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Astonishment.

Astonishment is what happens when you expect something, and something very different happens, and from your perspective this very different happening is the wrong thing to have happened.

Astonishment is not surprise. Surprise is what happens when you learn something unexpected. You may be surprised by a knock on the door. You may be surprised to fail an exam that you didn't expect to be challenging. Astonishment is when you discover that the door is boarded up on one side and you have to ignore the door and knock and enter through a window. Astonishment is when you fail an exam for which you fully prepared, passing all preparatory tests.

A reader will be astonished if, when they search for a topic on which they are familiar, believing that their topic is unambiguous, but are taken to another topic that is undisambiguated and presents as if it is the unambiguous result of the search.

A reader, familiar with Welland SA, unknowing of any other use of "Welland", may be astonished to find that Wikipedia believes that by "Welland" they must mean Welland ON. Granted, the situation is ameliorated by a hatnate at Welland, but it was still wrong to assume that this reader wanted that specific Welland.

It is not astonishing for a reader to be taken to a disambiguation page, because the disambiguation page is a logical outcome of an inadequate search.

It is not astonishing for a reader to be taken to a related page to their familiar topic, because if they are familiar with the topic, then they will be aware of related subjects and they cannot reasonably believe that their topic is unambiguously linked to their input search term.

It is not astonishing for a reader to using an inadequate search term to be taken to a disambiguated page. If searching for "Welland", it is OK to be taken to Welland, Ontario (if it were the article), because the disambiguated "Welland, Ontario" has a title (titles are far more prominent than hatnotes) that does not implicitly claim to be the unambiguous result of the search.

To reduce astonishment, topics that are obscure to a wide audience and ambiguous with unrelated topics should not occupy undisambiguated titles.

Hatnotes are good. Hatnotes definitely ameliorate mis-navigation, and they definitely help to get to likely wanted places if you don't want to be here. Welland, South Australia needs a hatnote, because searching for Welland using an external search engine may well take you there, depending on IP or past searches. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:18, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Well done, Smokey. I cannot recall ever understanding your meaning as clearly as I believe I do from this. But here is the problem:
To reduce astonishment, topics that are obscure to a wide audience and ambiguous with unrelated topics should not occupy undisambiguated titles.

This proposed principle is contrary to current WP practice. As I noted above, most primary topics are "obscure to a wide audience and ambiguous with unrelated topics"; primary topics which are broadly recognized, like Paris, are the exceptions. Welland, Lorca, The Economist, Monterrey, Gruzinsky, Mitte, etc. are the norm, not exceptions. To implement what you advocate here would be a major upheaval of our article titles. Is it worth it? Is the "astonishment" caused by the location of these primary topic articles at undisambiguated titles really a significant problem? What is the evidence for that? --B2C 15:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
While I think Smokey Joe may somewhat overstate the case, I do generally agree that we should have a stronger default position of a disambiguation page at the unmarked title where there are substantive questions as to whether there is consensus for a primary topic. However, in the particular cases cited by B2C, I find it difficult to imagine that many readers would be seriously surprised or astonished to find the titles mentioned leading to the current articles. In particular, The Economist. Seriously?!? Would anyone really be surprised that one of the most influential international English-language newsweeklies is the primary topic? Similarly, I don't see that there is any real problem with surprise or astonishment for most of the others B2C mentions either. older ≠ wiser 17:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Most well educated people know of The Economist, of course, but is there not a "wide audience" to which it is "obscure"? But I agree it and the others should not cause any serious surprise, much less astonishment. But that's also true for just about any topic. That's my point. It's just not astonishment to land on an unexpected title. --B2C 22:13, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
How many people likely to be looking for "The Economist" would not expect the newsmagazine? And even among those not seeking the newsmagazine, how many would be truly surprised that the magazine is the primary topic? older ≠ wiser 22:22, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Again, I agree The Economist and the others should not cause any serious surprise, much less astonishment. But that's also true for just about any topic. That's my point. It's just not astonishment to land on an unexpected title. --B2C 23:21, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Specific examples don't prove generalities. "It's just not astonishment to land on an unexpected title". No one is saying that to land on an unexpected title is astonishing. See my paragraph on "Astonishment is not surprise". Are you denying that likelihood of astonishment is a criteria worth considering? Do you still deny readers issues are important? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:30, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I presume we agree landing on an expected title is not astonishing. Now we also apparently agree that landing on an unexpected title is also not astonishing. Thus landing on any title, expected or unexpected, is not astonishing. That's my point.

I am not denying that likelihood of astonishment is a criteria worth considering. It is. I am denying that landing on any title instead of on a sought title can ever be astonishing. You now seem to agree. So what are we talking about? --B2C 23:46, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Landing on an unexpected title can be astonishing, but is not necessarily astonishing. To be astonishing, it is not just unexpected, but something else was reasonably expected, for the title if the page returned. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
For the sake of argument, I will accept your definition of "astonishment" in this context - the experience of landing on one article when some other article was reasonably expected. Given that, I will argue that if a certain article is "reasonably expected" to be the one returned for a given title, then that certain article must be the primary topic for that title and should be at the base name. In other words, if it's not the primary topic, then it is not reasonable to expect it to be returned.

For example, consider 30th meridian. Is it reasonable to expect either the 30th meridian east or the 30th meridian west article to be returned for "30th meridian"? I say no. Would it be astonishing for either to be returned? I think it would be astonishing to land on Henry Radusky (thanks, WP:RANDOM) when searching for "30th meridian", but not astonishing to land on 30th meridian east or 30th meridian west . So per your own argument there is no objection in this case to place either 30th meridian east or 30th meridian west at 30th meridian, with a hatnote link to the other. --B2C 19:25, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Meridian articles are not unrelated. It is not reasonable to expect a specific meridian article to be returned on an inadequate search, because you surely know about others. Astonishment may occur if a completely unrelated, undisambiguated topic is returned, when you reasonably assumed that your expected topic would have been unambiguous. I do not argue that 30th meridian must exist as-is due to the Principle of least astonishment. (I think it is kind of cute, maybe sometimes helpful, othertimes harmless) I argue that the Principle of least astonishment would be violated if de facto PrimaryTopic status were to be applied arbitrarily. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:07, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
We agree that the Principle of least astonishment would sometimes be violated if articles were placed at ambiguous plain base names randomly, assuming that is what you mean by "de facto PrimaryTopic status were to be applied arbitrarily". An example I gave earlier today is placing the article Paris, Arkansas at Paris... that would surely violate the principle of least astonishment. But I'm not advocating for random selection of base name placement from among the various uses of any ambiguous term. I'm advocating the practice be used in a very specific context: TWODABS where not only is neither topic primary, but it's unclear which of the two is more likely to be sought. My point is that in such a context being familiar with either use should not lead to surprise, much less astonishment, upon finding the other use, presumably previously unknown, at the plain base name. Even though Welland is not TWODABS, it illustrates the point, in that someone familiar with only the SA or Worcestershire uses, but unfamiliar with the Ontario use, should neither be surprised nor astonished at finding the Ontario city article at Welland (and that would be equally true regardless of whether the Ontario use actually meets primary topic criteria - a factor obviously irrelevant to someone unfamiliar with the Ontario use). --B2C 19:05, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

And someone watching the Lost episode named The Economist might very well be unaware of the newmagazine of that name and landing on an article about it might very well be unexpected, though not a problem, of course. --B2C 23:24, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

  • Most people who are familiar with something called "The Economist", or even "the economist" can be expected to be aware of this publication. For a better look, you need to consider other reasonable targets for a "the economist" search, and consider whether people performing such a search could reasonably be unfamiliar with the publication we have at the undisambiguated target. There is no case for astonishment here.

    Welland could well lead to astonishment. Welland is relevant in places with the Ontario Wellands have no relevance.

    Lorca is redirected. I'd have disambiguated to Lorca, Spain, not Lorca (Spain). I understand, and agree, that comma disambiguation is preferred for places. This appears to be a question of precision, I don't see the issue of ambiguity with another topic.

    Monterrey. I don't know at what point a city becomes internationally significant, but am comfortable with a population of 1 000 000 being an arbitrary threshold. I suggest that all locals to the municipality of Monterrey, Casanare, Colombia should be expected to be aware that there is a similarly named very large city in Mexico. For other reasons, Monterrey would site well at Monterrey, Mexico, but the principle of least astonishment is not an applicable consideration on that question.

    Gruzinsky has historical superiority over Gruzinsky (settlement). I would guess that Gruzinsky (settlement) derives from Gruzinsky, and as there is a relationship, it is difficult to assert likely asonishment.

    Mitte might do better to be disambiguated. It is not clearly more important than the several other Mittes. They may all be related. I would listen first to what someone familiar with Mitte has to say.

    I don't know what I may have overstated, but may main thrust is that B2C's push for arbitrary assignment of PrimaryTopic/Undisambiguated titles has counter arguments, and that reader concerns, such as minority astonishment, should be considered in every decision. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

And how do you categorize landing on a page that you don't know is wrong? This can happen all too often when we have two articles and neither one is clearly primary. This is really the expected outcome in technical articles where the reader has no idea about what the correct link should have been. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:44, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
That what Template:This is for. --B2C 23:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
So you are suggesting that besides placing the wrong article at the main name space, we also need a hat note? There is nothing wrong with the dab page being at the main name space. End of problem! Vegaswikian (talk) 00:00, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Any time any article other than the one being sought is at the main space, it is "wrong" for anyone searching for a different topic with that name. But it is the right article for those who are seeking that article. That makes it better than the alternative, the dab page at the main name space, which is wrong for everyone regardless what they are searching for. --B2C 00:05, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
The DAB is the right page for an inadequate search query, where there are multiple unrelated obscure topics, none of wide significance, recognition or familiarity. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:42, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
The meaning of "right page" in this context is the page being sought by the user. The only time the DAB page can be the "right page" is when a user intentionally is seeking to find a list all the uses on WP of a given search term. --B2C 00:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
NO! The right page is anything except the wrong page. In what case is getting to what is not clearly the right page correct? Wrong is simply wrong. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:23, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Absurd. For example, if I'm looking for the article on the cassette of a bicycle by searching with cassette, arriving at the Cassette dab page is not the right page. The only right page is Cassette hub. At best you can argue the dab page is neutral - but it's most certainly not the right page just because it is not a wrong page like Compact Cassette. --B2C 01:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
When searching for an ambiguous term without a primary topic, then a disambiguation page IS the correct page. older ≠ wiser 01:35, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
You are entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong it is perceived by others. But to argue that wrong is right is, just so wrong. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
When you say "correct page" Bkonrad, you clearly don't mean "the article sought by the user". So, what do you mean by "correct page"? --B2C 03:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
For me, it is the page that provides enough information to help the user find their sought article without providing any misleading information. Until you have a mediawiki module that reads the user mind and always produces the sough article, providing the wrong article for some users is worse than providing a DAB article for all users, since the later always produces useful information for the reader, and the former sometimes misleads users. (This is also true for PRIMARYTOPICs, but we treat those as exceptions because we assume the negative effect is controlled and minimized). Diego (talk) 06:09, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't see how anyone can conclude that "providing the wrong article for some users is worse than providing a DAB article for all users" without quantifying the cost of the "misleading". Because we have countless primary topic articles located at base names we know the community accepts the cost of "misleading users" for all the users who are looking for some other use of the base names of all those primary topics. Therefore the cost is not unacceptable. And any benefit derived from landing on a DAB page is not enough to warrant moving all those primary topic articles. You dismiss this by noting that for primary topics the "negative effect is controlled and minimized", but it's controlled and minimized in TWODABS cases too. First, since neither topic is clearly primary, we are usually dealing with relatively obscure topics that see little traffic. Second, page view counts allow us make limit the negative effect to fewer than half of all users seeking either article. Finally, the negative effect is limited for TWODABS cases in particular because there is always a hatnote taking the user directly to the sought article. The negative effect for primary topics that are not one of two dabs is greater (and, yet, never-the-less acceptable to the community) because they will rarely have a direct hatnote link to the sought article. --B2C 19:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Therefore the cost is not unacceptable. For primary topics. The cost for non-primary topics is higher, so they're not accepted. Who says we can't quantify the cost of "misleading"? There a number of costs that we have pointed to you - time to find the hatnote, infinite time when it's not found, extra time to load the longer page, costs caused by the incoming wikilinks that point to the wrong article (and that won't be noticed by the disambiguation bot), opportunity cost for not learning about the existence of other articles or wrongly thinking that the base name was the one sought... I don't see how anyone can conclude... You are not just disagreeing that these aggregated costs may be higher than the benefits of a base article, your arguments simply ignore their existence. Until you at least acknowledge that all these incur in a cost that is not eliminated by the presence of a hat note, and recognize that other editors can base their conclusions on criteria that you disagree with, continuing this conversation is absurd. Diego (talk) 19:50, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
I've never denied that the costs exist. In fact, the words of mine you quoted in green at the start of your comment imply they must exist. My contention is that the costs for landing on the wrong article are present and equal regardless of whether the topic of the wrong article has been identified as "primary".

If the cost of landing on the wrong article is present and acceptable when the wrong article's topic is deemed to be "primary", why does the cost increase at all, much less increase to an unacceptable level, just because the wrong article has not been recognized to be "primary"? --B2C 20:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

As SmokeyJoe explained, the increased costs do not depend of whether we deem a topic primary or not, but on what readers find unexpected. It should be our job to be sure that "primary" and "expected" always match each other; and when facing uncertainty, to err on the side of safety. Diego (talk) 22:37, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Weren't you just arguing that landing on the wrong article "sometimes misleads users", and so should be avoided, unless the wrong article's topic is primary, because then (presumably) the cost of landing on the wrong article is somehow lessened?

