot I disagree with. First, yes, you are being overly pedantic. A primary topic, in the contect of disambiguation, only exists when there is an unmarked title (or redirect). You objections are purely pedantic). You wrote: What you're saying is that anyone familiar with a (non primary) use in a TWODABS situation (like the town of Alunite) would not be surprised to find another use at the base name, even if they're not familiar with it (like the mineral Alunite).
No, this is not my point at all. It is not "any" use -- it is the primary use. It is precisely because there is a very clear primary topic that there is no surprise that the non-primary topic does not have the unmarked title. Turn the example around. Suppose that the ghost town article was created first at the unmarked name (and that the creator ignored the USPLACE naming convention). I expect that readers looking for the mineral would be very surprised and irritated to find the article on the ghost town with the unmarked title.
Similarly, if neither of two topics are primary and one is placed at the unmarked title, there will be a element, if not of surprise, perhaps more accurately of disorientation, for readers looking for the other topic. As SmokeyJoe has pointed out, your proposition completely ignores usability and assumes that hatnotes are perfectly equivalent to dab pages for assisting in navigation. They are not. With two non-primary topics of approximately equal notability (which after all is the essence of a TWODAB situation), first, the likelihood of a reader arriving at the disambiguation page is minimized by first, having both titles marked and secondly, by having the disambiguation page at the marked title -- mistaken links to the dab page are more likely to be fixed. older ≠ wiser 09:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Now, back to the TWODABS situation. Now, under current guidance, it's an issue because we can have the city at Welland only if it is the primary topic. Why is that, if not because those familiar with and looking for the English village, but not familiar with the Ontario village, would be confused or disoriented or something if they landed upon the Ontario city at Welland? But that confusion and disorientation (or however you want to characterize "the problem") would not occur if the Ontario city is the primary topic? Why does it matter? How is WP better if the city is at the base name Welland if and only if the city is the primary topic? -- B2 C 14:16, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
If the city is the only use, it can be at Welland - no questions asked. If there is another use, say the village, disambiguation can be fully and easily handled by disambiguating the second use. Why do we have to disambiguate both uses just because there is no consensus that the city is the "primary topic"? You seem to accept the notion that no primary topic means a dab page is required... but why? What is the reasoning that underlies this axiom, especially in terms of it applying in the TWODABS case? That's what I'm questioning. -- B2 C 14:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
If it is the case that "hat notes are hard to read and the reader can miss them", that sounds like a problem to be fixed with hatnotes, since they appear on tens of thousands of articles. bd2412 T 18:32, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
This whole discussion comes down to the perceived cost of having readers land on the "wrong" article (but with a hatnote link to the sought article), especially that cost compared to the perceived cost of landing on a dab page instead of the sought page.
If landing on the sought page has a cost of 0 units, landing on the dab page costs 3 units, and landing on the wrong article costs 5 units, consider 100 people of which 60 seek one use and 40 seek the other. If we have the more popular use at the base name, the total cost is 60 * 0 + 40 * 5 = 200. If we have a TWODABS dab page at the base name, the total cost is 100 * 3 = 300, thus it's better, by 100 units, to have no dab page.
Of course, if you perceive a bigger cost to landing on the "wrong" article, say 10 units vs the 3 unit cost to landing on a dab page, then the numbers are 60 * 0 + 40 * 10 = 400 (for no dab page) vs. 300 (article at base name), per which having the dab page is better.
Personally, I see the cost of landing on the wrong article only slightly higher than the cost of landing on a dab page (like 5 vs 3), which is why I support no dab page in the TWODABS situation. But others seem to perceive a bigger difference, perhaps on the order of 10 vs 3, which is probably why they support the dab page. In a primary topic situation, in which, say, 75 of 100 seek one of the two topics, a 10/3 assignment of the relative costs indeed results in favoring no dab page. The total cost for no dab page would be 75 * 0 + 25 * 10 = 250; but for dab page we would have 100 * 3 = 300.
So I think you have to believe the relative cost difference between landing on the wrong article vs a dab page is that great, on the order of 10 vs 3, in order to favor a dab page in a TWODABS situation with no primary topic. If anyone really believes landing on an article with a hatnote link is more than three times worse than landing on a dab page, a subjective assessment with which I cannot quarrel, then I have to admit that support for a dab page in the TWODABS situation with no primary topic is rational and reasonable. -- B2 C 18:47, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Remember, in a More-Than-Two-Dabs case with primary topic, we have an article at the basename, and usually a hatnote to the dab page. So the cost there for landing on the wrong article is even higher, for the hatnote link still does not get you to the sought article (as it does in the TWODABS case), but to a dab page from which you have to find your desired article and click again.
So landing on the wrong article simply can't be that bad, especially with that "wrong" article's hatnote link leads you directly to the sought article rather than to a dab page. Over three times as bad as landing on a dab page? I just don't see it. -- B2 C 19:59, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
(ec x2) I think your analysis overemphasizes direct hits and fails to consider that having marked names help readers avoid landing on the "wrong" page and get to the desired page in the first place. I don't think there's any way to quantify this (not even with made up valuations as in your hypothetical) without some testing with well-designed usability tests. And it does not take into consideration the benefit that links to a disambiguation page have a significantly higher probability of being detected and fixed than if a non-primary or marginally primary topic is at the unmarked title. Yes, these points also apply to primary topics, but the consensus has been that the nature of a primary topic is that either a) readers are likely to anticipate that there is a primary topic and adjust their search strategy accordingly (e.g. Paris or George Washington or Iron); or b) in the event they do arrive at the "wrong" page, they are able to readily recognize why THAT page has the unmarked title instead of the desired topic and then adjust their search strategy accordingly (either by using the hatnote or by refining their search. older ≠ wiser 20:34, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Diego wrote: "Primary topics aren't unexpected by definition, so [wrongly landing upon articles about primary topics instead of the sought article] produce[s] a qualitatively different and much less problematic experience [than landing on an article that is not the primary topic for the search term]."
That distinction is true only for certain primary topics - those that are universally known, like Paris. Most primary topics are not universally known, like Welland, Lorca, The Economist, Monterrey, Gruzinsky, Mitte. You can't argue WP:OTHERSTUFF because these are not exceptions; these are typical primary topic articles probably representative of the majority.
Consider people, say an American historical political figure and a British athlete in which one is significantly more notable in general than the other, and, so, is considered to be the primary topic. But British fans searching for the athlete are likely to not be familiar with the American historical figure, just as many researching the historical figure are likely to be unfamiliar with the British jock. For example, John Marshall and John Marshall (footballer).
I don't believe there is any practical difference in how problematic the experience is of landing on an article different from the one being sought in terms of whether the topic of the "wrong" article is primary or not. I mean, yeah, in the few cases where the primary topic happens to be universally known, but not in the vast majority. The worst case is just as bad (and that's not very bad at all) whether the wrong article landed upon is about a "primary topic" or not. -- B2 C 22:45, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
"If landing on the sought page has a cost of 0 units, landing on the dab page costs 3 units, and landing on the wrong article costs 5 units"
No.
Assume that a reader has entered to too brief search query, using the new style of search box that takes you to a single page and doesn't give any options.
If landing on the sought page has a cost of 0 units. OK, this defines the reference.
Landing on the dab page costs 3 units. No. more like -1. In the above, landing on the right page, the reader got lucky, suffers confirmation bias, and continues unknowing that he remains in the ignorant majority. Given the goals of the project, readers suffering confirmation bias and remaining ignorant is definitely a net negative.
Landing on the wrong article costs 5 units. Unsure. Unsure on both sign and magnitude. The reader has learnt that his search was based on his misconception, and therefore has learnt something, and this is a positive. However, the page arrived at doesn't actually provide much information, doesn't place his objective in the picture, and this is a negative. However, the reader only has to follow the moderately prominent hatnote. The cost of this is small, although dependent on hardware and connectivity factors.
B2C's apparent working assumption is that giving the reader what they expect is the main goal. I suggest that it is not. If the reader is already well educated, then he should know how to obtain what he wants better than by using an inadequate search query. So, therefore, we should assume that this reader is not so knowledgeable. To give a searcher what they most probably want, may often be right, and other times may be misleading. See confirmation bias, for example. If a kid cries, is the right solution to give the kid what most kids want, an ice cream, and then to walk away? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:47, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you intended to convey with this, but what your words mean is that it is better to send readers to a dab page than to "the right page", since, by sending them to the "right page", they simply "got lucky" and now suffer "confirmation bias" and "continues unknowing that he remains in the ignorant majority". So it is better to send them to the dab page rather than the "right page" because "remaining ignorant is definitely a net negative".
You accept the cost of landing on the right page is 0 units as a reference. But you say having them land on the dab page is even better (-1 units).
We agree the cost having to follow the hatnote "is small". -- B2 C 01:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Above, Bkonrad claims the hypothetical scenario I constructed favors my position. He encourages us to consider a situation in which the second use is "out of the box of comparable notability to the first." Fine; let's consider the effect of the two TWODABS approaches being discussed on such a situation:
Under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, we would have:
Under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, we would have:
Now, which scenario is simple, more stable and less contentious? Which is more complex, less stable and more likely to foster contention?
Consider that under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, nothing changes at stage 2, so there is no need for the community to even evaluate anything at that point. But under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, the community is required to ascertain whether the second use is sufficiently notable for the first use to no longer meet primary topic criteria, to decide whether to disambiguate the title of the plant article to make room for the dab page at the base name. -- B2 C 17:12, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you to all for comments above. Now is it too early to take a show of hands on including the John Quested example (sorry if I've missed better example in discussion above) in WP:DAB text? In ictu oculi ( talk) 04:55, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
John Quested may refer to:
- John Quested (producer) (born 1935), film producer and owner and chairman of Goldcrest Films
- John Quested (aviator) (1893–1948), English World War I flying ace
I suppose the question is that given that this case can exist, should an example be given? Yes or no? In ictu oculi ( talk) 06:18, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Here's another good example:
Ashley County may refer to:
- Ashley County, Arkansas, a county in Arkansas
- Ashley County, New Zealand, a county on the South Island of New Zealand
Cheers! bd2412 T 01:55, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Okay, how about:
Bland County may refer to:
- Bland County, Virginia, United States
- Bland County, New South Wales, Australia
Cheers again! bd2412 T 02:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure of the question. Is it: "Is these, or are these, good examples for the guideline on ambiguous topic pairs, where neither is primary?" Yes, I think so.
Both pairs have the unneceesary, harmless but occassional helpful, DAB pages containing two links.
Why do three of the four articles not have hatnotes, whether pointing either to its pair, or to the DAB page? I would think that all disambiguated pages should have a hatnote? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 03:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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The WP:PTM section has a dispute tag pointing to the talk section " Appropriate use," but I cannot find any such section on this current talk page or its most recent archive. Is the dispute still active? Which current talk section, if any, is most relevant? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 19:24, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
I see that the discussion has closed. I will chalk it up as a missed opportunity to improve wikipedia. PTM may improve some disambiguation pages. It may even do more good than harm. But the fact is PTM doesn't work as well with adjectives as it does with nouns or verbs. Facts are stubborn things. Hopefully that lesson won't go unnoticed despite the vagueness in the wording of PTM. Oicumayberight ( talk) 22:39, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
I was not involved in the The Dark Knight (film) → The Dark Knight RM discussion [1], and only learned of it, and the RM Review it spawned, yesterday. The review is now closed.
