Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 7

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.

See Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#naming and linking for a discussion about this. Thanks. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 22:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Greetings. I run a pot named

1. John E. Andrus
   • John Andrus redirects to John Emory Andrus
     , which doesn't mention this person.
     • Consider changing the rd to a dab, and adding {{otherpeople2|John Andrus}} to both pages.
     • If they're about the same person, use {{merge|John Emory Andrus}} and {{merge|John E. Andrus}}
2. John E. Cunningham
   • John Cunningham is a dab which doesn't mention this person.
     • Consider adding this to the dab: * [[John E. Cunningham]], a U.S. Congress member
3. John E. Moss
   • John Moss redirects to Johnny Moss, which doesn't mention this person.
     • Consider changing the rd to a dab, and adding {{otherpeople2|John Moss}} to both pages.
     • If they're about the same person, use {{merge|Johnny Moss}} and {{merge|John E. Moss}}
4. John Edwards (Arkansas)
   • John Edwards disambiguates to John Edwards (disambiguation), which doesn't mention this person.
     • Consider adding this to the dab: * [[John Edwards (Arkansas)]], a U.S. Congress member
5. John F. Andrew
   • John Andrew doesn't mention this person.
     • Consider creating a dab page at John Andrew (disambiguation), and adding {{otherpersons|John Andrew}} to both pages.
     • Or you could add {{otherpeople4|x|the U.S. politician|John F. Andrew}} to one page and {{otherpeople4|the U.S. politician|x|John Andrew}} to the other.
     • If they're about the same person, use {{merge|John Andrew}} and {{merge|John F. Andrew}}

This should give you some idea. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 22:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

At first glance, outstanding. I think this would be terrific. older ≠ wiser 00:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Except I just noticed the first article listed,

John E. Andrus, was created by polbot and is a duplicate of John Emory Andrus. Has the bot already gone through the Congressional Bioguide? Or could the bot perhaps identify potentially ambiguous articles before creating them? older ≠ wiser

00:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Polbot's done creating articles. Unfortunately, she wasn't smart enough to avoid creating dupes, but I avoided it as much as possible by using a list of missing articles. Because of the possibility of dupes (like John Andrus), I included the merge templates to paste on the tops of the articles. There really shouldn't be too many, but there will be some. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 01:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

And we are go! Knock yourselves out, kids. :-) – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 14:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The artcles Viridian and Viridian (disambiguation) have considerable overlap. I couldn't think of a good way to tag the articles themselves, so I thought I'd make a comment here and solicit a volunteer for cleanup. Matchups 18:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 19:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Please review Tsubaki which I've just fixed up.

Old version: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tsubaki&oldid=138067506.

There is no primary topic, but I left the flower and name references at the top. The link to Japanese Wikipedia has been left in so someone can at least find the information there and perhaps add it to the English article. I don't want any more information removed, but I'm not sure I reordered everything correctly. For example, should the two unambiguous names of manga artists by moved to the last category? I think they look better at the top near the references to other people. How about the shrines which only start with "Tsubaki"?

What is the standard for fictional characters with same name in different works? They look a bit redundant. ("Tsubaki, a character from InuYasha" "Tsubaki, a character from Naruto") Should the pipe-links and descriptions be removed (since the disambiguous article name gives the topic), or more specific descriptions added?

I would also like it if someone would create the Tsubaki (singer) article for me. If you start the article, I will fill in details from Japanese Wikipedia or other sources.

Thanks! --70.234.40.15 09:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Minor advice for improvement:

1. Use the preview button when you clean up. That way, the history is less cluttered. ;-)
2. One blue link per entry, meaning: instead of "
   mangaka and a member of the all-female manga-creating team Clamp", write "Tsubaki Nekoi, a famous mangaka and a member of the all-female manga-creating team Clamp" or maybe even shorten more to "Tsubaki Nekoi
   , member of the manga-creating team Clamp"
3. Don't pipe entries. I.e. not "
   Tsubaki
   , a character from Naruto" (<- see where Tsubaki links).
4. Don't write sentences, but sentence fragments with the important word first. I.e. not "Tsubaki-hime is the nickname of the character Tsubaki Kakyouin in Descendants of Darkness" but "Tsubaki Kakyouin, nicknamed Tsubaki-hime, a character in Descendants of Darkness"
5. On disambigation pages, put {{disambig}} at the end.

