Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 15

message: Re:  - I didn't find any evidence that the text was already in the page, in a less visible place as user:SchmuckyTheCat has said. — Instantnood 08:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks so much for clarifying. Please be reminded to state the source next time. You did have a record of making major changes without proposing at the corresponding talk page . — Instantnood 15:26, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever.  You're deciding to go out in flames, aren't you? SchmuckyTheCat 15:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Everyone can tell who's going out in flames. — Instantnood 16:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, ArbCom is proposing you be banned indefinitely, so I guess everyone can tell. SchmuckyTheCat 17:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Don't think you uninvolved. Everyone can tell who's right and who's wrong among the involved parties. — Instantnood 17:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Really, where's my name on this page? Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 3/Proposed decision. SchmuckyTheCat 18:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It's perfectly fine if you want to pretend you're not involved in the content dispute, and has never made any inappropriate edits, but please don't ruin this page. — Instantnood 18:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Upper- or lower-case

message: Please help to resolve a disagreement about the content of Kaffir (disambiguation) page; see also Kaffir (disambiguation). Mukadderat 09:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those pages are one and the same. I have added a comment to the talk page. Chris the speller 16:16, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: sorry, I meant ".. see also Talk:Kaffir (disambiguation)". Silly typical cut and paste error. Mukadderat 18:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Kaffir (disambiguation)

message: I have some concern that the use of the tepmplates "otherpeople", "otherpersons", "otheruses", "otherplaces", etc. as can be found at Category:Disambiguation and redirection templates cannot be used if an article title cannot contain the superfluous "(disambiguation)". Do I have to refrain from using any of the templates noted there? HJKeats 15:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at WP:TM/GENERAL, and see if that restricts you too much, or offers anything new. I think that the category looks a little like the Wild West. Chris the speller 17:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it could use some taming. I just would like to point out that by making those templates available (otherpeople, otherpersons, otheruses, otherplaces, etc.) it's actually promoting their use and hence it causes people to create a disambiguation page with the superfluous "(disambiguation)" in the title, just to get the red out. To point out the dilemma I have edited some articles using the template (George Cartwright (trader), George John Bond, William G. Adams) and notice that we get red links for article.  That is why I had renamed a few articles to include it such that it did go to a disambiguation page. HJKeats 18:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For George Adams and George Cartwright, there are only 2 articles for each name, and the  will do wonders, as explained in WP:D#Top links. For William Adams, there are a number of articles, so William Adams should be a dab page, and the other articles probably need no top links (hatnotes). For example, A person who types in "William G. Adams" probably does not want the English navigator who went to Japan. The problem here is that "William Adams" should probably be moved to "William Adams (navigator)" or something like that, then the "William Adams" redirect page should be turned into a dab page, and then about 60 articles that point to "William Adams" will need to have their links fixed, if they pertain to the navigator. Your point about those templates is a good one; I have done many disambig pages and never needed most of them. There is the temptation to get wrapped up in the templates before understanding the disambiguation guidelines. Chris the speller 21:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, thanks for the explanation. It would seem that there isn't a quick fix that could possibly remove the superfluous "(disambiguation)" in the article title. Unless… the templates themselves get modified to eliminate the requirement for "(disambiguation)". As I had explained to Commander Keane, it was a eureka moment for me when I discovered the  and  templates. The application of the rules for disambiguation seems a bit complicated for now, so I'll just shy away from it until I get a better grasp of the procedure. Thanks again, HJKeats 23:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of templates for disambiguation 

message: This page sure is getting long. Is it time to archive? Gflores Talk 18:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there a chance I can get my delimma resolved before the topic gets archived? Use of templates for disambiguation. Thanks, HJKeats 19:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I archived the January discussions. I believe that left all open discussions intact; if someone thinks something was archived that is still active, please copy it back to this talk page. - Jmabel | Talk 19:02, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Time to archive?

message: === TfD nomination of Template:Cvdis ===
Template:Cvdis 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.
:--William Allen Simpson 23:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: --William Allen Simpson 23:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

text: --William Allen Simpson 23:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nominations 

message: Template:Cvdis 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.
:--William Allen Simpson 23:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:Cvdis 

message: Template:Geodis 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.
:--William Allen Simpson 23:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:Geodis 

message: Template:Hndis 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.
:--William Allen Simpson 23:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:Hndis 

message: I would be grateful for advice on issues concerning Ptolemy (disambiguation). I have summarised the editing history and centralised links for discussions at Talk:Ptolemy (disambiguation). If you have any advice or comments, please leave them there. Thanks. Carcharoth 00:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This note was also left at the WikiProject. For centralisation, discussion can continue there.--Commander Keane 00:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments invited on Ptolemy disambiguation page 

message: Hello. I'm finding that some of the "new" pages showing up on Wikipedia:Disambiguation_pages_maintenance are a result of new dab pages being created to deal with language and ethnicity e.g. Hmong being moved to Hmong people then Hmong becoming a disambiguation page with 2 entries: Hmong people and Hmong language. None of the existing links to Hmong are updated, of course. This particular move has the comment "moved Hmong to Hmong people: Standard disambiguation formula for ethnicity/language" but I can't seem find this "standard", or even a discussion about it. Can someone tell me where it's located? Thanks! Ewlyahoocom 12:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Standard" for language/ethniciity? 

message: This disambiguation information page does not address my question: When inserting interwiki links (mostly between English and German) I don't know whether I should enter the translated German word for the English disambiguation page, or the identical German word, if there is both.  Often there is a German disambiguation page for both the translated and identical English word.  
Example: "Air" has an English disambiguation page (Air (disambiguation)), as there is also a German dab page with this title (de:Air).  But the German word for air is Luft.  There's also a disambiguation page for Luft (de:Luft (Begriffsklärung)).  So, when entering the German interwiki link for Air (disambiguation), should I add de:Air or de:Luft (Begriffsklärung) or both?  GilliamJF 13:33, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interwiki links for disambiguation pages are kind of odd ducks.  The ambiguity is going to be different from language to language, and in many cases won't exist at all.  Remembering that disambiguation pages are for navigation—getting to the page you meant to go to in the first place—rather than exploration, I think it almost doesn't matter, and in fact an argument could be made that disambiguation pages shouldn't have interwiki links at all, since someone isn't going to type "Air" into the en search box expecting to get a page on the de encyclopedia. --TreyHarris 15:44, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you're right about the "Air" example.  Let me choose a better example to illustrate my dillema: The last name of Zimmerman has an English disambiguation page, and there's also a German interwiki page called Zimmermann.  Zimmerman (or Carpenter) is the Anglicized version of the German last name, which (you guessed it) has a disambiguation page on both English and German.  There is a good possibility that someone looking up Zimmermann (or Zimmerman) would expect to see a German interwiki link on the English page for a German last name.  Should the interwiki be the identical last name on the German, or the translated version, or both? GilliamJF 06:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no absolute rule. Link to the page you think is most likely to be relevant, the one that comes closest to having equivalent content (give or take how big it is). - Jmabel | Talk 03:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question: Interlanguage disambiguation pages 