I bring it up here because I did not see very many "title experts" involved in either the original RM, or in the review. I suggest if it ever goes to RM again (and I suspect it will, as this was #5), I think the discussion would benefit with an injection of title policy understanding and knowledge, and probably will warrant a note of it on this talk page.
My view, as stated in the close review, is that this is yet another example of where moving per the WP:Yogurt Principle (determining consensus by evaluating the arguments in terms of their basis in policy rather than by counting !votes) despite the lack of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS will actually lead to a stable and non-controversial title supported by community consensus due to the title's consistency with applicable policy and guidelines. In fact, evaluating the arguments in terms of policy is exactly what the RM closer did to find consensus in support of the move, so I was disappointed to see it overturned. -- B2 C 00:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Should we have a section to Wikipedia:Disambiguation to clarify what is already implied, that Primary Topic doesn't require that an article is titled with the Primary Topic to be Primary Topic, i.e. that a single article with 1 title can by its content occupy 2 or 3 or more Primary Topic claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by In ictu oculi ( talk • contribs) 06:56, 27 July 2013
You example is Danzig and Gdansk. Ego White Tray ( talk) 19:13, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Shouldn't table join window, door, chair as primary topics? That's Table (furniture). RM proposal just to move the DAB and create a redirect (I'm being cautious as I feel it's too obvious) at Talk:Table#Requested move. Widefox; talk 22:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
After the discussion at Talk:America I have noticed that Primary Topics are influenced highly by editors personal views. Two situations that are almost identical are these:
Even though these two situations as per usage are almost identical, no argument has been made at Britain for making the UK the Primary Topic, and would most likely be highly opposed if suggested. This is because Great Britain is almost the same geographic entity as the UK, and the two topics are related whereas the the Americas is a completely different entity to the USA. Not sure if this is significant or not, but it does show inconsistency in reasons for or against choosing a Primary Topic. Regards, Rob ( talk) 15:20, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Across three different Wikipedia language editions, we have articles about three different magazines titled Max:
It is likely that there are or have been other magazines titled Max. The article on the English Wikipedia, Max (magazine), is about the one established in 1991; there are no articles, as far as I can tell, about the other two.
So, then, what is the proper method of disambiguation in a case like this one? Should the article be preemptively disambiguated (e.g., to Max (German magazine)); or, as long as it is the only article on the English Wikipedia about a magazine titled Max, should it remain at its current title?
Thanks, -- Black Falcon ( talk) 16:43, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions and initiative. It's quite refreshing to see. :) -- Black Falcon ( talk) 04:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
I moved Page to Page (disambiguation) in order to promote Page (paper) as the primary topic, but got reverted by User:Bkonrad. I don't agree, so here we are. Comments? Clarityfiend ( talk) 13:05, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
needs to become a disambiguation page: there are at least a physical meaning, a mathematical one and different meanings in informatics-- 92.192.17.16 ( talk) 07:28, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
I have added the following line to WP:DABCONCEPT, which I believe to be uncontroversial:
Cheers! bd2412 T 14:53, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
A recent RM resulted in the move of an article to Temple B'Nai Israel (New Britain).
The problem I see is that the building concerned is not in New Britain, but rather in New Britain, Connecticut. There seems a consensus that the island is the primary meaning of New Britain. Assuming this to be true, the title we ended up with is not recognizable to readers, in that most readers seeing just the title will assume that the building is in New Britain rather than in New Britain, Connecticut.
But I'd like to step back and ask, irrespective of the particular merits of this case, has it shown a tweak that is needed in our documentation? In particular, how does WP:precision apply to disambiguators?
I believe (obviously) that the disambiguator should be sufficiently precise to make the whole title, well, unambiguous. And I'm coming to the conclusion that this is not clear from our current policies and guidelines.
But I'd like other opinions on both of these two points. Andrewa ( talk) 19:22, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
OK, there seems a rough consensus above that under current policy, guidelines and practice, there's no need for a disambiguated title to have a recognizable disambiguator. Is that a fair summary? Or are there policies and guidelines that I've missed or misread?
And there seems to be a very rough consensus (in that it's more a consensus of silence) that this is not good. The longer and more precise disambiguator would have been better in the case of Temple B'Nai Israel (New Britain), despite it being unsupported by current guidelines (except possibly WP:IAR of course). Is this also a fair summary?
And a third question then... Assuming that the longer and more precise disambiguator is to be preferred in this particular example, does this apply only to geographical disambiguators, or is there a more general principle we can apply? Andrewa ( talk) 23:43, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
yes, The article is the place for further discussion. The closer's reading of the policies and the consensus was correct in this case; "New Britain" is equally recognizable and obviously more concise than the longer title.-- Cúchullain t/ c 13:26, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm proposing that we add something like this to the guideline.
When adding a disambiguator, it should match any existing disambiguation. So you would not use Foo (place) when place is ambiguous, instead use Foo (place1) to match the existing titled article being used for disambiguation.
This would address the issue with New Briton above and provide needed guidance for clarity in article names. Vegaswikian ( talk) 21:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Could those following this talk page help out with what to do with Sir Walter Howell and Walter Howell? The latter was created first, the former later (more recently). Both are of marginal notability (IMO), so I don't think either have claims to the primary topic name. Should both be at a disambiguation title (e.g. 'rower' and 'civil servant'), with 'Walter Howell' becoming a disambiguation page? Unless things have changed a lot, 'Sir' shouldn't be used as a disambiguator, IIRC. Or it is easier to leave the rower as the primary topic and just move the civil servant page? I've not checked to see if there are any other Walter Howells that might have a claim to the primary topic title. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:18, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
There was a discussion about the brand-new inclusion of WP:PDAB, which was archived due to lack of activity (it can be found in the archive here. In the discussion it was found this section is and I will cite : "uninformative and potentially confusing/misleading", "vague", and approved with a rare consensus (7-5) at VPP. It was also suggested that its addition is not relevant to WP:D but to WP:AT, and that its inclusion "overlap" and "[is] reduntant" with WP:INCDAB. Which have to be done with this section, rewritten, merged or removed? Tbhotch. ™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I know the explanation is really long, it lasts four pages in Microsoft Word. It was intended to be posted at WP:MRV rather than here, but I modified it for this RFC.
In my opinion, as some people have seen, is the inclusion of WP:PDAB is incorrect, not only for its content, but because in some occasion it is being used as a policy rather than a guideline. This sub guide was recently created under a really obscure discussion which managed to a consensus 7 in favor v. 5 against at VPP (linked to an archive above). The guide is badly written. First it says that if an already disambiguated term (from now “dabbed”) still being ambiguous it should have a further disambiguation, like in Party (album) as it cites, but at the same time it says and I cite: “With some naming conventions, it is appropriate to redirect a partially disambiguated term to an article. If so, a hatnote directing readers to other possible targets (or a disambiguation page) should be used.” This happens in redirects like Thriller (album) or Chicken Little (film) as two of some other examples I have found. Redirecting the articles to Thriller (Michael Jackson album) or Chicken Little (2005 film) is a WP:PRECISION violation, which at the same time is part of a policy, it is like if we move America to America (disambiguation) and left the redirect there, or it’s like if we move “ Central Time Zone back to Central Time Zone (North America) just to avoid confusion with the Australian zone, but at the same time left the redirect at CTZ (NA) as it had happened until last May. The second reason why PDAB is misleading is that in the strict sense articles like Paris, United States are partial disambiguation like in Thriller (album). Oxford defines “disambiguate” as “ remove uncertainty of meaning from (an ambiguous sentence, phrase, or other linguistic unit)”, while Webster “ to establish a single semantic or grammatical interpretation for”. Please fill the gaps (for real):
A normal person would have answered “founded, 250 BC, America, Michael Jackson”, but the correct answers are:
If there is no context the ambiguity is clear. One may argue that they are the WP:PRIMARYTOPICS and, therefore, what readers are searching the most, but why this can/does not apply to PDAB pages, Thriller (album) with a lot more of hits than any of the other two albums (or in fact any page titled “Thriller”, even when already dabbed “Thriller (album)” receives more hits than “Thriller (Michael Jackson album)”: [3] [4], and it is not because those readers are searching Eddie and the Hot Rods or Lambchop albums [5] [6] their hits would have increased since then. Something similar has happened with Psycho (1960 film). Since its move still receiving more hits than its remake, [7] which interestingly now receive less hits than in the past since 1960’s move: [8], [9], [10], [11]. Or Poison (American band) as I linked it Thriller (MJ album) talk page. The same has applied to “Thriller” which after the move still being the page readers searches the most of any other “Thriller”. In fact the only place MJ album should go is at Thriller, but the genre and maybe the MJ song, or its respective video, can be the primary topic. The supposed reason why these full DABs are performed is because of our readers, if this is for the readers, why are we making them go from page to page and not giving them what they are looking for easily and quickly? The best example I have found is Erotica (Madonna album) versus Erotica (The Darling Buds album). The first receives 500 daily hits, while the second receives from 5 to 15 visits, [12] [13]. Are readers looking for the TDB album? Maybe or maybe not, but the lack of readers Wikistats and Google results tell us they arrive there maybe for curiosity or for probable information the article doesn’t has, but it is clear Madonna’s is searched many times more.
In my opinion a reason to “support PDAB” is because confusion is intended to be avoided. And here comes a contradiction. If our readers are “confused” with our title style, that is “If I search ‘Thriller (album)’ in the search bar, why I am redirected to (before its move ‘why do I end at’) MJ album?” First of all a new reader or inexperienced reader will not search “Thriller (album)”, that’s something wiki sites use, but I don’t see the NYT or written encyclopedias using parenthesis; anyway Northwest proves this point. “North West” is the name of the daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, when she did born, “Northwest”, one of its redirects is “North West”, and , therefore, increased its page views and ended semi-protected due to vandalism. If the problem is that “Thriller (album)” is ambiguous, why it is titled like this in the first place, why these pages are not titled “Thriller (album of ‘Insert artist or band here’)”? In the search bar this kind of titles avoid *any* kind of confusion. Also using years disambiguation create confusions. Examples like HMS Speedy (1782), Titanic (1997 film), Cinderella (1950 film), etc makes me wonder if they get the article they are looking for in with the first hit. With this it is assumed the reader already knows the date in which the subject was released/created. For example, if another film(s) titled “Sleepy Hollow” is released, “ Sleepy Hollow (film) should be moved to Sleepy Hollow (1999 film); until last year I didn’t know it was released in 1999, do you think every person in the world already knows when the subject of the article was created? We can’t assume readers come here with already known information about what they came to read here. During multiple RM discussions I asked PDAB supporters any kind of evidence readers are getting confused with the PDAB titles, but it never was presented, even when we have WP:FEEDBACK. Readers have the ability to complain about what happens in Wikipedia asking within Wikipedia or any other place. I’ve seen people discussing Wikipedia, in positive and negative views elsewhere.
