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naming and linking

See Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#naming and linking for a discussion about this. Thanks. ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 22:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

New page to help make disambiguation pages

Greetings. I run a pot named User:polbot, and one of her current tasks (running as I type) is to look through articles on American politicians and try to find alternate names. For instance, the article Samuel Smith Harrison suggests Samuel S. Harrison and Samuel Harrison, and polbot creates redirects for these names if no article exists at that name.

As I side-effect of this process, I'm keeping track of situations where a name should refer back to a politician, but it's already an article about a different person. For instance, the Samuel Harrison article is about someone named "Samuel Bealey Harrison", and the article doesn't disambiguate to Samuel Smith Harrison. I have a list of over a thousand such cases, where either an {{otherpersons}} tag needs to be used, or a disambiguation page needs to be created. So what I'm thinking of doing is formatting these entries into easy-to-read notes on a page where you fine disambiguation-enthusiasts could create or expand disambiguation pages to encompass these unrecognized entries. I'm thinking of putting this at Wikipedia:Suggestions for name disambiguation. I thought I'd solicit feedback here first, though. Any comments or suggestions? – Quadell (talk) (random) 21:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example of what text could be produced:

  1. John E. Andrus
    • John Andrus redirects to John Emory Andrus, which doesn't mention this person.
      • Consider changing the rd to a dab, and adding {{otherpeople2|John Andrus}} to both pages.
      • If they're about the same person, use {{merge|John Emory Andrus}} and {{merge|John E. Andrus}}
  2. John E. Cunningham
    • John Cunningham is a dab which doesn't mention this person.
      • Consider adding this to the dab: * [[John E. Cunningham]], a U.S. Congress member
  3. John E. Moss
    • John Moss redirects to Johnny Moss, which doesn't mention this person.
      • Consider changing the rd to a dab, and adding {{otherpeople2|John Moss}} to both pages.
      • If they're about the same person, use {{merge|Johnny Moss}} and {{merge|John E. Moss}}
  4. John Edwards (Arkansas)
  5. John F. Andrew
    • John Andrew doesn't mention this person.
      • Consider creating a dab page at John Andrew (disambiguation), and adding {{otherpersons|John Andrew}} to both pages.
      • Or you could add {{otherpeople4|x|the U.S. politician|John F. Andrew}} to one page and {{otherpeople4|the U.S. politician|x|John Andrew}} to the other.
      • If they're about the same person, use {{merge|John Andrew}} and {{merge|John F. Andrew}}

This should give you some idea. – Quadell (talk) (random) 22:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

At first glance, outstanding. I think this would be terrific. older ≠ wiser 00:52, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Except I just noticed the first article listed, John E. Andrus, was created by polbot and is a duplicate of John Emory Andrus. Has the bot already gone through the Congressional Bioguide? Or could the bot perhaps identify potentially ambiguous articles before creating them? older ≠ wiser 00:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Polbot's done creating articles. Unfortunately, she wasn't smart enough to avoid creating dupes, but I avoided it as much as possible by using a list of missing articles. Because of the possibility of dupes (like John Andrus), I included the merge templates to paste on the tops of the articles. There really shouldn't be too many, but there will be some. – Quadell (talk) (random) 01:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

And we are go! Knock yourselves out, kids. :-) – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Viridian

The artcles Viridian and Viridian (disambiguation) have considerable overlap. I couldn't think of a good way to tag the articles themselves, so I thought I'd make a comment here and solicit a volunteer for cleanup. Matchups 18:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Tsubaki - Review requested

Please review Tsubaki which I've just fixed up.

Old version: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tsubaki&oldid=138067506.

There is no primary topic, but I left the flower and name references at the top. The link to Japanese Wikipedia has been left in so someone can at least find the information there and perhaps add it to the English article. I don't want any more information removed, but I'm not sure I reordered everything correctly. For example, should the two unambiguous names of manga artists by moved to the last category? I think they look better at the top near the references to other people. How about the shrines which only start with "Tsubaki"?

What is the standard for fictional characters with same name in different works? They look a bit redundant. ("Tsubaki, a character from InuYasha" "Tsubaki, a character from Naruto") Should the pipe-links and descriptions be removed (since the disambiguous article name gives the topic), or more specific descriptions added?


I would also like it if someone would create the Tsubaki (singer) article for me. If you start the article, I will fill in details from Japanese Wikipedia or other sources.

Thanks! --70.234.40.15 09:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Minor advice for improvement:
  1. Use the preview button when you clean up. That way, the history is less cluttered. ;-)
  2. One blue link per entry, meaning: instead of "Tsubaki Nekoi, a famous mangaka and a member of the all-female manga-creating team Clamp", write "Tsubaki Nekoi, a famous mangaka and a member of the all-female manga-creating team Clamp" or maybe even shorten more to "Tsubaki Nekoi, member of the manga-creating team Clamp"
  3. Don't pipe entries. I.e. not "Tsubaki, a character from Naruto" but instead "Tsubaki (Naruto), a character from Naruto" EDIT: It would be even better to write "Tsubaki (Naruto), a character from Naruto" (<- see where Naruto links), but Tsubaki doesn't show up there. I don't know whether that means that this character is so non-notable that it may even need to get removed from the dab page. If that Tsubaki existed, you might also write "Tsubaki, a character from Naruto" (<- see where Tsubaki links).
  4. Don't write sentences, but sentence fragments with the important word first. I.e. not "Tsubaki-hime is the nickname of the character Tsubaki Kakyouin in Descendants of Darkness" but "Tsubaki Kakyouin, nicknamed Tsubaki-hime, a character in Descendants of Darkness"
  5. On disambigation pages, put {{disambig}} at the end.
But a really good job otherwise. :-) – sgeureka t•c 10:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Greetings. I notice in the style guide entry on dab pages, that you're not supposed to pipe links in dab entries. Many do. (An example of this is John McCarthy (permalink [1].) I'm thinking about writing a bot to take out all piped redirects from dab pages. But the style guide also says to "ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason". Are there situations where an entry should be piped? Do you keeper-of-the-dabs think it's a good idea or a bad idea to run this sort of task as a bot? Do the benefits outweigh the downsides? Comments welcome. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

