Disambiguation pages (abbreviated often as dab pages or simply DAB or DABs) are designed to help a reader find the right
search term. In other words, disambiguation pages help readers find the specific article they want when there is topic ambiguity
.
Note that even though most disambiguation pages are kept in the
Article namespace (mainspace)
, they are not articles. These non-article pages are aids in searching for articles.
There are standards for when and how editors should disambiguate articles (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation).
The style guidelines on this page aim to give disambiguation pages a consistent appearance and help the efficiency of searches by excluding extraneous information. Any page containing one of the disambiguation templates should contain only disambiguation content, whether or not the page title contains the parenthetical "(disambiguation)". For more information on these templates and identifying a disambiguation page, see § The disambiguation notice and categorization below.
Note that these style guidelines do not apply to article pages containing such sentence- or paragraph-level disambiguation techniques as having a hatnote at the top of an article pointing to a related subject. These guidelines only apply to pages correctly tagged with a disambiguation template.
Each of these three elements should begin on a new line. The Wiktionary template generates a box on the right side of the page. If neither a Wiktionary link nor a primary topic link is present, the introductory line should be the first line of the page.
{{Wiktionary}} can be used with up to five optional parameters: {{wiktionary|WORD|WORD2|...|WORD5}}. Useful for linking dictionary entries with multiple capitalizations (e.g., star, Star, and STAR). With no parameters, the template defaults to using the current page's name with a lowercase first letter.
It is recommended that a link back to the primary topic appear at the top, in a brief explanatory sentence. This link should be the primary topic set in bold. (This is opposite to the recommendation for primary topics in articles; that is,
MOS:DABENTRY
.
When the page has "(disambiguation)" in its title – i.e., it is the disambiguation page for a term for which a primary topic has been identified – users are most likely to arrive there by clicking on a top link from the primary topic article, generated by a template in the {{
otheruses}} series. For example, the article School contains the hatnote
The primary topic is the one reached by using the disambiguation page title without the (disambiguation) qualifier. Capitalization differences matter, so there will only be one primary topic for a title.
Since it is unlikely this primary topic is what readers are looking for if they have reached the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links. As stated above, it is recommended that the link back to the primary topic appear at the top, in a brief explanatory sentence. For instance:
was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), a famous composer during the Classical period. N
Introductory line
MOS:DABINTRO
See also:
WP:Template messages/General § In introductory lines
The term being disambiguated should be in bold (not italics). It should begin a sentence fragment ending with a colon, introducing a bulleted list:
Interval may refer to:
John Smith may refer to:
or
John Smith is the name of:
ABC may refer to:
or
ABC may stand for:
Where several variants of a term are being disambiguated together, significant variants may be included in the lead sentence. For example:
Bang or bangs may refer to:
or
Bang(s) may refer to:
Arc or ARC may refer to:
Angus McKay, MacKay or Mackay may refer to:
However, it is not necessary to mention minor variations of capitalization, punctuation or diacritics. For example, AU may refer to: is preferable to AU, au, Au or A-U may refer to; and Saiyuki may refer to: is preferable to Saiyuki, Saiyūki or Saiyûki may refer to.
When the title being disambiguated has a primary topic (i.e. when the disambiguation page's title ends in "(disambiguation)"), the introductory line includes the word "also": see the "school" example in § Linking to a primary topic above.
Individual entries
MOS:DABENTRIES
After the introductory line comes a list of individual entries – lines which direct the readers to Wikipedia articles on the various topics which might be referenced by the term being disambiguated. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the specific article they want quickly and easily. For example:
Apply the following rules when constructing entries:
Preface each entry with a bullet (an asterisk in wiki markup).
Start each entry with a capital letter (unless it begins with a link to an article marked with {{
MOS:DABONE
Include exactly one navigable (blue) link to efficiently guide readers to the most relevant article for that use of the ambiguous term. Do not wikilink any other words in the line. For example:
}} can also be used to put only the title, and not the qualifier, in italics or quotes, respectively.
In most cases the title of the target article will be an expansion or variation of the term being disambiguated (as in the example above). If this is the case:
The link should come at the start of the entry.
The article title should appear exactly as it is on the target page; the link should not be piped except to apply formatting (see § Where piping may be appropriate).