Another problem is that some of the PDAB supporters believe pages like WP:D or WP:NCM are policies and not guidelines, [14] in either case a violation of WP:BURO. They tend to cite WP:NCM, but that page a) used to contradict itself with WP:MOSALBUM until last month somebody removed that contradiction without consensus to do so. [15], b) NCM currently contradicts itself (in the Anthrax (band) part where another band with the same name exists), and c) the problem with NCM is that another user added this information about PDABs without consensus back in 2009. [16]. The problem is these people are using these guidelines as policies, and as such, they cannot be changed or questioned by users if they are listed there. Many of these NCX pages were created many years ago ( WP:NCF was created possibly in 2002 and I doubt that with a great consensus to be created), and the creators may be retired, or there is no evidence these things were created with consensus, just that these guides have been edited since then and followed blindly creating a non-action consensus, like ...Baby One More Time (song) which was obviously the primary target of any “ …Baby One More Time” article, but years ago editors were accustomed to create the album page as the primary target, and the title song under the DAB, for example the article Rudebox, which was about the song , was copy-pasted to Rudebox (song) and Rudebox (album) ended there, creating a copyvio mess. I’m not sure if pages like NCM were created with consensus or they were copied from another page (compare WP:NCM part to WP:NCF or WP:NCTV parts, they have a similar writing). Before all of this, it was a tendency that the argument “The Film uses a full dab, this album must follow its style,” but it is incorrect as trying to move a video game page not under WP:NCVG but under WP:NCMAC, each project exists for a reason.
These DABs are also affecting the editors. I found a double dabbed article, Corona de lágrimas (2012 telenovela), when Corona de lágrimas didn’t even has another article, why it had a year and a type of article disambiguation? Because the person who created it thought they were necessary. The same for Lifening which was at “ Lifening (Snow Patrol song) with no other article to be disambiguated. The list of unnecessary further dabs is long (at least in what I’ve found). Or what about the current RM at Talk:All the Wrong Places (song), there is no other article in Wikipedia with this name, why is the internal disambiguation needed when All the Wrong Places (book) doesn’t exit and All the Wrong Places redirects to the song?
I also found Circle the Drain (song) when there wasn’t another article. I find interesting this case in particular, if you are an admin you can verify all of this. “ Circle the Drain” was a disambiguation page which contained two items, one about a song by Katy Perry (located in the article Circle the Drain (song)) and one about a song by 36 Crazyfists from the album Bitterness the Star. In the strict sense “Circle the Drain (song)” still ambiguous as 36’s is also a song; under PDAB arguments it should have been located in the first place at Circle the Drain (Katy Perry song). The same case is being applied to Another Love’s RM, there aren’t other links, but commentators were more worried about having multiple non-article songs than checking simple WP:PRECISION stuff. Also the article Left Behind: The Movie still being ambiguous as the movie Left Behind: World at War exists, should the first be moved to Left Behind: The Movie (2000 film) to avoid ambiguity?
Moving pages like Thriller (album) to MJ album is that I, and other people, asked, asks or will ask: which is the sense of moving Thriller (album) to Thriller (Michael Jackson album) if the redirect will lead there? That doesn’t solve the problem, it is moved from “Should this page be called “Thriller (album)”” to “Should “Thriller (album)” redirect here?” The title is not supposed to tell the reader what s/he is reading, that’s the function of the lead paragraph. Per PRECISION, we don’t move Energy to Energy (physics) and left a redirect of Energy to that page. It’s like moving Thriller to Thriller (disambiguation) and left the redirect there. There is no sense of disambiguate titles like these, as happended with Ohio District (LCMS) or Central Time Zone (North America), if their non-dabbed redirect page still redirecting there, why Revolver (album), Thriller (album) or The Wizard of Oz (film) are redirected to articles and not disambiguation pages? This is done under an argument “it is what they are searching”, but with a hidden message: “we want to inform the reader what s/he is reading with the article title”, why don’t we give them what they look for without redirects? They are readers, they have the ability of read.
According to In Oculi, items like “Primary albums, films, songs, plants, footballers*, cities (I put an asterisk mark to re-take it later)” has never existed in WPs, but who says they cannot be created? PDAB didn’t exist last May. First of all, as I asked before, was any of the WP:NCX created under consensus of their respective projects, or they were taken or copied from another project, or based upon WP:NC? When NC was created, common sense was applied? Because thanks to these guidelines people has lost its common sense as Deadmaus proved in its first move—yes, the “5” is an style, but it is pronounced anyway, it is not just a style, and people now believe WP:MOSTM is a policy.—Retaking the “footballers*”, if WP:FOOTY has not a primary topic about footballers, why Pelé and Pelé (footballer) are where they are when there are other three footballers with the same name, that’s a contradiction.
At Revolver (album) which was moved to Revolver (The Beatles album) when there was clearly no consensus to move, the moving admin, Tariq, cited PDAB as possibly the “consensus” to move the page regardless the RM decision, when in fact community consensus can override *any* existing policy or guideline (excepting WP:Copyrights, WP:Libel or any other policy that can bring problems to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.). The evidence of this is Star Trek Into Darkness. “Into” is a four-letter preposition and per WP:CT the page should be called “Star Trek into Darkness”, but it was moved per WP:COMMONNAME ( link), a situation ended being discussed in external references like The Independent. The policy WP:Username states that e-mail user names shouldn’t be used, then why accounts with e-mails still editing? Because we can’t obligate them to change their name, especially when this statement was added after their account creation.
Is it better to have pages like Revolver (album) (disambiguation)? I will notify users who have supported, opposed or commented in PDAB-related pages about this discussion (generally we are the same people who comment in similar situations), but also I will notify the projects affected by this, which are mostly those who have NCX pages. The intention of this survey is to see what's next for PDAB, if it is reworded, or merged, or removed with a real community participation bigger than a discussion of twelve users. Tbhotch. ™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
At Revolver (album) which was moved to Revolver (The Beatles album) when there was clearly no consensus to move, the moving admin, Tariq, cited PDAB as possibly the “consensus” to move the page regardless the RM decision, when in fact community consensus can override *any* existing policy or guidelineYeah, ok. Given Tbhotch's gusto against this issue, it should come as no surprise that that's an inaccurate summary of what happened at that RM. What happened was that supporters of the move cited PDAB (or the reasons that led to PDAB), while opponents either claimed that it would be harder to find the articles (which wouldn't actually happen so long as the redirect is there) or, more pertinently, expressed their disgust that PDAB even exists. Tbhotch conveniently didn't link to the very similar RM for Revolution (song), where those motives where even more transparent (with people calling it "dumb" and "a joke"). Yes, local consensus can override guidelines and policies, but there's got to be a legitimate reason to do so; your indignation that the PDAB discussion wasn't closed the way you wanted it to is not a legitimate reason. -- tariqabjotu 10:03, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The rest is background material on the issue presumably to help us answer. -- B2 C 16:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
...where multiple songs exist of the same name (such as Circle the Drain) no such song should exist at the page 'Circle the Drain (song)'. All such articles should exist as 'Circle the Drain (artistname song)'Given your example, it sounds like you actually support PDAB or at least a modification of it. Can you clarify? It doesn't sound like Tbhotch used that example for the same reason you have. -- tariqabjotu 22:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
With some naming conventions, it is appropriate to redirect a partially disambiguated term to an article.Kiss (band can still redirect to Kiss (American band) and Thriller (album) can still redirect to Thriller (Michael Jackson album). So, I'm not sure I understand that line of opposition. Is it just that the guideline, as written, is not clear enough about that? Or do you not see any value in eliminating partial disambiguators while allowing them to redirect to complete disambiguators? -- tariqabjotu 17:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
( edit conflict) I don't think that's against PDAB in function; PDAB currently says, again, that partial disambiguators can redirect to articles in some cases (although I believe this should be rewritten to be clearer). I've noted a couple points that seem to have been made in various PDAB-related discussions that put value in eliminating partial disambiguators while maintaining redirects. On the other hand, your declaration that the redirect is nonsense doesn't shed any light on why you don't see any value. I know you already think it's nonsense, but why? In other words, what harm is there to having an article at Kiss (American band) when Kiss (band) still redirects there? (That's, obviously, entirely different from Kiss (band) redirecting to Kiss (disambiguation), as evidenced by the number of people who think such a redirect inconveniences readers who have to make an extra click.) -- tariqabjotu 18:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't see why using a pdab as a title "prevents discussions about primary sub-topics" any more than using an ambiguous term as the title of the article about that term's primary topic (i.e., none).
Nothing at WP:NATURAL indicates disambiguation needs to fully disambiguate, nor does anything there support the retention of WP:PDAB.
These are not compelling reasons to override conciseness; they're essentially not reasons to do so at all.
This goes back to my main problem with PDAB - it creates conflict (with conciseness) and ambiguity (which should reign?) for no reason whatsoever (much less for a good reason). -- B2 C 22:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree with you, BDD, but Tariq has a valid point in that user inconvenience is not a reasonable objection to PDAB in that PDAB does not say anything against the ambiguous disambiguated term redirecting to the fully disambiguated title.
However, I think the real concern regarding user inconvenience is that once something like Kiss (band) is a redirect rather than the article title it is more likely to be changed to redirect to a dab page, and such a change is likely to to be unnoticed for a long time, and can be a user inconvenience.
Indeed, Revolution (song) already has been changed to redirect to Revolution (disambiguation)#Songs [18]. While this is not explicitly endorsed by PDAB, it is certainly encouraged. That's a problem. -- B2 C 18:26, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary. For example, it would be inappropriate to title an article "Queen (rock band)", as Queen (band) is precise enough to distinguish the rock band from other uses of the term Queen.That seems to be in line with the idea behind PDAB. -- tariqabjotu 18:55, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
No, one can't reasonably argue that more ambiguity in guidance about naming titles will lead to more stable titles. One might argue that a more restrictive PDAB, one that clearly disallowed use of pdabs as titles, would eventually lead to more stability (less ambiguity, more clarity, fewer unanswered questions, more stability), but that's not what we're talking about.
Sure you can find statements in policy which PDAB happens to not contradict; that's hardly an argument for PDAB, much less a strong one. WP:PDAB is written as if WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to pdabs. This is not WP:CONSENSUS. That's the problem, period. -- B2 C 21:46, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
WP:PDAB is written as if WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to pdabs. This is not WP:CONSENSUS.