For example, piping is necessary to format titles: italicizing movie titles, quoting song titles. Piping is also acceptable when the entry subject is not linked, but a blue link is provided in the description (often a section link, which should definitely be piped). Finally, there is a guideline that says the primary topic in the intro paragraph (if there is one) should be linked by piped redirect, ostensibly for helping other bots determine that it's an intentional link to a possibly ambiguous title, but I find that guideline clunky at best. -- JHunterJ 19:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I can italicize Ghostbusters without piping, but I'm guessing you mean like Jaws (film), which should be piped as Jaws (film). That's something the bot could filter out: if the piped link has a double apostrophe, the bot would leave the pipe in. As to the other situations you mention, I could limit my conversions to links that immediately follow a * at the start of a line (i.e. a list entry). That should prevent pipes from being removed in the header paragraph or in descriptions. Would this be a good bot to run? – Quadell (talk) (random) 03:00, 16 June 2007 (UTC
Not necessarily. If removing the piped link means leaving an entry that did not have any obvious reason to be on the page, then the edits would not be helpful. In the page you mentioned, John McCarthy, where all the piped links are parenthetical dabs of the base name, there is no problem. But sometimes disambiguation pages have piped links where the target name is something other than the display name. This sometimes happens with place names or with merged stubs. These should probably be cleaned up, but I'm not sure I'd trust a bot to due it. OTOH, if the bot could generate a list of such pages that might need cleanup, that could be helpful. older ≠ wiser 03:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I could certainly create a bot to create a list of such pages. In fact, it could be expanded to look through all dabs for probable problems of all sorts. I'll probably do that if it looks like this bot suggestion isn't a good idea. So far I see one opinion against running such a bot, and no opinions in favor. Any other comments before I give up on the idea? – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think a tightly-reined bot, one that removed piping from dab page lines that:
  1. begin with an asterisk
  2. lead with a piped wikilink before any other text after the asterisk
  3. have no single or double quotation marks in the second part of the pipe link
would be useful and not run afoul of any of the normally warranted piping. (If it also generated a suggestion list for human follow-up, so much the better.) -- JHunterJ 22:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the situation older is cautious of is one where "Alex Jones" is the common name and article name of "Michael Alexander Jones", and the "Michael Jones" dab lists him. (I'm making this example up.) The dab should ideally say something like "* Michael Alexander Jones, known as [[Alex Jones]] (1854 - 1907), Belgian underwater basket-weaver". But frequently the dab page will instead say something like "[[Alex Jones|Michael (Alex) Jones]]. . . ", and this bot would turn this into "[[Alex Jones]]. . . ", which would look like it was misfiled. I don't think I can make the bot smart enough to avoid those situations.

In my opinion, those would be infrequent, and would simply switch the article from one misleading and non-standard format to a different misleading and non-standard format, which at least isn't a step backwards. – Quadell (talk) (random) 23:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Perhaps the bot could add a hidden comment for editors who later some to edit the page to remind them to check for alternate uses before simply removing an entry. older ≠ wiser 00:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Are there other things the bot should look for? Common mistakes that the bot could either fix or add {{disambig-cleanup}} regarding? They would have to be fairly straight-forward to find though; bots are notoriously bad at making common-sense decisions. I was thinking, for instance, that the bot could count how many links are in item-descriptions in the dab. (There aren't supposed to be any, unless the link is essential for understanding context.) If there are more than, say, six in the entire dab, it's probably too much, so the bot could tag the page for cleanup and leave a note as to why. Is this a good idea? Any other things the bot could look for? – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

If the main entry in not linked or is itself a redlink, there should be one (blue) link in the description. User:Interiot has semi-automatically tagged some dabs for cleanup; you might ping him/her directly to collaborate. -- JHunterJ 15:24, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguating sound-alike names

Some names have alternate spellings (Sean and Shawn) and others are commonly confused (Johnson and Johnston), and these ought to be disambiguated, but I'm having trouble deciding on the best way to do this. Take Louis Meyer, for example. "Louis" should probably be disambiguated with "Lou", "Louie", "Lewis", and even rarities like "Louiss" and "Loui". "Meyer" should be disambiguated with "Meier", "Meijer", "Mayer", "Meyers", "Myers", and possibly others. Combining those possibilities (with middle names thrown in), I find Louis B. Meyer, Lou Myers, and Louis B. Mayer, although there are probably others I'm missing. Now each one could explicitly disambiguate the other three at the top with a {{for}}, but this would be unwieldy. If this should be a dab page, where should it be? Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Book World