Actually, Smokey went to great length to explain that the concern is not about what is merely unexpected, but to avoid results that are astonishing. When the topic being sought is not primary, which is the relevant situation at issue, why would returning any other topic, whether it's primary or not, be unexpected, much less astonishing?

For example, if you're searching for the Worcestershire village of Welland with the search term "Welland", and what is returned is the Ontario city of that name, what does it matter in terms of the cost of landing on that wrong article, or with respect to how unexpected or astonishing that result is, whether that Ontario city topic is "primary" for "Welland" or not? --B2C 23:23, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

(I thought B2C had directed this to me, posting anyway)

"Weren't you just arguing that landing on the wrong article "sometimes misleads users"". Not just the wrong article. The wrong article, unrelated to the desired article, under an undisambiguated title, if a reasonable searcher could reasonably expect their search term to lead unambiguously to their desired article.

"Actually, Smokey went to great length to explain that the concern is not about what is merely unexpected, but to avoid results that are astonishing." That's right. "Unexpected" is a normal occurrence when reading for information. That is in fact one main point of reading. "Astonishment" is beyond an unexpected or surprising result. Per the Principle of least astonishment, titling and the impact of titling on search results and link following should consider possibilities of astonishing readers.

"When the topic being sought is not primary," WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is a unfamiliar Wikipedia specific term not relevant to readers. Readers may search for something that they think is unambiguous, and be wrong. We should not send them to a best guess, but somewhere useful.

"what does it matter in terms of the cost of landing on that wrong article, or with respect to how unexpected or astonishing that result is, whether that Ontario city topic is "primary" for "Welland" or not?" Well, astonishment can be disorientating, leading to the reader giving up, and I hope that you agree that this is to be avoided. "Unexpected" is tolerable. If the topic is "primary", in a real-world sense, then arriving at a primary topic associated with the exact search query should not be astonishing to anyone. This should inform the definition of PrimaryTopic, if it is to be more useful. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:54, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I try very hard to use the same semantics as those with whom I'm discussing. It's very difficult to maintain a coherent discussion when people insist on interpreting and using meanings of terms that are different from the meanings used for those terms earlier in the same discussion. For example, Diego and I were using "primary" in the WP sense. You introduce "primary" in the "real-world sense", and yet refer to arriving at a "primary topic" (in the WP sense? or the real-world sense?), which frankly, is so much sophistry I can't even figure out what you mean. Another example is to interpret "the right page" as (apparently) "the best page for the situation, which can be a dab page" in a context where "the right page" was clearly intended to mean "the article (defintely not a dab page) the reader is actively seeking". Semantic gaming is not helpful.

I don't know what "primary" in a real-world sense means in this context. If the topic being sought is not primary in the WP sense for the search term being used (and that doesn't mean the reader has to know what WP means by primary), then the reader should not be surprised, let alone astonished, if searching with that terms lands the user on some other use, regardless of whether that other use is primary in any sense. This is true because if the topic being sought is not primary for the search term in the WP sense, that means most people searching with that term are not searching for that topic. When searching with such a term so obviously ambiguous, landing on another use should not ever be surprising, let alone astonishing. --B2C 01:12, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Welland, South Australia has a population of 836 [1] while Welland, Ontario has 50631. If you are familiar with a place of less than 1000 people then you should know it's tiny and not be astonished if there is a larger but non-famous place with the same name in a World of 7 billion people. Readers are far more likely to look for Welland, Ontario, and it has 22 times as many page views as Welland, South Australia in the last month. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:09, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
836 is a surprisingly low number. Above, I was assuming Welland SA to have some moderate significance. Resident population may be a poor indicator for significance. What you say is persuasive in dismissing Welland SA as preventing an Ontario Welland from being the PT. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:42, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

@Born2cycle: You say "if the topic being sought is not primary in the WP sense, then the reader should not be surprised, let alone astonished". How do you come to that conclusion? From my own experience it doesn't correspond to reality, and I know a lot more about Wikipedia than the average reader. For many topics, a reader has no means to know in advance that, unknown to them, somewhere in the universe exists a notable topic that shares the same title that the thing they know about, and is therefore not "so obviously ambiguous" for the reader, only for the editors that put it there. When they look to something that is familiar to them and find some other obscure thing presented as "the" definite result for that name, under what logic should not be surprised? Being astonished depends on 1) that they expect one topic under the title, but also 2) that they don't expect any other topic under the same title. This is the most common situation when you don't know much about something and want to learn about it. Diego (talk) 06:16, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I have kept out of this so far, but even as a Brit I get very tired of 'everybody should have heard of' arguments. I make no apologies for not being intimately familiar with what US teenagers are watching, for example. We know that this may create an overwhelming level of traffic toward a word or phrase that has been in use in other contexts for many years. On the simplistic statistical arguments that should become the primary topic, yet to the majority of English speaking people the other uses will remain the likely or only context. It is the same problem as articles written on a specific geographical or cultural application of a topic, or describing the legal position in only one state. I know that arguments on user needs are often dismissed or deprecated by some editors, but the question should always be how we can best help users who may not be familiar with all uses of the word or phrase, and whose first language may not be English. It will not do to say that they should be familiar with what some editors have decided that they ought to be looking for, or that they should have used a better search term. --AJHingston (talk) 09:28, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

One may know of only the Worcestershire village named Welland, but would it really be astonishing to be taken to the Ontario city? My point is that if there are other uses of a term, even if you're personally not familiar with them, learning of the existence of other uses, or even that one of them is at the base name title on WP, should not be surprising, let alone astonishing. --B2C 13:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I think we should keep in mind that we are writing an encyclopedia, not simply optimizing web traffic. At times, editors decide a term is inherently ambiguous, regardless of traffic statistics (e.g., Madonna). In the particular case of Welland, I'm not even sure why it has been brought into the discussion -- there is a pretty strong case for the Ontario city to be the primary topic by multiple criteria. In other cases, if there is no reason to pick one article as the primary topic, we should not pretend that there is a primary topic by arbitrarily picking one with some pseudo-scientific number-crunching rationalization that only half the readers are inconvenienced by such an arrangement. There are advantages to having the disambiguation page at the unmarked title beyond speculative analysis of web traffic. older ≠ wiser 14:53, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The article which is most likely to be the one which is being sought will depend on who we are and where we are. If I were a US teenager then there is a strong likelihood that I will be wanting an article that relates to a current US TV programme or music release. If not, it may be much more likely that I am searching for another use of an ambiguous term. We have to remember that this is the international edition. Google recognises this, and as it happens Welland, Worcestershire article is at the top of the Google search page for me if I look for 'Welland'. It may be that we need to encourage users to avoid the search option on the WP page in favour of Google. But it is not natural behaviour for me when already in WP, and even search engines are not infallible in guessing what we are looking for. Either way, it does not alter the fact that if we see an article title that has a particular meaning for us, we need to be able to instantly recognise if it is not what we expect or want, and be guided to where we want to be. On the whole, I find disambiguation pages a natural and easier way of getting to the right place than follow the prejudices and expectations of WP editors who may have a entirely different cultural experience, but I acknowledge that is not universal. What I do resent is the assumption that users are homogeneous. --AJHingston (talk) 17:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The article which is most likely to be the one which is being sought will depend on who we are and where we are. That's not what is meant by likelihood. Likelihood is a general overall view. When we talk about the likelihood of winning the lottery, we're talking about the likelihood of a random person winning, not the likelihood of the person who will luckily pick the matching the number. Similarly, the likelihood of seeking a particular topic with a given term refers to the overall likelihoods of all people searching with that term, not looking at the likelihoods of any particular people searching with that term. What you're getting at here is a rejection of the very underpinnings of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (e.g., the reason the Ontario city rather than the dab page is at Welland), while the rest of us are taking that as a given. If you really want to discuss that, I suggest starting a separate section. --B2C 17:41, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
There you and I disagree. Of course if a TV programme names a character which is the same as a relatively unknown but notable real person, or a word which has another meaning, then the overwhelming bulk of the traffic is likely to be seeking an article relating to that TV programme. I do understand that is how a primary topic is most often arrived at. But if I were to present the question the other way around, and ask what most people would be likely to be seeking if they searched for that name even if it is unlikely that they would want to do so, then it is probably not going to be anything to do with the programme. Trying to reduce this to a one dimensional approach is not helpful to users - the very reason that 'astonishment' has been a factor is that cultural experience and education differs, and building an international encyclopaedia is very different from the usual targeting of other media. --AJHingston (talk) 18:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Again, you're questioning the very underpinnings of primary topic, and I suggest you separate section to discuss that.

I reject the notion that finding an article at a title when another is expected there ever, in practice, rises to the level of astonishment. Hypothetically it's conceivable, by, for example, moving Sexual intercourse to Winnie the Pooh. But in practice, as long as the topic of the article at the plain base name is reasonably referenced by the plain base name, it should never be astonishing for anyone to find that article at that plain base name, regardless of what they are looking for and expected to find there. --B2C 19:22, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Would you prefer a different word to 'astonishment'? The point that is being made here, surely, is that if people are reasonably likely to be puzzled, confused or whatever term you like when they find an unexpected use which they are never likely to have encountered occupying the article space then that is something that needs to be taken into account. To say that most of those looking for the article will want the topic that is there is not sufficient. There are lots of ways editors should address this, including titles, lead, and so forth but the one we are talking about here is navigation when an article is presented as though it were the only use of the term. Dismissal of the problem does not seem helpful. --AJHingston (talk) 20:15, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
I think the word astonishment is the correct word when considering the Principle of least astonishment. Did you read what Smokey wrote at the start of this section? I disagree that simply being "puzzled, confused or whatever term you like when they find an unexpected use which they are never likely to have encountered occupying the article space then that is something that needs to be taken into account". An experience so loosely described as "puzzled, confused or whatever term you like" is bound to apply even in cases of landing upon a dab page instead of upon the expected article. We can't possibly take that into account. No, the correct and reasonable hurdle here is astonishment - and that level of "puzzled, confused or whatever term you like" is highly unlikely to be experienced by encountering any reasonably placed article at a given base name, no matter how unfamiliar a given user is with that particular use. --B2C 20:32, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict), Bkonrad, I believe you are the first to raise the issue of optimizing web traffic in this section. Nobody else is talking about that here. As far as I can tell, that question/issue is not even implied in anything anyone is saying.

The discussion in this section is about astonishment, its distinction from mere surprise or unexpectedness, and, ultimately, the role that the principle of least astonishment should play in disambiguation, identifying primary topics and choosing titles.

As to why Welland is brought into this discussion, it's because it seems to be a good example of a term with multiple uses but most people are likely to be familiar with only one of those uses (if that). Therefore we can ask whether someone familiar with one of those uses might be surprised or astonished to land upon another use when searching for the use familiar to them with "Welland". I agree with you that there is a strong case for the Ontario city to be the primary topic. But the person familiar with the Worcestershire or South Australia uses, searching for them with "Welland", would not be aware of that. My point is that doesn't matter. Whether there is a strong case or no case for the article at the base name to be there, it's irrelevant to the level of surprise or astonishment experienced by the person landing there if, prior to landing there, he was unfamiliar with that use. Therefore, whether a given use meets primary topic criteria is not a factor to consider in determining how the the principle of least astonishment applies to whether that use should be at the base name or not. This goes a long way to explain why I believe the principle of least astonishment has very little role to play in disambiguation, identifying primary topics and choosing titles. Clearly it means we don't put Paris, Arkansas at Paris, but we don't need the principle of least astonishment to know not to do that. --B2C 17:30, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for closure

This discussion has been going on a long time, and shows no signs of abating. What I read out of that is a pretty firm no-consensus that either (a) two-dab dab pages should always exist in certain cases as preferable to hatnotes or (b) two-dab pages should always be deleted and replaced with hatnotes. Why don't we come up with some language that just says "In some cases, a two-dab page would be more useful, while in others, the two-dab could be deleted" - and then leave it up to local consensus to sort this out on a case-by-case basis. I think good examples have been provided of utility of both methods, so perhaps the answer here is, it depends.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:14, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

While I agree that there is no consensus as to either extreme, there is still a question up in the air as to when the utility of a disambiguation page outweighs that of a hatnote. bd2412 T 02:00, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
It can do, and sometimes not. "When", may be hopelessly subjective. Dare we trust content writing editors? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:40, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
I have seen many, many TWODABS pages created with the rationale that because two meanings exist at all, no matter the subjects, there must be a disambiguation page at that title. As long as people persist in acting on this errant belief, we will have unnecessary disambiguation pages. bd2412 T 01:00, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Are you talking about disambiguation pages linking to exactly two articles. In how many of these cases would you say that one or both of the articles fail our usual criteria for a standalone article , usually WP:N? I wondering whether the problem is present but misidentified.

"Unnecessary" is a very low threshold to meet. How does it compare to "of no use"? Is a major problem that on one watches these dab pages? Does the problem conpare with how many unnecessary redirect pages there are? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:11, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't consider unnecessary redirects to be much of a problem at all, because almost no one goes to them. I consider a disambiguation page at the base page name to be unnecessary if there are only two links, and one is the clear primary topic relative to the other, even if the other clearly squeaks by the notability threshold. I see new ones every week on the Daily Disambig. bd2412 T 01:22, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Redirects: If a direct for your exact search term exists, you get taken to its target with search algorithms engaging. I gather that you are not concerned about them because they don't bother the reader, even if one was used in the background. OK.

"I consider a disambiguation page at the base page name to be unnecessary if there are only two links, and one is the clear primary topic". That is fine, I would think everyone agrees. If there is clear primary topic, then clearly everyone sees it.

