User:Swpb/distinguishing1

Problem

This has been discussed before, but its time for a revisit:

The six-syllable word "disambiguation" has never been ideal for our purposes. Its meaning is precise, but the word is obscure (outside Wikipedia) and unwieldy. As previous discussions show, new editors are often unfamiliar with the term "disambiguation", particularly in the context of Wikipedia. It's broadly acknowledged that new editor retention is a major problem, and the use of obscure terms certainly doesn't help. Alternative terms have been proposed before, but none has ever been found satisfactory, even when it's acknowledged that "disambiguation" is problematic.

Proposal

The four-syllable word "distinguishing" (as in "distinguishing page") is perfectly accurate, but much less obscure. To wit:

• In the 450-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English, "disambiguation" appears 10 times; "distinguishing" appears 1817 times, making it 182 times more common. (The ratio is "only" 32:1 in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, but I suspect that corpus includes Wikipedia pages)
• In the 100-million-word British National Corpus([1]), "distinguishing" is the 10,017th most common word, between "genre" and "deployed". "Disambiguation" is ranked 60,032, between the surnames "Willingham" and "Maazel". ("Quixotic", for reference, is ranked 43,055).

Granted, we are not

: "Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do." Although these guidelines focus on article content, their point is valid for any public-facing material, and "disambiguation" has long been the biggest offender.

A switch-over could largely be managed by bot, including:

• Moving all "X (disambiguation)" pages
• Moving and rewording the disambiguation templates
• Moving and rewording the relevant policies, guidelines, and other project-space pages

It's not too late to fix this. As internet use grows worldwide, the number of people who will access Wikipedia in the future (as readers and editors) dwarfs the number who have done so thus far. It will be far more obvious to new users what a "distinguishing page" is for, and that can only be a good thing for the quality of these pages. We've lived with a problematic term for a long time, but we needn't forever.

I've done my homework on this proposal, and as a nine-year veteran editor, metapedian, and active member of WikiProject Disambiguation, I'd like to think it's worth serious consideration. So:

• Question 1: If we were starting from scratch, would you favor the term "distinguishing page" over "disambiguation page"?

• Question 2: How feasible is a switch-over? How would it be best handled? What complications may arise?

• Question 3: Which of these options is best (ignoring implementation details for now)?
  • Null option: Change nothing.
  • Option A: Introduce "distinguishing" as an acceptable synonym, but keep "disambiguation" as the preferred term.
  • Option B: Switch to "distinguishing" as the preferred term, but keep "disambiguation" as an acceptable synonym.
  • Option C: Switch completely to "distinguishing", changing from "disambiguation" everywhere.

(My own preference is for Option C; minimize confusion later by making a complete switch now.)

Discussion guidance

• Please read other users' comments before adding your own, and try to avoid repeating arguments.

• Let's try for rough consensus on the big questions before getting mired in variations. If the proposal fares well, this won't be the last discussion on the topic.

• Help! If you are passionate about this proposal, admins especially, please, please volunteer to help manage and track the discussion, or to help manage implementation. I have a full-time job that is not Wikipedia, and I don't want my limited availability to become the reason this fails.

Thank you. —Swpb^talk