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See also: #Proposal for regular use of hatnotes on biographical articles to facilitate links to "others" with a shared or similar name

In relation to the above named proposal (but hopefully with stand alone content) I propose that a Template:Navbox system (or similar) might be developed so as to present additional and relevant navigation content in a similar format as various Template:Infobox examples. Perhaps this might be done in a similar way as Template:Wikt with fixed width or perhaps it might be enabled to combine with content such as Template:TOC right with variable width.

In the previously mentioned thread I have again used the example of the navigation content presented in the namespace John Smith

In this case a code content such as "{{navbox|John (given name)|Smith (surname)}}" could result in a page display (hopefully without the additional horisontal line and maybe to a different width/spacing) in a format such as:

See also: [hide
John (given name) Smith (surname)

 

 

 

Perhaps the width might correspond to the width such as the contents such as are produced by templates like Wiktionary which, has an output at John (given name), that presents:

 

 

 

• Perhaps the a navbox could use bullet points in parallel to the system used via Template:TOC right. (See John Smith for a relatively long example of a right justified TOC).

In whatever way it might be made to work, I think that something like this can only increase the navigability of our pages.

Greg Kaye 10:38, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose – what is this about? It's not clear what (if anything) is proposed as a change to the Disambiguation guideline. The proposal seems to be incompatible with the current WP:NAVBOX guideline, so we're confronted (again) with a RfC that aims to introduce new language in one guideline, but, in fact, overturns some of the guidance in other operational policies of guidelines, without even so much as notifying the talk pages of these possibly affected guidelines and policies. On the whole such proposals that would affect guidance on multiple operational guidelines and/or policies should be presented at WP:Village pump (WP:VPT for this one I suppose, with links from this page, from WP:VPP, WT:MOSDAB, WT:NAVBOX, etc.). -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 12:59, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
• Agree with Francis. This is a rather fuzzy proposal that is only partially related to disambiguation and would benefit from a broader discussion (or perhaps a more focused discussion in less public forum to sharpen the proposal before throwing it on the wall of the village pump to see if anything sticks. older ≠ wiser 14:58, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose: Unclear purpose and we don't need new "systems" for doing things for which there's no established need, per WP:BUREAUCRACY, WP:CREEP, KISS, WP:COMMONSENSE, "if it ain't broke, don't 'fix' it", etc. This proposal looks like "thrashing". It follows on the heels of various changes suggested by the same proponent, including one higher up the page, to use parenthetical disambiguators after all article titles (or least personal names like "John Smith"; I couldn't wade through all of that, and it was WP:SNOWBALLing anyway), then one for redundant hatnotes, and prior ideas along such lines. I get a sense that this all boils down to "I think someone somewhere is going to find WP disambiguation confusing, so something, anything absolutely must be done now, and it has to be new." This continued insertion of every passing notion in the do-something-different-about-DAB-navigation vein as a new proposal is not constructive. Maybe write an essay about what is allegedly wrong with the current DAB system, get comments on it, and see if something concrete emerges that a lot of people agree on.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:41, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

  The "re-proposal" in the thread above is strong evidence in favor of this assessment. Proponent is not listening to the fact that we already have a solution for the alleged problem.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:40, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish What have I not listened to? My "adapted proposal" above was "that policy makes mention in some way of a practice of adding hatnotes to articles ..." which could equally be achieved through the use of specifically adapted templates or preexisting templates. My personal view is that, in connection to the content of a navigation page such as John Smith that there is a clear association with the contents presented in both John (given name) in and Smith (surname).

My proposals have been related to potential changes in regard to the presentation of navigation pages which, in Wikipedia are commonly called "disambiguation pages". As such I have fairly posted on a discussion page entitled Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation.

Thank you from back tracking from "Solution in search of a problem" to at least admitting "alleged problem". Greg Kaye 13:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The not-listening part is that everyone's telling you that "potential changes in regard to the presentation of navigation" isn't something we need, and instead of considering on this for very long, you just launch new proposals for slightly different potential changes that re-raise the same objection. I'm not trying to be mean to you, I'm trying to point out that this is a quixotic, irritating time-waste. It's not a good way to expend time and energy here (and it's consuming more than just your own).  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish Please consider the tone of Bkonrad's response above. If you go ballistic with all manner of inaccurate attacks, how do you think I am going to respond? There is nothing wrong in proposing navigation options relevant for navigation pages. Is it possible for editors to differ in views presented without the vehement aggression? Greg Kaye 18:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Pointing out that you are not listening to what others are telling you but re-proposing variants of things that have no support, a waste of everyone's time, is not ballistic, an attack, or aggressive. My tone isn't even particularly vehement.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:47, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose I do not see the problem that Greg does. The first Wikipedia hit when I search "John Smith" on Google (UK) is the disambiguation page. When I search that same exterior site for "Richard Johns" the first Wikipedia hit has a dab hatnote as it is the most common usage of the name (primary topic). When I search "David Miller" on Google (UK) the first Wikipedia hit, David Miller (cricketer) has a dab hatnote as apparently it was the default at one time. -- Bejnar ( talk) 20:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Right. The fact that some pages have missing hatnotes means "add some missing hatnotes" not "overhaul the WP disambiguation system".  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:47, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello, lately I've noticed an inflation in the creation of disambiguation pages with only one blue-linked article. Usually about villages and cities, where one of them has an article, and the other ones are redlinked. Notwithstanding the fact that MOSDAB should be followed and blue links should be added to the redlinked entries, I have always been under the impression that, in this case, the disambiguation page should wear the (disambiguation) qualifier, so that the sole existing article can take the primary location. That would seem rather logical, as there is no other article to contest the primary location.

But others sometimes disagree. Can someone remind me if there is an official policy for this kind of situation? -- Midas02 ( talk) 19:37, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Could you show us an example or two, please? Pam D 22:11, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I'll give you three: Mrtvica (disambiguation), Urney and, Dolenci. I had already asked to move the first page myself, that's why it has the disambiguation qualifier. You'll notice, although these dab pages have multiple valuable entries, each only has one existing article. -- Midas02 ( talk) 01:57, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Hrm. Well let's think about Dolenci. Having that devolve to Dolenci, Slovenia has this advantage: if the user is indeed looking for Dolenci in Slovenia, she goes right to it; and if she's looking for another Dolenci, the disambig page is not terribly useful since we don't have articles on those other Dolencis. (And if when we do, we can then create a disambig page).

The advantage of going to the disambig page is that if she is looking for one of these other Dolenci, it at least tells her that they do exist, it's just that (if she can suss what a redlink means) we don't have articles on them, and does at least give her a pointer to some nearby town or the province it is in or whatever, which would be useful to some readers. The link to Dolenci, Croatia is red, for instance, but it does give a bluelink to Vrbovsko where you can learn that ten people live in Dolenci, Croatia.

Approach B could be to have Dolenci devolve to Dolenci, Slovenia, creating Dolenci (disambuation) for the others, and adding a hatnote in Dolenci, Slovenia pointing to the disambig page. Approach C could be to have Dolenci devolve to Dolenci, Slovenia and just forget the other Dolencis and forgo the disambig page.

I don't have huge problem with the way the person handled it; I think it's OK. Approach B would be OK too. It's a little extra work and depends on one's guess of what percentage of people looking for "Dolenci" are looking for the one in Slovenia. If it's 90% or 75% then B would probably be the way to go. Problem is this'd be hard to know... maybe Google Ngram, if you wanted to do that much work...

Approach C I would not recommend, considering that someone has already made the disambig pages -- it's the least work but it hides useful data. There would be no easy way for a person wanting to know the population of Dolenci in Croatia, or what town it is near, etc. to find that information, which we have. Herostratus ( talk) 03:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Could we just do a hatnote? Have "There are also cities named Dolenci, Croatia, Dolenci, Demir Hisar, and Dolenci, Bitola" at the top of Dolenci, which then would be the place for the Slovenian city's article until and unless an RM determines a lack of primary topic.. And we'd presumably delete the dab page. Red Slash 17:57, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Redlinks in a hatnote are worse than useless and editing to include a blue link would make the hatnote unnecessarily complex. Simpler to just link to dab page. older ≠ wiser 18:22, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Herostratus provided a good insight indeed of how a user would contemplate the different strategies being offered. But the problem is not about the existence of the dab page, also as per Red Slash's remark, it is about the place of the dab page. Should it be the primary page or not? Because the current set-up for Dolenci clashes with our concept of a Primary topic. How can an article NOT be the primary topic, if it's the only existing article on Wikipedia? Between one article, and, ummm... no other article, which is the most important? That's the crux, and I would like to cast that into the guidelines, otherwise this will remain an eternal point of discussion. -- Midas02 ( talk) 02:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Because it's a primary topic, not a primary article. It does not depend on which articles happen to have been written. -- NE2 03:05, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Still, it would be rather inconceivable to have an article which doesn't exist as the primary topic. This is not an imaginary situation by the way. Think of the many places with Slavic names which aren't described on English Wikipedia. It's very possible that there is a stub article on some unimportant village, while the most important city by that name doesn't have an article. In that case you can't make it the primary topic, as it doesn't exist.

Distilling all of this, would it be feasible to add a statement to the guidelines like (wording still needs fine-tuning): In case of dab pages which hold only one existing article (all other suggested articles are redlinked), the normal rules for determining the primary topic still apply. If the article carrying the blue link is chosen to be the primary topic, it becomes the primary topic. If a redlinked article is preferred to be the primary topic, the disambiguation page will occupy the primary position.-- Midas02 ( talk) 19:09, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

In the absence of further feedback, I'll make a note of it in the guidelines. For further discussion about the wording, please do it here, and not within the main page. -- Midas02 ( talk) 04:15, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Michael Turner is a dab page. It has no primary (which may make sense, it's a common multinational name in several major sports and areas), but it is also not labeled as a dab page. Is this a case where no primary makes sense, and shouldn't it have dab in the title no matter what? MSJapan ( talk) 17:54, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Michael Turner is labeled as a disambiguation page (the template at the bottom says as much). If you mean that it doesn't have "(disambiguation)" in the title, it is standard practice to place the disambiguation page at the base title when there is no primary topic. There have been recent discussions (see above) to possibly modify this, but there does not appear to be consensus for any change. - Niceguyedc ^{Go Huskies!} 20:00, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I can't see how that has anything to do with WP:DISAMBIGUATION. Red Slash 05:03, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Both natural disambiguation, which is very, very frequent, and disambiguation to clarify naturally ambiguous names even when they do not directly conflict with another article (which isn't terribly frequent, but important) are both still disambiguation. This page is not "WP:Parenthetic disambiguation only to prevent article collisions". Instead of revertwarring on a WP:IDONTKNOWIT basis, is there somewhere else on this page you feel it would be better to address these disambiguation issues and how editors should approach them?  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

RfC on disambiguation for clarification

As this is our primary page on the use of disambiguation on Wikipedia, should it not cover the routine (though not overwhelmingly frequent) article titling and requested move situation that some titles are naturally too ambiguous and confusing to use without clarification? Use of disambiguation to clarify inherently ambiguous names, not just to resolve multiple articles competing for the same title, seems to this proponent to be something that editors will obviously expect to be covered here, at least briefly.

Some sample wording:

Uncommonly, there are other scenarios for disambiguating an article title, even when this does not disambiguate between two articles, and there is no hatnote. For example Algerian Arab is naturally disambiguated as Algerian Arab sheep, because the shorter title is innately ambiguous (fails the WP:PRECISION criterion for article titles) and may confuse readers, liable to interpret it as referring to a human population.

This keeps being reverted (in whatever exact wording) by the same two editors, on a rationale that appears to be simply disbelief that this is disambiguation-related.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:01, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

PS: There are many other examples. British White, Anglo-Nubian and many other animal breed articles were moved to, e.g., British White cattle, Anglo-Nubian goat because their names are likely to be interpreted as human ethnicities or populations. Another class of them, e.g. Flemish Giant (now Flemish Giant rabbit) were moved because they also sounded like they were probably something else (e.g. a figure from folklore). It doesn't much matter what exact example is given.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:08, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• I disagree to qualify " Flemish Giant" or Mechelen cuckoo (if a page would be created on that one) as "inherently" of "innately" ambiguous. Note that for instance WP:NCB#Precision specifically advises against this (within its scope). So making this a general rule, overiding specific caveats, seems like a bad idea. In sum: Oppose. If anything, the examples should come from a less contentious area, for instance the (Schubert) addition for article titles that are in fact already disambiguated with a D number, per the fairly anonymous RM at Talk:Wiegenlied, D 498 (Schubert)#Requested moves, and without making this a general rule, and not at the WP:D guideline (it is using a disambiguation technique, but not for disambiguation in the strict sense).

Also, as I said above in #WP:PRECISIONDAB, I prefer the formulation I tried to give this as archived at Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 52#Disambiguating: some specifics and examples, and oppose the more contentious way of explaining this as now proposed for WP:D. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 12:18, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Tx for the retracting. I'd really like to find a way not using animal breed examples, because as said they all seem a bit contentious (or unstable) to me, and then this does also not change my position that this is rather something to be discussed in connection with WP:AT, and not for this guideline. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 14:38, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Francis Schonken: Totally fine to use a different example, I just don't have any fresh in mind. But this is a DAB matter. This is entirely about an application of existing policy; it is not a change to policy. See the discussion at WT:AT about how RM has added exceptional cases to that policy. This was not such a case. There was no IAR here; it was decided based on the existing WP:CRITERIA. People mostly seem to be resistant because they think "disambiguation means and only means preventing a collision of article titles". But that's not what it means. It means "resolving ambiguity", which is what these examples did.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:23, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is not always true and I hesitate to include it anywhere. I especially oppose its inclusion here. Red Slash 21:07, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

You appear to have misread. "Uncommonly" automatically rules out "always true". Your "especially" WP:IDONTLIKEIT comment is still not a rationale, just as it was not a rationale during your revertwarring.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:49, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I would think that this may lead to a preference for article titles that are less concise than they should be. I think that this suggested addition is outstandingly unsuited for inclusion here, as it has almost literally nothing to do with disambiguation and everything to do with an article's title, so WP:AT. Even if consensus backs this (which it might, and which would be okay, I guess) I'd move it to AT. Red Slash 21:42, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. I think I understand the concerns here, and I would probably ask myself before I move a page like Flemish Giant to Flemish Giant rabbit what would happen if I named it Flemish Giant (rabbit)? Would another editor come along, revert the move and tag the left-behind redirect with {{ R from unnecessary disambiguation}}? In this case, probably so. What other "Flemish giants" (or uppercase "Giants") are there that might fit nicely on a dab page? –  Painius  22:44, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

It would be moved to Flemish Giant rabbit because WP:NATURAL says to use natural disambiguation. A large number of animal breed articles were moved last year for precisely this reason. That's not the point though; the point is that no reader in the world other than an expert on rabbit breeds can reasonably be expected to understand that a reference to a "Flemish Giant" is referring to a rabbit, rather than a giant from Flanders.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:49, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

You mean such as these Flemish Giants? :>) –  Painius  08:28, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. The fact that there really are things that people are liable to confuse with a Flemish Giant [ahem ... rabbit] kind of drives the point home. No one's proposed disambiguating things that only in wild flights of imagination could be ambiguous; RM never goes that way. Only when the name is likely to confuse readers.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:19, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The outcome of Talk:Flemish Giant rabbit#Requested moves or any of the parallel moves (or non-moves) on animal breeds are afaics way too unstable to use any of it as guideline examples.

The Algerian Arab example is even worse: there appears to be no consensus to move it anywhere. It was included in Talk:Anglo-Nubian goat#Requested moves ending on a "no consensus to move". So, no, if RMs on the topic end in contentiousness, rewriting the guideline to please your fancy is not an acceptable way forward.

