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 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 9 |
I'd mentioned a while ago some changed I wanted to make to WP:Hatnote#Non-existent articles. I went ahead and made those changes. Cheers! Scientific29 ( talk) 19:53, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Can it be noted somewhere that there is currently no consensus whether or not these should be used? Would save editors confusion as to why these seemingly guideline-contradicting templates are all over the place. -- Paul_012 ( talk) 10:08, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Category:Hatnote templates for names has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. - DePiep ( talk) 11:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
At Ray Bradbury, the author is the (obvious) undisambig page. There is a work by him, called "Ray Bradbury", located at a disambig page; the work is linked later in the article, but this comes down to whether a hat note to refer a person, potentially searching for the book, from the author to the book, is needed. My understanding of hatnotes that they should be used in exactly a situation like this, but others are arguing that its "obvious" that the article about the author and that those searching for the book can find it by looking through the article. -- MASEM ( t) 16:18, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi. I was wondering if I'm wrong about this. I'm challenging another editor's position that a hatnote should be place for a song title to redirect it to the album article. I dont think it should as songs have been titled after infinite things that happen to share a title of a Wikipedia article, and if there isnt any information on the song at the album article, then there's no encyclopedic purpose of having such hatnotes. Dan56 ( talk) 17:39, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Are {{ Cambodian name}}, {{ Icelandic name}}, {{ Indian name}}, {{ Malay name}}, and {{ Mongolian name}} proper uses for a hatnote? For example, on the Natsagiin Bagabandi article:
They seem like unnecessary clutter and the subject of how particular cultural names are used should probably be discussed in their own article. Thank you. Regards, RJH ( talk) 15:36, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
family name
or wikilinked Naming culture=[[Icelandic name|Icelandic]]
. Since we have lots of personboxes, the solution should work for most of them (generic & simple). -
DePiep (
talk) 21:07, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
See: Category:Hatnote templates for names As of 28 August 2012 (28 pages):
relevance legend
0=not wp 1=single lang/cultref (no name link) 2=other lang ref (Ar/mal) xists N=Name name ref gen=generic name ref
Outgoing links in these hatnotes | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Link | #used | Relevance | note | ||
[[{{{1}}} (Korean name)]] | 1 | N | |||
Arabic language | 2 | 2 | |||
Arabic name | 1 | N | |||
Cambodian name | 1 | N | |||
Chinese Indonesian name | 1 | N | |||
Chinese Indonesian surname | 1 | N | |||
Chinese name | 1 | N | |||
Chinese surname | 1 | N | |||
Dinka people | 1 | 1 | |||
Dutch name | 1 | N | |||
Eastern Slavic naming customs | 1 | N | |||
family name | 23 | gen | |||
generation name | 2 | gen | |||
Germanic language | 1 | 0 | |||
given name | 4 | gen | |||
Hmong people | 1 | 1 | |||
Icelandic name | 1 | N | |||
Indian name | 1 | N | |||
Indonesian name#Naming forms | 1 | N | |||
Japanese name | 1 | N | |||
Korean name | 1 | gen, N | |||
List of Korean family names | 1 | gen, N | |||
Malay language | 2 | 2 | |||
Malaysian names#Malay names | 1 | N | |||
matronymic | 1 | gen | |||
Mongolian name | 1 | N | |||
patronymic | 6 | gen | |||
personal name | 1 | gen | |||
Personal_name#Name_order | 2 | gen | |||
Philippine languages | 1 | 1 | |||
Portuguese name | 1 | N | |||
Romance language | 1 | 1 | |||
Slavic languages | 1 | 1 | |||
Spanish naming customs | 1 | N | |||
Spanish_naming_customs#Basque_names | 1 | N | |||
Spanish_naming_customs#Catalan_names | 1 | N | |||
Turkic languages | 1 | 1 | |||
Vietnamese name | 1 | N | |||
2 | 0 | ||||
2 | 0 |
{{{1}}} {{{2}}} family paternal (x), patronymic, second (Port) maternal (x), matronymic, first (Port) transliterated refer to generation personal wrong
not: surname - DePiep ( talk) 23:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Accepting "WP:Multiple-cross-reference page" as a guideline might be of interest to disambiguators. older ≠ wiser 14:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
WP:NAMB uses the example of Tree (set theory) and says:
"Here, the hatnote is inappropriate because a reader who is following links within Wikipedia or using Wikipedia's own search engine would not have ended up at tree (set theory) if one were looking for other types of trees, since tree does not redirect there."
