Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 11

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.

Earlier parts of this discussion, dating 9 January to 12 January 2006, can be found in /Archive 10#Disambiguation for television shows.

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)/poll

A draft poll is now available for comment. Voting for the new naming convention begins on January 24 and continues through February 15 2006. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 05:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The poll has begun. Please make your opinion be heard and settle this issue. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 05:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up discussion after poll

The poll has been completed for the naming conventions for television content , but several items remain unresolved. I would appreciate any comments others might have for the follow-up discussion - Thanks --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 19:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The convention looks good, I like the font tags making the qualifiers stand out clearly (maybe we should try that here). But I couldn't find the list of unresolved items on either the project or talk page.

--William Allen Simpson 01:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think he means Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Unresolved issues. The issues are the 6 subsections. Chris the speller 05:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The Links to disambiguation section says:

Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Disambig (previously "Special:Whatlinkshere/MediaWiki:Disambig") could list all disambiguation pages, but the Wiki software limits the number of results listed to 500 in order to reduce technical strain on the servers. The Category:Disambiguation provides a complete list, but it is also hard on the servers (given that we have over 7,000 of them).

If you create a disambiguation page, put a link to it in one of those pages as appropriate.

This doesn't make sense to me. When I put the disambig template on a dab page, that automatically puts it in Category:disambiguation, yes? I've also read that this server strain isn't true anymore. Any info on that?

That is also my understanding. Since category pages now display a max of 200 items at a time, the server strain is not such a significant factor. older≠wiser 22:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

What was my omission? Thanks.

When you create a disambiguation page, add a link to it in one of those pages as appropriate.

--William Allen Simpson 04:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a synergy with some discussion above, so I'm bringing that parallel discussion here

Thanks for pointing out the corrected link.

I looked at the old text, and it seems to me that Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages is a friend for generic topic pages, and Wikipedia:Links to (disambiguation) pages is a friend for primary-dab pages — and these were there before we coined these terms. But to be perfectly honest, I don't really care about either of those pages so I'll just leave that alone... I do have one question though: if Wikipedia:Links to (disambiguation) pages is meant to be a friend for primary-dab pages, then why does it exist when each of those pages is linked to from the primary topic page; and if it is meant to be a friend for all dabs, then why do both pages exist? (For that matter, I wouldn't mind being pointed to a complete explanation of both pages, their differences, etc.)

I guess my point is that the redirect page doesn't need to be created, even if its existence does no (real) harm. The redirect page should never be an orphan, it exists for the sole purpose of being linked to (right?) Though it never occured to me that the redirect page is supposed to exist (unless linked to, there's no point) — this is all behind the scenes, so I'll leave this alone (but an answer to my question would be nice.) Neonumbers 10:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you've got it backwards.

1. The words "primary topic" and "generic topic" and "special topic" were coined in the text, I merely made them section headers (and they immediately became clear enough for you to argue about — clarity is a good thing, even when it leads to change).
2. Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages is/was the friend of Primary topic pages. These have always pointed toward "(disambiguation)" and need something to point to them. The "main" pointer back from "(disambiguation)" provides a circular reference, but nothing to keep the pair from being orphans. So, one or the other has to be pointed at from somewhere. We could make a change to require the pointer to "(disambiguation)", and eliminate this list page entirely.
3. Wikipedia:Links to (disambiguation) pages is the friend of Generic topic pages. These now point toward the Generic topics, but nothing else points to them (except in rare cases). No circular references, either. The nice thing about this list is it could be generated entirely automatically! (And the script is already on the page!)

--William Allen Simpson 04:26, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

To sum up, it seems that Ted finds adding links in lists to be onerous, and Neo might be correct that we could eliminate at least Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages. We have to think hard about "Special topics" though....

--William Allen Simpson 04:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I no longer know what we're talking about.

Tedernst | talk

18:06, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm still lost. When I say "primary topic dab page", I'm of course not referring to the primary topic page, I'm referring to a dab page that has an associated primary topic (and therefore has "(disambiguation)" in the title). A "generic topic" page is one where the actual page is the dab page. Specific topic pages are irrelevant (they are linked to from the dab page and probably other pages throughout the encyclopedia). Those are my definitions (if yours differ, just change every occurence below to whatever is correct.)