"relative to the other" What does this mean? In ordinary English, "primary" is usually defined in absolute terms. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:10, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC states: "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term". That formula requires the primacy of the topic to be weighed relative to other topics. By its very terms, if there are two tiny towns called "Gumpshawton", and one is the likely search target for four people, and the other is the likely search target for a dozen people, the latter is much more likely to be searched for than "any other target". For TWODABS pages "any other topic" and "all the other topics combined" mean pretty much the same thing, since "all the other topics combined" is the one other topic. The same measure applies if the two topics are both named Gumpshaw City, and one is the likely search target for forty-millions people, and the other is the likely search target for a few hundred million. Even if we suppose that vast swaths of the world are familiar with both Gumpshaw City topics (as they might be with both Paris, France and Paris, Texas, the inquiry is no different than the mostly unknown Gumpshawtons. (I grant that if there was a very well known Gumpshaw City, other uses of the term would probably arise quickly, as people tried to latch onto the fame of the city). The main difference between these hypotheticals and examples with larger numbers of possible meanings is that in a TWODABS situation (or, often, in a THREEDABS situation), it is much easier to fit all of the options in a hatnote. bd2412 T 12:39, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
This analysis focuses only on usage. It may well be that for two low-traffic pages, even if one has somewhat higher traffic than the other, consensus might determine the difference is still not significant enough to be a primary topic. The main difficulty is that having one topic at the unmarked title essentially renders the already not-entirely-reliable traffic statistics completely useless for comparing the two. older ≠ wiser 12:52, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) But a difference of a single digit vs a few dozens is too small to be significant, and the PRIMARYTOPIC guideline doesn't provide any hard criterion for deciding primacy - it is decided by consensus of participants in move discussions. In such discussions, editors often require a difference of at least 10x times more viewers (an order of magnitude) to be convinced that an article is indeed more likely to be looked for, based on usage alone. If there were two obscure Gumpshaw cities, long-term significance would likely be a relevant factor too, so such small numbers won't be decisive in many cases. Are there situations when it's OK to place one relatively obscure topic as primary over a second obscure topic? Sure, but there's no general relevant criterion to elevate that as the default result. Diego (talk) 12:57, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)Ah yes, the actual WP:PRIMARYTOPIC text. On usage, it does define primary in relative terms of intended searches. I don't support it, finding it linguistically awkward (primary is absolute, like "original", unlike "older"), it violates the principle of least astonishment for minorities who use the same search term to search for something else, it encourage use of page view statistics that are biased, and because ordinary editors, non RM regulars, use it with wildly different interpretations. It would be fine if it were an aspect commonly discussed, and not a defacto rule.

    I think one Paris beats the other on long term significance. All the others would be better with a DAB page. I think the text on usage would be improved by changing to:

    "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it represents majority usage and if it is also recognized by the majority of readers familiar with other uses of the term."

    This would make it much more difficult to declare ambiguous obscure things as primary. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:23, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

  • Yup, I don't support the current PRIMARYTOPIC text either, and AFAIK it was composed with a very small consensus. But I'm afraid we're pretty much deadlocked at its current version, as attempts to push it towards different directions have failed so far to gain consensus. Maybe adding the precedence of natural categories as mentioned above could gain traction and eventually be accepted if we propose it at the Village pump, though; IMHO it would be a welcome refinement of the current "long-term significance" criterion. Diego (talk) 13:38, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I think a better wording would go much further to resolving this issue. For the case of two related topics with ambiguous titles, the broader of the two or more titles should be the primary topic. If an instance comes up with "Physics" and "Physics (journal)" the plain study of phenomena of "Physics" would win. Not a real case because of the disamb, but still relevant. This also seems to be the default in effect for Star Trek and other media pages where the ambiguous term goes to the broader subject instead of the specific subject. I don't support PRIMARYTOPIC on its current reading because it says nothing about the weighing of two related topics for reader comprehension. Readers should always arrive at the broader subject instead of a specific subject in ambiguous cases of related topics. Also, it makes more since with WP:SS. The preventing of obscure things becoming the primary topic is why it exists, but right now it has a gap on deciding topics related to one another that have ambiguous titles. Unless you want someone arguing Harry Potter to be the character over the book series, it should be addressed, if not for the existing consensus behind current formats. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:46, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Some very sensible points there. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:53, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
    • I absolutely agree with ChrisGualtieri's proposition that "for the case of two related topics with ambiguous titles, the broader of the two or more titles should be the primary topic". I agree with the treatment of Harry Potter, on the grounds that the character Harry Potter is one element of the Harry Potter franchise. By contrast, Indiana Jones gets the opposite treatment, which I think is wrong. I don't imagine that most people looking up "Indiana Jones" are looking for the fictional character biography over the franchise itself. Dr. Zhivago has been raised earlier in this discussion. I would not have that as a disambiguation page; as it is, it could be converted into a List of adaptations of Dr. Zhivago, which would make it clear that the primary topic of the term is the story of "Dr. Zhivago", which happens to have been originally told in the novel. One of the things that motivated me to create the list of multimedia franchises I think this is exactly the sort of analysis we should be making. Unlike B2C, I am not for arbitrarily deeming one TWODABS subject to be primary (which I think defaulting to the article creation date would be) just to avoid having a TWODABS page at all. However, I am for the establishment of a set of presumptions that would favor certain topics as the default primary topics (natural science topics over popular culture, for example), and reduce the prevalence of topics that are not truly ambiguous (novels being disambiguated against their film adaptations, remakes of films being disambiguated against the original, academic journals being disambiguated against their fields of study, albums being disambiguated against songs that appear on the album, government departments being disambiguated against counterparts performing the same function in other countries). bd2412 T 14:58, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
      • From my experience, editors have expressed their inability to quickly and easily find the content that they want because of its organization. Many of the PRIMARYTOPIC arguments hinge on viewcount, but many of our best articles receive 200-300 views a day, many less. If you search for King Edward, you arrive at the Disamb, but you could be looking for Edward, King of Portugal or Edward I of England or any of the other King Edwards. Now take a look at Godzilla, it is about the character and the hatnote goes to Godzilla (disambiguation) instead of the Godzilla (franchise) or both. Which is more useful to the general reader, the character page or the franchise? The wedging in of the franchise versus the character results in a lack of understanding of the 30 films featuring the character including the American films including the upcoming Godzilla (2014 film). Though if someone were to argue PTOPIC, aside from the current "Godzilla" default to the character, the new film would beat the franchise upon release. And when checking PTOPIC, the default landing page must be discounted by mere virtue of being on the ambiguous term. Clearly, readers do not want to browse a bunch of pages to their target, either a set index/disamb or the franchise should be the main "primary topic" simply because it is the most broad entry point. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:22, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

New bio

We have two people with the same name and occupation. Bill Cunningham (photographer) exists but Bill Cunningham (Canadian photographer) should soon be created. BDP 1 BDP 2 BDP 3 are three RS I found for the Canadian one. We can probably move Bill Cunningham (photographer) to Bill Cunningham (US photographer) and then make Bill Cunningham (photographer) a dab page. We have a dab now for Bill Cunningham. Thoughts?--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:35, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

One small tweak. We can't make Bill Cunningham (photographer) a disambiguation page, because that would be WP:INCOMPDAB. We can redirect Bill Cunningham (photographer) to the disambiguation page, Bill Cunningham. bd2412 T 15:45, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
And fix the incoming links. And use the qualifier preferred by the photography project or the people naming conventions -- I don't think US is the parallel for Canadian; US & Canada, or American and Canadian. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Resolved
--Canoe1967 (talk) 10:31, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Add WP:PRIMARYALBUM ?

Where are we with this? Some editors seem to understand that since WP:PDAB was removed (how it was removed I still don't understand) that we are back to the WP:PRIMARYSONG, WP:PRIMARYALBUM, WP:PRIMARYBAND situation introduced by MOS:ALBUM? If that is so, should WP:PRIMARYSONG, WP:PRIMARYALBUM, WP:PRIMARYBAND be written into WP:DAB where WP:PDAB was removed? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

PDAB contradicted INCOMPDAB. Unless I'm missing something, with the first removed, the second is in effect and partial disambiguations should redirect to the DAB page. Diego (talk) 07:35, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
INCOMPDAB says you can't have a disambiguation page at a "Foo (disambiguator)" title (e.g. Phoenix (album); these, therefore, must redirect to the "Foo" disambiguation page. This is a separate inquiry from question of whether there is a primary (non-disambiguation page) topic for an album, such as Thriller (album). bd2412 T 13:24, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes that is a separate issue. My question is do we have a WP:PRIMARYSONG, WP:PRIMARYALBUM, WP:PRIMARYBAND situation or not? Is the current state of WP:DAB supporting primaries within parenthetical disambiguation or not? In ictu oculi (talk) 08:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
With the removal of PDAB, I don't think WP:DAB has anything definitive on such situations. WP:DAB primarily describes how to manage helping readers find topics that might otherwise share the same title. WP:AT or individual naming conventions might provide guidance about how to title articles when there are multiple topics of the same type. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing inherently wrong with having an article at a disambiguated title, such as Thriller (Michael Jackson album) and having Thriller (album) redirect to that article. The question, "What is the best title for this article?" is distinct from the question "Are readers better served by redirecting a term that is technically an incomplete disambiguation to a primary topic or to a disambiguation page?". older ≠ wiser 13:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
For myself I'd agree, redirects are in any case probably secondary issue, Thriller (album) could reasonably redirect to a dab or redirect to one of the albums depending on page history. The bigger issue is whether WP:DAB has something or nothing to say on the issue of "sub-primary topic" (even if it is only linking to another guideline which does/doesn't have something to say). Either A or B or C below:

A.

Some projects allow/prefer sub-primary topics:

Projects allowing/prefering sub-primary topics include [link to Project MOS] and [link to Project MOS]

B.

Title disambiguation does not allow sub-primary topics:

C.

There is currently no consensus as to whether to allow/prefer/avoid sub-primary topics and partial disambiguation such as Thriller (Michael Jackson album) redirecting to Thriller (album) and consequently this page give no guidance.

As before Michael Jackson's Thriller album is the test case since MOS:ALBUM for 18 months had it as the test case/model counter WP:NCM and it is albums/songs/bands not football/geography where the issue is occuring. The ABC options above are in effect A.Yes/B.No/C.Don't Know. I'm not aware that there's a D. option, is there? In ictu oculi (talk) 14:16, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
On closer investigation I note that the wording of PDAB and SONGDAB are pretty much the same, so whether PDAB exists or not it doesn't matter - it is still in the guidelines. Also I came to realise that PDAB, SONGDAB, even the recently added sentence to DAB (A "topic covered by Wikipedia" is either the main subject of an article, or a minor subject covered by an article in addition to the article's main subject.) supports. It also becomes apparent that these guidelines are derived from and follow one of the five pillars of WP, WP:NPOV. Do we think we can ignore WP:5 when adapting guidelines?
Secondly, using the example of Thriller, there are 4 albums using this title at WP, what actual harm to the article is doen by adding (Michael Jackson album). removing Michael Jackson does not make it more important, easier to find, or a benefit to reader or editors. Most WP readers weren't born when Thriller made such an impact!
:::Thirdly, SONGDAB is clear, if there are two or more albums or songs then all the songs or all the albums must be disambiguated i.e. Album (Foo artist album).
Primary topic says, There is no single criterion for defining a primary topic. However, there are two major aspects that are commonly discussed in connection with primary topics:
A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
A topic is primary for a term, with respect to long-term significance, if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term.
That pretty much rules out "cultural items" which come and go and change with wind in regards of "popularity" or as we call it "primary topic"- with few exceptions - and probably many geographical place names etc --Richhoncho (talk) 20:36, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Richhoncho, I agree, but unfortunately I cannot agree that every other editor agrees, if you see what I mean. It seems evident to me that the existing wording of WP:DAB is not clear enough to cover whether we have:

Hypothetical example (in reality John Brown (politician) redirects to John Brown dab).

WP:DAB does/doesn't allow/prevent primary politician:

We either need to say something or say we can't say something. Otherwise why bother having WP:DAB at all? In ictu oculi (talk) 04:27, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand what you're asking. --B2C 05:18, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
B2C it's simple enough, I'm saying WP:DAB either needs to say something or say it says nothing on the subject. Presently WP:DAB doesn't say clearly whether sub-primary topics exist (as box A.) or don't exist (as box B), it also doesn't say it doesn't say (Option C, is to say "sorry WP:DAB has no guidance, we can't help you").
Incidentally, you have just said at Talk:Lucky Star (song) that that the Madonna song "is the PRIMARYTOPIC song named "Lucky Star")" over Lucky Star (Basement Jaxx song). There is no such thing as "PRIMARYTOPIC song" - this is the same problem again that WP:NCM and WP:NCF having been trying to stop.
But if you want WP:PRIMARYSONG added to WP:DAB then here and now is a good time to say so and add A. to WP:DAB In ictu oculi (talk) 08:18, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
I think we say that we're not saying something. For disambiguation, the primary topic (the actual, only, base-name primary topic) doesn't need a qualifier. All other topics need qualifiers; the selection of qualifiers, and whether something like a "primary album" is possible when the base-name article topic is not an album, is up to the naming conventions and the topic projects. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
User:JHunterJ, that also is fine. C. It at least gives a baseline of where WP:DAB is. Then we know. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:

Although a word, name or phrase may refer to more than one topic, it is sometimes the case that one of these topics is the primary topic. This is the topic to which the term should lead, serving as the title of (or a redirect to) the relevant article.