However, in some cases the target article title is not an expansion or variation of the term being disambiguated. For example, in the Maggie Anderson (disambiguation) page:
Maggie Anderson, character in the musical play Brigadoon
Note also the following points when constructing lists of entries:
MOS:DABNOLINK
An entry without a blue link is useless for further navigation. (See § Red links for cases in which no article yet exists.)
A disambiguation page should not be made up completely of red links or have only one blue link on the entire page, because the basic purpose of disambiguation is to refer users to other Wikipedia pages.
Never include
external links
, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web. To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them on the talk page.
References
should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles.
Examples of individual entries that should not be created
Do not include entries for topics that are not ambiguous (according to the linked article) with the title. Use list articles for lists of related topics if needed.
On a page called Title, do not create entries merely because Title is part of the name (see
Santa Catalina Island, California. If there is disagreement about whether this exception applies, it is often best to assume that it does. When multiple articles contain Title but are not referred to by it, {{look from}} and {{in title}} templates may be added in the "See also" section
.
You may want to create entries on the same page for:
TITLE and Title
Title town and Title township
An example is Willow Valley, which lists a town of that name as well as "Willow Valley Township" in another state.
Do not include entries for topics that are not mentioned in any article, even if there is an article on a related topic, since linking to it would not help readers find information about the sought topic.
Given names or surnames
MOS:DABSUR
"MOS:DABNAME" redirects here. For the guideline regarding how to name disambiguation pages, see
People who have the ambiguous term as surname or given name should be listed in the main disambiguation list of the disambiguation page only if they are frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g., Abraham Lincoln on Lincoln).
There are two options for listing name-holders. A list of name-holders can be included in a People section of the page. For longer lists (of 12 or more entries), and as an alternative for a short list, an
anthroponymy list article
can be created and linked from the disambiguation page. If it isn't clear that the article includes a list, consider mentioning that in the description, for example:
Marilyn (given name), a female given name (including a list of people with the name)
Dylan (name), a given name and a family name (including a list of people with the name)
Articles only listing persons with a certain given name or surname, known as anthroponymy articles, are not disambiguation pages, and this Manual of Style does not apply to them. Anthroponymy articles follow
Common misspellings should be listed only if there is a genuine risk of confusion or misspelling. These cross-links should be placed in a separate section entitled "Common misspellings" or "See also". For example, in a page called Kington (disambiguation), a link to Kingston (disambiguation) would appropriately be included in the "See also" section.
Piping and redirects
MOS:DABPIPE
Piping and redirects are two different mechanisms that allow the displayed text of a link to differ from the title of the page that the link points to.
Piping means concealing the title of a linked article by replacing it with other text. For example, instead of showing the full title Moment (physics), it may be presented as [[Moment (physics)|moment]], resulting in the link moment.
Apart from the exceptions listed below, piping and redirects should generally not be used on disambiguation pages. This is to make it clear to the reader which topic is the subject of an article title. For example, on the disambiguation page Moment, in the entry Moment (physics), the parenthetical disambiguator "(physics)" should be visible so that the reader sees which "moment" topic the entry is about, among others sharing the same base title. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need in order to find their intended article. However, raw section and anchor points should not be displayed; see § Section and anchor point linking for those cases.
Though piping and redirects should generally not be used in disambiguation pages, there are certain cases in which they may be useful to the reader:
A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article if only that section discusses the disambiguated topic. This also suggests that the topic may eventually have its own article. For example:
Eon may refer to:
(correct)
Eon (geology)
, a division of the geologic time scale
[[Eon (geology)]], a division of the geologic time scaleY
(incorrect)Eon, a division of the geologic time scale
[[Geologic time scale#Terminology|Eon]], a division of the geologic time scaleN
Eon, a [[Geologic time scale#Divisions of geologic time|division of the geologic time scale]]N
The above technique is used when the link is the subject of the line. For description sections, redirects or piped links may be used; follow the normal Wikipedia:Redirect and Wikipedia:Piped link guidelines.