I would like to suggest changing this guideline. First of all, it neglects the possibility that a person arrives at a wikipedia article from an external search engine. If the disambiguated term is high in SE results for the general term (as it will be in at least some cases) this outcome is not unlikely. Moreover, when the internal search engine suggests a number of related terms, it is very easy, particularly for a relatively inexperienced user, to click on the "wrong" term. In both cases a hatnote could provide the user with a pointer to the desired article or to a dab page which in turn leads to it, at little cost or problem for readers who are in the right place. DES (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I fully agree with DES above regarding Wikipedia:Hatnotes#Disambiguating_article_names_that_are_not_ambiguous. It is true that articles Foo (A), Foo (B), and Foo, C may each one have a completely unambiguous name - but there is no telling to which one a user may arrive when using search, either with Wikipedia's own search mechanism or with outside search engines! This is especially true if the user is not very familiar with the field's terminology, and used "suboptimal" search terms, or uses "obsolete" search terms (e.g. because he's reading a printed book). A few examples:
To summarize, I think it would not be a bad idea to completely abolish the rule Wikipedia:Hatnotes#Disambiguating_article_names_that_are_not_ambiguous. But even if we keep it, it make sense to somewhat "weaken" it, by saying something to the effect that a hatnote connecting "Foo (A)" with "Foo" or "Foo (disambiguation)" is allowed if it appears not too unlikely that some users really looking for some other "Foo" may get to "Foo (A)" instead as a result of search of some kind. -- Vmenkov ( talk) 01:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
-- Vmenkov ( talk) 01:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I haven't read enuf of this section to ask an intelligent question yet, but i do note that
SEO does not appear on the page (and
SE appears only once). And i dunno that much abt SEO, beyond a sense that this subject sounds a lot like SEO reasoning, and perhaps therefore SEO-like techniques may be relevant: we may want Google to consider presenting results that would not follow from what's appropriate to put in our classic Dabn mechanisms: what's not useful to those reaching an article other than via an external SE. Isn't this like a merchant who wants to be found via SEs (external to their own respective sites), but not to distract or creep out their customers by plastering pages with rendered text for all the search terms that good prospects are likely to use? If so, isn't it likely that SEOs have invented mechanisms that can solve these issues without our changing to HatNote/Dab guidelines? Would MediaWiki servers, or some kind of other support software be able to detect the situations we're worried about, e.g. by analyzing each article that is reachable from Dabs including HatNotes, and on that basis serve to Web crawlers information that reflects more than what is displayed on that page, or even than what is in its markup? (By the way, do we dare even think about the feedbacks that would occur if we try to recognize "errors" imposed on users by SEs, and try to and remediate them by trying to influence the SEs?)
--
Jerzy•
t 04:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
I've also witnessed one case where Google 'picks a winner' for an ambiguous term and never links our disambiguation page, I can't remember the exact one now, but I know it happens. This kind of 'redundant hatnoting' should be integrated into the mediawiki engine, rather than being done manually, because it's a lot of work to switch from one set of rules to another here, and in the meantime, we're inconsistent. It should also be noted that this exact search behavior can be specifically detected: the HTTP referer field contains something reasonably easily parseable with a regular expression, for example for Google that would be on the order of google.com/.*[?&]q=([^&]+) So, our engine can start detecting this automatically and offering navigational assistance only to those users who arrive in that particular manner. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:12, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Please see Talk:HMS New Zealand (1911)#Disambiguating hatnote on unambiguous article. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 19:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I just drafted up a new guideline, placed in the "appropriate use" section. Please comment or boldly revise. If you change the section title, don't forget to update the shortcut. Ego White Tray ( talk) 13:29, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
I move the draft here, so that it's discussed before placing it on the guideline. Diego ( talk) 14:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Non-ambiguous titles likely to cause confusion
- For other treaties also known as a "Treaty of Paris", see Treaty of Paris (disambiguation).
The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...
Even thought the article title, Treaty of Paris (1898), is unambiguous, there is no primary topic for Treaty of Paris. As a result, people using external search engines, such as Google, may end up at any of these articles, and there is no way to predict what such a search engine will do. Therefore, the hatnote is necessary here to let our readers know that this isn't the only Treaty of Paris.