Nothing in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC limits the application of the primary topic principle to ambiguous terms that are the unqualified base names of topics. Therefore, it applies to all ambiguous terms, including ambiguous names and phrases qualified with parenthesized remarks, like Lucky Star (song), not just to ambiguous terms that are unqualified base names of topics. There is no basis to argue otherwise. --B2C 18:47, 10 October 2013 (UTC) added "ambiguous" x4 for clarity. --B2C 22:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

In that case it should because otherwise it is contrary to WP:NPOV. At least it should say substantially the primary topic. Especially in cases where the primary topic can change over time, or be subject to WP:RECENT. Otherwise we will never get a consensus because it all hinges who turns out on a wet Wednesday to comment at an RM.--Richhoncho (talk) 20:36, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Born2cycle, yes, everything in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC limits it to the ambiguous term. Unless there are more than one topic referred to by the word, noun, or phrase Thriller (album), with the parentheses and the word "album" in the actual title, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not address it at all. Therefore, your "therefore" does not logically follow. There is no basis for your argument. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:43, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
What? I think you misunderstood. I was assuming the context of ambiguous words, names and phrases. There is more than one topic that Lucky Star (song) could refer to, but only one of them is primary. I inserted the word "ambiguous" 4 times into my statement for clarity. Does that make sense? --B2C 22:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
I didn't misunderstand. There are no topics for the title "Lucky Star (song)". That is, all of the songs are titled "Lucky Star", not "Lucky Star (song)". None of the songs are referred to in reliable sources as "Lucky Star (song)". -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:46, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Adding descriptive remarks to a title for the purpose of disambiguation makes it a descriptive title contrived by WP editors. Descriptive titles contrived by WP editors are of course not normally found in reliable sources, but they still refer to topics, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC can apply to them.

There is more than one topic that the descriptive title Lucky Star (song) could refer to, but only one of them is primary. --B2C 17:54, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Logic similar to that used in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC could be applied to them, but needn't be. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC itself was written without consideration of those contrived titles, and itself doesn't apply to them. Retro-fitting it is just wikilawyering; it would need to be updated to cover the current consensus for those contrived titles (if we wanted to incorporate them in the dab guidelines instead of the article title guidelines), not treated as if it was evidence of the current consensus for those contrived titles. And I don't see the benefit of covering article titling & qualifier selection here, rather than in the article naming conventions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:36, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't see why the primary topic principle should not apply to ambiguous descriptive titles like Thriller (album) and Lucky Star (song), for the same reasons we apply it to names. Even if the titles of the actual articles are disambiguated further, we still have to go through the familiar process of deciding whether these ambiguous descriptive titles will redirect to the topic which is primary for that descriptive title, or whether they will be dab pages. The situation is principally identical to that when deciding what to do with ambiguous plain base names. Why should we make a special case out of partially disambiguated titles and declare that they are immune from primary topic considerations? In fact, wasn't exactly such a declaration recently rejected for lacking consensus support? --B2C 20:10, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
I am not saying that someone cannot apply the logic to the "ambiguously described" (or rather, "incompletely qualified") titles. I'm saying that the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC guideline itself does not cover them as written and that we (the editors trying to capture the consensus editing approach into a guideline) did not consider them when writing it. So even if we can't see why they shouldn't be applied, we can't say that they must be applied, and we can't point WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as evidence of the community consensus about such ambiguously described or incompletely qualified titles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:44, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
It is unlikely that anyone writing any general rule or guideline will consider every kind of case where that rule or guideline may apply. That's no reason to say the guideline or rule in question does not apply in a kind of case that probably was not considered. What's important are the underlying principles of the rule/guideline and the reasons for having them and following them. In the legal world this is known as following the spirit of the law.

Every reason for PT to apply to base names I can conceive seems to apply to PDAB titles just the same, and I see no reason for "the spirit" of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to not apply to PDAB titles.

But in the end it's just an argument. Whether it's compelling to others is all that matters. --B2C 20:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

That's a convenient selection of the underlying principles. The underlying principles of disambiguation and primary topic are (a) that two articles can't have the same title and (b) if two articles each have the same "best title" (whatever the naming conventions determine), if one is the primary topic, it gets the best title, and if neither is the primary, neither gets it; either way, non-primary articles have their titles made unique by the addition of qualifiers (determined by naming conventions). For albums titled Thriller or songs titled "Lucky Star", that best title is Thriller (not Thriller (album)) or "Lucky Star" (not "Lucky Star (song)"). Since they aren't the primary topic for their best title, they get made unique by the addition of qualifiers. Any of putting the article about Michael Jackson's album at
is compatible with WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and the underlying principles. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not weigh in on the first three options; those are up to the naming conventions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:51, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
There is not necessarily just one possible title for a given article. New York City, for example, is also primary for New York City, New York, New York, New York, New York (city), and several dozen other potential titles. While Thriller is one possible title for the MJ album, it's not available due to conflicts with others uses. Fine. Thriller (album) is another possibility.

I don't see why you say WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not weigh in on the first three options you listed. --B2C 22:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

You're moving the goalposts. A topic might be primary for more than one title, yes. The naming conventions still specify just one title for a topic, however, and if that title is not available because a different topic is primary for it, then another title is chosen, possibly with the addition of qualifiers. Absent any ambiguity, the album would be titled Thriller. There's ambiguity, so we check whether it's primary. It's not, so a qualifier is added. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not address the selection of qualifiers, or of the comparison of other topics that might select the same qualifier if they also are not the primary topic for the base title. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:31, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not moving the goal posts. We're talking about whether PRIMARYTOPIC applies to PDAB titles like Thriller (album) (and New York (city) for that matter). Even if the only uses of Thriller were albums, and the title of the MJ album was Thriller, it would be possible and valid for someone to create Thriller (album), and we would have to decide what to do with it. In particular, we would have to decide whether Thriller (album) should redirect to the MJ album, to another article, to a dab page, or whether it should host a dab page itself. A consideration to take into account about all that would be whether Thriller (album) had a primary topic, and, if so, what it is.

You act like there is something significantly special or different about titles with parenthetic descriptive phrases in them such that PT does not, or may not, apply to them. This seems to be based on the fact that parenthetic descriptive phrases are commonly used for disambiguation. So what? We also use natural descriptive information, like ", info" in titles. Natural descriptive information added to a title doesn't shield it from the scope of PT. Why should parenthetic descriptive phrases? --B2C 22:58, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Earlier today I added some related stuff to the WP:PDAB essay. Perhaps you'd like to review it and adjust as you see fit? That way our lucid points are retained in posterity in that essay rather than lost in some archived discussion... --B2C 23:43, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The decision of what to do with Thriller (album) might use the logic of primary topic, or it might not, since WP:PRIMARYTOPIC doesn't address incompletely qualified titles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:06, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Just because WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not specifically address incompletely qualified titles does not mean it does not apply to them. I ask again. Natural descriptive information added to a title doesn't shield it from the scope of PT. Why should parenthetic descriptive phrases? --B2C 20:03, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Primary topic guidelines apply to any "term", i.e., "word, name or phrase", that refers to a topic. What reliable sources refer to the Michael Jackson album with the term "Thriller (album)"? So I conclude that, while the logic "may" be used for titles like "Thriller (album)", the guideline itself cannot be cited as evidence of the consensus to do so. But all this has been said above. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:05, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
The New York Times refers to it as the "Thriller" album in this article: "Since its release just over a year ago, the Thriller album has sold 20 million copies worldwide..." Is that adequate to support considering Thriller album a "primary topic eligible" term? Do you consider Thriller album and Thriller (album) to be substantially different terms? If so, that could imply Thriller album, the more likely search term, redirecting to Thriller (Michael Jackson album), while Thriller (album), a term mostly used only in internal links within Wikipedia, redirecting to the Thriller dab. If this interpretation is indeed consensus, the guideline should more explicitly say so.– Wbm1058 (talk) 15:38, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
Yep, Thriller (album) is substantially different from Thriller album, and the guidelines say so too, treating the first distinctly as a disambiguating parenthetical phrase (artificial disambiguation) and the second as simply a title (and one the naming conventions for music don't use). -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:17, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

It appears from the above that there's no agreement here to add "This page gives you no guidance re parenthetical partial disambiguation" to WP:DAB. Which is worse than admitting it. It may be worth at least starting Wikipedia:List of partially disambiguated article titles to document the number of (song) (album) (band) articles doing this. I suspect it's less than a dozen. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:39, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, so Thriller album can have a primary topic, as it is a natural term used by a reliable source. I think consensus is, or should be that the primary topic for Thriller album is Michael Jackson's Thriller album, another natural term. Is there any rule against titling an article with an unnatural term like Thriller (Michael Jackson album), when a valid alternative natural term is available? For that matter, is it valid to choose to title Thriller (album) unnaturally, when the natural alternative Thriller album is an available primary topic title for the Michael Jackson album? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC) Why should a later naming decision that prefers a parenthetical name over its equivalent natural name invalidate an earlier PT decision? Which should be determined first, the best name or the primary topic? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:25, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

There is no set ordering. The questions "What's the best name for topic X?" and "What's the primary topic for title Y?" can be asked independently. When the answers lead to "Y is the best title for X, but X is not the primary topic for Y." that we need to make adjustments, and we don't have to make those adjustments until those are the answers for those questions. None of the later answers "invalidate" earlier independent questions. Not all articles get to exist at their best titles, because of technical limitations. Not all titles are used for their primary topics (sometimes the topic exist at another title, and Y is a redirect to it). -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
1. Q. What is the best name for "Michael Jackson's Thriller album"? A. Thriller (whether there are other topics for "Thriller" is not considered)
2. Q. What is the primary topic for "Thriller". A. There is none.
OK, make adjustments ;) Wbm1058 (talk) 16:12, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Adjust the name by parenthetical disambiguation, is the current consensus: Thriller (Michael Jackson album), but
1a. Q. What is the best name for Thriller album? A. Thriller (album)
2a. Q. What is the primary topic for Thriller album? A. "Michael Jackson's Thriller album" Q. What is the primary topic for Thriller (album)? A. There is none, because unnatural (parenthetically disambiguated) titles cannot, by definition, have primary topics.
Is that right? Is that consensus? If so, an we get the guideline adjusted to clearly say this? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:20, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Based on the recent move and subsequent discussions, the best name for the article on the album is Thriller (Michael Jackson album), not Thriller (album). However, separate determination suggests that the Jackson album is the most appropriate target for Thriller (album). older ≠ wiser 17:34, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I think I agree. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
@JHunterJ: I'm confused. Here you seem to say that "putting the article about Michael Jackson's album at Thriller (Michael Jackson album) and Thriller (album) redirects there" is OK. Doesn't that give the parenthetically disambiguated term Thriller (album) a primary topic? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
It gives "Thriller (album)" a topic. There I also point out that giving "Thriller (album)" no topic (by redirecting it to the disambiguation page) is also OK. For that matter, deleting the redirect Thriller (album) is also OK (if the incoming links are fixed), from a disambiguation perspective. The choice would be up to the naming conventions, and neither is indicated or contra-indicated by the primary topic guidelines that would be used to see if "Thriller" has a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Woodie

Woodie has been disambiguated. Ben0kto (talk) 23:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Although this is after the fact, I support this disambiguation. It is immediately clear that there is no primary topic for this term. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:36, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Does DAB applies to no DABbed pages?

For example, Richhoncho (talk · contribs) has been moving multiple pages that doesn't have disambiguator, all listed here, but the thing is that he didn't clean up after the moves. Make It Last redirects to an article and it is not a DAB page, the same happens with Round Here, You Got It, Your Heart Belongs to Me, Sick of You, and most of the pages he moved. So, shouldn't WP:PRIMARYTOPIC apply? It's like moving United States to United States of America or Paris to Paris, France. Yes, there are other topics, but they are the primary topic, doesn't apply here as well? © Tbhotch™ (en-2.5). 23:43, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

This is the issue we've had out with Thriller (song). As a general proposition, I think it is fine to do bold moves, per WP:BRD, but it also fine for any editor to revert those bold moves and call for a discussion to achieve consensus prior to restoring them. bd2412 T 01:03, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
The difference is that Thriller (song) has disambiguator, none of the moves I cite has disambiguator, so, how WP:D can apply to them? If the answer is because of the phrase "there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead" Paris is in the wrong place as I may be looking for Paris, Texas. If WP:PRIMARYTOPIC applies there, shouldn't apply here as well? © Tbhotch™ (en-2.5). 02:59, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Any editor who comes across a title that they believe is clearly ambiguous is free to move it to a disambiguated title, and create a disambiguation page at the original title. If another editor disagrees, the move can be reverted for discussion. I've done both, on occasion. bd2412 T 03:25, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the reminder, Tbhotch, I had left the disambiguation pages deliberately,in view of the number of editors that just don't understand that "primary topic" does not apply in every instance. I shall complete the moves in the next day or two. OTOH, if you want to help the project instead of complaining everywhere I wouldn't object to your assistance completing the moves. Cheers. --Richhoncho (talk) 07:47, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Although a word, name or phrase may refer to more than one topic, it is sometimes the case that one of these topics is the primary topic.

In the case of e.g. Working Man vs Working Man (John Conlee song), WP:MOVE is fine. Good move Richhoncho. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:24, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I reverted several of the moves, when they resulted in WP:MALPLACED disambiguation pages or simply the base name redirected to a qualified name (see WP:PRECISION). Sick of You was OK (although the new disambiguation page needed to be tagged and formatted). I reverted Make It Last, Round Here, You Got It, and Your Heart Belongs to Me. To "complete" the moves, the disambiguation page would need to be moved to the base name, likely with a WP:RM discussion to change from the current primary topic to no primary topic, or the primary topic (if there is one) should remain at the base name. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:53, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

How to?

