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"R from song" (etc.) and DAB pages

I'd wager that WP:CONSENSUS has previously been reached on this topic – if someone can point me to it, that's good enough for me.

An example. Downtown (disambiguation) does not include "Downtown" (Tom Waits song) when it clearly should: major artist, the song should be categorised into at least Category:1980 songs, Category:Tom Waits songs and Category:Songs written by Tom Waits; but as of 2016 it's not notable enough to merit its own article.

(1) It would be easy enough to add to Downtown (disambiguation):

and to create an {{R from song}} redirect page Downtown (Tom Waits song) pointing towards Heartattack and Vine and populating relevant categories. I've done similar in other cases. It's a non-disruptive option.

(2) IMO that is not the best way. On principle, I loathe and despise redirects and pipes on DAB pages. But, this looks better to me:

bluelinking to the identical redirect page. If an article is ever written on the song, the bluelink will point to it. Until then, the bluelink redirects to the album, as it should (the album was mentioned on the DAB page, so it's not a wtf? surprise).

If it wasn't already obvious, I favour #2. Thoughts? Narky Blert (talk) 00:36, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

  • Agreed, #2 is better. I see little problem with linking to a redirect; no more so than within normal articles. The target page will show the "Redirected from X" message below the title, in case there is any confusion about how the reader got there. MOS:DABREDIR does not support such a usage, but I think it can be acceptable when common sense is applied. Song to album is a good example. —swpbT 13:38, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Something I forgot to mention first time round. If an editor wants to link to a song with a possibly-ambiguous title – e.g. from a cover version – it'll be a lot easier to choose the correct link if it's on a DAB page. (Unique titles are no problem at all - e.g. "Diamonds on My Windshield" (a page which doesn't yet exist) or "Starving in the Belly of a Whale" (a page which does).) Narky Blert (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Rfd for redirect Oeuvre and Oeuvre (disambiguation)

I've been asked to inform you of the Redirect for Discussion of Oeuvre at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2016_April_7#Oeuvre. It has been suggested to move Oeuvre (disambiguation) over the redirect. The discussion is likely to remain open for a week, at least. Si Trew (talk) 16:40, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion was procedurally closed with a request to make a requested move, which I have done at Talk:Oeuvre (disambiguation). Si Trew (talk) 09:44, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I have proposed a new gadget that changes the color of links to disambiguation pages to orange (so that they can be easily distinguished from other kinds of links and disambiguated). If you have any opinions on adding this as a new gadget, please comment at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals#Reproposing DisambiguationLinks. Kaldari (talk) 20:44, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Russian Wiki has a nifty gadget - show ambiguous links with a pink background, as here (no need to know the alphabet, just scroll down and look for 1801). (This was an unusual case. An English DN tag pointed me towards two wrong links. The Russian DN tag pointed me to two completely different wrong links ...) Narky Blert (talk) 23:47, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
I commented at the Gadget discussion. bd2412 T 13:58, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Should lists of species that share a common name be set indexes or disambiguation pages?

Please join the discussion here if you have an opinion. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 21:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Heavy chain

I'm not sure whether this should be a WP:DABCONCEPT page. Any thoughts? bd2412 T 01:54, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

DAB style question

If XXXX is a dab page, and XXXXxxx is a term (but not exactly XXXX) and the related article is under a alternate name YYYY, which of these is better: (Note: XXXxxx is a Redirect to YYYY)

  • 1. [[XXXXxxx]], YYYY, further description
  • 2. [[YYYY]], XXXXxxxx, further description

Option one has the blue link more closely matching the subject of the dab page which is why it think it would be preferred, even though it links to a redirect instead of directly to the target article. I think this is in line with MOS:DABREDIR.

The specific case is Atonement where I made such a change today and another editor reverted it. [[1]] MB (talk) 00:27, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

  • I actually have a Draft:Atonement underway, which will largely deal with this problem. The issue here is that most meanings of atonement are subtopics of a larger WP:DABCONCEPT, that being the desire or effort to make up for one's wrongs, whether embedded in psychology or religion. That should be an article, which would no longer be constricted by disambiguation style (which would be restricted to Atonement (disambiguation), where we would list the albums and films). bd2412 T 01:35, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't have an issue with using a redirect, although I don't think we should automatically assume a redirect is always better in such cases. My specific issue with this edit is the ridiculous redundancy it created. Just try reading the entry "Atonement Day, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the biblical/Jewish observance" out loud. older ≠ wiser 01:49, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Captain class

