Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links/Archive 2

message: Am I right in asuming that if you are fixing up the DAB Rage, for example, since the word rage (meaning angry etc) doesn't have its own article, you should remove any links that attempt to link to the angry meaning of rage? --Commander Keane 04:18, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
*Probably better to make them link to anger, if it fits the context. -- BD2412 talk 04:39, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
*and where it doesn't fit / isn't required by the context, I'd say yes remove the link.  I think it's generally unnecessary to link a word like rage where its meaning is not the main point of the sentence and it isn't part of a list. You may find it's better to remove the link for the sake of clarity, or at least to avoid annoying people who dutifully follow the link only to find it's a blind alley so far as relevance to their article is concerned. ~ Veledan | Talk | c. 08:04, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query 

message: Is it appropriate to have mispellings in DAB pages?  What about the special case of Dike and Dyke, these page need to be linked, what is the best way? --Commander Keane 13:18, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) says to include them in the See also section. Josh Parris ✉ 00:57, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mis-spellings in DAB's 

message: In Johnson, for example, at the top of the article (it is a dab) there is explantion about the orign of the name "Johnson".  I don't think this info complies with the Manual of style for a dab, but it could have a place somewhere else in Wikipedia, where should I put it? --Commander Keane 07:44, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
*I agree it can't stay in the dab.  Should Wikipedia contain surname etymologies?  I can't find an official policy, but the only example I can find is Origin of the surname "Whitehead" and that's under vote to be removed to Wiktionary.  Wiktionary, however, does list surnames and has brief derivations, so I'd guess you simply delete it from the dab and add the first sentence you've deleted to meaning (1) in the Wiktionary entry for Johnson. You wouldn't add the remaining sentences, but if you were feeling really energetic, each variant spelling would have its own entry referring to the common spelling :-) ~ Veledan | Talk | c. 21:55, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of names 

message: Can we get rid of the struck through links? We could either move them to a separate page of fixed disambiguation pages that we can check later, or we could just delete them. I would be willing to do this, if others agree. Oh, and if we do just move the pages, the we could move them back some time in the future, like in half a year or something...just so we wouldn't have to keep checking them. --Quadraxis 02:23, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Can we get rid of the fixed disambiguation pages?

message: Having racked up a few thousand edits on this project and learnt a good few time-saving tricks along the way, I wondered whether it would be worth writing a brief guide to efficient disambiguation? I'm sure there are plenty of handy tips that the many other dedicated contributors to this project could add, too. How about it? Agentsoo 16:58, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The basis of my strategy is to do things simultaneously so as to minimise the time you spend waiting for the Wikipedia servers to respond. I've had a go at describing it below, and all improvements and corrections are welcome.
*Nice start and I've added a small section between your two about piped links. Feel free to put it elsewhere or delete it if it's covered in something you were about to write anyway :-) ~ Veledan | Talk | c. 18:57, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

text: It's good. We definitely need something like this on the page. Bit wordy, though. The essential piece of information is that you need to use the "find" button; I can only imagine what an impossible task this project must be without it. As an aside, how do you flag the edit as minor with this technique? Flowerparty talk 20:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Note: the remainder of this section has been moved to Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/Guide.  BD2412 talk 05:38, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Guide to Efficient Disambiguation

message: What should we do when a dam page links to anothe dam page? For example, The Director links to Director, but there's no way to disambiguate which particular sort of director it should link to. Should we just leave them? It would be a bit annoying to jump from dam to dam, but what else can we do? Agentsoo 09:17, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation to Disambiguation Links

message: I was working on Norman which had links to a person a romance language spoken in part of france, a city in Oklahoma and the people.  I got through about 30-40 and then realised that, with the exception of some that needed to be changed from Norman invasion to Norman invasion they were all for Normans.  Also about 10 of them people had written Normans so that the correct page would display but link to the disambig page.  I decided that raher than re-map all 450 links and then watch for the few a week which would most likley show up it would make more sense to move the disambiguation page to Norman (disambiguation) and redirected to Normans.  I'm new to this project though so if thats wrong, could some one let me know so I don't repeat the error.  Dalf | Talk 05:32, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norman redirected to Normans and disambig page moved 

message: This page is the Maintenance Collaboration of the Week.  The following comments are preserved from the nomination and voting process because they may be useful to contributors.
----
:Nominated 01:25, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maintenance Collaboration of the Week 

message: Having completed categories listed I agree as a good idea, but I was wondering if I could perhaps seperate finished from unfinished so my poor olde eyes can see exactly which ones are finished and which are not. Magicmonster 01:12, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can't .... See..... Choices...... 

message: Is there a channel on the wikipedia IRC chat for people working on disambiguation to chat and ask questions in real time?  I just get all set up and joined but did not see anything obvious in the channel listing.  It might be a good idea to set up a room at least while its the COTW and link to instructions on the project page.  I suspect it might prevent some bad disambiguation form happening. Dalf | Talk 07:51, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  COTW and IRC 

message: I don't know if this is the correct place to recommend a disambiguation, but
*"Blue bonnet" redirects to the bird 
*"Blue bonnetS" redirects to "Peacekeeping"? blue helmets?
*"bluebonnets" the Texas state flower
--Kim Nevelsteen 19:43, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blue bonnet strangeness 

