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I am revising a technical subject, which has become fragmented in Wikipedia and needs consolidation into a single primary topic - or so I believe (I don’t have disambiguation experience). To give a false example for illustration purposes, let us say there is an article about Oranges but not Mandarins, Tangerines or varieties of orange fruit in general (which is not true of the illustration). To allow a coarser granularity of definition, would I create a primary topic called Orange varieties, with redirects from Mandarins, Tangerines etc.? What is best practice on categories when you want to group topics back to a common root? Geneus01 ( talk) 18:14, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
Full disclosure: I started the RM listed below at which a key issue is whether we should consider WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "The Foo" separately from the primary topic for "Foo".
-- В²C ☎ 21:36, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Where the Wind Blows has been moved to Where the Wind Blows (disambiguation) creating a malplaced disambiguation page. There has been no discussion of this move or of what the primary topic should be, and I can't see a simple way to undo it (no 'undo' button shows on the history page). What is the best way to proceed? (@ Dbmoyes:) Leschnei ( talk) 13:32, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
War World and War World (disambiguation) are both disambiguation pages due to the recent move of War World to War World (series). I changed War World (disambiguation) to a redirect before realizing that none of these changes/moves had been discussed, so I self-reverted. I'm don't know which article (if any) should be the primary topic, so decided to bring it up here (notifying Zxcvbnm, an editor involved in the move). Leschnei ( talk) 12:06, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
There is some vandalism at the very start of this guideline "can aka bp". I can't see where this is coming from / how to remove it. Is it from one of the templates? Polyamorph ( talk) 08:48, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
I've proposed a page move at Talk:Hanbali (nisba) that might be of interest to this group. Leschnei ( talk) 12:37, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Interlanguage links currently reads:
Pure disambiguation pages should contain interlanguage links only where a similar problem of disambiguation exists in the target language; that is, they should refer to another disambiguation page, not to one of the many meanings from the list.
I'm planning to rename this section to Language sidebar links and rewrite it to:
A disambiguation page on the English Wikipedia should be connected to the corresponding disambiguation pages in other-language Wikipedias. These will then appear in the left sidebar (see Help:Interlanguage links § Links in the sidebar). Such links are normally handled at Wikidata, which has guidelines for appropriate linking.
This is to clarify and elaborate the point, whilst avoiding confusion with the question of the use of interlanguage links within dab entries. The latter point is covered further up the same page at WP:DABSISTER. I had made this exact proposal in November 2020: Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 53#Language sidebar links, where it received broad support. There was also some opposition based on the observation that this guideline had come to be commonly (mis)construed as applying to interlanguage links within entries. That latter point was settled in a subsequent RfC, so I don't see anything standing in the way of adopting this proposed rewording any more.
Still, any further proposed changes to this text? Should it within the " Links" section, or is there a more appropriate place for it? – Uanfala ( talk) 12:30, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Please share your thoughts in the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Letters with a period should always be disambiguated. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I cleaned up *** and wanted to add {{ in title}} for the many partial title matches, but the search doesn't work. The resulting link correctly reads "All pages with titles containing *** ", and clicking on the link goes to the correct search page with the search filled in, but the search results are blank ( shown here. Is there a way to get around this? Leschnei ( talk) 13:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
"/.../"
is a quoted string rather than a regex.
Certes (
talk) 14:32, 26 June 2022 (UTC)There's a merge proposal at Talk:Cortes#Merge surnames that could use more input. Leschnei ( talk) 11:29, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
On dab pages for human names, is there a preference for redirecting all forms of a first name (ex: Jim/Jimmy/Jimy/Jimbo/etc. Smith) to the given name (ex: James Smith), or one page for each? I suppose length matters, as well. Is this spelled out somewhere? I dug thru but could not find specifically what I was looking for. Rgrds. -- Bison X ( talk) 12:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
This is a good example. John Williams (dab), Johnnie Williams & Johnny Williams all redirect here. I believe there are 201(!) entries on this page. Confusingly, there are also dab pages for John A., B., C., D., E., F., G., H., J., L., M., P., R. & T. Williams. To me, looking for a John Williams, this page makes me give up. Can this one be streamlined? Rgrds. -- Bison X ( talk) 20:20, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
A single disambiguation page may be used to disambiguate a number of similar terms– is appropriate. Combining disambiguation pages for variant forms of names is desirable where the resulting disambiguation page is relatively short (for example, where there's only a half dozen articles altogether).
Continuing from the discussion above ( #Diminutive names, nicknames, etc.), the advice on combining variant forms of names in a single disambiguation page (point 4 of WP:DABCOMBINE) should be removed. Combining different forms of a name on one disambiguation page makes it harder for readers to find what they are looking for. The examples in the discussion above demonstrate this.
Should we add some guidance on what to do with variant forms of names instead of combining them?-- Jahalive ( talk) 23:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
This link redirects to Defence minister, but it almost always (in around 500 articles) refers specifically to United States Secretary of Defense. Colonies Chris ( talk) 18:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
This link, which redirects to the overview article National archives, appears in around 300 articles, Almost all of them are actually referring specifically to either National Archives and Records Administration or The National Archives (United Kingdom). Colonies Chris ( talk) 19:25, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
In the Wikipedia:Disambiguation#What_not_to_include section, everything in the section reads as things we shouldn't include in their titles e.g. Long descriptions, Dictionary definitions, Partial title matches, Lists of names, Abbreviations, initials and acronyms, Sister projects, References, and External links, but when it comes to WP:DABRELATED it reads as if we shouldn't be including related things in the title, but the body is clear we shouldn't include unrelated things. Clearly, the title of that section should be Unrelated subjects to match the list of titles in that section describing things not to include. Huggums537 ( talk) 05:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is not a search index. A link to an article title that merely contains part of the disambiguation page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion between them, is considered a partial title match, and should not be included.and most others such as DABREF are pretty clear about not including references or external links. The one subtitle that stood out to me that seemed to be named incorrectly was the one for DABRELATED because that subsection is really telling us in so many words to leave out unrelated "terms", so why is the title suggesting we leave out "Related subjects"? Now that I'm thinking about it more, I think an even better title for that section than the one I suggested at first - Unrelated subjects, would be better suited for that section as Unrelated terms since it isn't even talking about subjects, but "terms". Huggums537 ( talk) 23:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Any thoughts about adding or modifying a list entry in order to add a link to an article that is up for deletion at Afd? In this edit at Female (disambiguation), Tazuco ( talk · contribs) made a good faith modification to an existing entry to add a link to newly created article Female (gender), which has an active deletion discussion going on. I wasn't sure whether to revert, so I left the link there (although I unpiped it and removed a second blue link).
How would you handle this situation? I think if the dab page entry was already there and the Afd was created later, I'd leave the dab page alone until the Afd was closed, and then act accordingly. If the Afd was first, I think I'd discourage adding a new link in the DAB page to a page up for deletion while the discussion was still going on (typically a week), perhaps via another bullet in § Usage guidelines. Thoughts? Mathglot ( talk) 19:13, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is defined at
WP:DPAGE as a non-article page that lists and links to encyclopedia articles covering topics that could have had the same title.
. It's the second part that I would like to draw attention to: that could have had the same title
.
The context I have in mind here is the widespread misconception that dabs should only list terms that appear in an article's title: in its various forms it's common especially, though not exclusively, among new editors and is the reason behind many disruptive dab edits and almost all inappropriate G14 deletions I've seen.
Now, that bit in the guidelines doesn't imply this fallacy, but it certainly encourages thinking along those lines. It is also factually incorrect. First, because the topics being listed on a dab page don't need to have articles of their own ( WP:DABMENTION): for example, the dab page Plus has an entry for the plus sign, which is a subtopic of Plus and minus signs – that article could obviously not have had the title "Plus sign". Second, even where a 1:1 correspondence obtains between the topic of interest and an article, that topic can be known under different names, and many of them (though eligible for inclusion in dabs) would be clearly ruled out as possible article titles. For example, Holland (disambiguation) has an entry for the Netherlands and so does America (disambiguation) list the US, though obviously Netherlands could never have had the title "Holland", nor could the article United States possibly have been named "America".
We need a definition that better captures what dab pages actually list and link to: not necessarily articles per se, certainly not article titles, but encyclopedic topics with coverage on Wikipedia. That sort of definition is already provided at the very top of the page, where an example is given of
Mercury, a non-article page which lists various meanings of "Mercury" and which links to the articles that cover them
. –
Uanfala (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
could have had the same title. Although we don't have a whole article about it, the plus sign is a topic which might have been called simply "Plus" in the absence of competing topics. Indeed, Plus sign is a redirect to Plus and minus signs#Plus sign, and the idea of splitting that section off as a separate article is not completely ridiculous. Certes ( talk) 16:43, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various meanings of a term and links to the articles that cover them., and the bit about "the same title" was added by JHunterJ in 2017 with summary
not meanings of terms, but articles that could have collided on the title. I did not find a connection between this edit and any discussion of the time, so JHunterJ can provide context. Jay (talk) 13:05, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
We perhaps need to emphasise that a dab page can include terms which would otherwise be redirects, eg if we have an article Jemima Jane Foo and one for Jemima Mary Foo then either one of them, on its own, would have a redirect from Jemima Foo, but as it this ambiguous a dab page, or dab page entries, is/are needed. Some editors try to delete dab pages on the basis that none of the entries is the title of an article. Pam D 18:59, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various meanings of a term and links to the articles that cover them. The purpose of disambiguation is allowing navigation to the article which describes the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on identifying the meaning of each term
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various existing articles with content that describes the ambiguous topics. The purpose of disambiguation pages is allowing navigation to the article on the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on getting the reader to their desired article.
a non-article page that lists the various meanings of a term as covered in Wikipedia articles? – Uanfala ( talk) 14:22, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various uses of a term, where each use is accompanied by a link to the Wikipedia article that covers it? – Uanfala ( talk) 14:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Amardeep Singh (disambiguation) is a newly created disambiguation page that should be at Amardeep Singh as there's no primary topic. However, only an administrator can create Amardeep Singh because of previous problems. Is there an administrator here who would be willing to look at this? (ping Satdeep Gill) Leschnei ( talk) 17:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Can we get some uninvolved eyeballs on Female (disambiguation)? There seems to be some edit warring or thrashing going on there, which looks to me like spillover from a lively and long recent Afd on 'Female (gender)', which in turn has roots in years-long simmering controversies at Female, Woman, Gender, Gender identity, and elsewhere. I'd hate to see that strife extended to disambiguation pages as well, but that's what it looks like is happening to me. If someone could take a calm, cold look at it, and bring it into line with WP:DABSTYLE and other guideline provisions, ignoring all the background noise from those other articles, that would be appreciated. Maybe if a few people could add this to your watchlist as well, that might help going forward. Thanks in advance, Mathglot ( talk) 20:07, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
The guidelines at
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC define a primary topic with respect to usage as one that is the most likely be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term
. For a very long time, that usage was commonly determined via the pageviews, and to a lesser extent from web searches and from the count of incoming wikilinks. The operational assumption was that one article is more likely to be sought by readers than another if it was more popular, or if its topic has more hits in a google search.
Two things have changed in recent years. One, it has gradually been realised that the vast majority of readers of an article arrive there by following wikilinks or via external websites, and only a small fraction (typically much less than 10%) are there after searching for the term on Wikipedia. So, the total pageviews will rarely be representative for the small fraction of them that is due to reader searches: of two articles referred to by the same term, one can get more pageviews because it's linked from a very popular page, whereas the other one can be what most readers want when they search directly for its name.
The second change was the development of the Clickstream and Wikinav, which show the clickthroughs from articles. For one common scenario – when the dab page is at the base title – their data provides a reliable indicator of what readers actually seek when searching for the given term. The pageviews aren't obsolete: they're still useful for example, when the primary title isn't occupied by a dab page. Still, for the cases where relevant Wikinav data is available, comparing total pageviews is now a red herring.