Linking to a redirect can also be helpful when both:
the redirect target article contains the disambiguated term; and
the redirect could serve as an alternative name for the target article, meaning an alternative term that is already in the article's lead section. For example:
James Cary may refer to:
(correct)
James Carrey
or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actor
[[James Carrey]] or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actorY
(incorrect) James Carrey or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actor
James Carrey or [[Jim Carrey]] (born 1962), Canadian actorN
The above example of a redirect is only appropriate because James Carrey is indicated as an alternative name in the lead section of the Jim Carrey article. If it were not, then the second example could have been used instead.
Where piping may be appropriate
MOS:DABPIPING
Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance,
ftq}} may be used to create properly formatted links. These should be substituted, since templates are discouraged on disambiguation pages (see § Images and templates
Similarly, use piping if the entry's article title differs from how it should actually be rendered, due to
Softimage|XSI
.
When the link is part of the description rather than the actual entry name, piping can be used more freely. However, the text of the link should still be very similar to the title of the target article, to avoid confusing the reader. For example:
Switch may refer to:
"Switch", a song by Siouxsie & the Banshees from The Scream
"Switch", a song by Siouxsie & the Banshees from ''[[The Scream (album)|The Scream]]''
Piping may be used when the link is in the description (see § Items appearing within other articles) for linking to a section or anchor point rather than an entire article. For example, on E (disambiguation), the piped Entertainment Software Rating Board ([[Entertainment Software Rating Board#Ratings|Entertainment Software Rating Board]]) is preferable to simply linking to the entire article Entertainment Software Rating Board. Piping is commonly used to link to the track listing section of an album article. The text of the link should not be the title of a different article, and should not surprise the reader. For example:
Ten or Tenshinhan, a [[List of Dragon Ball characters#Ten Shinhan|character in Dragon Ball media]]Y
(incorrect) Ten or Tenshinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media
Ten or Tenshinhan, a character in [[List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan|Dragon Ball]] mediaN
This is incorrect because although the piped link will take the reader to the correct page where the character's name is discussed, the actual article Dragon Ball does not mention him and is not where the reader should think he or she is heading.
Section and anchor point linking
MOS:DABANCHOR
"MOS:DABSECTION" redirects here. For guidance on how and when to create disambiguation page sections, see
MOS:DABGROUPING
.
Section and anchor points in links should not be visible to the reader (e.g., [[Galactic quadrant (Star Trek)#Delta Quadrant]]). If an anchor-point link is needed:
For linking the subject, link to a redirect to the anchor point (or leave the subject unlinked and move the link to the description).
For links in the description, link to a redirect or use an anchor-point link with piping to display text similar to the article title.
When creating a redirect to a section, add the template {{R to section}} on the redirect page within the {{Redirect category shell}}. When a redirect to an anchor is created, make sure the {{anchor}} template is placed at the targeted topic in the article, and tag the redirect with {{R to anchor}}.
Specific entry types
External links
MOS:DABEXT
External links should not be used on disambiguation pages.
Non-English languages
MOS:DABOTHERLANG
For non-English language terms, be sure an article exists or could be written for the word or phrase in question. Usually this means that the term has been at least partially adopted into English or is used by specialists.
Tambo may refer to:
Tambo (weapon)
, a very short staff used in martial arts
Avoid adding non-English words or phrases that are merely translations of an English term. For example, do not include:
For people, include their birth and death years (when known), and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Keep in mind the conventions for birth and death dates—see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Dates of birth and death. Do not include a, an or the before the description of the person's occupation or role.
John Adams (1735–1826) was the second President of the United States (1797–1801).
John Adams may also refer to:
John Adams (composer) (born 1947), American composer, came to prominence with Shaker Loops in 1978
John Adams (physicist) (1920–1984), Director General of CERN and particle accelerator designer
It is common practice for sources to refer to holders of certain offices or stations by their title and surname. These references frequently make their way into articles, complete with links. Having disambiguation pages at these titles makes it easier for readers to find particular individuals who might be known by this combination, while also helping to eliminate incorrect links. These pages provide better results than Wikipedia's search function, which will sometimes return every article containing the title and the surname, even where the words have no relation to one another in the article. Jumbled results from the search function bury those most relevant to a search for people who might actually be called by that title and name. This is exacerbated by Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography#Titles of people, which generally prohibits referring to article subjects by their title in running text. These pages also provide a better result than merely redirecting the combination to a surname page, as the surname page will likely include many names of persons not associated with the title.