message: It looks like Wikipedia:Hatnotes is proposing changes to these guidelines. -- Beland 16:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for mentioning this here.  I would recommend that any users involved in the discussion above express their opinions at Wikipedia talk:Hatnotes, so that opinions of many disambiguators can be considered. -- Natalya 16:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related proposal 

message: Template:Otheruses4 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. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:Otheruses4 

message: I have notice Links to pages that haven’t been written yet on disambiguation pages.  I have also seen people take those links to pages not yet written and change it to an external link to the main Sight on that topic.  I think it is ok to have a Red link because it will encourage people to write the article, however I think I remember somewhere there should not be external links on a disambiguation page.
Could we make a section in this page clarifying what to do when you come across an external link or an unwritten article on a disambiguation page?  I don’t want to undo the edit I am thinking of until I know what the policy is.--E-Bod 03:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Look on MoS:DP and its talk page: "External links should rarely, if ever, be given entries in disambiguation pages. Including them as comments or on a talk page is a way to mention URLs that might be helpful in the future." There is also a section named "Redlinks". Chris the speller 04:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks I was thinking about that artile but i just disn't remember where on WP it was.--E-Bod 20:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: Can some of the disambiguation people weigh in here on the best disambiguation for a highway in the U.S. state of Michigan named M-X (where X is a number)? Thanks. --SPUI (T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 11:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Michigan highways

message: Is there a policy regarding whether or not there should be a disambig page if the whole page only has one link that isn't red?  It seems to me that the purpose of disambig is to disambiguate between articles that exist.
Anyway, the article I'm asking about is EPF.  Should there be a disambig page there?  On top of that, does anyone actually use EPF to mean ex post facto? Jesuschex 03:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Welcome to the world of three(/two/one/four/five) letter acronym pages! Some people (not me) think these pages are "special". Anyways, nothing links there Special:Whatlinkshere/EPF so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Ewlyahoocom 07:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When to not disambiguate? 

message: We've got a few comic characters where the character (comics) page is a further disambig page, for example, Ares (comics), Thor (comics), Hercules (comics), Dennis the Menace and Sandman (comics).  I would like to create some form of category to place them in, perhaps :Category:List of comics characters sharing the same name?
:I think the answer is much more simple than this - put them onto the disambiguation page that they belong on!  There is no need for a separate disambiguation page just for the comics-related entries, that is why there is Longer lists section at the Manual of Style for Disambiguation Pages.  Thor (comics) and Hercules (comics) are separate cases, because they are not truly disambiguation pages, but Ares (comics) and Sandman (comics) should definitly be put back into Ares (disambiguation) and Sandman.  In fact, Sandman already contains all the information from Sandman (comics).  My goodness!  What a mess of disambiguation pages. :)  Appropriate cleanup tags have been added, which I will likely take care of.  -- Natalya 23:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hold up!  The reason they are needed is that people do link to these pages when wikilinking, they will thus otherwise get created and these issues need to be looked at before action is taken.  What sort of thing are you suggesting? Hiding Talk 11:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that for almost all of the links to these pages, they could/should be corrected to link to a specific comic book character, rather than the page that lists all the different characters.  The title "Sandman (comics)", for example, seems to be linked to when referring to any reference of "The Sandman", when it really should be specified which Sandman is being referred to.  (Don't worry, I haven't made any changes yet!  I was just throwing my general impression out there). -- Natalya 16:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see.  So what would the page at Sandman (comics) become?  A redirect to the disambig page? Sorry if I came across a bit stressed, your enthusiasm scared me.  I'm not used to seeing it in the corners I inhabit. Hiding Talk 21:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I was just overwhelmed with the disambiguation. :)  That's exactly what I was thinking, making it a redirect to Sandman.  Does that seem appropriate? -- Natalya 21:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sound brilliant.  I'll add it to my to do list. The position is that if they simply act as a disambig page, then redirect them to the redirect page, but if they act as a summary page, like Thor (comics) and Hercules (comics), that's fine and they can be kept? Hiding Talk 13:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. Let me know if you'd like any help (I'll try to be less enthusiastic ;) ). -- Natalya 16:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh god, don't lose that enthusiasm on my account.  I should be alright, but if you turn one up feel free to have a go. Hiding Talk 18:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of comics characters sharing the same name 