Further, if it is all covered in WP:AT, as you contend, adding guidance with contentious examples is unnecessary, a.k.a. rulecruft. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 08:42, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

You're reading an old RM that was tagteamed against. A later RM moved it with a clear consensus. "Rulecruft"? I think you mean WP:CREEP. But describing how things are in fact actually done here isn't instruction creep (or rulecruft or whatever term you want to make up); it's exactly what WP guidelines are for.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:19, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the later RM. The talk page of the involved article (or articles?) seem not to have been notified of such later RM on their article title going on. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 17:39, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

NM, I was thinking of the Anglo-Nubian goat case, which was two RMs, one place or another. The Flemish Giant rabbit one you're just misreading: "consensus to move the pages, except no consensus in the case of Peppin Merino".  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I linked to Talk:Flemish Giant rabbit#Requested moves above, didn't misread anything about it, but think any of these examples too unstable for use in a guideline. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 14:38, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Based upon all of the above, it seems to me to be a good idea and an improvement to the guideline to clarify with an example or two in order to help editors who come here looking for answers. Examples that are the results of community consensus would be excellent. –  Painius  10:41, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support This relates to an area of titling to which I have seen SMcCandlish greatly improve in terms of clarification. To me clarification and disambiguation are merely the positive and negative sides of precisely the same thing.

The word "ambiguous", perhaps poetically (if that is not going too far), is itself ambiguous.

Oxford online gives the word more than a single definition [1]

In the first provided definition it can mean, "Open to more than one interpretation;" or "not having one obvious meaning:" and in the second provided definition it is indicated to express the meaning, "Not clear or decided:"

Disambiguation is naturally a broad topic that goes far beyond the woefully restricted habit of topical division as it is practiced by some editors.

The architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe came up with the expression "less is more" but this is rarely the case. Less is, in the vast majority of cases, less.

I have just asked someone that I am with what she thinks that an "Algerian Arab" is and she said she doesn't have a clue. I didn't have a clue either but why should I. This is not the kind of thing that is not common knowledge. I then phoned a nice lady whose number I found on the page http://www.sheepcentre.co.uk/contact_us.htm and, after a little explanation, asked the question, "have you ever heard of an Algerian Arab?" and she said "no". The thing is that a topic such as "Algerian Arab sheep" fails WP:CRITERIA: "Recognizability" that "The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize." The person at the "Seven Sisters Sheep Centre" that I phoned did not recognise the subject. What chance does anyone else have?

Red Slash is a another editor that I have worked with on a great many occasions particularly at WP:RM consistently achieving productive results according to consensus. Red I know that WP:CONCISE is one of your most quoted policies but I would be interested in your opinions on the above and whether you think it applies with validity in this case.

Francis Schonken, at a different extreme, is an editor who does remarkably little practical editing (on pages accessed via WP:RM) considering his vast, I think, own issues related to article titling related pages. Recently I stated: "Example text In August Francis has made multiple edits in objection to a single and ultimately successful move request. Please can you refrain from your ownership behaviour such as your pointless pedantic reversions and get on with some practical work. Greg Kaye 19:45, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I personally think this is a small step in the wrong direction, because when people get to the page Algerian Arab, they should get a picture of a sheep, and then they'll see what it is. But I can easily see your points.

I still don't think it belongs here instead of WP:AT. Red Slash 02:01, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Red Slash on both points ("small step in the wrong direction"; "don't think it belongs here instead of WP:AT"), plus other points mentioned before (examples would need to be from a less contentious area; should be explained better so as not to override e.g. WP:NDESC, as for example explicited for book titles in WP:NCB#Precision)

@ GregKaye: a lot of words, please stay on topic, which includes " Comment on content, not on the contributor". Regarding your Mies excursion: LOL, but really doesn't help your argument does it? Consider making your argumentation more succinct, which might make it more easy for your fellow-editors to assimilate what you're trying to say. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 03:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. So we have an editor who would like to improve this guideline with an example(s), two other editors in support of the first editor's attempt to clarify one part of this guideline to help less experienced editors, and two other editors who don't support the proposal on the grounds that the example(s) used might be an unstable article title, and so this all should be discussed at Wikipedia:Article titles. Since this proposal is about first providing an example(s) on this page, and only second about article titles, it seems to me that discussion should focus upon the first part. While the second part actually is an article titles issue, it clouds the first part and it just might take care of itself without further discussion. If the example(s) chosen is altered in the future, then it can be replaced with another example, and then all will be well. If the opposers on these grounds turn out to be incorrect with the presently proposed example(s) as a stable article title, then all will be well. By our focus on the second part and the off-topic talk that comes with it, we are losing the improvement value of this proposal for this guideline and for posterity. –  Painius  14:26, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

An additional problem with some of the opposition concerns is that it seems to want to "re-legislate" how a series of WP:RMs already concluded, alleged to be a "step in the wrong direction". The purpose of this guideline is (in part) to adapt and codify what RMs decide, including the unusual cases they come to consensus on. It is not to second-guess the consensus formed at RM. There's a thread about this fact at WT:AT right now, highlighting how central aspects of naming policy are derived from working-in the outcomes of controversial RMs. The point of doing so is, of course, to prevent the recurrence of similar controversies. That's the #1 function of WP:POLICY on WP. One of the opposers regularly inserts exceptional cases into this page and WP:AT (often about the outcome of classical-music-related RMs). What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and our coverage of the consensuses that WP evolves for article titling and disambiguation should not be topically skewed; that coverage needs to be balanced and broad. An earlier version of the example in question was removed on the basis that it should move to WP:AT, but it was not, and it would not be accepted there because it's not a policy-level kind of "do/do not do this" example, but an illustrative, guideline-level "here's a way policy has been applied" example. I know all of the involved parties are competent enough that they already understand all of this, so I find the level of conflict about inclusion of such an example a bit mystifying, and more than a bit frustrating.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:15, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't think the examples given are in fact ambiguous. Ambiguity is a problem only if people go the article thinking that it about another subject. Do have any reason to believe a significant number of readers are searching for information on giant humans living in Flanders? If so, do they go to the rabbit article and come away disappointed? I find this an unlikely scenario. Readers may not be aware that the Flemish giant is a breed of rabbit, but that's not the same thing as ambiguity. The title by itself should not be expected to explain the subject to people who are unfamiliar with it. In any case, one look at the article should be enough to tell the reader what the subject is. ConstitutionalRepublic ( talk) 19:50, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
• Update: Talk:Algerian Arab sheep#Requested move 11 August 2015 just closed unanimously in favor of disambiguation from Algerian Arab to Algerian Arab sheep.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Further discussion

I think what you just wrote at WT:AT:

... Queen (band) is sufficient until the day there's a notable zydeco or country or whatever band also named Queen. Unless that has become the case, an argument for "Queen (rock band)" just to include "rock" because you think it's important/defining/common in thinking about the band, is indistinguishable from an argument to name the article "Queen (English rock band)" or "Queen (English rock band with Freddie Mercury in it)". ...

also aplies to natural disambiguation:

... Peppin Merino is sufficient until the day there's a notable chicken or horse or whatever breed also named Peppin Merino. Unless that has become the case, an argument for " Peppin Merino sheep" just to include "sheep" because you think it's important/defining/common in thinking about the Peppin Merino, is indistinguishable from an argument to name the article "Peppin Merino sheep breed" or "Peppin Merino sheep but not an individual sheep". ...

In other words, I don't think the "exception" as formulated well enough written to avoid it would be called too easily for various exceptions to WP:CRITERIA (e.g. by giving the impression that WP:PRECISION as quoted can "override" other criteria), while all the RMs going on seem to result in page moves only when the new page name results in an improved over-all compliance to WP:CRITERIA. So there's no need for this "exception" while WP:CRITERIA suffises and covers the page moves (when considered an improvement!), and the explanation is confusing in seeming to suggest that a single criterion can override the others without consensus to do so.

Further, the presence of page names like Akita (dog) seems to indicate that it is far from a common fact that all breeds are disambiguated by natural disambiguation. So, I'd rather invite you to write Wikipedia:Naming conventions (breeds) (like Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music) was written for the field I'm more experienced in) and find consensus for it to sort this out, than to append this here where it is not in its place to begin with.

Also this comment/question didn't go unremarked: "I just hope this isn't another round of a bunch of these. Is this the only one? If so, I can support but only for the sake of being consistent with the others that are similarly situated, but I do hope this is over and there won't be more" [2] – so maybe reply to this question: "Is this the only one?" If yes, and this is the last one that needed to get sorted I see no need to write a guideline about it. If no, trying to get a guideline rewrite to operate multiple page moves the community doesn't really sees the need for would be somewhat questionable. If it's only about potential exceptional future cases (e.g. the Mechelen cuckoo I mentioned above): apply WP:CRITERIA and the thing will get sorted one way or another, or if you think it may apply for multiple future similar cases, write Wikipedia:Naming conventions (breeds) as suggested. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 07:50, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

That's an awful lot of stuff to raise in objection to including a simple clarification and example, much of it off-topic and self-contradictory. In good faith, I'll attempt to address all of it in series, in a constructive way, and forked for easier resolution.

1. Peppin Merino was, out of that whole batch of articles (the breed ones you say you don't want to use as examples anyway), the lone case that was not moved. I suspected at the time that it would be the one least likely to move; its possible misinterpretation as maybe someone's personal name was the weakest argument in the lot, and I threw it in as an afterthought. It actually is true that " Peppin Merino is sufficient until the day there's a notable chicken or horse or whatever breed also named Peppin Merino" (though distinguishing between breeds was not the issue at that RM, but between the breed and the assumption of a non-breed). If you substitute in "Algerian Arab" your example does not work at all. So I'm not sure what your point was in bringing it up; did you think it was one of those that was moved? Regardless, it might have some utility as an example after all (see #3 below).  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

2. "Exception": As already detailed above, the quite concise material I've proposed adding is not actually an exception (and thus it not should be moved to WT:AT); no new "rule" is being being proposed. It's an example of how existing rules have been applied, as you spell out yourself in some detail. Illustration of (not making up of a new rule about) "pre-emptive" natural disambiguation of inherently ambiguous names is important because we actually do it for good reason ( WP:POLICY pages exist mainly to codify existing best practices, not force new rules on people [except for external WP:OFFICE legal matters]). This kind of disambiguation is done for a big group of reasons: several of the WP:CRITERIA simultaneously, WP:COMMONSENSE and not being "user-hateful", usage in (general-audience, non- specialized) WP:RS, MOS:JARGON/ WP:TECHNICAL, and others. This did not come out of the blue, it's just not something you've chosen to focus on. We've been doing this for years, but many editors just disbelieve that we do it because they don't find it listed on this page, and some have tendentiously oppose RMs for months on end because, basically, it's not listed here.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

3. Crafting of narrowing examples: So, maybe this material needs "Here's an example of when it did go this way, because confusion with a real ethnicity was very likely" [or whatever, if we pick non-breed examples], in whatever wording, followed by "More often, this is not done, because the likelihood of confusion is lower; e.g. Peppin Merino is not at Peppin Merino (sheep), because while it could be someone's name, readers would not be especially likely to assume this." Or something along these lines, in more compressed wording. Simply saying that it's not common might be sufficient. I'm certainly not suggesting that cases of disambiguation of naturally ambiguous names are going on every day at RM, much less that we should be broadening the interpretation of what may qualify. I'd be in support of making it clear that it's only done in very obvious cases like Welsh Black (and now that I saw what you were getting at [apologies for not getting it the first time] "Mechelen cuckoo"). There was a short series of other RMs similar to "Mechelen cuckoo", but also animal breeds, where the names were of the form "Silver Marten" (now Silver Marten rabbit, etc.). These might be better examples, since most readers would assume this was a kind of marten). Because of years of namewarring over capitalization of species names (and the fact that real-world sources do not consistently capitalize or lower-case species' common names), even WP:DIFFPUNCT could not plausibly be applied (and it seems to only be applied in the case of actual article title collisions anyway).  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

4. Use what's in front of us: Breed names are convenient for this, because it's simply common that breeds are often named in a way that makes them inherently confusing if they're not disambiguated. It's a fad/jargon thing. Go to any cat show and you'll find that this cat "is an Asian"; you're a rube, in those circles, if you refer to it as an "Asian cat", though of course RS written by non-cat breeders do so regularly because they know that "an Asian" means a person, to virtually everyone in virtually every context. (The same will hold true at a horse show, etc., and non-specialist sources about horses, e.g. with "Arabian [horse]".) See SmokeyJoe's comment at the ongoing WP:SNOWBALL RM of Algerian Arab to Algerian Arab sheep (a snowball that indicates this sort of thing is not controversial when applied reasonably): "The title should describe the topic, and the most important thing about this topic is that it is a sheep, which the current title doesn't imply." PS: I'd actually forgotten that this article in particular had been omitted from the prior group RM; the ongoing RM is correcting that.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

5. WP:NATDIS, and "WP:NCBREEDS": No case was made that natural disambiguation is always used for animal breed articles; they just usually are. The proposed wording doesn't say "always", it gives an example using NATDIS, because we usually use it for this, and AT policy says to prefer NATDIS. There's nothing odd or misleading about that. Remember that you yourself argue against associating this proposal with breeds, and it certainly isn't tied to them, they're provide ready examples. The fact that some animal breed articles have not yet had title cleanup, and the possibility that some should continue using WP:PARENDIS, are off-topic. Whether there should be a "WP:Naming conventions (breeds)" is off-topic (though it's been under discussion as something that could be forked from the draft WP:Notability (breeds) page. We may just not need "micro-guidance" of that level of verbiage for a topic so narrow; development has stalled. More importantly, perhaps, we're actually running out of notable breeds to write articles about, so it might be a waste to time to bother.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

5. "Is this the only one?": That was a comment (from someone who likes to needle me sometimes) about breed RMs of this sort specifically. If you read the RMs, you'll recognize her appearing to oppose in every single one of them up to that point; some people favor stability over consistency in the AT/RM sphere, as you know). It might well be the last inherently ambiguous animal breed article title that hasn't been disambiguated. But no, obviously, it won't be the last inherently ambiguous article name on WP. You can't simultaneously argue that we must not associate this DAB matter with breeds, yet that we must only associate it with breeds.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

For clarity, this is how I'd settle this:

---

• Although the so-called natural disambiguation usually will have an advantage regarding the WP:NATURALNESS criterion, also all other relevant WP:CRITERIA regarding article titling need to be factored in.

  ... (... in ... examples, an italicized criterion is weighed in but is not decisive while a bolded criterion is decisive for the example) ...

• Not everything is covered by naming conventions guidelines, which also may have exceptions, contradictions, interpretation issues, or may otherwise lead to sub-optimal disambiguation solutions, none of this being a mathematical science anyhow.

  Example: The Devil's Advocate (West novel) → The Devil's Advocate (Morris West novel)

  1. Recognizability – advantage for the latter (West may not immediately be recognizable as an author's surname)
  2. Naturalness – slight advantage for the latter: this novelist is not usually introduced with his last name only
  3. Precision – slight advantage for the latter: although the criterion is satisfied without adding "Morris" to the disambiguator (there are no other West novels with this title), the latter is obviously somewhat more precise
  4. Conciseness – advantage for the former
  5. Consistency – appeared to be undecisive during two consecutive WP:RM's that confirmed the latter at a time when the disambiguation recommendations at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) would have given precedence to the former.

---

This is extracted from Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 52#Disambiguating: some specifics and examples, and is imho a better way of approaching this than first saying that an article title that is not ambiguous in the context of Wikipedia's guidance is nonetheless ambiguous in the context of Wikipedia's guidance. The approach in the Morris West example avoids such confusing language, brings it back to to WP:CRITERIA (all five of them) and shows the applicability of the principle outside a narrow "natural disambiguation" context.

The proposal that contained this example didn't make it to WP:AT, as already pointed out above in this discussion. A simple conclusion may be: people don't want this to be inscribed in guidance. If the principle doesn't need to be inscribed in guidance, then no, SMcC's proposal doesn't have consensus.