Now, the only purpose of those pages as I understand it is to prevent them from being listed as orphans.

Primary topic dab pages (e.g. "Thingy (disambiguation)") are not orphans. They are always linked to from the primary topic ("Thingy"). Hence, I don't understand why that needs protection from being listed as an orphan.

Generic topic dab pages (e.g. "Mercury") should (with exception) be orphans. (In the exception case, we make "Mercury (disambiguation) and redirect to "Mercury".) Hence, as orphans, we list them on a page that makes them not orphans. The redirect should not be an orphan because it should only exist if someone wants to link to it. Incidentally, as a technical question, to redirects get listed the orphan list at all? They shouldn't, because many will be common misspellings and the like, so logic would have it, no, but if someone could confirm that...

Anyway, it would seem logical to me that Links to (disambiguation) pages has primary topic dab pages (e.g. "Thingy (disambiguation)") and is hence unnecessary, and that Links to disambiguating pages has generic topic pages (like "Otherthingy"). That logic is based solely on the title of the page — either way we have one for pages like "Mercury" and one for pages like "Aurora (disambiguation)". And the latter doesn't need to be there. Neonumbers 10:40, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Neo, both of us agree on the definitions.

• "Thingy (disambiguation)") are not orphans. They are always linked to from the primary topic ("Thingy").
  • Yes. And they always link back to the primary topic, creating a reference loop.
  • But what links to the primary topic?
  • Currently, the semi-automated Wikipedia:Links to (disambiguation) pages provides the orphan prevention. Presumably, this was done because the names were easy to find in the data dump. It seems to mostly work, although the script hasn't been run in a long while.
• Generic topic dab pages (e.g. "Mercury") should (with exception) be orphans. (In the exception case, we make "Mercury (disambiguation) and redirect to "Mercury".)
  • Yes. But, we have some young folks here who aren't very good at thinking about exceptions.
  • I believe the proposal is to ensure that every generic page has the "(disambiguation)" redirect pointing at it. This kills several birds with one stone:
    1. Makes a checklist easy to implement (no exceptions).
    2. The semi-automated Wikipedia:Links to (disambiguation) pages will be root for the orphans.
    3. Meets the guideline in "#Links to disambiguation pages" quote: ... link to the redirect to the disambiguation page that includes the text "(disambiguation)" in the title (such as, America (disambiguation)). This helps in distinguishing accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones.
    4. Allows deletion of the hand-maintained Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages, making any checklist one step shorter.

Therefore, I'm now in favor of requiring the otherwise unneeded "(disambiguation)" redirect, and elimination of Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages. It should be easy to do, and one less thing to worry about.

--William Allen Simpson 16:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Incidentally, as a technical question, [d]o redirects get listed [in] the orphan list at all? They shouldn't, because many will be common misspellings and the like, so logic would have it, no, but if someone could confirm that...
  • I cannot tell. Maybe they aren't orphans, as they get created by the spelling error, and thus have at least one link.
  • Probably need to ask the programmers.

--William Allen Simpson 16:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I modified the disambiguation example in the article. I believe the topic LINK should go first, followed by a very brief description, to aid the user. The previous example has an adhoc display of how a disambiguation page should NOT look IMHO :) Cordially SirIsaacBrock 17:33, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I've just discovered that Tedernst jumped the gun on redirecting the *dis templates (and possibly others). That is not concensus. In order to remove the templates and subcategories, we have to be able to find the templates! Currently, the What links here is very unreliable. The subcategories are where we need to look for the pages to fix!

Therefore, I'm reverting his redirects.

Moreover, I don't see any edit history by Ted in the Wikipedia:Non-unique personal name and Wikipedia:Multiple-place names (and other) lists. As he (and others) orphan the geodis and hndis templates, each name MUST be entered into these lists. That was the WHOLE rationale for eliminating the subcategories, that they should be in the existing lists, instead.

Finally, I've just run into a couple edits where Ted has changed the template to {disambig-cleanup} after I'd already cleaned out the {2LCdisambig} or whatever. He's not finding these in subcategories of category:disambiguation, so it's not part of any cleanup effort. I'm wondering how he's editting these within minutes or even seconds after me.