Greetings! There has been a disagreement about whether or not this DAB page should include a link to Publishing. I do not think "book world" has been used to refer to the book publishing industry, but other editors do. Since the entry (and the corresponding change to Publishing) may, in my opinion, constitute original research, as well as possibly cluttering the DAB page, I am endeavoring to seek broader consensus on the topic. I figured this WikiProject would be the place to go, so would some project members please join the discussion at Talk:Book World? This is a small thing, I know, but I want to improve Wikipedia however I can, no matter how small the change. Oh, and while I'm at it, I'd like a second opinion on my changes to Minerva (disambiguation). Is the page improved? Does more need to be done? Thanks in advance! Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 22:37, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

  1. If people think Publishing should be mentioned on Book World, and you disagree, try moving Publishing down into a See also section (that's what I do). If they still disagree, they might be right.
  2. Re:Minerva (disambiguation). You should read WP:MOSDAB if you plan on fixing more dab pages. Main points: Avoid piping, and only include one blue link per entry, preferably at the beginning of an entry. Your edits may have improved the page slightly, but the dab page is still far away from a cleaned up dab page. (I don't say this to discourage you completely but to point you to the right direction. ;-)) – sgeureka t•c 23:40, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
The publishing article itself (currently) indicates that it's the "book world". If the editors there have reached consensus that that text can remain, then it should be linked on the disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ 01:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Simon Davies (British TV Presenter)

Besides the capitalization, something about the disambig comment seems wrong to me. It seems too long, and I'm not sure I like the abbreviation "TV". Also, there is Peter Thomas (television narrator) who I found in the same category. Another thing to consider is "presenter" is I guess the UK term. Anyway, these things were bugging me so I figured I'd point them out to the more experienced to see if anything should be done or not. Thanks.-Andrew c [talk] 22:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

New song! Enjoy at your own risk...

I started a new song at User:Shalom/Drafts and archives/Disambiguation song. Anyone who wishes to read it, and even to add to it in collaborative wiki-style, is welcome. Shalom Hello 19:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:ALBUMS naming scheme enigma

There is a proposal in the works for making all album titles include the artist name in parenthesis following the title, ie. Second Genesis (Wayne Shorter album). This is because there is a problem categorizing artist albums into subgenres with our current categorization and naming schemes at WP:ALBUMS. Take the example of Category:Hard bop albums. Per the album's project own guideline, actual albums cannot be placed in that category. So adding Category:Hard bop albums to an album article is not allowed, instead one must create Category:John Coltrane hard bop albums and then make that new category appear in the Category:Hard bop albums category. If you are still with me here, I congratulate you. So I have personally tried to do it according to the guidelines, only to find that it requires way too much work and that there is a much simpler solution. If an album title included the artist name in parenthesis like the example I gave in the opening sentence, then editors could just list an album directly into Category:Hard bop albums without creating a new category for every artist that might have an album that falls into that category. It should be said that often an album that performs hard bop may also have bebop elements, or some other subgenre like free jazz. That means just one artist album may require 3 or even more unique categories just to fall into accordance with WP:ALBUMS guideline. And that is to be done with every musician known to man. It just doesn't make sense. The problem stems from the fact that I can't just place Category:John Coltrane albums in the Category:Hard bop albums category, because not every John Coltrane album is hard bop. I realize that the naming proposal is "controversial", but it seems to me that this is our best solution. Otherwise, WP:ALBUMS is satisfied with mediocre coverage of albums, categorizing Category:John Coltrane albums in Category:Jazz albums, end of story. But some of those albums REQUIRE a breakdown by subgenre to be both honest and accurate in their coverage. Otherwise we cannot even have subgenres, not because albums don't fall under subgenres- but because current rules governing albums will not permit proper categorization in a logical and straightforward fashion. I can tell you personally that I have tried categorizing albums using the Category:John Coltrane hard bop albums method, and I can testify that it is a waste of time and time consuming. It has also been called overcategorization by some users. The current scheme makes it possible for albums to only be placed in the most generic of genres, ie. jazz. If one wants to categorize a Frank Sintra album as a swing music album, they have to create Category:Frank Sinatra swing albums for it to "legally" appear in Category:Swing albums. Note that albums you see that reside at the swing albums category page that appear there by themselves are incorrect per WP:ALBUMS guidelines. A discussion is underway at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Yet_another_proposal, and the reception has been anything but enthusiastic. I'm not sure those involved with the discussion have taken the time to even deal with subgenres, therefore they cannot understand the scope of this problem. I thought I'd introduce the discussion here also, to get more input on the matter. Thanks. (Mind meal 18:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC))

Lake Placid disambiguation

I recently finished correcting all non-wikipedia and talk pages that link to Lake Placid (a disambiguation page) so that they go through to the appropriate "Lake Placid". From what I understand, this is an aim of WikiProject Disambiguation. This was the first time I took it upon myself to embark on such a "crusade," and I'd like somebody to look my work over (basically everything on Special:Contributions/RideABicycle from Jailbait (film) (19:35, 16 July 2007) earlier). Can anyone else who does this sort of thing give me some pointers on the topic? Thanks! User:RideABicycle/Signature 00:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

You might find Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links (using popups) interesting. It makes the disambiguation process much easier (IMO). Note that links to talk and user pages should generally not be fixed, as they might be deliberate. I've looked through about half of your Lake Placid contributions, and they were alright (can't do much wrong there). If you have the feeling that there is a primary meaning, like in this case Lake Placid, New York, you may ask for a page swap at Wikipedia:Requested moves, or you can move (with the "move" tab at the top) Lake Placid to Lake Placid (disambiguation) yourself, and then move Lake Placid, New York to the new empty Lake Placid with a hatnote {{otheruses}} at the top. If you need more advice, just ask. – sgeureka t•c 07:58, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. I've started to do the same with Iranian. User:RideABicycle/Signature 19:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Big Brother