Another take may be: WP:CCC, or there may be other reasons why the elaborate list of examples was rejected for WP:AT (was the "combined proposal" with other sections rewriting policy too much at once? rather something for a guideline than a policy page?... etc). If that is the case I still think Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 52#Disambiguating: some specifics and examples works better than the isolated, narrow, badly formulated exception exclusively based on animal breed examples, and I'd propose that section as archived at WT:AT (with all its examples regarding disambiguation) to be added to WP:D. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 08:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

That sounds like something to re-propose separately at WT:AT, but does not actually address anything that I'm getting at here. Short version: Sometimes we use disambiguation for reasons other than avoiding an article title collision between two+ extant articles, and people will expect that to be covered at the page on disambiguation. What doesn't have consensus is your insistence that something we do in fact do cannot be covered at the guideline that naturally covers it. You're attempting to reject my tiny clarification as a means of resurrecting a huge proposal of your own that did not gain consensus; it's a "policy coat-racking". That's off-topic and not responsive to this RfC.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Standing by my opposition to SMcC's proposal, for aforementioned reasons. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 05:40, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Given this paragraph (Natural disambiguation. When there is another term (such as Apartment instead of Flat) or more complete name (such as English language instead of English) that is unambiguous, commonly used in English (even without being the most common term), and equally clear, that term is typically the best to use.), is this moving correct? --‍‍‍ Ali Pirhayati ( talk) 09:30, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

No, it is not. We never use middle names when they are not commonly used to refer to an individual. See the last sentence in WP:MIDDLES. WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 13:08, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I realise you acted in good faith, but it might have been a good idea to ask before moving all these articles. I have reverted them all. I hope. -- Necrothesp ( talk) 13:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion may be of interest. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 14:56, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I proposed merging List of things named Daedalus into Daedalus (disambiguation). Please feel free to join the discussion at Talk:Daedalus (disambiguation)#2015 merge proposal. — hike395 ( talk) 03:20, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi. How do you disambiguate two different types of entity that are both in the same place that also need disambiguated from the same thing in a different place? For example "Castlereagh, County Down" (in Ireland) can refer to a townland (a small area of land) but also to a barony, however there are other baronies and townlands in Ireland called Castlereagh. My personal opinion is to use "Castlereagh, County Down (townland)" and "Castlereagh, County Down (barony)". Another user prefers "Castlereagh (County Down townland)" and "Castlereagh (County Down barony)", which they have also used for "Castlereagh (County Roscommon barony).

This WikiProjects input here or at the original discussion would be more than appreciated. Mabuska ^(talk) 13:14, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Do WP:NCDAB and the related WP:Article titles#Disambiguation comprise a comprehensive listing of the allowed methods for disambiguating article titles? That is, are they intended to strictly prohibit methods not listed, such as dashes ("Foo – Barian and related types")? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 14:45, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I understand the question, but disambiguation page titles come in two types, those with just the subject name ( Springfield, John Smith, Mercury) and those with just the subject name plus "(disambiguation)" afterwards, to indicate that there is a primary topic to the undisambiguated name ( Miami (disambiguation), John Adams (disambiguation), Pluto (disambiguation)). As for the disambiguators themselves, we commonly use the actual names of things if those names have disambiguating elements, and we otherwise use a parenthetical like Mercury (planet), or a comma for place names like Miami, Ohio. bd2412 T 15:55, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists)#Long (split) list naming recommendations lists a few methods (only for list articles split over several pages). The reason dashes are discouraged (even for split lists) is that you'd need an extraordinary amount of redirects covering all types of dashes/hyphens/minus signs (which are difficult to discern). For that reason, in general, avoid dashes (any kind of dashes/hyphens/minus signs/...) in article titles if there's no sound reason to use them (compare WP:TSC). Disambiguation is not a sound reason in that sense, while there are other (preferred) ways to disambiguate. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 16:16, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I brought this up because of a real article with such a title: AC power plugs and sockets - British and related types.

Disclosure: I raised objections to the title on said article's talk page, but the resulting consensus was that in light of extensive past discussion, no one wants to bother moving the article now, not even to turn the hyphen into a more correct dash. (In other words: I have withdrawn my original request there and am not currently interested in participating further. I am not trying to canvass/forum-shop; I am not expecting any action on that article.)

I assumed this qualified as a "disambiguation" issue because there is a more general AC power plugs and sockets article; perhaps I misunderstand? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 19:15, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

"no one wants to bother" seems at the core of it. Talk:AC power plugs and sockets/Archive 6#Main article titling for variants of AC power plugs and sockets (the archive section you got linked to) seems a very local consensus, and not implemented apart from a single article ( [3]). "Beside, also the Overview page name should be changed from actual "AC power plugs and sockets" to "AC power plugs and sockets - Overview" or better "AC power plugs and sockets - World"" seems very odd, and not likely to ever get implemented per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Yes, should go to WP:RM, if in some indeterminate future someone cares "to bother". -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 20:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

There are discussions at Talk:Gouda#Primary topic and elsewhere in the rather lengthy RM discussion of which it is part that may be more appropriate here, as they seem to be questioning the current disambiguation guideline.

For example I'm a relative newcomer to 'move' discussions, but already see that many revolve around 'enduring educational value' vs 'everyday use'. 'Everyday use' being almost synonomous with 'hits', 'enduring educational value' being more synonomous with a more traditional, encyc. approach. Personally, I think it would be good if we could define 'enduring educational value' better, because at the moment it's a case-by-case, slug-out. Java is more primary than Java! Apple is more primary than Apple! One of my criteria is whether the 'dabber word' is painless and familiar, which, in the case of foods, I would say they usually are. [4]

Other views on these points either in the RM or here would be appreciated. Andrewa ( talk) 11:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

It's always the same rubbish. The guidelines are quite clear on how to establish a primary topic:

• Incoming wikilinks from Special:WhatLinksHere
• Wikipedia article traffic statistics or Wiki ViewStats traffic statistics
• Usage in English reliable sources demonstrated with Google web, news, scholar, or book searches

But do you ever see those criteria put to the test in those kind of discussions? No, always the "it's a clear primary topic" nonsense, not even capable of understanding they're expressing a personal and subjective sentiment rather than an neutral established fact. Start by applying the guidelines would be some great advice to many. -- Midas02 ( talk) 19:47, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

My feelings exactly. The RM has now closed with the closing admin observing that neither side has established a case for primary topic (which is I think a good call, but then I'm involved), and the DAB is therefore now at the undisambiguated name Gouda.

But there were two issues really. At first those who maintained that no move was necessary as the city was the primary topic were repeatedly appealing to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as supporting their opinions on this matter. This may simply be a case of User:Andrewa/Andrew's Second Principle.

When this argument didn't prevail they switched to saying that the guideline should say something else. That's a valid argument under WP:IAR but needed to be aired on this talk page as well IMO. Andrewa ( talk) 19:17, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• So many editors cite “recentism,” consistency with other articles in the same category, or some other non-guideline based criteria as a basis to oppose primary topic. I am surprised that primary topic remains a guideline when so few editors seem to support it. Designating a primary topic is the easiest way to boost traffic to a page, the ambition of every Web page designer. The vast majority of readers typing in “Romney” are looking for the former governor. (See Google or Bing.) But I gather from this discussion that he is not going to be primary topic for much longer. H. Humbert ( talk) 00:06, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion, which deals with redirects flowing to disambiguation pages, may be of related interest. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 22:11, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Should a dab be added to By Your Side (The Black Crowes album), By Your Side (Breakbot album) or By Your Side (Hillsong album) when there is a dab at By Your Side? The articles are naming in such a way that each has a unique title. Please ping me if you need my input as I am not watching this page. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 04:08, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@ Walter Görlitz: Are you talking about a hatnote, or a dab page for By Your Side (album)? I don't really understand what you mean by adding a dab. Could you clarify? Melonkelon ( talk) 04:14, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes a hatnote. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 04:16, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@ Walter Görlitz: (I don't know if you wanted me to ping you again.) No, I would not add one, per WP:NAMB. They all have unique titles. I would only add one if there was an ambiguous redirect or if one of the albums was the primary topic. Melonkelon ( talk) 04:21, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Ping away! I assumed that this was the correct interpretation. Another editor suggests that they should. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 04:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

@ Walter Görlitz: In my view, disambiguation hatnotes are helpful on articles where the reader could have reached the page by mistake. When the article title is not ambiguous, but not fully identifying, a hatnote pointing to the disambiguation page is helpful. The best example is football players – their titles are disambiguated by year, but most people don't know when an individual player is born, so if you search, for example, for "John Smith football", you get 7 footballers separated by birth year. Hatnotes on those seven articles are helpful.

For album titles with the band's name in the title, there is rarely anything ambiguous about the title (I've seen a couple artists that have had multiple albums of the same name, but it is rare), so there's no need for a hatnote. - Niceguyedc ^{Go Huskies!} 04:24, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree that a hatnote DAB is unnecessary if people land on the article and it's the correct one. Woo-hoo! Success!! But, what if it's not? Has that never happened to you, even with a correctly titled article? And we're experienced users. I think there's a use case where a DAB hatnote helps. It's all about speed of search and navigation. In the example of the By Your Side albums mentioned above, let's say you know the album is called By Your Side but you don't know who the artist is. You Google the album and click on the first Wikipedia Google result and start reading. (BTW - songs with those names are so popular, the albums don't show up on the first five pages of Google results, so unless you go to Wikipedia and then search again, or type in the search phrase "By Your Side wiki" - my shortcut - for your search, you'll have to take several time-consuming steps.) You'll find out pretty quickly if you're on the right album or not, from musical genre, song titles, year of release or whatever. Let's say it's not the right one. Unless there's a link to the disambiguation page at top, you have to use the search box, and select other options. So there's a minimum of extra typing required. Knowledgeable Wiki users would at least know to type and then identify the disambiguation article, but those aren't the only people on the site, right? And it's still extra typing. My iPhone and iPad are nowhere near as fast as my mouse clicking on my PC. Another scenario is the one that I brought up with an editor of the Ryan Moore (golfer) article. Ryan Moore (golfer)#Disambiguation There are 6 Ryan Moores, and the one I was looking for was not the most popular Google result. I Googled him and saw the golfer's article, and no other Wikipedia article. So I clicked on the Ryan Moore (golfer) article, fully expecting to see a DAB hatnote to the disambiguation page, as a handy shortcut. There was none and I added it, and the editor removed it. I'm not a golfer and am unfamiliar with Christian music, but it was more efficient to me to have navigation shortcuts I could click on on those articles. I'm not asking everyone to go out and start adding DABs everywhere, but it still surprises me that they are seen as bad things when they are there, and are then removed. The benefit seems to outweigh any perceived loss of aesthetic. Timtempleton ( talk) 18:44, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Following a Request for Comment on the matter of ship article disambiguation, I have drafted an updated version of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships). The proposed text can be found at User:Saberwyn/Proposed ship naming and disambiguation conventions update. Your project is being notified because the major change revolves around the disambiguation of article titles.

The most significant change to the guideline is that the only form of disambiguation for articles on ships is the year of launch, expressed in the format "(yyyy)". All other forms of disambiguation are depreciated, such as pennant/hull number, ship prefix, or ship type. Using ship prefixes in article titles for civilian/merchant ships is also depreciated, unless part of the ship's "common name". Examples have been updated as a result of the RFC and other recent discussions, and in some cases, elaborated on. A list of other changes can be found at User:Saberwyn/Proposed ship naming and disambiguation conventions update#Summary of changes for proposal.

Discussion and comments are welcomed at User talk:Saberwyn/Proposed ship naming and disambiguation conventions update. -- saberwyn 03:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

See also: #A disambiguation of disambiguation pages

Helpful comment was made in the above named discussion on the topic of hatnotes that might be placed at the top of biographical articles to provide links to the topics of "others" who have a shared or similar name to the article providing the links.

An issue that I perceive to be a problem became particularly apparent to me when I did a search (when using google.co.uk) on John Smith. The results immediately presented the Wikipedia article relating to John Smith (Labour Party leader) (which doesn't have a hatnote directing to the navigation page) but the google list then made mention of no other Wikipedia articles. The problem is that readers may have been looking for any one of a large number of people or other entities known by the names "John" and "Smith" and yet the reader is presented with a large content relating to one specific "John Smith".

One option would be to just leave the situation as it is and hope that, following potential readers having already written a term such as "John Smith" in a location such as a google search box, that they will quickly recognize notice the presence, of the Wikipedia search box and, again, enter the same search text.

The proposal here is that a template is developed as an adaptation of Template:For

The working of this template acts so as to convert a code, for example: {{for|the concept in behavioral ecology|Altruism (biology)}} →

[5] into a footnote with corresponding content, for example:

An adaptation of this template could, I think, be developed with a designation such as: Template:For others

This template could then act so as to convert a code, for example: {{for others|John|Smith}} into a footnote with corresponding content, for example:

For others with the names "John" and "Smith" see John Smith (example one)

or

For others with the names "John" and "Smith" see John Smith (navigation guide) (example two)

or

For others with the names "John" and "Smith" see John Smith (disambiguation) (example three)

I personally would see most merit in the regular use of the second option to be used. Reasons for this include that the content (a hyperlink based list) is not about a single person called "John Smith"; that the designations of the people listed in these namespaces frequently (if not predominantly) need no disambiguation and that I do not know of anyone called "John Smith" who is known for his activity within the field of "disambiguation".

Alternatively a system might be adopted where a range of templates could be used so that a code based on: Template:For others could result in an output in the form of "example one" while either a code based on: Template:For others nav could result in an output in the form of "example two" or a code based on: Template:For others dis could result in an output in the form of "example three"

Greg Kaye 10:37, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose – solution in search of a problem. BTW, no guideline change is needed to develop a {{ For others}} template along the lines as proposed here. My prediction is, however, that it would be at WP:TfD within seconds for reasons completely unrelated to the WP:D guideline. So maybe this proposal should rather have been at WP:VPT. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 12:41, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
• There is no need to add yet another hatnote to the already confusing panoply of hatnote templates. Where needed, the simple {{ for}} template works just fine. For example, {{for|other persons with the same name|John Smith (disambiguation)}} →
  For other persons with the same name, see John Smith (disambiguation).
  [6] I don't see a need for a separate single purpose variant. older ≠ wiser 14:53, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose: "Solution in search of a problem" does seem to cover it. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that "disambiguation" is a jargonistic word, but changing it, e.g., to "navigation" or something, would be a policy change that would need to get consensus at WT:AT; it's not a guideline matter.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Francis Schonken SMcCandlish I have clearly presented an alleged problem that people who externally search on a name (such as John Smith), get channeled to specific articles (such as John Smith (Labour Party leader)) and then are given no direct link that would allow them to access other topics by the name "John Smith". Please do not disparagingly WP:ASSERT that a proposal is a "solution in search of a problem" when another editor is presenting something which from that editor's perspective and with good faith has been specifically regarded as being a problem. Please consider not stating opinion as fact. Greg Kaye 08:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

As others have pointed out, this is not a WP:DAB issue, and we already have a solution for this problem: Just put the {{ Other uses}} template on the page. Rather than say, "oh, okay", you've followed up with yet another off-topic and redundant proposal.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has historically named its navigation pages as disambiguation pages and, as such, I am fairly raising this issue at WP:Disambiguation. We have navigation pages that are themselves, I think, abysmally poorly supplied by navigational links. {{ Other uses}} does not work. Similar templates are certainly unsuited to use to link to a page like the previously mentioned Alfred Loomis. Greg Kaye 16:17, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Similar templates are certainly unsuited to use to link to a page like the previously mentioned Alfred Loomis What is unsuitable about the following?

• {{For|other persons name Alfred Loomis|Alfred Loomis (disambiguation)}} →
  For other persons name Alfred Loomis, see Alfred Loomis (disambiguation).
  [7]

older ≠ wiser 17:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

[sigh] I don't mean, literally "{{ Other uses}} and only that template ever", I obviously mean "{{Other uses}}, generally, and variants of it, like {{ Other people}}, etc., as needed for the specific article type and context in question."  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:47, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Adapted proposal

Thanks Bkonrad for above comment.