And now the problem. Pageviews, along with Wikinav, links and web searches, are listed as one of the ways of determining usage at WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY, a flat list that doesn't provide and context or explanations for the applicability of each tool. This has led to people arguing, in the context of RM discussions, that each of them could be used, regardless of context. This, in turn, has resulted in some odd RM outcomes (a recent example was an article with less than 15% of the dab clickthroughs that got promoted to a primary topic on the grounds of higher total article traffic).
Ultimately, we need to come up with more detailed guidelines about determining usage. We can't continue taking so much as obvious or self-evident: we need to spell it all out so that it's clear and accessible to all editors. But first, I guess, we need to make sure we still agree on what usage means. Uanfala ( talk) 16:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Is our definition of usage still adequate? The guidelines say that a primary topic with respect to usage is one that is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
(emphasis added)
Usage here refers to what readers want when they look up a term on Wikipedia. We're not interested in readers who get to an article without searching for it in this way (say, if they're following a wikilink or an external bookmark). We're also not interested in readers who sought that article by searching for a different term (say, a synonym), because that would only be relevant for the usage of that other term. That's still what we understand usage to be, right? Or is there appetite for redefining it to have broader meaning?
One assumption here is that we're looking at what a reader searches for on Wikipedia. What is sought by visitors to other websites should be irrelevant: there's no reason to suppose that visitor behaviour on Google or Bing (presumably inferrable by their ordering of results) should translate into reader behaviour on Wikipedia. Right? (For the record, I think that usage in reliable sources is still relevant: after all, if a topic is more extensively written about then by definition it's more notable, but that relates to the other aspect of primary topics – long-term notability, not usage as defined here). Uanfala ( talk) 16:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
"the topic sought when a reader searches for that term": I assume the "search" here does not refer to the Wikipedia search bar only, and refers to external search engines as well. Given that, the definition does not address users who arrive at a page via wikilinks or external webpages. One change that can bridge this gap would be to replace "searches" with "shows interest in". Jay 💬 17:17, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
See proposal here. Thanks, — swpb T • go beyond • bad idea 16:17, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Hello, I would like to connect disambiguation pages Lom and cs:Lom (rozcestník), but there is some issue and I don't know how to solve it. Can someone take care of this? Thanks. FromCzech ( talk) 04:00, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
What should be done with the likes of Wills when there is 1 countable meaning like Will and testament ( Will (law) redirect) and separate DAB pages exist for singular and plural? At User talk:Clarityfiend#Wills Clarityfiend has argued that because the legal meaning is listed at the singular Will DAB it doesn't need to be included but normally if a plural doesn't redirect to the singular it at least is expected to be on the plural DAB. There was also a discussion at Talk:Piers#Singular entries and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 24#Needles. WP:PTM is clear that regardless of the title of the article an article should be included if ambiguous so if the legal meaning isn't primary like Cats is for the animal at least it should be mentioned. For some DAB pages with many countable meanings they yes one of the top entries on the plural DAB may be "The plural of X" but with just 1 or even a few meanings they can just be added to the plural DAB. With Wills I would be fine with the legal meaning in the "Other uses" though I think at the top is best but at least it should be so that readers and editors can find it easily if they search or link to "Wills" wanting the legal meaning. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 17:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Hi. How would I request the creation of a dab page for Jake Bird, given that we now also have a major league pitcher named Jake Bird (baseball)? Thanks. 2603:7000:2143:8500:19F8:9089:EFD1:D014 ( talk) 19:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
@ Clarityfiend: and I have been discussing what to do with Warden and Warden (disambiguation). Currently Warden is a disambiguation page for the title 'Warden' and Warden (disambiguation) is a DAB page for everything else. I'm not sure of the best way to approach this. Two possibilities are to merge the 2 pages back together and clean up, or move Warden to Warden (title) (or something similar) and move the DAB page back to Warden. Ideas would be appreciated. Leschnei ( talk) 21:32, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Vares (surname) (= redirect Vares (disambiguation)#Surname) does not work. Lokys dar Vienas ( talk) 19:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking for opinions on Mill Green, which contains several different red-link entries that are mentioned on the same blue-link list. Given that this a medium length DAB, I'd like to limit the duplicate (blue) links to speed navigation and I question if linking to the same list 4 or 5 times is very helpful. Is it acceptable the way it is, or should these entries be reworked (perhaps rolled into a single entry)? Specifically:
(The list also includes Mill Green, West Midlands, which is currently missing on the DAB) Hoof Hearted ( talk) 19:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
The Microsoft Lumia example seems out of place compared to the other examples and unnecessarily pedantic. I can see it's ambiguous about how to cover multiple sports called football, or multiple high courts called the Supreme Court. But it becomes ridiculous to give advice that reminds us that all the iPhones / Lumias / Androids are each one thing. It would be like reminding us to write an article about the World Series. What purpose is this serving, and does this really belong at the disambiguation guideline? Jorahm ( talk) 20:45, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree. Lumia points to a disambiguation page and is not an example of a "Broad-concept articles". Sinceit has been 30 days without other comment, I will boldly delete this less than stellar example. -- Bejnar ( talk) 14:35, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
(1) There are pages with template:surname on them. Are they disambiguation pages? (2) Must they unconditionally be merged into disambiguation pages? Yossi Rimon ( talk) 18:50, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
A list of name-holders can be included in a People section of the page. The page exists for that purpose.After numerous reverts by the op I nominated the duplicative dab page for deletion. Hopefully we can all move on. Bruxton ( talk) 20:49, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
— Bagumba ( talk) 11:35, 19 October 2022 (UTC)A set index article (SIA) is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name
Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability; surname lists are an example of that. Elli ( talk | contribs) 22:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
— Bagumba ( talk) 08:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)List of notable items: The list topic need not be notable in itself. Nevertheless, each of the items should be notable.
I found some very similarly titled articles and feel that they could benefit from a disambiguation page, as they could easily be confused for one another. The only thing I'm not sure of is what to call the disambiguation page, since all the entries have subtly different titles:
See also
Would welcome any suggestions. -- Jameboy ( talk) 22:02, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Could someone else look at Ngawi. MB 15:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
If all the entries on a dab page are acronyms, it would have an all-caps title (FOO). If there are no acronym entries, it will be in sentence case (Foo). But what do we do when a dab page has entries of both types? There are two relevant bits in the list of suggestions at WP:DABNAME:
A word is preferred to an abbreviation, for example Arm (disambiguation) over ARM.
[..]
The spelling that reflects the majority of items on the page is preferred to less common alternatives.
We've got two problems here. One is that those two lines contradict each other (the majority of items in
Arm (disambiguation) are spelt ARM, not arm). The other is to do with the wording of the first line: it's either confusing or plainly meaningless. This latter point was discussed in a
a brief discussion from 2019 and there was agreement that the wording needs to change. Two relevant rules of thumb were proposed in that discussion: we should use mixed case whenever many of the uses we're distinguishing use mixed case, and all-caps when nearly all of those uses are all-caps
, and Use the case common to the clear majority of meanings, or sentence case if there is no clear majority
.
Also relevant here is one of the other rules in DABNAME, one that's much clearer and almost universally applied: the preference for the simplest form applicable. This means we prefer singulars (Foo) to plurals (Foos), plain forms to forms with diacritics (Fóo), and titles without a definite article to those with one (The Foo). It does appear like the case distinction can fit in here as well: the lower-case form can be perceived as being simpler than the upper-case one. There is also the Wikipedia-wide preference for lower-case titles ( WP:LOWERCASE), but it's arguable whether it should apply here as well.
So, what should our guidelines say here? – Uanfala ( talk) 15:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't really understand this kind of an edit - it makes the links worse, or they force us to split off anthroponymy entries into separate pages even for short lists. Can we avoid it by placing {{ R to disambiguation page}} on Savas (given name) and Sawa (given name)? (@ ShelfSkewed:) -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 22:56, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
— Bagumba ( talk) 10:32, 29 November 2022 (UTC)To link to a disambiguation page (rather than to a page whose topic is a specific meaning), link to the title that includes the text "(disambiguation)", even if that is a redirect—for example, link to the redirect Springfield (disambiguation) rather than the target page at "Springfield".
the name [[Sawa (given name)|Sawa]]
to the name [[Sawa (disambiguation)|Sawa]]
is a bad idea whichever way you look at it except from the perspective of trying to absolutely minimise the total count in the dablink reports. I really don't like the idea of forcing suboptimal linking in article text just for operational reasons. And is the operational gain worth it? Links to (given name)
redirects don't disrupt the link fixing process that much: if you see such a link, just ignore it and move on? –
Uanfala (
talk) 17:32, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
include[s] some information about the name (etymology, geographical distribution, etc) with sources. While such probably exist, I haven't stumbled upon one in my rather long wikicareer. So let's better work from the situation as it is, and that is that 99% of surname pages are actually dab pages in disguise. m:Eventualism is good as a philosophical concept (I largely subscribe to it myself), but we're discussing an area with a deeply rooted practice unlikely to be changed in foreseeable future. And that requires some practical solutions. No such user ( talk) 22:07, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
...we have to go through the links again instead of simply re-pointing the anthroponymy-related redirects to the new places: Technically, the WP:FURTHERDAB guideline does not mention name lists as an exception for linking to a dab page in text.— Bagumba ( talk) 07:52, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Please see Talk:QQ (disambiguation)#Quarter quad. -- Redrose64 🦌 ( talk) 20:34, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Not clear why instructions to leave hidden text in the disambiguation page if helpful URLs were inserted into the talk page was removed. This would not be a violoation of inappropariate use of hidden text. Banana Republic ( talk) 21:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
WP:HIDDEN only suitable here after frequent issuesWhat I meant is that hidden text should not be automatically added merely because a "helpful" URL was added at the talk page. A common usage per the hidden text guideline might be:
Providing information to assist other editors in preventing a common mistake.Generally, I expect a mistake to be made a few times to warrant the addition hidden text. The guideline advises restraint:
Avoid adding too many invisible comments because they can clutter the wiki source for other editors.Let me know if there are any further questions. — Bagumba ( talk) 04:00, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them on the talk page. – Uanfala ( talk) 12:58, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Do not include external links, either as entries or in descriptions..., I also cannot understand the existing text and which URLs might still be helpful.— Bagumba ( talk) 13:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Traveler, or List of people known as the Traveller (which the former links to)? The spelling difference traveler/traveller is not relevant. Thanks, — swpb T • go beyond • bad idea 15:15, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
What are the community's thoughts on including area codes on disambiguation pages for numbers? Examples include 220 (disambiguation), 442, 711 (in this case with a leading zero), and a bonus mention of a fictional area code on 311. I'm a little skeptical that someone would expect to find information on area codes simply by searching for the code without either the prefix or suffix "area code". These inclusions feel like a violation of WP:PARTIAL. Barnards.tar.gz ( talk) 15:50, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
When and what was the first disambiguation page? According to my research, it was probably around 2003, but I was not a Wikipedia user at the time. Born25121642 ( talk) 12:16, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
I've been told it's vandalism to add a hatnote without sources for it. Jack the Dripper is an incoming redirect to Jackson Pollock ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and the Massachusetts Airman Jack Teixeira is indicated as being a person also known as "jackthedripper" at his bio and at the 2023 Pentagon document leaks with references in those articles. Shouldn't a hatnote exist at Jackson Pollock (target of "Jack the Dripper") to handle the user handle ("jackthedripper") of the MA ANG Airman that is much easier to spell than his actual name, so that people can find the topic? And should I reference everything in the hatnote ("Jack the Dripper", "jackthedripper", and the short description of Jack Teixeira) ? -- 64.229.90.172 ( talk) 17:40, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Predictive Text is an example of a technology that is evolving and the Wikipedia entry is out of date. A disambiguation page may be a good way to hold onto the now largely historical, though recent, information while supporting users to find the current usage.
This must be a fairly common scenario in many areas. Guidance on how to handle this would be helpful, especially when the technology, fashion or whatever evolves.
