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Merge?

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This article here should probably be merged with Summit Lake. Any takers? I'm not sure how exactly to formally propose such merger though. Guy1890 (talk) 05:34, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bringing up a merge here is a perfectly fine thing to do. But, Midas02 has already started a discussion about a potential merge at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links#A Summit Lake mess. Let's come to a consensus over there. Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 06:57, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware of that discussion, since I came here from there. Any consensus about a proposed merge will likely need to be decided here on the page to be merged though. Guy1890 (talk) 07:17, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I left a merge notice on this article (and Summit Lake), pointing to the discussion at DPL. Hopefully that will be enough to notice to centralize a discussion. —hike395 (talk) 08:15, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't be too rash about this. The problem here is a problem of form, rather than content. The additions by An Errant Knight are certainly very valuable, but they don't respect WP:MOSDAB guidelines. Have a look at WP:DDD if you want to familiarise yourself with the headlines. As such, merging this page with Summit Lake is out of the question, as it means that all red links, which are not mentioned in other articles, will have to be deleted. But as it stands, this page can't continue to exist as well, as it doesn't respect the guidelines for dab pages (a dab 'page' is not an 'article' by the way, two different concepts). So, as I imagined yesterday, content could be transferred to the List of lakes in Alaska article, and a link to that article included in the Summit Lake dab page (mind you, other American list of lakes in ... articles also contain lakes Summit that are currently not mentioned on the dab page, see also the Dispenser report). Alternatively, this page could be turned into a list article (they have their own policies) 'List of Alaskan lakes called Summit Lake', but it's easy to see how that would complicate things. A similar issue presents itself for Oregon, maybe some other pages as well. I'd prefer to get a second opinion from another dab editor first. --Midas02 (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen red links (or just useful text...for a user that's trying to find something on Wikipedia...with no Wiki-link at all) in plenty of disambiguation pages before. Whether all of the red links on this page here are likely to ever be turned into actual Wikipedia articles is another issue...one which I'm not familiar enuff with Alaska to comment on. Guy1890 (talk) 03:21, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there are two ways forward that are consistent with WP style and policy.

  1. We can merge this into Summit Lake, a dab page. That means that we have to get rid of the red links and extra information before we merge. Guy1890 -- if you see red links on dab pages, please fix them. They are definitely incorrect, according to WP:MOSDAB. Just because there are errors in WP doesn't mean we should spread them further.
  2. As Midas02 suggests, we can turn this into a list article, specifically a set index article. But, I think it is against the policy on topics for list articles to have List of lakes named Summit in Alaska. There's nothing distinguishing about Summit Lakes in Alaska. It's kind of a silly narrow topic for a list article. Instead, in the spirit of set index articles, we would make List of lakes named Summit that would cover any lake named Summit worldwide, with data for each lake. It would be a fair amount of work.

Does anyone feel up for creating List of lakes named Summit? I don't have enough time to go onto a big data gathering expedition. We could make a somewhat pathetic list that has more details for Alaska lakes, and very little on others.