Hatnotes in this case are not always justified. Tree (set theory) does not require one, since the plant is clearly the primary topic and search engines will always point readers there.
Borderline cases can be decided through bold editing or by consensus if disputed.
And here's my suggested revision. It's not true that search engines will always point to the primary topic even if there's one, because searches using several terms can exclude it and point to a secondary topic instead. Diego ( talk) 14:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Titles likely to cause confusion
- For other treaties also known as a "Treaty of Paris", see Treaty of Paris (disambiguation).
The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...
The article title of this example Treaty of Paris (1898) is not completely unambiguous, as there are other treaties of the same name at different years. As a result, people using external search engines, such as Google, may end up at any of these articles not knowing if they are at the right article because of this, and there is no way to predict what such a search engine will do. Therefore, the hatnote is necessary here to let our readers know that this isn't the only Treaty of Paris.
Hatnotes in this case are not always justified. Tree (set theory) does not require one, since search engines will point to the plant when searching for the simple term, and a search for "tree mathematics" or similar is needed to arrive to the mathematical theory.
Borderline cases can be decided through bold editing or by consensus if disputed.
I do not think we need a separate section here, just a note within the existing section on "Linking to a disambiguation page". I suggest that we expand that section to Draft 3 below. Pam D 23:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Linking to a disambiguation page
- For other uses, see Monolith (disambiguation).
A monolith is a monument or natural feature such as a mountain, consisting of a single massive stone or rock. Erosion usually exposes these formations...
When a term has a primary meaning and two or more additional meanings, the hatnote on the primary topic page should link to a disambiguation page. {{ other uses}} may be used for this.
In many cases the hatnote also includes a brief description of the subject of the present article, for readers' convenience:
- This article is about the maze-like labyrinth from Greek mythology. For other uses, see Labyrinth (disambiguation).
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate maze-like structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur...
The template {{
about}} may be used for this. In this case the parameterization was {{
about|the mazelike labyrinth from Greek mythology}}
.
To help readers who may have found the wrong page using an external search engine, a hatnote may be added to an article at a disambiguated (non-primary) title to point to the relevant disambiguation page, so that they can be alerted to other articles which may include the topic they seek.
(In the article Treaty of Paris (1898))
The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...
(In the article Joe Smith (footballer born 1889))
Joseph "Joe" Smith (25 June 1889 – 11 August 1971) was an English professional football player and manager. ...
I like this one best. Ego White Tray ( talk) 03:07, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
it can very easily be anticipated that people will arrive at the wrong article if it is very high in search engine results, based on everything we know about search behaviour.The results returned by search engines vary over time and from one search engine to another. It is extremely unrealistic to expect editors to stay on top of whatever results might come up at any given time and try to guess at how people might make a mistake. I think it is entirely reasonable to encourage people to use Wikipedia's internal search function to find articles. Search functions are commonplace in most computer and web applications. Why should we "presuppose" that readers will expect Wikipedia to be different? older ≠ wiser 17:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Google changes their algorithms all the time, and do we also accommodate for Bing, John Doe's Tumblr, etc? If we do this then every article that starts with tree needs a hatnote to the tree disambig page, ditto for literally every word: star, planet, Bob, car, etc. Every adaptation of another work would need it too by those accounts. The Da Vinci Code (film) doesn't need a hatnote to the novel just because Google might take them there instead, especially since there's a link to it in the first paragraph (and usually the first sentence) of the lead. Our decisions should be based on what happens within Wikipedia, as that's the only thing we control and should be responsible for. Let's not pretend our readers are so stupid that they can't put "Treaty of Paris" into the friggin' search engine. I'm all for hatnotes when they're reasonable but this will have almost every article on the site with a hatnote. -- TheTruthiness ( talk) 21:18, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