In the example quoted, autocomplete is another relevant term. The predictive text article is focused on earlier mobile phone technologies with physical keys, prior to widespread use of smartphones. So long as this is clear and users are directed to more relevant information for modern smartphones, the article doesn’t need major revision, becoming of largely historical/ academic interest.
Eventually historical material may require major rewrites, deletion, or just warning it is seriously out of date CuriousMarkE ( talk) 06:30, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
See: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages#Table of Contents behavior in Vector 2022. — swpb T • beyond • mutual 15:21, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi everyone, this inquiry at the talk page of WP:Naming conventions (geographic names) might also benefit from advice from experienced editors here:
Cheers, R Prazeres ( talk) 00:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Does anyone know why the bot(s) have not been updating The Daily Disambig and related lists (eg Templates with disambiguation links & Articles With Multiple Dablinks) for the last few days?— Rod talk 09:50, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Proposed_variation_to_WP:NOTDIRECTORY_(revisiting_simple_lists) has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Huggums537 ( talk) 18:39, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
I happened to look at Valentina just now and in turn https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Valentina and noticed how in the data for May '23, Tereshkova and Shevchenko actually appear in the top ten list of outgoing clicks, despite not being listed correctly at the disambiguation page (because there's no indiction of mononymous use and the name list was split off into a separate anthroponymy set index article). It also happened despite the fact the 'Names' section was at the time listed after a few other sections containing a fair few items that did not gather sufficient reader interest to appear in the outgoing clickstream.
So despite these list entries being nominally completely wrong to be there according to the sum of our guidelines, actual readers seemed to take an interest in them, and I can't really say that the outcome of having more people read these biographies was somehow bad.
Thinking back, I also recently noticed an interesting discussion at Talk:Rachel#Requested move 24 April 2023 where a similar kind of effective hiding of the anthroponymy list was happening. I previously also happened to notice something similar for Meadows and Vaughan. Also, in the case of Saba we also had a contentious move discussion involving a name list that had not been split off at the time, but is now. There's also been a bunch of discussions between choosing whether to have a name SIA or a disambiguation at the base name for a given name - Julius, Leonardo, Julia, Giacomo come to mind - and despite a lot of them resulting in some form of a local consensus, I'm not really sure the final result is actually where we want to be. So there's a bit of a pattern here.
It seems to me that splitting off large name lists, while obviously being typically helpful for addressing the vaguely obvious issue of large list size, doesn't necessarily lead to better navigation outcomes. Entries that would otherwise probably garner non-trivial reader interest get stashed away behind another click, which likely leads to fewer readers reaching them. In other words, we end up leading fewer people to read biographies compared to other homonymous articles. This outcome seems rather flawed because I'm not seeing how this rather arbitrary circumstance is being helpful to the average reader.
I don't want to just revert and squash name lists back in en masse, but it does seem like we should take a bit of time to think about this. -- Joy ( talk) 14:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Is most of the Peter Vincent page an example of a Wikipedia:Disambiguation violation? It seems mostly like a listing of people who have "Peter Vincent" as their first and middle names respectively. Maybe Wikipedia:PARTIAL? -- Quiz shows 04:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi again, not to load up this page with questions, but I am curious about Michael Lee. On this page, it is formatted with Mike Lee as the MOS:PRIMARYTOPIC. Is this correct? It seems like, to me, that the bold should be reserved for if the primary topic matched the title, like Michael Lee. With this, we could generally assume that nicknames could always go at the top if they aren't disambiguated, even if it is not the same title. I did read the MOS guideline, but I didn't really see if it was clear on this or not. Thanks, -- Quiz shows 17:51, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
Monoid (disambiguation) is currently tagged with {{ One other topic}}, and I'm not really sure if there are other topics to add. There are some PTMs/redirects ( Monoid ring, Monoid theory, Monoid factorisation), but I'm not familiar enough with this area of mathematics to know if any of these would be viable additions to the DAB page. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 05:59, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
In some cases 2 local authorities have the same class and are named after a place of the same name but one of them may have an additional status which may mean the name of the authority has a different name even if it doesn't otherwise affect the status or functions of the authority. I England there are 3 main types of local authorities, county councils (for administrative as opposed to ceremonial counties), district councils and parish councils, see Category:Local authorities of England by type. A district council can just be called "X District Council" like Harlow District Council but if the district has borough status it is called "X Borough Council" (unless it is also a unitary authority) like Eastbourne Borough Council and if it has city status it is called "X City Council" like Cambridge City Council even though all 3 are non-metropolitan district councils. Parish councils can just be "X Parish Council" like Buxted Parish Council but if it has town status it is "X Town Council" like Weston-super-Mare Town Council and if it has city status it is "X City Council" like Salisbury City Council even though all 3 are parish councils.
Consider Hastings District Council, a district council in New Zealand and Hastings Borough Council, a district council in England or Sudbury Parish Council [13], a parish council in Derbyshire and Sudbury Town Council [14], a parish council in England of which neither currently exist though but still an example.
Would these likely be consider unambiguous enough for the basic names (those without borough or town status) to require disambiguation per WP:SMALLDETAILS? Googling Sudbury Parish Council from Suffolk it returns the Derbyshire one first however Hastings District council returns the English one first though the New Zealand one does come up almost as much. Also with a different example namely Colchester City Council which was Colchester Borough Council until earlier this year but there are mentions of Colchester District Council and it does seem plausible people may search for "X District Council" for all district councils if they don't know which have borough or city status. Thoughts? Crouch, Swale ( talk) 21:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Would it be acceptable if a disambiguation page also noted the (ambiguous) redirects to the primary topic? For example, could Wikipedia:Disambiguation (disambiguation) also disambiguate the redirects WP:DAB and WP:D, currently mentioned with hatnotes? Or Wikipedia:Hatnote (disambiguation) disambiguate also WP:HAT and WP:HN. If so, it'd help a lot in clearing the insidious hatnote creep in Wikipedia. It'd also benefit many pages transcluding Template:Redirect-several (see [15]). It seems it's already possible for the main term DAB page to link to the corresponding redirect's DAB pages; for example, Bible (disambiguation) could link to Biblical (disambiguation) and The Holy Bible (disambiguation); or Botany (disambiguation) linking to Botanic (disambiguation). fgnievinski ( talk) 04:10, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
WP:NOTDIRECTORY has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. -- Tavix ( talk) 19:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
There is a possible issue with a disambiguation finder on toolforge. I have started a discussion here and am asking for assistance/input if possible. Thanks! Primefac ( talk) 09:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Slightly confusing situation here (but I guess that's the nature of WP:D):
I'm guessing, hatnote at each one, and maybe use of "[sic]" after the title of citations to the minority of academic sources about the shipwreck site that use the one-word spelling? Mathglot ( talk) 05:25, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi, I am admittedly not that experienced with disambiguation pages, so I would like some input. I made moved the MBZ, Mbz, and mbz to redirect to Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and moved the disambiguation list in the MBZ page to MBZ (disambiguation), which currently redirects to MBZ. My edits were reverted by @ Pppery and noted " WP:DABMENTION fail" in the revert summary.
I think my edits were appropriate since they follow MOS:PRIMARYTOPIC. He is definitely the primary topic from the disambiguation list, and he is widely known in the press by his initials. NY Times Le Monde WSJ Axios
The edits are also consistent with other presidents referred to by their intials, RFK, and JFK, who also has an airport with his intials listed in a disambiguation page. Vyvagaba ( talk) 10:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
These are both cases where, in a vacuum, the correct answer is a hatnote. It's entirely plausible that a reader would be looking for Mr. Winsor but think there is a 'd' in his surname, or be looking for the leader of the medieval kingdom and be surprised to wind up on an article about a baseball player. But because of the massive disparity in notability and pageviews, in both cases the potentially hatnotable article's editors have objected to a note (courtesy ping Wehwalt per request). And I think that's pretty reasonable. The problem is, though, because of the rules of what can be included in a DAB page, there is currently nowhere else for these plausible-but-infrequent similar names to go.
I've been mulling this over for some time prior to running into it in practice today, and I think the best solution would be to just put them in the DAB page's See also? E.g., for Charles III (disambiguation):
or at Babe Ruth (disambiguation):
It more or less falls under the second bullet point at MOS:DABSEEALSO, and even if it doesn't, guidelines are guidelines; there's room for some flexibility, and the rules for See also standards have always been looser than the main DAB page rules. The one catch is that this wouldn't handle the case of a primary topic that doesn't have a DAB page, but in practice I'm not sure if that would come up, since highly visible articles will usually have associated DAB pages.
What do others think? Putting this here since it covers both hatnotes and DAB pages; will notify WT:HATNOTE and WT:MOSDAB. -- Tamzin[ cetacean needed (she|they|xe) 23:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Partially_disambiguated_page_names#Suggestion_to_remove_list and discuss there. Thank you. CapnZapp ( talk) 13:12, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello, I have a dispute on Talk:Hranice about adding historical names to the geodis page and I would welcome a third party opinion. Thank you. FromCzech ( talk) 07:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
What's the best way to distinguish Colin Simpson (author), Colin Simpson (journalist) and Colin Simpson (journalist and author)? Do we just add an {{ other people}} hatnote to the journalist, or is it better to rename them to something like (Canadian author), (British journalist) and (Australian something)? Certes ( talk) 22:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Is Chinese characters allowed in the naming here? The only guidelines I could find is
WP:TRANSLITERATE which states "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such ... Chinese ... must be romanized. Established systematic romanizations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred
" which basically means it must be romanized in which the few examples below isn't.
There is even a Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles for such. Is it just me or did English Wikipedia became Chinese Wikipedia? — Paper9oll ( 🔔 • 📝) 06:24, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
I recently dropped "a resident assistant..." from Don (disambiguation), and I wanted to link a DAB shortcut in the edit summary to explain my reasoning, but couldn't find one. Instead, I ended up leaving the wordy, "...appears to be a duplicate of " Don (academia)", and is not used either as a redirect or a bolded synonym or in cited content on the page". Is there a shortcut I could have linked, at least for the second part of that (the part after the comma)?
Note: the "resident assistant" entry was there first, and I only just added Don (academia) after noticing its creation today, and also noticing minor edit-warring (just good-faith correction, really) at University don. Is everything as, and where it should be, now, and what's that pesky shortcut I'm looking for? Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 23:27, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
A resident assistant may be referred to as...residence don, but it's marked {{ cn}} and is at best a PTM. (From outdated personal experience, resident assistants form a separate rank below dons, but titles do vary between institutions.)I don't think we have an actual guideline against making multiple entries for the same topic. It's obviously a bad idea in general but might occasionally be useful. For example, Foo#Films might have an entry to Foo (1987 film) and Foo#Music to Foo (soundtrack), a redirect to Foo (1987 film)#Soundtrack. Certes ( talk) 10:12, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
A user posted the disambiguation page 板橋 at WP:Pages needing translation to English. I responded that there was nothing to translate and that the title itself was fine, as it provides the name in shared Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters for several places in China and Japan, in which the anglicized versions have different spellings. I based my reaction on (a) it made sense and (b) it seemed an obvious extension of the guidance for similar titles in the case of redirects, WP:FORRED.
Still, I decided to see if this guidance is provided directly for disambiguation pages. If it is, I'm not seeing it. I did come across this brief discussion in the archives where someone asked about this and two editors used the same reasoning as mine, based on the guidelines for redirects.
So that others don't have to go looking into the archives for confirmation of this, then, can we put a section about it on WP:Disambiguation? It can be short, only needing to cover the following considerations that leave the details to cross-referenced, existing, guidance.