An IP user turned Captain class (originally a redirect to Captain-class frigate) into a DAB in 2012. The problem is, I don't see any evidence that Captain-class battleships exist; apparently the HMS Captain (1869) sank within a year of completion. Is there any need for disambiguation here? Cnilep (talk) 08:05, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Hearing no other opinions, I restored the redirect and added a hatnote at Captain-class frigate to see other uses at Captain (disambiguation). Cnilep (talk) 23:34, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

SpaceNews cleanup

SpaceNews is a dab page with two entries. SpaceNews (publication) has dozens of incoming links, many of which were originally links to the dab page. The other article is SpaceNews (Television Show) which is barely a stub and shouldn't exist (it's notability has been in question since 2009). I think it should be deleted and SpaceNews (publication) moved to SpaceNews. What procedure should I use to accomplish this?. I don't think deleting the TV show will be controversial, so I can PROD that. Then should I use WP:RM for the move? MB (talk) 05:49, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan to me. —swpbT 13:31, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
SpaceNews (television show) is now a redirect to InnerSPACE (where its contents were merged) and SpaceNews (publication) is now a redirect to SpaceNews (where its contents were Moved). There is still a SpaceNews (disambiguation), which is an actual dab page (not a redirect) since the move of SpaceNews (publication) to the prior dab page SpaceNews. Should SpaceNews (disambiguation) be deleted now, or left as a harmless "orphan" dab page? It's not normal to have a "foo (disambiguation)" without a corresponding "foo". And there never should have been a dab page in the first place with only two entries. MB (talk) 02:15, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Noise

Noise (disambiguation) needs some tlc, if anyone fancies an interesting little project (I just dropped by it to add The Noise (band) after stub-sorting it... added the missing hatnote at The Noise but hadn't the energy to do much more right now). PamD 06:57, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Done. —swpbT 16:02, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Indigo

Hello, the above article is about the color, but several sections at the end of it ("In nature", "In culture: Business/Computer graphics/Food/Dyes/Music/Spirituality") read more like trivia or DAB entries. Some of the entries, like the nature ones, seem appropriate, but the others seem to distract from the topic of the article, which is the color. I'm not sure where to draw the lines -- which to delete, which to move to Indigo (disambiguation) -- so can an interested pair of eyes look at it? Even the entries that stay, I would suggest the sections be retitled from "In ..." to a more descriptive title to possibly avoid additional DAB additions. Much rgrds. --64.85.216.133 (talk) 07:35, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Oheka

More opinions welcome on the dab Oheka, and due to the overlap the discussion is at Talk:Oheka Castle#MOS (former redirect target). Widefox; talk 01:29, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Splitting the acronym and dab discussion - the dab discussion is now at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oheka. (the old version of the dab [2] had the same acronym definition but doesn't now). Widefox; talk 10:40, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Marques / Marqués

Currently Marques and Marqués exist as separate pages, each linking to the other. But nearly two-thirds of the blue links at Marqués are actually people or things called Marques without the accent mark. Is there any reason these two pages shouldn't be merged? The accented Marqués is relatively long, with 22 links, mostly to people with the surname. Both pages are in need of clean-up, but perhaps the question of merging or separating should be decided first. Cnilep (talk) 02:17, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm in favor of merging Marques with Marqués, just like Marquez and Márquez are. — Kpalion(talk) 05:23, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
Done. I merged most stuff at Marques, and split out the surnamed people to Marques (surname). Cnilep (talk) 02:02, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

John Pope

I ran across John Pope (Kentucky) and find it is oddly named. He lived in Virginia from birth to college graduation, then Kentucky for many decades and held many political offices but with a six year stint as Governor of Arkansas. People are usually disambiguated by occupation, so I think John Pope (politican) would be better. It is an improvement to do a move or is it fine as is? MB 05:09, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

There are several other politicians among among those listed at John Pope. Might be better to use WP:RM to discuss at Talk:John Pope (Kentucky). older ≠ wiser 11:04, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

There is now a gadget available to highlight links to disambiguation pages (and redirects to disambiguation pages). Kaldari (talk) 19:25, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Lovely! This is going to be so useful! Uanfala (talk) 19:27, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
Oh hell yeah. All barnstars to whoever made this! —swpbT 20:09, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
I stumbled across this yesterday; where have you been all my life?? — Gorthian (talk) 03:34, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
As mentioned on the project page overleaf, there's User:Anomie/linkclassifier, and it has been around since November 2007. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Help me understand Disambiguation – NBOME v NBOMe

[I'm relatively new to Wikipedia editing. While I can sometimes look at the history of articles and figure things out, this one has defeated me.]

