Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 30

message: What exactly is the thinking about disambiguation pages for first names?  A while back I created a disambiguation page at Edwina, mainly because I didn't think that the M*A*S*H episode "Edwina" quite merited being placed there.  Now someone has added a paragraph about the meaning and history of the name.  Is this kosher?  (By the way, I realize that the "People with the given name Edwina" should be divided between real and fictional, and the real ones should have dates — I'll take care of that after I know whether the "history of the name" section should go.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to hear what others have to say about this as well. John (and others) used to have similar info. I cleaned up the page and split out the etymology to John (name). That was the best thing I could think of doing. - grubber 02:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems clear to me ... "Edwina" the name should have its own article and be just one line on the dab page; dab pages are not the place for explanations simpy a method for redirection. I will edit Edwina accordingly, see what you think Abtract 18:58, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, the "People" section should be on the Edwina (name) page, not on the dab page. CarolGray 21:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree, Edwina (name) is about the name itself not people with that name. Abtract 21:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Just a note, I moved Edwina (name) from the toplink to the main part of the disambiguation page, since it is not the primary topic. -- Natalya 00:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First name dab pages 

message: One problem with :Category:Disambiguation is that it's so darn big. With other big categories, we use subcategories to break them down into more manageable sizes: novelists and poets are grouped by nationality, and each categorized in, for instance, "Russian poets" or "French poets" rather than the overall "Poets" category, so only the un-subcategorizable show up in the top category. Maybe, "to be consistent", the same organizing principle should apply here. Rather than eliminate the 2CC, 3CC, etc., special-categories, perhaps we should subdivide the disambig category, to get that top category tag off most of the entries:DisambiguationBiographical disambiguation (personal names)Geographical disambiguation (place names)Acronym disambiguation (non-word strings)2-character combinations3-character combinations4-character combinations5-character combinations6-or-more-character combinations(Other) Word disambiguation (including words that may also serve as acronyms) ...Pages to disambig words that also serve as acronyms should have both the "single-word" tag and the appropriate "acronym"-or-subsubcategory tag, so they show up in both lists. Add other subcategories as needed to keep the top category to a reasonable size. Only those disambig pages outside all the subcategories would still have the "Category:Disambiguation" tag and show up individually in that top category. Sound feasible? -- Ben 15:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there is a useful subdivision of that big category.  The nature of the pages is the word in question has several meanings and therefore difficult to categorize via meaning.  Sure, the number of letters in the word is a clearly defined category, but almost as useful as categorizing by the second letter of the word.  I think we have to "live" with the big category and use the alphabectical index that it has.  I don't see that as a problem, really.  How would one USE these subcategories you describe? (John User:Jwy talk) 16:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The same way one uses the subcategories of, say, :Category:Novelists: most entries are in subsubcategories of subcategories like :Category:Novelists by nationality; only those novelists whose nationality is unclear (e.g. through emigration while writing) or undisclosed are seen in the top category. As a result, :Category:Novelists needs only one page for its entries instead of dozens. -- Ben 19:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Since both the TfD and the corresponding CfD, as well as this counterproposal, could affect how :Category:Disambiguation works -- they all amount to reorganizing the category, one way or another -- Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation should have been involved in this discussion from the beginning. -- Ben 19:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All of the various disambiguation pages were alerted to the discussion here, as well as the corresponding TfD.  I posted the recent messages because different people were responding to the proposal at different talk pages, which doesn't lend for a cohesive discussion. -- Natalya 20:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Counter-proposal

message: I've officially nominated 2CC, 3CC, 4CC, and 5CC for deletion (see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 February 9).  There seems to be overwhelming consensus formed here to delete those, but I want to make sure the process wonks are kept happy.  There seems to be a less solid consensus about the other ones at this point, so I left those out.  -- RoySmith (talk) 18:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: TfD