You're right, I shouldn't have supported that move, and I shouldn't have included it as an example in the WP:Yogurt Principle. I'll take it out. I'm not going to propose it, but the YP does not apply because a strong policy-based argument can be made to move Independence Day (1983 film) back to Independence Day (film). First, the current configuration does not properly treat this film as the primary topic for Independence Day (film), which it clearly is. Second, if it's going to redirect to the film, it should be the title of the film, per concision. -- B2 C 18:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
The title of the primary topic article may be different from the ambiguous term. 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. When this is the case, the term should redirect to the article...
In the first case, WP:CONSENSUS is that it says the primary topic for "Independence Day" is the list national independence days, and, so Independence Day redirects to List of national independence days. That tells us nothing about what WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says about the term "Independence Day (film)". These are separate questions, and need to be answered independent of what we decide about the title for the article about the 1993 film, or any other title.
This is WP:D, not WP:AT. The guidance here is not about what titles should be. It's about how to deal with ambiguous terms. Ambiguous terms like "Independence Day" and "Independence Day (film)". It tells us whether such a term has a primary topic or not. If a term does have a primary topic, then it's a candidate to be used as a title for the article about that primary topic. Whether that term is used as the title, or a redirect to the title, is based on other WP:CRITERIA like concision. -- B2 C 20:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
But in terms of whether the move from Independence Day (film) to Independence Day (1996 film) should have taken place, I'm going to go with a resounding yes for the reasons made during the move request and reiterated by JHunterJ here. As stated by several people here, the idea of primary sub-topics is a minefield once you see what it allows. And I believe, despite what you've said, this has been understood across Wikipedia. In most fields, the idea of disambiguating topics like this wouldn't make sense. Could you imagine if there were a Scott Baker (pitcher) and Scott Baker (left-handed pitcher)? Or a Chris Brown (running back) [not as a redirect] and then a Chris Brown (running back, born 1987)? That's very confusing. And then in the few areas where partially disambiguated titles appear to be existent (music and films), these are against WikiProject guidelines ( WP:NCF and WP:NCM). So, I don't think we're introducing anything novel here; rather, PDAB just clarifies matters and encourages uniformity. -- tariqabjotu 22:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
there must be rules stating when an exception is appropriate, no. It is a fool's errand to attempt to define rules in such a manner for an environment like Wikipedia. The basis for such exceptions is the same as everything else, discussion and rough consensus. We might say something to the effect of describing when exceptions might be appropriate, but rules for exceptions only give rise to wikilawyers and more splitting of hairs. older ≠ wiser 16:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Bkonrad writes, " Although fuzzy guidelines drive some editors batshit-crazy, I think guidelines that imply black-and-white, no exceptions-allowed application very rarely reflect reality." I suggest this presents a false dichotomy. The choice is not between "fuzzy guidelines" and "black-and white, no exceptions-allowed".
Whenever we're discussing guideline changes or proposals, the real choice is often between "guidelines that provide more ambiguous guidance" and "guidelines that provide less ambiguous guidance". Some of us strongly believe that WP would be greatly improved, at least in the area of title stability, if we tended towards the latter choice whenever reasonably possible. That approach suggests favoring #2 in Powers' summary. -- B2 C 17:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
When the applicable rules conflict we have a situation where arguments on both sides can be made that are based on the rules. Since the rules conflict, the outcomes of any such discussions are often not much better nor more predictable or stable than decisions made by tossing a coin. This is why many of us favor improving the polices and guidelines by removing or at least reducing conflicts and ambiguities where reasonably possible - so more titles can be decided in a way that is likely to be uncontroversial and stable. -- B2 C 20:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Of course the are not all-encompassing, closed, deterministic system... for special cases we have IAR, WP:COMMON, etc. But that's for special cases. In general, the rules in the one sense that you specified should and do give good guidance on what to do. Every instance where these rules don't give us a clear guidance on what title to use is a likely opportunity to improve the rules; improve them by addressing the holes, conflicts or ambiguities that are causing the lack of clear guidance. When there is a clear opportunity to make the rules more clear, what's the reason to not? The fact that you specified only one sense of the rules suggests there is no other sense (please correct me if I'm wrong). Putting aside the rare special cases (especially with regard to title issues) where IAR is invoked, for better or for worse, the rules is all we have to go on. So, let's make them as good, clear, and unambiguous as we can. Okay? That's all I'm saying. -- B2 C 21:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
My positions are well documented, even on my own user page. If we want to expand the scope of this discussion please feel free to quote me from there or anywhere else and address that as well as what I'm saying here. But if you're going to argue with some impression you have of what you believe my position is or has been ("rules are part of an all-encompassing, closed, deterministic system"), that's not going to work.
That said, let's look at this statement, "In so many cases where there actually is no single answer that is correct or incorrect in any absolute sense, it makes no sense to pretend that some rule-based algorithm will determine what is best in any given situation better than informed discussion among editors". If the rules don't provide a single answer in a given situation, then of course no algorithm based on those rules will determine what is best in that situation. However, it might be possible to improve the rules so that they do provide one clear answer. What's the alternative? You call it, "informed discussion among editors", begging the same question, again: informed discussion based on what (if not JDLI)? What is this mysterious basis-for-title-decision-making to which you seem to keep referring ("confusing different senses of 'rules'"; "informed discussion among editors") without specifying, and how is it different from JDLI? -- B2 C 22:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I have been trying to read through this RfC and discussion and find myself having a hard time to understand it. I do not think the opening is neutral and brief as it should be and the following explanation is way too long to be much of an explanation. Then the survey section stating "You can add modify (rewrite), merge or remove and a reason or explanation, or you simply add your comments." is not neutral by eliminating options for editors who think there is no change needed. Overall, a briefer, more concise explanation would probably help attract more editors to this discussion because I think people seeing a wall of text will not bother reading through it to figure out what is going on to give their opinion. Aspects ( talk) 19:45, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
As usual, one editor, being unaware of what an RFC is for, attempts to dominate the discussion, with almost as many edits as everyone else put together. per contributors tool. Dicklyon ( talk) 01:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Is a parenthetical explanation for purposes other than title disambiguation allowed? Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:30, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I recently found myself asking "why the parenthetical" when I tried, unsuccessfully, to move
Anna Graceman (entertainer) to
Anna Graceman. I gathered something about suspect writing and dubious notability regarding a minor, which may no longer be the case.
Here's another thing. Hopefully, one of these days, I can get back to identifying and starting articles on notable people from
my hometown, since the collection of names found in that article is somewhat of a joke,
any good intentions notwithstanding. From what I've seen, the primary topic for "Harold Gillam" would be the elder Harold Gillam, the bush pilot. As for the younger Harold Gillam,
the mayor, I'm not sure that
Harold Gillam, Jr. would work in this case, since his father died during his early teens, and resultantly, he was only rarely known as "Junior".
Harold Gillam (mayor) or
Harold Gillam (politician) would make more sense. Given that the coverage of Alaska aviation is in far more of a shambles than coverage of Alaska politics, what happens if an article for the younger Gillam is written first?
RadioKAOS –
Talk to me, Billy
23:25, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I guess I would say that if a parenthetical explanation is absolutely forbidden, that needs to be spelled out somewhere as a MOS guideline. One problem is that these names are not Foo (indeclinable), they are Fooia, Fooius, and Fooii, which is why there is an inherent ambiguity, not a potential ambiguity, unless the scope/title is delimited with the word gens. I think everyone agrees that the word gens must be included in the title, because otherwise, it's a woman's name. I brought the issue here because someone had moved Annaea (gens) to Annaea, on the grounds that no disambiguation was required. But gens is part of the article title/scope, not a disambiguating phrase. So the issue is not disambiguation per se; it's that dab policy was used as the basis for a move that, if carried out randomly on some gens articles and not others, would cause taxonomical chaos. Since the naming of the gens articles is based on consistent nomenclature within a taxonomy, just as in scientific nomenclature, I've been in search of a way to title these articles that (a) can be used with taxonomical consistency throughout; (b) provides the most efficient access for users; and (c) doesn't make us look like illiterati in matters of Latinity. In an alphabetical index in a modern work of scholarship, an entry on a gens would appear as Fooia, gens (like "Shakespeare, William"). We don't do that for article titles. But because there are 200+ articles, using the correct Latin form (gens Fooia) would result in a search-box drop-down menu of little use to users, who are far more likely to be typing in the gens name first. That's the dilemma, because Fooia gens is not standard Latin. The current Fooia (gens) is meant to provide the accessibility of Fooia, gens as found in an index, without resorting to the non-standard Latin of Fooia gens. So here's where I'm going to leave it: there are about 230 articles titled Fooia (gens). There are two or three that are inconsistently titled, and need to made consistent. I, alas, lack the stomach for moving all these articles to the non-standard Latin Fooia gens, let alone the sheer stamina to move so many articles and fix any attendant problems. If it's important to make the moves to Fooia gens instead of Fooia (gens), lest the world of MOS come to an end, I applaud the diligence of any editor who takes on the job. If no one is willing to go to that trouble, then I read that as "no consensus" on the necessity of a move for all these titles, since if it's important and necessary, someone will do it. Cynwolfe ( talk) 17:07, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Currently, pages like 10th meridian and 10th parallel are disambiguation pages. There are hundreds of these, each showing two links accompanied by two maps, noting for example the 10th parallel north and 10th parallel south, or 10th meridian east and 10th meridian west. I am dubious about these being disambiguation pages at all, as I think that it is arguable that a "10th parallel", for example, is any parallel that varies by ten degrees from the equator, and that these are simply WP:DABCONCEPT to that definition. Thoughts? bd2412 T 21:23, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
Could someone clarify the meaning of WP:DABCONCEPT in relation to WP:PTOPIC? For a body of works under a single owner, should the main incoming link be the broad-overview of the whole or should it be the most popular work/character bearing that name? For Star Trek this would result in the original series being Star Trek instead of the topic overview of what Star Trek is and contains. Currently, two disputes are ongoing with implications to switch the topic level to the "most popular" material or "original" material when the work contains numerous entries of the same exact name, similarly prefixed or directly related by ownership. This seems illogical and confusing to the uninformed readers and probably not the purpose of DISAMB. Specifically, PTOPIC appears to be for ambiguous, but unrelated terms that cannot be served by DABCONCEPT and sufficiently rare and limited that a disambiguation page is not necessary for organizational purposes. ChrisGualtieri ( talk) 15:59, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
I just noticed the comment from B2C on Talk:On My Way (Charlie Brown song) that "ambiguity [on WP] has no meaning other than WP article name conflict", as stated in the first sentence of WP:D. --B2C 06:27, 12 August 2013 (UTC)"
Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles.
Perhaps we should expand "covered by Wikipedia articles" to "covered by the text of Wikipedia articles" since B2C (a self proclaimed "title expert") is reading "covered by Wikipedia articles" as "covered by the title of Wikipedia articles" - ? Seriously. Is this sentence open to this misunderstanding? In ictu oculi ( talk) 07:26, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Contrary to what In ictu oculi thinks I think, I know "covered by WP" does not mean "covered by the title of Wikipedia articles". Some topics are covered in subsections of articles. WP's process of disambiguation applies when a term can be used to refer to more than one topic covered by WP, whether that topic is the main topic of an article or a sub-topic of an article.