I'm puzzled by a situation I encountered in attempting to disambiguate some pages where there's a reference to NBOMe as a family of drugs. There's just one disambiguation page, but it also brings in the differently-capitalized NBOME. As best I can tell, this was brought about after NBOMe (drug) was moved to NBOMe (disambiguation) when someone realized that the NBOMe (drug) page was just a list of links to the various members of the family.

Without a full understanding of what's allowed and not allowed on dab pages (and I've seen a fair number now, with quite diverse styles), I would have expected that there might have been a hatnote on NBOMe (disambiguation) to the effect of this page is about the family of psychoactive drugs, for the medical examination board see NBOME. This would parallel the hatnote at the top of the NBOME page.

Would it be okay if I made that change? Or is there a better way to handle this situation?

Thanks.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 05:00, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

The hatnotes don't need to be symmetrical. It's quite likely that someone looking for one of the NBOMe drugs will type "nbome" into the search box and be redirected to National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners, so we need a hatnote to direct them to the page they're looking for. On the other hand, it unlikely that someone looking for the examination board will type "NBOMe" into the search box, so we don't need a hatnote there. A "see also" link at the bottom of NBOMe should be enough, if necessary at all.
That said, as all items listed at NBOMe are closely related, it makes sense to change the page from disambiguation into a set index. The hatnote at National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners would also need to be updated. — Kpalion(talk) 06:42, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Done. — Kpalion(talk) 06:49, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for that. I hadn't encountered set index before. I need to go back and clean up some dab comments I made in things that tried to point to NBOMe. This resolves one species of problem I have been experiencing with disambiguating.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 07:27, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
I see that there is now the moral equivalent of a distinguish hatnote at the bottom for the differently capitalized NBOME. I agree that this is better than See also.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 18:09, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject Disambiguation banner discouraged on discussionless pages?

On the project page it says Project banner for talk pages with discussion. Please do not use to create talk pages that have no discussion.. From a general WikiProject perspective, where the project wants to keep track of all its pages, this seems counterintuitive to me. Could someone explain?   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:16, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Maybe someone more experienced could explain the subtleties, but there's one very blunt reason for that: the {{disambiguation}} template placed on every disambiguation page already places it in Category:All article disambiguation pages. That's all we need to keep track of them, afaik. I don't think the "page quality" or "importance" ratings are of any use for dab pages. Uanfala (talk) 14:29, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I guess a better question is: what's the purpose of {{WikiProject Disambiguation}}? The banner doesn't make available the |class= & |importance= parameters. If the sole purpose is to track disambig discussions, that should be stated on the project page and in the template documentation. Right now they don't jibe nor mention this, and I hesitate to update the template documentation without clearer reasoning.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
I guess if there's a discussion on the talk page, the project banner might serve the flimsy function of reminding participants that it's a disambiguation page they're discussing. I personally only use this template when turning an already existing page (with an existing talk page) into a dab, to replace the now irrelevant banners of other projects (typically, Wikipedia:Wikiproject Redirect). Uanfala (talk) 15:27, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 Done Template:WikiProject Disambiguation/doc updated to match WP:WPDIS.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:33, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
I've changed it a bit so that it's allowed not just on talk pages with discussions, but on talk pages with any content, including XfD notices or other project's banners. I think this should be fairly uncontroversial. Uanfala (talk) 12:58, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
FWIW, the talk page project template is used by the User:AAlertBot to populate Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Article alerts, so IMO that is an extremely good reason to populate the project template on any disambiguation talk pages. I think the Project page should have been changed to match the template doc page rather than the other way around. older ≠ wiser 15:51, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
I haven't poked around the article alerts system before, but from what I see at Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscription list it seems that this project is subscribed by both the banner and the article category. Either one should be enough, no? Uanfala (talk) 16:03, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
If alerts using the maincategory parameter works, then probably don't need both. But I see no mention of this parameter at Template:ArticleAlertSubscription or at Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing. older ≠ wiser 16:40, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, the |maincategory= parameter isn't listed in the documentation, but it seems to be working: Neither Tarkovsky nor Draft:Legal stone have any banners on their talk pages (the second one doesn't have a talk page at all) but they're listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Article alerts. Uanfala (talk) 16:57, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Tarkovsky does actually have a project tag, {{DisambigProject}}, but Draft:Legal stone does not (no talk page). Draft:Legal stone does have {{dab}} at the bottom of the article, though, which might be how it's captured.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:18, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
(ec) Uanfala, I think Talk:Tarkovsky has had a dab project tag since it was created. Draft:Legal stone might indicate maincategory is working, though it'd be nice to see a few other use cases to be sure. older ≠ wiser 17:27, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
(ec) Ooops, how have I overlooked that. Anyway, article alerts are working as they are supposed to and it's through Category:All disambiguation pages which is populated by {{dab}}. Another example is Garden town (disambiguation) (the talk page was a redirect before I placed the banner just now). Also, half the articles now listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Article alerts don't have talk pages. Uanfala (talk) 17:36, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Bkonrad, I agree (originally for other reasons, but yours is far better, if it proves true).