But a really good job otherwise. :-) – sgeureka ^t•c 10:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Greetings. I notice in the

For example, piping is necessary to format titles: italicizing movie titles, quoting song titles. Piping is also acceptable when the entry subject is not linked, but a blue link is provided in the description (often a section link, which should definitely be piped). Finally, there is a guideline that says the primary topic in the intro paragraph (if there is one) should be linked by piped redirect, ostensibly for helping other bots determine that it's an intentional link to a possibly ambiguous title, but I find that guideline clunky at best. -- JHunterJ 19:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I can italicize Ghostbusters without piping, but I'm guessing you mean like Jaws (film), which should be piped as Jaws (film). That's something the bot could filter out: if the piped link has a double apostrophe, the bot would leave the pipe in. As to the other situations you mention, I could limit my conversions to links that immediately follow a * at the start of a line (i.e. a list entry). That should prevent pipes from being removed in the header paragraph or in descriptions. Would this be a good bot to run? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 03:00, 16 June 2007 (UTC

Not necessarily. If removing the piped link means leaving an entry that did not have any obvious reason to be on the page, then the edits would not be helpful. In the page you mentioned, John McCarthy, where all the piped links are parenthetical dabs of the base name, there is no problem. But sometimes disambiguation pages have piped links where the target name is something other than the display name. This sometimes happens with place names or with merged stubs. These should probably be cleaned up, but I'm not sure I'd trust a bot to due it. OTOH, if the bot could generate a list of such pages that might need cleanup, that could be helpful. older ≠ wiser 03:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I could certainly create a bot to create a list of such pages. In fact, it could be expanded to look through all dabs for probable problems of all sorts. I'll probably do that if it looks like this bot suggestion isn't a good idea. So far I see one opinion against running such a bot, and no opinions in favor. Any other comments before I give up on the idea? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 19:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think a tightly-reined bot, one that removed piping from dab page lines that:

1. begin with an asterisk
2. lead with a piped wikilink before any other text after the asterisk
3. have no single or double quotation marks in the second part of the pipe link

would be useful and not run afoul of any of the normally warranted piping. (If it also generated a suggestion list for human follow-up, so much the better.) -- JHunterJ 22:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the situation older is cautious of is one where "Alex Jones" is the common name and article name of "Michael Alexander Jones", and the "Michael Jones" dab lists him. (I'm making this example up.) The dab should ideally say something like "* Michael Alexander Jones, known as [[Alex Jones]] (1854 - 1907), Belgian underwater basket-weaver". But frequently the dab page will instead say something like "[[Alex Jones|Michael (Alex) Jones]]. . . ", and this bot would turn this into "[[Alex Jones]]. . . ", which would look like it was misfiled. I don't think I can make the bot smart enough to avoid those situations.

In my opinion, those would be infrequent, and would simply switch the article from one misleading and non-standard format to a different misleading and non-standard format, which at least isn't a step backwards. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 23:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Perhaps the bot could add a hidden comment for editors who later some to edit the page to remind them to check for alternate uses before simply removing an entry. older ≠ wiser 00:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Are there other things the bot should look for? Common mistakes that the bot could either fix or add {{disambig-cleanup}} regarding? They would have to be fairly straight-forward to find though; bots are notoriously bad at making common-sense decisions. I was thinking, for instance, that the bot could count how many links are in item-descriptions in the dab. (There aren't supposed to be any, unless the link is essential for understanding context.) If there are more than, say, six in the entire dab, it's probably too much, so the bot could tag the page for cleanup and leave a note as to why. Is this a good idea? Any other things the bot could look for? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 15:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

If the main entry in not linked or is itself a redlink, there should be one (blue) link in the description.

User:Interiot has semi-automatically tagged some dabs for cleanup; you might ping him/her directly to collaborate. -- JHunterJ