message: The disambiguation guidelines say: Disambiguation serves a single purpose: to let the reader choose among different pages that closely relate to various meanings of a particular term (some of which might logically utilize said term in a titular fashion). This makes clear that dab pages are there to help the reader find a page. But there is no mention of the fact that editors also use dab pages to find the correct article to link to (either while writing an article, or when [as part of the Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links project] cleaning up after someone who linked to a dab page without checking).
The point I want to raise here is that dab pages that are written for readers are not as comprehensive as the ones that would be written to help an editor disambiguate. What do I mean by this? Well, for an editor to dab correctly, the editor might need a full list of the meanings of the word (and wiktionary often doesn't help here), plus possibly also the articles containing the word as part of the title. This is because the original editor at the page pointing to the dab page might have typed iris diaphragm instead of iris diaphragm, or something similar. Hence the "part of a title" bit is helpful for editors correcting dabs.
Given this, is there a case for relaxing the guidelines slightly? Carcharoth 17:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can put these extra tips on the talk page. For example Talk:Italian. Editors read the talk pages, readers don't - this seems like a good idea. --Commander Keane 17:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh the irony! :-) Did you see that someone added in Italian cuisine the edit after your one that tidied up the dab page? But seriously, thanks for the tip, I will consider doing this in future. Carcharoth 20:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Compare that to pages like Dental or Alternative, which simply include every article whose title includes those words -- most of which are never, ever referred to as simply a "dental" or "alternative". Ewlyahoocom 20:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems like those pages would be candidates to be cleaned up...? -- Natalya 21:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, technically they do not include every article... For that have a look at articles starting with "alternative" and articles starting with "dental"... :-) But seriously, it is sometimes unclear where to draw the line, and I find AllPages listings like that to be very helpful. It is just a pity that they cannot be referred to in article namespace (it is self-referential). On the other hand, we could put links to listings like this on the disambiguation page's talk page. I wonder if there is a way to get a list of all articles containing a word, ie. not just starting with a word? Browsing the list generated by a search for the term, such as here for "dental", is the closest I can get. That yields Yamahachi_Dental for example. I just think that tips like this should be advertised more widely so that editors are more likely to link to the correct pages in the first place, rather than leaving it to the dab squad to clean up. In any case, something like this could be added to a collection of tips for those cleaning up dab pages. Carcharoth 22:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Self-referencing shouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle, so long as the self-reference is identified as such. Links to Special:Allpages can be wrapped within the  template.  For example,  This makes it relatively simple for responsible re-users of Wikipedia content to remove the self-reference. older ≠ wiser 00:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm... I wonder if such a link could become useful on disambiguation pages?  The main topics appropriate for the page would be covered in-depth, but then there is still the link to everything else with a similar title (true there would be some overlap).  Feasable?  Or maybe only on pages where it is an issue?  I'm just brainsrotming. -- Natalya 11:14, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are dab pages for readers or editors? 

message: The guideline currently reads: 
"Lists of articles of which the disambiguated term forms only a part of the article title don't belong here. Disambiguation pages are not search indices. Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title (where there is no significant risk of confusion)."
I suggest that the aforementioned paragraph be deleted as it does not reflect the reality on disambiguation pages in that there are numerous pages that disambiguate articles that only share part of a title. For instance Aaronovitch disambigs Ben Aaronovitch and David Aaronovitch (this is only one of countless disambig pages that disambig based on a family name), Ace (disambiguation) includes numerous articles that have other additional words in the title, Democracy (disambiguation) disambiguates a number of phrases that include the word democracy. Love & Hope 14:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The guidline is not meant to prohibit any links that only include the word in question.  Rather, it is meant to deter the adding of unneccesary links that may just have the word in the name.  If an article is likely to be confused with the term being disambiguated, it is generally appropriate to appear on the page.  You are correct that reality does not necessarily reflect this; Ace (disambiguation) has certainly gone a bit overboard, and should in fact be merged with ACE (which I'm about to bring up below), as well as cleaned up. -- Natalya 18:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguating phrases and names - proposed change 

message: Per the page naming conventions at Wikipedia:Disambiguation, Ace (disambiguation) and ACE should be merged.  Before that happens, though, it seems that it might be good to clean them up a bit, as they are both very long disambiguation pages.  As addressed above, Ace (disambiguation) contains a very, very large number of links, many of which may not be necessary to be on the page.  It definitly needs some trimming down.  Any opinions on the best way to go about this, since it's a bit more complicated than the norm?  -- Natalya 18:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ace (disambiguation)]] and [[ACE]] 

message: I know this has been discussed before, but I'm confused by why the page contains the following guidance:
Ensure that the "(disambiguation)" page links back to an unambiguous page name.  The unambiguous page name should redirect to the primary topic page. This assists future editors (and automated processes).
:For example, the primary topic Rome links to Rome (disambiguation), where there is a link back via Rome, Italy (rather than directly to Rome).
This really seems counterintuitive, and if there is some rationale for doing this, it really should be explained, rather than simply postulated as if a decree from on high. What is the point of having Rome (disambiguation) link to Rome, Italy instead of Rome? I know there had at one time been some attempt to describe a "Disambiguated Primary Topic" (DPT), which if I understand correctly was supposed to make it easier to identify mistaken links to Rome that were actually meant for some other topic. At least I think that is the rationale for why the text above was added to the guideline. The way it was supposed to work, IIRC, was that intentional links to a primary topic like Rome were supposed to go through the redirect at Rome, Italy. Under this theory, it was supposed to be easier to monitor for mistaken links to the primary topic. 
But this does not at all reflect actual practice. If you look at What links here for these pages, there are over 9000 links to Rome, while there are about 300 to Rome, Italy. Is there some other reason for the disambiguation page to link to a redirect instead of to the primary topic? If not, can we get rid of these statements (that I've always found a little confusing, but really didn't pay much attention to). If there is some good reason for keeping this instruction, can we add some explanation to clarify this? older ≠ wiser 21:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I could see it being used along the same lines as the "no piping" guideline, but it does seem to make a lot more sense to link to the redirect in that case.  I don't see any reason why not. -- Natalya 21:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem, Anyone else care to comment on this? If there are no objections within a week, I will remove the text quoted above from the guideline. older ≠ wiser 22:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it makes sense to link to the redirect rather than to the primary topic.  If we have a disambiguation page, that means that the name is ambiguous, i.e. several entities have legitimate claims to use the name.  It doesn't really help anyone if we link, on a disambiguation page, to the ambiguous name. --Smack (talk) 21:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't really help anyone if we link, on a disambiguation page, to the ambiguous name. But by the same logic, it doesn't really help anyone to link to a redirect to a topic instead of directly. What is the benefit or harm either way? The real detriment in my mind is that this guidance is not only rather confusing, but is also, in my very unscientific estimation, rather widely ignored. Guidelines are supposed to reflect actual practice. Or in those cases where guidelines are prescribing a practice that is not generally recognized, IMO there should be a very strong argument in favor of making the change. I don't see that there is a very good argument here. older ≠ wiser 23:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary topic links 

message: Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#First name disambiguation. `'mikka (t) 00:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:   First name disambiguation 

message: On a disambiguation page, should the links be what the page title is?  I don't know what it's called when you make a link that SAYS one thing and goes to a different page, but should that be used?  I did that in Let's Go, but I'm not sure if I should have ... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jesuschex (talk • contribs) 18:16, 2 July 2006  (UTC)
:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Piping suggests Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed (for example, Moment (physics)). In many cases, this may be all the user needs to distinguish the article.. Besides the piped links, ideally each line in a disambiguation page should only have one blue link. Disambiguation pages are primarily intended to help a reader find the intended article as quickly as possible, with extra information and tangential links kept to a minimum. older ≠ wiser 18:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should links be the page title? 