Where do I go to have a disambiguation created? There is an Olympic athlete named Steve Benjamin and there is a politician named Stephen K. Benjamin, but also goes by Steve. Where do I go to get this resolved so that the politician can become just plain Steve? Thank you! ProudGamecock (talk) 03:44, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your question. Do you want to move Stephen K. Benjamin to Steve K. Benjamin? I would read the instructions at WP:RM, and understand the reasons for the move - is 'steve k. benjamin' more frequently used? or, is it Steve Benjamin, and then you'd need to add a parenthetical dab to one of them - so again your best bet if you dont' like the current page names is to start a RM and see what the community suggests.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:50, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
I've created the disambiguation page. In such cases, it's enough to move the article to a new title and put the disambiguation in place of the redirect; except when one of the articles is the primary topic, then you follow WP:TWODAB. Diego (talk) 12:28, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Bobby Thompson, Robert Thompson and Robert Thomson

Given the current dabs for Bobby Thompson, Robert Thompson and Robert Thomson, I am not quite sure what to do with Robby Thompson, Robbie Thompson and Robbie Thomson. I have added them on the Robert pages with their last names. I have added hat notes to the former two as well as Rob Thomson. I have augmented the Robbie Thomson hatnote. Advice welcome.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:05, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposal regarding TWODABS pages for events by season/year

We have large numbers of TWODABS pages like:

2001 Academy Awards, which says:

2001 Academy Awards may refer to:

2001 Emmy Awards, which says:

2001 Emmy Awards may refer to:

2004 Peach Bowl, which says:

The 2004 Peach Bowl may refer to:

I propose that we take the following steps:

  1. Determine for each of these cases which link is generally most likely intended by the reader searching for this term (for example, is the reader who types in "YEAR Academy Awards" more often searching for the ceremony held in YEAR, or for the ceremony honoring films released in YEAR).
  2. Whatever the answer is, redirect all pages of that type to the likely search target, with a hatnote pointing to the other page.

This proposal, if implemented, will eliminate dozens of frequently linked TWODABS pages in favor of a presumptive primary target, which is unlikely to shock or disorient readers, and for which links to the alternative will be readily apparent. bd2412 T 17:02, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Dark Knight

Need help on this page. There are partial matches, normally discouraged by guideline. If the page can't be the set index, then partial matches should be removed. But I can't figure out which to remove. --George Ho (talk) 06:02, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

None of those need to be removed; the topics appear to be refer-to-able as "Dark Knight". But Talk:Dark Knight would be the place to discuss, or tag it with {{disambiguation cleanup}}. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for a new rule for media adaptations and multimedia franchises

Currently, we have an incoherent hodgepodge of different rules for the treatment of media adaptations, remakes, and multimedia franchises. In the discussions above, my sense is that there is general agreement with some of the comments that I have made about the organization of this specific kind of topic. Examples abound of the disparity in the treatment of these topics:

I believe that the use of the disambiguation tag is incorrect with respect to these (particularly those for which the page lists many partial title matches or non-matching titles). The film adaptation of a novel is the film of the novel. In any decent article on those topics, the novel will necessarily be linked in the first line of the article on the film, and vice versa. There is no ambiguity because these are merely two variations of a work relating the same story, for which the novel is the work of origin. To put it another way, the primary topic here is the set of characters, settings, and events that add up to "the story being told"; the novel and the film are merely different media conveying the same "story being told". The basic elements of my proposal are:

  1. Pages merely listing numerous adaptations or installments of an original work are not properly disambiguation pages, per WP:DABCONCEPT, because they are capable of being described in an article on the broad concept.
  2. Where a page, in fact, merely lists numerous adaptations or installments of an original work (or where such a list, taken as a whole, is substantially more likely than the other topics to be the primary topic of the term), then one of the following options should be carried out:
    1. If the franchise originates from a notable original work, and that original work is the most notable aspect of the franchise, then the original work may occupy the base page name.
    2. If the a specific adaptation of the original work is substantially more likely than other works in the franchise to be the primary topic of the term, then that adaptation may occupy the base page name.
    3. If the franchise is eponymous to the main character, and is substantially centered on that character, an article on the character may occupy the base page name.
    4. If there are numerous adaptations of the work, and neither the original work nor any particular adaptation is the primary topic of the term, the page should be rewritten to be a franchise article describing the breadth of the franchise as a whole; if such a franchise article already exists, it should be merged with the disambiguation page (to the extent that the disambiguation page contains links to installments or adaptations of the franchise) to occupy the base page name.
    5. Alternately, if the original work is relatively obscure, and there are a substantial number of adaptations sharing the exact same name, the page can be reclassified as a set index or a "list of adaptations of Foo" article. See, e.g., Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.

This is somewhat rough, but it basically encompasses my vision for these topics. Per the discussion above, I do not think that any particular "astonishment" would arise from the implementation of these principles (i.e., from an editor looking for "Rambo" or "The Wizard of Oz" landing on a page about the Rambo franchise or the Wizard of Oz franchise, or for an editor looking for a film adaptation of, "Doctor Zhivago" landing on a page about the novel from which the film was made). I would welcome suggestions towards cleaning up this morass. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:34, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

This idea is backed up by common sense and it conforms to the spirit of summary style by going from the broad concept to the specific. The only concern I have is that a PTOPIC argument is not specific and has its flaws by both long term interest and page accessibility. However, the proposed changes outweigh my personal views on that matter and I support the implementation of BD2412's proposal. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 12:49, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
A&M adaptation debate is unrelated and Wikiproject related. Collapsed for larger scope and on-topic discussion

There's an ongoing discussion related to this one that recently hit the Village Pump, about franchises originally published as manga and the way to treat them at the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Anime- and manga-related articles. I think this talk should be coordinated with the participants of that one, to avoid arriving to two different and conflicting consensus. Diego (talk) 14:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I see that there is some content on the project page that suggests using disambiguation pages for identically named installments of a work. Philosophically, I am not terribly bothered by having a "Foo (disambiguation)" titled page restricted to actual instances of exact title-sharing, so long as the base page name is the franchise article or other primary topic of the term. bd2412 T 16:31, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The anime and manga issue has nothing to do with this. The issue with anime and manga articles is whether or not the two media, usually released concurrently, should have separate articles dedicated to each form of the media rather than one central article that covers both and list articles to cover other aspects (namely the disagreement that particular anime/manga combos even constitute a "franchise").—Ryulong (琉竜) 16:44, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
I can see the disconnect. My problem is with related media being deemed ambiguous. Even if there is no single "franchise", a group of media that share specific characters, settings, events, and in-universe rules can be covered in a concept article. bd2412 T 17:05, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Facepalm Facepalm You've walked into the trap of giving ammunition to both sides of the Anime/Manga franchise/adaptions debate. I observe that the your disambiguation/division makes sense, but several of the players in the space haved argued for all sorts of interpretations of the WP policy/guidelines/MOS. Hasteur (talk) 17:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

To the degree that this debate involves making disambiguation pages on unambiguous topics, this is a discussion that needs to be had. Frankly, the whole anime/manga dispute is small potatoes compared to the issue of novels with film adaptations. bd2412 T 17:36, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Then let's leave it at "The anime and manga issue has nothing to do with this." That is an old side issue that is long past. I'm not editing in that space at least through mediation and they've shown that they make their own consensus for their subjects. No proxy wars, please. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:46, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
I agree, we will leave it at that. There is enough to focus on looking only at books and films and video games. bd2412 T 19:12, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Getting back to the discussion at hand, are there any objections to anything in the proposal as written? Any changes or additions? bd2412 T 20:01, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

  • Generally agree and support. A consistent and well thought out vision. Tentative only in that some unexpected problems in the details may appear, or narrow focus article writing editors may get upset, as a knee jerk reaction, to suddenly being told to do something different. Please don't upset local editors by rushing, if they don't respond well, but explain calmly and involve them in the decision making. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:50, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of making franchises, the character, or list of adaptations the broad concept by default. PTOPIC is flawed, as I agree. But broad concept is not easy to create or determine in terms of fiction. We have Kansas City redirected to metro area, but I didn't like the fact that the metro area is not titled "Kansas City". A proposal to make the franchise of A Nightmare on Elm Street the broad concept was rejected. Maybe I'll make the title the dab page some other time... --George Ho (talk) 16:25, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem with that line of thinking is the A Nightmare on Elm Street is not ambiguous. Compare a truly ambiguous term like Seal, which can refer to an animal, or an emblem, or the connection between pipes, or Heidi Klum's ex-husband. Those are multiple unrelated terms; there is no single idea that comes to mind when you say "seal". "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is the opposite. Would you not agree that no matter which specific installment you are referring to, you immediately think of "a fictional world wherein a scarred, razor-gloved villain named Freddy Krueger attacks people in their dreams"? bd2412 T 16:41, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Yet the 1984 film, current prime topic may be as popular as the film series. The stats will tell you, or at least its perspective is distorted. --George Ho (talk) 16:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
My proposal above takes that into account, specifically allowing the original work to occupy the base page name if it is "the most notable aspect of the franchise". Right now, A Nightmare on Elm Street is in conformance with my proposal, and would not need to be changed absent a consensus that the original work was no longer the most notable aspect of the franchise. bd2412 T 17:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
You are proposing an overthrow on local consensus that opposes the franchise as the prime topic, correct? What about The Fast and the Furious situation? If that's not ambiguous, why did the local consensus oppose the film series as the prime topic? --George Ho (talk) 20:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
I think you are misunderstanding my proposal. With respect to A Nightmare on Elm Street, I am not seeking to overthrow any consensus at all. The current situation would be unchanged by the rule that I propose, unless there was a consensus that the franchise as a whole was primary over the initial film. Since A Nightmare on Elm Street is not a disambiguation page, there is nothing to address under my proposition. With respect to The Fast and the Furious, there was not exactly a local consensus against the proposed move; there was virtually no participation in the discussion, with the only clearly expressed opposition coming from an IP who did not address the question of a primary topic at all, but who instead pointed out that variations exist in the film series name. This is not relevant to my proposition, as it is entirely possible for the primary topic of the term "The Fast and the Furious" to be the first installment of the series, rather than the franchise as a whole, and it entirely possible for a separate article to exist on the franchise which covers more than just the film series (as there are also video games in the series). Since no attempt has been made to effect either outcome, there is no gauge of consensus with respect to either. bd2412 T 21:07, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
If the proposal approves, "Elm Street" won't be a dab page or be proposed as a dab page. We have people distinguishing the original and the remake, but how can the very first film be defined as the primary topic? Neither franchise nor the remake meets criteria of primacy, so why can the original? Because it was an original that led to subsequent media? Because the numbers are big (yet inconclusive)? --George Ho (talk) 21:30, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
To be very clear, A Nightmare on Elm Street is not a disambiguation page, has never been a disambiguation page, and there is no A Nightmare on Elm Street (disambiguation) because it is not an ambiguous topic. There is no ambiguity about the name because all of the topics are related, just as there is no ambiguity between United States Senate career of Barack Obama and Presidency of Barack Obama, because they are different aspects of the same career. bd2412 T 22:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
I'll propose an unambiguity on the original if the dab page is undeleted by consensus. Also, I'll request a deletion review on the dab page soon. --George Ho (talk) 01:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
What does "propose an unambiguity" mean? As for deletion review, I would be surprised if a unanimous determination by a half dozen editors that no such page was needed would be deemed to be incorrectly decided. Is WP:DABCONCEPT unclear? Is it not clearly conveyed in our rules that topics that are not actually ambiguous (i.e. unrelated topics sharing the same name) do not require disambiguation pages? bd2412 T 01:28, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll rephrase: if there is either an overturn or no prejudice to recreating a dab page, then I'll propose that an original film not be the primary topic. Your attempts to make any franchise, character, or very first medium the broad concept or primary topic would violate WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY by proposing a guideline based on your "overly strict interpretation" of broad concept, primary topic, and disambiguation. Your interpretation of "the primary meaning of a term" may differ from others'. Rules aren't that perfect, as I begin to learn. Pages exist and will continue to exist to serve their purposes to readers, until a page may be deleted by consensus. An example is Resident Evil and Resident Evil (disambiguation). You did propose a deletion on the dab page, but many opposed deletion. --George Ho (talk) 04:01, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