15:24, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Some names have alternate spellings (Sean and Shawn) and others are commonly confused (Johnson and Johnston), and these ought to be disambiguated, but I'm having trouble deciding on the best way to do this. Take Louis Meyer, for example. "Louis" should probably be disambiguated with "Lou", "Louie", "Lewis", and even rarities like "Louiss" and "Loui". "Meyer" should be disambiguated with "Meier", "Meijer", "Mayer", "Meyers", "Myers", and possibly others. Combining those possibilities (with middle names thrown in), I find Louis B. Meyer, Lou Myers, and Louis B. Mayer, although there are probably others I'm missing. Now each one could explicitly disambiguate the other three at the top with a {{for}}, but this would be unwieldy. If this should be a dab page, where should it be? Thanks, – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 16:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Greetings! There has been a disagreement about whether or not this DAB page should include a link to Publishing. I do not think "book world" has been used to refer to the book publishing industry, but other editors do. Since the entry (and the corresponding change to Publishing) may, in my opinion, constitute original research, as well as possibly cluttering the DAB page, I am endeavoring to seek broader consensus on the topic. I figured this WikiProject would be the place to go, so would some project members please join the discussion at Talk:Book World? This is a small thing, I know, but I want to improve Wikipedia however I can, no matter how small the change. Oh, and while I'm at it, I'd like a second opinion on my changes to Minerva (disambiguation). Is the page improved? Does more need to be done? Thanks in advance! Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 22:37, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

1. If people think Publishing should be mentioned on Book World, and you disagree, try moving Publishing down into a See also section (that's what I do). If they still disagree, they might be right.
2. Re:
   WP:MOSDAB if you plan on fixing more dab pages. Main points: Avoid piping, and only include one blue link per entry, preferably at the beginning of an entry. Your edits may have improved the page slightly, but the dab page is still far away from a cleaned up dab page. (I don't say this to discourage you completely but to point you to the right direction. ;-)) – sgeureka ^t•c
   23:40, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The publishing article itself (currently) indicates that it's the "book world". If the editors there have reached consensus that that text can remain, then it should be linked on the disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ 01:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Besides the capitalization, something about the disambig comment seems wrong to me. It seems too long, and I'm not sure I like the abbreviation "TV". Also, there is

I started a new song at User:Shalom/Drafts and archives/Disambiguation song. Anyone who wishes to read it, and even to add to it in collaborative wiki-style, is welcome. Shalom ^Hello 19:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a proposal in the works for making all album titles include the artist name in parenthesis following the title, ie.

I recently finished correcting all non-wikipedia and talk pages that link to Lake Placid (a disambiguation page) so that they go through to the appropriate "Lake Placid". From what I understand, this is an aim of WikiProject Disambiguation. This was the first time I took it upon myself to embark on such a "crusade," and I'd like somebody to look my work over (basically everything on Special:Contributions/RideABicycle from Jailbait (film) (19:35, 16 July 2007) earlier). Can anyone else who does this sort of thing give me some pointers on the topic? Thanks! User:RideABicycle/Signature 00:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

You might find

otheruses}} at the top. If you need more advice, just ask. – sgeureka ^t•c

07:58, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I've started to do the same with Iranian. User:RideABicycle/Signature 19:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone else take a look at Big Brother, please -- I've made a resolution not to get into these things again (after the fun I had at ALF et al.). Thanks -- JHunterJ 19:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I am shocked -- shocked I tell you -- by the mislinks which should go to

but I won't waste the effort/namespace if people think it wouldn't be worthwhile. Apologies if this question has been asked before, but 7 archive pages is too many for (lazy) me to look through :-) Thanks. DH85868993 08:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd create a new {{surname}} (not necessarily disambiguation) page

1. if at least two people having the same surname are sometimes (but not often) known by their surname (eg. atheletes), so as to avoid confusion
2. if there are already similar surname pages where confusion may exist (e.g. Hahn/Hahne)
3. if a redirect already exists (e.g.
   Ecclestone, although I'd argue that in the case of Ecclestone, you should rather create the new surname page at Ecclestone (surname)
   than turn the redirect into a surname page)
4. if there are non-surnames (eg. companies, places, ...) involved, anytime, independent of the number of articles sharing a name.

I would not necessarily create a page for Rydell because if you type it into the search box, you already get presented all people as search results easily. On the other hand, creating a new surname page also doesn't do any harm here either. You may want to create dab/surname page for Rydell because of the wildlife refuge. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

To clarify: are you suggesting I should create a {{surname}} page when non-surnames are involved? That seems counter-intuitive to me; I would have thought {{surname}} would be used only when non-surnames aren't involved. Or am I missing something? (entirely possible!) Thanks. DH85868993 11:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

No, {{surname}} is just for surname pages; use {{disambig}} and Category:Surnames if a dab page has both surnames and non-surnames on them. I was just trying to point out that disambiguation pages should not be confused with surname pages. I am reluctant to comment on companies [places] whose full name is not a surname, but where a surname is part of the company's name, as it is usually not very obvious whether they are called just Surname. Therefore, I tend to make such pages surname page with entries like