Propose that policy makes mention in some way of a practice of adding hatnotes to articles that have disambiguated titles so as to provide links to an associated navigation page presenting a list of both disambiguated and naturally unambiguous but associated titles.

(By "unambiguous but associated titles" I am referring to titles such as John Blair Smith etc. that require no disambiguation).

It is quite rightly pointed out that existing codes could resolve current issues. A code such as: {{ for others|John|Smith}} would merely produce a shorthand and standardization of wording that might be otherwise generated. (Existing codes might present including and with similarity to:
{{ for|other persons with the same name|John Smith (disambiguation)}} gives

For other persons with the same name, see John Smith (disambiguation) while

{{ for|others with the names "John" and "Smith"|John Smith (navigation guide)}} might give

For others with the names "John" and "Smith", see John Smith (navigation guide).

( John Blair Smith does not have the same name, at least by used designation, as, for instance, John Smith (Labour Party leader)). At present the destination list of titles is at the ambiguously titled namespace John Smith).

In whatever form that the code may take, I propose that a hatnote be used from articles that have disambiguated titles and which have unambiguous titles that have commonality in form with genuinely ambiguous designation. In the second case such include John Blair Smith and John Smith's Brewery/ John Smith & Son which have direct reference to "John Smith" within their titles.

Greg Kaye 08:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

"RfC" means "request for comment", not "request for fact" – "comments" can include opinions based on experience (without needing to elaborate the minute detail of that experience). Here's a fact: WP:SNOW is an essay. Here's a comment including opinion based on experience: WP:SNOW may apply to this RfC, regardless of attempts to rescue it by rewording and whatnot. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 09:08, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Despite the reasoning presented regarding an indicated need for navigation which i think Wikipedia lacks you did nothing more than slap on dismissive comment "solution in search of a problem". I have presented evidence to say that the current situation is less than ideal. I think that a fair argument might relate a cost vs benefit comparison of implementing such a proposal but please drop your continual use of unjustified WP:ASSERTion.

My argument is that Wikipedia lacks navigation. It hardly even features in our vocabulary. Greg Kaye 09:19, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes I assert this is probably going nowhere, a.k.a. a time sink. No apologies are needed for formulating my comment thus.

Re. "Wikipedia lacks navigation" – as you may know (or not know) I once took some lessons in web development, including elaborate chapters on web usability (navigation being an important topic in that context). Then I had some professional experience leading international EU-funded projects to develop interactive websites with a low threshold (which means a lot of optimising in view of usability and navigation, in that case based on testing by prospective inexperienced users etc.) With that experience your assertion "Wikipedia lacks navigation" seems ludicrous. Not every Wikipedia contributor is expected to know the finer points of web usability, but Wikipedia guidance is in large measure written thus that swift navigation is promoted. Your proposals in this RfC are a step back in usability and swift navigation, speaking from my experience. "Solution in search of a problem" summarizes this expertly, and not only in its usual meaning that a solution is proposed before a problem is properly identified, it is a solution "looking for trouble", i.e. (in the context) making navigation more cumbersome instead of improving it. Note that "navigation" is optimal when nobody needs to to think "hey, I'm navigating", so the absence of navigation-related terminology from guidance and from main namespace is actually a very good sign how well Wikipedia does in this regard. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 10:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Francis Schonken Thank you for presenting your CV. In my text above, to which you did not reply, I said: "I have clearly presented an alleged problem that people who externally search on a name (such as John Smith), get channeled to specific articles (such as John Smith (Labour Party leader)) and then are given no direct link that would allow them to access other topics by the name "John Smith"." I see this as a lack of navigation and, below, an actual editor of the John Smith (Labour Party leader) article agrees. Greg Kaye 16:33, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Also Francis Schonken, in light of your self proclaimed expertise in regard to the use of links, perhaps you can explain how this works. When an article presents prominent links, internet search engine results pages can give direct access to those links directly and within the search engine listing. For instance, when I use google.co.uk to search on isil, a prominent result that I receive reads as follows:

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Wikipedia, the free ...

/info/en/?search=Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, /ˈaɪsɨs/; Arabic: الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام

), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the ...

‎Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - ‎Military activity of ISIL - ‎Isis (disambiguation) - ‎Salafi jihadism

The presence of the ‎Isis (disambiguation) link is surely due to the presence of the article hatnote that that includes this link. I see this as yet another reason to add navigational links to our navigation pages as, by so doing, we may even prompt search engines to give direct links to a page entitled as, say, John Smith (navigation guide). Greg Kaye 17:30, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose again: As others have pointed out, this is not a WP:DAB issue, and we already have a solution for this problem: Just put the {{ Other uses}} template on the page. Rather than say, "oh, okay", you've followed up with yet another off-topic and redundant proposal. The "John Foo Smith" cases are already included at the John Smith DAB page. The "See also" section will also cover cases like "John Smith's Foo", etc. There is no problem, other than some missing hatnotes (not new kinds of hatnotes, but existing ones). I have a similarly hard-core Web dev and usability background to FS, above, and I agree with him completely.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, My proposal was "that policy makes mention in some way of a practice of adding hatnotes to articles that have disambiguated titles so as to provide links to an associated navigation page presenting a list of both disambiguated and naturally unambiguous but associated titles." I am not sure if you are disagreeing with this other than to point out that "this is not a WP:DAB issue". It is still, as far as I can see, a valid issue being raised on a board that people actually read. Thank-you for pointing out the {{ Other uses}} template. This provides another option for fulfilling the mentioned and, I think, valid need presented. Where are we disagreeing? Greg Kaye 13:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I have added the {{ Other uses}} template to the John Smith (Labour Party leader) with this result which seems to me to be poorly worded in consideration of the surrounding context. Greg Kaye 14:04, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

@ GregKaye: Couple of problems with that addition:

1. The link to the dab page should be piped through John Smith (disambiguation) - can be done as {{otheruses|John Smith (disambiguation){{!}}John Smith}}.
2. I suspect someone will turn up and remove it, as it's against current guidelines. I personally agree that it's a useful link, to help those who land on the politician's page from Google while looking for a different "John Smith", but unfortunately the guideline Wikipedia:Hatnote#Disambiguating_article_names_that_are_not_ambiguous tells us not to add it.
3. There's also {{ Other people}} which doesn't seem to quite work here .

I've amended it to {{Other people2|John Smith (disambiguation){{!}}John Smith}} which seems to have the desired effect. Will be interesting to see whether it lasts. Pam D 14:28, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks PamD for sharing an improved solution which presents a succinct hatnote as:

For other people of the same name, see John Smith.

My argument remains that a more accurate and intuitive wording could read along the lines of:

For others with the names "John" and "Smith", see John Smith (navigation guide).

Something like this could also be used with regards to navigation pages such as for people called Alfred Loomis. A google search on Alfred Loomis] leads to a link to Alfred Lee Loomis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and yet there is no hatnote on this page to link to the Alfred Loomis navigation page so as to readily supply access to the articles for Alfred Lebbeus Loomis or Alfred Loomis (sailor). In this case I propose that a suitable wording for a hatnote would be something along the lines of:

For others with the names "Alfred" and "Loomis", see Alfred Loomis (navigation guide).

In the context of an article named Alfred Lee Loomis it would be inappropriate to write:

For other people of the same name, see Alfred Loomis.

This would be inaccurate. Alfred Lee Loomis is not the same name as Alfred Loomis! Greg Kaye 15:50, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

We do not currently have nor do I think there should exist a general navigation page for persons named "John" or "Smith". That seems simply bizarre. older ≠ wiser 17:36, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

( edit conflict)Whatever, GK. The point is, this can be hatnoted. A simple parameter tweaking of, or variant of, {{ Other people}} would get at all cases that need to be gotten at. WT:DAB is for discussion of how to improve the WP:Disambiguation guideline, not for how to add features to (or work around limitations of) templates that just happen to have something to do with disambiguation. That's what the "Template talk" pages are for. A side lesson here is that "Hmm, I can't seem to easily do what I think needs to be done" is rarely cause for "We need to make a sweeping policy change", but rather for "What gets closest to what I want to do, and what would it take to adapt it?" The latter approach is far more efficient and raises much less dramahz.

WP has no "navigation guide" page system. If you want one, try proposing at WP:VPPRO. I guarantee that one which would result in "For others with the names "John" and "Smith", see John Smith (navigation guide)" will just WP:SNOWBALL straight to the bottom of Hell immediately, because there is no encyclopedic utility in a miles-long list of everyone notable in the history of the world named "John".  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:41, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish on the Alfred Lee Loomis page, what wording would you use to complete the hatnote

For other people ..., see Alfred Loomis.

What explanation do you have for the presence to an Isis (disambiguation) link in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - Wikipedia, the free ... Google listing mentioned above.

In the context of an article such as John Smith (Labour Party leader) a hatnote "For others with the names "John" and "Smith", see John Smith (navigation guide)" would surely be taken in the context of the surrounding references to "John Smith" but in a way that would allow for additions such as of middle names.

You have not responded to the point that, in the context of an article named Alfred Lee Loomis it would be inaccurate to write: For other people of the same name, see Alfred Loomis.

What would be your suggested wording?

Greg Kaye 18:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Unless there is some modification to the software, links piped through a "Foo (navigation guide)" link will show up as errors needing to be fixed on the disambig lists. bd2412 T 12:28, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

GregKaye, bd2412: In the order you (GregKaye) asked:

1. Simple; just use: {{ Other people|Alfred Loomis|Alfred Loomis}}, though even {{ Other people|Alfred Loomis}} works, since Alfred Loomis (disambiguation) redirects to the Alfred Loomis DAB page.
2. Obviously, it's because this group has frequently been referred to as ISIS. If you're asking why it lists that one instead of the ISIL (disambiguation) page (given that our hatnote at that article reads '"ISIL", "ISIS", "Daesh", "Daish" and "Islamic State group" redirect here. For other uses, see ISIL (disambiguation), ISIS (disambiguation), Daish (disambiguation), and Islamic state (disambiguation).'), it's clearly because Google does things its expert systems think will be "helpful" but which often are not. One of these is to use, in its abstracts-generation algorithms, Google's search queries databases to include and exclude terms that are more commonly searched for. WP has no control over what smart or stupid things off-WP websites are doing with/to our content. Obviously very people are ever looking for something called "Isil" or "ISIL" that is not this ISIL, but may people are looking for something (usually the goddess) named "Isis" that is not this ISIS. You only seem to think there's some kind of problem here because this page is presently at an ISIL instead of ISIS name (this week; it's been moved around a lot). Your issue is with Google, and you should file a bug report with them that their choice of including the "Isis (disambiguation)" link when you searched for "isil" is a "user-hateful" misfeature, if you feel that way about it. I wouldn't bother, because that "Isis (disambiguation)" link appears at the bottom of the Wikipedia result given for the "isil" Google search; it's metadata that most people don't pay any attention to.
3. So? No one appears to agree with you that we should have unusable and unencyclopedic DAB pages listing thousands and thousands of people named "John", or "Smith". That option is therefore irrelevant. What we probably do want is {{ Other people|John Smith|John Smith}} or just {{ Other people|John Smith}} if you prefer. A spot-check shows that many of the article listed at the John Smith DAB page, to which John Smith (disambiguation) of course redirects, do not yet have such a hatnote, so I guess you have a lot of work to do (assuming you're willing to do the constructive work to fix it instead of expend inordinately amounts of [mostly other people's] time and energy just argue about how important it is to fix it the way you want everyone to agree with you to fix it, with which no one is actually agreeing. Put your labo[u]r where your mouth is. :-)
4. Yes, I have, in point #1 (and I think someone else pointed this out earlier). I can understand why you might have thought the solution wasn't so easy, since the template was undocumented all of a sudden (I've since fixed that, just by reading the template's code and documenting what it can do, which you could have done as well). But it isn't required to use such a pre-configured template anyway. You could have done this all along: {{ Hatnote|For other people named John Smith, see [[John Smith]].}} Oddly, while there used to be a combined documentation page for all of these sorts of templates, showing them used in series and how they differ from one another, this seems to be missing now. Many of them have no documentation at all presently, while some are (as I just did at that one) being documented individually again, as at Template:About/doc. I guess there's a lot of that kind of work to do now, too. I have no idea why the combo documentation has disappeared, but I don't watch TfD very closely.

 —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Bejnar I am encouraged by your comment in the following thread stating, "The first Wikipedia hit when I search "John Smith" on Google (UK) is the disambiguation page" and also for your check related to "David Miller". (Maybe my system is somehow affected by political bias ).

I think that arguments in favour of promoting the use of hatnote links to Wikipedia's navigation/disambiguation pages also include the promotion of these pages in search engine listings. The well known principles of Search engine optimization indicate that, the more links that a page receives, the more likely it is that a page will appear/appear highly in search engine lists. Greg Kaye 09:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedians' "job" to futz with Google rankings, generally speaking, and it's definitely not the job of WP's internal navigation to do this. There's probably no harm in proposing a wikiproject to work on SEO matters, if you that will attract enough participants to be viable. Such a project might even come up with some proposals that are thought through enough to gain support, by collaboratively identifying serious problems and low-impact ways to address them, in a talk page devoted to that purpose, instead of miring the DAB guideline talk page with this stuff.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It is Wikipedia's job to develop accessible content. Greg Kaye 16:56, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

A format of a hatnote that I've adapted and have started to use presents:

For others similarly named, see the name navigation page

which is based on the code

:''For others similarly named, see the [[name (disambiguation)|name]] navigation page''

and

For others similarly named, see the Foo Bar and Foo Baz navigation pages

which is based on the code:

:''For others similarly named, see the [[Foo Bar (disambiguation)|Foo Bar]] and [[Foo Baz (disambiguation)|Foo Baz]] navigation pages''

Issues here include that:

1. In many cases the actual content of navigation pages goes beyond the remit of their titles. BLP navigation pages for example are often presented under titles with <first name> <last name> titles but have content listing people whose articles titles are presented in <first name> <middle name> <last name> and <first name> <middle initial/s> <last name> and similar formats. These titles do not fit in with the description "people of the same name".
2. Sometimes other entities such as companies, organisations, concepts, etc. are also presented on navigation pages with the result that the content does not fit the description "other people"
3. "see <first name> <last name>" is nonsensical. These "<first name> <last name>" titles are not applied to a topic of a person in the way that these titles describe.
4. Hyperlink based contents are commonly named "navigations" which is an issue on which other editors have agreed in the thread Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#A disambiguation of disambiguation pages

I have started in use of these hatnotes fairly widely but their use was queried on my talk page by Frickeg here. The hatnotes did not require any alteration of policy or template adaption whilst having the advantages mentioned and are added with the intention of getting the navigation pages to be better represented on search engine listings.

Greg Kaye 20:12, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Why are you not using a non-standard hatnote template. These templates exist to facilitate a consistent presentation. Hard-coding the format makes that difficult. Most of your other issues are non-issues that have already been discussed ad nauseam. older ≠ wiser 23:12, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

My biggest problem was that they were a whole bunch of sentence fragments, lacking the full stop. But I have some other issues too - we call them "disambiguation" for a reason, and I don't see that "navigation" is really the same thing. I think we can expect our readers to grasp what "disambiguation" means from context fairly quickly. What is wrong with "For others with similar names, see Joe Bloggs"? A template could certainly be developed for that, if we feel the "same name" thing is misleading - but the reason we have templates is so that any change in the wording can be rolled out with minimum work. By adding non-templated hatnotes, any changes to them would have to be done manually. WP:HATNOTE does, for what it's worth, strongly encourage the use of templates. Regardless such non-standard wording requires consensus to implement, especially as widely as these have been. Frickeg ( talk) 23:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

No consensus

Continuing general discussion

• Bkonrad To what extent do you think:

that Anthony Burgess is a entry relevant to the "ambiguous article title" John Wilson;

that Paul McCartney is a entry relevant to the potentially "ambiguous article title" James McCartney (disambiguation) and

that Bruce Willis is a entry relevant to the "ambiguous article title" Walter Willis?