This also happened (more benignly) when I added the templates at TfD. He voted to delete within minutes or even seconds after I added the entry.

• "2006-01-17 03:05:05 William Allen Simpson (→January 17, 2006 - 4LA)"
• "2006-01-17 03:05:59 Tedernst (→Template:4LA - delete)"

It's almost like he can actively watch my contributions list.... Is that possible?

--William Allen Simpson 06:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I've looked everywhere and I can't find an itemized procedure for creating a disambiguation page. Have I missed it?

I see numerous people saying "I want to create a disambiguation page, but am afraid to since I can't find a specific procedure".

Is there such a procedure? If not it seems odd there'd be tons of info on disambiguation, but no procedure listing exactly how.

unsigned post by User:Joema —Wahoofive (talk) 19:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

It's the same procedure you use for creating any other article. This isn't some multi-step process like

Here are some guidelines for what the page should look like, but otherwise it's the same as an article. If you have more specific questions, let's hear 'em. —Wahoofive (talk

) 19:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Please read 
Disambiguation Pages Manual of Style
 for more information.

Maybe 2 links for in the bottom template Gr. Mion 21:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

There isn't? Really? I had no idea...

I would assume this procedure would need to include the creation of the topic pages as well as the writing of the actual disambiguation page. Also, you might have to sort out interlanguage links.

Umm, rough procedure off top of head, if you're trying to split a multi-stub page:

1. Create each topic page (e.g. "Thingy (field)") and move relevant info to it.
2. Turn the original multi-stub page into a disambiguation page, as outlined at
   MoS:DP
   .

If you're making a disambiguation page for a primary topic, then you don't need to move the primary topic (of course), you just need to create the disambiguation page and your new topic articles. If you can be bothered, sort out interlanguage links; this may but hopefully won't involve figuring out where each link belongs by actually visiting the foreign language site. Hope that helps. Neonumbers 10:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

please read transparency the talk page, it's about interwiki. Mion 22:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

the reason might be: transition into wiktionary Mion 23:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Generally people create dab pages when at least one, and usually more, articles on similarly-titled subjects have already been written. Most often, an existing primary topic page is moved to a more-specific title and the original title turned into a dab. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Do we have any idea how many disambiguation pages there are? --Smack (talk) 22:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The infornmation can be extracted from database dumps. This was requested at

WP:DPL

a while back, the results were:

So that's 34,126 dab pages, as per the most recent dump.--Commander Keane 07:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

One thing I'm wondering is should I move

This is not really covered by the Disambiguation guideline, but rather by

John Alexander (tennis player) is fine, since I knew he was a tennis player, but had no idea that he had an OAM.--Commander Keane

07:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Current abbreviation guideline

Since 2003 May 10, the guideline for disambiguation of abbreviations, acronyms, and initialism has been some variant of:

• "No need to disambiguate the abbreviations here."
• "Abbreviations pages replace disambiguation pages."
• "Such pages facilitate navigation and replace disambiguation pages."

The current guideline has been virtually unchanged since 2003 December 31 12:21:31, written by Docu and Eloquence working together:

Pages of common two and three letter abbreviations group series of possible expansions for the letters, such as

chemical element symbols, similar to disambiguation pages. These should be expanded beforehand. Such pages facilitate navigation and replace disambiguation pages. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation and abbreviations

for details.

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Conflict at Manual of Style (disambiguation)

At about the same time that

During the latter part of 2005, a fairly limited number of young folks involved in Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation turned their efforts from finding and updating ambiguous links (which often require considerable time and effort reading each reference) to hastily reformatting disambiguation pages themselves (which can accumulate edit counts much more quickly). This devolved into turning anything that looked vaguely like a disambiguation page into the MoS:DP format, even when such pages (in particular, multi-stub and abbreviations pages) are explicitly stated in this guideline as not disambiguation pages.

The activity caused considerable uproar (for example, most of

On December 30, 2005, while most folks were celebrating holidays and without any prior discussion, there was a particularly damaging series of surreptitious template redirects and category closing by Tedernst. Afterward, he posted on the MoS:DP talk page without mentioning his changes.