It would not give me terrible heartburn for a page to exist at the "Foo (disambiguation)" title, although I would consider it redundant to the existing setup, with a franchise article that covers everything. However, if the film is not the primary topic of the term, then the franchise must be, as there is no other topic so titled. Consider the "Joe is an expert" test. If I say "Joe is an expert on Mercury", I might mean that Joe is an expert on the chemical element (but may know nothing about the planet); or that Joe is an expert on the Greek god (but may have no knowledge of chemistry); or that Joe is an expert on the car company (but may know nothing of mythology). It is probably possible to find out which one of those is correct, and fix the link. However, if "Joe is an expert on A Nightmare on Elm Street", there is no separation of fields to consider; expertise in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" inherently implies "the franchise", the collection of all media. Absent a franchise article, the disambiguation link would be unfixable, because a link to the disambiguation page itself would imply expertise in the phrase, but not any particular subject. bd2412 T 14:40, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
As I told you, many opposed the idea of swapping the franchise and the film of the same title. But there is no prejudice on swapping the original film and the dab page if the dab page is successfully undeleted. Also, I requested a "userfication" at the DRV. --George Ho (talk) 14:44, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
My concern is that we should not have disambiguation pages for the sake of having disambiguation pages, where these may throw up a roadblock for the reader seeking the primary topic (as B2C pointed out in the previous discussions on this page). I think that it is very easy to lose sight of the fact that disambiguation pages are merely a navigational aid, and not an end in and of themselves. They should not exist unless their existence is necessary for navigation. bd2412 T 14:55, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately for you, disambiguation pages may exist in case that there is no primacy on topics of the same name, and in case that franchise or series is NOT the primary topic or the broad concept. I don't know what B2C perceives what a primary or broad topic must be, and I don't think his views are same as mine. --George Ho (talk) 15:11, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
It would be unfortunate for Wikipedia's readers if they were forced to sort through a disambiguation page for the unambiguous topic of a multimedia franchise, just as it would be unfortunate if instead of having an article at Richard Nixon, we had a disambiguation page linking to sub-articles on aspects of Nixon's life. bd2412 T 15:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Let's leave a real-life person out of this, and solely focus on media instead. Why forcing one topic of the (so-called unambiguous) same name, either original, well-known adaptation, or franchise, to be the primary topic when it is neither popular nor significant as others? --George Ho (talk) 17:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Okay then, focusing on media, should Star Wars, Star Trek, Final Fantasy, and Harry Potter be disambiguation pages? If not, what principled distinction is there between those articles and A Nightmare on Elm Street or Resident Evil? bd2412 T 19:57, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Confused - I apologize, but I'm not clear on what is to be done based on the original proposal, and became even more confused on the subsequent discussion. If I understand correctly, the proposal is to have a an article on the franchise where there are multiple articles related to the franchise. There should be no disambiguation page, and if there are a bunch of adaptations, it should be covered in a set index article and not a disambiguation page full of partial name matches, see also entries etc. Is that right? -- Whpq (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
    Basically, yes. If there are multiple installments or adaptations of a single work, which is what comprises a franchise, then the primary topic for that term should either be that work, or the most noted work from the franchise (if there is a single work that is most prominent), or the franchise as a whole (including all of those installments and adaptations). Rambo is an excellent example of this. It is probably beyond dispute that when the average person hears the term "Rambo" they think of some aspect of the franchise, probably the character, but possibly the film. When a reader looks up Rambo, they are expecting to find an article on at least some aspect of the franchise, so if there was an article at that title on the franchise as a whole, their expectations would be met without further searching. Instead, those expectations are stymied by the imposition of an extra layer of searching. Now, if they were taken to the content currently at Rambo (film series), they would see this first paragraph:

Rambo is an action film series based on the David Morrell novel First Blood and starring Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo, a troubled Vietnam War veteran and former Green Beret who is skilled in many aspects of survival, weaponry, hand to hand combat and guerrilla warfare. The series consists of the films First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), and Rambo (2008).

  • This by itself probably wraps up 99% of what readers will be searching for, and amply demonstrates that to the extent that the primary topic of the term Rambo is the multimedia franchise, this is "capable of being described in an article", which is sufficient, under WP:DABCONCEPT to require that the title be the article on the concept. bd2412 T 19:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
    Dab page gets 58K views in last 90 days. Film series gets 120K. The latest 2008 film gets 63K. The first film gets 85K (novel 10K). The character gets 56K. Of course, people assume that Rambo is the official title (or the alternative title) of the first film. --George Ho (talk) 20:09, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
    How many hits are there for the topics on the disambiguation page that are unrelated to the franchise? bd2412 T 20:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
    The 2012 film gets 9K. Some apple gets 3K. Dack Rambo gets 17K. I can provide just three. The rest aren't spectacular. --George Ho (talk) 20:30, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
    So the Rambo franchise taken as a whole gets about 280K, compared to probably less than 40K for all other uses combined (and I'll bet that much of the 9K for the 2012 film is from people accidentally thinking that it was part of the franchise too). Compare Star Trek, which is not a disambiguation page, and for which Star Trek got 757K views in the last 90 days, Star Trek: The Original Series got 282K, Star Trek (film franchise) got 206K, Star Trek: The Motion Picture got 114K, and Star Trek (film) got 368K. Again, under your interpretation of other media franchises, Star Trek should be a disambiguation page; so the question is, if you don't think so, then what principled distinction can you offer? bd2412 T 20:41, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
    Twisting everything I say, eh? Dab page stats aren't loading well right now (so do other stats)... we'll get back to it later gets 14K. Anyway, Talk:Rambo (film series)#Requested move can tell you that "Rambo" may refer to also the character or the first film, not just the film series. "Distinction" part may refer to case-by-case and various consensus on media, not unilateral decisions. --George Ho (talk) 20:56, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
    I am merely following your reasoning straight to its conclusion, which would make disambiguation pages of all multimedia franchises for which there were some shared titles, with none being the most popular title of the franchise. Note also that the "Rambo (film series)" discussion is about the film series, not about the franchise as a whole (which includes media other than just the film series). Furthermore, the Rambo discussion included comments in support of the move about how "this article is currently a pretty sad sight", which highlights another problem. Disambiguation pages are often used as a substitute for doing the actual work of writing a decent article. I have seen plenty of discussions where editors can't agree over how to put together an article on a complex or highly abstract topic like Estimation or Efficiency, and therefore they throw their hands up and say "let's just make it a disambiguation page". I have seen this proposed for multiple seasons of a single TV series. This helps no one. A thorough and well-written article on the Rambo franchise as a whole would quickly and effectively satisfy the needs of the vast majority of readers looking for "Rambo", without sending them to search for bits and pieces of it scattered in a dozen different articles. bd2412 T 21:12, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is no Rambo franchise. Rambo (film series)#Other media and John Rambo#Appearances can suffice, even when at poor quality. The very first novel First Blood (novel) is very different from the film series and media BASED on films, including novelizations of films. In the novel, Rambo dies. In adaptations, Rambo lives on. --George Ho (talk) 21:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

In the 2009 Star Trek movie, the planet Vulcan is blown up. In the last batch of James Bond movies, M is a woman (clearly different from the books), and is killed (and replaced with a new M). The fact that liberties are taken across adaptations is hardly news, and does not take away from the franchise being a franchise. To the extent that these differences exist, they can be discussed in the article. bd2412 T 21:33, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't call Rambo a franchise... just a film series with other media based on the film series. But then you can call it a franchise just to concise the term. I wonder how A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise) is not "(film series)". Alas, you can propose a change on that title (or other). --George Ho (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
The very first line of A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise) references "a television show, novels, and comic books" in addition to the films. As for Rambo, the other media may well be based on the film series (which, as you have noted above, is itself based on a book), but how does that make it anything other than a franchise? Indeed, that is pretty much the definition of a media franchise - a collection of media whereby the owners of intellectual property in the form of a character, settings, and story events, profit from reshuffling bits and pieces of those things, and licensing others to do so. bd2412 T 21:49, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Confused (both by proposal and discussion) but agree with the set index article WP:SIA for these rather than dab, then no partial title match issue. Widefox; talk 14:33, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
    • I am certainly open to a compromise. My basic point is that if an article does nothing more than list installments, adaptations, or remakes of an original work, then we should avoid treating that article as if it were a disambiguation page. I have tried to set out a hierarchy of better options, and tagging the page as an SIA is one of them. bd2412 T 15:09, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
  • For an update, Presumed Innocent was originally a novel; now it is a dab page due to lack of primacy and the title's ambiguity. Also, I withdrew proposal on The Year of Living Dangerously. --George Ho (talk) 18:23, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
    • These would presumably be affected by this proposal (although there are now a number of other meanings identified for Presumed Innocent, which would require a determination that the Scott Turow story (in both novel and film forms) is the primary meaning to change the current setup. bd2412 T 18:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm still interested in the refinement of the set index option. Specifically, what would be the requirements from switching a set index to a franchise or vice versa? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:47, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I would say that not every list of works derived from an original work rises to the level of being a franchise. Consider my treatment of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch and Madame X, which have no sequels or adaptations in media other than film, but which have multiple remakes in one media. bd2412 T 00:37, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

When the consensus finds no primary topic on Moonraker, how would this affect this proposal? Or the other way around? --George Ho (talk) 06:31, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

First, not finding the film to be the primary topic is not the same as there being no primary topic. Second, I have also noted above that it is possible for a franchise as a whole to not be the primary topic of a term (see Terminator, Halo, above). There appear to be many meanings of the term Moonraker not related to the media. Finally, I would add that the James Bond Moonraker works are not a franchise. James Bond is a franchise; the Moonraker works are one literary and one film installment in that franchise. If the franchise came out with a book and film merely named "James Bond", it is highly doubtful that these would upset the primacy of the franchise as a whole. Similarly, with respect to the Rambo discussion we had above, the novel, First Blood, may differ from the film, but the franchise is "Rambo", not "First Blood". bd2412 T 03:02, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Unfortunately "common sense" is all too often uncommon amongst editors (One only need to see the debate above concerning anime/manga to prove that : ) - That aside, I, Robot (film) is one of many examples where the film may have some names, but the names have nothing to do with the characters or locations created by a particular author. Susan Calvin of the I, Robot works is a decidedly different persona than who is on film, and the story had little to nothing to do with the set of short stories in the book, except that Asimov's rules of robotics were cited. See also I,_Robot_(film)#Similarities_with_the_book. So to come back to this proposal, these things are just broad enough that while we could cherry pick examples that work for this system, there are far too many that do not fit the mold as it were. this is something that just needs to be done on a case by case basis. All that said, kudos to BD2412 for trying to make sense of something which at times has no sense to make sense of : ) - When dealing with the subjectiveness of artistry, we often find that artists and their works rarely fit in the nice orderly boxes we create for tham : ) - jc37 05:37, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Stuart Saunders

Can someone check out the details at

Talk:Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town

and see if a disambiguation page could be made for the 4 people who share two of their name parts Stuart Saunders

I am not quite sure who should and how a Disambiguation page is set up. I will try and add some details where I can to get rid of the red links if the 4 names can be separated.

Idyllic press (talk) 12:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I did update the hatnote on Stuart Saunders to point to the academic as well. The two "first + middle" name holders aren't ambiguous with the title. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
I've created a dab page, and found an actor with several incoming links. The first+middle names seem usefully added as "See also", as we've got a dab page going. PamD 13:45, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment

Due to no consensus on a previous discussion re: article naming involving WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, there is a second discussion open about moving Australia national association football team to Australia men's national association football team. We are seeking outside input. Contributions to the discussion are much appreciated. Thank you. Hmlarson (talk) 01:31, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Section, example and shortcut needed

Re the opening paragraph:

(A "topic covered by Wikipedia" is either the main subject of an article, or a minor subject covered by an article in addition to the article's main subject.)

Would it be possible to add a separate section with example and shortcut to this part of the guideline, because editors are evidently having trouble seeing it. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
For example

Primary redirects - a primary redirect occurs when the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of a term redirects to an article with a different title. For example "Hurricane" redirects to the primary topic of Tropical cyclone, requiring Hurricane (cocktail) to have disambiguation by "(cocktail)", the Hurricane aircraft to have disambiguation as Hawker Hurricane and so on, even though no article "Hurricane" exists.

In ictu oculi (talk) 02:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
....any objections? any comments? In ictu oculi (talk) 00:30, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Well I can understand that people think that Hurricane is not significantly different than the Danzig example. But I have added WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT as a shortcut to Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Redirecting_to_a_primary_topic. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Create a new article for each definition of a topic?

Bhny will sometimes tell editors that "There is no reason to put alternate meanings" in an article and that they "could write another article about it and have a disambiguation page to direct to the two articles." I've told Bhny to "stop incorrectly informing other editors of how this site functions. You are mostly incorrect about our treatments of terms. And you should already know that.[2] We usually don't create WP:Content forks to cover each different meaning of a term. We cover it all in one article, and doing that doesn't make the article a dictionary. Even when we create different articles for the different meanings (which is only when those meanings deserve a Wikipedia article to themselves), we still usually mention them in the main article. Also, you know that we have articles about words, even if those articles are supposed to be about more than just the definitions." Bhny insists that I'm wrong, even though Bhny has seen, for example, plenty of Wikipedia articles that have a definitions section because there is more than one definition of the concept and the section significantly helps people understand the concept.[3] Bhny either doesn't know of WP:DABCONCEPT (the broad-concept article guideline) or doesn't care that it exists.