To what extent do you think that the related links are added for the purpose of disambiguation?

Xezbeth perhaps at a different extreme, in various google searches that can be made in a <first name> <last name> format of a "subject's name", the first and sometimes only Wikipedia article to appear in that in the search listing is a Wikipedia page to which a designation has been applied in a <first name> <middle name or initial> <last name> or similar format.

Bkonrad, Xezbeth for what purpose is John Maynard Smith on the John Smith disambiguation/navigation page?

• Francis Schonken for what reason did you ignore the rule at Template:Archive top that states, "When used on a talk page this template should only be used by uninvolved editors or administrators in conjunction with the talk page guidelines and relevant advice at refactoring"? There is a dispute here between editors that I should be amicably resolved. Please consider the timings of your interventions. Greg Kaye 06:21, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I chose to follow the guidance at WP:ANRFC ("... if the consensus is clear, any editor—even one involved in the discussion—may close the discussion"), which obviously supersedes template documentation. The choice of template for this (limited) closure is obviously secondary. I tried to avoid interference with the general topic of the RfC. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 07:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
    • You omit the continuation of the text that you quote, "if consensus becomes clear before that and discussion has slowed, then it may be closed early." As per link provided, I had already stated that I was not adding further hatnotes. There were unresolved issues yet closure came in ten minutes of final comment. In context of your edit here please also consider guidance given at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Others' comments on the topic of Sectioning. Greg Kaye 06:04, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
      • Yes, my closure came few minutes after the "I've seen people blocked for less" comment. This may have opened the discussion on a new tangent not related to the content of the RfC (i.e., discussing contributors instead of content of the proposal). Ramifications in this sense are better closed sooner than later (or should be held elsewhere), in order to keep the RfC discussions on topic. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 06:31, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
  • If there was zero ambiguity with the term "John Smith", then it would redirect to John Maynard Smith, since that's his name. But there is ambiguity, so a disambiguation page exists with John Maynard Smith as one of the entries. It is as simple as that. — Xezbeth ( talk) 07:45, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

All of the names you mention are completely appropriate for inclusion on the respective disambiguation pages. I really can't even conceive of why that is an issue. older ≠ wiser 10:07, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

@ Xezbeth and Bkonrad: To that extent do you think that page references are given to:

• John Maynard Smith, Anthony Burgess, Paul McCartney and Bruce Willis

for the purpose of wikt:disambiguation on the web navigation pages titled in Wikipedia as:

John Smith; John Wilson; James McCartney (disambiguation) and Walter Willis?

To that extent do you think that page references are given to:

• Double-O, Michael J. Aguilar and Michael Quintero

for the purpose of wikt:disambiguation on the previously mentioned web navigation page titled in Wikipedia as:

Michael Aguilar (disambiguation)?

Greg Kaye 06:34, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Silly question. There is no "extent". They are known by those names in some circumstances and thus disambiguation is required. older ≠ wiser 11:55, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Bkonrad regarding your claim "disambiguation is required" please can you specify, in relation to any of the examples above, what needs to be disambiguated from what. Greg Kaye 21:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

To be honest the need for disambiguation seems to be so patently obvious that I can only ask why you think disambiguation is not appropriate (although I hesitate to ask because you've already written many volumes and so far as I can tell have failed to convince anyone). older ≠ wiser 23:29, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

There may be an irony in that (add: the titles of) Wikipedia disambiguation (navigation) pages are often not disambiguated. This also leads to an issue with regard to WP:CRITERIA Consistency which presents the ideal that "The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.". In actuality in which many of our navigation purposed disambiguation pages are titled "Foobar (disambiguation)" while other pages (all of which - according to WP:Disambiguation#Page style presents "a list (or multiple lists, for multiple senses of the term in question)") simply presents a title in the typically singular form "Foobar".

If I visit an article named "Foo" (a title presented in singular form) I may naturally assume that the article entitled "Foo" will be concerning a subject on a topic named "Foo" or "foo". I will not necessarily expect to find a list of Foos/foos. For some time not I have regarded that less ambiguous titles might go along the lines of "Foo (disambiguation)" or "List of F/foos" in a pluralised "List of .." type format.

Without a disambiguation of disambiguation lists these lists fundamentally fail WP:AT which presents the ideal that "The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles." A title such as John Smith presents a single name as of a single entity (person or organisation) who/that, in this case, would be called "John Smith". However, what we find in the article is a very long List of John Smiths and yet, failing to follow the format provided by the many "Foo (disambigution)" articles, the navigation page is not disambiguated from anything from amongst its extensive content.

I also think that the fact that Wikipedia editors have developed such a vast body of collaborative work to the point that it requires navigation deserves, if anything, celebration and I think that editors can be rightly proud that we have developed multiple articles that may all be referenced by use of identical terminologies. To erroneously describe a "List of foos" as "Foo" helps neither the reader or Wikipedia.

On the topic of helping the reader I also think that it would be to the benefit of readers if we moved towards the use of "navigation" based terminologies and this is an issue that was previously raised in the thread Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 43#Disambiguation pages are navigation pages. In web searches:

• article navigation -wikipedia got "About 594,000,000 results" while
• article disambiguation -Wikipedia got "About 560,000 results"

That's a ratio of 1060:1 in relation to the raw data results.

My interpretation is that "disambiguation" is a necessary editor concern in relation to the differentiation and frequent dissection of terminologies so as to fit mainly technical article address requirements. Reader concern however is, arguably, navigation of content and, in effect and even though it has its advantages, a title such as "Foo (disambiguation)" fails WP:UCRN. The main thing that this format of title achieves is a non commonname disambiguation from "Foo"

My suggestion is that we develop a Wikipedia preference for disambiguation lists for a topic such as "Foo" be placed at titles which might be presented in a format such as:

• Foo (navigation)
• Foo (navigation guide)
• Foo (navigation page)
• Foo (article navigation)
• Foo (article navigation guide)
• Foo (article navigation page) or
• Foo (disambiguation)

If a decision was taken to adopt something like a ".. (.. navigation ..)" disambiguation option then, if I were to be given the tools, I would be happy to action any currently required changes. I believe there are only ~2000 "... (disambiguation)" articles so this type of change would not take long.

However, beyond a potential encouragement for editors to think more in accordance to reader navigational needs, the main issue presented here is the WP:Precise titling of disambiguation lists according to the ideal that "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article". This is something that our current titles fail to do.

Greg Kaye 06:22, 26 June 2015 (UTC) clarification "the titles of" added to the first sentence. I honestly don't see that such c clarification was needed as the second sentence presented the policy quote "The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles." and the second paragraph began "If I visit an article named "Foo" (a title presented in singular form) I may naturally assume that the article entitled "Foo" will be concerning a subject on a topic named "Foo" or "foo". ..." and the third paragraph began "Without a disambiguation of disambiguation lists these lists fundamentally fail WP:AT" Greg Kaye 04:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I (an experienced wp editor) have no idea what your first sentence "Wikipedia disambiguation (navigation) pages are often not disambiguated" is supposed to mean and much of the rest of your posting is also incomprehensible. You appear to have learnt little/nothing from the response of editors to your (afaics) similar proposal in March. If you can't explain clearly what you think the problem is and precisely how you think guidelines/policy (e.g. WP:Disambiguation) should be changed then please stop flogging this WP:DEADHORSE. DexDor ^(talk) 06:53, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

DexDor There are two issues and perhaps they would both be best discussed with reference to an example. The list content with the web address for the en Wikipedia namespace John Smith has large content including listings for 111 people who are presented in Wikipedia as being called "John Smith". Examples include:

• John Smith (professor), mathematician at the University of Oxford, 1766–97 and
• John Smith (lexicographer) (died 1809), professor of languages at Dartmouth College

As mentioned there are 111 subjects with the title "John Smith" and yet the title of the navigation list " John Smith" is not disambiguated from any one of them. The content at John Smith also presents 96 subjects with titles that may not have needed any disambiguation at all and these include titles such as:

• John Blair Smith (1764–1799), president of Union College, New York
• John Augustine Smith (1782–1865), president of the College of William and Mary, 1814–1826 and
• John Smith's Brewery, a brewery founded in 1758 by John Smith at Tadcaster in North Yorkshire, England

Again for many such titles no disambiguation will have been IN ANY SENSE required and, in connection to these articles, a categorisation as "disambiguation" is incorrect.

Added to this is the fact that the common name terminology for navigational contents (such as those that are frequently used in Wikipedia) is "navigation". We use the relatively obscure terminology as related to the editorial concern of "disambiguation" and, in relation to the many articles that require no disambiguation, we use it inaccurately.

What we are doing is that we are providing a facility of navigation. This is a horse that seems to be alive and well in every other location that I have seen other than Wikipedia. Greg Kaye 12:55, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

@ GregKaye: When you say "I believe there are only ~2000 "... (disambiguation)" articles", what exactly do you mean by that? Category:Disambiguation pages has about 260,000 pages in it, and picking a few random pages from that group leaves me with the impression that at least 20% (over 50,000) have "(disambiguation)" in the title. By the way, I am not averse to the proposal, as I do agree that an undisambiguated disambiguation page title can sometimes be a shock to the reader. bd2412 T 13:48, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

@ GregKaye:, with respect, you appear to be profoundly confused when you state Again for many such titles no disambiguation will have been IN ANY SENSE required and, in connection to these articles, a categorisation as "disambiguation" is incorrect. The articles not categorized as disambiguation. The disambiguation page simply helps readers find articles with information about subjects that may be referred to as "John Smith". The examples you mention appear to use a form of natural disambiguation by including a middle name. It would be nearly impossible to establish that these are never known as simply "John Smith". As to your other point, so far you have been the only person to ever propose using "(navigation)" in place of "(disambiguation)" and your argument regarding any benefits are extremely unclear. older ≠ wiser 14:28, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

@ BD2412: Fair enough in regard to the number of pages. Category page listings of these navigation pages that I looked at typically contained between 15 and 35 pages marked "Foo (disambiguation)" amongst contents in which 200 articles were presented per page. At a potential average of 25 such article listings on each page that would make a large content of 260,000 / 200 * 25 = 32,500 articles.

@ Bkonrad: With respect please specify what WP:DISAMBIGUATION is required so as to differentiate an article title such as John Blair Smith from an article title such as John Smith (professor). As far as I know the title "John Blair Smith" has primary topic in regard to the namespace John Blair Smith. This the title for this BLP topic. What further "disambiguation" is required? As far as Wikipedia's WP:Goal of presenting an encyclopedia is concerned, I think that we should aim to get our content right. Greg Kaye 14:58, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

@ GregKaye: Can you prove with certainty that John Blair Smith is never referenced as John Smith? The inclusion of "Blair" is necessary to disambiguate that John Smith from the others. As to encyclopedic goals, you haven't presented anything convincing that there is an actual problem, let alone that your proposed solution is appropriate. older ≠ wiser 15:04, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

@ Bkonrad: Please, WP:DISAMBIGUATION in Wikipedia "is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous". I don't see that there is anything "ambiguous" about a title such as "John Blair Smith". In Wikipedia we go by WP:COMMONNAME and I would have thought that this would stretch to the use of user focussed terminologies such as "navigation".

Comment I really think that habits of naming in Wikipedia are totally out of step with presentation methodologies elsewhere.

• site:britannica.com disambiguation gets "6 results" amongst "About 1,590,000 results" in relation to a search results estimate of a total number of site pages.
• site:en.wikipedia.org disambiguation in stark comparison gets "About 1,010,000 results" amongst About 16,200,000 results in relation to a search results estimate of a total number of en site pages. Greg Kaye 15:29, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I do not think that there is benefit in presenting the relatively obscure terminology of disambiguation when commonname terminologies are available.

I am unaware of any other source that presents navigation pages in the way we do. Greg Kaye 15:29, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

The ambiguous term is "John Smith", not "John Blair Smith". Is that really so difficult to understand? I mean seriously? As for the use of the term disambiguation, that Britannica uses a different method that is in effect impractical if not impossible to implement with Wikimedia software is irrelevant to whether the term itself actually presents any problem. older ≠ wiser 15:36, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Spot on. John Smith is an ambiguous term and, in parallel to this, a substantially sized navigation page has been developed in regard to people possessing both names "John" and "Smith". There is no reason to disambiguate a title such as John Blair Smith from a title such as John Smith (professor). There is however a reason to disambiguate a title such as John Smith from a title such as John Smith (professor). You are right in you identification of the ambiguous term. Greg Kaye 15:56, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

So you are claiming that John Blair Smith is NEVER referenced as John Smith (or John B. Smith, of which there are several included on the page)? Do you have some evidence to support such a claim? older ≠ wiser 16:00, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I am claiming that the most commonly recognisable name of many if not all the 96 articles mentioned is something other than "John Smith", I am claiming that, if there is an article title that need disambiguation from an article title such as John Smith (professor), its John Smith and I am also claiming that, on the issue of navigation pages, we are very far from an application of WP:CRITERIA in relation to Consistency. We highlight the presence of a navigation page in some cases but not in others.

Can you please specify in which aspects of Britannica's method you regard as being potentially impractical within a context of our use of Wikimedia software? Greg Kaye 16:11, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I really don't understand your point regarding John Smith. Unless you are completely certain that no one would look for John Blair Smith under John Smith, then you would be doing readers a disservice by not including it on the disambiguation page.

Wikimedia has a technical limitation in that the article title must be unique. Britannica does not have this limitation and can use other methods for helping readers distinguish the articles that are not readily applicable on Wikipedia. older ≠ wiser 16:18, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

If a reader has, for instance, incomplete knowledge of a subject such that the reader do(es) not know or remember the full commonname of a subject then it may be perfectly valid to present (the title of the biographical article of) that person within the content of a navigation page. The issue here is one of description. There is no disambiguation involved.

Britannica has both an extensive and (in many cases) a relatively rich titling and subtitling system and a web address system that parallels many aspects of our system of article title differentiation. See: Wikipedia:List of Johns whose Britannica article titles contain broad description

A search on http://www.britannica.com/search?query=John%20Smith immediately presents:

• John Smith (British explorer) at http://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Smith-British-explorer
• John Smith (British politician) at http://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Smith-British-politician and
• John Smith (American wrestler) at http://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Smith-wrestler

A search on site:http://www.britannica.com John Smith British explorer produces a heading in a search engine listing as: "John Smith | biography - British explorer | Britannica.com". It seems to me that Britannica's requirements and methods are quite similar to ours. The only difference is that they use parenthesis in internal search lists, vertical bars in html titles that appear on search engine lists and they use hyphens in the web addresses for their articles while Wikipedia uses underscores. The differences are mainly cosmetic. Greg Kaye 17:34, 27 June 2015 (UTC) additions added in brackets Greg Kaye 04:58, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

You're still missing the point about John Smith. You presume John Blair Smith should not be under John Smith, yet offer no evidence. And you go on to present a mostly irrelevant description of what Britannica is able to do without the constraints of Wikimedia software. All of which is even more irrelevant for the topic of this section. older ≠ wiser 17:38, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, it would be presumptuous of me to try to speak for Greg Kaye, but I don't think it is accurate to say "you presume John Blair Smith should not be under John Smith." If I understand him correctly, he is saying that John Blair Smith should be under John Smith, but that the function that is being served by doing so is "navigation", not "disambiguation". In other words, his concern appears to be entirely about terminology, not about page content. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 18:07, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

But that makes no sense to me ... if we cannot eliminate likelihood that John Blair Smith might be referred to as John Smith (or John B. Smith) then the subject is ambiguous and requires disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 18:47, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I totally agree with your point to the extent that "we cannot eliminate likelihood that John Blair Smith might (on potentially rare occasion) be referred to as John Smith (or John B. Smith)". There is also, arguably, the likelihood that readers may search for him with searches such as "John Blare Smith", "John Blaire Smith", "John Blaine Smith" or, if she or he is having real trouble remembering the most generally recognisable name by which he was most commonly known, she or he might simply search on "John Smith" (which I think should redirect to something like "John Smith (.. navigation ..)" and then work through the navigation list in search of the bio for the, amongst other things, "president of Union College, New York" None of this changes the fact that the title " John Blair Smith" requires no disambiguation.