This project doesn't appear on Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProject watchers (as of 5 July 2016), which means that it has fewer than 30 page watchers. Perhaps we should post a more-visible link to this discussion to get more input (I'm not sure where)? If it's decided that banners be added, I'll be able to help. I've already done something similar to this at WP:AST with our plethora of minor planet #Rs and can adapt that here.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:09, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Tom.Reding, a little surprised at the number of watchers given the number of participants in the project, but perhaps people have taken it off their watchlist. I think WT:Disambiguation and WT:MOSDAB are both more watched. I think last time this came up there was opposition to automated creation of the talk pages, but in practice, I see the talk pages being routinely created by the addition of the project tag. There is even Category:Unsynchronized disambiguation talk pages‎‎ to capture mismatched talk pages that result from page moves. If the maincategory parameter of the alerts works, then that would remove this reason for adding the project tags.older ≠ wiser 17:27, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
 Resolved, due to {{dab}}.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  18:16, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, the above discussion makes it clear that project banners on talk pages without any other content do not serve any purpose. But I'd just like to point (for the record) to a case where their presence creates a minor inconvenience. When editing dab pages it's nice to know if there are any discussions on the talk pages (especially useful when making potentially controversial changes). And all it takes to find that out is a glance at the link to the talk page: if it's red then there isn't any discussion. But most of the time the link is blue and I have to click on it and load the talk page, in the overwhelming majority of cases to see nothing but the banner. For that reason I'd support any move to automatically delete any talk pages that only contain the project banner (and don't have any other content in previous revisions). Uanfala (talk) 19:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Christian Warren

Could someone else please look at Christian Warren? This editor is edit warring like this on number of dabs but just won't listen to my Talk page messages or edit summaries. I'm reluctant to get involved in an edit war or go beyond WP:3RR. Thanks in advance for any help, Boleyn (talk) 06:24, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Could not find any talk page messages either at Talk:Osunlade or Talk:Christian Warren, and yet the page is definitely not a disambiguation page. Another editor has redirected it in support of your opinion.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  20:00, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

tea garden

I'm not sure where to put this, but please could someone take a look at Tea garden. Thank you. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:13, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean, because it appears to be a stub article about tea gardens at this juncture. It does not appear suitable as a disambiguation page since that would require all the links to be titled "Tea garden". Does need to be expanded, though.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  20:07, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
It is written as if to distinguish between tea plantations on the one hand, and several links to different sorts of gardens for drinking tea on the other; not to mention Teagarden, the surname. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:13, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
(In response to this thread) I've been making some edits to that page. From the inlinks it's clear that some articles refer to "tea garden" meaning a place where tea is cultivated (some of which I've changed to go to the redirect at Tea garden (cultivation)) and other articles refer to "tea garden" meaning a place where tea is consumed - so really it should be a dab page. DexDor (talk) 21:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the changes you've made. I agree that it should be a dab page, but despite (or because of) reading screenfuls of WP guidance, I can't see how to make it into one, which is why I posted the request here. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 22:48, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

It looks as though contributors to that page have two, somewhat incompatible aims: to describe and list gardens where tea is consumed, and to differentiate Wikipedia articles that could be called "tea garden". Assuming that both of those aims are appropriate, I have boldly split the disambiguation content to Tea garden (disambiguation). If you don't think the list of tea gardens is appropriate, you might bring it up for deletion. Cnilep (talk) 01:51, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