The biggest problem with WP:NAMBLA is that the majority of inbound traffic to any given page is through a search engine. The MW search has gotten progressively better, but it is still highly lacking (ask Wikia Search). Often even within WP, I will double-click to highlight and right-click a word to "Search for "***" in Bing", because there is no wikilink on it. If I am looking for the film Nikita, Google and Bing will both bring me to Nikita (TV series) (not to be confused with the series La Femme Nikita, which was also the American title for the film). This is a situation where confusing terms for similar topics should call for hatlinks, but our policies prohibit them. While I acknowledge the importance of improving our search engine and maintaining internal wikilinks, we cannot keep pretending that Wikipedia isn't at the top of most search results, and that many if not most inbound traffic is from search engines. This is detrimental and exclusionary. We already acknowledge that every page with (parenthetical) disambiguation has an ambiguous title, so why do we not have a hatlink on every one of these pages? What is the harm being done by allowing readers to quickly find the topic they were looking for? What is being gained by making readers feel like they are using the site wrong, that they should feel stupid for searching for the wrong combination of words? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm with Bkonrad that the guideline should not be prescriptive. I prefer guidelines and policies that, instead of mandating a desired outcome, simply enumerate the usual arguments that influence decisions one way or the other. In this case the relevant concerns that are considered relevant by various editors should at least include:
If these and several other concerns are included and explained in the guideline, editors can address them at each particular talk, and consistent outcomes can be achieved without having a bureaucratic process that should decide each possible case in advance. Diego ( talk) 18:50, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian ( talk) 11:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Hatnote → Wikipedia:Headnote – Hatnote is not in any major dictionaries as a commoly used word. Also, headnote pairs with footnote (commonly used on WP and elsewhere) and is a recognised word. We also have to rewrite the page and expunge WP of the usage of "hatnote" -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 21:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Comment If you worried about confused new editors, I would call it a disambig note, you know, a name that accurately states its purpose. I won't vote yes on this particular proposal, but I'm open to other ideas. Ego White Tray ( talk) 03:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I frequently see "For further information, see (link)" posted underneath topic headings within the body of an article. The wording is exactly the same as that listed in some of the examples. Are these also considered to be "hats" and do the same guidelines apply? Or is there a different name and guideline when these notices do not appear at the top of the page? 69.125.134.86 ( talk) 19:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
{{
main}}
and {{
see also}}
but there are several others. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 20:23, 29 April 2013 (UTC)My (admittedly misguided) attempt to remove "though noble" from the "External links" section was reverted. Upon further thought, what I really meant was that the sentence could be reworded to more clearly discourage all external links, regardless of whether they are "help" links or whether the NPOV issue is obvious. Does this make sense, and does anyone have some ideas? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 17:41, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 9 |
I'd mentioned a while ago some changed I wanted to make to WP:Hatnote#Non-existent articles. I went ahead and made those changes. Cheers! Scientific29 ( talk) 19:53, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Can it be noted somewhere that there is currently no consensus whether or not these should be used? Would save editors confusion as to why these seemingly guideline-contradicting templates are all over the place. -- Paul_012 ( talk) 10:08, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Category:Hatnote templates for names has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. - DePiep ( talk) 11:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
At Ray Bradbury, the author is the (obvious) undisambig page. There is a work by him, called "Ray Bradbury", located at a disambig page; the work is linked later in the article, but this comes down to whether a hat note to refer a person, potentially searching for the book, from the author to the book, is needed. My understanding of hatnotes that they should be used in exactly a situation like this, but others are arguing that its "obvious" that the article about the author and that those searching for the book can find it by looking through the article. -- MASEM ( t) 16:18, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi. I was wondering if I'm wrong about this. I'm challenging another editor's position that a hatnote should be place for a song title to redirect it to the album article. I dont think it should as songs have been titled after infinite things that happen to share a title of a Wikipedia article, and if there isnt any information on the song at the album article, then there's no encyclopedic purpose of having such hatnotes. Dan56 ( talk) 17:39, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Are {{ Cambodian name}}, {{ Icelandic name}}, {{ Indian name}}, {{ Malay name}}, and {{ Mongolian name}} proper uses for a hatnote? For example, on the Natsagiin Bagabandi article:
They seem like unnecessary clutter and the subject of how particular cultural names are used should probably be discussed in their own article. Thank you. Regards, RJH ( talk) 15:36, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
family name
or wikilinked Naming culture=[[Icelandic name|Icelandic]]
. Since we have lots of personboxes, the solution should work for most of them (generic & simple). -
DePiep (