message: In case you don't have :Category:Disambiguation on your watchlist, there's some discussion at Category talk:Disambiguation#Secondary disambiguations of some new subcategories which may be of interest (or concern). older ≠ wiser 22:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new disambiguation subcategories 

message: No matter how you phrase an "otheruses" template, there are some articles in which it will look ridiculous, and therefore the editor chooses among many different "otheruses" templates.  But if there are so many, there shouldn't be such templates at all; there should just be a style manual with examples of ways to phrase disambiguation notices in various different circumstances, using, e.g. the "dablink" template.  Most "otheruses" templates refuse to let the editor choose between a capital and a lower-case initial letter, and I find that obnoxious.  I do remember that one of the many "otheruses" templates actually produced results that looked like something an intelligent person could write, but it couldn't be universally used (I don't remember now which one it was).  Michael Hardy 19:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People appear to disagree with you on the issue of capitalizing articles' names (although have you brought it up somewhere like Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style?).  There's no need to insult them.  And a lack of standardization just looks unprofessional, with every article having a different look.  And finally, a template like  works for the overwhelming majority of articles — I'd welcome counterexamples. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Simetrical.  is probably the best and most generally useful.  is good too.  There was a big debate about deleting the former in favor of the latter earlier this year, and thankfully it failed. -- Slowmover 20:04, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Templates are extremely useful for standardization, and should not be discarded.  They can have enough variety to fit almost all articles; the remainder might qualify for , sure, but the vast majority can use some combination of parameters sent to  or perhaps .  Case should be dictated only if there's agreement that it should be (I don't think it's a good idea; consider eBay), but that's largely irrelevant to the question of whether to use templates at all. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "otheruses" templates should be abolished

message: Hi,  I dont know how to do a disambiguation page, but the Defence Analytical Services Agency is best known as "DASA", however this page has been taken.  Could someone please sort out a disambiguation for this please?  Thankyou!  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thebigalan39 (talk • contribs) .
: (Note: comment moved from top of page.)  Powers 16:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation request 

message: If I search for 'Prime' hoping to find a pointer to 'Prime Minister', I'm out of luck. There are some pointers to other pages starting with Prime, but not to all of them. If I do a similar search on the Danish wikipedia (search for 'Prim'), I will get a pointer to the Danish version of Special:Prefixindex/PAGENAME. This way, it is easy way to look for all pages that start with the ambiguous term.
Is there any reason to not do the same thing on the English Wikipedia (other than the fact that the template is protected)? Dash 12:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check the archives, this suggestion has cropped up a few times before (maybe also at WP:MOSDAB). There is the problem with what Prefixindex does with page titles containing "(disambiguation)".--Commander Keane 01:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add pointer to Special:Prefixindex/...? 

message: This issue is related to diambiguation. Please share your thoughts at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias#Nationalistic bias in global city names/redirects Tinlinkin 10:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nationalistic bias in global city names/redirects 

message: Some disagreement over what to list / what not to list on this dab page. Input welcome: Talk:AFD. Thanks/wangi 16:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[AFD]] 

message: Is there a preferred format to indicate that an entry's title may also refer to another topic when the second topic would not itself qualify for an article?  Specifically, I've authored an article about a late 19th century/early 20th century author and mycologist.  His name is shared by a late 19th century religious author who has very little chance of having his own article, but who often shows up in searches by author name for books of the period, so I'd like to have some way to avoid the potential for confusion.  Serpent's Choice 09:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd suggest writing a short stub about the guy currently with no article, which shouldn't be too hard, since you already know about him a bit.  Do you think he has little chance of having his own article because he is not notable? It seems that if he shows up in searches that much, it would probably be okay.  Once you have the stub, then you can either place disambiguation links on the two pages, or create a disambiguation page for them. -- Natalya 12:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation for nonexistent (nonqualifying) topics

message: ...so I corrected it.  I apologize if that was out of process, but it looked like an obvious structural error.  Please revert my change if I'm wrong.  Thanks. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 03:43, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Editing policy pages is fine — otherwise they'd be protected.  Of course, if your edits are substantive, they'd better reflect consensus, but make superficial edits as you like. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Heading levels were screwed up under "What not to include"

message: Should potential misspellings be disambiguated?  For an example, see the recent disambiguation links added to IMVU (version link) and I.N.V.U. (version link).
--TJJFV 17:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential Misspellings 

message: I'm a little confused on how disambiguation links should be posted at the top of main articles.  For instance, the article Wizard (fantasy) has a link to the disambiguation page: Wizard.  Is that correct, or should the link actually be to the unambiguously titled Wizard (disambiguation) which then redirects to Wizard?  Thanks!  Dreadlocke  ☥  22:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wizard (fantasy) actually needs no disambiguation links (I've gone ahead and removed them).  Since the page is located with the parenthetical identifier (fantasy), the only way someone will arrive at that page is either from the link at Wizard, or directly from another article that linked to Wizard (fantasy).  Either way, there is no way that the person could have arrived at the article mistakenly; therefore, no disambiguaiton links are needed. -- Natalya 22:58, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, Natalya!  That's an even better solution! Dreadlocke  ☥  23:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Main article dab links

message: It seems lately that quite a number of users have reworded/reorganized/dono massive copyedits on Wikipedia:Disambiguation.  While being bold is always encouraged, since this is a guideline, it is a really good idea to discuss any major changes here first.  Fixing a spelling or small grammar mistake is not a major change, but altering what the guidelines say/how they are organized is.  There is a reason things are laid out as they are; not to say that it is the best way, but it is a way that was agreed upon.  If you have a suggestion for an improvement, by all means post it here, for improvements are awesome, but as the notice on the top of the page says, please make sure it reflects consensus first. -- Natalya 16:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree Natalya. However, I did just revert JohnLai who had just reverted Centrx's recent revision of the page. For the most part, I think Centrx restored much of the content to a state it was in before a couple of weeks ago during which some fairly extensive changes and additions were made. I found most of the newer changes to be a significant decrease in the quality of the page. But, I won't revert again on this, but I think that is the best candidate for a version to use as a starting point to discuss additional revisions. older ≠ wiser 16:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you that many of Centrx's changes were very useful.  I was just making a blanket statement, since it seems like there's been a lot of editing of it recently. -- Natalya 16:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Centrx's edits have been re-reverted.  I agree with Bkonrad that those edits really helped people understand disambiguation, and would like to change it back.  Would those who disagree please speak up as to why?  Thanks! -- Natalya 00:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All signs point to User:JohnLai, who reverted, being a sockpuppet of User:Wai Wai. Regardless, there is no consensus for the changes he made. —Centrx→talk • 20:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please discuss major changes to the guidelines first 