• C. Hahne, founder of the C. Hahne Mühlenwerke GmbH & Co. KG

if the company's article doesn't state otherwise (but C. Hahne Mühlenwerke GmbH & Co. KG says it's also called Hahne, so the resulting page should be a dab page). Other people might have other opinions and preferences about this issue. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Would a project member please change

Done. – sgeureka ^t•c 07:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm just wondering if this page is an adequate disambiguation page, or if there should be any improvements made to it? Another editor recently removed some of the entries, but didn't provide an adequate reason, and given that they tried for deletion first anyway, I'm not sure they're going to participate in discussion, so I'd just like some opinions from others. FrozenPurpleCube 15:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

None of the deleted entries needed to be deleted, I agree. I did change or remove some of the bolding and the trailing periods. -- JHunterJ 16:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Now there is an objection that the page is currently NPOV. I can't understand that objection at all. I can't see where POV applies in this case. Is there some requirement that a disambiguation page only exist if a page has the word in its title? FrozenPurpleCube 16:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've suggested a solution on the talk page - use a "see also" section and keep things tight. Everything should be fine after that. (Emperor 21:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC))

An issue that some of you could probably fix is here: Talk:Pigeon (disambiguation). I'm not certain what to do with it. -WarthogDemon 20:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I've proposed Category:Articles_with_links_needing_disambiguation for deletion because I don't see how such a category would be useful (since it doesn't indicate which links on the page need disambiguation) and the effort spent in maintaining such a category would seem better spent elsewhere (such as in the activities of this project.) I'd appreciate anything people here had to add to the CfD. --Sapphic 18:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

(from the CfD page): Actually that is not true. The links that need disambiguation are marked by a {{

dn}} -- which I believe is the only way that the category should be added to an article. Of course, the category itself should explain this. older ≠ wiser

19:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The category is linked at

WP:DPL, by the way. Dekimasuよ!

16:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Where? I can't find it there. In any event, I still think the scope of this project should be expanded. Currently, the only pages that technically fall within the scope of this project are disambiguation pages, but we should include pages with links to disambiguation pages as well, since that is what we're usually editing most of the time. --Sapphic 18:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The page for birth was recently changed from a DAB page to a... I'm not sure what page. A combination of a DAB and dictionary page I guess. It seems like it was a bit of a poor DAB page anyway. But should it be a DAB page at all? I'm confused and don't know enough to edit it appropriately. WLU 13:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added some cleanup tags. It needs some serious attention from a prose-master. Maybe with the tags it can get the help it needs! SlackerMom 21:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought it might be of interest to members of this WikiProject when dab pages are proposed for deletion. If not, please indicate so and I'll refrain from adding such notifications in the future. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• 6 September - expires 11 September
  • Agârbiciu (PROD by User:TexasAndroid; 2 red-link placenames in Romania) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Aiken, Texas (PROD by User:TexasAndroid; 2 red-link placenames in Texas, United States) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Lound (PROD by User:TexasAndroid; 3 red-link placenames in England) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
  • VA-167 (PROD by User:TexasAndroid; 2 red-link items) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me
    ) 21:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• 5 September - expires 10 September
  • Eliza Stewart (disambiguation) (PROD by User:159.182.1.4; single link dab page) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:27, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is OK to alert interested parties familiar with disambiguation. If there turn out to be a lot or high frequency, it migh make sense to have a sub-page. I rescued the Eliza Stewart disambiguation page. For the others, which consist of only two red links, I can't get too worked up about them. older ≠ wiser 22:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I pulled the {{

prod}} off a couple where there are a lot of links to the resulting pages. Silly as they look these pages can be useful in the disambiguation process. Yes they are red links, but we want them to be the right red links. —  Randall Bart   Talk 

22:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the remaining prods with {{

db-disambig}} and added that to the other ones too. Silly as those pages look, they are also not useful in disambiguation, since there are no articles to disambiguate. That's why that speedy criterion is there. -- JHunterJ

11:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. I'd like to get some feedback about something I've been doing for a good while. Several of my adopted pages (

Does this seem like a reasonable approach? I'd like to hear some comments. Thanks. --Tkynerd 15:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