With the current arrangement the article is likely to get inlinks from pages such as 1840 which use the term "tea garden" to mean a plantation. In the UK the term "tea garden" usually means a place where tea is consumed, but that may not be true worldwide. Hence, I wonder whether tea garden should be a dab page - however, that would mean moving the existing Tea garden article to something like Tea garden (drinking tea) which is ugly. DexDor (talk) 05:38, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that's what the hatnote is for. My solution is probably not ideal, but as you say other solutions are also problematic. Cnilep (talk) 05:47, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for dealing with this. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 22:31, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

University Station

University Station might need some clean up. There is also Metro Universidad (disambiguation). This search might help for University Station. But whether the stations are commonly referred to as "university station" is not always clear. Carcharoth (talk) 11:43, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

My disambiguation edit at Gerbil was recently reverted with the comment "The disambiguation page is just a redirect, totally useless to change the link."

I'm just going along picking up work items from the various WikiProject Disambiguation lists and I'd like it if, when I take care of an item, it stayed off the list for a while. Is my approach wrong here?

It's not quite true that changing the link is useless. By adding the (disambiguation) I get it off the work list, and make it clear to later editors that someone has looked at this issue of an ambiguous Latin binomial species name and that this is just the state of the world and we can't do any better. Not all changes that do not change the appearance of the rendered text are useless.

Thanks,  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 19:42, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

This is addressed very specifically at WP:D#HOWTODAB, which is a section of WP:INTDABLINK: "To link to a disambiguation page (rather than to a page whose topic is a specific meaning), link to the title that includes the text "(disambiguation)", even if that is a redirect." (Italics in original.) The editor who reverted you evidently was unaware of this guidance. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:25, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
I've reverted the reversion, and left a message which I hope is friendly and educational on the talk page of the other editor involved. PamD 21:56, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm still pretty new around here. I can now go forward with more confidence.
Does this mean that, if the situation occurs that the (disambiguation) redirect is missing, that I should create it? I'm thinking of an example I ran into lately, a little like Mental state (disambiguation), but I think I gave up on it so it didn't leave a trace in my contrib list (and my own brain is insufficient to recall the details). These (disambiguation) redirect pages are not produced automatically, right?  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 01:26, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
@Jmcgnh: I too am pretty new around here. No - (disambiguation) pages are not created automatically. As I understand it, if you find an article with tell-tale signs like {{disambig}} on the page itself and/or {{WP Disambiguation}} on the talk page - or if you create a new DAB page - it is always correct to create the (disambiguation) page if it doesn't already exist. (The contents of the (disambiguation) page should be of the form #REDIRECT [[target]] {{R to disambiguation page}}. Do not add any other disambig-type info to it - it's nothing more than a redirect page.)
If it's a See Also or hatnote sort of thing: link to the (disambiguation) page, nothing more is needed.
If I approve or add a link to a (disambiguation) page in maintext, I'll add something like <!--Intentional link to DAB page--> after it to show that I made a considered decision. If a later editor has a better idea, excellent! - but they know they're taking the baton from someone who thought about the problem, rather than one who didn't. If I can neither approve nor resolve a maintext link to a DAB page, I'll throw my hands up and add a {{dn|date=}} tag in the hope that someone else can solve the problem. Narky Blert (talk) 22:09, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
@Narky Blert: I'll think about adopting that "intentional link" practice, though I would think the mere presence of the (disambiguation) qualifier should convey the same message. Otherwise, we seem to be on the same track.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 22:54, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
@Jmcgnh: Links to (disambiguation) pages - in an ideal world, yes, they should be a sign that an earlier editor has made a considered decision. But, here's a recent example where I came across a bad link to a (disambiguation) page, and added a DN; and then, after checking a page I remembered seeing, added a hidden note saying why I think it's a bad link. I suspect that an editor may have tried to solve a User:DPL bot notice by linking to Thorfinn (disambiguation) rather than by addressing the underlying problem of who that Thorfinn or Torpin actually was (and indeed, whether linking him to Dick Turpin is justified, or is WP:OR). Narky Blert (talk) 22:39, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

White Oak

White oak redirects to an article section on the tree, while White Oak redirects to a disambiguation page. Is this intentional? Is the difference in capitalization enough to change the primary meaning, i.e White oak is a tree and White Oak is a place (which requires disambiguation)? Note that this distinction is not on the dab page - it uses both forms and lists the tree first. MB 15:11, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