In every other web setting I know a reader/user focussed presentation is given of search functions and navigation facilities. However, instead of offering reader focussed facility of search and navigation, we inaccurately present search and disambiguation. In this we present a non-commonname description of navigation pages that is focussed on editorial process rather than reader needs.

I also think that there would be a degree of value for editors in the development of a culture that presented readers needs to the forefront. Articles can be misplaced. On one instance, despite the presence of a hatnote on the article of the cricketer Graeme Wood I failed to notice the link to journalist Graeme C.A. Wood which I think was partly due to the fact that he is more commonly recognisable (certainly by me) by designations such as Graeme Wood (journalist). I think that a potential trap may be that some editors may get so caught up with the process of disambiguation that utility and navigability can be forgotten. I appreciate that Wikipedia presents as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." but, all the same, surely reader's needs should be prioritised over the perceived needs of editors. Greg Kaye 07:21, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

The last sentense of your first paragraph shows that you still don't understand what other editors are telling you - "John Blair Smith" may not require disambiguation, but "John Smith" does. I can't see the relevance of your cricketer/journalist example to how disambiguation pages (note: that's the name we currently use on wp - not "navigation pages") are titled.

Do you have any evidence that renaming "Foo (disambiguation)" to "Foo (navigation)" (which is the closest I can find in the comments above to an actual proposal to change anything) would make things easier for readers? "Disambiguation" may be a rare word outside wp, but the meaning should be clear to reasonably intelligent readers from the content of the dab page. Being a rare word in the real world has an advantage that it's unlikely to crop up in article titles; we can be pretty sure that any page with "(disambiguation)" in the title is a dab page that's not true for "(navigation)" (see Course (navigation), Breadcrumb (navigation), Oboe (navigation) ...). Even if you think that a mass renaming of dab pages would have a marginal positive effect on readers the huge negative effect on editors (and hence indirectly on readers) should be taken into account. DexDor ^(talk) 09:22, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

DexDor Please note the request that I have presented above: ".. please specify what WP:DISAMBIGUATION is required so as to differentiate an article title such as John Blair Smith from an article title such as John Smith (professor)." That was and is my simple request in regard to which I would be quite happy for you to tell me of your view. What disambiguation is needed? What? Please!

On the navigation page titled John Kennedy (disambiguation) the first person that gets mentioned is John F. Kennedy. What WP:DISAMBIGUATION has been required in this or the many parallel cases presented on the same navigation page.

Please consider the format of Wikipedia navigation pages. Many have titles in the format "Foo Bar (disambiguation)" and yet these pages frequently have content in formats such as "Foo Bar Baz"; "Foo Baz Bar", "Baz Foo Bar", "Foo Baz Bar Qux" and so on. In any of these cases in which commonname has been rightly used, ".. please specify what WP:DISAMBIGUATION (has been) required." Please.

What I understand is that other editors have not, truth be told, justified how the topic of "disambiguation" is of relevance in these cases. No one has explained, for that matter, how the Wikipedia content at John Smith is in any way disambiguated from any of the many topics in that navigation list that are actually called "John Smith". What should I have understood from the above?

I think that my personal preference would be for the titles of article navigation pages to be presented in a format such as:

Foobar, (article navigation guide)

---

or

Foobar, (article navigation page)

---

A title format such as those presented above would serve to disambiguate a navigation page entitled "Foobar" from any number of articles that are also entitled "Foobar" while simultaneously applying an accurate and commonname description to the navigation content. Greg Kaye 12:16, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

No one has explained, for that matter, how the Wikipedia content at John Smith is in any way disambiguated from any of the many topics in that navigation list that are actually called "John Smith". Now you are simply being obtuse and not hearing what others have said. Whether there may be any benefit to calling disambiguation pages something else is another matter, though I agree with DexDor. The current convention works just fine. You have not clearly explained any actual deficiency. older ≠ wiser 12:48, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Bkonrad with good faith I have clearly presented the issue (at 15:29, 27 June 2015) that " WP:DISAMBIGUATION in Wikipedia "is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous"". As you will have read I have contended that this does not apply to John Blair Smith and John F. Kennedy in situations in which the articles are listed in locations such as the navigation pages John Smith and John Kennedy (disambiguation).

No one has presented anything with any substantiation to show how such inclusion fits into any definition of "disambiguation".

I have also presented (at 06:22, 26 June 2015) that many of the lists, such as "John Smith", that we label as "disambiguation lists" "fundamentally fail WP:AT which presents the ideal that "The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles."" That is what I "have said".

I am quite happy, for instance, for us to agree to differ in regard to an importance in regard to these issues. However I am not going to lie and say that I agree with your interpretations. Titles such as John Blair Smith and John F. Kennedy require no disambiguation according to any definitions of the word that I have seen. The title of the Wikipedia listing that contains the navigation presented at the namespace John Smith is not disambiguated from at least half of that page's substantial content.

Without substantiation DexDor has asserted "The last sentense of your first paragraph shows that you still don't understand what other editors are telling you" and similarly without justification you label me "obtuse". Please, either present a definitions based argument and justification for your position, (and/)or desist from your personal attacks. Your argument is that, even in the case of someone whose commonly recognisable name is "Foo Baz Bar" and even if they may only have been very rarely known as "Foo Bar", then this is adequate justification for the application of a "... (disambiguation)" label. You see this as sufficient justification in regard to the current practice of our encyclopedia. I do not.

Please take some time to consider the contents at WP:PA, WP:CIVIL and WP:WINNING. Please consider presenting your arguments and leaving things at that. Please. Greg Kaye 15:41, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Ignoring the condescensions, your claim that article titles such as John Blair Smith (ignoring for the moment John F. Kennedy which is a different case) do not require disambiguation is utterly unfounded and is little more than a fantasy. You have not addressed the fundamental principle—that you cannot reasonably exclude likelihood that readers might look for our link to this person using the ambiguous name John Smith. And I guess we will continue to disagree regarding your frankly bizarre interpretations. older ≠ wiser 19:11, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Please let's step back from the habit of "ignoring" range of related issues that can be considered to get this issue in perspective. Most (I consider) fundamentally or perhaps I should say centrally is the issue that, in web based contexts, when a content that presents a sequence of hypertext links is presented, the COMMONNAME given to that form of content is "navigation". Please also consider that our policy is present titling that, "someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize" and that, when adding in the concept of naturalness, that "such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English." In many cases in which, for instance, a fuller form of personal name is used by a person and, in many cases, it would be a misrepresentation of that person merely to present them according to an abridged form of their name.

In connection to other examples that I have given above, coming from the UK, I have on a number of occasions enjoyed a pint of John Smith's. I do not drink pints of "John Smith" because, if I did, I would likely and justly be arrested.

There are many other examples in which topics that are covered in Wikipedia are overwhelmingly known by one common name and yet Wikipedia helpfully and charitably gives reference to the subject by other possible renderings of the subjects name. My interpretation is that this is mainly done in order to give assistance to readers who are either ignorant of the subject or who had temporarily forgotten what the subject is commonly called. In many cases I do not personally see the issue here as being "disambiguation" but the provision of assistance to readers to "navigate" their ways to the actual article topic that they seek. The issues for readers are "search" and "navigation". These are the commonly used terms as they commonly appear across the web.

Please also do not ignore the issue that titles of Wikipedia navigation pages - such as the one for people who are known by the names "John" and "Smith"- are not disambiguated from subject titles that are actually called "John Smith". Greg Kaye 05:52, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I can't even parse the 1st sentence. DexDor ^(talk) 20:56, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Try reading the second sentence and the op in context. Greg Kaye 04:38, 1 July 2015 (UTC) (reply placed out of sequence)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, in a nutshell, what GregKaye is saying is that if you go to look up an architect named "John Smith", you would expect to find the article at "John Smith (architect)", and if you go to look up a navigational page listing a collection of people named "John Smith" you would expect to find the page at a title like "John Smith (navigation)". bd2412 T 23:35, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

"if you go to look up an architect named "John Smith", you would expect to find the article at "John Smith (architect)", and if you go to look up a navigational page listing a collection of people named "John Smith" you would expect to find the page at a title like "John Smith (navigation)"

That's a logical position, but one that I would refine.

"Look up", if it means "search", as in input 'architect "John Smith"' into the Wikipedia internal search engine, or the google search engine with "+wikipedia", then No, search engines search all content, not just titles, as well as other things such as looking what what past searchers chose after doing a similar search. No, a title does not necessarily have to reflect typical search query terms. Though it might.

If "Look up" means looking at a listing, such as an index listing in a traditional book thing, or a perusal of the Wikipedia Category system, then yes, I would like to be able to expect that if John Smith is primarily known as an architect, then "architect" will be in the article title. Unfortunately, this is not Wikipedia practice, as instead, if the name is unique, then no matter how obscure the person, no additional information is usually included in the title. Unfortunate, but probably not worth trying to change, because ascribing a single concise occupation to every biography opens a different can or worms, possibly leading to worse incongruities.

On the other side, if I were perusing a list, whether any list or a filtered list, and I saw "John Smith (architect)", I would expect that this person is primarily known as an architect. Also, knowing a little bit about Wikipedia, I would infer that there are other John Smiths who are not architects. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:50, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Our title policy, however, suggests that the title of an article should indicate precisely what the article is about. I am not necessarily agreeing with Greg's position, but I am not disagreeing with it either. I am contemplating the fairly stark fact that "John Smith" is not a title that tells you that the page is a list of people by that name. Granted, no one in their right mind should expect that "John Smith" is an article on any one particular person, but the principal applies to more obscure ambiguous names like Alfred Loomis, which is unusual enough that you wouldn't expect there to be three of them. bd2412 T 01:16, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you, and am not sure whether to agree or disagree with GK. With effort, I sometimes see that he is trying to make sensible changes. He doesn't have your clarity or English, and I appreciate you attempts to interpret. Alfred Loomis is a good example. I would be nice, one might think, if all Alfred Loomiss included the occupation for which they are known, but then when you come to the first, Alfred Lee Loomis, attempting to summarize his occupation into one or two words rapidly runs into increasingly complicated problems. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:10, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

The simple logic is that, if a page is named "Foo Bar", a reader can expect to find an article on the subject of "Foo Bar". The reader would not necessarily expect to find a list of topics that are genuinely called "Foo Bar" and other topics that may be commonly known by names such as "x Foo Bar", "Foo x Bar" and "Foo Bar x".

This, on a literal reading, fails the basics as presented in the opening paragraph at WP:AT and i find it ridiculous to label a page in the format "Foo Bar (disambiguation)" as being amongst WP:Malplaced disambiguation pages. Perhaps these pages (when marked as "disambiguation") may be regarded as unhelpfully and, in many cases, erroneously named but I think that is crazy to assert, without justification, that these pages are "malplaced". On what grounds do we say this?

My contention here is that, if editors end up at pages such as John Smith, John Kennedy and James Maxwell when they are looking for bios such as those for John Blair Smith, John F. Kennedy and James Clerk Maxwell, then this may (admittedly by my complete WP:OR conjecture) be likely because the the reader has simply forgotten (of forgotten the exact rendering of) the actual rendering of the subject's commonname. I also find it difficult to understand the titling of pages such as James McCartney (disambiguation), Harry Crosby (disambiguation), William Clinton (disambiguation) when they contain listings for people such as " James Paul McCartney or Paul McCartney (born 1942), British singer", " Bing Crosby (Harry Lillis Crosby, 1903–1977), American actor and singer" and "[[Bill Clinton|William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton]] (born 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States (1993–2001)". In the first case we have someone who is regularly known as Paul McCartney sometimes as Sir Paul McCartney. I think, that inclusion into the listing on the "James McCartney" page is certainly justified but I think that this may mainly be for the sake of potential reader interest and for the provision of potentially helpful options of navigation. A reader whose name was James McCartney may, for instance, find it of interest to note that the great musician, at least on some legal documents, shared their name.

I would also find it questionable, if navigation pages for names such as Eldrick Woods, Caryn Johnson, Charles Holley ever developed, if these page were labelled as pertaining to disambiguation and if the likes of Tiger Woods, Whoopi Goldberg and Buddy Holley were included in such lists. I mention some famous examples and even from this starting point I would argue that the articles on these people require no disambiguation. It is "navigation" that is usefully and beneficially provided.

Again my underlying contention is that it would be beneficial to move to terminologies that focus on readers needs than editor process. What are our priorities in article titling? Is it just to pigeon hole topics into the most concise possible rendering? Is our process purely about dissection? I personally think that such views are a trap that editors regularly fall into and I think that this example from yesterday is illustrative of a type of request that regularly comes up. I don't think that (what I perceive to be) our filing and sorting focussed mentality is always helpful. Greg Kaye 06:47, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

• Comment IMO @ SmokeyJoe: makes a valuable point by indicating that "ascribing a single concise occupation to every biography opens a different can or worms, possibly leading to worse incongruities." While Wikipedia policy does not require occupational or other information to be applied to bios that are simply titled by an unambiguous WP:COMMONNAME designation such as for John Blair Smith, I think that it is also fair to point out that there is nothing in policy that necessarily restricts disambiguations to the presentation of a single occupation similar description. Again policy presents that WP:Disambiguation ".. in Wikipedia is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous." Nothing is mentioned to state that the disambiguation must be restricted to a single occupation. Again, reference can be made to content at, Wikipedia:List of Johns whose Britannica article titles contain broad description. This list contains examples such as:

• John Alcock (English bishop and statesman)
• John Arbuthnot (British mathematician and author)
• John Perry Barlow (American author, lyricist, and activist)

Please, my presentation of examples like this is not an invitation for the presentation of ludicrously examples of disambiguation as editors, I think, argumentatively presented in the previous discussion. In many cases a more basic disambiguation might be presented in many cases so as to potentially present something like Foo Bar (author and activist). In some cases I think that a presentation like this may have great benefit in assisting reader navigation of content. Some readers may know "Foo Bar" as an author while others may know "Foo Bar" as an activist. This, however, is a side issue in the current discussion. Greg Kaye 06:11, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

• Coming from wp:Feedback request service, I took the time to read through and try to understand this, though the proposals are sometimes confusing to me and the responses are sometimes unnecessarily rude (or so I think, both). First off I'd note that sometimes we do things in a certain way and get so much used to that, that we tend to believe it is the best way, even the only correct way of doing it. That is the case with disambiguation pages, I believe. We I joined, over a decade ago, it was a very weird thing until I got used to it; still today, to me a non-english native speaker, I tend to think of "disambiguate" as "the kind of page WP uses to distinguish similarly names articles".

As I understand the proposals, they could be described as:

a) Use pages name "Foo (article navigation)" (or similar) instead of "Foo (disambiguation)".

b) For article navigation / disambiguation pages always use that name, i.e. if there is no primary topic for "Foo", then redirect it to the navigation page.

Relative to statu quo, this would be a change to wp:Disambiguation#Naming the disambiguation page, a) represents a name change, and b) a inversion of the current main page policy, which is to redirect "Foo (disambiguation)" to "Foo" in the absence of a primary topic.

I lean on to agreeing with the proposals. Say, looking at the current page named John Smith, it clearly is not about any specific person named John Smith, nor about the name John Smith (say, about its origins and how common it is). It is not a article per se, it is a aid for readers to find a article. The article name should reflect its subject, the subject is ' Where is John Smith?', thus "John Smith (article navigation)".