A title-and-name disambiguation page should only be created if there are multiple individuals who can be included on the page. Furthermore, an individual should only be included on a page if the subject was notably known by that title and name, and this is reflected in reliable sources. For example, there is no redirect from
President Taft
) as he would have been notable even if any one of those was the only office he had held.
Having a title in some capacity is also not, by itself, sufficient to merit inclusion on the page. There must be a reasonable propensity for the subject to be referred to by the title and name in combination. Thus, people who are merely a sports team captain should not be listed with people titled "Captain", and people who are merely the president of a company should not be listed with people titled "President". In some cases, people have given names that in other contexts are a title (such as actor Justice Smith, politician Major Owens, and musician Earl Hines). Where this is the case, the person with such a name will often be considered the primary topic over any person with a corresponding title and name.
Red links
MOS:DABRED
A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should be included on a disambiguation page only when a linked article (not just other disambiguation pages) also includes that red link. Do not create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or are likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics. To find out if any article uses the red link, follow the link (from an edit preview, a Wikipedia search, or typing it into the Wikipedia URL), and then use the "What links here" link in the toolbox.
If the only pages that use the red link are disambiguation pages, do one of the following:
Unlink the entry word but still keep a blue link in the description. Red links should not be the only link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information. The linked article should contain some meaningful information about the term.
Start a new article for the red link, according to Help:Your first article practices. Using the description on the disambiguation page as the lead sentence can be a start. Usually there should be a source in an existing article that mentions the topic which can be used.
Make a redirect to a page where the item is described (see § Piping and redirects above).
MOS:DABNOMENTION
In the following (made-up) examples, if the entry with the architectural motif is judged to be appropriate for a future article, and assuming that the fictitious "flibbygibby" is mentioned in its respectively linked article, it is considered a valid entry. If "flibbygibby" is not mentioned in the noodle article, or there is no linked article at all, as in the toy example, it is not a valid entry; therefore, only the entry for the architectural motif can include a red link.
Flibbygibby may refer to:
(correct)Flibbygibby (architecture), a flamingo motif used on cornicesY— Note: This is just a made up example in which the word Flibbygibby is pretended to be mentioned in the article "cornice".
(incorrect) Flibbygibby, a type of noodleN— The word "Flibbygibby" is not mentioned in the linked article, "noodle".
(incorrect)Flibbygibby, a type of toy N— Entry does not contain a valid link to an encyclopedic article mentioning the term.
MOS:DABSISTER
If the article to be disambiguated does not have an article on the English Wikipedia, but has an article on a
sister project in another language, the term may be linked to the sister project using the {{interlanguage link}} template.[a]
If a topic is not mentioned in an article, that article should not be linked to in the disambiguation page, since linking to it would not help readers find information about the topic.
If the topic does not have an article of its own, but is discussed within another article, then a link to that article may be included if it would provide value to the reader. In this case, the link may not start the line (unless it has a redirect that is devoted to it), but it should still be the only blue wikilink. For example:
Maggie Anderson may also refer to:
Maggie Anderson, a character in the musical play Brigadoon
It is often useful to link to the relevant section of the target page using
Many pages serve primarily to disambiguate short letter combinations that can represent various acronyms and initialisms. When considering articles to include in the list, it is important that each individual entry is referred to by its respective abbreviation within its article. For example:
Links to indexes of article titles beginning with Title (using {{look from|Title}}), article titles containing Title (using {{in title|Title}}), or both (using {{self-reference tool}}[b])
Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket
Less likely to be confused alternative spellings of Title, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont
As with any See also section, the ordering should be logical.
The See also should always be separated from the other entries with a section header.
Per
WP:INTDABLINK
, links to other disambiguation pages should always use the "(disambiguation)" link, i. e. use [[Foo (disambiguation)]] instead of [[Foo]]. Create a redirect if necessary.
When appropriate, place easily confused terms or commonly confused alternate spellings in a hatnote instead of a See also section. For example, Sydney (disambiguation) has a hatnote linking to Sidney (disambiguation).
Example ordering
Moss is a small, soft, non-vascular plant that lacks both flowers and seeds.