That is fairly similar to my approach. I generally look for some specific indication that ethnicity is intended, such as the word "descent", or other statements in context; for example, if the article refers to German immigrants in another country, I disambiguate that to "Germans" rather than "Germany." However, if there is no such clear indication, I default to disambiguating to the country name. --Russ (talk) 16:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Russ. One thing I'd like to add is to make clear that my approach above means that in the many, many, many cases where a lead paragraph says something like (to use my example article above) Mauricio José Rojas Mullor (28 June 1950 –) is a Swedish politician and political economist, I routinely dab the word in question to the country, because without more context, there is no way to be certain whether nationality or ethnicity is referred to. I do not attempt to make that determination on a case-by-case basis. I would much rather consistently use a relatively uncontroversial approach to these cases than potentially get into conflicts over each one. Does that make sense? (This is aimed not only at you, Russ, but at anyone else who wants to comment.) --Tkynerd 17:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I'd say that "Fooish politician" would almost always be disambiguated to "Fooland." For example, no one literate in English would refer to Rudy Giuliani as an "Italian politician." Maybe "Italian American", but then the context is different. Without any such qualification, a reader would expect the reference to be to the country in whose politics the person is active. Same for many other nouns (Fooish author, Fooish athlete, Fooish actor, etc.). Having said that, though, you still need to be careful to look at the context, since some situations break the general rule -- for instance, you should not be surprised to see persons referred to as an "Albanian [politician, actor, poet, etc.]" who don't actually reside in Albania. --Russ (talk) 19:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this kind of link can necessarily be taken to refer to residence either. The only thing it can be taken to mean for sure is that the person has some connection with the country in question, so I don't think dabbing to the country is ever wrong. As an example, I'd have no problem dabbing "Swedish" to Sweden here, even though the woman has not lived in Sweden for many years and, frankly, at this point I speak more fluent Swedish than she does (I lived there for almost twelve years). --Tkynerd 21:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tiln

Hopefully, we won't see many of these. -- JHunterJ 21:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Noting that

For example, the Chinese character 文 is represented by the following 3 currency articles:

• Chinese wén
  (文)
• Japanese mon (文)
• Korean mun (文)

In this case, the creation of a disambiguation page 文 (currency) can help disambiguate between the 3. (See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mon (currency) where I am recommending this).

To handle such cases, and to handle Chinese characters in general, I would like to ask you to help set up a

But first, can we reach consensus here whether we can use Chinese characters in DAB page titles? Please comment.--Endroit 16:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I left this comment on that AfD, but I think it's worth placing here as well: If

文 or merge to Wen or similar . There's not need for a parenthetical if the base name is open, and disambiguation pages try to avoid separating based on case or accent marks. (And if the base name weren't open, the disambiguation should be 文 (disambiguation) or Wen (disambiguation), not 文 (currency) or Wén (currency). There is no need to use a parenthetical other than (disambiguation) on a disambiguation page title, and the Disambiguation Project also works to "fold" the exceptions back in to the "main" disambiguation page if they've been so splintered. The guidelines for use of Chinese characters is disambiguation titles should follow the guidelines for use of Chinese characters in article titles, whatever those are. -- JHunterJ

17:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help.

Mon (currency) now redirects to Japanese mon, per discussions at Talk:Mon (currency) and elsewhere. Thank you again.--Endroit

13:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like something where Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links is good at. (I do realize that Milky Way is not a dab page, but they are fantastic with fixing wrong incoming links.) Maybe make another request there? – sgeureka ^t•c 16:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Milky Way Galaxy redirects to Milky Way, so I don't think there is a problem. There is a dab template at the top of Milky Way that points to Milky Way (disambiguation), so I assume this way of handling the article was decided by consensus. --Tkynerd

01:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

could you give me info on how to join this project!! thanks LOUISA ROCKS 20:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

just go to Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup and start working on an article. Good luck! firenze127 00:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