Thoughts? Largoplazo ( talk) 16:12, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash – Involves article titles especially, and the pertinence for this page is whether a bunch of disambiguation by en-dashes should instead be done by commas ( WP:COMMADIS). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:07, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Should At Budokan be a set index page? It's a list of albums recorded at Budokan arena that include 'at Budokan', or similar, in their titles. Leschnei ( talk) 12:44, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
I noticed an interesting discussion that happened recently, Talk:United Parcel Service#Requested move 17 July 2023. The move was unanimously panned, yet https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=UPS indicates that in June, there was of a total of 2.1k incoming views at UPS, which in turn led to 1.62k outgoing clicks (~77%) to the proposed primary topic, 282 (~13%) to the power term, and six other smaller topics. It goes to show that WP:PTOPIC thresholds can in practice be tighter than what the current text implies. :) -- Joy ( talk) 12:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
WikiNav, which can compare outgoing traffic from a given disambiguation page.
JFTR I have added the aforementioned two notes in the guideline text now. -- Joy ( talk) 06:54, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Hi, for background context
Chrysanthus exists as a redirect to the disambiguation page
Chrysanthos. Last year I wrote the article
Father Chrysanthus about a priest and who is regularly referred to by sources as "Fr. Chrysanthus" or "Father Chrysanthus" in English-language texts (and "P. Chrysanthus" or "Pater Chrysanthus" in Dutch/German-language texts). Recently the page was moved to
Chrysanthus Janssen, merging together his religious name and birth name in a way sources do not use, with the edit message unusual connection of "Father" and religious name (there may be many more "Father Chrysantus"es elsewhere
. I realize "Father" is uncommon in article titles (though see
Father Damien), but I thought this seemed a natural way to disambiguate since sources regularly use this title to refer to him and no other priests by that name have Wikipedia articles. The alternative option is to use a parenthetical; Chrysanthus is known for his research in arachnology so
Chrysanthus (arachnologist) would be natural and already exists as a redirect to this article. I have no strong feelings between
Father Chrysanthus and
Chrysanthus (arachnologist) (I do have strong feelings against
Chrysanthus Janssen), but since the article has to be moved since it's now not at a
WP:COMMONNAME, I wanted to get some additional opinions since I was unsure if I could use "Father" to disambiguate in this way since that's what sources use, or if a parenthetical is best. I have started discussion at
Talk:Chrysanthus Janssen#Title but feel free to respond here as to the general topic of a title being used to disambiguate. Thanks!
Umimmak (
talk) 22:17, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Members of this WikiProject are invited to participate in the discussion at Talk:Chrysanthus Janssen#Requested move 24 September 2023 where the options Chrysanthus (arachnologist) and Father Chrysanthus have both been put forward as article titles. Thank you for your time and any comments! Umimmak ( talk) 07:19, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
I need some advice regarding Dubia. I recently added a dab entry pointing to redirect Dubia (Catholicism). I have several questions:
redirect
occurs 90 times) or at
MOS:DAB.In the course of researching this question, I also found John A. Dubia and added an entry for it; presume that one is okay. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 21:04, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Turns out there are ten, similarly-named genus-species disambig pages of the form "X. dubia", where 'X' is any one of ten letters (example: H. dubia). I pondered how to handle this, and came up with a sparse, non-standard solution that I think works; it's in the § See also section, and it avoids repetitive explanations on every entry that would've looked like copypasta. I think this provides all the information needed, without being overbearing. See what you think. Mathglot ( talk) 23:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Is there any real policy out there for "commonly refers to" settings on disambiguation pages?
I came across The Game today, and at the top it says the game "most commonly refers to" Triple H and the rapper The Game. Isn't it arguable in other directions? The Fincher movie and the mind game "The Game" also get well over 1000 daily pageviews, which isn't far off from the rapper at least, and Triple H may not be best known as "The Game" (at least it isn't mentioned much in his article). When you have multiple topics, is this even useful? -- Quiz shows 02:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Am I missing something, or is Regular a massive violation of WP:PARTIAL? I can see keeping the Badfinger song, Regular character, maybe "Regular customer", but honestly, I don't understand why there are dozens of entries there that all seem to be violations of PARTIAL. I haven't even gone through every entry in detail, but of the ones I've looked at, I'm not sure there are more than a small handful that I'd keep. Mathglot ( talk) 00:18, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Usefulness to the readers is their principal goal. So there seems to be room for the argument that a PTM can stay if it’s useful. Wikinav could provide evidence of usefulness. In my view, IAR-like arguments should only be deployed in unambiguously exceptional circumstances. Barnards.tar.gz ( talk) 22:01, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
The existence of so many listings in Category:Disambiguation pages with (qualified) titles suggests the guidance at WP:Incomplete disambiguation has apparently become outdated. I suggest we either need to clarify that section to explain why so many anomalies exist or perhaps re-invigorate Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Incomplete disambiguations. Granted, some of the entries in that category may be entirely valid. But I just picked one at random Arteaga (footballer) where the disambiguation page Arteaga also exists. And I came upon this based on a comment by Đại Việt quốc in an edit summary] for North–South Expressway (Vietnam) pointing out the existence of Green Line (London), Orange Line (New York), and Long Lake (New York). older ≠ wiser 21:23, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Since there hadn't been any comment in several days, I rewrote the first para of WP:DOUBLEDAB as follows. Bkonrad mostly undid this, so let's break it down. Dark red was removed by Bkondrad, green added in its place:
The edit summary was "there are only some cases where upmerging would be expected for double dabs". I'd argue that the cases where upmerging from small secondary dabs is not appropriate are few to none and currently undefined, so "Ordinarily" is sufficient hedging, especially if we change it to "Ordinarily, small secondary [dabs]...". Bkonrad's summary doesn't address the latter two cases (secondary dab with transclude, and secondary dab without transclude) at all, so I don't know what the concern is there.
Generally, I think we can and should be more specific than "in some cases you can do this"; I think there is broad agreement, notwithstanding this revert, that 1) the size of the dab and potential secondary dab are the key (if not only) factor in determining treatment (with size limits determined by editorial discretion), 2) the smallest secondary dabs should be merged up, and 3) where a secondary dab is justified, transclusion is advisable, with, again, size being the limiting factor. Which of those am I wrong about and how? — swpb T • beyond • mutual 14:43, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
the cases where upmerging from small secondary dabs is not appropriate are few to none-- the very existence of a double dab is that the second set of topic have a distinct title separate from the base name. Yes, it is true that where there are only a few of the secondary topics or where the secondary topics might reasonably referred to by the base name alone that we might include the secondary topics on the base name. But in general we would not upmerge the topics. Entities known as 'Montgomery County' are only known as simply 'Montgomery' in casual mentions or where context is already established. Similar for 'Montgomery Street', 'Montgomery Township' or 'Montgomeryville'. Sure we could transclude these to the Montgomery page, but I would not present this as the preferred option. Yes, transclusion should be an option, but the bulk of the addition implied that double dabs were routinely upmerged.
| |||||||||||||||||||
how rare they should bei.e, parenthetical double disambiguations -- I'm really not getting that from this addition. I think using something that is an incomplete disambiguation as an example of double disambiguation simply makes for confusion. older ≠ wiser 22:55, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Page | Primary dab | # of entries matching qualified title | # of other entries matching parent title | Current status | Swpb's suggested status under proposal |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arteaga (footballer) | Arteaga | 8 | 3 | separate | merged |
North–South Expressway (Vietnam) | North–South Expressway | 2 | 3 | merged | merged |
Green Line (London) | Green Line | 3 | ~130 | separate | merged |
Orange Line (New York) | Orange Line | 9 | ~43 | separate | borderline, leaning merged |
Long Lake (New York) | Long Lake | 6 | ~75 | separate | merged |
Life (album) | Life (disambiguation) | 33 | ~120 | merged | leaning separate |
Ten (album) | Ten | 30 | ~50 | merged | leaning separate |
Reflections (album) | Reflections | 37 | ~31 | merged | leaning separate |
John Smith (footballer) | John Smith | 23 (between two kinds of football) | ~240 | merged | borderline |
I did some delving into the history of the sections for WP:DOUBLEDAB and WP:INCOMPDAB. The section for double disambiguation was added to the page by Radiant! back in 29 Oct 2005. Apparently this was simply merging a standalone page WP:Disambiguation of a disambiguation that had been created by User:SuperDude115 who was subsequently blocked as a sockpuppet of banned User:Nintendude. I don't think there had been any discussion about the contents of that standalone page before the merge, and while the text has been modified somewhat since, some elements remain, such as the assertion that These kind of disambiguations are relatively rare. And the original phrasing is incredibly vague:
Stevage added an example on 17 Dec 2005. CarolGray updated the example on 21 Dec 2006. There was some discussion of double disambiguation in Jan 2007 at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation/Archive 22#Double Disambiguation.
The section on incomplete disambiguation was added by Pi Delport on 30 Jun 2007 following the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 25#Incomplete parenthetical disambiguations, with a bit of minor copyediting on 06 Jul 2007].
There was some discussion of incomplete disambiguation and partially disambiguated titles at
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 30#Question and
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 30#Primary topic after first primary topic? in April 2010, though I don't see any update to the guidance from those. There was some further extensive discussion of incomplete disambiguation / partially disambiguated titles / intentional disambiguation links at
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 31#Intentional disambig in July 2010. Again there was no change in guidelines, but there appears have been consensus that double disambiguation applies to titles that do not have a (disambiguator)), but rather have a more specific "real" ambiguous title
.
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 31#Possible incomplete disambiguations in August 2010 resulted in the creation of
Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Incomplete disambiguations (which is mostly unedited of late --
Pppery and
BD2412 are the most recent editors there).
Following Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 35#What is an "incomplete disambiguation"? in Oct 2011, Elonka added the option of linking to a list instead of an incomplete parenthetical disambiguation on 22 Oct 2011.
In Jan 2012 at
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 36#Incomplete disambiguation (again), there was discussion confirming incomplete disambiguations are pages with parenthetical qualifiers where the parenthetical qualifier isn't sufficient to identify a topic uniquely. "Natural" titles like Adams, New York or HMS Victory are legitimate, unqualified titles
. I.e., double dab doesn't apply to disambiguations with parenthetical qualifiers.
Note: there were several extremely lengthy discussions of partial disambiguation that often referenced incomplete disambiguation -- I've omitted these as mostly tangential to the point here. However, the discussions did perhaps affect the understanding of parenthetical qualifiers that might have some relevance for double dab and incomplete dab -- although sifting through those walls of text is a herculean task I've no interest in.
One thing I notice is that both of these are subsections under Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links. The language in double dab was largely about how and when to create such links -- and I think is really just a specialized variant of WP:INTDABLINK. The section on incomplete disambiguation is less about links to such pages, but rather about creating redirects for such pages. The last two paragraphs in the section does provide some guidance about linking to pages that look like or are similar to incomplete disambiguation (i.e, lists or set indices and partially disambiguated titles). older ≠ wiser 16:01, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Did a slight rewrite to align with existing understanding of terms. This involves repeating the last sentence in two sections, but it keeps things straight:
[At the top of the section "Double disambiguation" (This is identical to the first paragraph of my previous proposed version)]
[In the section "Incomplete disambiguation", just after the "Aurora" example]
— swpb T • beyond • mutual 20:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
@ SMcCandlish, Certes, and Joy: I know Bkonrad isn't quite happy yet, what about you guys? Is this an improvement on the (lack of) guidance we have now? If it is, then to me, I think we should get it into the guide before we lose all momentum here; we have infinite time to make it better later. — swpb T • beyond • mutual 16:01, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
In some cases, especially where there are only a few entries for the more specific name, the contents of the more specific page may be merged with the base name disambiguation page.older ≠ wiser 16:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
We'll come back to that. Do you agree that merging should be the general recommendation when the title is parenthetically qualified and there are only a few entries????? — swpb T • beyond • mutual 16:51, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
WP:DPT says "it's unlikely that there is a primary topic by usage ... if there is so little traffic that few or no graphs are shown".
Does this mean that having a rarely used DAB page counts as evidence that usage does not suggest a primary target, or does it just mean that WikiNav provides less evidence when there are few results? Thanks.