This guerrilla style of action is repugnant to those of us with over 30 years in the computing industry.

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll on templates

In early January, I developed two related straw polls (now at

I carefully limited the poll to those elements of style related to disambiguation (a proper topic of MoS:DP), and divided the poll into

• (A) the questions related to abbreviations, and
• (B) the questions related to the existing disambiguation lists.

Much to my surprise, during the discussion some folks rejected the use of automatically maintained categories, and preferred hand-maintained lists instead. Tedernst proposed eliminating Category:Disambiguation entirely.

Nota Bene: This is especially surprising given that the 4 existing lists currently required by this guideline have been badly maintained. I found no evidence that these same disambiguators have ever maintained the existing lists.

The result of the polls were that the small group of disambiguators wanted all ambiguous letter combination (*LA*) templates removed (8:3), and all disambiguation subcategory templates removed (9:2).

Clearly, the experiment of integrating abbreviation templates with disambiguation templates, an undertaking involving dozens of editors over the past 9 months, has failed. The comments indicate it is "confusing" and "complexity" to use several templates that automatically add subcategories.

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll extrapolation as structural change

Having won that minor skirmish, an even smaller group has asserted that the polls (which did not cover categories themselves) really express a consensus that abbreviations and other such pages should all be merged into the ambit of disambiguation! This arguably demonstrates bad faith.

Having designed, implemented, closed, and summarized the straw polls (and as a person involved in both political polling and consensus-based organizations for decades), I assert that nothing of the kind can be construed from the polls.

Moreover, as I have reminded them, this is merely a discussion about style for pages of the structure described one level deeper/higher at Disambiguation — while the distinction was drawn with Abbreviation two levels deeper/higher as long ago as 2001. Folks at that level cannot make massive structural changes with a tiny straw poll. This is only about style.

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposed solution

At the suggestion of Wahoofive (05:46,

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Existing list cleanup

Based on long-standing Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Links to disambiguation pages, folks were supposed to be adding these names to lists. Now, it's being forced, as there will be no more subcategories.

• replace {{geodis}} with {{disambig}}, and list in Wikipedia:Multiple-place names.
• replace {{hndis}} with {{disambig}}, and list in Wikipedia:Non-unique personal name.
• replace {{townshipdis}} with {{disambig}}, and list in Wikipedia:Multiple-place names.

Where will {{numberdis}} be listed?

In some cases, the listing work will already be done. In other cases, more than one type may be on the page, so it should be in more than one list. But every case has to be checked.

Working with Bluemoose, only Townshipdis has been done.

Despite there being no controversy, the small group of dissenters has refused to work on this cleanup, and focused instead on abbreviations. This arguably demonstrates bad faith.

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

What use is there for the list Wikipedia:Non-unique personal name? If it is valuable, then it has been sorely neglected. I just matched up its names with those in the category Human name disambiguation. Since there are 929 names in the list, and 980 in the category, it would appear that there is about a 5% error rate. But hold on — only 113 names are in both lists! There are 816 listed names that do not appear in the category, and 867 names in the category that should be added to the list. Just look at the Taylors:

List: Ben Taylor, John Taylor, John W. Taylor, Peter Taylor, Roger Taylor

Cat: Charles Taylor, David Taylor, Don Taylor, Graham Taylor, Jack Taylor, James Taylor, John Taylor, Kate Taylor, Sarah Taylor, Simon Taylor, Robert Taylor, William Taylor

I can add the missing names to the list by means of an external program, so it's not too much work, but is it worth doing? Is the list worth having, and how useful can it have been in this condition? Chris the speller 18:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I certainly agree, Chris. (Actually, the history shows some work). Templates and Categories are simply more readily maintained. I assume you support my proposal here to merge the list into the category.

--William Allen Simpson 13:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to merging the list into the category, if that's where the consensus leads. Chris the speller 20:11, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Abbreviation cleanup

Based on long-standing Wikipedia:Disambiguation#TLAs and Wikipedia:Disambiguation and abbreviations, Abbreviations pages replace disambiguation pages.