message: Am I correct in assuming that the only things which really belong on disambiguation pages are links to wikipedia (or possibly other wikimedia) articles?  I have seen external links, dictionary definitions, and links to articles which don't actually exist.  Am I correct in simply removing all these?  Including redlinked articles?  --Xyzzyplugh 13:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My interpretation of the various rules is basically Yes, but then sometimes it seems that a short definition of a word is a nice introductory sentence for the list that follows.  As for redlinks, I think if the entry is notable and deserves an article, it's very likely that some associated topic has an article, and then a blue link to that article should be inserted along with the entry, and then I think it's okay to keep the redlink, pending creation of an expected article on the subject. There are counter-arguments for keeping a solo redlink, such as when putting a red link in a disambig page helps a user immediately who is looking for a subject with no wiki article as yet.  In that case, the red link serves a purpose, but it only makes sense if the subject is notable enough for someone to be looking for it, and thus notable enough to eventually receive an article, and it's unlikely you can't think of something in the description that already has a wiki article to link to (eg, let's say there was no article on the book Jaws, then you could redlink the title, but the description could say "a novel by Peter Benchley", and "Peter Benchley" could be bluelinked).  However, I think it's important to keep the number of blue links to one per entry.  There are some users who spend quite a bit of time on disambig pages, and you could also ask them directly.  Try User talk:CatherineMunro or User talk:Natalya. -- Slowmover 14:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've occasionally added a "See also" section to a disambiguation page, for such things as alternate spellings of a name. (The viewer might not have entered the spelling of the name correctly, for example.) — RJH (talk) 14:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Slowmover has covered it pretty well.  Unless there is an article about them, dictionary definitions should not be there, as we can link to Wiktionary instead.  There should definitly not be external links.  Redlinks are fine as long as it seems possible that an article could at some point be written on the subject.  Slowmover is correct in saying that it's good to be able to have a blue link in some section of the description of the red link (and yes, there should only be one).  As was also mentioned, a See also section can be useful, when appropriate.  For complete information on the topic, you can take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), which covers what should and shouldn't be on disambiguation pages, and how it should be layed out. -- Natalya 15:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Acceptable content on disambiguation pages?

message: Vum was forerly a redirect to Victoria University of Manchester. Someone changed it into a disambig but didn't provide an english article for the other entry only a red link here and a link to nl. Should this be reverted and should we add something to the policy to make this clear? Plugwash 23:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears appropriate to be changed back.  We could add something into the policy, but it doesn't seem like a very common occurance, so it might not be necessary. -- Natalya 00:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  disabig pages where all but one entry only exist in other languages 

message: The page "ELO" used to be a disambiguation page , however, AmbigDexter claims that these are false entries and has redirected "ELO" to the Electric Light Orchestra  page. While I agree that ELO is probably most commonly used to refer to the band, I think that some of the other entries on the previous disambig page (Elo rating system and Electronic Literature Organization) can claim as much use of "ELO" as can Electric Light Orchestra. Should "ELO" be a disambiguation page, or do those other entries not count? -albrozdude 20:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The disambiguation page should certainly exist.  If Electric Light Orchestra is agreed upon as the primary topic (though it does not seem to make much sense for that to happen), it could function similiarly as to how ETA and ETA (disambiguation) do.  However, it seems like it would be more appropriate to have the disambiguation page at ELO. -- Natalya 04:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation of an abbreviation 

message: Could I ask someone to look in on camera. There is an entry about in camera there that I would be inclined just to remove. I am quite certain that it is factually incorrect (camera in this sense is Latin, not archaic English, and it is not quite correctly defined), and I could go on, but I already have, at Talk:Camera (disambiguation)#private council. But clearly there are not enough people looking at that page to get a consensus to remove it. Could someone please drop by? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 04:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Next time I suggest you be bold.  Camera is Latin, not English, meaning simply "chamber".  In camera therefore simply means "in a chamber", as opposed to in court.  Any dictionary with etymologies, such as dictionary.com, can tell you this.  In fact, so can the in camera article. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pretty much exactly what I said on the talk page when I came at this the first time, but since I'd been reverted once, I figured it was better to bring in a third party than to play "he says, she says". - Jmabel | Talk 05:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Camera (disambiguation)]] 

message: Could someone whip up a disambiguation for Bosley? There are 3 ppl and one town associated with it, and i think there should be a disambiguation.
: Since the main Bosley is a place, and all the other Bosleys are people, I've added a link to List of people by name: Bos, instead.  CarolGray 10:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bosley Disambiguation request 

message: As the state route naming conventions poll is in many respects a debate about how to do disambiguation, it belatedly occurs to me I should mention it here.  (Part 1 is almost concluded, but this is bound to rumble on when by-state specifics are discussed next.  Alai 18:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  State route naming conventions poll 

message: The article Titan rocket now redirects to Titan (rocket family), which sort of ruins the point of citing it. Similarly, seal (mammal) now redirects to Pinniped, inflation (economics) now redirects to Inflation, and so on. False examples somewhat undermine the authority of the guideline. Deco 08:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Out of date examples 