Someone else take a look at Big Brother, please -- I've made a resolution not to get into these things again (after the fun I had at ALF et al.). Thanks -- JHunterJ 19:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Primate

I am shocked -- shocked I tell you -- by the mislinks which should go to primate (religion) but actually go to an article on chimps. I just stumbled on one while doing Salvador, then searched and fixed 26 more. It is really embarrassing when Wikipedia calls the Archbishop of Canterbury the gorilla of all England. The obvious fix is to make primate a disambiguation page. Primates has a big project and there are 1457 links to fix, so I've started a discussion at Talk:Primate#Disambiguating Primate. I invite all the disambiguators to join in. — Randall Bart (talk) 21:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

How many articles to make a disambiguation page worthwhile?

Is there a guideline for how many people need to share a common surname before a disambiguation page is worthwhile? I'm considering creating disambiguation pages for the following:

  • Rydell (5 people plus a wildlife refuge)
  • Hahne (3 people plus 2 companies)
  • Ecclestone (5 people)

but I won't waste the effort/namespace if people think it wouldn't be worthwhile. Apologies if this question has been asked before, but 7 archive pages is too many for (lazy) me to look through :-) Thanks. DH85868993 08:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd create a new {{surname}} (not necessarily disambiguation) page
  1. if at least two people having the same surname are sometimes (but not often) known by their surname (eg. atheletes), so as to avoid confusion
  2. if there are already similar surname pages where confusion may exist (e.g. Hahn/Hahne)
  3. if a redirect already exists (e.g. Hahne, Ecclestone, although I'd argue that in the case of Ecclestone, you should rather create the new surname page at Ecclestone (surname) than turn the redirect into a surname page)
  4. if there are non-surnames (eg. companies, places, ...) involved, anytime, independent of the number of articles sharing a name.
I would not necessarily create a page for Rydell because if you type it into the search box, you already get presented all people as search results easily. On the other hand, creating a new surname page also doesn't do any harm here either. You may want to create dab/surname page for Rydell because of the wildlife refuge. – sgeureka t•c 09:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
To clarify: are you suggesting I should create a {{surname}} page when non-surnames are involved? That seems counter-intuitive to me; I would have thought {{surname}} would be used only when non-surnames aren't involved. Or am I missing something? (entirely possible!) Thanks. DH85868993 11:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
No, {{surname}} is just for surname pages; use {{disambig}} and Category:Surnames if a dab page has both surnames and non-surnames on them. I was just trying to point out that disambiguation pages should not be confused with surname pages. I am reluctant to comment on companies [places] whose full name is not a surname, but where a surname is part of the company's name, as it is usually not very obvious whether they are called just Surname. Therefore, I tend to make such pages surname page with entries like
if the company's article doesn't state otherwise (but C. Hahne Mühlenwerke GmbH & Co. KG says it's also called Hahne, so the resulting page should be a dab page). Other people might have other opinions and preferences about this issue. – sgeureka t•c 11:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Request for disambiguation: BCMS

Would a project member please change BCMS from a redirect to a disambig page for both Bala Cynwyd Middle School and Crosslinks? I know the second link seems irrelevant, but read the article and you'll see it makes sense. I can't make a disambig myself because I can't login due to the Chinese issue. 79.73.45.86 06:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. – sgeureka t•c 07:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Technomancer

I'm just wondering if this page is an adequate disambiguation page, or if there should be any improvements made to it? Another editor recently removed some of the entries, but didn't provide an adequate reason, and given that they tried for deletion first anyway, I'm not sure they're going to participate in discussion, so I'd just like some opinions from others. FrozenPurpleCube 15:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

None of the deleted entries needed to be deleted, I agree. I did change or remove some of the bolding and the trailing periods. -- JHunterJ 16:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Now there is an objection that the page is currently NPOV. I can't understand that objection at all. I can't see where POV applies in this case. Is there some requirement that a disambiguation page only exist if a page has the word in its title? FrozenPurpleCube 16:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I've suggested a solution on the talk page - use a "see also" section and keep things tight. Everything should be fine after that. (Emperor 21:23, 26 August 2007 (UTC))

Problem With Pigeons

An issue that some of you could probably fix is here: Talk:Pigeon (disambiguation). I'm not certain what to do with it. -WarthogDemon 20:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I've proposed Category:Articles_with_links_needing_disambiguation for deletion because I don't see how such a category would be useful (since it doesn't indicate which links on the page need disambiguation) and the effort spent in maintaining such a category would seem better spent elsewhere (such as in the activities of this project.) I'd appreciate anything people here had to add to the CfD. --Sapphic 18:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

(from the CfD page): Actually that is not true. The links that need disambiguation are marked by a {{dn}} -- which I believe is the only way that the category should be added to an article. Of course, the category itself should explain this. older ≠ wiser 19:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Increased scope for this project