When I started working on this dab it was pretty bad. I fixed it up in a lot of ways, but I would appreciate some feedback on what can still be fixed so we can take off the cleanup tag on the page. All help is welcome. Thanks! firenze127 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 02:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the category, moved the articles with Ashiya in the title before the subcaste one that only mentioned Ashiya in passing, and moved the family-name holder(s) to a lower section. There was also one trailing period remaining. And I removed the -cleanup tag. -- JHunterJ 02:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I have been cleaning up and creating a number of dab pages for people with the first name "Joseph". Since the common nickname for "Joseph" is "Joe", I have been checking for "Joe"s to add as well, and adding them if a dab doesn't already exist for the name. For example, Joseph Williams (disambiguation) is a dab page, as is Joe Williams, so I crosslinked the two under a See Also header. However, Joseph Powell is a dab, but Joe Powell is an article without any similarly named articles, so I added Joe Powell to the Joseph Powell dab. That seems to work pretty well, and make sense, but I am bit stuck when neither has enough to justify a dab independently, but they do together (see Joe Lane and Joseph Lane). Any thoughts? Burzmali 14:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

In the case of

confused}} may work here to make the distinction clearer. Besides that, I have no other suggestions. – sgeureka ^t

•c 15:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

HATNOTES work fine for 2 or 3 articles linked by a common name but in this case we have Joe Lane, Joseph Lane, Joe Lane (footballer) and Joseph R. Lane. In Joe Lane (footballer)'s case, the usage of "Joe" is a nickname, hence a link from Joseph Lane is unnecessary, but that still leaves Joe Lane with a set of 3 hatnotes, which tends to look pretty cluttered. Burzmali

17:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you could add a nod to the Manual on {{

DisambigProject}}. But even editors who are made aware of the existence of the manual don't necessarily read it or understand it. See the section above... -- JHunterJ

23:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at this page, I need an answer to my question.

NOTE: This section's purpouse is only to bring people to another discussion. No further edits should be made to this section, instead go where the title leads.

Two things -- shouldn't

First thing: Talk:Las Vegas#Requested move says no, Las Vegas should be the dab. I'll take a crack at cleaning it up. -- JHunterJ 20:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I started

Only articles whose subjects are sometimes referred to simply as Conspiracy should be included on the dab page. See

WP:MOSDAB for more information. I think the number of articles on that page will be severely restricted by this criterion. --Tkynerd

13:24, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe both projects can meet in the middle with the creation of yet another set-index list like there already is with {{

mountainindex}}? The hatnote thing is something though where the WPTC's guidelines should change to the common practise. – sgeureka ^t

•c 01:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you should ask on

WikiProject Tropical cyclones. Like User:Nilfanion said, they've got they're own style. -- JHunterJ

11:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Reason for starting this thread is unfortunately the TC project is somewhat inactive at present. I think the present style should be altered somewhat: For instance

Hurricane Barbara

handles the fictitious storm badly and there is excessive wikilinking for a navigational page. I'd like advice from WPDAB member's on how to improve these pages.

As for why not link to dab pages:

WP:DAB#Links to disambiguation pages and Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links are relevant. The ambiguity of a cyclone's name is not that big a deal really - its just how the names are selected after all.--Nilfanion (talk

) 00:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I do lots of dab work, and there are instances where links to dab pages are justified. If possible, though, it's preferable in those cases to link to a page with a name like English (disambiguation), which frequently is a redirect to the actual dab page, but that link text makes clear to the reader that the link is not to an article. In the case of Hurricane Alice (June 1954), however, I would say the existing hatnote does the job and no link is needed in the See also section. --Tkynerd 01:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree there, however the question isn't really how to link, but does Alice (June 1954) need link to the dab at all? It certainly has no value for disambiguation purposes.--Nilfanion (talk) 02:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Again: "In the case of Hurricane Alice (June 1954), however, I would say the existing hatnote does the job and no link is needed in the See also section." :-) --Tkynerd 03:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't answer my question: Is the hatnote needed? I agree the hatnote is superior to a see also, but is a hatnote superior to no link at all?--Nilfanion (talk) 09:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not needed.

WP:HN#Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous. -- JHunterJ

10:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The hatnote is definitely not needed. Hurricane Alice (June 1954) is sufficiently DISambiguous all on its own. Clear the cruft. SlackerMom 12:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree. Readers generally arrive at articles by following links, not by typing articles titles into the search box. What if a reader follows a link like this: Hurricane Alice, thinking that link goes to this storm instead? The reader will be confused and have no obvious path to follow to find the article she's looking for. I'm for keeping the hatnote. To quote from the linked hatnote page: However, such hatnotes may sometimes be used when it is not entirely clear for the reader which disambiguation is used for which article (for example Matt Smith (illustrator) and Matt Smith (comics)). This case isn't exactly parallel to that, but it's close enough that the hatnote is useful for readers and certainly should not be dismissed as "cruft." --Tkynerd 12:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Whoops! I stand corrected. The