message: I notice over the past few months the guidelines on "top links" has changed.  After a brief look through the talk page archives I can not see any discussion as to the changes.  Having investigated when and how the change was made I get the impression it may have been made by somebody who didn't realise they were changing the guidelines.
The change was made by User:William Allen Simpson on the 4th of February with the edit summary "use actual templates to reflect wording changes".
This changed the guideline from
* a hatnote should be used on an article entitled "Quaoar" to one entitled "Quaoar (deity)"
to
* a hatnote should be used on an article entitled "50000 Quaoar" to one entitled "Quaoar (deity)", and vice-versa
the change presumably being made because of a page move, but having the additional affect of changing the meaning of the guideline.
Looking through the talk archives, AFAICT the issue of whether to disambiguate on articles with already disambiguated names has come up four five times (most recently here?) and never gotten anywhere.  Additionally, the new wording contradicts Wikipedia:Hatnotes.
I am therefore changing the example and guidelines back to the originals, unless and until there is a proper discussion and concesus to change the policy.  My example may not be the best available, so if anybody can come up with anything better... Joe D (t) 03:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top links 

message: The use of  in these templates seems incorrect.  It looks like it's being used just for the indentation it usually has by default.  This is not a good reason to use dl. :p ¦ Reisio 21:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you be a little more specific? Which templates are you refering to? I'm not aware that any of the dab templates use dl.  older ≠ wiser 21:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  dl usage 

message: As I understand it, a topic page might potentially qualify as a Primary Topic page, upon which a  topic (disambiguation) page might be listed, at the top, as in See: topic (disambiguation). Is there a process by which the community might agree that such a page be agreeably defined?
My motivation is there are some terms in common use, much like the Time page which benefit from the expository style which would be appropriate for a Primary Topic page, but not a Disambiguation page, such as Time (disambiguation), which adheres to the standards of the WikiProject. --Ancheta Wis 04:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand what you wrote, and I'll guess I'm not alone in that. That might be why no one has responded in a week. Could you try saying this a different way? - Jmabel | Talk 01:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[topic]] (disambiguation) 

message: I felt that there exist a lot of otheruses templease that have minor differences. My new template  (could be moved to better spot if necissary) could obsolete , , , , , , ,  and . →AzaToth 20:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What are the differences? —Centrx→talk • 15:49, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That was the question I asked my self, why so many different templates for the same thing, only some parameters where different. →AzaToth 17:29, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Combined otheruses templates 

message: This really looks damn "empty" now. For example: Frank Beard. (<-the golfer)
[    ] This article is about the golfer. For .... I could swear that the [    ] part still contained a trident symbol not long ago. Which weirdo has removed it? -andy 80.129.105.81 13:57, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's only in pages that use . —Centrx→talk • 18:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! So what about doing *ALL* disambiguations with the trident and not doing one the one way, the other a different way? I see no point in having umpteen types of disambiguation styles. Example Plant. Looks as if there's something missing without the trident symbol. So should we now fix 100,000 articles or what? No, that must be standardized. -andy 80.129.122.8 05:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For the notes that are on articles that point a user to a disambiguation pages, they are supposed to be non-intrusive; the vast majority of readers want to read that article not go somewhere else. In the past, there was not a trident on any of them. —Centrx→talk • 06:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hey! Where have all the nice tridents gone to? 

message: Recently, the page Slade (surname) has been split of from the page Slade (disambiguation), thereby making it one click further away from the reader. It contains no extra info (and shouild not do so either, Wikipedia is not a site for the explanation of names). I could understand this split if the disambig page had been very long, but in this case, I see no use for it (a subsection would do the trick just fine). Is there any guideline or discussion on this kind of forks of disambig pages? I would personally merge the Slade (surname) page back to the original disambig page, but would like some extra input first. Fram 11:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been ongoing discussion of this sort of thing at Manual of Style, especially under the sections Hndis needs its own Manual and See also. older ≠ wiser 12:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks: it looks like most people there thought it better to have separate surname disambig pages, although I still fail to see the benefit (except for very long disambig pages). I'll leave it as it is now, but I'll continue making unified disambig pages for most terms I come across if needed. Fram 14:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambig forks

message: I replaced disambiguation text at Jericho (TV series) with a template () placed at the very top of the article, but this was quickly put further down in the article, seemingly because the template at the top creates unneeded whitespace. From what I can see placing the template at the top makes sense, for several reasons given at Wikipedia:Hatnotes, but that page seems to be only kept for historical interest. Therefore I would like to know if there are any guidelines on where to put DAB templates. The reasons stated at Hatnotes, about not mixing meta text with article content, seem to make sense to me, but should they be followed after the discontinuation of the project? Incidentally, I feel that the "unneeded whitespace" is good as it results in all actual article text starting at the same height.) – Dagnabit 15:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could also type it in rather than use the template if the only complaint is the whitespace. —Centrx→talk • 02:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Placement of templates 

message: The example given for redirects to disambiguation pages is America (disambiguation), which is just a redirect back to America, the real disambig page. Is this a mistake or am I missing something? We've had this discussion at Use of the word American, when someone changed the direct link to America to a link to America (disambiguation).--Cúchullain t/c 21:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this is an example that helps distinguish accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones. The theory is that links to a disambiguation page should, in general, be disambiguated. Many editors routinely examine "What links here" for disambiguation pages to fix any links (especially so for pages that are frequently mislinked--such as America). Deliberately linking to the form of the page with "(disambiguation)" indicates that the link does not need to be "fixed". older ≠ wiser 22:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha. Thanks.--Cúchullain t/c 22:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: America

message: I believe in the United States "different than" is quite commonly used, but in British English "different than" is incorrect (according to Ernest Gowers The Complete Plain Words). Because of American and British English differences#Different prepositions in certain contexts, I think we should use "different from". CarolGray 17:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it were reworded to say "different from" or "different than", I'd agree.  But the "rule" or guidline for preferring "different from" doesn't apply to "a different x than y".  The "than" there is a different function word. -- JHunterJ 17:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reworded it to avoid the issue, but I can't help wondering it you're applying a different standard from I am... :-) -- JHunterJ 18:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what you mean.  Okay, I concede.  CarolGray 13:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different from/different than 

message: There is a new proposal at Wikipedia:Unnecessary disambiguation. Please can a few people comment on it. Thanks --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 11:55, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:UNDAB]] 

message: Is there any rating system for disambiguation pages?  I have noticed that biographies have quality scales.  Do disambiguation pages have such scales.  If so, I am wondering how Breaking (disambiguation) rates? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TonyTheTiger (talk • contribs) 17:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not aware of a rating system, other than the  template. Looks like Breaking could use it; looks like a lot of cruft has become attached to it... -- JHunterJ 18:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Quality assessment