  • This is intentional. The capitalized "White Oak" refers to a number of place names, which are never referred to in the lowercase. This leads to an increased ambiguity for the capitalized form as compared to the lowercase form. bd2412 T 16:25, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Bo Diddley (song)

Hello. Here's a question about the redirect "Bo Diddly (song)". There are two articles about songs called "Bo Diddly", one famous -- the article is called "Bo Diddly (Bo Diddly song)" -- and one obscure -- the article is called "Bo Diddley (Arvingarna song)". So, should the redirect point to the more general Bo Diddly disambiguation page, like this? Or should it point to the article about the "primary topic", like this? (I was thinking it's the former. But if it's the latter, as another editor is suggesting, then I think the target article should itself be renamed to "Bo Diddly (song)"). Thanks. — Mudwater (Talk) 03:47, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

To say the same thing a different way, I think there are two ways to do this correctly. (1) Have the article about the famous song be called "Bo Diddley (Bo Diddley song)", and have "Bo Diddly (song)" be a redirect pointing to "Bo Diddley (disambiguation)" -- where there are links to both Bo Diddley song articles -- *or* (2) have the article about the famous song be called "Bo Diddley (song)", with a hatnote for the other article. But we should not mix these two together, as is the case at the moment, where "Bo Diddley (song)" points to "Bo Diddley (Bo Diddley song)". — Mudwater (Talk) 05:00, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Not being familiar with all the nuances, I would venture to say that that current arrangement would be fine with the addition of a "See also" mention of the (Arvingarna song) at the bottom of the (Bo Diddly song).
  • Bo Diddly [with hatnote to (disambiguation)]
  • Bo Diddly (disambiguation) [with links to both songs]
  • Bo Diddly (Bo Diddly song) [with See also mention of (Arvingarna song)]
  • Bo Diddly (Arvingarna song)
  • Bo Diddly (song) [redirect to (Bo Diddly song)]
This arrangement reflects the great disparity between famous and obscure without giving the obscure one more or less prominence than it warrants.
But I'm still pretty new around here; there may well exist good arguments for doing it another way.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 05:50, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Alabama

Hello. In Alabama (disambiguation) page I see Alabam (song). I think it is not correct. What you think? --Aabdullayev851 (talk) 05:11, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

What don't you think is correct? The shortened spelling is the correct title of the song and the song is within the scope of the disambiguation page because readers may not realize that the song title is a truncation of the state name rather than just a contraction by the performer. And the entry pointing to the (Cowboy Copas song) redirect to the Alabam (song) is appropriate because it helps distinguish the entries that might otherwise look pretty similar.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 07:33, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Aabdullayev851, jmcgnh is correct. Alabam (song) does belong on that dab page. But having a redirect on a dab page is not correct, so I have updated the page. — Gorthian (talk) 18:52, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
As there's a separate dab page at Alabam, perhaps there should be a "See also" link to that instead of including the song on the Alabama (disambiguation) page? If the song, why not the town of Alabam, Arkansas? PamD 21:17, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
The dab pages are coming out of the woodwork! PamD, thank you. Aabdullayev851, you were right in the first place. I've modified Alabama (disambiguation) according to PamD's suggestion. — Gorthian (talk) 21:32, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Unitarian

Unitarian needs work from this angle. Been a while, but I might do it when I have time, but feel free to dive in. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 14:59, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree it is less than optimally helpful to the casual reader. We do have the Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Unitarian Universalism work group, which might help. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Adjective phrases as titles, partial title matches and broad concept articles