talk) 21:07, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
See: Category:Hatnote templates for names As of 28 August 2012 (28 pages):
relevance legend
0=not wp 1=single lang/cultref (no name link) 2=other lang ref (Ar/mal) xists N=Name name ref gen=generic name ref
Outgoing links in these hatnotes | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Link | #used | Relevance | note | ||
[[{{{1}}} (Korean name)]] | 1 | N | |||
Arabic language | 2 | 2 | |||
Arabic name | 1 | N | |||
Cambodian name | 1 | N | |||
Chinese Indonesian name | 1 | N | |||
Chinese Indonesian surname | 1 | N | |||
Chinese name | 1 | N | |||
Chinese surname | 1 | N | |||
Dinka people | 1 | 1 | |||
Dutch name | 1 | N | |||
Eastern Slavic naming customs | 1 | N | |||
family name | 23 | gen | |||
generation name | 2 | gen | |||
Germanic language | 1 | 0 | |||
given name | 4 | gen | |||
Hmong people | 1 | 1 | |||
Icelandic name | 1 | N | |||
Indian name | 1 | N | |||
Indonesian name#Naming forms | 1 | N | |||
Japanese name | 1 | N | |||
Korean name | 1 | gen, N | |||
List of Korean family names | 1 | gen, N | |||
Malay language | 2 | 2 | |||
Malaysian names#Malay names | 1 | N | |||
matronymic | 1 | gen | |||
Mongolian name | 1 | N | |||
patronymic | 6 | gen | |||
personal name | 1 | gen | |||
Personal_name#Name_order | 2 | gen | |||
Philippine languages | 1 | 1 | |||
Portuguese name | 1 | N | |||
Romance language | 1 | 1 | |||
Slavic languages | 1 | 1 | |||
Spanish naming customs | 1 | N | |||
Spanish_naming_customs#Basque_names | 1 | N | |||
Spanish_naming_customs#Catalan_names | 1 | N | |||
Turkic languages | 1 | 1 | |||
Vietnamese name | 1 | N | |||
2 | 0 | ||||
2 | 0 |
{{{1}}} {{{2}}} family paternal (x), patronymic, second (Port) maternal (x), matronymic, first (Port) transliterated refer to generation personal wrong
not: surname - DePiep ( talk) 23:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Accepting "WP:Multiple-cross-reference page" as a guideline might be of interest to disambiguators. older ≠ wiser 14:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
WP:NAMB uses the example of Tree (set theory) and says:
"Here, the hatnote is inappropriate because a reader who is following links within Wikipedia or using Wikipedia's own search engine would not have ended up at tree (set theory) if one were looking for other types of trees, since tree does not redirect there."
I would like to suggest changing this guideline. First of all, it neglects the possibility that a person arrives at a wikipedia article from an external search engine. If the disambiguated term is high in SE results for the general term (as it will be in at least some cases) this outcome is not unlikely. Moreover, when the internal search engine suggests a number of related terms, it is very easy, particularly for a relatively inexperienced user, to click on the "wrong" term. In both cases a hatnote could provide the user with a pointer to the desired article or to a dab page which in turn leads to it, at little cost or problem for readers who are in the right place. DES (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I fully agree with DES above regarding Wikipedia:Hatnotes#Disambiguating_article_names_that_are_not_ambiguous. It is true that articles Foo (A), Foo (B), and Foo, C may each one have a completely unambiguous name - but there is no telling to which one a user may arrive when using search, either with Wikipedia's own search mechanism or with outside search engines! This is especially true if the user is not very familiar with the field's terminology, and used "suboptimal" search terms, or uses "obsolete" search terms (e.g. because he's reading a printed book). A few examples:
To summarize, I think it would not be a bad idea to completely abolish the rule Wikipedia:Hatnotes#Disambiguating_article_names_that_are_not_ambiguous. But even if we keep it, it make sense to somewhat "weaken" it, by saying something to the effect that a hatnote connecting "Foo (A)" with "Foo" or "Foo (disambiguation)" is allowed if it appears not too unlikely that some users really looking for some other "Foo" may get to "Foo (A)" instead as a result of search of some kind. -- Vmenkov ( talk) 01:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
-- Vmenkov ( talk) 01:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I haven't read enuf of this section to ask an intelligent question yet, but i do note that
SEO does not appear on the page (and
SE appears only once). And i dunno that much abt SEO, beyond a sense that this subject sounds a lot like SEO reasoning, and perhaps therefore SEO-like techniques may be relevant: we may want Google to consider presenting results that would not follow from what's appropriate to put in our classic Dabn mechanisms: what's not useful to those reaching an article other than via an external SE. Isn't this like a merchant who wants to be found via SEs (external to their own respective sites), but not to distract or creep out their customers by plastering pages with rendered text for all the search terms that good prospects are likely to use? If so, isn't it likely that SEOs have invented mechanisms that can solve these issues without our changing to HatNote/Dab guidelines? Would MediaWiki servers, or some kind of other support software be able to detect the situations we're worried about, e.g. by analyzing each article that is reachable from Dabs including HatNotes, and on that basis serve to Web crawlers information that reflects more than what is displayed on that page, or even than what is in its markup? (By the way, do we dare even think about the feedbacks that would occur if we try to recognize "errors" imposed on users by SEs, and try to and remediate them by trying to influence the SEs?)