message: Okay. Hey. Forgive me if this comment is misplaced. Name's Ace. I've read and followed an apparent policy that plurals need to either link to the singular article title, or a disambiguation page. Now, on the other hand, this may not be policy and just an "unwritten rule". If the latter case is in effect, as it seems to be, I'd like to recommend this policy be made official, citeable and applied throughout the encyclopedia. The mean issue comes back to disambiguation, not naming conventions or redirects. "Pixies" was once the title of the article now known as "Pixies (band)". The users, to put it mildly, are/were uneducated and/or unrealistic in matters of disambiguation. Similar case at what is now "Eels (band)" and several other " (band)" articles, actually. Users had/have the misguided belief that listing an article at a title for the plural of a common word or phrase is okay. Anyway, that's actually kind of moot. The big issue is plurals. "Eels", the word, can refer to the species,—and other varieties thereof—the band and many other uses. Thus, the redirect goes to the disambiguation page, not any of the articles. I first saw this method being implimented to with the redirect "heroes". It was redirected from hero, to Hero (disambiguation) so that readers could find Heroes (TV series) with more ease. No objections, to my knowledge, with the heroes edit and many objections due to...well...ignorance, with the eels disambiguation. Now, however, I have come across a problem. The redirect Pixies is being fought over. Fans of Pixies (band) believe that article to be the most notible use. They've even neglected to remove a move petition after an anministrator—also a fan and a bit of a jerk—moved the article to the current title. (It was at The Pixies for a time.) Anyway, the redirect of [[[Pixies]] could obviously refer to both Pixie and Pixies (band). And, let's face it, only the band, and, by fanatical devotion to them, some of the users, say simply "Pixies". They're arguably better known as the Pixies, like Joker (comics) as "The Joker. Also moot, however. The issue is, basically, this: I need a ruling. I cannot act per an unofficial practice. So...ahem...Help! :( ACS (Wikipedian); Talk to the Ace. See what I've edited. 16:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Part of this is how we deal with "The" in titles; unless "The Pixies" is clear usage, as "The Joker" is, we should avoid it, because editors and readers will expect us to follow our usual rules. However, this page is a guideline, by its nature unofficial; take fanboy disruptive editing to an admin.  JCScaliger 14:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps I'm missing something, here or elsewhere, but what is the convention regarding plurals and "The title"? ENeville 02:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know of a disambiguation guideline for them, just the WP:NAME guidelines for article titles.  Sometimes it makes sense to have separate dabs for plurals and singulars (for instance, when the singular is a 3CC and the plural is a 4CC), and sometimes for "title" and "The title", but sometimes (especially if both lists are short and don't warrant different footers) they can/should be lumped together.  If lumped, the dab title should be singular and without the "The", I think. If separate, each dab should link to the other as a "See also". -- JHunterJ 02:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plurals 

message: Consider a link to Boer Wars, like this one, taken out by a bot. If you want to link to both of them, this is the natual way to do it. An artificial construct like  Boer War seems unhelpful to the reader, and is not always possible. Comments? JCScaliger 14:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, it should be a (short) article about the Boer Wars, with blurbs about each pointing to the main article, and should not be a disambig at all. -- JHunterJ 11:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some links to dab pages are warranted

message: Another editor and I are having a difference of opinion over the way to write toplinks, due to an ambiguity in these guidelines.
The problem revolves around the Muse article which describes "greek goddesses", however in addition to this, there is the well known band Muse (band).  Further to this, there are a total of 19 links on the Muse (disambiguation) page (5 of which are redlinks).
I would argue that the guidelines suggest that only the dab link should go on the top of the page; specifically "Where there are several articles to be disambiguated from each other, include a link to a separate disambiguation page." (my bolding).
The other editor would argue that the band is notable enough that the band link should appear at the top in addition to the dab link.  This is justified because the guidelines do not explicitly prohibit this, and why else would there exist a template for it.
I would counter this by saying that first it is implied that only the dab link should appear, and second that we would open a whole can of worms if we allow some disambiguation in articles as there would be a lot of argument about what is notable, and that it defeats the object of dab pages, as it could cause article pages to be cluttered.
In any case, I would appreciate input on clarifying this, and have the following two proposals to resolve this:-
* Proposal 1 Change the wording to "Where there are several articles to be disambiguated from each other, include a link to a separate disambiguation page. Do not add any other disambiguation links."
* Proposal 2 Change the wording to "Where there are several articles to be disambiguated from each other, include a link to a separate disambiguation page. If there are several notable uses, additionally, provide links to the notable articles.
Discuss. Guinness 21:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not in favor of either guideline.  In some cases (such as a revert-war over where a basename should point), two usages might both overshadow all others (the ship and the James Cameron film Titanic is the one I interacted with most recently).  I don't think the band Muse reaches this same overshadowing.  So I'd use each resolution you propose, one for Titanic and the other for Muse. -- JHunterJ 22:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which demonstrates my point about arguing about what is and isn't notable nicely, hence I favour proposal 1 to remove the potential for such arguments. Guinness 22:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm the other editor involved and I have to say that while I don't agree with Proposal 1, I don't necessarily support the wording in Proposal 2 to allow adding several links to other articles.  In the case of Cold fusion, which I brought up in the preceding discussion, a link is also provided to ColdFusion at the top.  What if a new article about a third (less common) use of "cold fusion" were created and established a need for a Cold fusion (disambiguation) page.  Would -- or should -- this mandate removal of the ColdFusion link from the Cold fusion article, even though it is extremely notable?  I would say certainly not - the italic text should provide a path to both ColdFusion (since it's very possible the user was looking for that topic) and a link to Cold fusion (disambiguation) for other uses.  If done with the template (), it looks consistent and provides additional help to the reader without really taking anything away from the article.  Allowing a disambiguation link such as this is a good thing.  Whether Muse is notable enough for a case like this is a different discussion. -- Renesis (talk) 23:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as the case of exactly 2 other uses, I think it's borderline, and a 2 entry dab page might be overkill in such a case.  However, in this case, there are 18 other uses.  What would we do if there were let's say 7 Muses as notable as ColdFusion.  We could end up with a nasty mess.  As for the exact wording of proposal 2, I'm not entirely happy with it myself, but provided it as a counter-example to proposal 1.  I'd be more than happy for someone to proffer a better way of putting it (in fact, I was hoping to provoke this by this discussion), although again, I think it is difficult to define exactly what should or shouldn't be included in a way which would prevent disagreements, and risk cluttering toplinks with alternate uses.  (Actually, if the consensus were to go with Proposal 2 or similiar, I might argue that Muse (band) are notable enough, however it is moot because I really think that having the dab link alone is the way to go) Guinness 00:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If situations like this arise, they should certainly not be written into the disambiguation guidelines (or, as was said, a can of worms would be opened).  If there is such a disagreement about what dab links to include at the top of the page, that seems like a fine indicator that perhaps there is no primary topic, and the disambiguation page should be located at the article name itself. -- Natalya 16:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple disambiguation? 