A large number of entries can make it difficult for a reader to find a particular topic. On longer disambiguation pages, separate entries by subject
Organizing disambiguation pages by subject area
for detailed guidance. Use subject areas that are well-defined, and that group the entries into similarly sized sections. Very small sections may impede navigation, and should usually be avoided. Section headings should be as simple as possible; Sports is preferred to Sports people or Sports figures, since the nature of the category (people, in this case) should be obvious.
Entries that do not fit neatly into any section should be placed in an "Other uses" section or subsection, at the bottom of the page or section (but above any
above
.
Keep in mind that a particular division scheme may not work equally well on all disambiguation pages. An example:
Thingamajig may refer to:
Science
Thingamajig (biology)
, an invasive plant used as ground cover
Thingamajig (chemistry)
, an isotope of chlorine
Thingamajig (physics)
, a kind of pulsar
World music
Thingamajig (Peru)
, a wind instrument similar to an aulos
Thingamajig (Qatar)
, a seven-stringed musical instrument
Thingamajig (UK)
, a wind instrument, similar to, but longer than the Peruvian one
. Always use ==Level two== as the highest-level header. Section headings should not include links.
On longer lists, {{
Wikipedia:Accessibility § Article structure
.)
Images and templates
MOS:DABFLAG
Including images and transcluding templates are discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles on the particular search term in question. Examples of this are the images at Congo (disambiguation) and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation).
Icons, including flag icons, should not be used on disambiguation pages. Only if flag topics are being disambiguated and images are needed to do so, then flag icons or flag images might be added. See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons.
Wikipedia:Template messages/General § On disambiguation pages
After all of the disambiguation content (including the See also section, if present), but before any categories (see below) or interlanguage links, a template should be placed identifying the page as a disambiguation page. This generates a message to the reader explaining the purpose of the page, and also places the page in the appropriate category or categories.
The usual template to use is {{disambiguation}}, which produces a general disambiguation notice, and places the page in Category:Disambiguation pages. Parameters can be added to place the page additionally into other more specific disambiguation categories. For example, if a page includes multiple places and multiple people with the same surname (and possibly other items), use {{disambiguation|geo|surname}}. A full list of available parameters and their corresponding categories can be found in the {{disambiguation}} template documentation.
If a disambiguation page consists exclusively of items in one of the more specific classes, then a specific template should be used instead of {{disambiguation}}. For example, use {{place name disambiguation}} for locations, {{human name disambiguation}} for human names and so on. A full list can be found in the {{disambiguation}} template documentation.
If a disambiguation page needs cleaning up to bring it into conformance with this style manual, use {{disambiguation cleanup}}. This replaces both{{disambiguation}} and {{cleanup}}.
Do not use {{subst:disambiguation}} or {{subst:disambiguation cleanup}}, as the contents of this notice may change in the future (see Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits). Also, the Wikipedia software relies on links to the templates to determine which pages are disambiguation pages, and subst'ing breaks this feature.
Most disambiguation pages do not need to be placed into any categories other than those generated by the template. If such cases do arise (for example, specific categories of personal names that do not have corresponding template parameters), then the additional categories should be placed after the template.
If new topical categories of disambiguation pages seem to be needed, please bring this up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation.
Exceptions
Set index articles
MOS:DABNOTINDEX
Set index articles are list articles about a set of items of a specific type that have similar or identical names. Set index articles are not disambiguation pages and do not have to follow the style outlined on this page. Note that the set index article exception was designed to be narrow: for pages that contain links to articles about different topics, please follow this style guide for disambiguation pages. An example of a set index article is a list of ships with the same name, such as HMS Albatross. For more information about such ship lists, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines § Index pages.
Application of these guidelines will generally produce useful disambiguation pages that are consistent with each other and therefore easily usable by most readers. Usefulness to the readers is their principal goal. However, for every style recommendation above, there may be pages in which a good reason exists to use another way; so ignore these guidelines if doing so will be more helpful to readers than following them.
sister projects. It is the preferred method, because a bot exists
that removes the template once the article is created on the English Wikipedia.
^Note the {{self-reference tool}} is able to strip out the "(disambiguation)" part of the page name, so a Title argument is unnecessary and unsupported.