--
Jerzy•
t 04:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
I've also witnessed one case where Google 'picks a winner' for an ambiguous term and never links our disambiguation page, I can't remember the exact one now, but I know it happens. This kind of 'redundant hatnoting' should be integrated into the mediawiki engine, rather than being done manually, because it's a lot of work to switch from one set of rules to another here, and in the meantime, we're inconsistent. It should also be noted that this exact search behavior can be specifically detected: the HTTP referer field contains something reasonably easily parseable with a regular expression, for example for Google that would be on the order of google.com/.*[?&]q=([^&]+) So, our engine can start detecting this automatically and offering navigational assistance only to those users who arrive in that particular manner. -- Joy [shallot] ( talk) 08:12, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Please see Talk:HMS New Zealand (1911)#Disambiguating hatnote on unambiguous article. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 19:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I just drafted up a new guideline, placed in the "appropriate use" section. Please comment or boldly revise. If you change the section title, don't forget to update the shortcut. Ego White Tray ( talk) 13:29, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
I move the draft here, so that it's discussed before placing it on the guideline. Diego ( talk) 14:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Non-ambiguous titles likely to cause confusion
- For other treaties also known as a "Treaty of Paris", see Treaty of Paris (disambiguation).
The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...
Even thought the article title, Treaty of Paris (1898), is unambiguous, there is no primary topic for Treaty of Paris. As a result, people using external search engines, such as Google, may end up at any of these articles, and there is no way to predict what such a search engine will do. Therefore, the hatnote is necessary here to let our readers know that this isn't the only Treaty of Paris.
Hatnotes in this case are not always justified. Tree (set theory) does not require one, since the plant is clearly the primary topic and search engines will always point readers there.
Borderline cases can be decided through bold editing or by consensus if disputed.
And here's my suggested revision. It's not true that search engines will always point to the primary topic even if there's one, because searches using several terms can exclude it and point to a secondary topic instead. Diego ( talk) 14:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Titles likely to cause confusion
- For other treaties also known as a "Treaty of Paris", see Treaty of Paris (disambiguation).
The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...
The article title of this example Treaty of Paris (1898) is not completely unambiguous, as there are other treaties of the same name at different years. As a result, people using external search engines, such as Google, may end up at any of these articles not knowing if they are at the right article because of this, and there is no way to predict what such a search engine will do. Therefore, the hatnote is necessary here to let our readers know that this isn't the only Treaty of Paris.
Hatnotes in this case are not always justified. Tree (set theory) does not require one, since search engines will point to the plant when searching for the simple term, and a search for "tree mathematics" or similar is needed to arrive to the mathematical theory.
Borderline cases can be decided through bold editing or by consensus if disputed.
I do not think we need a separate section here, just a note within the existing section on "Linking to a disambiguation page". I suggest that we expand that section to Draft 3 below. Pam D 23:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Linking to a disambiguation page
- For other uses, see Monolith (disambiguation).
A monolith is a monument or natural feature such as a mountain, consisting of a single massive stone or rock. Erosion usually exposes these formations...
When a term has a primary meaning and two or more additional meanings, the hatnote on the primary topic page should link to a disambiguation page. {{ other uses}} may be used for this.
In many cases the hatnote also includes a brief description of the subject of the present article, for readers' convenience:
- This article is about the maze-like labyrinth from Greek mythology. For other uses, see Labyrinth (disambiguation).
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate maze-like structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur...
The template {{
about}} may be used for this. In this case the parameterization was {{
about|the mazelike labyrinth from Greek mythology}}
.
To help readers who may have found the wrong page using an external search engine, a hatnote may be added to an article at a disambiguated (non-primary) title to point to the relevant disambiguation page, so that they can be alerted to other articles which may include the topic they seek.
(In the article Treaty of Paris (1898))
The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control...