message: This page has one part where comprehensively describes an area of New York. Can someone sort this out? Also, can they fix any other problems on this disambig page? I just think this would be generally useful for anyone visiting that page. Simply south 22:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[The Valley]] 

message: So, I've always understood the idea of a "primary topic" in the following light.  There are many things called London, so the term is theoretically ambiguous, and would need disambiguation.  However, because the capital of the United Kingdom is by such a wide margin the most prominent usage of the term "London," the article on the city in England can be located at London without any difficulty, because it is the primary topic.
Now, this all works in the absence of any specific naming conventions for the topic at hand.  Sometimes a naming convention can be agreed on whereby a primary topic does have a disambiguated title, for whatever reason.
One instance of this has always been U.S. cities.  For whatever reason, a naming convention was agreed to whereby U.S. cities always go at "City, State" regardless of ambiguity or primary topic status.  Recently, over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements), I and some other people have been trying to change this convention so as to move articles like Los Angeles, California to Los Angeles, and so forth.
I have been unsurprised to discover that there is opposition to this.  Lots of people seem to feel that all the U.S. city articles need to be consistent with each other.  This is an argument which I disagree with, but which I understand.  What I don't understand is the number of people who seem to feel that we can't have the articles on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Los Angeles, California at Philadelphia and Los Angeles, because "Philadelphia" and "Los Angeles" are both ambiguous terms.  
It seems to me that circumstances like these are exactly what the whole idea of "primary topic" is meant to address.  I have repeatedly pointed people to Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary topic when they make this argument, and in spite of the fact that Rome, another city, is the example, they never seem to grasp the concept.  What's going on?  Am I crazy?  Are they crazy?  Some of them seem to object to the idea of "primary topic", but others simply don't seem to understand.  Is the idea this complicated?  john k 00:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No John, you're quite right, AFAICT. The thing is, there have been editors (none very recently) who have essentially argued that there should not be any primary topics -- that is, whenever there is any need for disambiguation, the disamiguation page should go at the main title. Such proposals fortunately never gained much traction, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have not entirely gone away. older ≠ wiser 01:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fancy meeting you here.  If you look over the city naming page talk page, you'll see that various people who oppose any move seem to be saying this, without quite coming right out and saying it.  I think Agne has pretty much openly advocated this, and Will Beback has implied support for it. It's incredibly frustrating, because they're doing it in a way that suggests that there isn't a page which says that Rome is a primary topic, and gets to be at Rome. john k 02:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You make a good point, John k.  Thanks for giving me an "aha!" moment.  What you say makes perfect sense to us, but it may be because we have had a lot of exposure to disambiguation pages, and understand what you are describing very easily.  For those who many not be as familiar with disambiguation pages, they may be misinterpreting it by their own fault, even when you give them good references. -- Natalya 16:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary Topic 

message: Speaking of primary topics: could someone more experienced than I with the standards on disambiguation have a look at this change to Colonia? Seems to me that it heads the wrong way, in that the literal origin of the term gets lost in the shuffle. - Jmabel | Talk 04:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would also have move the dictionary-like definition down (treating it like a synonym according to WP:MOSDAB, with a wiktionarypar link at the top to handle it (if wiktionary has an entry for it).  And the examples of the definition, assuming the linked articles don't themselves mention "colonia", should be deleted -- possibly even the dictionary definition itself, since the linked term there doesn't mention colonia either.  The disambiguation pages needn't have information on the etymology of terms, IMO, because WP's not a dictionary. I don't understand why colonias is a separate article, though, and the colonia page has other problems (pipe links, multiple links). -- JHunterJ 11:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: ... and possibly separate the informational text to its own article.  But the disambiguation page, the hypothetical page on the historical Roman bit, and the Colonias article need to be arranged appropriately; one of those should be the base name, and the others should be Colonia (disambiguation), Colonia (Roman), and Colonia (Mexico) (?), as needed. -- JHunterJ 13:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: A disambiguation page is not an encyclopedia article.  I've separated. -- JHunterJ 14:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I have no particular love for the shorter parenthetical, but I will observe that the interwiki links appear to be close: Colonia (Rom) in German, Colonia romana in Italian, Colonia (Romeinse term) in Dutch, Kolonia (starożytny Rzym) in Polish -- likely that last one is closer to Roman outpost. But I see that I've used an adjective descriptor, which is guided against.  Roman colonia or Colonia (antiquity) would be other options. Colonia (Roman outpost) works too, if perhaps not simple enough. -- JHunterJ 17:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colonia 

message: Wikipedia:Disambiguation used to say,
:""Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they realistically be expecting to view as a result? When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page."
This seemed eminently sensible to me, and avoided foolish consistency, the hobgoblin of little minds.  When was this removed from the article, and why? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems to have disappeared with this edit  made by Stevertigo on 19:53, September 16, 2006 (UTC). I don't see that there was any discussion on the talk page. Full disclosure, I later removed a large part of Stevertigo's revision because it seemed a major change to address a personal hobbyhorse. But I hadn't noticed the earlier removal of the statement you mention. older ≠ wiser 21:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would anyone object to the restoration of this passage? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually, I've gone ahead and been bold and restored it.  If anyone objects, they can revert and discuss. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (As an aside, before Stevertigo removed that passage, WP:D had contained this text or a passage like it since this edit by  on December 31, 2003.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That has always been a good standby to describe what should and shouldn't appear on disambiguation pages; thanks for noticing, and replacing it. -- Natalya 02:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unnecessary disambiguation?