Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 2

message: On Talk:Bliss i explained what i did on the corresponding article (with an attempt to redirect discussion to here), as follows:
:The following is very precisely worded:
:* People named "Bliss", appearing in a List of people by name: Bl-Bn 
:*:(if it is their surname, but otherwise only if they are better known as simply "Bliss" than by their surname) 
: to avoid distraction but reflect that there is a place on List of people by name: Mad-Mam#Mad for Madonna -- even tho i trashed, without a moment's hesitation, the lk to Bliss Carman from List of people by name: Bl-Bn#Bliss. (And no, he doesn't belong on this talk page's corresponding Dab "article" either; his given name is so pointless an access path to his bio that accomodating that purpose on a Dab in any way is simply clutter.)
The first clause of the fine-print sub-point is directed at people with names like Madonna, Constant and Gregory who could actually have appropriately titled surname-less bio articles, each based on the given name of its subject.  
I would go so far as to suggest a template (at least when the parameterization of the lk works, if doesn't work now):
:* People named "", appearing in a List of people by name: 
:*:(if it is their surname, but otherwise only if they are better known as simply "" than by their surname)  
(While the "People named ..." format i include in the proposed template but not in Bliss is not in use at the moment for Bliss, it is standard as needed (needed for reasons that needn't be discussed here) elsewhere on LoPbN, and could be used re Bliss and other Dab-ed names without real problems.)
--Jerzy·t 2005 July 5 22:07 (UTC)
: _ On Dick, i used this format, and another editor trimmed the pipe string from "List of people by name: Di" down to "List of people by name". On reflection, i agree, and find it consistent with the intent (tho not the letter) of the MoS: LoPbN and its subsidiary main-namespace pages are far from being articles in any reasonable sense; i argue that these pages have no real title-worthy individual identities (and LoPbN has it only as a stand-in title for the collection of "LoPbN pages" as a whole), and that their titles are a mere implementation convenience that constrasts with the guidance against naming with subpages, as if one article were subsidiary to another.  Well, such a subsidiary relationship is precisely the case with LoPbN's tree of pages.  IMO, List of people by name: Di's identity as a separate page is essentially as worthy of being hidden by piping as is its section headed "People named Dick".
: _ How much of that is worth saying on the project page is not clear to me, but i urge that 
:: the piping of subsidiary pages of LoPbN (and other lists divided into pages by alpha range) to refer explicitly only to the page that links to the whole alphabet
: be interpreted as effectively mandated by the MoS.
: _ Thus i am anticipating a Template:dabname reading:
:::* People named "", appearing in a List of people by name
:*:(if it is their surname, but otherwise only if they are better known as simply "" than by their surname)  
: _ Your thoughts please: should this template be subst-ed in or dynamically transcluded? 
: _ (Note that since the user has to find and often modify the markup at, e.g., List of people by name: Di#People named Dick in order to make use of the template, reversing the order of the parameters (as here) from what i first suggested is likely to reduce confusion.
: _ (And i am also contemplating a template, to be subst-ed rather than transcluded, to do most of the work in the often-needed LoPbN edit; more will follow here.)
: --Jerzy·t 2005 July 7 19:19 (UTC)
**Your template doesn't seem to sit well with an enty I required:
**People named Bridge, from List of people by name: Bre-Bri#Bria - Brie
::But, I'm very much in favour of a template.  Josh Parris ✉ 8 July 2005 00:26 (UTC)
:::I think a such a list should be directly on the dab page, with of course some exceptions where the list of people with that *surname* is really really long.  Neonumbers 8 July 2005 10:16 (UTC)
::::Then two lists need to be kept up to date, and let's face it, that's not going to happen. Josh Parris ✉ 07:22, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal Names 

message: On Bliss, i used "Geographic names" as a top-level grouping, replacing someone's "Settlements", for several reasons:
* "Settlements" (and perhaps even "Settled places") can be construed as excluding incorporated geo entities
* Named geological features, bodies of water, and uninhabited zones (How's the Empty Quarter do as an example?!) fit in fairly naturally.
Of course, in most of the cases where the broader term is "needed", some std name like "Settlements" or "Settled places" should probably be the first sub-point, leaving a few oddballs to handle analogously to whatever std applies to top-level miscellany.
--Jerzy·t 2005 July 5 22:07 (UTC)
:I'm just going to apply my interpretation of the style to Bliss, which has no real difference except that in my opinion it's more skimmable, which was part of my goal for this manual - for a user to be able to skim a page without having to filter out anything.  I hope you don't mind - I just want to clear the style up a bit and show what I had in mind when the manual was implemented for its first time.  Neonumbers 8 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)
:And about that, I'm not sure what the policy is for people - shouldn't all those people in that list be listed here as well?  The reason I say this is because the list of people by name is for people to look at a list by name, whereas this is a disambiguation page and users shouldn't have to go through another link.
:The main change I made was the removal of bullet points - the visual aid of having bullet points for and only for actual entries is (imo) important.  Neonumbers 8 July 2005 10:14 (UTC)
::_ _ I don't mind the bold editing, which IMO is far more useful than trying to visualize the proposed change.  
::_ _ I also acknowledge, on re-reading, that yours is closer to what the MoS says (even if only bcz i came on the scene later).
::_ _ I don't like the result on Bliss in the (non-customized) skin i use, if only bcz you've introduced for me two blank lines for every bullet you've eliminated, and perhaps bcz in the skin i've chosen the deeper levels of bullet are not just more deeply indented but also change appearance (true bullet (= disc), circle (= hollow), square,...) & i think w/ this skin the distinction between hdgs and entries is quite clear enuf.  And i think keeping the dabs short, and in some cases single page, is a high priority.
::_ _ When you say "more skimmable" i picture you as wanting to ignore the "headings" on groups of entries.  Perceptual styles are not universal, and it may be that for some people the headings may be an intrusion.  But (and especially to the degree that users will shift style in response to the style of e.g., the dab page in our case, and even learn to use new styles in response to repeatedly meeting them) i favor styles that facilitate efficiency.  It is a mathematical fact that avoiding a "linear search" (reading every entry) becomes more efficient, despite the person's individual difference, above some number of sub-points per main point. (If skipping interferes more for you, that raises the number of skippable points before it's worth your giving in and skipping, but for everyone there's a number of points where it does.) That doesn't make you wrong, but IMO it's why we can have opposite inclinations on this without either of us being wrong.
::_ _ But i've said what i have to say abt it, unless it develops that i've been unclear.
::--Jerzy·t 06:15, 2005 July 11 (UTC)
I also notice that both our versions are much less mechanical than the "A recommended order is..." passage under "Order of entries", and i suspect something much more permissive should replace it.
--Jerzy·t 06:15, 2005 July 11 (UTC)
:The word "recommended" was chosen specifically to allow flexibility in the order of entries. But I think you have it backwards with regard to Neo's reference to "more skimmable." Surely you want to look at the headers first, since you know whether you're looking for a person, place, thing, computer language, etc., so reading the left-justified headers allows you to skip groups of bullet points which are the wrong sort. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:11, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geographic names 

message: IIRC the letter of the MoS says that where the "target" of the dab page explicitly includes the word being Dab-ed, don't pipe it.  My implementing that was altered to pipe the exact name but add italics where MoS would otherwise require it.  I think i agree.
--Jerzy·t 06:15, 2005 July 11 (UTC)
:I do too - because the page you go to is the same link you click on - no surprises. Josh Parris ✉ 13:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yea, that's a good idea, I agree.  Neonumbers 08:55, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italicized Dab Targets