I suggest that the scope of this project be expanded to include articles listed in [[Category:Articles with links needing disambiguation]], since some of the articles listed there have links to disambiguation pages that themselves have only a few incoming links — so they would never show up on most lists (such as the one at WP:DPL) that are ranked in terms of how many incoming links they have. The type of disambiguation needed for articles such as the one on Zeenat Aman (which "St. Xavier's School" did she attend?) is of a very different (and idiosyncratic) variety than the ones currently covered. I think adding an article-centered branch to the currently disambiguation-page-centered core of this project would help the overarching goal of reducing the number of links to disambiguation pages, by addressing both sides of the issue in complementary ways. --Sapphic 00:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The category is linked at WP:DPL, by the way. Dekimasuよ! 16:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Where? I can't find it there. In any event, I still think the scope of this project should be expanded. Currently, the only pages that technically fall within the scope of this project are disambiguation pages, but we should include pages with links to disambiguation pages as well, since that is what we're usually editing most of the time. --Sapphic 18:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Birth

The page for birth was recently changed from a DAB page to a... I'm not sure what page. A combination of a DAB and dictionary page I guess. It seems like it was a bit of a poor DAB page anyway. But should it be a DAB page at all? I'm confused and don't know enough to edit it appropriately. WLU 13:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added some cleanup tags. It needs some serious attention from a prose-master. Maybe with the tags it can get the help it needs! SlackerMom 21:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions (WP:PROD)

I thought it might be of interest to members of this WikiProject when dab pages are proposed for deletion. If not, please indicate so and I'll refrain from adding such notifications in the future. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 21:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is OK to alert interested parties familiar with disambiguation. If there turn out to be a lot or high frequency, it migh make sense to have a sub-page. I rescued the Eliza Stewart disambiguation page. For the others, which consist of only two red links, I can't get too worked up about them. older ≠ wiser 22:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I pulled the {{prod}} off a couple where there are a lot of links to the resulting pages. Silly as they look these pages can be useful in the disambiguation process. Yes they are red links, but we want them to be the right red links. —  Randall Bart   Talk  22:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I replaced the remaining prods with {{db-disambig}} and added that to the other ones too. Silly as those pages look, they are also not useful in disambiguation, since there are no articles to disambiguate. That's why that speedy criterion is there. -- JHunterJ 11:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. I'd like to get some feedback about something I've been doing for a good while. Several of my adopted pages (Danish, English, Norwegian and Swedish) are, among other things, demonyms. I frequently find these pages linked directly in reference to a specific person, which presents a bit of a dilemma. To use Danish as an example, do I then link to Danish people or to Denmark?

It may seem obvious that when the original link refers to a person, Danish people is the right link, but in fact, Danish people is about the Danes as an ethnic group, so it's not appropriate to use that link for people who live in Denmark and consider themselves Danish for that reason, but who are not ethnically Danish. Here is an example of a Swede who fits into that category -- he's considered a Swedish politician, but is not ethnically Swedish.

My approach thus far has been as follows:

  • If the link unambiguously refers to nationality, I link it to the country. Nationality is a legal concept that does not necessarily have a connection to ethnicity. Biographical infoboxes frequently specify nationality using that word, and in those cases I dab to the country.
  • If the link unambiguously refers to ethnicity, I dab to the "people" article.
  • If the link context refers to "descent," I dab to the "people" article because I take that to be a reference to ethnicity.
  • If the link is ambiguous, I dab to the country because I consider that less likely to be inaccurate and/or controversial than dabbing to the "people" article.

Does this seem like a reasonable approach? I'd like to hear some comments. Thanks. --Tkynerd 15:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

That is fairly similar to my approach. I generally look for some specific indication that ethnicity is intended, such as the word "descent", or other statements in context; for example, if the article refers to German immigrants in another country, I disambiguate that to "Germans" rather than "Germany." However, if there is no such clear indication, I default to disambiguating to the country name. --Russ (talk) 16:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Russ. One thing I'd like to add is to make clear that my approach above means that in the many, many, many cases where a lead paragraph says something like (to use my example article above) Mauricio José Rojas Mullor (28 June 1950 –) is a Swedish politician and political economist, I routinely dab the word in question to the country, because without more context, there is no way to be certain whether nationality or ethnicity is referred to. I do not attempt to make that determination on a case-by-case basis. I would much rather consistently use a relatively uncontroversial approach to these cases than potentially get into conflicts over each one. Does that make sense? (This is aimed not only at you, Russ, but at anyone else who wants to comment.) --Tkynerd 17:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, I'd say that "Fooish politician" would almost always be disambiguated to "Fooland." For example, no one literate in English would refer to Rudy Giuliani as an "Italian politician." Maybe "Italian American", but then the context is different. Without any such qualification, a reader would expect the reference to be to the country in whose politics the person is active. Same for many other nouns (Fooish author, Fooish athlete, Fooish actor, etc.). Having said that, though, you still need to be careful to look at the context, since some situations break the general rule -- for instance, you should not be surprised to see persons referred to as an "Albanian [politician, actor, poet, etc.]" who don't actually reside in Albania. --Russ (talk) 19:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think this kind of link can necessarily be taken to refer to residence either. The only thing it can be taken to mean for sure is that the person has some connection with the country in question, so I don't think dabbing to the country is ever wrong. As an example, I'd have no problem dabbing "Swedish" to Sweden here, even though the woman has not lived in Sweden for many years and, frankly, at this point I speak more fluent Swedish than she does (I lived there for almost twelve years). --Tkynerd 21:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguations for deletion

Hopefully, we won't see many of these. -- JHunterJ 21:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Creation of a CJK Taskforce to handle Chinese characters

Noting that WP:UE categorically bans Chinese characters in article titles... There are nevertheless situations where they can be helpful for DAB pages, where (I believe) exceptions should be made. There are often 3 separate articles for identical Chinese character(s), one each for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names.