We could use some outside comments on this. I suggested to Bhny that I ask about it here. Bhny agreed that doing that would be fine.[4] 72.216.11.67 (talk) 17:44, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The specific example here is zoophobia or "fear of animals". An editor added a different meaning "fear of people who practice zoophilia", an obscure neologism that had nothing to do with a fear of animals. After I pointed this out, the editor agreed with my edit.[5] Bhny (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
It sounds like the specific case is resolved, but just to be pedantic: unless I'm missing smoething, I would offer that the general case the IP poster attributes to Bhny is correct.
This is pretty much exactly why disambiguation pages exist: because we don't, for example, have a single article that covers every meaning of Mercury.--NapoliRoma (talk) 18:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Even if this were a separate meaning, the "fear of animals" sense would be the primary topic; where there are only two notable meanings, and one is primary, the other is addressed in a hatnote, per WP:TWODABS. bd2412 T 18:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
I didn't bring this here because of the zoophobia case. I brought it here because Bhny commonly tells editors that an alternate meaning of a term should not be in the article about the concept. Bhny ignores the fact that a concept can have different definitions and seems to think that a different article should always be made to address each different meaning of a term. I've explained to Bhny why that is incorrect (see the discussion on Bhny's talk page, my 06:04, 22 November 2013 (UTC) post especially). I didn't say that we always have broad-concept articles, or that every definition should be included. I merely said that broad-concept articles (which are articles with more than one definition for a term) exist. I can point to many different articles where it is important to address the different ways that the word is used in order to understand that article's concept. Female genital mutilation is one example. In no way should we create a different article for each different definition, unless those different definitions are notable enough and/or otherwise distinct enough be separate articles. 72.216.11.67 (talk) 19:19, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Strictly speaking, broad concept articles do not cover "more than one definition for a term"; they cover terms which are themselves broadly defined. For example, Particle, which used to be a disambiguation page, is a broad concept article because most of the things called "particle" have common characteristics capable of being discussed holistically. bd2412 T 19:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
It's "more than one definition for a term" to me, such as what can sometimes be seen in a dictionary entry as a different definition of a concept. But regardless of the semantics on that, you and I agree about it being commonplace for an article to cover more than one meaning of a concept. 72.216.11.67 (talk) 19:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
I would say that is more than one expression of a single broad meaning. The connection must still go beyond using the same name. bd2412 T 19:44, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a good way to describe it. 72.216.11.67 (talk) 19:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
In the context of "Zoophobia" specifically, there may be several different kinds of "fear of animals", and it would incorrect to have a disambiguation page pointing to separate pages on these; however, these are all unrelated to "fear of people who practice zoophilia", which is not covered under the same concept (and probably does not merit coverage in the encyclopedia at all). bd2412 T 20:14, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

BHNY is right that there should be a new article for a new definition, with the key caveat that it is actually a new definition. Particle is a good example that is not actually new definitions, since the various aspects of particle are still the same concept. Apple (fruit) and Apple Corporation and Apple Records is what Bhny means when he says new definition, since these are actually different definitions. Ego White Tray (talk) 01:57, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Ego White Tray, your characterization of what Bhny means is inaccurate because that is not what Bhny generally means. I thought I was clear above about what Bhny generally means. Read the discussion Bhny and I had on Bhny's talk page about this issue, which also notes other discussions Bhny and I have had about it. Bhny is not usually talking about two different concepts. Bhny is usually talking about one concept that happens to have different meanings. Bhny has said that an article should be about one meaning (or what BD2412 calls "one expression"). A new definition of female genital mutilation, for example, would not get its own article unless it is a significantly notable definition or means something completely different than cutting a female's genitals. That definition would be covered in the Female genital mutilation article. And if it has a term, that term would be redirected to the Female genital mutilation article, just like the other alternate terms are. 72.216.11.67 (talk) 02:49, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Ego White Tray correctly states what I mean! IP 72.216.11.67 stop talking about me and talk about specific edits. If you want to report my behavior do it in an appropriate place. Also your chosen example is beyond creepy. Bhny (talk) 11:34, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Oh please! Our past discussions, such as at the Civilization article and the Hentai article[6][7], obviously show that that's not what you mean (except perhaps in the zoophobia case, which is obviously why you tried to save face above by starting off with "The specific example here" is zoophobia or 'fear of animals'." And I'm talking about your editing rationale and edits. That concerns you! This is the appropriate place to address getting you out of your "There is no reason to put alternate meanings" rationale, and your mistaken beliefs about when to create a disambiguation page. That's why you agreed that I should post about it here. I didn't bring this here to try to get you in trouble (I know where to go for that). And as for calling my chosen example creepy, thank goodness that we have great Wikipedia editors willing to tackle such a horrific topic that affects girls and women on a mass scale, and great people in this world willing to try to end it, without backing away from it and saying, "Sorry, no, that's creepy." 72.216.11.67 (talk) 18:23, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
In fact, maybe Dougweller and Andrew Lancaster, two people you tried to convince at the Civilization article to define that topic in one way (to give "one expression" for the term civilization), would like to join this discussion. 72.216.11.67 (talk) 18:33, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Well after a quick read above I do not see much to clearly object to on either "side". Everyone seems to be expressing valid viewpoints, and so the trick is in concrete examples. But while we are speaking vaguely, I must admit that I have recently been wondering whether this subject would become a new point of community discussion. In August I came across a very forceful little "local consensus" on Intelligent design who I think are expressing a position similar to the one that 72.216.11.67 is concerned about. As in the Civilization discussion referred to, I saw WP:NOTDICT being cited in what I found to be very odd ways, and people raising concerns being told to create new articles, instead of committing the crime of mentioning in a lead that an article title word has a secondary meaning, even when our sources make it much more clear than we do. I have been looking around since then and getting a feeling that such remarks citing NOTDICT are a new "in" thing? Would be interested to hear if anyone else has been noticing that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:10, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Generally, the principle of WP:NOTDICT should apply - i.e. any otherdifferent meanings of the title term etc should be covered just by hatnote(s). The danger of not sticking to this rule is that "Other meanings" sections get added to articles (sometimes complete with categories and templates) and the page becomes rather a mess. Here's some examples[8][9][10][11][12] of several meanings in one article (the last of the examples showing a weird combination of categories). Sometimes meanings may be so close that some explanation is needed, but this should be rare. DexDor (talk) 20:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC) changed slightly to clarify DexDor (talk) 21:59, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
DexDor, that's not what others have said above, and BD2412 (who I see around a lot) has never said anything like that, unless the word meaning is taken to mean "different concept." When it's the same concept that has different meanings, all the notable meanings should generally be covered in one article (even when some of the meanings are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles). Our guidelines and even our WP:Alternative title policy support that. BD2412 calls this "more than one expression of a single broad meaning." Hatnotes can't take care of the different notable meanings unless those meanings have their own Wikipedia articles and the hatnote points to a disambiguation page listing them. There are different definitions for religion and different definitions for atheism, for example. See Religion and Atheism (the Atheism article is a WP:Featured article). Those definitions, the notable ones, should be covered in a section in those articles, and they are, to give those concepts appropriate context and help readers understand those concepts. It's not rare that such sections are needed. 72.216.11.67 (talk) 21:09, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
I think I agree with 72.216.11.67 here, but maybe it is worth clarifying. (Maybe I agree with everyone!) Broad concept articles create no problems when done in the right situations, so the question is what the right situations are. I think it is to a large extent defined by what reliable sources do, as per WP:NPOV, which is not a policy to be trifled with. I think the concern is attempts to artificially isolate topics from related meanings, in ways our sources do not. The example Intelligent design: the most prominent topic is a specific type of teleological argument for the existence of God which developed in the 1980s and presents itself as evidence based science rather than as religious, and this is widely described as a type of pseudoscience. However the sources, meaning the exact same type of sources, also frequently use the exact same two words to refer to teleological arguments more generally, which do not normally claim to be science. Hatnotes can not help readers and new editors in situations like that, but a few careful words in a lead can. Another example I worked on recently was Common sense which has several quite interesting meanings, but again the sources all unanimously treat those meanings as intertwined, and therefore we have to. PROPOSAL. Can we agree that broad concept articles are sometimes appropriate and that the reliable sources are an important way of judging what is appropriate?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
I think it's clear that most of us agree that broad-concept articles are sometimes appropriate and that the reliable sources are an important way of judging what is appropriate (or at least can be an important way of judging what is appropriate) on this issue. 72.216.11.67 (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree with most of the above (IP and AL), but most WP concept articles do not need a discussion of different meanings of the article title (although those that do may include some important articles). Any changes to policy (e.g. weakening WP:NOTDICT) should take this into account. Any differences of opinion/emphasis may be because I generally work on poor-quality, low-profile pages pages rather than the likes of Religion, Atheism and ID. DexDor (talk) 21:59, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Probably we would need to look at concrete examples to see if there is any real disagreement. I have my doubts. Anyway, I do not think anyone is proposing a change to policy. NOTDICT does not appear to me to have ever been intended to force Wikipedia editors to make articles give a different impression than reliable sources do about potentially ambiguous meanings? To take the example of the Intelligent Design article, at one point in recent discussions I understood that I was being told that if there was proof that sources contained a notable secondary shade of related meaning, then we still could not mention it in the lead: We would need to have an RfC to see which meaning was the winning main one, and then the losing one could still not be mentioned in the resulting article about the winning main meaning. Readers would have to guess about the other one, even though it was clearly very closely and confusingly related, from the hatnote. I am guessing that this type of case might happen more often.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:13, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation of Treblinka extermination camp

Hello. I'm AmericanLemming, and I have two separate concerns which I would like advice about:

First, I believe that Treblinka does not need a disambiguation page, since it only refers to three entities: the extermination camp, the village, and the band briefly known by that name.
Second, I believe that the main article, Treblinka extermination camp, does not need to link to the band, since it is a minor Swedish metal band that was only known by the name "Treblinka" for the first two years of its existence.

I was thinking of going through the Articles for deletion process, but since this is a disambiguation page we're dealing with, I wasn't sure if that changed anything. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! AmericanLemming (talk) 23:14, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

First, AfD is the appropriate forum for discussing the possible deletion of disambiguation pages, as needed. Second, you either need to link to the band in a hatnote on the article reached via the title "Treblinka" or need a link there to a disambiguation page with the band, for this reader segment: someone who is looking for the band and they have the old name "Treblinka". Otherwise, they enter the title they expect to find the band under, land at the article reached via Treblinka, and have no navigational aid to get them to the topic sought. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:18, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
I saw that you updated the hatnote. I think the main article looks better with the link to the DAB page than with a really long hatnote. And I can't argue with your logic for keeping the DAB page, so I'll leave it be. Thanks for the help! AmericanLemming (talk) 06:17, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

What do we do with articles such as

Aviv and Pussy (where I've started at AfD)? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 15:30, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

They're not dab pages, so we do with them as we do with other articles (including AfD, if needed). -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:49, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Ok, I've withdrawn the Pussy AfD as I've been convinced that it is actually an article on the word. Something must have been wrong with my perception. Aviv on the other hand still looks more like it is a dab page in all but name. Dougweller (talk) 21:59, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
I think Pussy can be treated like Fuck, with an article on the term and its history and usage, and a separate disambiguation page (as with Fuck (disambiguation)), for which Pussy (disambiguation) already exists. As for Aviv, I would suggest that the actual topic of the page should be the month, and since the modern name of the month is Nisan, the information should be merged there with a redirect hatnote pointing to an Aviv (disambiguation) page for other topics. bd2412 T 23:17, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Merging disambiguation and surname articles.

Hi all, I am highly frustrated by what's happened on a couple of disambiguation pages recently. Both edits were made by editors who believed they were following WP:D and I even think they are right, but if so, WP:D is wrong. Let's explain: The history for "Yeager" and "Bieber (disambiguation)". In practice both pages had previously been disambiguation pages in the months prior to my edits, which precipitated the edits shown in the diffs.

Here's my point - I see no reason whatsoever to hide Yeager, Kentucky (let's say) from someone who types in Yeager. The page they are landing on is not an article. It is a couple of sentences followed by a list of names. It will never be more than that because you can't really write an article on a surname. Same thing with Bieber (disambiguation). The last names removed there are absolutely possible desired searches from Bieber; when someone lands on Justin Bieber which is where Bieber redirects to, they have to click on Bieber (disambiguation) and then again on Bieber (surname) and then again on their desired article. Too many clicks. There's no reason in the word to have these split up--the articles are not too long (this is not a Hamilton-type situation). What do you say? Red Slash 22:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

It is certainly possible to write a well-researched and referenced article on the origin and meaning of the surnames "Yeager" and "Bieber"; this just hasn't been done yet. bd2412 T 22:05, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
You can't really write an article on a surname? Seriously? Smith_(surname), for one. In any case, I think separation of the surnames into a separate article is quite reasonable. The only question now is, what is the primary topic? For Smith, its the dab page. I think for Yeager, the surname makes more sense, as there are lots more Yeager-surnamed articles than Kentucky towns - but you could start an RM and attempt to move Yeager (disambiguation) to Yeager and Yeager to Yeager (surname); same for Bieber.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
I think it reasonable to have articles on surnames, as long as we don't preclude individuals from inclusion on the disambiguation page as well.
Per WP:PTM, "Add a link only if the article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context—regardless of the article's title." So anyone plausibly known simply by the last name should be on the disambiguation page. As an example, David Belasco is appropriately included on the Belasco disambiguation page, because if someone refers simply to Belasco, it's quite probable they are referring to him. It's likely he would be a contender for a primary topic for Belasco, so it would be absurd to exclude him from the disambiguation page.
Given the number of fields in which people are commonly referred to simply by their last names (sports, politics, arts and entertainment), I think we should be fairly liberal about including people on the disambiguation page for their surname.--Trystan (talk) 01:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
There are relatively few people in the fields of sports, politics, arts, and entertainment who are commonly referred to simply by their last names in reliable sources. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:08, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
But people frequently search by just the last name since that is all they remember, and then there are all the zoologists and botanists who are referred to by their last name or a shortened form of it. --Bejnar (talk) 06:59, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

My proposal: Disambiguation and surname pages should only be separate if there is article content for the surname. In the case of Bieber, separating them is ridiculous - there are not a lot of people with this name and we don't have any article content on the name whatsoever. In that case, all the surname page is doing is disambiguating and there is no reason for a separate page. Smith, on the other hand, has a detailed article about the name itself, and a huge number of people with the name. If both the article and disambiguation content are very short, I say it makes sense to combine them - see Heinrich Müller and Heinrich Müller (name) for the ridiculousness that results when you don't. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:53, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