For context, this question is in relation to a move discussion at Talk:Holywell. Aoeuidhtns ( talk) 23:25, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 50 | ← | Archive 53 | Archive 54 | Archive 55 | Archive 56 |
I am revising a technical subject, which has become fragmented in Wikipedia and needs consolidation into a single primary topic - or so I believe (I don’t have disambiguation experience). To give a false example for illustration purposes, let us say there is an article about Oranges but not Mandarins, Tangerines or varieties of orange fruit in general (which is not true of the illustration). To allow a coarser granularity of definition, would I create a primary topic called Orange varieties, with redirects from Mandarins, Tangerines etc.? What is best practice on categories when you want to group topics back to a common root? Geneus01 ( talk) 18:14, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
Full disclosure: I started the RM listed below at which a key issue is whether we should consider WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "The Foo" separately from the primary topic for "Foo".
-- В²C ☎ 21:36, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Where the Wind Blows has been moved to Where the Wind Blows (disambiguation) creating a malplaced disambiguation page. There has been no discussion of this move or of what the primary topic should be, and I can't see a simple way to undo it (no 'undo' button shows on the history page). What is the best way to proceed? (@ Dbmoyes:) Leschnei ( talk) 13:32, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
War World and War World (disambiguation) are both disambiguation pages due to the recent move of War World to War World (series). I changed War World (disambiguation) to a redirect before realizing that none of these changes/moves had been discussed, so I self-reverted. I'm don't know which article (if any) should be the primary topic, so decided to bring it up here (notifying Zxcvbnm, an editor involved in the move). Leschnei ( talk) 12:06, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
There is some vandalism at the very start of this guideline "can aka bp". I can't see where this is coming from / how to remove it. Is it from one of the templates? Polyamorph ( talk) 08:48, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
I've proposed a page move at Talk:Hanbali (nisba) that might be of interest to this group. Leschnei ( talk) 12:37, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Interlanguage links currently reads:
Pure disambiguation pages should contain interlanguage links only where a similar problem of disambiguation exists in the target language; that is, they should refer to another disambiguation page, not to one of the many meanings from the list.
I'm planning to rename this section to Language sidebar links and rewrite it to:
A disambiguation page on the English Wikipedia should be connected to the corresponding disambiguation pages in other-language Wikipedias. These will then appear in the left sidebar (see Help:Interlanguage links § Links in the sidebar). Such links are normally handled at Wikidata, which has guidelines for appropriate linking.
This is to clarify and elaborate the point, whilst avoiding confusion with the question of the use of interlanguage links within dab entries. The latter point is covered further up the same page at WP:DABSISTER. I had made this exact proposal in November 2020: Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 53#Language sidebar links, where it received broad support. There was also some opposition based on the observation that this guideline had come to be commonly (mis)construed as applying to interlanguage links within entries. That latter point was settled in a subsequent RfC, so I don't see anything standing in the way of adopting this proposed rewording any more.
Still, any further proposed changes to this text? Should it within the " Links" section, or is there a more appropriate place for it? – Uanfala ( talk) 12:30, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Please share your thoughts in the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Letters with a period should always be disambiguated. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I cleaned up *** and wanted to add {{ in title}} for the many partial title matches, but the search doesn't work. The resulting link correctly reads "All pages with titles containing *** ", and clicking on the link goes to the correct search page with the search filled in, but the search results are blank ( shown here. Is there a way to get around this? Leschnei ( talk) 13:22, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
"/.../"
is a quoted string rather than a regex.
Certes (
talk) 14:32, 26 June 2022 (UTC)There's a merge proposal at Talk:Cortes#Merge surnames that could use more input. Leschnei ( talk) 11:29, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
On dab pages for human names, is there a preference for redirecting all forms of a first name (ex: Jim/Jimmy/Jimy/Jimbo/etc. Smith) to the given name (ex: James Smith), or one page for each? I suppose length matters, as well. Is this spelled out somewhere? I dug thru but could not find specifically what I was looking for. Rgrds. -- Bison X ( talk) 12:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
This is a good example. John Williams (dab), Johnnie Williams & Johnny Williams all redirect here. I believe there are 201(!) entries on this page. Confusingly, there are also dab pages for John A., B., C., D., E., F., G., H., J., L., M., P., R. & T. Williams. To me, looking for a John Williams, this page makes me give up. Can this one be streamlined? Rgrds. -- Bison X ( talk) 20:20, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
A single disambiguation page may be used to disambiguate a number of similar terms– is appropriate. Combining disambiguation pages for variant forms of names is desirable where the resulting disambiguation page is relatively short (for example, where there's only a half dozen articles altogether).
Continuing from the discussion above ( #Diminutive names, nicknames, etc.), the advice on combining variant forms of names in a single disambiguation page (point 4 of WP:DABCOMBINE) should be removed. Combining different forms of a name on one disambiguation page makes it harder for readers to find what they are looking for. The examples in the discussion above demonstrate this.
Should we add some guidance on what to do with variant forms of names instead of combining them?-- Jahalive ( talk) 23:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
This link redirects to Defence minister, but it almost always (in around 500 articles) refers specifically to United States Secretary of Defense. Colonies Chris ( talk) 18:52, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
This link, which redirects to the overview article National archives, appears in around 300 articles, Almost all of them are actually referring specifically to either National Archives and Records Administration or The National Archives (United Kingdom). Colonies Chris ( talk) 19:25, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
In the Wikipedia:Disambiguation#What_not_to_include section, everything in the section reads as things we shouldn't include in their titles e.g. Long descriptions, Dictionary definitions, Partial title matches, Lists of names, Abbreviations, initials and acronyms, Sister projects, References, and External links, but when it comes to WP:DABRELATED it reads as if we shouldn't be including related things in the title, but the body is clear we shouldn't include unrelated things. Clearly, the title of that section should be Unrelated subjects to match the list of titles in that section describing things not to include. Huggums537 ( talk) 05:40, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is not a search index. A link to an article title that merely contains part of the disambiguation page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion between them, is considered a partial title match, and should not be included.and most others such as DABREF are pretty clear about not including references or external links. The one subtitle that stood out to me that seemed to be named incorrectly was the one for DABRELATED because that subsection is really telling us in so many words to leave out unrelated "terms", so why is the title suggesting we leave out "Related subjects"? Now that I'm thinking about it more, I think an even better title for that section than the one I suggested at first - Unrelated subjects, would be better suited for that section as Unrelated terms since it isn't even talking about subjects, but "terms". Huggums537 ( talk) 23:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
Any thoughts about adding or modifying a list entry in order to add a link to an article that is up for deletion at Afd? In this edit at Female (disambiguation), Tazuco ( talk · contribs) made a good faith modification to an existing entry to add a link to newly created article Female (gender), which has an active deletion discussion going on. I wasn't sure whether to revert, so I left the link there (although I unpiped it and removed a second blue link).
How would you handle this situation? I think if the dab page entry was already there and the Afd was created later, I'd leave the dab page alone until the Afd was closed, and then act accordingly. If the Afd was first, I think I'd discourage adding a new link in the DAB page to a page up for deletion while the discussion was still going on (typically a week), perhaps via another bullet in § Usage guidelines. Thoughts? Mathglot ( talk) 19:13, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is defined at
WP:DPAGE as a non-article page that lists and links to encyclopedia articles covering topics that could have had the same title.
. It's the second part that I would like to draw attention to: that could have had the same title
.
The context I have in mind here is the widespread misconception that dabs should only list terms that appear in an article's title: in its various forms it's common especially, though not exclusively, among new editors and is the reason behind many disruptive dab edits and almost all inappropriate G14 deletions I've seen.
Now, that bit in the guidelines doesn't imply this fallacy, but it certainly encourages thinking along those lines. It is also factually incorrect. First, because the topics being listed on a dab page don't need to have articles of their own ( WP:DABMENTION): for example, the dab page Plus has an entry for the plus sign, which is a subtopic of Plus and minus signs – that article could obviously not have had the title "Plus sign". Second, even where a 1:1 correspondence obtains between the topic of interest and an article, that topic can be known under different names, and many of them (though eligible for inclusion in dabs) would be clearly ruled out as possible article titles. For example, Holland (disambiguation) has an entry for the Netherlands and so does America (disambiguation) list the US, though obviously Netherlands could never have had the title "Holland", nor could the article United States possibly have been named "America".
We need a definition that better captures what dab pages actually list and link to: not necessarily articles per se, certainly not article titles, but encyclopedic topics with coverage on Wikipedia. That sort of definition is already provided at the very top of the page, where an example is given of
Mercury, a non-article page which lists various meanings of "Mercury" and which links to the articles that cover them
. –
Uanfala (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
could have had the same title. Although we don't have a whole article about it, the plus sign is a topic which might have been called simply "Plus" in the absence of competing topics. Indeed, Plus sign is a redirect to Plus and minus signs#Plus sign, and the idea of splitting that section off as a separate article is not completely ridiculous. Certes ( talk) 16:43, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various meanings of a term and links to the articles that cover them., and the bit about "the same title" was added by JHunterJ in 2017 with summary
not meanings of terms, but articles that could have collided on the title. I did not find a connection between this edit and any discussion of the time, so JHunterJ can provide context. Jay (talk) 13:05, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
We perhaps need to emphasise that a dab page can include terms which would otherwise be redirects, eg if we have an article Jemima Jane Foo and one for Jemima Mary Foo then either one of them, on its own, would have a redirect from Jemima Foo, but as it this ambiguous a dab page, or dab page entries, is/are needed. Some editors try to delete dab pages on the basis that none of the entries is the title of an article. Pam D 18:59, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various meanings of a term and links to the articles that cover them. The purpose of disambiguation is allowing navigation to the article which describes the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on identifying the meaning of each term
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various existing articles with content that describes the ambiguous topics. The purpose of disambiguation pages is allowing navigation to the article on the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on getting the reader to their desired article.
a non-article page that lists the various meanings of a term as covered in Wikipedia articles? – Uanfala ( talk) 14:22, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists various uses of a term, where each use is accompanied by a link to the Wikipedia article that covers it? – Uanfala ( talk) 14:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Amardeep Singh (disambiguation) is a newly created disambiguation page that should be at Amardeep Singh as there's no primary topic. However, only an administrator can create Amardeep Singh because of previous problems. Is there an administrator here who would be willing to look at this? (ping Satdeep Gill) Leschnei ( talk) 17:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Can we get some uninvolved eyeballs on Female (disambiguation)? There seems to be some edit warring or thrashing going on there, which looks to me like spillover from a lively and long recent Afd on 'Female (gender)', which in turn has roots in years-long simmering controversies at Female, Woman, Gender, Gender identity, and elsewhere. I'd hate to see that strife extended to disambiguation pages as well, but that's what it looks like is happening to me. If someone could take a calm, cold look at it, and bring it into line with WP:DABSTYLE and other guideline provisions, ignoring all the background noise from those other articles, that would be appreciated. Maybe if a few people could add this to your watchlist as well, that might help going forward. Thanks in advance, Mathglot ( talk) 20:07, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
The guidelines at
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC define a primary topic with respect to usage as one that is the most likely be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term
. For a very long time, that usage was commonly determined via the pageviews, and to a lesser extent from web searches and from the count of incoming wikilinks. The operational assumption was that one article is more likely to be sought by readers than another if it was more popular, or if its topic has more hits in a google search.
Two things have changed in recent years. One, it has gradually been realised that the vast majority of readers of an article arrive there by following wikilinks or via external websites, and only a small fraction (typically much less than 10%) are there after searching for the term on Wikipedia. So, the total pageviews will rarely be representative for the small fraction of them that is due to reader searches: of two articles referred to by the same term, one can get more pageviews because it's linked from a very popular page, whereas the other one can be what most readers want when they search directly for its name.
The second change was the development of the Clickstream and Wikinav, which show the clickthroughs from articles. For one common scenario – when the dab page is at the base title – their data provides a reliable indicator of what readers actually seek when searching for the given term. The pageviews aren't obsolete: they're still useful for example, when the primary title isn't occupied by a dab page. Still, for the cases where relevant Wikinav data is available, comparing total pageviews is now a red herring.