message: I sometimes wonder if we can ever complete this project. We really need some kind of tool to catch the new dam links as they come in. I can't imagine it would be that difficult to write, would it? At the moment, we seem to have so much to do that, by the time we finish it, the new dump will come along with a whole lot more links to dam pages. A more permanent solution would be very useful. Soo 00:24, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: PS Even assuming that all our link counts are correct (they often underestimate) and all the ones that are done really are done (ones that were 'done' a long time ago often grow back), we still have over 17 thousands pages to fix. That's a hell of a lot of work and would make the time spent writing some kind of assisting tool well worth it. Soo 00:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done below 12 thousand now, just ten days later. I feel optimistic again! Soo 18:37, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 4 days later, and it's down to 8744. I'm sure the numbers aren't that accurate but surely that's progress. Soo 18:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I think a modification to mediawiki to put up a warning when a person likes to a DAB page, with an easy way for them to look at the DAB page in question withouth going away from or saving their edit (maybe a link that will open up a tab or a new window) woudl be worthwhile.  I think including a How to disambiguate section on the talk page of any DAB that is not totally obvious is a good plan as well.  An assisted editing interface would be more difficult than Humanbot and a bit dangerious.  The bot could never make theactual DAB choice though making it an easy slection with ability to modify the text displayed (defaulting to not changing whatever is displayed in the article) would be a nice start.  So long whatever articles got DABed with it had to be set up in advance it would prevent people from going really fast and doing a bunch of them wrong. Dalf | Talk 19:43, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think most people agree that solve_disambiguation.py is well-intended but extremely awkward to use. However, it does take care of what I find to be the most time-consuming part, i.e. locating the link within the page. I agree that some kind of warning should come up when you create a link to a DAB page, although not in a new window. Maybe something like the Edit Conflict window, with a "save anyway" button if the link to the dam page is deliberate. This wouldn't solve every problem (e.g NBA, which is not itself a dam page), but it would greatly reduce it. It would probably have to be a setting which users can disable if they want, too. At the moment this sounds like a clumsy solution to a tough problem, so better ideas are welcome. Soo 23:25, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking somethign like Warning: You have created a link to  which is a disambiguation page and may not point to the article you intend.  You may want to visit the page and select a more specific article fomr the list provided.  Where "visit the page" is a link that perhaps targets a new tab or window (Though I suppose that might violae some sort of wikipedia standard). Dalf | Talk 00:34, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I think there are other features which open in a new window, so that sounds a perfectly good solution to me. Can we propose it to the MediaWiki lot? I would code it myself but PHP is one of my programming blindspots. Soo 19:34, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Will this ever end?

message: Okay, in trying to fix the links to Rush I'm baffled by the links in Grand Theft Auto III soundtrack. The reference there is obviously not to Rush (band). (I've played the game, too.) I can't find ANY information on the apparent rap/hip-hop artist "Rush" except that it might be Russell Simmons. http://www.allmusic.com lists "Rush" in the rap genre, but has absolutely no information.
Anybody have a clue?
Al 15:18, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rush 

message: It has been suggested that American be redirected to United States, and the contents of American be moved to American (disambiguation).
A lot of "American" wikilinks currently should be directed to "United States", so this change would result saving a lot of work. --Commander Keane 07:35, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
*In light of the enormous number of links to "American" (over 5,000) and the fact that the vast majority of them clearly are intended to point to United States, redirecting "American" to United States, with a  tag atop that page (see NBA for an example) makes eminent sense. Bear in  mind, this issue has been hashed out before (see Talk:Use of the word American for the discussion), but I believe the result of that discussion simply does not work for Wikipedia, given the constantly growing army of links to "American". -- BD2412 talk 07:43, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
**I'd be all for it. Soo 08:31, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved from the article page. Soo 14:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  American redirect 

message: :Moved from the article page. Soo 14:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: America

message: *If someone is "An Afghan writer", does Afghan redirect to Afghanistan or Afghan people? --Commander Keane 08:51, August 29, 2005 (UTC) moved here from main project page by Russ Blau (talk) 16:09, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
**In my opinion, if they were writing in the 20th or 21st century, I would redirect to Afghanistan.  Before the mid-18th century, when there was no Afghan state as such, I would redirect to Afghan people.  The period from 1746 to 1919 is ambiguous, and you'd probably have to look at the individual's biography in more detail to resolve it. --Russ Blau (talk) 16:09, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
***My general practice is to redirect nationality disambig links in articles about people to the "Foo people" article, if one exists. An Afghan writer is still one of the Afghan people, even if he travels abroad. Cheers! -- BD2412 talk 03:14, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Afghan]] collaboration 

message: While going through the disambiguation collaborations, I have found that many of the disambiguation pages don't have everything that it could link to, example: Byzantine seems to occasionally link to the Greek Orthodox Church, which isn't on the disambig page. We could have a section for each major disambig, so that if we have to reopen a previously finished disambig, we have help and don't have to rediscover things like Byzantine emperors. Magicmonster 02:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good idea. For instance I've used on occasion Byzantine (not on disambig page) in adition to your two examples. Also, there were cases where it would have been nice to use Byzantine law and Byzantine culture if they had existed. I just wanted to mention this in case they show up in the future. Whitejay251 05:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hints n' Tips 

message: ===Moved from Mainpage:===
Afghan is done—thanks to everyone who helped!  I hesitate to suggest Persia for the next collaboration; I tried it once and found it extremely tricky.  How about Byzantine?  --Russ Blau (talk) 17:53, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
I vote for Byzantine as well, doing Persia could flirt dangerously with having a collaboration that has no motivation into it. Magicmonster 00:09, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Byzantine collaboration 

message: Afghan is done—thanks to everyone who helped!  I hesitate to suggest Persia for the next collaboration; I tried it once and found it extremely tricky.  How about Byzantine?  --Russ Blau (talk) 17:53, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
I vote for Byzantine as well, doing Persia could flirt dangerously with having a collaboration that has no motivation into it. Magicmonster 00:09, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved from Mainpage:

message: Wouldn't it be nice to have a new database dump? A lot of the estimates for number of pages that need fixing are very wrong now. Is there someone we can pester? Soo 15:48, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Database dump