Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 19

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? 

message: Just informing everyone here about a discussion that's cropped up over at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#RfC Episode Article Naming conventions regarding the use of disambiguation. 
The discussion's trying to made a centralized decision about whether the disambiguation of articles for TV episodes in the format of "nameofepisode (nameofseries)" is appropriate when the disambiguation is not actually needed. 
The discussion's sort of grinding to a halt, with people not agreeing on whether or not to have the disambiguation, and whether or not certain TV series should be exempt from the rule if their governing wikiproject decides so. 
Just dropping a note here since this is really a "use of disambiguation" issue. If anyone here wants to come over and join in, it'd be really nice. We really need some input from some more people.  --`/aksha 01:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using disambiguation for "consistency" over groups of articles when disambiguation is no disambiguation is needed  

message: No matter how much I look on WP:DAB, WP:NC, WP:MOSDAB .. I can never find what I am looking for.
Basically - I find that John Smith (musician) or Jane Bloggs (politician) is preferable to John Smith (Canada) or Jane Bloggs (Australia).  Of course, the country is used if there are multiple politicians, etc.  I'm sure that this is the preferred format, but wanted to make sure that hadn't changed recently without my noticing.  I was about to move David Anderson (Isle of Man) to David Anderson (Manx politician) [or (Isle of Man politician)] and wanted to verify this, but it is quite difficult for myself, an experienced Wikipedian, to find the information - I hate to think what a newbie would have to go through! -- Chuq 08:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't feel bad - I'm not positive about this either, and I've been around disambiguation pages a lot.  It seems that either way could be found as useful; on one hand, keeping the parenthetical clarifier as just the country keeps the name of the article shorter, but having the country and whay they are is a lot more explanitory.  I'm more preferential to the latter, but I'm not aware if there has been any agreement on the subject. -- Natalya 17:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's found in WP:NAMEPEOPLE (AKA WP:NCP) under "Qualifier between brackets or parentheses". Chris the speller 01:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name (country) vs Name (countrian role) 

message: Can someone offer guidance - is it permissible to have a picture on a Disambiguation page? I've just added one to Broadcasting House (disambiguation). If not, I'll delete it - Thanks  Zir 13:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That guideline pretty much sums it up (you can see some discussion about it here.  Cases where images assist disambiguation are Mississippi Delta (disambiguation) and Congo (disambiguation).  Otherwise, even if they're cool images, we realy shouldn't have them. -- Natalya 15:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's deleted - and thanks for being so diplomatic! Zir 17:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images ? 

message: Does anyone object to changing the text of :template:otheruses to the following?  
:For other senses, see  (disambiguation).
The only change is the word "senses", which is a synonym of "uses" but more clearly applies to words, rather than to whatever the subject of the article is. So in an article about a hammer, it won't look like it's referring to pulling nails or killing zombies with the same hammer.  (Turns out user:Michael Hardy proposed this above earlier, and I only just found it.) —Michael Z. 2006-11-15 17:01 Z
:I wanted "meanings," but apparently that's too dictionary-like.  Works for me though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like the proposed change. Have there been complaints? It is likely to annoy many existing users of Wikipedia. Maybe it is part of my reaction to the overuse of "sense" on the Sunday-morning political interview shows "What is your sense of ..." when they mean "How do you feel about ..."; it seems pretentious as hell. I already have five senses, don't need any more. ;-) Chris the speller 16:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Like Chris the speller, I like "uses" better than "senses".  I quite like "meanings", too. CarolGray 10:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text:  They are all bad.  "Senses" is better than "uses", but we can think of a better, more verbose, less misleading phrase. — Omegatron 03:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other uses → other senses 

message: Hi,  I don't know how to do a disambiguation page, but I recently searched on "You Can't Go Home Again" expecting to find information about the famous Thomas Wolfe novel having that title.  Instead, I found no mention of the novel, but only something about a Battlestar Gallactica TV series.  Shocking!  Can anyone help? (At the least add a note saying such a novel exists.)  Thank you.
JCNSmith 22:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No disambiguation page is needed when there are only two articles, so I have made You Can't Go Home Again a stub about the novel, with a hatnote pointing to the TV episode. Now maybe someone would like to flesh out the article? Chris the speller 05:40, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Try it again. I have changed the redirect to be a dab page. This is something that you can do yourself; give us a holler if you need help or encouragement. Chris the speller 23:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguaton Request 

message: There is a common phrase in English, let's call it 'x'.  There are two books, neither of which was written in English originally, but both of whose traditional titles in translation are 'x'.  At the moment, one book has the article title 'x', while the other one has the title 'x (author)'.  Is it acceptable, for the sake of consistency, to move both books to titles of the form 'x (author)', and make the original 'x' a disambiguation page?  Currently, the 'main' title is the more popular of the two books, but does popularity/obscurity override consistency in naming conventions and disambiguation? Both books are, however, classics, so this isn't some promotion thing: they are centuries old.  The Crying Orc 06:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there are only two pages, a disambiguation page is generally unnecessary because you can just put a hatnote at one linking to the other.  At most, people will have one extra click to get to where they were going.  If they're both at longer titles, then people will always need an extra click to go where they want to be, instead of <%50 of the time. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, "consistency" is a red herring here. General Wikipedia practice says that if one of the two books is sufficiently more popular or better known than the other, it has the right to the undisambiguated title. If the two are of roughly equal significance, then there might be an argument for moving the article currently at "title" to a disambiguated page. It doesn't really matter if the two pages look "consistent" — what matters is that we increase the probability that a random user who enters the title into the search box will reach the page he or she is looking for. I hope that helps! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Books

message: The disambiguation page at neutral point of view currently disambiguates between the article objectivity (philosophy) and WP:NPOV. I was surprised that there doesn't seem to be any guidance on this page telling people not to disambiguate across namespaces. Did I miss it? Am I wrong? As it stands, shouldn't this be a redirect to the article? For example, the beans page redirects to bean... it's not a disambiguation page for bean and WP:BEANS. Dekimasu 03:55, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it disambiguates with Objectivity (disambiguation), but I agree.  There is no need to have a disambiguation page when there are fewer than two main namespace articles to be linked to.  It would be just as effective to redirect neutral point of view to Objectivity (disambiguation) with a top link to the Wikipedia page using the  template (which I notice the page already has). The policy should reflect this if it does not already. Khatru2 04:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I missed that the link was to a disambig that already had the selfref. I went ahead and redirected it, but I still think that the policy should be clarified (if I haven't missed something). Dekimasu 05:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguating with the Wikipedia namespace