Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 27

message: This is related to the header above but there are some extra difficulties. One editor () has created many pages that list place names, surnames and people with these names that he believes share one common root. The results look like Wassertrüding (onomastics) or Gott. What should these pages look like after cleanup? How can we best separate the disambiguation information from family information and name information? Kusma (討論) 11:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My attitude is that you do have to ask for verifiability of the onomastics (like everything else); but that separation out has a common sense dimension. There is a merge proposed, for example, of Spira (Spiro) and Spira (family name). I would think in the end that the family history should be separated from the page(s) (numerous variants) for the surnames. But it really ought to be a priority to get a clear organisation first. Charles Matthews 11:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Ouch, that's an ugly page (talking about Wassertrüding (onomastics) here). The several surnames on the page are not confusable, so shouldn't be on the same disambiguation page; in fact, most surnames have not more than one blue link, so do not need a disambiguation page (also because the red links are just names, with no other identifying characteristics). I'm trying to clean up the page to show what I think it should look like, though I'm not sure it's worth it. Eugène van der Pijll 16:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've personally been considering onamastics pages to not really be disambiguation pages (much as the :Category:Lists of people by name aren't really disambig pages).  There's a clear effort to style them very differently, so why not let them go their own course (though obviously wikipedia core policies of verifiability, citing sources, original research, etc. apply everywhere).  --Interiot 14:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. Just the pages I am talking about did not contain any verifiable or cited information about onomastics, and just list people whose names might share a common root. As the author never answered to anything about these pages (and there were some other problems with him), he is currently banned and some people are trying to clean up his contributions. Letting the pages go their own course for the last year has resulted in a massive WP:OWN problem. See also WP:AN#Ban of Sheynhertz-Unbayg and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sheynhertz-Unbayg. Kusma (討論) 10:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Onomastics 

message: Is it ok to use some headlines in very large disambiguation pages? Because someone removed them according to this site and replaced them with bold text only. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.57.26.239 (talk • contribs) 22:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the headings are certainly preferable (to me).  If the list is short enough not to need headings, it doesn't need bold text either.  Maybe the other editor was trying to get the table of contents to disappear?  (And there are better ways of solving that issue.) Which page? -- JHunterJ 23:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, if you take a look at the Longer lists section of the Manual of Style, it says that bold separating headings are appropriate when the list of entries gets long, and using headlines become appropriate when the list of entries becomes so long that it spans more than a page or thereabouts. -- Natalya 02:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, thanks.  Unsigned above did say "very large", but I was paying no attention to that list note.  Again, then, I have to ask, which page? :-) -- JHunterJ 11:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The anon's contributions indicate Chimera, which is indeed an unholy mess.  — Catherine\talk 17:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  some headlines in large lists? 

message: Consensus among editors on this talk page appears to be insufficient to get changes to the associated page to "stick."  Frustrating... -- JHunterJ 21:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This talk page 

message: I'd assume that I could at least delete middle name holders (see Harrison or Scott -- at least Harrison doesn't have to resort to pipelinks!).  But I expect I won't see all the objections until after I try it... -- JHunterJ 18:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Middle names