For example, we don't have an article about the kidnapper named James Dimaggio, but he is a sub-topic of Kidnapping of Hannah Anderson. Therefore, if we we ever need to cover another James DiMaggio, that name will be subject to our process of disambiguation. But, for now, despite the known existence of many other James DiMaggio's, as long as none have sufficient notability for coverage on notability, this James DiMaggio remains the primary topic, and James DiMaggio redirects to the article that covers him as a sub-topic.
To clarify this, we could change the current wording to say the following:
Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles (either as the main or a secondary topic of an article). Terms that are ambiguous only with uses not sufficiently notable to have coverage on Wikipedia are not subject to Wikipedia's process of disambiguation.
I should note that almost every endeavor, from science to politics to law to engineering, requires specialized terminology that includes "redefining" commonly used words to have specific narrow meanings in the relevant contexts. Remember, this is not terminology that readers encounter - it's terminology for efficient communication among the editors. Insisting on using the dictionary definitions of these words rather than the specialized WP meanings in WP editorial discussions is not helpful. -- B2 C 21:00, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
That's just plainly wrong, BDD. Any topic may be the primary topic for a number of different terms. Only one of those terms can be the title for the article about that topic - all the other terms for which that topic is the primary topic must redirect to that article. For example, New York City is the title, but the primary topic of "New York, New York" is also that article, and so New York, New York redirects to New York City despite the existence of many other uses of "New York, New York". If it were true that "We shouldn't have an article Foo (topic) without an article Foo", then we couldn't have New York, New York (film) since we don't have an article at New York, New York. -- B2 C 05:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
By the way, the relevance of your sweeping statement error to song articles is that we have New York, New York (Moby song) even though we have no article at New York, New York (song) (it's a redirect to the Music section of New York, New York (disambiguation)). -- B2 C 06:21, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
So let's get on and add it? In ictu oculi ( talk) 23:26, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people) as suggested. | ||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | ||
The questions for this RfC are: 1) should we continue to encourage/allow the use of "(entertainer)" as a disambiguator in entertainment-related articles, and 2) if so, under what circumstances. Dohn joe ( talk) 06:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC) Recent months have seen a number of requested moves to replace the "(entertainer)" disambiguator. Results have been mixed. Each individual RM has had relatively limited participation, so it would be nice to see if we can come to wider consensus on the issue, or if going case-by-case is necessary.
Why drop (entertainer)? It can be a vague, ambiguous catchall that in itself is not very descriptive. It's often only used sparingly in sources to describe a given person. One editor has suggested that the term only rightly applies to jesters, vaudevillians, burlesque acts and the like. Why keep (entertainer)? In the case where a person is notable across multiple areas of entertainment (i.e., as a singer and a dancer), choosing one of those areas to disambiguate may be misleading or less accurate than using an umbrella term. There are two fundamental questions to answer first. One is the definition of the word itself. One definition of "entertainer" is "a singer, comedian, dancer, reciter, or the like, especially a professional one". This would seem to at least allow for the possibility of its use on WP. The second question is how important WP:AT is in choosing a disambiguator. We rely heavily on sources for the actual name of a subject. Is that reliance lessened when we choose disambiguation? Does "entertainer" itself need to be found in sources, or can it be used to disambiguate when it makes sense otherwise? What are the options?
Please feel free to alert the relevant WikiProjects or others. Dohn joe ( talk) 06:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC) SurveyPlease indicate the number(s) of your preferred options here, along with a brief explanation if you wish.
Discussion |
I spent a few minutes googling "how to create a disambiguation page" and variations thereof. There's no simple, easy-to-follow guide for how to figure out how to change an old redirect https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Britten&redirect=no to a simple disambiguation page that also includes /info/en/?search=John_Britten and /info/en/?search=Britten_Motorcycle_Company and /info/en/?search=Britten_V1000 If we on Wikipedia want more and new users, these arcane and complicated information pages really need to be streamlined and user-friendly and convenient. Spending half an hour learning intricate syntax is fine if you want an exclusive boys club, but not terribly convenient for the amateurs. Could also start with automatic signing of posts like this one, lest I forget the four tildes. Pär Larsson ( talk) 14:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Foo may refer to:
{{disambig}}
Second opinion and action requested on this from experts in MOSDAB. Staszek Lem ( talk) 16:24, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
An attempt to modify, keep, or remove the partial guideline would have resulted no consensus, especially since no one closed it. Also, I tried to rename The Price Is Right (U.S. game show), but the proposal failed. This calls for further discussion before we can make a survey. -- George Ho ( talk) 04:15, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Where should the WP:PDAB shortcut be retargeted now that the section no longer exists in the guideline? Should it point to the archived discussion? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 23:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
( edit conflict) I gree with BD2412. Kiss (band) is an important example. It's no outlier. It's typical of exactly what PDAB is about. When one use of a common word is very well known, then it's almost certainly the primary topic within its topic area. -- B2 C 01:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Relevant to the ongoing saga of partial disambiguation, there is a discussion at Talk:Wrecking Ball (Miley Cyrus song)#Requested move which may be of interest. older ≠ wiser 16:36, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
As someone who was around when TWODABS was drafted, I know that the intention to write the guideline was to avoid removing the link to the non-primary article from the primary one. Thus inserting in the text that the DAB page can exist "instead of a link directly to the other article" would reverse the very reason why the guideline exist. The link to the other article should not be removed. Diego ( talk) 16:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
an {{ about}} hatnote can be used to link to a disambiguation page, in addition to a link directly to the other article.suggests that is is OK if the hatnote does not link to the disambiguation page. It seems completely pointless to me to have a disambiguation page that is not linked from the primary topic. We'd be better off suggesting that these be speedily deleted. While my preference would be to only have a direct link to the alternate topic in the hatnote, if there is a disambiguation page and there is consensus (for whatever reasons), I don't think it is so terrible to have the hatnote link only to the disambiguation page. Of course, if after some time the dab page is still only two dabs, it should IMO be deleted and a direct link to the alternate article placed in the hatnote. older ≠ wiser 20:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Here is another case: Nagina Masjid (disambiguation). Nagina Masjid only links the disambiguation page in the hatnote, which seems pointless to me. bd2412 T 13:54, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks to User:R'n'B, we now have a more precise grasp of how much of this project involved WP:TWODABS pages. Per R'n'B, " User:RussBot/Two-link disambiguation pages/001 is the beginning of a list of over 43,000 pages. That is, out of 235,400 total disambiguation pages, almost 20% contain only two (or fewer) links". That is quite a lot, in my opinion. bd2412 T 16:46, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Here is another issue that irks me: ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction. There is a comic book, and there is a film based on the comic book. I do not consider these to be "ambiguous". I consider the original media introducing the story to be the primary topic, and the adaptation of that story into other media to be an extension of that topic. bd2412 T 15:09, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't see anything here about homophones, e.g. whether we would expect to see "knap" added to the see also section of Nap (disambiguation). It would be good to have a guideline on this as I'm not sure whether to make this type of edit or not. -- Jameboy ( talk) 15:38, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
- Someone familiar (musician), American jazz singer
- Someone familiar (footballer), English footballer
This would help Users read and understand what TWODABS is saying. In ictu oculi ( talk) 00:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
Personally, I disagree with the primary topic requirement. If there is no primary topic, and even if we put the wrong topic at the base name, it's still no worse than the dab page situation (2 clicks).
Now, if a third use arises, that can change everything, but we should wait until we actually have a third use on WP to address that in each case. -- B2 C 00:43, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
If a disambiguation page does not appear to be needed because there are only two articles with the same title (one of them a primary topic), but there could reasonably be other topics ambiguous with the title on Wikipedia now or in the future, the {{ about}} hatnote should be used to link to the disambiguation page. At the same time, the {{ Only-two-dabs}} template should be added to the top of the disambiguation page, which will inform users that the page has only two ambiguous terms, and may be deleted if, after a period of time to allow readers and editors the opportunity to expand the disambiguation page, additional disambiguating terms are not found. The {{ Only-two-dabs}} template will also list the article in ‹The template Category link is being considered for merging.› Category:Disambiguation pages containing one non-primary topic, allowing other editors to locate these pages and help in expanding them.
Bkonrad, I know this might sound pedantic, but can you explain your reasoning without using the term, "primary topic"? So instead of saying, "if there is no primary topic, why pretend there is one?", you would ask: "if there is no topic that is most likely to be sought, why pretend there is one?" We can answer that: Because then seekers of that topic get to their desired article right away, without any cost to others.
I don't buy the page traffic complication argument. That assumes significant numbers of people seeking topic B give up when they reach the article for topic A, rather than click on the hatlink to the article they are seeking. -- B2 C 19:53, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
However, when searching via the WP Find/GO feature, especially without autosearch enabled for some reason, then titles are critical to helping users find the articles they seek. Those are the users we want to help find the articles they seek in the fewest number of clicks. This is absolutely critical to understanding and appreciating how we choose titles, dab pages and redirects on WP. -- B2 C 00:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
As to whether it's a "bad" practice for a non-primary topic to sit on an undisambiguated title, let's remember that it's common practice for WP articles to be at ambiguous titles. That is, anyone using internal search to find a non-primary topic, and searches with that topic's ambiguous name, is going to end up at the wrong article. So when this happens, we don't consider it "bad". At worst, it's non-optimal for those users, but for everyone involved, it's the most optimal configuration. We consider it better than sending everyone to the dab page at the ambiguous base name, because if we have the primary topic article at the base name, at least most users will get to their article with one click, while others will be two clicks from the dab page, and three clicks from their desired article. We consider that acceptable, not bad. But a TWODAB situation is different, because there the worst case is everyone being two clicks from their desired article (one click to dab page; second click to their article). So it's already better than the acceptable situation for the non-primary topics where an ambiguous title has more than two uses and a primary topic. What we're talking about is whether this already better-than-acceptable situation can be even better. What if we cause everyone to go to one of the two articles? At worst, that's identical to landing on the wrong article when searching for a non-primary topic. In fact, it's better, because the person landing on the wrong article is one click (on a hatnote link) from being at their desired article; no worse than they would be if they landed on a dab page. How is that "bad"? -- B2 C 22:32, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
anyone using internal search to find a non-primary topic, and searches with that topic's ambiguous name, is going to end up at the wrong article.Well, not necessarily. Unless they have the drop-down listing disabled for some reason, they will see a listing of articles with the title. Now if there is an obvious primary topic, most people will realize this and won't expect some other article at the base name. The parenthetical disambiguating terms will help in selecting the desired article. Also if I understand correctly, these articles are displayed in a ranked order by popularity, not by simple alpha sorting. In most cases, this means the disambiguation page appears lower in the listings, even when it is at the base name. Counting clicks, is in my opinion a completely misleading criteria for titling articles in an encyclopedia. I remain convinced that if there is no basis for choosing a primary topic we are doing readers a disservice by pretending that there is one. older ≠ wiser 00:03, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
I just don't see how it's any more of a disservice to take someone to an article with a hat note link to their desired article than it is to take them to a dab page with a link to their desired article. Fundamentally, why is the latter preferred at all, much less enough to warrant taking everyone to the dab page? -- B2 C 00:43, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Well here's a real example stumbled on by chance two days ago:
There's no way one of these can claim to be primary, primary depends on whether you like Broadway or opera, and I thought (and judging by edits so did other editors) that they were the same person. Why shouldn't this, or something like this, be in the guideline to show that we do use twodabs. In ictu oculi ( talk) 01:09, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Aha! John Quested.