For example, the Chinese character 文 is represented by the following 3 currency articles:

In this case, the creation of a disambiguation page 文 (currency) can help disambiguate between the 3. (See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mon (currency) where I am recommending this).

To handle such cases, and to handle Chinese characters in general, I would like to ask you to help set up a CJK (or CJKV) taskforce within WP:WPDAB to handle Chinese characters. (We already use Chinese characters WITHIN Dab pages, as in Takuya Kimura (disambiguation)).

But first, can we reach consensus here whether we can use Chinese characters in DAB page titles? Please comment.--Endroit 16:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I left this comment on that AfD, but I think it's worth placing here as well: If Mon (currency) is moved, please move to 文 or merge to Wen or similar . There's not need for a parenthetical if the base name is open, and disambiguation pages try to avoid separating based on case or accent marks. (And if the base name weren't open, the disambiguation should be 文 (disambiguation) or Wen (disambiguation), not 文 (currency) or Wén (currency). There is no need to use a parenthetical other than (disambiguation) on a disambiguation page title, and the Disambiguation Project also works to "fold" the exceptions back in to the "main" disambiguation page if they've been so splintered. The guidelines for use of Chinese characters is disambiguation titles should follow the guidelines for use of Chinese characters in article titles, whatever those are. -- JHunterJ 17:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your help. 文 is now created. Mon (currency) should now be deleted in its favor, and so I'll initiate another AfD for Mon (currency) in 5 days.--Endroit 16:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC) . Mon (currency) now redirects to Japanese mon, per discussions at Talk:Mon (currency) and elsewhere. Thank you again.--Endroit 13:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

HELP!

We have now an article about Milky Way and Milky Way Galaxy. Unfortunately, most of the thousands of links to Milky Way are intended for Milky Way Galaxy. Are there any members of this project that have bot-writing skills that can help us with this massive project of changing/piping all the relevant links? Nondistinguished 14:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like something where Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links is good at. (I do realize that Milky Way is not a dab page, but they are fantastic with fixing wrong incoming links.) Maybe make another request there? – sgeureka t•c 16:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Milky Way Galaxy redirects to Milky Way, so I don't think there is a problem. There is a dab template at the top of Milky Way that points to Milky Way (disambiguation), so I assume this way of handling the article was decided by consensus. --Tkynerd 01:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I would like to join this project!

could you give me info on how to join this project!! thanks LOUISA ROCKS 20:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

just go to Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup and start working on an article. Good luck! firenze127 00:08, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Ashiya

When I started working on this dab it was pretty bad. I fixed it up in a lot of ways, but I would appreciate some feedback on what can still be fixed so we can take off the cleanup tag on the page. All help is welcome. Thanks! firenze127 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 02:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the category, moved the articles with Ashiya in the title before the subcaste one that only mentioned Ashiya in passing, and moved the family-name holder(s) to a lower section. There was also one trailing period remaining. And I removed the -cleanup tag. -- JHunterJ 02:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Disambigating proper name / nick names

I have been cleaning up and creating a number of dab pages for people with the first name "Joseph". Since the common nickname for "Joseph" is "Joe", I have been checking for "Joe"s to add as well, and adding them if a dab doesn't already exist for the name. For example, Joseph Williams (disambiguation) is a dab page, as is Joe Williams, so I crosslinked the two under a See Also header. However, Joseph Powell is a dab, but Joe Powell is an article without any similarly named articles, so I added Joe Powell to the Joseph Powell dab. That seems to work pretty well, and make sense, but I am bit stuck when neither has enough to justify a dab independently, but they do together (see Joe Lane and Joseph Lane). Any thoughts? Burzmali 14:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

In the case of Joe Lane and Joseph Lane, the hatnotes do the job just fine and (new) dab pages are not required at all. {{seealso}} or {{confused}} may work here to make the distinction clearer. Besides that, I have no other suggestions. – sgeureka t•c 15:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
HATNOTES work fine for 2 or 3 articles linked by a common name but in this case we have Joe Lane, Joseph Lane, Joe Lane (footballer) and Joseph R. Lane. In Joe Lane (footballer)'s case, the usage of "Joe" is a nickname, hence a link from Joseph Lane is unnecessary, but that still leaves Joe Lane with a set of 3 hatnotes, which tends to look pretty cluttered. Burzmali 17:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Some current discussions

Some additional editors familiar with the disambiguation project could be helpful at Talk:William Shakespeare#Two Shakespeare disambig links about William Shakespeare (disambiguation) and Shakespeare (disambiguation), and Talk:HP (disambiguation) and Talk:Harry Potter#HP?. Thanks. -- JHunterJ 12:40, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Would it help if we had a small banner to place on disambiguation page talk pages that, among other things, referenced Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)? I find that many editors are completely unaware of those provisions and such a banner might help to educate them. What do you all think? --Bejnar 23:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you could add a nod to the Manual on {{DisambigProject}}. But even editors who are made aware of the existence of the manual don't necessarily read it or understand it. See the section above... -- JHunterJ 23:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Talk:TNT

Please take a look at this page, I need an answer to my question. TheBlazikenMaster 09:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

NOTE: This section's purpouse is only to bring people to another discussion. No further edits should be made to this section, instead go where the title leads.