• replace {{2LA}} with {{2LC}}
• replace {{2LAdisambig}} with {{2LC}}
• replace {{2LCdisambig}} with {{2LC}}
• replace {{TLAdisambig}} with {{3LC}}
• replace {{4LA}} with {{4LC}} (about half done, 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC))
• replace {{5LA}} with {{disambig}} and Category:5-letter acronyms as appropriate (done? 11:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC))
• replace {{LND}} with {{2LC}}, {{3LC}}, or {{4LC}} (done? 11:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC))

Where there are other references on the page, presumably these are moved to the appropriate "XX (disambiguation)" page.

Anything I missed?

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Alternative solution

In the alternative, this entire topic could be submitted for Arbitration, as some persons participating in the poll have demonstrated bad faith. It may be that the outcome of the polls was not representative, or a subterfuge by some persons advocating a wider agenda.

The disambiguation pages are not an empire to be expanded.

--William Allen Simpson 15:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Please William, no personal attacks. Thanks/wangi 13:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree with wangi. It's hard to get motivated to support, or even read, your proposals when they're peppered with attacks on those who disagree with you. How can we expect a rational discussion with someone who makes such accusations? This is a collaborative effort, not a competition. If there's a misunderstanding, we need to work together to clear it up. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:27, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

What is the problem?

I have to admit, I am completely baffled by what all the voluminous commotion is about in the preceding sections. Can someone please provide a concise statement about what this is about? It looks as though William Allen Simpson is proposing some sort of change (although through all the convolutions I'm not entirely sure what). Or perhaps he is reacting to some recent change. I mean, if it is just about putting abbreviations into a separate category, I don't really see the point, but I also don't see that it is such a big deal. But statements that seem to say that pages of abbreviations are in some way fundamentally different from disambiguation pages are simply wrong. Throughout their existence in Wikipedia, abbreviation pages have always been virtually indistinguishable from regular dab pages, with the exception of a different template and different mechanisms for preventing them from being orphans. As far as I can tell, abbreviation pages were NEVER intended to be like articles or for some idiosyncratic concept of enhanced browsing. While there may be some statments from obscure pages in the Wikipedia namespace -- in actual practice (what really matters in a Wiki) -- links to ambiguous abbreviations were expected to be disambiguated and NOT remain as links to the abbreviation page. But then I look as some of the examples given, like V8 (disambiguation), and I find nothing unusual there. Hence my present state of befuddlement over just what is actually at issue here. older ≠ wiser 16:26, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Back in November {{

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories) and William put together a straw poll to gauge consensus. However from this straw poll William has somehow decided that abbreviations should be moved out of the disambiguation system completely - I read the consensus reached that all disambigaution pages should be simply tagged with {{disambig}}... Thanks/wangi

17:06, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

1. Existing list cleanup — the discussion here has confirmed the straw poll for removal of these templates, but it seems that a consensus has developed to convert the existing lists into categories that are at the same level as Category:Disambiguation, or as its subcategories.
2. Abbreviation cleanup — this has been the subject of most of the discussion. There appears to be consensus that these remain in separate categories. There is no consensus as to the manual of style that would be applied.

I will begin two new sections to cover the two cleanup processes, to try to get everybody in the same place.

--William Allen Simpson 18:30, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, things are a little clearer. I take issue with H, in that guidelines are in fact codifications of practice. Cleaning up can only occur when there is some agreement as to what the best practice is or should be. Many, many, many, "guideline" pages are hopelessly out of date and are rightfully ignored by editors.

Regarding E and F, while there may be agreement that in the past these had separate templates and categories, whether that should continue to be the case appears to be one of the focal points of this discussion. Personally, I have no problem with there being an additional category for abbreviations, since there seems to be some interest in that. But I very strongly feel that these should be within the main disambiguation category and that pages of abbreviations where the title of the page is the abbreviation should NOT be granted a special status as in the case of shipindex. There was a very good rationale for such a special status, but I've seen no good rationale for pages of abbreviations being treated distinct from dab pages.

I'm not sure, but perhaps there is some confusion in terminology. Pages like

List of acronyms and initialisms are NOT disambiguation pages. These are different. But a page like AA functions exactly like any other disambiguation page and should not be governed by a different set of rules. older ≠ wiser

--William Allen Simpson 21:18, 28 January 2006 (UTC)