John Quested may refer to:
- John Quested (producer) (born 1935), film producer and owner and chairman of Goldcrest Films
- John Quested (aviator) (1893–1948), English World War I flying ace
Both are moderately substantial articles on people of limited notability confined to a single field. There is no likely primary topic between them. bd2412 T 15:43, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Bkonrad, I don't understand how putting either at the base name is a violation of neutrality, since putting an article at a base name is not a statement conveying relative importance or anything else we need to be neutral about. Besides, we can do the "coin toss" alphabetically (aviator comes before producer), which of course would be totally neutral. -- B2 C 21:01, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Since you think placing one article at a name without disambiguation and another at a title with a parenthetical term very strongly suggests there is some relative difference in importance between them...
I mean, if the lack of parenthetic disambiguation in John Quested would strongly suggest that that John Quested is more important than John Quested (aviator), why doesn't the lack of parenthetic disambigution in Nicholas Campbell strongly suggest that that Canadian actor with surname Campbell is more important than Douglas Campbell (actor)? Why doesn't the lack of parenthetic disambiguation in Britz strongly suggest that that Berlin locality is more important than Spandau (locality)? -- B2 C 00:13, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
This is where my concern comes in. I agree that in a TWODABS situation "where there is no basis for choosing a primary topic", we should not assert one. However, I would say that where there is just about any for choosing one, then we should choose that one. I would contend, for example, that a 57/43 split in average page views or Google hits favoring one over the other is sufficient. bd2412 T 19:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
So, more generally, in a case of TWODABS, either article, not the dab page, should be at the base name, regardless of whether either actually meets the primary topic criteria.
A while ago we seem to achieve consensus that an article at a base name does not necessarily mean the article's topic is the "primary topic" of that base name, most notably in the "only topic" case. For example, the topic of Thomism is not the primary topic of "Thomism" even though its article is at Thomism - because that use is the only use of "Thomism". So we already have countless precedents of articles about topics that are not primary being at the base name. So let's not get hung up on that. Being at a base name title does not necessarily means that article's topic is the primary topic. It might be the only topic, or it might be the winner of a 57/43 TWODABS situation, or it might be the winner of a coin toss 50/50 TWODABS situation.
Bkonrad, saying "it's a matter of principle" is evading the question. How much, quantified on the 1-10 "matter scale" I presented above, does it matter if we present this "bias" to readers? How much does it matter? -- B2 C 20:01, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't feel "that there is something inherently bad about having a disambiguation page at the base name where there is no primary topic"! I'm saying that when there is just one other topic, it's better to have either topic at the base name, then a TWODAB dab page at the base name. It's better for two reasons:
Do you get the value of landing directly on the article which you seek rather than on a dab page with a link to the article you seek? Rather than on an article with a hatnote link to the article you seek? These are the values at conflict here. Now, unless these values are quantified somehow (hence the Matter Scale and question), how can we make a reasoned decision? -- B2 C 00:48, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
As to your questions, yes, of course I get "that there is more to an encyclopedia that helping half of the persons looking for a page?". That's why I want to make sure those other things are not significantly compromised.
And, of course I "understand that including the disambiguating term in such marginal cases does help readers avoid landing at the dab page and get to the article they want?" But that's irrelevant because the disambiguated term can exist as a redirect and will thus be just as helpful as when it's part of a title. -- B2 C 19:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, Bkonrad, that distinction is indeed self-evident to us WP title wonks. But not to anyone else. To others, the distinction is artificial. Either parenthetical disambiguation diminishes importance, or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. -- B2 C 00:58, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
I like the usage of the term WP:COINTOSS and that would make a good shortcut to the section of WP:TWODABS dealing with 60/40 situations. A real example in a grey box John Quested would still be visually helpful. I don't see any substantive reason above for not giving an example, nor against this example. In ictu oculi ( talk) 23:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
You referred to improving "recognizability to the unfamiliar" as a good thing, yes? If that's not acceptance and outright advocacy for "the argument that a title could be 'improved' by making the title more recognizable" (which would lead to title changes such as those listed above), then please explain... for I misunderstood. I don't see where or how you draw the line. -- B2 C 01:54, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
"A title that is mistakenly recognized as something else by a reasonable set of readers familiar with the something else, is bad." But, then, aren't most primary topic titles, excluding the ones about widely known topics like Paris, "bad"? I mean, given that the term is ambiguous, won't it be recognized as one of the other uses by a "reasonable set of readers familiar with" one of the other uses?
Yes, I like bright lines. Bright lines are the antidote to bickering about issues that ultimately don't matter. When a bright line is possible, I prefer that to vague and ambiguous guidance, for that reason. -- B2 C 19:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
In other words, a primary topic should be recognizable to most readers, or at least recognizable to most readers who recognize the similarly titleable other topics.
Paris is (or should be) recognizable to all educated people in an international context, so there is no astonishment in someone searching an international encyclopedia for "paris" to upload the article Paris.
Welland is a better example of bad. The Ontario city is obscure and unrecognized to an international audience. Many readers will be familiar with a competing Welland, yet have no knowledge or interest in the Ontario city. The people of Adelaide may very well assume that their Welland is unique, and will be astonished to upload the link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welland and be astonished that they have uploaded a large article on a completely unrelated place. Possibly, they wouldn't be astonished, due to familiarity with Wikipedia's North America bias, but this bias is bad.
Neither Someone familiar (musician), American jazz singer, nor Someone familiar (footballer), English footballer, are presumably broadly internationally recognized, so neither should be presumed to be primary, regardless of the ratio of their respective negligible non-local recognizabilities. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Welland is not atypical. It is but one in a myriad of such examples. Your position is that primary topics should not be at base names unless they are "recognizable to most readers". If adopted in policy, this position would require renaming most titles of primary topic articles (since most primary topics are like Welland... not "recognizable to most readers". Thankfully, there is no consensus support for your view. -- B2 C 01:34, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Welland is indeed a common inocuous example, looking just at Welland, Ontario and Welland, South Australia, ignoring the other significant related and unrelated Wellands. Millions of South Australians are likely to encounter mention of Welland in reference to Welland SA, and should they have reason, if they go to Wikipedia, they'll be astonished to find themselves taken to Welland ON, a largish page, downloading for them at backwater speed. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:29, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
How is it more accurate? Accurate with respect to what? -- B2 C 01:34, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Contentiousness about what, exactly? The original use would remain at the base name unless and until another use was the primary topic, or there was a total of three or more uses. Let's take a closer look at #A hypothetical TWODABS example. -- B2 C 15:50, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
No basis for choosing between the two? Excuse me? "Whichever was created first" is the basis. You may not like it, but it is a valid basis for choosing which one of two articles should be located at the undisambiguated title. Not only is it valid, but it is contention-proof, since only one of the two can possibly meet the created first criterion. -- B2 C 20:26, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
But perhaps you too are conflating "primary topic" with "title is base name" (why do people do that?).
My position is this: we are certainly able to determine which of two articles that share the same common name was created first. There can be no dispute about our ability to determine this. We can also agree that we can determine whether we have consensus about either of TWODABS topics being the primary topic, and, that if consensus about that is in the affirmative, then that topic should be at the base name.
The only dispute is about what to do if neither topic is primary. In that case your position is that both titles should be disambiguated and there should be a dab page. And my position is that the article that was created first should be at the base name, and the article created later should be the one and only one that is at a disambiguated title (and that there is no need for a DAB page). We also disagree on the "cost" of landing on the "wrong" article, the "cost" of landing on a dab page, the benefit of landing on the sought article instead of on a dab page, and the benefit of landing on the sought article instead of landing on the "wrong" article. At any rate, I certainly do not hold that opinion "that we should always be able to determine a primary topic". -- B2 C 06:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
If people would do search queries with reasonable information input, the search engines (internal or external) wouldn't send them to DAB pages. This practice, of assuming that most inadequate searchers want the most popular page serves as bad confirmation bias. Inadequate searchers should learn to search a little better. Placing the ambiguous but most popular page at the undisambiguated title defeats the search engine's cleverer algoriths because our default search box will take you to the title of exact match by default. It confuses external searchers because they look first at the list of returned page titles. If the most popular topic were at a disambiguated title, a search for that title would take the searcher there if the search algorithms and current data supported it, and if the decision is a mistake, modern search engines can detect that, and learn. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:19, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Before there was a TWODABS shortcut this is what the relevant paragraph said [19]:
If there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic, then a disambiguation page may be used; an alternative is to set up a redirect from the term to one of the topics, and use disambiguation links only.
I'm not sure when that got usurped by the current much more restrictive language, by I am not aware of a single case where anyone would be better served by a dab page than by a variant on the alternative described here (the variant is: put either of the two articles at the term; a hatnote link to the other at a disambiguated title). -- B2 C 01:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
additional section on an important subject which was hidden away on MOSDAB; however, at that point in time, I could find no exact correlate on MOSDAB. The closest I could find was here, though the content is quite different. A short time after Kotniski's edits, there was a very relevant discussion of that specific text. That discussion referenced an earlier, inconclusive discussion here (which by the way has an interesting statistical analysis based on some informal usability testing). Also, precipitating the former discussion, the text was modified 14:13, 22 September 2008 by JHunterJ to require a disambiguation page if there is no primary topic. Shortly after, Kotniski reverted and flagged the section as disputed. A few days later, Kotniski revised the text to
However if there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic, then a disambiguation page is used.older ≠ wiser 02:05, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
On the other hand, I am open to the idea that plant names should be presumed PT over song titles (natural world topics over human commercial products). However, exceptions would be where a plant is named after a song. A plant may be a new designer hybrid, a commercial product, and named after a song for marketing purposes. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:01, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
I essentially concur with SmokeyJoe's reasoning, and I find it a very reasonable interpretation of "highly likely to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term": if there are different significant audiences around the world and one of them is likely to have never heard about the primary topic, it can't be a primary topic - as those readers are not looking for it with any probability. I think distinguishing between "primary topics" (those recognizable by almost anyone that knows the name) and "high volume topics" (those looked for by many people, but that a significant number of readers would recognize as a different topic). The first could safely be placed at the base name; for the latter, I think the optimum would be achieved by having disambiguation pages ordered by number of visitors - thus the high volume topic is easy to spot, but those looking for other topics still get a helpful navigation page (instead of the wrong article plus a tiny hat note). Diego ( talk) 12:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Building on the discussion above, let's consider the effect of the two TWODABS approaches being discussed,
on the following hypothetical but realistic situation:
Under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, we would have:
Under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, we would have:
Now, which scenario is simple, more stable and less contentious? Which is more complex, less stable and more likely to foster contention?