That one, I would merge into Müller (surname), as it is an anecdote about the abundance of a certain combination of a common given name with a common surname. bd2412 T 05:10, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I too dislike pages such as Müller (surname) and Hadik (as they are currently) - mainly because it blurs the distinction between articles and dab pages and is inconsistent with the way other disambiguation works in WP. This can cause confusion - for example a page ("Foo") is tagged as a surname page (when all the entries are surnames), then editors add other things that are not surnames ("Foo Inc", "SS Foo", "FOO" etc) without converting the page (back) to a proper dab page (which means, AFAIK, that editors won't be notified if they link to it). Etymology (including of surnames) should be separate from disambiguation (and mostly in Wiktionary). I.e. an "article" like [13] should be a dab page like [14]. DexDor (talk) 06:34, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Another example: Tornquist. There's a sentence of etymology so it shouldn't be a dab page; there are placenames so it isn't a surname page; but it seems rather petty to insist on two separate pages for so few entries! I've left it for now, WP:IAR. PamD 07:05, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    • I'm happy with Tornquist after JHJ's edit (after tweaking the grammar), but I'd understood that a page like broke the rules for a dab page as it includes "... is a surname of Swedish origin. The word tornquist means "thorn branch"." in the opening section. If we can do this, then that's excellent and we have a sensible page. I can't see anything one way or the other in WP:MOSDAB, I just have a memory of having this sort of content removed as "Inappropriate content for a disambiguation page". PamD 14:41, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
      • I think it falls nicely under this project page's "A short description of the common general meaning of a word can be appropriate for helping the reader determine context." -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
  • If the list article can't stand on its own, there's no reason to merge it back to the disambiguation page, since the entries would be partial title matches. If the list article isn't encyclopedic, delete it and be done with it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposed change to the section on partial title matches

I hereby propose to add "People with the surname of the title in question should be included in the disambiguation page (generally at the bottom) unless that page would grow to an absurd length with their inclusion (see Johnson (disambiguation)). In such a case, the link to Foobar (surname) should be prominent on the disambiguation page. Surname pages may exist on their own, but do not take the place of disambiguation pages. Names should not be removed from disambiguation pages on the grounds that they also appear within the surname page (except for reasons of absurd length on the main disambiguation page), as the surname article is not a disambiguation page." This helps our readers, as again, someone looking for Friedrich Bieber who can only remember his last name does not have to go to Bieber (disambiguation) and then a step further onto the surname article. What say you? Red Slash 18:42, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

  • I continue to disagree. Including the non-ambiguous partial-title-match name-holder lists on disambiguation pages is a temporary state only, until someone (anyone) opts to move the list to its anthroponymy list article, regardless of length. If the length is "absurd", then that option needs to be exercised sooner. The link to the surname does not need to be any more prominent on the dab page that the existing dab page guidelines indicate. Some surnames (e.g., "Banana") simply aren't that likely to be the topic sought, and so don't warrant prominence. Names should be removed from the disambiguation page when they also appear on surname article lists unless there is grounds for including them (that is, that the topic person is commonly referred to by just the surname, and so is not a partial title match). And at no point, ever, should an existing anthroponymy list article (or list on an anthroponymy article) be merged to a non-article disambiguation page -- if the list of non-ambiguous partial-title-match name-holders is non-encyclopedic, the list article should be deleted just like any other non-encyclopedic list article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
  • No, it would not be a good idea to establish duplicated lists of surname-holders. If there is a surname page, then the dab page for that word only needs a link to the surname page. Duplicated lists run the risk that new names will be added randomly to one or the other but rarely to both. The present system is fine - with JHJ's welcome clarification that it is OK for the preamble to a dab page like Tornquist to include a very brief description/etymology without breaking the dab page rules. PamD 19:14, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I think WP:PTM just needs a sentence or two to explicitly clarify that people should be included on the disambiguation page when they are commonly referred to by the surname alone. So Johnson (disambiguation) should include Samuel Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, and possibly a few others likely target articles for "Johnson".--Trystan (talk) 19:40, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    I do not think Johnson (disambiguation) should include Samuel Johnson or Lyndon B. Johnson. Is there a reliable source that refers to either of them as "Johnson" that doesn't mention the words "Samuel" or "Lyndon", respectively? -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    That's not the point. Readers might enter a surname into the search box expecting to get (possibly after a few more mouse clicks) to the article they want. Also, a (slightly sloppy) editor might put something like "During the Johnson and Nixon presidencies..." into an article. I.e. surnames need disambiguating. DexDor (talk) 20:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    But it is the point. Readers entering a surname into the search box can get to the article they want after a few more mouse clicks: the surname list article would be linked from the dab, and the surname holder would be listed on the surname list article (not the dab). And slightly sloppy editors might do any number of things that make navigation difficult; the solution there is to clean up after the sloppy editors, not to keep the plastic covers on the sofa year-round. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    It's not just us referring to "Johnson" in passing and expecting the reader to understand whether the president or the dictionary writer is being referred to; it happens throughout English. It's entirely reasonable to expect that someone reading about, e.g., "the house where Johnson wrote the Dictionary" could come here, type in "Johnson", and be properly disambiguated, as they would for any other ambiguous search term. Surname lists shouldn't be acting as incomplete disambiguations and creating an extra step for readers.
    The article on the surname is currently the primary topic for Johnson, which seems odd to me. Do we really think that a large majority of people typing in "Johnson" don't want a proper disambiguation page (leading to the many people, places and other things with that name), but ultimately are looking for information on the surname itself?--Trystan (talk) 21:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    Johnson is an unusually productive surname. It is unlikely that someone looking for a little known person with that surname, such as anthropologist Guy Benton Johnson, would type in Johnson with the expectation that this subject will be found on that page. bd2412 T 21:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    Agreed. The existing WP:PTM standard is what greatly limits the Johnsons that we need to include, i.e., those who "could plausibly be referred to" by the last name alone in a "a sufficiently generic context".--Trystan (talk) 21:42, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
  • It is not beneficial to have a surname list baked into a dab page. They wont be correctly categorized as set indices, you can't expand them into proper articles, and by having any description of the surname in the lede you are implying that everything mentioned in the dab page is derived from the surname. Which you can't prove since you can't have references in a dab page per MOS:DABENTRY. —Xezbeth (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    Why not have the list of people in the dab page and any etymology separate (either in a surname article or in Wiktionary) linked from the dab page ? To me, the dab page seems a much better place to keep the list - for one thing it's easier/simpler for readers (who just want to get to the info about a specific person) and for another it's less likely that an editor will think "this surname page has far too many examples, lets remove some" (not realising that the list is also used for disambiguation). DexDor (talk) 22:16, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
    The list of non-ambiguous partial-title-matching name holders can be a separate anthroponymy surname list article from the anthroponymy surname article if that's a problem. As for why not have them on dabs, it's because they're non-ambiguous partial title matches, and likely to be remove by editors who recognize them, in order to allow the readers to efficiently navigate to one of the actually ambiguous topics. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Wading a little late into the discussion, I was initially of the opinion that names are material for dab pages, but after reading the discussion (such as Xezbeth's excellent point on ambiguity) and relevant MOS entries (at MOS:DABENTRY and Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Standards), I now appreciate the need to differentiate between set indices and dab pages; since referencing would be necessary for the etymology on a set index of names, the inclusion of references for what is essentially the lead as a 'special case' could lead to unnecessary confusion on dab pages. And since references therefore can't be included into an dab page, etymology cannot be included, and so anthroponymy is unsuitable for dab pages. But as the uninducted may simply look at a set index and a disambiguation page and see two lists (which may therefore not include what they are looking for), my suggestion is simply for the 'other uses' hatnote to include a description of the page as a list of names (e.g. This index refers to people with the name Foo. For other uses, see Foo (disambiguation)) in order to clarify the page's purpose. I do feel that shorter hatnotes can frequently get lost (especially when there are a lot of template messages floating above and/or below), so perhaps a little more text to clarify what sort of page the reader is looking at would be an acceptable solution — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 15:12, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

New maintenance template for move reverts.

Since many of our disambiguation link clusters come from undiscussed moves which should be reverted for discussion, I have created Template:Movereverted to make it easier to explain this to reverted editors. The template, {{movereverted}} calls the following message:

Information icon Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Your bold move of a page has been reverted so that the move may be discussed. Per Wikipedia:Requested moves, a move request must be placed on the article's talk page, and the request be open for discussion for seven days, "if there is any reason to believe a move would be contested". Please note that any move of a page with a longstanding title and/or a large number of incoming links should be considered potentially controversial, and likely to be contested. Again, thank you for contributing, and enjoy your Wikipedia experience! Thank you.

An additional parameter is available for the article name, {{movereverted|Foobar}}:

Information icon Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. Your bold move of Foobar has been reverted so that the move may be discussed. Per Wikipedia:Requested moves, a move request must be placed on the article's talk page, and the request be open for discussion for seven days, "if there is any reason to believe a move would be contested". Please note that any move of a page with a longstanding title and/or a large number of incoming links should be considered potentially controversial, and likely to be contested. Again, thank you for contributing, and enjoy your Wikipedia experience! Thank you.

Cheers! bd2412 T 14:28, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I dunno, man – it looks pretty excellent to me. Joys! – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 14:58, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
I made a minor edit to the template so that the hidden comment at the end matches the template's actual title.  :-) R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:54, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Oops, yes, thanks. Frankly, I think that nothing says "this is policy" better than saying it with a template. bd2412 T 15:58, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
The idea of a template for this reason is a good one. But although I usually don't mind having templates for common notices, I must say that I don't like the particular wording of this one, as the concepts involved in the notice don't seem to properly summarize policy. The suggestion that any move of a long-standing title should be handled as controversial is problematic; this is completely against WP:BOLD, and "the title has been there for a long time" is not a reason listed at WP:RM/TR to suspect the movement is controversial.
Also, "have been reverted so that it can be discussed" sounds bureaucratic; if a movement is not contested, there's no need to discuss it. Therefore the move should only be reverted if the editor reverting has actual reasons for making the revert; never to satisfy a procedural requirement or as punishment for not having held a previous discussion. I'd reword the template along the lines of "the move has been reverted because an editor has found it controversial; now it's time to discuss the reasons that editor has provided at the talk page". It would be good to add a required "reason=" parameter at the template so that it can't be used without explaining the cause why the move is controversial. Diego (talk) 16:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
The policy does say to discuss if there is any reason to believe that the move may be controversial. There is a difference between a move actually being controversial, and there being a reason to believe that it is. To be specific, lately, I have been reverting a lot of bold moves by editors moving well established articles in order to create WP:TWODABS disambiguation pages, where the moved page was clearly the more notable topic. They seem to be under the impression that there must be a disambiguation page at the page title if there is any other meaning of the term, no matter how insignificant comparatively. Of course, the fact that I am reverting these moves per WP:BRD is my own statement that I find them to be controversial, which is therefore a reasonable change to be made to the template. bd2412 T 16:34, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
That's what I'm getting at - the listed reason is not by itself a reason why a move could be controversial; it surely is not the main reason to highlight to newcomers. Having a title that has been arrived by consensus at talk page, yes; being an article about a controversial topic, yes; but merely being there for a long time? An incorrect or misspelled title should be immediately corrected, no matter how time it has been standing there unreviewed. The template is the perfect place to explain the BRD notice as it applies to moves. But it currently stands as describing a preventive measure against moves, which is not policy - as it includes a whole class of possible moves which are not controversial. Diego (talk) 17:32, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
I had originally planned to make a template aimed only at editor who, without discussion, moved a longstanding title for the purpose of creating a WP:TWODABS disambiguation page, with language referring to that policy. Then I thought that it might be good for general purpose information for any reversion of a controversial page move. Perhaps a parameter could be added to provide a message specific to page moves for disambiguation, or for other common controversial reasons for page moves. bd2412 T 19:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Ok, I see. Maybe there should be two templates, then. That case is too specific for a general template, but the wording would make it users think that it can be applied to most moves. The specific TWODAB template would therefore link to the guideline and explain your concern about unneeded DAB pages; and the general template should then be more general. Diego (talk) 21:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
In the dabs case, it would be useful for the template message to point out that it isn't necessary to move the existing article but the new one can be created at a disambiguated title and a hatnote added to the existing title. PamD 23:34, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Dab with no second article with same title

Does the current WP:DAB say that if there aren't other articles with the same title, a DAB is not supposed to be used? Can someone please clarify the meaning for me. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:58, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Not quite. The WP:TWODABS section mentioned the use of the {{Only-two-dabs}} when there are two articles with the same title, but I've fixed that to align with the rest of the page (topics for the ambiguous title). If there aren't multiple topics (on Wikipedia) for a given title, then there's no Wikipedia ambiguity, and a dab is not needed (and not supposed to be used). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:10, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
User:JHunterJ thank you, then following your fix now consistently WP:DAB is not about "same title" (two same titles) but about "topic" (two topics). In ictu oculi (talk) 15:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Iron Throne --- make Disambiguation page

So, i just casually searched for Iron Throne (the Baldur's Gate goverment) and suprisingly ended up at the World of A Song of Ice and Fire page. I highly think "Iron Throne" would be allot more suitable as an Disambiguation-page then how it is now. With links to both Baldur's Gate and the GoT page, instead of just one of them.. As a second question, i don't know how to fix/edit this because there's no red-page which pops-up when u search owith which to edit. Maybe some admin could delete the "transfer" to the World of A Song of Ice and Fire-page and make it into an disambiguation page instead?

--Byzantios (talk) 01:25, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I've looked into this but my head started to spin - see the recent edit history of the orphaned The Iron Throne (Forgotten Realms) for a start. PamD 11:31, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
More comments:
  1. The Iron Throne needs to go the same place as Iron Throne
  2. This is a messy kind of case, where the primary topic (if the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire topic is indeed primary) is likely to lead to a section of an article, so that any "redirect" hatnote would be at the top of the article, far from where the reader gets to, and unlikely to be found. PamD 11:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Well, I went ahead and made a dab page at Iron Throne as a start, in the expectation that someone else will modify it, and linked The Iron Throne to it. PamD 11:47, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
I've expanded the disambiguation page. FWIW, when needed, I place {{redirect}} at the beginning of the target section (not at the top of the article) when a redirect is a section redirect. If this is problematic, we can solve the problem by creating {{section redirect}} or similar. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:31, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
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