Project participants might be interested in a discussion touching on these topics at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Purely functional. older ≠ wiser 13:23, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Although that Afd has now been closed, I would be interested in hearing other editors' opinions on the topic of adjective phrases. I almost always have thought of these cases as partial titles, but am starting to wonder if that's the best way to handle it. For example, I recently condensed Convex, but I couldn't help but think as I removed the entry for convex lens, "this is exactly what I picture when I think of the term convex." Has there been any previous consensus on the project regarding this? -- Fyrael (talk) 18:22, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
I put convex lens in the "See also" section of convex. It is a partial title match rather than an ambiguous title, and so it doesn't belong among the ambiguous entries, but as you said, it's so closely associated with the word that it almost demands some presence. That is the exact purpose of the "See also" section. —swpbT 12:48, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
I read that, on occasion heated, exchange, chiefly between Bkonrad on one side, and Diego Moya and Ruud Koot on the other. I must say I'm mostly on the side of the latter, and I'd say that the practice agrees: we routinely do list partial title matches deemed as likely search targets. As Diego said, Any item in the list may be what the reader had in mind when they though of a "purely functional something" should be on that dab page. I don't think the WP:PTM was intended to be overly strict, and it chiefly cautions against being overly broad (though it could be somewhat more precise). As Swpb said, if the first association you get when you hear "convex" is "convex lens", IMO it deserves a mention somewhere on the talk page. (I agree with putting it in "see also", but I wouldn't mind having it listed as a main entry either). Dab pages are supposed to be navigation aid first and foremost, and writing a good dab page is more an exercise in common sense than a process guided by clearly defined rules. No such user (talk) 15:11, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
No such user is completely right that making a good disambiguation page requires common sense (although I'd prefer the term "good taste"). The only question that you need to ask yourself when deciding whether to add an entry to a disambiguation page or not, is if it is going to help or hinder a reader stumbling on the disambiguation page to get to the correct article.
Adding all zoos that have the word Zoo in their name—and will thus be referred to as "the zoo" by locals—to Zoo (disambiguation) is obviously a bad idea: there are hundreds of such zoos and adding them all would make the disambiguation page unwieldy in size and crowd out other entries, such as films named Zoo. Zoos that don't have the word Zoo in their name—but are probably still called "the zoo"—will be missing from that list. The correct thing to here would be to create a List of zoos and link to that from the disambiguation page. This is the common sense that WP:PTM tries to encode in policy.
The situation for Convex is very different. Typical mathematics texts read something like: "Let f be curve. [...] If f is convex, then [...]" or "Let G be a group. If [...], then G is Abelian." (And I'm sure optics texts will say things like "it is convex", where "it" is understood to be a lens.) If the reader has forgotten what "convex" or "Abelian" means in this context and refers to the Wikipedia entries Convex or Abelian, they should be directed to Convex curve and Abelian group, respectively. After Fyrael's edits they will only find a link to Convexity (mathematics) on the former disambiguation page, which redirects to Convex set. This is problematic, as a convex curve is the boundary of a convex set, and that boundary is not a convex set itself. The only point of discussion here is if "true" partial title matches like Convex optimization need to be included, as one never says something like "The optimization is convex." and is thus unlikely to end up on the disambiguation page while looking for that article.
—Ruud 16:26, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
In light of this discussion, would anyone like to comment on the last edit to Ray tracing. MB 16:40, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
There I would agree with the removal of Distributed ray tracing and Ray tracing hardware: these really should be subsections/subarticles of Raytracing (graphics) and are thus redundant with that link. There's no good story for how you are looking for "distributed ray tracing" or "ray tracing hardware" specifically, and manage to end up at the disambiguation page. —Ruud 19:17, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
But they are not subsections of Raytracing (graphics); they are presently separate articles. If someone inquired about "Ray Tracing", might it not be useful to list all four articles. They may learn that there is a specific article on Ray tracing hardware and want to go right to that without having to first learn of its existence by reading Raytracing (graphics). It may help someone. It is really a burden to have four entries on a DAB page instead of two? MB 23:29, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
It would be harder to pick Ray tracing (physics) from four instead of two links, yes. So the "it may help some" must be weighed against that opportunity cost. The purpose of disambiguation pages is to aid in navigation of content (where your know where your want to go) and not for discovery. That's best left to the articles themselves. That these two articles are not even summarized as sections in the main article also suggests that they are somewhat obscure topics. So if you would include those, why wouldn't you include other articles related to Ray tracing (graphics) on the disambiguation, too? This would just spiral out of control quickly. I think the best solution here would actually be to summarize these two article as (sub)sections of the main article. Slightly more work than adding to two links to a disambiguation page, but more helpful for the reader in the end. —Ruud 05:26, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
This really comes down to predicting user behavior. Taking Ruud's example of a person reading something about a "curve that is convex" and not remembering or wanting to find further information about what convex means in this context, I would imagine them following one of two paths: either they want information about "convex" in the broader mathematical sense and would just use that single term in their search or they only want information within the scope of curves and they would include both "curve" and "convex" in their search. I have no problem with logical exceptions like convex lens, but I think they should probably be exceptions to the policy rather than the policy. Otherwise I fear that too many dab pages would become copies of the index of articles beginning with that term. -- Fyrael (talk) 17:53, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
If I'm reading a text discussing named objects of type 'T', say hypotrochoids, and three pages down the road it is mentioned that one of the named objects has property 'P', say being convex, and I need to know what 'P' means, I'll start looking under 'P', not 'P T'. Why? Because there's a good chance there won't be an article on Convex hypotrochoids. I do know that hypotrochoids are a special kind of curves, and the old disambiguation page would thus have let me straight to Convex curve. Now, after your edits, I end up at the much less useful Convex set. I really don't see any benefit in trimming that page down? (And where you said "broader mathematical sense" you must have meant the "everyday sense" as noted on the disambiguation page: "curving out or extending outward". Then, no, in that situation I'm looking for a precise mathematical definition, and a convex curve is not a convex set, and a convex set is not a convex curve.)
Your fear is unfounded. This has been the practice for a decade-and-a-half and works well. "Index pages" aren't inherently harmful. They would only become unwieldy for some disambiguation pages (e.g. Blue (disambiguation) or Light (disambiguation)). Convex is never going to have more than two dozen entries. Most editors have enough common sense to decide when this is and isn't appropriate without needing to refer to policy.
—Ruud 19:17, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Ruud – I think you overly trimmed the dab page, and it isn't better off now than it was before. If I might turn into a lab rat for a second: I visited the old version of Convex driven by sheer curiosity which mathematical objects can be "convex". Then I clicked a few, read the lead or the entire article, and I learned something new. So, I wasn't looking after any particular page – just lurking and reading articles that seemed interesting. Your trimming deprived me of that reading strategy. That is how I often use Wikipedia as a reader – start from a particular topic and then wander off by following wikilinks that seem interesting. I don't know how typical that style is, but I'd say it isn't uncommon. I certainly wouldn't like to parse a 100-entry dab page when I do search for something specific, but up to some 30-40, organized in sections, are quite manageable (I am an exceptionally quick reader/skimmer though). So "Index pages" aren't inherently harmful indeed. No such user (talk) 08:00, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
Although it's ridiculous to say that my fears are "unfounded", I'm willing to relent the point here because, as I said originally, I was on the fence about this and I realize that I lean more heavily towards brevity than many other editors. To this last point though I'd like to say that No such user's experiment is really not what disambiguation pages are meant for; that's exactly the intent of broad concept articles. We are meant to assist the user in getting to the topic they were searching for "quickly and easily". Of course I'm not saying that we should punish a curious browser, but we don't need to think about catering to them while we're editing.
And speaking to Convex in particular, I only felt comfortable making as large a sweep as I did because 1)the fact that convexity (mathematics) redirected to convex set suggested that the article would do a fair job of covering the broader term and 2)several of the removed entries directly mentioned convex sets in their description, so it again seemed that their contextual meaning of "convex" would be covered by the sets article. If other editors want to restore some of those entries I'm certainly not going to stand in the way. -- Fyrael (talk) 14:05, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Consider "Gravity Model" for Set Index?