Consider that under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, nothing changes between stages 2 and 3, so there is no need for the community to even evaluate when that happens. But under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, the community is required to ascertain that point, to decide when to disambiguate the title of the plant article to make room for the dab page at the base name.
-- B2 C 15:57, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
there needs to be consensus that the first use is not the primary topic before its title is disambiguated. Any admin can make such an evaluation and BOLDly move the articles (or non-admins can as well, if the new name doesn't already exist). Or non-admins might make a technical request if it appears uncontroversial. Unless you're suggesting that any change of primary topic is automatically controversial and therefore must be discussed before moving. Of course, such BOLDness might be challenged (or if it happened some time ago, someone might question whether circumstances have changed. Point is, that whomever creates the second page has to consider what sort of disambiguation to use, and in that process is very likely to consider whether the second topic is equal to or surpasses the first article. It need not be a big production. Consideration of the applicability of TWODABS by the community only really arises when the existing arrangement is questioned. WP:STATUSQUO (which is an essay, BTW, only really applies in the context of reversions) and it DOES NOT mean change does not happen -- it quite explicitly calls for discussion to establish consensus. Similarly, WP:TITLECHANGES primarily applies to controversial title changes. Many would consider that the need to disambiguate a title because there is another article that could have the same title and no obvious primary topic would be a good reason to change the title. I think the clearest, most readily comprehensible guidance to editors is that if there is no primary topic, use a disambiguation page at the base name. older ≠ wiser 17:38, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
there needs to be consensus that the first use is not the primary topic before its title is disambiguated.
And for consensus to exist in a given situation does not mean some significant number of editors more than one have to look at the situation and agree. If policy supported by consensus clearly indicates a certain decision in a given situation, then consensus supports that decision, by definition, even if only one person (like the creator of an article) is even aware of the situation. -- B2 C 08:06, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Diego ( talk · contribs) makes the following claim above:
The third step is: Some time later, as the size and notability of the corporation grows, there is no primary topic. That doesn't necessarily mean "more visitors will be interested in the company than in the plant, but not enough to make its article primary", but let's assume that is the case, because it is possible. Let's say the distribution of interest is 60% for the company, and 40% for the plant, and consider what happens to those entering "Climpaton" in the WP search box and clicking on Go in each case.
Under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, we would have:
Under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, we would have:
I fail to see why the dab page scenario is a "better compromise". -- B2 C 17:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
The analysis is complete with respect to all that mattersStrongly disagree for the reasons already stated.
Users using the drop-down list are just as irrelevant as Google searchers - the article will be selected through the search mechanism and the sought article will be reached directly-- unclear what this is supposed to mean. For the record I strongly disagree that internal search is as irrelevant as external searches.
In a TWODAB case, at least one of the two titles will be disambiguated, and will either be recognized as the one being sought, or the one not being sought. In the latter case, if the one being sought is undisambiguated, it will be known to be the desired articleAnother fine example of shortsighted binary black/white reductionism resting on a dubious presumption that an undisambiguated title can be recognized as correct equally easily as a parenthetically disambiguated title. I suggest it is far easier for a reader to recognize the desired title in such situations when it is disambiguated rather than having to do a mental calculus -- not X, therefore it must be Y (although maybe Y is something else...I guess I'll just have to click on it to find out). older ≠ wiser 21:27, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
You wrote: an undisambiguated title can be recognized as correct equally easily as a parenthetically disambiguated title
That's out of context. I'm not suggesting anyone will recognize the title from the undisambiguated title all alone. The context is choosing between the undisambiguated title and the title disambiguated with something that either matches or doesn't match the desired topic. If it matches, the disambiguated title is it; otherwise the undisambiguated is it.
For example, consider Alunite. You may be looking for the mineral, or the town in Utah. Your choices are Alunite and Alunite, Utah. If you're looking for the mineral, even if you don't know about the town, you'll know that Alunite, Utah is not about the mineral, so Alunite must be your article. Similarly, if you're looking for the town and you don't know about the mineral, you'll know Alunite, Utah is your article, not Alunite. There is no need to move Alunite to Alunite (mineral). And there is no more benefit to anyone in disambiguating both titles in any other TWODABS situation, including when neither is primary. -- B2 C 04:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't deny the benefit, just as you cannot deny that the benefit would apply for primary topics too, especially for any primary topic that is not broadly recognized. Like Allunite.
So now we're back to the Matter Scale, because this is really about how much it matters. Yes, it might take a bit longer "to process the scenario in which one option is clearly marked and one is unmarked than the scenario in which both options are marked", but how much longer, and, more importantly, how much does that bit more matter? If you're still unwilling to try to quantify the answers to these qualitative questions in a manner that allows for relative comparisons and weighings, I don't see how the discussion can reasonably proceed. -- B2 C 17:00, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Anyway... you claim that "no one familiar with what the town in Utah is would be surprised that something else is at the unmarked base name". Fair enough. But check it out. What you're saying is that anyone familiar with a (non primary) use in a TWODABS situation (like the town of Alunite) would not be surprised to find another use at the base name, even if they're not familiar with it (like the mineral Alunite). I agree again. Let's call this the Bkonrad Principle, okay?
Now, shouldn't this Bkonrad Principle apply to a TWODABS case where neither use is primary? I mean, whether the use at the base name is primary or not can't matter to someone who is unfamiliar with that use. Therefore, whether the unfamiliar use at the base name is primary can't be a factor in whether they are surprised by it being at the base name. And, so, per this principle, anyone familiar with one of the non primary uses should be no more surprised to find the other (unfamiliar) non-primary use at the base name than he or she would be if that unfamiliar use was primary.
This is exactly my point, and one of the main reasons I support, If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name for TWODABS cases. It shouldn't be any more surprising, nor any more problematic in any way, for anyone to find the other (unfamiliar) use at the base name in a TWODABS case if it is not primary, than it is for someone looking to find the town of Alunite to find the (unfamiliar) mineral at Alunite, which you agree is acceptable. -- B2 C 04:38, 4 October 2013 (UTC) added "which you agree is acceptable" for emphasis. -- B2 C 06:36, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Alunite is not a relatively obscure mineral. We know little of your geological knowledge, so " I, for one, never heard of it" means little. How long is your list of recognized minerals? List of minerals reports that there are only 4700 of them. Alunite is mined commercially around the world.
Alunite is the primary topic for the term "alunite", discounting the town, for multiple reasons. Ambiguous non-primary-topics, where the competing topics are unrelated and individually significant, should be disambiguated, per the principle of least astonishment. The town is not unrelated.
No. The Born2cycle-Bkonrad Principle is not looking very worthy. It is introduced on a false premise (that someone could reasonably be familiar the town of Alunite but not familiar with the mineral Alunite). Familiarity implies holding some non-negligible amount of information. If a term evokes recognition of a familiar topic, and a competing topic is unfamiliar, then this competing topic should not be ascribe "Primary Topic" status. Given that the convoluted argument begins with a dubious invented principle, its not worth further study. It amounts to an arbitrary bright.
Arbitrary bright lines are bad. They would mean that Wikipedia would be run according unnatural rules. This hurts accessibility of the project to new editors, and remaining accessible to newcomers is an even more important principle than anything mentioned so far. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:51, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, these people are not familiar with the town, they have just stumbled upon it. As soon as they know just the first little bit, they will have encountered mention of the mineral. Alunite is not very interesting an example. A more challenging example is Welland. Consider Welland ON vs Welland SA. I consider both obscure, and that a whole lot of biases are at play. Also consider Welland ON vs Colin Welland, or any other unrelated pair.
"The point is that being familiar with only one of two topics named X does not mean one would be surprised to find the unknown topic at the base name X."
The contrary is exactly my point. If someone can reasonably assume that their X is the only X, they will be astonished to find X udisambiguate is something completely unrelated. This can occur very easily for obscure topics both named ofter sometime historically distant, like Welland. (unlike Alunite).
"Finding an unfamiliar topic at the base name of the non-primary topic being sought is simply not problematic in any significant way."
This sounds like you don't value the principle of least astonishment.
I have never said that all of your arguments are wrong. However, you conflate arguments, and some of your arguments are not palatable.
"nor does it hurt accessibility of the project to new editors or to anyone else"
Here you are denying what someone else has already said to you from experience. It is also my experience. If you search for something you expect to find, and find something else, unexpected, unrelated, unfamiliar, then you are astonished, and astonishment has a discouraging feedback to the searcher. This discouragement is a negative contribution to accessibility. Have you read much about the principle of least astonishment? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 08:02, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
The claim that there is extra time required to "recover" from landing on a "wrong" article, as compared to landing on a dab page, is pure fiction, as far as I can tell. Do you need this extra time when it happens to you? I know I don't. Do you know anyone who needs the extra time? -- B2 C 20:56, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
The claim that there is extra time required to "recover" from landing on a "wrong" article, as compared to landing on a dab page, is pure fiction, as far as I can tellAnother faulty presumption. Have you ever watched a well-formed usability test? I have and I'd say it is far more likely to disorient a reader to end up at the "wrong" article than to arrive at a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 21:20, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
The claim that there is extra time required to "recover" from landing on a "wrong" article, as compared to landing on a dab page, is pure fiction, as far as I can tell- It is not. As Bkonrad pointed out, this old discussion had an editor who found people requiring up to 30 seconds to find out the hat note, and others not discovering it at all; this mirrors my experience when arriving to the wrong article. If you try to optimize the hatnote, you start acting against the purpose of the article, which is allowing the content of the article to be read. If you make the hatnote more salient, you hurt those readers who have arrived to the right article. The way to help readers is to not force them into the wrong article from the start. As DAB pages are optimized for browsing and are more lightweight than articles, they load faster and finding the right link is easier. If you allow each type of page to be used for its main purpose (disambiguation pages to decide ambiguous titles, articles to read content), instead of mixing their goals, each page can be used to its best. Diego ( talk) 22:42, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Quite a few reader don't give much thought to what will be on the other end of the link when they type?. Yes. This is even my behaviour when working on a good computer with fast connection speed. Should we title articles to anticipate common clumsy searching? I think we should weight the principle of least astonishment highly, and rely on search engines to interpret search queries. I suggest that fast and easy internet access encourages clumsy searching, and that we are not working for quality if we optimize for clumsy searching. (google will always beat us in that race)
Quite a few editors don't give much thought to what will be on the other end of the link when they type it? I appreciate that this is a source of irritation, including to people like you who fix misdirected links. I can well imagine that not-so-careful editors dealing with popular topics will often link to the undisambiguated title regardless of whether the undisambiguated title hosts a DAB page. This is an editor issue that requires education, and I think it is bad practice to alter the product (compare Wikipedia:Product, process, policy) to ameliorate editors' bad habits. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 03:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
What about someone searching for the town of "Alunite" and ending up on an article about the mineral at Alunite? Do you believe that article should be moved to Alunite (mineral)? Why or why not? -- B2 C 04:43, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
OK, a lot to take in here since I last checked, and a whole lot I disagree with. First, yes, you are being overly pedantic. A primary topic, in the contect of disambiguation, only exists when there is an unmarked title (or redirect). You objections are purely pedantic). You wrote: What you're saying is that anyone familiar with a (non primary) use in a TWODABS situation (like the town of Alunite) would not be surprised to find another use at the base name, even if they're not familiar with it (like the mineral Alunite).