Should we go on and implement such change? It would be a large change. Changing thousands or tens of thousands of article names is likely not a big problem, I presume a bot would easily do those in not much time. Keeping "Foo (disambiguation)" as redirects to the moved pages would cause little to no trouble with links. Changing templates would probably be harder to automate, and so a larger problem. Even more sensible would be changing editors' habits, and for that I say that any change can not come out of this discussion - not with the restrict audience and input it got so far - but from a broader audience with a more clearly stated RfC. Is it so much of a improvement to be worth the trouble? Well... I will not start it, but I could help a little bit if it goes on.

And, to finish up, a side note. The fact that the software requires unique page names does not impose any significant restriction on how we disambiguate titles, and aid navigation. One probably well known case is IMdB, which solves that problem by adding a sequential number to duplicated names, e.g. they have John Smith (XXXIV). To find the correct John Smith, their search page adds (automatically I presume) one role and movie to help the reader. Sorry for being so extensive... Enjoy! - Nabla ( talk) 18:27, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

TY Nabla. I especially agree with your observation, "that sometimes we do things in a certain way and get so much used to that, that we tend to believe it is the best way, even the only correct way of doing it." There are many situations in which instruction creep can take effect and I think that this has been an example that has resulted in a clear contradiction in policy. We insist on disambiguation and then we insist that we don't disambiguate the disambiguation pages. We then apply WP:ASSERT within a Wikiproject essay so as to state that a disambiguated disambiguation page is WP:MALPLACED. This, as far as I can see it, is nonsensical and entirely unjustified. Greg Kaye 05:43, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

• I support the idea of adding parentheticals to the titles of disambiguation pages. These pages are often poorly put together with many partial title matches and so forth. The current setup leads the reader to expect that the disambiguation page is our main article on a given subject, so I assume many readers are disappointed. At RM after RM, you see many participants argue that the disambiguation page should always be the primary topic, although this rarely the option the reader is most likely to be seeking. Making a disambiguation page primary is the equivalent of a shopkeeper placing his least attractive fruit in the front window. H. Humbert ( talk) 01:02, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • For a page like Seal or Phoenix or Mercury, if the disambiguation page is not "primary", then what would be? Would that title just redirect to a disambiguation page with a parenthetical? bd2412 T 01:06, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
    • I also support the idea of having all disambiguation pages at Foo (disambiguation). It would mean that one could always know that they are about to go to a disambiguation page. I see no downsides. Foo can redirect to Foo (disambiguation), despite a history of never doing so, supported by a few editors ensuring that it doesn't happen. It doesn't fix the problem of editors carelessly making inappropriate links to disambiguation pages, because they will continue to link to foo, not check what is there. But I don't see that it makes anything worse. In principle, I like this idea, but I don't know that it is worth the fight, should there be any resistance, or even worth the trouble of implementing. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 05:36, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
    • In most cases, one or two articles dominate the traffic stats, so WP:TWODABS can apply. Otherwise, the base name can continue to lead to the disambiguation page, even after the DAB gets a parenthetical. H. Humbert ( talk) 06:19, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

      I have rolled this over in my mind quite a bit, and have concluded that it would be more informative to the reader if all of our disambiguation pages titles contained "(disambiguation)". This would also make them more consistent, since many of them have this out of necessity. My concerns would be the sheer number of pages that would need to be moved (100,000? 150,000?), and the fact that AWB's automated disambiguation finder currently does not work for redirects pointing to disambiguation pages. I would prefer to have a plan of action in place to address those before pulling the trigger on a policy change. bd2412 T 13:12, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

      My concern would be the status of the redirects that this change would create. With the disambiguation page at the "(disambiguation)" title, every base title without a WP:PRIMARY topic would be a redirect. The target of that redirect is much easier to change than moving the disambiguation page when it is at the base title (additionally, the move is logged centrally). For the contentious WP:PRIMARY topic situations ( Georgia, Macedonia, etc.), those redirects would need to be fully protected. A full move discussion could change the target of the redirect, but without full protection, the redirects in many situations would be bounced around between targets constantly. In lesser publicized situations, I still believe that the redirect targets would be moved way too often, which would cause havoc. In theory, a template could be placed on all of these redirects, so that the bots creating lists could keep track (and report on) any changes to these redirects, but I think it is more trouble than it is worth. - Niceguyedc ^{Go Huskies!} 00:08, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Section break

Wow long thread, skimmed it, but getting back to the original poster's point, I think what he's saying is: if you type "Foobar" and it takes you to a disambiguation page, then:

1. The title of the page should be "Foobar (disambiguation)" rather than just "Foobar", as a service to the reader to help her more quickly grasp what she's looking at. (This could be done fairly easily with a robot making moves leaving a redirect, even though there are many such pages.)
2. Except "disambiguation" is an unusual and difficult word (consider that many of our readers are not native speakers, not highly literate, and so on). So instead it should be a more common word(s), maybe "Foobar (navigation)" or "Foobar (menu)" or "Foobar (article navigation guide)" or "List of articles about Foobars" or whatever -- to be decided later.

He's correct IMO on both points. However, I don't know if this a big deal. The current system is not really broken. Changing "Foobar" to "Foobar (article navigation guide)" is a tiny improvement if any. I mean, the first sentence does tell what the page is about. And -- you are never ever going to get a consensus of people to agree to it. And if you somehow did, you would never ever get a consensus on what term(s) should be used -- "menu" or "navigation" or "guide" or whatever. And it would be a huge time sink. And since it's not really broken, my advice would be to let it go. The current naming system was decided a long time ago and is not going to ever change, so I'd recommend moving on. Herostratus ( talk) 01:27, 25 July 2015 (UTC) In addition to which, it is forbidden to use redirects on disambig pages. I think that that's a foolish rule for a number of reasons I won't detail here, and I ignore it myself, at least to the extent of using the pipe trick or setting up a redirect sometimes.

But none of that matters. It's the rule, and (I gather) it's the rule because its the (pretty idiosyncratic IMO) consensus of the people interested in disambiguation that piping/redirecting is bad and confusing and the the text of a link and the name of the page it devolves to should always be identical. (Regular articles use piping and redirects all the time, of course.) So now you're talking about "Foo" redirecting to "Foo ([something])" and I can't' see that as something that will fly with the disambig folks in particular. Herostratus ( talk) 02:58, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Not sure why you think it is forbidden to use redirects on disambiguation pages. There are many legitimate uses of redirects on dab pages described in MOSDAB. older ≠ wiser 18:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you think this is something that won't fly with "the disambig folks" - there is no one more firmly set in that category than I am, and I have previously noted that I see some merit to this idea. bd2412 T 18:41, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

• "Except "disambiguation" is an unusual and difficult word..."

The first time I saw "disambiguation", yes, I stumbled and had to think. It wasn't so hard, given that I could quickly find the base, "ambiguous", but maybe I am natively highly literate? What about the non-natively weakly literate? It think it is actually a helpful feature that makes it abundantly clear that Wikipedia has just provided you something that is not a typical article, and that some care with this page is required. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

• There has been a lot talk about the practical problems involved in adding parentheticals to the titles of the disambiguation pages. But the guideline describes the ideal an the actual encyclopedia will always fall short. If an idea takes years to implement, it takes years to implement. This page is for discussing improvements in the guideline. As I see it, the relevant section is this one: "As discussed above, if an ambiguous term has no primary topic, then that term needs to lead to a disambiguation page. In other words, where no topic is primary, the disambiguation page is placed at the base name." The second sentence would have to be dropped or rephrased. H. Humbert ( talk) 05:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Indeed. The wisdom of "the disambiguation page is placed at the base name" is disputed. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:37, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I have raised a thread regarding a move of "... (disambiguation)" contents with the thread being posted at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Displacing (disambiguation)s. Greg Kaye 12:31, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

• Keep the current system. I agree that people clicking Alfred Loomis on a search page may be surprised to not find an article about an individual. But if they do click Alfred Loomis then they can quickly locate the person they were looking for. If the page had been called "Alfred Loomis (disambiguation)" then it would probably often get a lower or no placement on search results pages (including external search engines we couldn't tweak), so it becomes harder to find the disambiguation page and therefore often also to find the article the user actually wants. "Navigation" is indeed a more common word than "Diambiguation" but nearly all uses of "Navigation" are not about disambiguation so a Google comparison of search hits is meaningless. We might as well say that "website" is a more common word than "wiki" so we should stop calling our website a wiki. But wiki is more descriptive than website when it actually is a wiki. France (disambiguation) is an informative title. "France (navigation)" sounds like an article about how to find your way around the country. "France (article navigation guide)" and similar names sound like a guide to articles about the country like geography, history, politics and so on. But that's what Category:France or Outline of France is for. It's a weakness and not a strength that "navigation" is a common word in other contexts if we want to use the word in the name of disambiguation pages. Britannica doesn't have disambiguation pages at all as far as I can tell so it doesn't mean much that they don't use the word. They just give a list of computer generated search results. Websites with disambiguation pages seem very rare so it's hard to make statistics on what they are called by others. As a general encyclopedia with five million articles we have a strong need for disambiguation pages and I haven't heard anyone suggest that we omit them in favor of automated search results like other sites. Many new users actually think disambiguation pages are search results and ask questions like why they don't include a new article. PrimeHunter ( talk) 16:30, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

PrimeHunter I would ask you to reconsider your concerns. I was going to comment that the Web spiders of search engines such as Bing, Google and Yahoo etc. are known to do a good job at researching links. Then I did a search on "Alfred Loomis" and didn't find Wikipedia's " Alfred Loomis" article on any of the first 10 pages of Google results.

At least a page with a title such as Alfred Loomis (navigation page) would have one more link coming to it which, if anything, would then give search engines like Google one additional reason to give the page a higher placement in their listings. Of course we could alternatively accurately give the page a title such as Alfred Loomis (listing of Wikipedia disambiguated titles) but a title such as Alfred Loomis (navigation page) is still accurate but shorter. Greg Kaye 18:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Search engines are hard to predict. A Google search will usually only allow one or two pages at the same domain. Alfred Loomis is the third result for Alfred Loomis site:wikipedia.org. In Bing it's the third overall result for Alfred Loomis. Alfred Lee Loomis is first in both Google and Bing. We wouldn't get one more link by redirecting X to "X (something)", because WP:DABNAME says we should do the opposite now: when a disambiguation page exists at the ambiguous term, there should also be a redirect to it from the "(disambiguation)" title. But Wikipedia does make few incoming links to disambiguation pages and that probably hurts them a lot in Google (I'm not saying we should change this to influence Google). PrimeHunter ( talk) 22:31, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The problem with the Alfred Loomis disambiguation page is that none of the three disambiguated pages lead back to the disambiguation page. If I wanted Alfred Lee Loomis, but accidentally went to Alfred Lebbeus Loomis, then I am stuffed. The lack of links back to the disambiguation page is, I think I understand, a big reason for search engines not ranking the disambiguation page. I think disambiguated pages should link back to disambiguation pages. I think we should do this to assist readers who land on the wrong page, and just note that the incidental benefit to google is nice. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:06, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Hatnotes are a distraction to users who are already on the right page. Where do we stop if we try to help users who are on the wrong page? Should Alfred Lebbeus Loomis also have navigation to Alfred, Lebbeus and Loomis? Alfred Lebbeus Loomis isn't even a disambiguated title like Alfred Loomis (sailor). We have a search box on every page. If users click on a page name which cannot be confused with the name they actually want then I think it's better to just let them have the search option than try to guess what else they might have wanted. I do realize people may look for somebody called Alfred Loomis without knowing his middle name. PrimeHunter ( talk) 23:29, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

In this case, each page should have a single hatlink to the disambiguation page, with further assistance to lost editors, such as a link to Loomis, to be found at the disambiguation page. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:50, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with SmokeyJoe. It wouldn't take much to install a hatnote perhaps with wording such as:

For other people with the names "Alfred" and "Loomis" see Alfred Loomis (disambiguation)

or, arguably, with something such as:

For other people with the names "Alfred" and "Loomis" see Alfred Loomis (navigation guide) (which, funily enough, is hardly any longer)

I would be happy to start (or for someone else to start) another RfC regarding possibilities. Any thoughts on optional wordings?

Greg Kaye 15:50, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

The problem may be even more clearly seen in a Google (.co.uk) search on John Smith Which immediately lists the Wikipedia article on John Smith (Labour Party leader) (which doesn't have a hatnote directing to the navigation page) and which lists no other Wikipedia articles. I think that this issue is well spotted. 15:58, 12 August 2015 Greg Kaye 19:05, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Greg - could you check the link to Google in your last post. Why would anyone who is looking for, for example, information about John Smith (the mathematician) click on a Google link labelled "John Smith (Labour Party leader)"? DexDor ^(talk) 21:29, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for getting me to check the link. When searching on a person I think that it is logical that, in many cases, the search will be conducted on the person's name. In some cases more information may be added to the search but this may not always be the case. When searching on a name a range of different contents across many websites may be presented but, on occasion, only one Wikipedia article may be presented. In these cases I think it would be quite reasonable that a potential reader, if they were in search of encyclopedic content, may click on the Wikipedia article so as to get into the system. At this point I think that it would be a courtesy to provide a clickable link to enable the reader to access the navigational content for articles related to similarly named topics. In addition, a provision of a link to such a content would increase the likelihood of the search engine providing a link directly to the navigation page. See search engine optimisation.

The common description "navigation" is typically applied to navigational contents within the internet as per our content on web navigation. Greg Kaye 16:41, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Re changing "disambiguation" to "navigation page" (or whatever) - that change would affect thousands of pages (hundreds of thousands if redirects are included) and dozens/hundreds of Wikipedia guideline pages. It would also make the English Wikipedia less consistent with other languages (e.g. "Categoria:Pagine di disambiguazione" in Italian wp). If you still think there is any benefit in such a change (and any chance it could actually happen) please write an essay explaining what benefits you think it would bring and how you think the problems caused by such a change could be overcome. DexDor ^(talk) 20:45, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

• In a nutshell without me reading this entire discussion, leave WP:DABNAME as is. Either way, the heart of this proposal should not apply to all pages as a guideline. Just like any policy, a discussion can take place on an individual basis to see if there is a truly valid reason to have an WP:IAR exception, such as the best example I have ever seen: the redirect Thriller (album). (Yeah, it's not a disambiguation page, but it sort of validates the "consensus to WP:IAR" statement I made here.) So, if a term has no primary topic and there is also a disambiguation page for that term, the disambiguation page should be at the ambiguous title unless evidence can be presented in the form of consensus in a WP:RM discussion proving otherwise. Steel1943 ( talk) 03:58, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

@ DexDor and Steel1943:

Which of the following gives clearest indication of the nature of the relevant page contents re: "John Smith".

John Smith (navigation page) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
/info/en/?search=John_Smith_(navigation_page)
John David Smith (1786–1849), businessman and political figure in Upper Canada; John
Smith, 1800s Cree Chief and Treaty Six signatory; founder of the ...

or even:

John Smith (disambiguation) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
/info/en/?search=John_Smith_(disambiguation)
John David Smith (1786–1849), businessman and political figure in Upper Canada; John
Smith, 1800s Cree Chief and Treaty Six signatory; founder of the ...

or the clearly ambiguously titled:

John Smith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
/info/en/?search=John_Smith
John David Smith (1786–1849), businessman and political figure in Upper Canada; John
Smith, 1800s Cree Chief and Treaty Six signatory; founder of the ...

How is a clear indication given to the nature of the content in the last and currently used format?

