Talk:Montana Sky (disambiguation)

Using redirects on dab pages

I am copying this post here, from my user talk page: — Mudwater ^(Talk) 18:57, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

---

Hi, saw your edits on Montana Sky (disambiguation). I think there might be some confusion on what MOS:DAB recommends. In your edit summary, you quoted "piping and redirects should generally not be used on disambiguation pages". The full quote is:

Apart from the exceptions listed below, piping and redirects should generally not be used on disambiguation pages

The relevant guidance listed below that is MOS:DABREDIR, which in the section "Where redirecting may be appropriate" says:

A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article if only that section discusses the disambiguated topic.

It advises, for example, that Eon (geology), a redirect, should be used rather than a direct link to the article geologic time scale, and that on a page where the topic is "James Cary", the redirect James Carrey is preferred to a direct link to Jim Carrey.

In short, the recommendation is not that redirects should never be used. In fact, the recommendation is to create redirects to be used when linking to an article where the term is referenced but is not the name of the target article.

In the case of the Montana Sky dab page, Montana Sky (song) would be preferred over linking to the album (among other things, it makes the entry much shorter!), as would Montana Sky (basketball) over the link to the basketball league. In each case, the entry is now unambiguous, and doesn't need additional length to distinguish it from another Jonas Brothers song or basketball team. Regards, NapoliRoma (talk) 18:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@NapoliRoma: Hello! As you can see, I've copied your post (above) from my user talk page to here, where other interested editors are more likely to see it. I agree that MOS:DAB says that it's sometimes appropriate to link from a disambiguation page to a redirect. But in my view Montana Sky (song) and Montana Sky (basketball) would not be preferable here. In both of those cases, the articles do not have sections devoted to the specific sub-topic (the song or the team). Instead it's better to use the more general guideline, very widely but not universally followed, to link to the actual article titles. As for the length of the entries, they would still be pretty short, and I think it's good if they're long enough to provide very brief descriptions of the topics. So I think it would be better to restore my changes, i.e. to change the page back from this to this. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 19:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

In an effort to get more editors' opinions, I'm going to post about this on the WikiProject Disambiguation talk page. I'll ask interested editors to comment here, to keep the discussion all in one place. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:19, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, seems reasonable.

My take is that although there seems to often be an aversion to using redirects, they aid in clarity and maintainability, and as I mentioned above, work in the service of brevity, one of the often overlooked goals of writing disambiguation pages.

I'll also point out that in the Eon (geology) example, is no one section devoted to "eon"; it's one of a list of terms. This is similar to Montana Sky (basketball), which is one of a list of teams. -- NapoliRoma (talk) 01:07, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Previous discussion: WT:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 43#Confused about redirects as dab entries.

MOS:DABREDIR isn't as explicit as it might be, but my reading and common practice is to link to the song/team redirect rather than the album/league article. There are pros and cons: linking the song/team shows what term is being explained but linking the album/league makes it explicit where a click leads. An editor who decides differently in some cases would not be wrong, but the clincher for me is that the redirect might get a better target or become an article one day. Certes (talk) 11:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Regarding songs, there are criteria used by the music wikiprojects; see WP:NSONG. Several editors with the music projects will routinely remove redirects from entries on dab pages that fail the music notability criteria. For other types of entries, IMO, the main consideration is weighing the notability of topic as described in the linked article. If something is mentioned only in passing in the target article, I think it would be less confusing to link directly to the article than through a redirect. If the term has more extensive discussion in the article or has separate section, which suggests that the term has some independent notability, then using a redirect on the dab page may be clearer. older ≠ wiser 11:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Removing redirects as described above seems like odd behavior to me, and contrary to the guidance in MOS:DABREDIR. It also seems to go against the spirit of this from NSONG: "songs that do not rise to notability for an independent article should redirect to another relevant article, such as for the songwriter, a prominent album or for the artist who prominently performed the song." If the redirect is being encouraged, I think actually using it is not a bad thing. -- NapoliRoma (talk) 15:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Like Certes indicated, a lot of this is subjective. On the one hand, a redirect to the album article is helpful for readers to locate relevant content. On the other hand, if it is unlikely that there will ever be a separate article on the song, it can be confusing if the link on the dab page uses the redirect without any mention of the album. I.e., the song's entry on the dab page in a section with a list of other songs would likely look like this:

• "Song name redirect" (artist name song), 1989

A reader will click this and end up on the article about the album without any clear indication of why. Some readers would find this confusing (for mobile readers in particular, the redirect message does not display). I think for the following would be significantly clearer with minimal additional text.

• "Song name", a song by artist name from the 1989 album Album name

This avoids creating easter egg links. older ≠ wiser 17:17, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, and I would never create a redirect, preferring the above formulation.

But... my preference always is for minimalism, so if the redirect is already there, I tend to use it. ("Minimalism", because, statistically speaking, the reader isn't looking for the entry you're adding text to, so extraneous verbiage is a hindrance to most readers most of the time.)

In general, for songs, I think the album name is not super-useful for disambiguation and should be left out if possible. The Jonas Brothers are unlikely to do another song called "Montana Sky". The easter egginess does not bother me so much. I go with the "Principle of Some Astonishment" here; I don't think we should inconvenience other readers to cover the possibility that someone may not work out why they're on a Jonas Brothers album page when they clicked on a Jonas Brothers song title. -- NapoliRoma (talk) 16:21, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I've never really understood minimalism in entries as an objective in and of itself. I always thought the goal was to be helpful to readers, and if a few extra characters will make an entry clearer, that is preferable in my opinion to being obsessive about trimming every entry to the bare minimum. older ≠ wiser 16:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)