And now the problem. Pageviews, along with Wikinav, links and web searches, are listed as one of the ways of determining usage at WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY, a flat list that doesn't provide and context or explanations for the applicability of each tool. This has led to people arguing, in the context of RM discussions, that each of them could be used, regardless of context. This, in turn, has resulted in some odd RM outcomes (a recent example was an article with less than 15% of the dab clickthroughs that got promoted to a primary topic on the grounds of higher total article traffic).
Ultimately, we need to come up with more detailed guidelines about determining usage. We can't continue taking so much as obvious or self-evident: we need to spell it all out so that it's clear and accessible to all editors. But first, I guess, we need to make sure we still agree on what usage means. Uanfala ( talk) 16:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
Is our definition of usage still adequate? The guidelines say that a primary topic with respect to usage is one that is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
(emphasis added)
Usage here refers to what readers want when they look up a term on Wikipedia. We're not interested in readers who get to an article without searching for it in this way (say, if they're following a wikilink or an external bookmark). We're also not interested in readers who sought that article by searching for a different term (say, a synonym), because that would only be relevant for the usage of that other term. That's still what we understand usage to be, right? Or is there appetite for redefining it to have broader meaning?
One assumption here is that we're looking at what a reader searches for on Wikipedia. What is sought by visitors to other websites should be irrelevant: there's no reason to suppose that visitor behaviour on Google or Bing (presumably inferrable by their ordering of results) should translate into reader behaviour on Wikipedia. Right? (For the record, I think that usage in reliable sources is still relevant: after all, if a topic is more extensively written about then by definition it's more notable, but that relates to the other aspect of primary topics – long-term notability, not usage as defined here). Uanfala ( talk) 16:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
"the topic sought when a reader searches for that term": I assume the "search" here does not refer to the Wikipedia search bar only, and refers to external search engines as well. Given that, the definition does not address users who arrive at a page via wikilinks or external webpages. One change that can bridge this gap would be to replace "searches" with "shows interest in". Jay 💬 17:17, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
See proposal here. Thanks, — swpb T • go beyond • bad idea 16:17, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Hello, I would like to connect disambiguation pages Lom and cs:Lom (rozcestník), but there is some issue and I don't know how to solve it. Can someone take care of this? Thanks. FromCzech ( talk) 04:00, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
What should be done with the likes of Wills when there is 1 countable meaning like Will and testament ( Will (law) redirect) and separate DAB pages exist for singular and plural? At User talk:Clarityfiend#Wills Clarityfiend has argued that because the legal meaning is listed at the singular Will DAB it doesn't need to be included but normally if a plural doesn't redirect to the singular it at least is expected to be on the plural DAB. There was also a discussion at Talk:Piers#Singular entries and Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 24#Needles. WP:PTM is clear that regardless of the title of the article an article should be included if ambiguous so if the legal meaning isn't primary like Cats is for the animal at least it should be mentioned. For some DAB pages with many countable meanings they yes one of the top entries on the plural DAB may be "The plural of X" but with just 1 or even a few meanings they can just be added to the plural DAB. With Wills I would be fine with the legal meaning in the "Other uses" though I think at the top is best but at least it should be so that readers and editors can find it easily if they search or link to "Wills" wanting the legal meaning. Crouch, Swale ( talk) 17:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Hi. How would I request the creation of a dab page for Jake Bird, given that we now also have a major league pitcher named Jake Bird (baseball)? Thanks. 2603:7000:2143:8500:19F8:9089:EFD1:D014 ( talk) 19:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
@ Clarityfiend: and I have been discussing what to do with Warden and Warden (disambiguation). Currently Warden is a disambiguation page for the title 'Warden' and Warden (disambiguation) is a DAB page for everything else. I'm not sure of the best way to approach this. Two possibilities are to merge the 2 pages back together and clean up, or move Warden to Warden (title) (or something similar) and move the DAB page back to Warden. Ideas would be appreciated. Leschnei ( talk) 21:32, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Vares (surname) (= redirect Vares (disambiguation)#Surname) does not work. Lokys dar Vienas ( talk) 19:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking for opinions on Mill Green, which contains several different red-link entries that are mentioned on the same blue-link list. Given that this a medium length DAB, I'd like to limit the duplicate (blue) links to speed navigation and I question if linking to the same list 4 or 5 times is very helpful. Is it acceptable the way it is, or should these entries be reworked (perhaps rolled into a single entry)? Specifically:
(The list also includes Mill Green, West Midlands, which is currently missing on the DAB) Hoof Hearted ( talk) 19:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
The Microsoft Lumia example seems out of place compared to the other examples and unnecessarily pedantic. I can see it's ambiguous about how to cover multiple sports called football, or multiple high courts called the Supreme Court. But it becomes ridiculous to give advice that reminds us that all the iPhones / Lumias / Androids are each one thing. It would be like reminding us to write an article about the World Series. What purpose is this serving, and does this really belong at the disambiguation guideline? Jorahm ( talk) 20:45, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree. Lumia points to a disambiguation page and is not an example of a "Broad-concept articles". Sinceit has been 30 days without other comment, I will boldly delete this less than stellar example. -- Bejnar ( talk) 14:35, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
(1) There are pages with template:surname on them. Are they disambiguation pages? (2) Must they unconditionally be merged into disambiguation pages? Yossi Rimon ( talk) 18:50, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
A list of name-holders can be included in a People section of the page. The page exists for that purpose.After numerous reverts by the op I nominated the duplicative dab page for deletion. Hopefully we can all move on. Bruxton ( talk) 20:49, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
— Bagumba ( talk) 11:35, 19 October 2022 (UTC)A set index article (SIA) is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name
Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability; surname lists are an example of that. Elli ( talk | contribs) 22:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
— Bagumba ( talk) 08:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)List of notable items: The list topic need not be notable in itself. Nevertheless, each of the items should be notable.
I found some very similarly titled articles and feel that they could benefit from a disambiguation page, as they could easily be confused for one another. The only thing I'm not sure of is what to call the disambiguation page, since all the entries have subtly different titles:
See also
Would welcome any suggestions. -- Jameboy ( talk) 22:02, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Could someone else look at Ngawi. MB 15:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
If all the entries on a dab page are acronyms, it would have an all-caps title (FOO). If there are no acronym entries, it will be in sentence case (Foo). But what do we do when a dab page has entries of both types? There are two relevant bits in the list of suggestions at WP:DABNAME:
A word is preferred to an abbreviation, for example Arm (disambiguation) over ARM.
[..]
The spelling that reflects the majority of items on the page is preferred to less common alternatives.
We've got two problems here. One is that those two lines contradict each other (the majority of items in
Arm (disambiguation) are spelt ARM, not arm). The other is to do with the wording of the first line: it's either confusing or plainly meaningless. This latter point was discussed in a
a brief discussion from 2019 and there was agreement that the wording needs to change. Two relevant rules of thumb were proposed in that discussion: we should use mixed case whenever many of the uses we're distinguishing use mixed case, and all-caps when nearly all of those uses are all-caps
, and Use the case common to the clear majority of meanings, or sentence case if there is no clear majority
.
Also relevant here is one of the other rules in DABNAME, one that's much clearer and almost universally applied: the preference for the simplest form applicable. This means we prefer singulars (Foo) to plurals (Foos), plain forms to forms with diacritics (Fóo), and titles without a definite article to those with one (The Foo). It does appear like the case distinction can fit in here as well: the lower-case form can be perceived as being simpler than the upper-case one. There is also the Wikipedia-wide preference for lower-case titles ( WP:LOWERCASE), but it's arguable whether it should apply here as well.
So, what should our guidelines say here? – Uanfala ( talk) 15:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't really understand this kind of an edit - it makes the links worse, or they force us to split off anthroponymy entries into separate pages even for short lists. Can we avoid it by placing {{ R to disambiguation page}} on Savas (given name) and Sawa (given name)? (@ ShelfSkewed:) -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 22:56, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
— Bagumba ( talk) 10:32, 29 November 2022 (UTC)To link to a disambiguation page (rather than to a page whose topic is a specific meaning), link to the title that includes the text "(disambiguation)", even if that is a redirect—for example, link to the redirect Springfield (disambiguation) rather than the target page at "Springfield".
the name [[Sawa (given name)|Sawa]]
to the name [[Sawa (disambiguation)|Sawa]]
is a bad idea whichever way you look at it except from the perspective of trying to absolutely minimise the total count in the dablink reports. I really don't like the idea of forcing suboptimal linking in article text just for operational reasons. And is the operational gain worth it? Links to (given name)
redirects don't disrupt the link fixing process that much: if you see such a link, just ignore it and move on? –
Uanfala (
talk) 17:32, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
include[s] some information about the name (etymology, geographical distribution, etc) with sources. While such probably exist, I haven't stumbled upon one in my rather long wikicareer. So let's better work from the situation as it is, and that is that 99% of surname pages are actually dab pages in disguise. m:Eventualism is good as a philosophical concept (I largely subscribe to it myself), but we're discussing an area with a deeply rooted practice unlikely to be changed in foreseeable future. And that requires some practical solutions. No such user ( talk) 22:07, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
...we have to go through the links again instead of simply re-pointing the anthroponymy-related redirects to the new places: Technically, the WP:FURTHERDAB guideline does not mention name lists as an exception for linking to a dab page in text.— Bagumba ( talk) 07:52, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Please see Talk:QQ (disambiguation)#Quarter quad. -- Redrose64 🦌 ( talk) 20:34, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Not clear why instructions to leave hidden text in the disambiguation page if helpful URLs were inserted into the talk page was removed. This would not be a violoation of inappropariate use of hidden text. Banana Republic ( talk) 21:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
WP:HIDDEN only suitable here after frequent issuesWhat I meant is that hidden text should not be automatically added merely because a "helpful" URL was added at the talk page. A common usage per the hidden text guideline might be:
Providing information to assist other editors in preventing a common mistake.Generally, I expect a mistake to be made a few times to warrant the addition hidden text. The guideline advises restraint:
Avoid adding too many invisible comments because they can clutter the wiki source for other editors.Let me know if there are any further questions. — Bagumba ( talk) 04:00, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them on the talk page. – Uanfala ( talk) 12:58, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Do not include external links, either as entries or in descriptions..., I also cannot understand the existing text and which URLs might still be helpful.— Bagumba ( talk) 13:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Traveler, or List of people known as the Traveller (which the former links to)? The spelling difference traveler/traveller is not relevant. Thanks, — swpb T • go beyond • bad idea 15:15, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
What are the community's thoughts on including area codes on disambiguation pages for numbers? Examples include 220 (disambiguation), 442, 711 (in this case with a leading zero), and a bonus mention of a fictional area code on 311. I'm a little skeptical that someone would expect to find information on area codes simply by searching for the code without either the prefix or suffix "area code". These inclusions feel like a violation of WP:PARTIAL. Barnards.tar.gz ( talk) 15:50, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
When and what was the first disambiguation page? According to my research, it was probably around 2003, but I was not a Wikipedia user at the time. Born25121642 ( talk) 12:16, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
I've been told it's vandalism to add a hatnote without sources for it. Jack the Dripper is an incoming redirect to Jackson Pollock ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and the Massachusetts Airman Jack Teixeira is indicated as being a person also known as "jackthedripper" at his bio and at the 2023 Pentagon document leaks with references in those articles. Shouldn't a hatnote exist at Jackson Pollock (target of "Jack the Dripper") to handle the user handle ("jackthedripper") of the MA ANG Airman that is much easier to spell than his actual name, so that people can find the topic? And should I reference everything in the hatnote ("Jack the Dripper", "jackthedripper", and the short description of Jack Teixeira) ? -- 64.229.90.172 ( talk) 17:40, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Predictive Text is an example of a technology that is evolving and the Wikipedia entry is out of date. A disambiguation page may be a good way to hold onto the now largely historical, though recent, information while supporting users to find the current usage.
This must be a fairly common scenario in many areas. Guidance on how to handle this would be helpful, especially when the technology, fashion or whatever evolves.