Greg Kaye 21:32, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Speaking directly to your example, the issue isn't necessarily the title of the page. For me, the issue is that unlike the other results from the search link you provided, where the first line of the article is shown (excluding hatnotes and templates), Google is not showing the first line of the disambiguation page:

John Smith may refer to:

which would clearly indicate what the page is about. Google is showing the first line under a level 3 heading. If Google showed the first line of the page, it would be much clearer in the search results what the page is about. - Niceguyedc ^{Go Huskies!} 21:45, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

We live in the real world and, yes, this even applies to the internet. We have an obligation to present coherent content and I think that this applies to all content that it is presented. The title, John Smith fails WP:AT which clearly presents the intention that: "The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles." The title of the namespace is written in singular form and yet the content attached to the namespace presents a significant plurality of topics. Greg Kaye 06:35, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Dab pages are not articles. DexDor ^(talk) 06:43, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

...Exactly. Steel1943 ( talk) 22:36, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

@ Steel1943: Whether the title relates to an article or anything else, encyclopedic titles typically disambiguate from other titles. What other encyclopedia presents similar failings in disambiguation? 06:55, 12 September 2015 (UTC) @ DexDor: You also voted in your Revision as of 22:18, 29 July 2015 for disambiguation pages to be classified within Wikipedia as articles.

There is little to differentiate Wikipedia's lists of disambiguate terms like the many "John Smith (Foo disambiguation)" from many other Wikipedia list based contents. The former set of "article" contents also presents the complication that they contain many listings such as John Maynard Smith etc. whose titles require no disambiguation. Greg Kaye 21:12, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages are not articles and I've never said/!voted otherwise (in fact, I've made many edits to remove dab pages from Category:Articles) - please strike out (that part of) your comment. Misrepresenting the views of other editors could be considered WP:DISRUPTIVE. There are disambiguation pages (e.g. George Bush, Book:George Bush and Wikipedia:AA) in many namespaces (including the namespace which also contains articles), but none of those dab pages are articles. As for "lists of disambiguate terms" - you are introducing another term so that I (and probably other editors) can not understand what exactly you are trying to say - again, please desist. DexDor ^(talk) 06:05, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I have just cleaned up Palestinian to conform with MOS:DAB (removing external links, references, and multiple blue links per line) and protected the page because it seems that similar cleanup efforts have been reverted in the past. In case any objection is raised to this cleanup effort, I would appreciation any assistance that is needed to explain these policies to objecting editors and prevent any backsliding. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:15, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I rearranged the page layout somewhat and put a draft suggestion on the talk page Talk:Palestinian, for interested readers. Timtempleton ( talk) 21:24, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

See Template talk:Disambiguation#Retarget "internal link" away from WhatLinksHere. — Dispenser 02:42, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I started a WP:RfC that is stunted, presumably due to the bickering and WP:Too long; didn't read nature of it. It concerns fictional characters that are primarily known by their first names (or rather solely known by their first names to the general public). In cases such as these, is it best to go with the official full names or with the sole name and a disambiguation to assist it (if the disambiguation is needed), such as in the case of Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)? In the case of Faith, she is primarily known simply by that first name, and it was only years later that her last name was revealed and used for subsequent material. It's a similar matter for The Walking Dead characters at the center of of the WP:RfC I started; see Talk:Sasha Williams (The Walking Dead)#Requested move discussion. And in some cases, their last names are only revealed in the comics or in the television series, meaning that the last names may be known in one medium but not in the another, and that the only way that readers would know the last name is if they Googled it or heard it on television via an interview. So we are commonly left with this and this type of wording that is commonly altered or removed. And since general readers do not know the full names, they won't be typing the full names into the Wikipedia search bar. So if The Walking Dead character articles are to have their full names in the titles of their articles, what does that mean for character articles like Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)? WP:CRITERIA states, "Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles."

I ask that you consider commenting in the Talk:Sasha Williams (The Walking Dead)#Requested move discussion to help resolve this. Flyer22 ( talk) 18:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

If someone has time can they have a look at Moria, there is a slow burning revert war with some people moving "real" topics to the top of the disambiguation and others (myself including) restoring the most common usage to the top. If someone could pop over and clarify where we stand that would be great. GimliDotNet ( talk) 06:33, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

See discussion currently going on at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)#"attributed to" vs. "attrib." -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 05:52, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

This edit request to Wikipedia:Disambiguation has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please change your title Wikipedia:Disambiguation to Wikipedia: Disambiguation because I've got obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) Thank you so much for reading this 86.149.149.212 ( talk) 06:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Not done: We don't put spaces after colons when denoting namespaces. Stickee (talk) 06:17, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi there. Could someone who knows all the ins and outs of disambiguation give some help at User talk:Joshua Jonathan#JJ HELP? It's about the disambiguation of Integral yoga; there is an objection, but we don't know how to proceed. Thanks, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 13:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

How about a reader's survey for non-logged in users who are redirected to a disambiguation page asking what page they were actually looking for, which could then help determine the primary topic? Is that even a possibility? Or could there be a way to track page views originating from the dab page? Raykyogrou0 ( Talk) 10:50, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Involves primary topic and recentism, if interested: [9]

Disclaimer: I'm the nom.

-- В²C ☎ 02:54, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Fingering#Requested move 30 October 2015. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 04:57, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

One subject is commonly found in cirricula, and it is the focus of dozens of textbooks listed on gbooks. The other has never been taught anywhere, nor is it likely to be. If the "educational value" criteria doesn't apply here, it means nothing. H. Humbert ( talk) 15:47, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Please see discussion at Talk:Palestine#Synonyms relating to this policy. Oncenawhile ( talk) 23:59, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to mention if but Assurance, which used to be a disambiguation page has been taken over by "an independent insurance brokerage".

I have been trying to improve the Assurance Services page but I'm not well versed enough in editing Wikipedia to change the Assurance page back to disambiguation. Can someone help, or tell me where I should raise this issue? Struman ( talk) 10:45, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I've restored the Assurance dab page. If I was feeling charitable towards an editor who appears to be a PR person (from her contributions list) I'd do some complicated "Splitting" with all the appropriate templates to rescue her content, but as it all looks pretty much like an advert I'll leave it for someone else to do so if so inclined. Pam D 11:05, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Are disambiguation pages supposed to be referenced? Someone has just tagged the blue goose page as needing references. MeegsC ( talk) 14:11, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

No. See WP:DABREF. older ≠ wiser 14:14, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

If there is a proposition that needs referencing, it should be in the article linked from the dab page. If it can not be referenced there, it should not be anywhere in the encyclopedia, including the dab page. bd2412 T 14:22, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Trade center redirects to World Trade Center. There are 3 links from trade centre, i have no idea where to dab them to as they aren't about The World Trade Centre or about World Trade Centre's in general. Anyone have any ideas. Blethering Scot 22:28, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd suggest to delete that redirect. Why would "trade center" have to redirect to WTC? WTC is a proper name, trade center is a common name. So WTCs shouldn't be referenced without the "world" prefix. -- Midas02 ( talk) 02:47, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Someone has been turning an article going back to 2006 on Case analysis into a dab page which isn't really one. This needs additional guidance. -- Midas02 ( talk) 01:16, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Here, methink, is the right place where I should have written Template talk:Disambiguation#Acronyms an possibly also User talk:Ex nihil#Disambiguation of TLAs (RPF=Receiver Policy Framework).

It would be a tremendous aid to readers to solve this issue. (For a risible attempt see RFC 5513).

Opinions? ale ( talk) 18:25, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Acronyms can also be included if they meet WP:DABMENTION - that is, if they are mentioned in another article to which the link can point. An acronym not contained anywhere in the encyclopedia is probably not notable, and should not be included in a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 18:29, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
• Right, disambiguation pages don't attempt to disambiguate the internet or the world at large. Unless the claimed usage is verifiable within Wikipedia, it is essentially original research. older ≠ wiser 18:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree, even if there are border cases (e.g. an acronym is notable, but less notable than other things which are currently missing due to poor coverage of the subject in WP). The point is, what does WP do to resolve acronym definitions? Compare with Wikipedia:Digital Object Identifier. Yes, DOIs are better organized than acronyms from the start. Yet they are similar as users have an unsearchable, incomprehensible string that they want to resolve. ale ( talk) 12:52, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
• I think the RFC linked to above was an April Fools' Day joke. DexDor ^(talk) 22:03, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Which is way a called it risible :-) ale ( talk) 12:52, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

About a year ago, a new paragraph was boldly added to the head of this section:

The purpose of a disambiguation page is to direct a reader seeking information on a specific topic to the right page. Strictly speaking, entries should be just sufficient for this purpose. It is common to add a little additional information (which may make reference to the full article unnecessary). For example, consider the text " Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US president 1933-1945, Democratic Party, a central figure in world events, creator of the New Deal, in a wheelchair from polio since 1921, died in office". The name only is sufficient (for example, to distinguish the president from a flight data recorder). The next phrase, years in office, is unlikely to be objected to. The rest is unnecessary and inappropriate; it very briefly summarises the article, rather than merely disambiguating.

I think it's a worthy goal to start this section with an explanation of why adding overly verbose entries is actually unhelpful, but I also think the paragraph as written may miss the mark. I actually read this as encouraging editors to include enough information to "make reference to the full article unnecessary", and am concerned others will read it that way, too.

Here's my attempt to make this clearer. Among other things, I replaced the example entry with a link to a more thorough discussion of entry construction.

The specific purpose of a disambiguation page is not to provide content, but to help a reader navigate to the page that contains the content they're seeking.

The best way to achieve this primary goal is for each entry to include only the minimum information necessary for the reader to find the article they're actually seeking. Adding more information to the page detracts from this goal and makes the encyclopedia harder to maintain. See MOS:DABENTRY for a discussion of how to construct individual entries; here are some other things to avoid adding to a page:

-- NapoliRoma ( talk) 19:40, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

• I think it's confusing to have "What not to include in an individual entry" as an opening paragraph in the "What not to include" section which is otherwise "What entries not to include". The content would fit better as a bullet point in Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page_style, and must agree with the content of WP:MOSDAB, eg MOS:DABPEOPLE: For people, include their birth and death years (when known), and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. So I would suggest we scrap the whole paragraph which was boldly added, and add a bullet point in "Page style" on the lines of " * The description added to each link, if any, should be brief; its sole purpose is to help the reader identify the article they seek." — Preceding unsigned comment added by PamD ( talk • contribs) 21:45, 12 December 2015

I think that disambiguation is needed as the two words share the same root, and it would be equally appropriate to refer to either with any name. 92.16.237.72 ( talk) 12:46, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I was working on disambiguation of Posthumous. The dab page has two primary links - Posthumous promotion and Posthumous diagnosis. All the articles that linked to posthumous just meant the generic after death meaning and I changed these links to wikt:posthumous. So far so good. Then I found there is also a Posthumous recognition which is a redirect to the Posthumous section of the article List of prizes, medals and awards. This makes no sense and I can't imagine why this was done. There are dozens of links to posthumous recognition and this redirect does not aid in the understanding of these articles. I propose changing the redirect of posthumous recognition to wikt:posthumous. Any comments before I do this? MB ( talk) 07:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Or delete it altogether, or propose it at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. -- Midas02 ( talk) 20:05, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Please replace the link in the article. Xx236 ( talk) 09:37, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@ Xx236: Which link in what article, and why? Pam D 10:49, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Disambiguation, Disambiguation page or hatnotes?. There is a paragraph about the Retrograde motion (disambiguation) Xx236 ( talk) 10:53, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@ Xx236: Right, I see: sorry about that - so many people drop by this page with random questions about disambiguation pages that I didn't think to look in the obvious place! I guess we need to find a dab page which is nominated for speedy as "TWODABS" but is then rescued by addition of extra entries, and link to the version which only had the two entries. Can't think of one offhand but I'm sure someone will. Pam D 14:06, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages#TWODABS's "with '(disambiguation)' in the title". -- BDD ( talk) 15:21, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Baksan is a disambiguation page with only four entries. One is Baksan (town), and another is Baksan (inhabited locality) which itself is a disambiguation page containing Baksan (town). This is circular and I don't see any reason for Baksan (inhabited locality) to exist. The only other entry in Baksan (inhabited locality) is a red-link and the only article that references it is Baksan (town). I think I should merge Baksan (inhabited locality) into Baksan and propose Baksan (inhabited locality) be deleted. MB ( talk) 05:24, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

• Baksan (inhabited locality) calls itself a set index, not a dab page. Does this then entitle it to list a redlinked place such as Baksan (rural locality), which is not mentioned in the bluelinked article in its entry? If so, then there is some justification for this set index to exist. If not, then Baksan (inhabited locality) should be redirected to the dab page at Baksan (as I was about to do before I noticed it is labeled as a Set Index rather than a dab page). I've cleaned up the dab page a little. Pam D 14:49, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
• I agree that they should be merged. They way it's set up now is very confusing, especially since there aren't many places called "Baksan." By definition, the disambiguation page called "Baksan" should include everything known as "Baksan." Baksan (inhabited locality) is technically an WP:INCOMPDAB, even if it isn't labeled as such, and the best practice with those is to merge them with the parent dab. I'd be bold, but I'll give Ezhiki a chance to explain what's going on. -- Tavix ^{( talk)} 17:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
  • WikiProject Russia maintains set index articles on the inhabited localities in Russia of the same name. Redlinked entries are OK on such pages, as long as they can be verified (which is not difficult to do even in absence of a source; at any rate, upon request I would gladly source any entry the veracity of which is doubted). Some of those set indices are more developed than others (the Baksan one is pretty basic, yes; the more developed ones do not resemble incomplete dabs at all and have a more obvious list structure). The number of entries on such a set index does not matter, but note that even when there are only two entries, it is usually possible to dig up a historical entry or an alternative name of a different place. But I digress.
    Set indices with just two entries are not a typical scenario; usually there are dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of entries. Merging them all into a corresponding disambiguation page is seldom practical (in this regard, they are not unlike the set indices listing people by last/first name—the dab simply links to it, and that's that). I do agree that with just two entries, as is currently the case with Baksan, merging them in is possible, although the set index still needs to be retained as there would otherwise not be a place for redlinked entries which do not meet WP:DABRL. On the procedural side of things, note also that set index articles are outside of the WikiProject Disambiguation's scope and a decision to delete them should be made either by the associated WikiProject (in this case, WikiProject Russia) or by the community consensus (via a formal AfD).
    Another complication is the municipalities (Baksan Urban Okrug in this case). Baksan Urban Okrug is currently a redirect to Baksan (town), but it is nevertheless a separate, distinct entity (which includes an inhabited locality other than Baksan proper) which may have a separate article when enough material accumulates. And as a separate, although presently upmerged entity, it deserves its own entry on the corresponding disambiguation, which is why it was included there in the first place. But having that entry, of course, makes yet another link to Baksan (town) redundant, as it is already listed on the corresponding set index (which is linked to). So the setup ends up being sort of circular, but it nevertheless works well in practice: readers looking for a municipality can get to the appropriate article from the disambiguation page, and readers looking for the town can get to it either from the municipality's entry on the disambiguation page, or from the set index. Hope this helps clarify things a bit; please ping me if there are any further questions.— Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • ( yo?); January 22, 2016; 19:11 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2016 January 23#Freedom of Information Act regarding whether to turn the redirect Freedom of Information Act into a disambiguation page. Mz7 ( talk) 02:00, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Marc García#WP:Primary topic?. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 21:41, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I was working on Cowboys and Indians and am not sure of the best way to handle the last two links. The first is in Sweet Betsy from Pike - this is a reference to the 1965 album. The second is in Eric Frein - this is a reference to the "make believe game". Neither has a BLUE link nor even a RED link, so how do I fix these two articles? I don't think it makes sense to add red links in the dab page because I doubt the articles would ever be written. MB ( talk) 05:15, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I delinked the album. The band is already linked. The album doesn't seem particular notable. If it were likely that an article was to be written, it could be redlines, but I see nothing worth writing about at present. The game link is more problematic. I'm not even sure the entry on the dab page is warranted as the term is not mentioned in the linked articles (although it perhaps could be with an appropriate citation. older ≠ wiser 13:45, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I sent the second one to wikt:cowboys and Indians. This is the dicdef sense, although we could theoretically have an article on the topic. bd2412 T 15:14, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

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71.245.16.219 ( talk) 20:46, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{ re}} 21:32, 4 February 2016 (UTC)