Question about Las Vegas

Two things -- shouldn't Las Vegas be a redirect to Las Vegas, Nevada? That has to be the most popular use of "Las Vegas" And second, the disambiguation page might need cleaning, t includes over 30 sports teams and events that aren't called "Las Vegas", which I don't think belong on these pages (who would search for "Las Vegas" expecting to find an article about Las Vegas Silver Bandits?) I would have added a cleanup tag but since I was asking about the redirect anyway I thought I'd mention it. 172.142.213.124 17:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

First thing: Talk:Las Vegas#Requested move says no, Las Vegas should be the dab. I'll take a crack at cleaning it up. -- JHunterJ 20:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking for advice on Conspiracy

I started fixing links to the dab page Conspiracy, and soon realized an additional link or two needed to be added to the dab page. Fine. But then, I made the fatal mistake of looking here to see if there were any other pages that should be linked-to on the dab page, and became extremely disheartened and dropped it for a week. I've partially recovered now, and would like to get Conspiracy up to snuff before resuming the link fixing, but I'm not sure how many of those pages really belong on the dab page. Too many, and it will be too hard to find the most common pages in an ocean of links.

I'd like some advice on how to decide which of these links should be included in the dab page, and which shouldn't. Note that I'm not asking for help with the actual page (I'm happy to keep tackling it myself, tho I'm not trying to own it or anything), but for advice on how to tackle it. I understand the basic theory that the dab page is not a substitute for categories, and is only to differentiate which article is which, but I'm not sure in this particular case how to translate that into practice. Any thoughts? --barneca (talk) 13:14, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Only articles whose subjects are sometimes referred to simply as Conspiracy should be included on the dab page. See WP:MOSDAB for more information. I think the number of articles on that page will be severely restricted by this criterion. --Tkynerd 13:24, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Hurricane disambiguations

I know regular editors of this project will really roll their eyes when they see the content of Category:Tropical cyclone disambiguation - Hurricane Barry is a typical example of the content. On changing the format of one dab to a format close to the MOS, the edit summary is hardly positive! These articles fall under the remit of WikiProject Tropical cyclones, who have developed their own style (see this revert).

Furthermore there is excessive use of hatnotes. Hurricane Alice (June 1954) is pretty explicit a location, so style suggests no hatnote is needed. However, WPTC feels that these links are justified as storms with the same name are related. Whether they are truly related or not is not really relevant, but I would like to see this approached in a manner consistent with the disambiguation guidelines. There is further background in that project's archive.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe both projects can meet in the middle with the creation of yet another set-index list like there already is with {{shipindex}} and {{mountainindex}}? The hatnote thing is something though where the WPTC's guidelines should change to the common practise. – sgeureka t•c 01:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I personally believe that the dab for tropical cyclones named Alice warrants being included on Hurricane Alice (June 1954). Personally, I would like to see the dab as a link in the See also section. Is it against the MOS to include Hurricane Alice in the See Also section of Hurricane Alice (June 1954)?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Hurricanehink (talk • contribs) 02:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you should ask on WikiProject Tropical cyclones. Like User:Nilfanion said, they've got they're own style. -- JHunterJ 11:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Reason for starting this thread is unfortunately the TC project is somewhat inactive at present. I think the present style should be altered somewhat: For instance Hurricane Barbara handles the fictitious storm badly and there is excessive wikilinking for a navigational page. I'd like advice from WPDAB member's on how to improve these pages.
As for why not link to dab pages: WP:DAB#Links to disambiguation pages and Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links are relevant. The ambiguity of a cyclone's name is not that big a deal really - its just how the names are selected after all.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I do lots of dab work, and there are instances where links to dab pages are justified. If possible, though, it's preferable in those cases to link to a page with a name like English (disambiguation), which frequently is a redirect to the actual dab page, but that link text makes clear to the reader that the link is not to an article. In the case of Hurricane Alice (June 1954), however, I would say the existing hatnote does the job and no link is needed in the See also section. --Tkynerd 01:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree there, however the question isn't really how to link, but does Alice (June 1954) need link to the dab at all? It certainly has no value for disambiguation purposes.--Nilfanion (talk) 02:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Again: "In the case of Hurricane Alice (June 1954), however, I would say the existing hatnote does the job and no link is needed in the See also section." :-) --Tkynerd 03:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't answer my question: Is the hatnote needed? I agree the hatnote is superior to a see also, but is a hatnote superior to no link at all?--Nilfanion (talk) 09:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
No, it's not needed. WP:HN#Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous. -- JHunterJ 10:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
The hatnote is definitely not needed. Hurricane Alice (June 1954) is sufficiently DISambiguous all on its own. Clear the cruft. SlackerMom 12:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree. Readers generally arrive at articles by following links, not by typing articles titles into the search box. What if a reader follows a link like this: Hurricane Alice, thinking that link goes to this storm instead? The reader will be confused and have no obvious path to follow to find the article she's looking for. I'm for keeping the hatnote. To quote from the linked hatnote page: However, such hatnotes may sometimes be used when it is not entirely clear for the reader which disambiguation is used for which article (for example Matt Smith (illustrator) and Matt Smith (comics)). This case isn't exactly parallel to that, but it's close enough that the hatnote is useful for readers and certainly should not be dismissed as "cruft." --Tkynerd 12:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Whoops! I stand corrected. The Hurricane Alice redirect (which I didn't notice earlier) creates a sufficiently ambiguous situation to support the use of the hatnote. I agree with Tkynerd (keep the hatnote) and apologize for the "cruft" comment. SlackerMom 13:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Hurricane Alice points at the December storm so a hatnote is clearly needed there. However, I'm not convinced about keeping the hatnotes on articles such as Hurricane Alice (June 1954) merely because of incoming article links. The context of the prose should make it clear which specific storm is being referred to. If it is not clear or is targeted at the wrong article, that is an editorial problem with the source article. We shouldn't use hatnotes to make up for lazy editing. For instance, would the reader of 1987 Atlantic hurricane season#Hurricane Emily be expecting the link to Hurricane Katrina to link to the article on the 2005 storm?--Nilfanion (talk) 14:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
In such a case, I would use {{redirect3|Hurricane Alice|For other storms named Alice, see Tropical Storm Alice}} to make clear when a hatnote is needed. – sgeureka t•c 14:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Geyer