For now, I would suggest simply back into the Summit Lake dab page, drop the red links, drop the extra information. But if other editors want to spend some time working on List of lakes named Summit, I would help out. —hike395 (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Later: I just noticed List of lakes named Summit Lake in British Columbia. I think this is also too narrow. The existence of this list makes me want to go down the path of List of lakes named Summit more. —hike395 (talk) 17:41, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hike395, what you're suggesting is double work (and double maintenance). No point in having loads of lists on lakes. They can quite simply be integrated into the list of lakes in Alaska article. All one has to do is scroll down to the "S" to find them. Likewise for the other US/Canadian states. The Summit Lake dab page can then be alleviated by pointing to the respective lakes in xyz state articles. Saves trouble in maintaining that one then too. --Midas02 (talk) 20:56, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Midas02: Sorry, I don't quite understand what you're suggesting. You'd like the merge this page into List of lakes of Alaska? What would you propose doing to List of lakes named Summit Lake in British Columbia? Are you proposing any other merging? Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 09:00, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there is no point in having different articles/lists on all kinds of lakes. There is already a List of lakes of Alaska article. That list, obviously, does contain lakes named Summit (three of them). So there's no point in having another list, which will also list the Summit ones. Otherwise you end up with two lists covering the same topic, and both will eventually diverge resulting in partial and incomplete lists which will suffer from a lack of maintenance. The Summit lakes can be integrated into the lakes of Alaska list, adding an anchor point if needed to redirect directly to the right section. So, a single list, single maintenance, and a one-stop answer for all Alaskan lakes. Common sense if you'd ask me.
Likewise for all other names. British Columbia demonstrates the problem. What's the point in having a specific list of lakes Summit in BC, if there is already a List of lakes of British Columbia list? Please note that the latter list contains exactly one Lake Summit, and that it doesn't even mention there is another list called List of lakes named Summit Lake in British Columbia. That's very deceptive to the reader! When one consults the list of lakes in BC, you'd expect to have all lakes, full stop. You're not supposed to go searching left and right for other lists. So here as well, best solution would be to merge the Lake Summits into the existing List of lakes in BC, no need to make it more complicated than you have to.
Oregon is a different kettle of fish. List of lakes in Oregon already uses a tiered approach, and is listing homonymous lakes in separate articles. Although I find it a shame. That list is now nothing more than a list of names of lakes, and doesn't tell you where they are located (county or coordinates). In general, all List of lakes in State xyz should have the same look and feel I guess, but that's not the issue now. --Midas02 (talk) 14:03, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still trying to understand the details of your proposal (you don't need to further explain why, I'm just trying to fully understand the details):
  1. You want to merge Summit Lake (Alaska) into List of lakes of Alaska
  2. You want to merge List of lakes named Summit Lake in British Columbia into List of lakes of British Columbia
  3. You want to merge Summit Lake (Oregon) into List of lakes of Oregon? Or not?
  4. Not sure what you're proposing to do at Summit Lake
Thanks for explaining! —hike395 (talk) 17:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Alaska: the current situation is not acceptable. The list of lakes in Alaska currently lists only three of them. So either all of them should be added to that list (which makes sense since both lists use the same formatting), or ALL Summit lakes are spun off to a separate list. But NOT having some of them in one list, some of them in the other list, and no crosslinking between the two.
  2. BC: it's unacceptable the list of lakes in BC has no pointer to the List of Summit Lakes in BC. Either a link should be added, or, again, all lakes consolidated in the same article.
  3. Oregon: not my problem right now, but it's strange that all lakes in state xyz articles seem to use different formatting.
  4. The Summit Lake dab page can be fixed once the above has been taken care of. There are multiple ways to do it, not a real issue. I'm going to retire from this debate btw, I believe we spent enough time on it. Time for some action. --Midas02 (talk) 19:42, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This all sounds sensible. You can certainly go ahead and be bold, but if we end up in a bold, revert, discuss cycle, there will be a lot of work to do, and then revert. I will summarize the editing, below; and leave necessary merge notices on all of the pages. If no one objects (or comes up with something better), we can do the multiple merges. —hike395 (talk) 20:05, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Guy1890: Red links are perfectly acceptable on dab pages, as long as 1) there is a blue link on the same line, and 2) the term or name in the red link is linked to by at least one other article (that is not a dab page). See WP:MOSDAB#Red links. — Gorthian (talk) 22:04, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hike395:, also, who stated about redlinks that "They are definitely incorrect, according to WP:MOSDAB." Gorthian is correct. The specific MOSDAB passage allowing redlinks is at shortcut MOS:DABRL. What is needed IMHO is:

  • edit List of lakes in Alaska etc. to use each redlink such as Summit Lake (Whatever) (where "Whatever" is a sensible disambiguating phrase) in a meaningful way
  • edit the overall Summit Lake disambiguation page to include all Summit Lakes from everywhere, including only-blue link entries plus also "redlink plus supporting bluelink" entries like "*Summit Lake (Whatever), a lake in Alaska". This entry is valid per MOS:DABRL. If a redlink does not have a supporting bluelink linking to a page where the redlink is used meaningfully, then a rules-minded disambiguation-focused editor is likely to remove the redlink entirely. That editor could be nicer by seeing if any articles include the redlink (go to edit the redlink and click "what links here") but probably will not do that, they will just delete without notice.
    • If the organization of the dab page allows (which appears so) then put the Alaska ones together, and create a wp:anchor (or is it {{anchor}}?) so that the mini-section can be linked to directly. E.g. insert hidden {{anchor|Alaska-Summit-Lakes}} (the anchor name can include spaces but I prefer not to)
  • redirect any Summit Lake (Alaska)-type mini-disambiguation pages to the Summit Lake disambiguation page, preferably to the specific anchor location within it where the several Alaska ones are given, e.g. redirect to Summit Lake#Alaska-Summit-Lakes.

Hope this helps. I came here from the notice given at wt:DPL talk-page. --doncram 06:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New merge proposal

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The current merge proposal is by Midas02 (modified by me):

  1. Merge Summit Lake (Alaska) into List of lakes of Alaska
  2. Merge List of lakes named Summit Lake in British Columbia into List of lakes of British Columbia
  3. Merge Summit Lake (Oregon) into List of lakes in Oregon
  4. Add coordinates to List of lakes of Oregon and List of lakes of British Columbia
  5. Add anchors to the first Summit Lake entry at List of lakes of Alaska, List of lakes of British Columbia, and List of lakes in Oregon
  6. Create redirect Summit Lake (British Columbia) to Summit anchor of List of lakes of British Columbia
  7. Link to Summit Lake (Alaska), Summit Lake (British Columbia), and Summit Lake (Oregon) from Summit Lake dab page, per WP:DABANCHOR.