Hurricane Alice redirect (which I didn't notice earlier) creates a sufficiently ambiguous situation to support the use of the hatnote. I agree with Tkynerd (keep the hatnote) and apologize for the "cruft" comment. SlackerMom

13:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Hurricane Alice points at the December storm so a hatnote is clearly needed there. However, I'm not convinced about keeping the hatnotes on articles such as Hurricane Alice (June 1954) merely because of incoming article links. The context of the prose should make it clear which specific storm is being referred to. If it is not clear or is targeted at the wrong article, that is an editorial problem with the source article. We shouldn't use hatnotes to make up for lazy editing. For instance, would the reader of 1987 Atlantic hurricane season#Hurricane Emily be expecting the link to Hurricane Katrina to link to the article on the 2005 storm?--Nilfanion (talk

) 14:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

In such a case, I would use {{

Tropical Storm Alice}} to make clear when a hatnote is needed. – sgeureka ^t

•c 14:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed that this link directs to a stub about a town. The word is also a surname - with several people of that name having articles in WP, and is the German word for vulture, hence the English

Since there are no other articles that might have been titled Geyer, the stub is fine at the base name. You could create Geyer (surname) to list the surname holders if desired (and that article would be part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy). -- JHunterJ 13:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

JHunterJ's suggestion seems the right course of action in this case. By the way, the German word for the bird is spelled de:wikt:Geier (whose spelling I had to look up despite being a native speaker).– sgeureka ^t•c 14:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. My belief about the spelling of the word came from the

Wagner's putative father Ludwig Geyer. Maybe the play on words involved a play on the spelling--Peter cohen

16:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds very possible but Wikipedia:No original research. ;-) It's also possible that Nietzsche said/wrote that before the written German language was formalized in 1880. "Geier" is one of those words that I would potentially misspell even today, especially since I've been in Geyer a couple of times in my childhood (I think; who would forget such a funny town name). – sgeureka ^t•c 18:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Can someone takea look at MS (disambiguation). Are dab pages supposed to have a references section? User:CyclePat is requesting that references be added. 132.205.99.122 21:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up, and answered on

Talk:MS (disambiguation). In general, no, citations and references are not needed (or wanted) on disambiguation pages. If the articles to be disambiguated need citations to justify the inclusion of the dabbed term, the articles can be cited (or have citations requested), but the disambiguation page just disambiguates articles that discuss the dabbed term. -- JHunterJ

21:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone else, please address CyclePat's concerns on

Talk:MS (disambiguation); he is not taking my word for it. -- JHunterJ

20:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I restored MS based on the renamer's invitation to do so if there were any objections. -- JHunterJ 16:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I notice that there are three articles for (different) people named "Michael Cooper" and three articles for three (other, different) people named "Mike Cooper". I'm considering creating a disambiguation page, but I wasn't sure whether it would be preferable to create two disambiguation pages (i.e. one for "Michael Cooper" and one for "Mike Cooper") or just one, covering both the "Michael"s and the "Mike"s. DH85868993 (talk) 01:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Borderline case. You could do either, and no-one would mind. If you wish to create two dab pages, just make sure that they're interlinked. Everything is completely up to you, I'd say. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I've created two dab pages and interlinked them. Thanks for your advice. DH85868993 (talk) 10:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is an interesting case at AFD involving a disambiguation page that disambiguates foreign language (non-latin) characters. I've voiced my opinion there, so I won't repeat it here, but I think it raises interesting questions for disambiguation on WP:EN. older ≠ wiser 15:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

That page is a mess. It looks like it was a pure dab page until March, when a plastic surgeon came along and added some self-promoting copy, followed by a second surgeon doing the same, and other editors built on it from there. I think

Facelift page seems to be, as I said, mostly flackery. Comments?--ShelfSkewed Talk

04:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree and if no one objects soon, will go ahead an do so. (John User:Jwy talk) 05:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#CJKV disambiguation pages. We are proposing a joint DAB task force.--Endroit (talk) 19:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This badly needs a disam page. Is there somewhere to suggest new pages, other than the bot-generated one? Johnbod 17:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

You can create one yourself at Penny (disambiguation), but at the moment, I see all the other Penny pages as subpages instead of disambiguated terms, and the dab page may not be necessary at all. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)