I've noticed that this link directs to a stub about a town. The word is also a surname - with several people of that name having articles in WP, and is the German word for vulture, hence the English Lammergeyer. I'm not sure what the preferred way for handling this is and whether there is a bot for constructing lists from articles. SO I'm handing the decision on what to do over to you guys.--Peter cohen 13:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Since there are no other articles that might have been titled Geyer, the stub is fine at the base name. You could create Geyer (surname) to list the surname holders if desired (and that article would be part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy). -- JHunterJ 13:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
JHunterJ's suggestion seems the right course of action in this case. By the way, the German word for the bird is spelled de:wikt:Geier (whose spelling I had to look up despite being a native speaker).– sgeureka t•c 14:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. My belief about the spelling of the word came from the Nietzsche comment "Ein Geyer ist beinahe schon ein Adler" about the putative Jewishness of Wagner's putative father Ludwig Geyer. Maybe the play on words involved a play on the spelling--Peter cohen 16:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds very possible but Wikipedia:No original research. ;-) It's also possible that Nietzsche said/wrote that before the written German language was formalized in 1880. "Geier" is one of those words that I would potentially misspell even today, especially since I've been in Geyer a couple of times in my childhood (I think; who would forget such a funny town name). – sgeureka t•c 18:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

MS (disambiguation)

Can someone takea look at MS (disambiguation). Are dab pages supposed to have a references section? User:CyclePat is requesting that references be added. 132.205.99.122 21:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up, and answered on Talk:MS (disambiguation). In general, no, citations and references are not needed (or wanted) on disambiguation pages. If the articles to be disambiguated need citations to justify the inclusion of the dabbed term, the articles can be cited (or have citations requested), but the disambiguation page just disambiguates articles that discuss the dabbed term. -- JHunterJ 21:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Someone else, please address CyclePat's concerns on Talk:MS (disambiguation); he is not taking my word for it. -- JHunterJ 20:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hijacking

Several cases have come to my attention recently, of disambiguation pages being hijacked: converted to a redirect to a "favored" meaning. Eg, AFP being made a redirect to Agence France-Presse and MS being made a redirect to multiple sclerosis. In both cases, it appears the major motive for moving these pages is to avoid the boring but necessary work of fixing links. I am working to restore AFP as a dab (see Talk:AFP (disambiguation); I suggest that other editors do the same for MS. --Una Smith 15:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I restored MS based on the renamer's invitation to do so if there were any objections. -- JHunterJ 16:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation page(s) for Mike/Michael Cooper

I notice that there are three articles for (different) people named "Michael Cooper" and three articles for three (other, different) people named "Mike Cooper". I'm considering creating a disambiguation page, but I wasn't sure whether it would be preferable to create two disambiguation pages (i.e. one for "Michael Cooper" and one for "Mike Cooper") or just one, covering both the "Michael"s and the "Mike"s. DH85868993 (talk) 01:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Borderline case. You could do either, and no-one would mind. If you wish to create two dab pages, just make sure that they're interlinked. Everything is completely up to you, I'd say. – sgeureka t•c 09:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I've created two dab pages and interlinked them. Thanks for your advice. DH85868993 (talk) 10:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting case at AFD

Here is an interesting case at AFD involving a disambiguation page that disambiguates foreign language (non-latin) characters. I've voiced my opinion there, so I won't repeat it here, but I think it raises interesting questions for disambiguation on WP:EN. older ≠ wiser 15:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

facelift

facelift seems to be a merger between a dab page and an article... or the hatnote is improperly formatted, and there's a dab template on a real article... I can't tell which it is. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 01:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

That page is a mess. It looks like it was a pure dab page until March, when a plastic surgeon came along and added some self-promoting copy, followed by a second surgeon doing the same, and other editors built on it from there. I think Facelift should redirect to Rhytidectomy as the overwhelmingly predominant usage (WP:COMMONNAME might apply as well), and the dab page should go to Facelift (disambiguation). As for the article content on the page, I would just dump it and not bother trying to merge it. The subject seems to be competently covered in the Rhytidectomy article and the stuff on the Facelift page seems to be, as I said, mostly flackery. Comments?--ShelfSkewed Talk 04:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree and if no one objects soon, will go ahead an do so. (John User:Jwy talk) 05:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

CJKV disambiguation pages

See Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#CJKV disambiguation pages. We are proposing a joint DAB task force.--Endroit (talk) 19:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Colour-box disambig

Template:Colour-box disambig has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — 76.16.92.56 (talk) 21:45, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


Penny

This badly needs a disam page. Is there somewhere to suggest new pages, other than the bot-generated one? Johnbod 17:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

You can create one yourself at Penny (disambiguation), but at the moment, I see all the other Penny pages as subpages instead of disambiguated terms, and the dab page may not be necessary at all. – sgeureka t•c 20:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
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