In the example quoted, autocomplete is another relevant term. The predictive text article is focused on earlier mobile phone technologies with physical keys, prior to widespread use of smartphones. So long as this is clear and users are directed to more relevant information for modern smartphones, the article doesn’t need major revision, becoming of largely historical/ academic interest.
Eventually historical material may require major rewrites, deletion, or just warning it is seriously out of date CuriousMarkE ( talk) 06:30, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
See: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages#Table of Contents behavior in Vector 2022. — swpb T • beyond • mutual 15:21, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi everyone, this inquiry at the talk page of WP:Naming conventions (geographic names) might also benefit from advice from experienced editors here:
Cheers, R Prazeres ( talk) 00:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Does anyone know why the bot(s) have not been updating The Daily Disambig and related lists (eg Templates with disambiguation links & Articles With Multiple Dablinks) for the last few days?— Rod talk 09:50, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Proposed_variation_to_WP:NOTDIRECTORY_(revisiting_simple_lists) has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Huggums537 ( talk) 18:39, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
I happened to look at Valentina just now and in turn https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Valentina and noticed how in the data for May '23, Tereshkova and Shevchenko actually appear in the top ten list of outgoing clicks, despite not being listed correctly at the disambiguation page (because there's no indiction of mononymous use and the name list was split off into a separate anthroponymy set index article). It also happened despite the fact the 'Names' section was at the time listed after a few other sections containing a fair few items that did not gather sufficient reader interest to appear in the outgoing clickstream.
So despite these list entries being nominally completely wrong to be there according to the sum of our guidelines, actual readers seemed to take an interest in them, and I can't really say that the outcome of having more people read these biographies was somehow bad.
Thinking back, I also recently noticed an interesting discussion at Talk:Rachel#Requested move 24 April 2023 where a similar kind of effective hiding of the anthroponymy list was happening. I previously also happened to notice something similar for Meadows and Vaughan. Also, in the case of Saba we also had a contentious move discussion involving a name list that had not been split off at the time, but is now. There's also been a bunch of discussions between choosing whether to have a name SIA or a disambiguation at the base name for a given name - Julius, Leonardo, Julia, Giacomo come to mind - and despite a lot of them resulting in some form of a local consensus, I'm not really sure the final result is actually where we want to be. So there's a bit of a pattern here.
It seems to me that splitting off large name lists, while obviously being typically helpful for addressing the vaguely obvious issue of large list size, doesn't necessarily lead to better navigation outcomes. Entries that would otherwise probably garner non-trivial reader interest get stashed away behind another click, which likely leads to fewer readers reaching them. In other words, we end up leading fewer people to read biographies compared to other homonymous articles. This outcome seems rather flawed because I'm not seeing how this rather arbitrary circumstance is being helpful to the average reader.
I don't want to just revert and squash name lists back in en masse, but it does seem like we should take a bit of time to think about this. -- Joy ( talk) 14:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Is most of the Peter Vincent page an example of a Wikipedia:Disambiguation violation? It seems mostly like a listing of people who have "Peter Vincent" as their first and middle names respectively. Maybe Wikipedia:PARTIAL? -- Quiz shows 04:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi again, not to load up this page with questions, but I am curious about Michael Lee. On this page, it is formatted with Mike Lee as the MOS:PRIMARYTOPIC. Is this correct? It seems like, to me, that the bold should be reserved for if the primary topic matched the title, like Michael Lee. With this, we could generally assume that nicknames could always go at the top if they aren't disambiguated, even if it is not the same title. I did read the MOS guideline, but I didn't really see if it was clear on this or not. Thanks, -- Quiz shows 17:51, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
Monoid (disambiguation) is currently tagged with {{ One other topic}}, and I'm not really sure if there are other topics to add. There are some PTMs/redirects ( Monoid ring, Monoid theory, Monoid factorisation), but I'm not familiar enough with this area of mathematics to know if any of these would be viable additions to the DAB page. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 05:59, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
In some cases 2 local authorities have the same class and are named after a place of the same name but one of them may have an additional status which may mean the name of the authority has a different name even if it doesn't otherwise affect the status or functions of the authority. I England there are 3 main types of local authorities, county councils (for administrative as opposed to ceremonial counties), district councils and parish councils, see Category:Local authorities of England by type. A district council can just be called "X District Council" like Harlow District Council but if the district has borough status it is called "X Borough Council" (unless it is also a unitary authority) like Eastbourne Borough Council and if it has city status it is called "X City Council" like Cambridge City Council even though all 3 are non-metropolitan district councils. Parish councils can just be "X Parish Council" like Buxted Parish Council but if it has town status it is "X Town Council" like Weston-super-Mare Town Council and if it has city status it is "X City Council" like Salisbury City Council even though all 3 are parish councils.
Consider Hastings District Council, a district council in New Zealand and Hastings Borough Council, a district council in England or Sudbury Parish Council [13], a parish council in Derbyshire and Sudbury Town Council [14], a parish council in England of which neither currently exist though but still an example.
Would these likely be consider unambiguous enough for the basic names (those without borough or town status) to require disambiguation per WP:SMALLDETAILS? Googling Sudbury Parish Council from Suffolk it returns the Derbyshire one first however Hastings District council returns the English one first though the New Zealand one does come up almost as much. Also with a different example namely Colchester City Council which was Colchester Borough Council until earlier this year but there are mentions of Colchester District Council and it does seem plausible people may search for "X District Council" for all district councils if they don't know which have borough or city status. Thoughts? Crouch, Swale ( talk) 21:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Would it be acceptable if a disambiguation page also noted the (ambiguous) redirects to the primary topic? For example, could Wikipedia:Disambiguation (disambiguation) also disambiguate the redirects WP:DAB and WP:D, currently mentioned with hatnotes? Or Wikipedia:Hatnote (disambiguation) disambiguate also WP:HAT and WP:HN. If so, it'd help a lot in clearing the insidious hatnote creep in Wikipedia. It'd also benefit many pages transcluding Template:Redirect-several (see [15]). It seems it's already possible for the main term DAB page to link to the corresponding redirect's DAB pages; for example, Bible (disambiguation) could link to Biblical (disambiguation) and The Holy Bible (disambiguation); or Botany (disambiguation) linking to Botanic (disambiguation). fgnievinski ( talk) 04:10, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
WP:NOTDIRECTORY has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. -- Tavix ( talk) 19:45, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
There is a possible issue with a disambiguation finder on toolforge. I have started a discussion here and am asking for assistance/input if possible. Thanks! Primefac ( talk) 09:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Slightly confusing situation here (but I guess that's the nature of WP:D):
I'm guessing, hatnote at each one, and maybe use of "[sic]" after the title of citations to the minority of academic sources about the shipwreck site that use the one-word spelling? Mathglot ( talk) 05:25, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi, I am admittedly not that experienced with disambiguation pages, so I would like some input. I made moved the MBZ, Mbz, and mbz to redirect to Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and moved the disambiguation list in the MBZ page to MBZ (disambiguation), which currently redirects to MBZ. My edits were reverted by @ Pppery and noted " WP:DABMENTION fail" in the revert summary.
I think my edits were appropriate since they follow MOS:PRIMARYTOPIC. He is definitely the primary topic from the disambiguation list, and he is widely known in the press by his initials. NY Times Le Monde WSJ Axios
The edits are also consistent with other presidents referred to by their intials, RFK, and JFK, who also has an airport with his intials listed in a disambiguation page. Vyvagaba ( talk) 10:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
These are both cases where, in a vacuum, the correct answer is a hatnote. It's entirely plausible that a reader would be looking for Mr. Winsor but think there is a 'd' in his surname, or be looking for the leader of the medieval kingdom and be surprised to wind up on an article about a baseball player. But because of the massive disparity in notability and pageviews, in both cases the potentially hatnotable article's editors have objected to a note (courtesy ping Wehwalt per request). And I think that's pretty reasonable. The problem is, though, because of the rules of what can be included in a DAB page, there is currently nowhere else for these plausible-but-infrequent similar names to go.
I've been mulling this over for some time prior to running into it in practice today, and I think the best solution would be to just put them in the DAB page's See also? E.g., for Charles III (disambiguation):
or at Babe Ruth (disambiguation):
It more or less falls under the second bullet point at MOS:DABSEEALSO, and even if it doesn't, guidelines are guidelines; there's room for some flexibility, and the rules for See also standards have always been looser than the main DAB page rules. The one catch is that this wouldn't handle the case of a primary topic that doesn't have a DAB page, but in practice I'm not sure if that would come up, since highly visible articles will usually have associated DAB pages.
What do others think? Putting this here since it covers both hatnotes and DAB pages; will notify WT:HATNOTE and WT:MOSDAB. -- Tamzin[ cetacean needed (she|they|xe) 23:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Partially_disambiguated_page_names#Suggestion_to_remove_list and discuss there. Thank you. CapnZapp ( talk) 13:12, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello, I have a dispute on Talk:Hranice about adding historical names to the geodis page and I would welcome a third party opinion. Thank you. FromCzech ( talk) 07:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
What's the best way to distinguish Colin Simpson (author), Colin Simpson (journalist) and Colin Simpson (journalist and author)? Do we just add an {{ other people}} hatnote to the journalist, or is it better to rename them to something like (Canadian author), (British journalist) and (Australian something)? Certes ( talk) 22:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Is Chinese characters allowed in the naming here? The only guidelines I could find is
WP:TRANSLITERATE which states "Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, such ... Chinese ... must be romanized. Established systematic romanizations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred
" which basically means it must be romanized in which the few examples below isn't.
There is even a Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles for such. Is it just me or did English Wikipedia became Chinese Wikipedia? — Paper9oll ( 🔔 • 📝) 06:24, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
I recently dropped "a resident assistant..." from Don (disambiguation), and I wanted to link a DAB shortcut in the edit summary to explain my reasoning, but couldn't find one. Instead, I ended up leaving the wordy, "...appears to be a duplicate of " Don (academia)", and is not used either as a redirect or a bolded synonym or in cited content on the page". Is there a shortcut I could have linked, at least for the second part of that (the part after the comma)?
Note: the "resident assistant" entry was there first, and I only just added Don (academia) after noticing its creation today, and also noticing minor edit-warring (just good-faith correction, really) at University don. Is everything as, and where it should be, now, and what's that pesky shortcut I'm looking for? Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 23:27, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
A resident assistant may be referred to as...residence don, but it's marked {{ cn}} and is at best a PTM. (From outdated personal experience, resident assistants form a separate rank below dons, but titles do vary between institutions.)I don't think we have an actual guideline against making multiple entries for the same topic. It's obviously a bad idea in general but might occasionally be useful. For example, Foo#Films might have an entry to Foo (1987 film) and Foo#Music to Foo (soundtrack), a redirect to Foo (1987 film)#Soundtrack. Certes ( talk) 10:12, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
A user posted the disambiguation page 板橋 at WP:Pages needing translation to English. I responded that there was nothing to translate and that the title itself was fine, as it provides the name in shared Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters for several places in China and Japan, in which the anglicized versions have different spellings. I based my reaction on (a) it made sense and (b) it seemed an obvious extension of the guidance for similar titles in the case of redirects, WP:FORRED.
Still, I decided to see if this guidance is provided directly for disambiguation pages. If it is, I'm not seeing it. I did come across this brief discussion in the archives where someone asked about this and two editors used the same reasoning as mine, based on the guidelines for redirects.
So that others don't have to go looking into the archives for confirmation of this, then, can we put a section about it on WP:Disambiguation? It can be short, only needing to cover the following considerations that leave the details to cross-referenced, existing, guidance.