No, this is not my point at all. It is not "any" use -- it is the primary use. It is precisely because there is a very clear primary topic that there is no surprise that the non-primary topic does not have the unmarked title. Turn the example around. Suppose that the ghost town article was created first at the unmarked name (and that the creator ignored the USPLACE naming convention). I expect that readers looking for the mineral would be very surprised and irritated to find the article on the ghost town with the unmarked title.
Similarly, if neither of two topics are primary and one is placed at the unmarked title, there will be a element, if not of surprise, perhaps more accurately of disorientation, for readers looking for the other topic. As SmokeyJoe has pointed out, your proposition completely ignores usability and assumes that hatnotes are perfectly equivalent to dab pages for assisting in navigation. They are not. With two non-primary topics of approximately equal notability (which after all is the essence of a TWODAB situation), first, the likelihood of a reader arriving at the disambiguation page is minimized by first, having both titles marked and secondly, by having the disambiguation page at the marked title -- mistaken links to the dab page are more likely to be fixed. older ≠ wiser 09:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
Now, back to the TWODABS situation. Now, under current guidance, it's an issue because we can have the city at Welland only if it is the primary topic. Why is that, if not because those familiar with and looking for the English village, but not familiar with the Ontario village, would be confused or disoriented or something if they landed upon the Ontario city at Welland? But that confusion and disorientation (or however you want to characterize "the problem") would not occur if the Ontario city is the primary topic? Why does it matter? How is WP better if the city is at the base name Welland if and only if the city is the primary topic? -- B2 C 14:16, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
If the city is the only use, it can be at Welland - no questions asked. If there is another use, say the village, disambiguation can be fully and easily handled by disambiguating the second use. Why do we have to disambiguate both uses just because there is no consensus that the city is the "primary topic"? You seem to accept the notion that no primary topic means a dab page is required... but why? What is the reasoning that underlies this axiom, especially in terms of it applying in the TWODABS case? That's what I'm questioning. -- B2 C 14:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
If it is the case that "hat notes are hard to read and the reader can miss them", that sounds like a problem to be fixed with hatnotes, since they appear on tens of thousands of articles. bd2412 T 18:32, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
This whole discussion comes down to the perceived cost of having readers land on the "wrong" article (but with a hatnote link to the sought article), especially that cost compared to the perceived cost of landing on a dab page instead of the sought page.
If landing on the sought page has a cost of 0 units, landing on the dab page costs 3 units, and landing on the wrong article costs 5 units, consider 100 people of which 60 seek one use and 40 seek the other. If we have the more popular use at the base name, the total cost is 60 * 0 + 40 * 5 = 200. If we have a TWODABS dab page at the base name, the total cost is 100 * 3 = 300, thus it's better, by 100 units, to have no dab page.
Of course, if you perceive a bigger cost to landing on the "wrong" article, say 10 units vs the 3 unit cost to landing on a dab page, then the numbers are 60 * 0 + 40 * 10 = 400 (for no dab page) vs. 300 (article at base name), per which having the dab page is better.
Personally, I see the cost of landing on the wrong article only slightly higher than the cost of landing on a dab page (like 5 vs 3), which is why I support no dab page in the TWODABS situation. But others seem to perceive a bigger difference, perhaps on the order of 10 vs 3, which is probably why they support the dab page. In a primary topic situation, in which, say, 75 of 100 seek one of the two topics, a 10/3 assignment of the relative costs indeed results in favoring no dab page. The total cost for no dab page would be 75 * 0 + 25 * 10 = 250; but for dab page we would have 100 * 3 = 300.
So I think you have to believe the relative cost difference between landing on the wrong article vs a dab page is that great, on the order of 10 vs 3, in order to favor a dab page in a TWODABS situation with no primary topic. If anyone really believes landing on an article with a hatnote link is more than three times worse than landing on a dab page, a subjective assessment with which I cannot quarrel, then I have to admit that support for a dab page in the TWODABS situation with no primary topic is rational and reasonable. -- B2 C 18:47, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Remember, in a More-Than-Two-Dabs case with primary topic, we have an article at the basename, and usually a hatnote to the dab page. So the cost there for landing on the wrong article is even higher, for the hatnote link still does not get you to the sought article (as it does in the TWODABS case), but to a dab page from which you have to find your desired article and click again.
So landing on the wrong article simply can't be that bad, especially with that "wrong" article's hatnote link leads you directly to the sought article rather than to a dab page. Over three times as bad as landing on a dab page? I just don't see it. -- B2 C 19:59, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
(ec x2) I think your analysis overemphasizes direct hits and fails to consider that having marked names help readers avoid landing on the "wrong" page and get to the desired page in the first place. I don't think there's any way to quantify this (not even with made up valuations as in your hypothetical) without some testing with well-designed usability tests. And it does not take into consideration the benefit that links to a disambiguation page have a significantly higher probability of being detected and fixed than if a non-primary or marginally primary topic is at the unmarked title. Yes, these points also apply to primary topics, but the consensus has been that the nature of a primary topic is that either a) readers are likely to anticipate that there is a primary topic and adjust their search strategy accordingly (e.g. Paris or George Washington or Iron); or b) in the event they do arrive at the "wrong" page, they are able to readily recognize why THAT page has the unmarked title instead of the desired topic and then adjust their search strategy accordingly (either by using the hatnote or by refining their search. older ≠ wiser 20:34, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Diego wrote: "Primary topics aren't unexpected by definition, so [wrongly landing upon articles about primary topics instead of the sought article] produce[s] a qualitatively different and much less problematic experience [than landing on an article that is not the primary topic for the search term]."
That distinction is true only for certain primary topics - those that are universally known, like Paris. Most primary topics are not universally known, like Welland, Lorca, The Economist, Monterrey, Gruzinsky, Mitte. You can't argue WP:OTHERSTUFF because these are not exceptions; these are typical primary topic articles probably representative of the majority.
Consider people, say an American historical political figure and a British athlete in which one is significantly more notable in general than the other, and, so, is considered to be the primary topic. But British fans searching for the athlete are likely to not be familiar with the American historical figure, just as many researching the historical figure are likely to be unfamiliar with the British jock. For example, John Marshall and John Marshall (footballer).
I don't believe there is any practical difference in how problematic the experience is of landing on an article different from the one being sought in terms of whether the topic of the "wrong" article is primary or not. I mean, yeah, in the few cases where the primary topic happens to be universally known, but not in the vast majority. The worst case is just as bad (and that's not very bad at all) whether the wrong article landed upon is about a "primary topic" or not. -- B2 C 22:45, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
"If landing on the sought page has a cost of 0 units, landing on the dab page costs 3 units, and landing on the wrong article costs 5 units"
No.
Assume that a reader has entered to too brief search query, using the new style of search box that takes you to a single page and doesn't give any options.
If landing on the sought page has a cost of 0 units. OK, this defines the reference.
Landing on the dab page costs 3 units. No. more like -1. In the above, landing on the right page, the reader got lucky, suffers confirmation bias, and continues unknowing that he remains in the ignorant majority. Given the goals of the project, readers suffering confirmation bias and remaining ignorant is definitely a net negative.
Landing on the wrong article costs 5 units. Unsure. Unsure on both sign and magnitude. The reader has learnt that his search was based on his misconception, and therefore has learnt something, and this is a positive. However, the page arrived at doesn't actually provide much information, doesn't place his objective in the picture, and this is a negative. However, the reader only has to follow the moderately prominent hatnote. The cost of this is small, although dependent on hardware and connectivity factors.
B2C's apparent working assumption is that giving the reader what they expect is the main goal. I suggest that it is not. If the reader is already well educated, then he should know how to obtain what he wants better than by using an inadequate search query. So, therefore, we should assume that this reader is not so knowledgeable. To give a searcher what they most probably want, may often be right, and other times may be misleading. See confirmation bias, for example. If a kid cries, is the right solution to give the kid what most kids want, an ice cream, and then to walk away? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:47, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you intended to convey with this, but what your words mean is that it is better to send readers to a dab page than to "the right page", since, by sending them to the "right page", they simply "got lucky" and now suffer "confirmation bias" and "continues unknowing that he remains in the ignorant majority". So it is better to send them to the dab page rather than the "right page" because "remaining ignorant is definitely a net negative".
You accept the cost of landing on the right page is 0 units as a reference. But you say having them land on the dab page is even better (-1 units).
We agree the cost having to follow the hatnote "is small". -- B2 C 01:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Above, Bkonrad claims the hypothetical scenario I constructed favors my position. He encourages us to consider a situation in which the second use is "out of the box of comparable notability to the first." Fine; let's consider the effect of the two TWODABS approaches being discussed on such a situation:
Under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, we would have:
Under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, we would have:
Now, which scenario is simple, more stable and less contentious? Which is more complex, less stable and more likely to foster contention?
Consider that under If there is no primary topic, whichever was created first is at the base name, nothing changes at stage 2, so there is no need for the community to even evaluate anything at that point. But under If there is no primary topic, a disambiguation page should be at the base name, the community is required to ascertain whether the second use is sufficiently notable for the first use to no longer meet primary topic criteria, to decide whether to disambiguate the title of the plant article to make room for the dab page at the base name. -- B2 C 17:12, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you to all for comments above. Now is it too early to take a show of hands on including the John Quested example (sorry if I've missed better example in discussion above) in WP:DAB text? In ictu oculi ( talk) 04:55, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
John Quested may refer to:
- John Quested (producer) (born 1935), film producer and owner and chairman of Goldcrest Films
- John Quested (aviator) (1893–1948), English World War I flying ace
I suppose the question is that given that this case can exist, should an example be given? Yes or no? In ictu oculi ( talk) 06:18, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Here's another good example:
Ashley County may refer to:
- Ashley County, Arkansas, a county in Arkansas
- Ashley County, New Zealand, a county on the South Island of New Zealand
Cheers! bd2412 T 01:55, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Okay, how about:
Bland County may refer to:
- Bland County, Virginia, United States
- Bland County, New South Wales, Australia
Cheers again! bd2412 T 02:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure of the question. Is it: "Is these, or are these, good examples for the guideline on ambiguous topic pairs, where neither is primary?" Yes, I think so.
Both pairs have the unneceesary, harmless but occassional helpful, DAB pages containing two links.
Why do three of the four articles not have hatnotes, whether pointing either to its pair, or to the DAB page? I would think that all disambiguated pages should have a hatnote? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 03:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)