Comments, objections, or improvements? —hike395 (talk) 20:05, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I commented in section above before seeing this. Steps 1-5 are good, but 6,7,8 are not. Note "the first Summit Lake entry at List of lakes of Alaska" is often not going to be the one that a good-faith editor is seeking when they write Summit Lake (Alaska) into an article, but there will be only one Summit Lake there and the editor will not be given notice of other options. Instead one wants for Summit Lake (Alaska) to go to the sublist of Alaska's Summit Lakes within the Summit Lake disambiguation page (where the editor will see there are several options). Use "anchoring" as I suggest in section above. --doncram 06:59, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: How would the list of Summit lakes in Alaska and Oregon be merged into the List of lakes of X articles? In the Oregon case, there are five features which are not physically lakes, but have "Summit Lake" in their names so the page is partially acting as a Oregon-specific disambiguation/identification resource. For the seven other entries, none link to an article about a specific Summit Lake, so there could be notability challenges. Also, the Oregon list of lakes currently doesn't embrace the details (elevation, coordinate, USGS map, and GNIS id) so either that information would become harder to obtain, or the state lake list would need non-trivial work to match: it currently has 158 entries. There is less challenge with the Alaska merge because the Summit Lake list has less information than the overall state list. —EncMstr (talk) 05:52, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@EncMstr: Summit Lake (Oregon) is indeed problematic. It isn't a proper disambiguation page (because it only contains one blue link and the red links are not co-linked by any other page). It isn't a proper set index article because, as you point out, it is about more than one type of object.
What I would suggest is keep the data for the lakes, fold them into List of lakes in Oregon, and delete the rest, leaving a redirect to an anchor. I would add a coordinate column to the List of lakes in Oregon and fill it in from Summit Lake (Oregon), and start to fill in the other rows. I would keep the GNIS links as inline references. I would move the images down to a gallery at the bottom of the table (to make more room for coordinates).
Does that sounds acceptable? I don't see what else we can do, if we wish to follow WP:MOSDAB and WP:SIA. —hike395 (talk) 07:34, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Later: looks like Jsayre64 just deleted the last blue link on Summit Lake (Oregon), so it really doesn't have a disambiguation purpose any more. It might be easier to just delete Summit Lake (Oregon), instead of saving it. Sorry, EncMstr. Comments? —hike395 (talk) 07:49, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder how Summit Lake Trail got in there in the first place? No matter. I adopted the current format in creating articles like Summit Lake (Oregon) (Lost Lake (Oregon), Clear Lake (Oregon), etc.) because they are far more useful than a DAB. They do seem to be compliant with set index articles, except for the types of items, don't they? Frankly, I don't see any problem with that. And I think all the Oregon-specific articles have a See also link to List of lakes in Oregon or equivalent, so what benefit is there in gutting the article(s)? I agree that expanding the Oregon lakes article is valuable in and of itself. —EncMstr (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@EncMstr: I don't think we can use ignore all rules to overrule the strong consensus at the disambiguation guideline. Dab pages were designed to be very simple, in order to speed the readers to the correct page. I helped write the set index article guidelines back in 2007 --- getting an exemption to the DAB style for a set of items of the same name and same type (e.g., lakes) was quite controversial.
Given the strong consensus around what dab pages should look like, I don't see how Summit Lake (Oregon) can serve as one. If you want to help work on it, expanding List of lakes in Oregon with coordinates may be the best way to rescue (some of) the data on that page. —hike395 (talk) 05:31, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Not sure of an apology is in order or not for having pushed this issues to its current point. On the one hand, creating the Summit Lake (Alaska) disambiguation page (DAB) seemed to have opened a hornets nest. On the other hand, doing so finally got some group discussion on how to address a larger problem that included several other pages. (Notwithstanding, it doesn't appear the anyone noticed the combining of the Summit Lake and Summit Lakes DABs.)

Having said that, in hindsight (with current understanding), the information in the Summit Lake (Alaska) DAB should have been included in the List of lakes of Alaska (as suggested by Midas02), rather than following precedent of the Summit Lake (British Columbia) DAB . Similar modifications should be made to the Summit Lake (Oregon) and Summit Lake (British Columbia). Likewise the many Summit Lakes in California should be added to the appropriate List of lakes of California. As for the non-lake Summit Lake items (particularly in the case of Oregon), could those be added as a sub-item (or related item) for the associated lake?

An Errant Knight (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be getting on track ... yes Summit Lake (Alaska) should just redirect to a spot in the Summit Lake dab page, not be a duplicative dab page itself. Yes the Summit Lakes in Alaska should be added where appropriate in the List of lakes of Alaska (which perhaps is organized by watershed or by county/borough?). --doncram 06:59, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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