Thoughts? Largoplazo ( talk) 16:12, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash – Involves article titles especially, and the pertinence for this page is whether a bunch of disambiguation by en-dashes should instead be done by commas ( WP:COMMADIS). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:07, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Should At Budokan be a set index page? It's a list of albums recorded at Budokan arena that include 'at Budokan', or similar, in their titles. Leschnei ( talk) 12:44, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
I noticed an interesting discussion that happened recently, Talk:United Parcel Service#Requested move 17 July 2023. The move was unanimously panned, yet https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=UPS indicates that in June, there was of a total of 2.1k incoming views at UPS, which in turn led to 1.62k outgoing clicks (~77%) to the proposed primary topic, 282 (~13%) to the power term, and six other smaller topics. It goes to show that WP:PTOPIC thresholds can in practice be tighter than what the current text implies. :) -- Joy ( talk) 12:06, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
WikiNav, which can compare outgoing traffic from a given disambiguation page.
JFTR I have added the aforementioned two notes in the guideline text now. -- Joy ( talk) 06:54, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Hi, for background context
Chrysanthus exists as a redirect to the disambiguation page
Chrysanthos. Last year I wrote the article
Father Chrysanthus about a priest and who is regularly referred to by sources as "Fr. Chrysanthus" or "Father Chrysanthus" in English-language texts (and "P. Chrysanthus" or "Pater Chrysanthus" in Dutch/German-language texts). Recently the page was moved to
Chrysanthus Janssen, merging together his religious name and birth name in a way sources do not use, with the edit message unusual connection of "Father" and religious name (there may be many more "Father Chrysantus"es elsewhere
. I realize "Father" is uncommon in article titles (though see
Father Damien), but I thought this seemed a natural way to disambiguate since sources regularly use this title to refer to him and no other priests by that name have Wikipedia articles. The alternative option is to use a parenthetical; Chrysanthus is known for his research in arachnology so
Chrysanthus (arachnologist) would be natural and already exists as a redirect to this article. I have no strong feelings between
Father Chrysanthus and
Chrysanthus (arachnologist) (I do have strong feelings against
Chrysanthus Janssen), but since the article has to be moved since it's now not at a
WP:COMMONNAME, I wanted to get some additional opinions since I was unsure if I could use "Father" to disambiguate in this way since that's what sources use, or if a parenthetical is best. I have started discussion at
Talk:Chrysanthus Janssen#Title but feel free to respond here as to the general topic of a title being used to disambiguate. Thanks!
Umimmak (
talk) 22:17, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Members of this WikiProject are invited to participate in the discussion at Talk:Chrysanthus Janssen#Requested move 24 September 2023 where the options Chrysanthus (arachnologist) and Father Chrysanthus have both been put forward as article titles. Thank you for your time and any comments! Umimmak ( talk) 07:19, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
I need some advice regarding Dubia. I recently added a dab entry pointing to redirect Dubia (Catholicism). I have several questions:
redirect
occurs 90 times) or at
MOS:DAB.In the course of researching this question, I also found John A. Dubia and added an entry for it; presume that one is okay. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 21:04, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Turns out there are ten, similarly-named genus-species disambig pages of the form "X. dubia", where 'X' is any one of ten letters (example: H. dubia). I pondered how to handle this, and came up with a sparse, non-standard solution that I think works; it's in the § See also section, and it avoids repetitive explanations on every entry that would've looked like copypasta. I think this provides all the information needed, without being overbearing. See what you think. Mathglot ( talk) 23:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Is there any real policy out there for "commonly refers to" settings on disambiguation pages?
I came across The Game today, and at the top it says the game "most commonly refers to" Triple H and the rapper The Game. Isn't it arguable in other directions? The Fincher movie and the mind game "The Game" also get well over 1000 daily pageviews, which isn't far off from the rapper at least, and Triple H may not be best known as "The Game" (at least it isn't mentioned much in his article). When you have multiple topics, is this even useful? -- Quiz shows 02:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Am I missing something, or is Regular a massive violation of WP:PARTIAL? I can see keeping the Badfinger song, Regular character, maybe "Regular customer", but honestly, I don't understand why there are dozens of entries there that all seem to be violations of PARTIAL. I haven't even gone through every entry in detail, but of the ones I've looked at, I'm not sure there are more than a small handful that I'd keep. Mathglot ( talk) 00:18, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Usefulness to the readers is their principal goal. So there seems to be room for the argument that a PTM can stay if it’s useful. Wikinav could provide evidence of usefulness. In my view, IAR-like arguments should only be deployed in unambiguously exceptional circumstances. Barnards.tar.gz ( talk) 22:01, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
The existence of so many listings in Category:Disambiguation pages with (qualified) titles suggests the guidance at WP:Incomplete disambiguation has apparently become outdated. I suggest we either need to clarify that section to explain why so many anomalies exist or perhaps re-invigorate Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Incomplete disambiguations. Granted, some of the entries in that category may be entirely valid. But I just picked one at random Arteaga (footballer) where the disambiguation page Arteaga also exists. And I came upon this based on a comment by Đại Việt quốc in an edit summary] for North–South Expressway (Vietnam) pointing out the existence of Green Line (London), Orange Line (New York), and Long Lake (New York). older ≠ wiser 21:23, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Since there hadn't been any comment in several days, I rewrote the first para of WP:DOUBLEDAB as follows. Bkonrad mostly undid this, so let's break it down. Dark red was removed by Bkondrad, green added in its place:
The edit summary was "there are only some cases where upmerging would be expected for double dabs". I'd argue that the cases where upmerging from small secondary dabs is not appropriate are few to none and currently undefined, so "Ordinarily" is sufficient hedging, especially if we change it to "Ordinarily, small secondary [dabs]...". Bkonrad's summary doesn't address the latter two cases (secondary dab with transclude, and secondary dab without transclude) at all, so I don't know what the concern is there.
Generally, I think we can and should be more specific than "in some cases you can do this"; I think there is broad agreement, notwithstanding this revert, that 1) the size of the dab and potential secondary dab are the key (if not only) factor in determining treatment (with size limits determined by editorial discretion), 2) the smallest secondary dabs should be merged up, and 3) where a secondary dab is justified, transclusion is advisable, with, again, size being the limiting factor. Which of those am I wrong about and how? — swpb T • beyond • mutual 14:43, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
the cases where upmerging from small secondary dabs is not appropriate are few to none-- the very existence of a double dab is that the second set of topic have a distinct title separate from the base name. Yes, it is true that where there are only a few of the secondary topics or where the secondary topics might reasonably referred to by the base name alone that we might include the secondary topics on the base name. But in general we would not upmerge the topics. Entities known as 'Montgomery County' are only known as simply 'Montgomery' in casual mentions or where context is already established. Similar for 'Montgomery Street', 'Montgomery Township' or 'Montgomeryville'. Sure we could transclude these to the Montgomery page, but I would not present this as the preferred option. Yes, transclusion should be an option, but the bulk of the addition implied that double dabs were routinely upmerged.
| |||||||||||||||||||
how rare they should bei.e, parenthetical double disambiguations -- I'm really not getting that from this addition. I think using something that is an incomplete disambiguation as an example of double disambiguation simply makes for confusion. older ≠ wiser 22:55, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Page | Primary dab | # of entries matching qualified title | # of other entries matching parent title | Current status | Swpb's suggested status under proposal |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arteaga (footballer) | Arteaga | 8 | 3 | separate | merged |
North–South Expressway (Vietnam) | North–South Expressway | 2 | 3 | merged | merged |
Green Line (London) | Green Line | 3 | ~130 | separate | merged |
Orange Line (New York) | Orange Line | 9 | ~43 | separate | borderline, leaning merged |
Long Lake (New York) | Long Lake | 6 | ~75 | separate | merged |
Life (album) | Life (disambiguation) | 33 | ~120 | merged | leaning separate |
Ten (album) | Ten | 30 | ~50 | merged | leaning separate |
Reflections (album) | Reflections | 37 | ~31 | merged | leaning separate |
John Smith (footballer) | John Smith | 23 (between two kinds of football) | ~240 | merged | borderline |
I did some delving into the history of the sections for WP:DOUBLEDAB and WP:INCOMPDAB. The section for double disambiguation was added to the page by Radiant! back in 29 Oct 2005. Apparently this was simply merging a standalone page WP:Disambiguation of a disambiguation that had been created by User:SuperDude115 who was subsequently blocked as a sockpuppet of banned User:Nintendude. I don't think there had been any discussion about the contents of that standalone page before the merge, and while the text has been modified somewhat since, some elements remain, such as the assertion that These kind of disambiguations are relatively rare. And the original phrasing is incredibly vague:
Stevage added an example on 17 Dec 2005. CarolGray updated the example on 21 Dec 2006. There was some discussion of double disambiguation in Jan 2007 at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation/Archive 22#Double Disambiguation.
The section on incomplete disambiguation was added by Pi Delport on 30 Jun 2007 following the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 25#Incomplete parenthetical disambiguations, with a bit of minor copyediting on 06 Jul 2007].
There was some discussion of incomplete disambiguation and partially disambiguated titles at
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 30#Question and
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 30#Primary topic after first primary topic? in April 2010, though I don't see any update to the guidance from those. There was some further extensive discussion of incomplete disambiguation / partially disambiguated titles / intentional disambiguation links at
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 31#Intentional disambig in July 2010. Again there was no change in guidelines, but there appears have been consensus that double disambiguation applies to titles that do not have a (disambiguator)), but rather have a more specific "real" ambiguous title
.
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 31#Possible incomplete disambiguations in August 2010 resulted in the creation of
Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Incomplete disambiguations (which is mostly unedited of late --
Pppery and
BD2412 are the most recent editors there).
Following Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 35#What is an "incomplete disambiguation"? in Oct 2011, Elonka added the option of linking to a list instead of an incomplete parenthetical disambiguation on 22 Oct 2011.
In Jan 2012 at
Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 36#Incomplete disambiguation (again), there was discussion confirming incomplete disambiguations are pages with parenthetical qualifiers where the parenthetical qualifier isn't sufficient to identify a topic uniquely. "Natural" titles like Adams, New York or HMS Victory are legitimate, unqualified titles
. I.e., double dab doesn't apply to disambiguations with parenthetical qualifiers.
Note: there were several extremely lengthy discussions of partial disambiguation that often referenced incomplete disambiguation -- I've omitted these as mostly tangential to the point here. However, the discussions did perhaps affect the understanding of parenthetical qualifiers that might have some relevance for double dab and incomplete dab -- although sifting through those walls of text is a herculean task I've no interest in.
One thing I notice is that both of these are subsections under Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links. The language in double dab was largely about how and when to create such links -- and I think is really just a specialized variant of WP:INTDABLINK. The section on incomplete disambiguation is less about links to such pages, but rather about creating redirects for such pages. The last two paragraphs in the section does provide some guidance about linking to pages that look like or are similar to incomplete disambiguation (i.e, lists or set indices and partially disambiguated titles). older ≠ wiser 16:01, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Did a slight rewrite to align with existing understanding of terms. This involves repeating the last sentence in two sections, but it keeps things straight:
[At the top of the section "Double disambiguation" (This is identical to the first paragraph of my previous proposed version)]
[In the section "Incomplete disambiguation", just after the "Aurora" example]
— swpb T • beyond • mutual 20:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
@ SMcCandlish, Certes, and Joy: I know Bkonrad isn't quite happy yet, what about you guys? Is this an improvement on the (lack of) guidance we have now? If it is, then to me, I think we should get it into the guide before we lose all momentum here; we have infinite time to make it better later. — swpb T • beyond • mutual 16:01, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
In some cases, especially where there are only a few entries for the more specific name, the contents of the more specific page may be merged with the base name disambiguation page.older ≠ wiser 16:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
We'll come back to that. Do you agree that merging should be the general recommendation when the title is parenthetically qualified and there are only a few entries????? — swpb T • beyond • mutual 16:51, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
WP:DPT says "it's unlikely that there is a primary topic by usage ... if there is so little traffic that few or no graphs are shown".
Does this mean that having a rarely used DAB page counts as evidence that usage does not suggest a primary target, or does it just mean that WikiNav provides less evidence when there are few results? Thanks.
For context, this question is in relation to a move discussion at Talk:Holywell. Aoeuidhtns ( talk) 23:25, 20 November 2023 (UTC)