I've been looking at the WP:DPL work item Gravity model. If I understand things correctly, this may be a case where changing to a Set Index page may be appropriate. There is a general thing called a gravity model in social sciences and a list of items that are gravity models as applied to different problems in the social sciences.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 19:02, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

The guidance says that a set-index article is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that share the same (or similar) name. The articles at gravity model might meet the "specific type" definition, but only two of the four listed have names that are similar. My first impulse is to tag it as a WP:DABCONCEPT; it seems to need an overview article to go into the details of how this works and where it's applied. Another reservation I have about the set-index idea is that there is a completely different "gravity model" that I don't see an article for: it's used to model the surface of the Earth in spatial calculations of all kinds: the geoid, gravity anomalies, and in calculations of gravitational acceleration. So I don't think it qualifies as a set-index article. Unfortunately, it's a pretty crummy dab page. — Gorthian (talk) 01:04, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Agree that it's a mess, which is why I'm casting about for other solutions. The WP:DABCONCEPT might be appropriate. I've collected some additional refs that could be used to expand the lead and was already unhappy with how it is currently worded.
It should be clearer that this is about analogs of the physical theory of gravity (mostly Newtonian) as applied to social sciences problems; similar mathematics, but not necessarily exactly the same formulas.
Those other things you mentioned all sound like applications of regular physics of gravity, but there is the word phrase "gravity model" in there just to keep things interesting (and which I had not found).
If I have time, I'll try to work up a more complete proposal on how to deal with this, but I'm still interested in what other editors think about this little problem.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 02:09, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
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