(In the article Joe Smith (footballer born 1889))
Joseph "Joe" Smith (25 June 1889 – 11 August 1971) was an English professional football player and manager. ...
I like this one best. Ego White Tray ( talk) 03:07, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
it can very easily be anticipated that people will arrive at the wrong article if it is very high in search engine results, based on everything we know about search behaviour.The results returned by search engines vary over time and from one search engine to another. It is extremely unrealistic to expect editors to stay on top of whatever results might come up at any given time and try to guess at how people might make a mistake. I think it is entirely reasonable to encourage people to use Wikipedia's internal search function to find articles. Search functions are commonplace in most computer and web applications. Why should we "presuppose" that readers will expect Wikipedia to be different? older ≠ wiser 17:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Google changes their algorithms all the time, and do we also accommodate for Bing, John Doe's Tumblr, etc? If we do this then every article that starts with tree needs a hatnote to the tree disambig page, ditto for literally every word: star, planet, Bob, car, etc. Every adaptation of another work would need it too by those accounts. The Da Vinci Code (film) doesn't need a hatnote to the novel just because Google might take them there instead, especially since there's a link to it in the first paragraph (and usually the first sentence) of the lead. Our decisions should be based on what happens within Wikipedia, as that's the only thing we control and should be responsible for. Let's not pretend our readers are so stupid that they can't put "Treaty of Paris" into the friggin' search engine. I'm all for hatnotes when they're reasonable but this will have almost every article on the site with a hatnote. -- TheTruthiness ( talk) 21:18, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
The biggest problem with WP:NAMBLA is that the majority of inbound traffic to any given page is through a search engine. The MW search has gotten progressively better, but it is still highly lacking (ask Wikia Search). Often even within WP, I will double-click to highlight and right-click a word to "Search for "***" in Bing", because there is no wikilink on it. If I am looking for the film Nikita, Google and Bing will both bring me to Nikita (TV series) (not to be confused with the series La Femme Nikita, which was also the American title for the film). This is a situation where confusing terms for similar topics should call for hatlinks, but our policies prohibit them. While I acknowledge the importance of improving our search engine and maintaining internal wikilinks, we cannot keep pretending that Wikipedia isn't at the top of most search results, and that many if not most inbound traffic is from search engines. This is detrimental and exclusionary. We already acknowledge that every page with (parenthetical) disambiguation has an ambiguous title, so why do we not have a hatlink on every one of these pages? What is the harm being done by allowing readers to quickly find the topic they were looking for? What is being gained by making readers feel like they are using the site wrong, that they should feel stupid for searching for the wrong combination of words? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm with Bkonrad that the guideline should not be prescriptive. I prefer guidelines and policies that, instead of mandating a desired outcome, simply enumerate the usual arguments that influence decisions one way or the other. In this case the relevant concerns that are considered relevant by various editors should at least include:
If these and several other concerns are included and explained in the guideline, editors can address them at each particular talk, and consistent outcomes can be achieved without having a bureaucratic process that should decide each possible case in advance. Diego ( talk) 18:50, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian ( talk) 11:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Hatnote → Wikipedia:Headnote – Hatnote is not in any major dictionaries as a commoly used word. Also, headnote pairs with footnote (commonly used on WP and elsewhere) and is a recognised word. We also have to rewrite the page and expunge WP of the usage of "hatnote" -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 21:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Comment If you worried about confused new editors, I would call it a disambig note, you know, a name that accurately states its purpose. I won't vote yes on this particular proposal, but I'm open to other ideas. Ego White Tray ( talk) 03:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I frequently see "For further information, see (link)" posted underneath topic headings within the body of an article. The wording is exactly the same as that listed in some of the examples. Are these also considered to be "hats" and do the same guidelines apply? Or is there a different name and guideline when these notices do not appear at the top of the page? 69.125.134.86 ( talk) 19:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
{{
main}}
and {{
see also}}
but there are several others. --
Redrose64 (
talk) 20:23, 29 April 2013 (UTC)My (admittedly misguided) attempt to remove "though noble" from the "External links" section was reverted. Upon further thought, what I really meant was that the sentence could be reworded to more clearly discourage all external links, regardless of whether they are "help" links or whether the NPOV issue is obvious. Does this make sense, and does anyone have some ideas? -- SoledadKabocha ( talk) 17:41, 5 June 2013 (UTC)