User:DexDor/Dabs and SIAs

Disambiguation pages (dabs) and set index articles (SIAs) are two types of pages in the English-language Wikipedia that can be confused.

... while List of peaks named Stone Mountain and similar pages can be construed as "indices", pages like Mount Babel and Baker Mountain (and practically all pages not explicitly "list of") are still actually disambiguation pages.

Comment in a 2007 TfD

Types of Wikipedia pages

The diagram below shows a family tree of some types of Wikipedia pages. In particular it shows very similar pages such as African lily and African daisy being at different positions in the hierarchy.

Article Normal (non‑list) article  e.g. Apple List Non‑SIA list  e.g. List of ABA champions SIA SIA titled "List..."  e.g. List of islands called Linga SIA titled "Foo"  e.g. African lily Disambiguation page Disambiguation page titled at term itself  e.g. African daisy Disambiguation page titled "... (disambiguation)"  e.g. Apple (disambiguation) Redirect / template / ...

In theory, an article (unlike a dab page) should have references, but in practice lists where every entry is linked to an article often don't have references.

There are also pages such as this (an article about 2 similar things known by the same name) that are formatted as a normal article (except for the wording not being as advised by WP:REFERS).

SIAs

Comparison with dabs

The SIA/dab distinction is mostly artificial, though, and unlikely to be recognized by readers.

Comment in a 2014 RfD

Differences between SIAs and dab pages include:

• WP:PTM doesn't apply to SIAs.
• SIAs should have references, although (like other lists) if the linked articles are referenced then these are often not duplicated on the list page.

History of SIAs

Further information: Wikipedia:History of SIAs

Quotes

• "Dabs aren't articles, SIAs aren't dabs. I know some editors who have been unhappy with having "their" disambiguation pages cleaned up have instead created disambiguation pages and tried to hide them under the SIA umbrella, but that's not what it's there for."
• "Set indices seem to have taken on a life of their own, without much in the way of oversight or general standards, after being seen as a way to escape what is perceived as the inflexibility of disambiguation page format."

Problems caused by SIAs

Some SIAs end up with lots of (inappropriate) inlinks - e.g.:

• Tatsuta was a ship SIA that (as of June 2014) had inlinks via a redir from 26 articles.
• Tangerine Bowl was (as of 7 June 2014) a SIA with 8 inlinks from articles (plus inlinks from user/talk/draft pages).

(and who knows when what-links-here was last checked?)

Sometimes the existence of a SIA instead of a dab page hinders navigation. For example the page at Baker Mountain was a list of mountains called "Baker Mountain" - thus, it did not contain a link to Baker Mountain (ski area).

Sometimes a page that should be a disambiguation page is incorrectly tagged as a SIA (example).

Proposed guidelines

Suggested guidelines for SIAs:

• A SIA should contain a SIA template (e.g. {{Set index article}}).
• Each entry in an SIA should be cited, or at least linked to an article where it's cited.
• A page shouldn't be both a SIA and a disambiguation page.
• The SIA tag should only be used where the name is the criteria for something being on the list, not incidental that all things having a particular characteristic have the same (or similar) name (e.g. List of popes or Kamen Riders).
• SIAs that have a name of the form "List of foos named Bar" should not have an incoming redirect from "Bar" or similar. This is because any links to "Bar" should (if the term "bar" is ambiguous) go to a disambiguation page - that way any such links will be detected (e.g. by DPLBot).
• A SIA should be in a SIA category (i.e. Category:Set index articles or a subcategory). This is normally/always automatic as a result of containing a SIA template.
• A SIA should be in at least one topic category. Typically a "List of foos named Bar" page would be in a "Lists of foos" category. Note: Some SIA templates place the article in a topic category - e.g. Template:Ship index places the page in Category:Set index articles on ships which is under Category:Ships.
• A SIA should not be in a category that may not apply to all its entries. E.g. a "List of places named Foobar" SIA should not be categorized under Category:United_States even if some/all of the (current) entries are in the United States. Examples: [4], [5]
• SIAs shouldn't be named "... (disambiguation)" (e.g. [6], [7], see those I changed am of 6/6/2014).

Disambiguation pages

Corruption of dab pages

There is continual pressure from (both newbie and experienced) GF editors to add information etc to dab pages - the effect of this is to make the page more like a (list) article and hence less like a dab page. For example:

• Introductory text / etymology.
• Entries that contain only redlinks (e.g. [8])
• Entries that contain no links at all.
• Unnecessary images (e.g. [9]).
• References (e.g. [10], [11]).
• External links (e.g. , [12]).
• SAs that are not appropriate on a dab page (about related concept).
• Categories that relate to the term being disambiguated (e.g. [13]).
• Categories that do not apply to all entries (e.g. a "burials in" category[14], [15])
• Templates (e.g. Template:Surname), some of which add categories.
• Stub tags (e.g. [16])
• Side templates (e.g. [17])
• Inlinks that don't go through "... (disambiguation)".
• Info that isn't in linked article (e.g. on Boeing 367[18])

Note: In some of these cases there may have been an article which contained references etc that was incompletely converted into a dab page.

How dab pages end up in a topic category

Disambiguation pages are not articles and do not have a topic, so dab pages should not be categorized as articles (i.e. under Category:Articles). This is a Wikipedia guideline (e.g. see MOS:DAB and WP:DBC). There are several ways that pages are sometimes (IMO incorrectly) placed under both Category:Disambiguation pages and Category:Articles - these include:

• An individual dab page is placed directly in a topic category (e.g. [19] [20]).
• An individual dab page is placed in a topic category by a template.
• An individual dab page is placed in a terminology category (e.g. [21]).
• An individual dab page is placed in a list category (e.g. [22]).
• A page is tagged as both a dab page and as a SIA (e.g. [23]).
• An individual dab page is placed in a category deliberately (e.g. X-mount [24] or [25]).
• A category for dab pages is placed in a topic category (e.g. [26] [27]).
• A page is categorized as a set index article and Category:Set index articles is placed under Category:Disambiguation pages.
• An anthroponymy page is categorized as both an article and as a dab page (e.g. [28]).
• An article (not a dab page) has an inappropriate tag.
• A category tag is added to a dab page by a vandal or an incompetent newbie (e.g. [29]).

Difficult cases:

• Should a page like 1929 in the arts ([30]) be a dab page ?

Note: The talk page of a dab page can be placed in categories for wikiprojects that (may) have an interest in the dab page - there is no need to duplicate this categorization in reader-side categorization as readers are not expected to be trying to navigate to dab pages (example CFD discussion).

Note: There are also pages like Szabó which probably should be a disambiguation page (and hence any inlinks would get noticed), but are currently only in article categories.