This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions. Please ensure that any edits to this page reflect consensus.

Shortcuts: WP:MOSDAB MOS:DAB

Disambiguation pages ("dab pages") are non-article pages in the article namespace, similar to redirect pages. Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow the user to choose from a list of Wikipedia articles, usually when searching for a term that is ambiguous.

This style guideline is intended to make the process more efficient, by giving disambiguation pages a consistent look and by avoiding distracting information, such as extraneous links (internal or external). The pages should contain only disambiguation content, whether or not the page title contains the word (disambiguation). This guideline does not apply to any articles that are primary topics, even if the articles contain a "see also" notice or the like.

Disambiguation
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[edit] Page naming

Covered at Wikipedia:Disambiguation.

[edit] At the top of the page

[edit] Linking to Wiktionary

Rather than including a dictionary definition of a word, create a cross-link to our sister project, Wiktionary. To do this, use one of the Wiktionary link templates on the first line.

• {{Wiktionary}} –{{wiktionary|WORD|WORD2|...|WORD5}} - up to five optional parameters; useful for linking dictionary entries with multiple capitalizations (star, Star, and STAR).
• {{Wiktionary pipe}} – {{wiktionary pipe|WORD|optional display name}} - without parameters, defaults to using the current page's name

Important: Check the links created by these templates, as Wiktionary is case-sensitive on the first letter, using proper capitalization for its entries unlike Wikipedia's uppercased first letter for all page names.

For more information on linking see Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects#Wiktionary.

[edit] Linking to a primary topic

When a page has "(disambiguation)" in its title – i.e., it is the disambiguation page for a term that has a primary topic – users are most likely to arrive there by clicking on a top link from the primary topic article, generated by a template in the {{otheruses}} series. For example, the article School contains the hatnote:

Since it is unlikely that this primary meaning is what readers are looking for if they have reached the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links. It is recommended that the link back to the primary topic appear at the top, like this:

A school is an institution for learning. School may also refer to: School (discipline) or school of thought, a number of individuals with shared styles, approaches or aims School (fish), a group of fish swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner . . .

When the primary topic is a redirect, the primary topic line normally links to the redirect:

Danzig is the former name of Gdańsk, a city in northern Poland.

In some cases it may be clearer to link directly to the redirect target:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was a famous composer during the Classical period.

instead of the more awkward

Mozart was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), a famous composer during the Classical period.

[edit] Introductory line

Shortcut: MOS:DABINT

As in articles, the title of the page should be in bold (not italics). It should begin a sentence fragment ending with a colon, introducing a bulleted list:

Interval may refer to: John Smith may refer to: or John Smith is the name of: ABC may refer to: or ABC may stand for:

Where several variants of a term are being disambiguated together, significant variants may be included in the lead sentence. For example:

Bang or bangs may refer to: or Bang(s) may refer to:

Arc or ARC may refer to:

Angus McKay, MacKay or Mackay may refer to:

However, it is not necessary to mention minor variations of capitalization, punctuation or diacritics. For example, AU may refer to: is preferable to "AU, au, Au or A-U may refer to"; and Saiyuki may refer to: is preferable to "Saiyuki, Saiyūki or Saiyûki may refer to".

[edit] Individual entries

Individual entries follow the primary topic (if any) and the introductory line. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the information they want quickly and easily. These pages are to help the user navigate to a specific article.

• Preface each entry with a bullet (an asterisk in wiki markup).
• Every entry must have a link, and the link should be the first word or phrase in each entry. For example:
  • Neapolitan chord, in music theory, a major chord built on the lowered second scale degree
  • not: In music theory, a Neapolitan chord is a major chord built on the lowered second scale degree.
  • but: see Red links and Items appearing within other articles below for exceptions to this rule.
• Start with a capital letter, unless the target article is marked with {{lowercase}}.
• The link should not be emphasized with bolding or italics, although titles (such as for books and movies) may need to be italicized, in conformance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). If the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the part requiring such treatment, as opposed to the entire link (see below).
• Entries should not be pipe-linked—refer to the article name in full. See below for several exceptions to this rule.
• Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments, with no final punctuation (commas, full-stops, semicolons, etc.).

Example:

Interval may refer to: Interval (mathematics), a certain subset of an ordered set Interval (music), the relationship between two notes

There are some further points on the design of links and their entries, based on practical experience.

• The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link.

• Each bulleted entry should have exactly one navigable (blue) link to efficiently guide users to the most relevant article for each use of the ambiguous term. Do not wikilink any other words in the line; for example:

"Dark Star" (song), a song by the Grateful Dead or "Dark Star" (song), by the Grateful Dead but not "Dark Star" (song), a song by the psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead

Including no links at all makes the entry useless for further navigation. (See "red links" below for cases in which no article yet exists.) Never link days or dates.

• A disambiguation page should not be made up completely of red links or have only one blue link on the entire page, because the basic purpose of disambiguation is to refer users to other Wikipedia pages.
• Never include external links, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web. To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them on the talk page.
• References should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles.

[edit] Examples of individual entries that should not be created

On a page called Title, do not create entries merely because Title is part of the name (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Lists).

Common examples:

• Title City
• Title Hospital
• Title University

The above does not apply if the subject is commonly referred to simply by Title. For instance, Oxford (disambiguation) should link University of Oxford and Catalina might include Santa Catalina Island, California. If there is disagreement about whether this exception applies, it is often best to assume that it does.

You may want to create entries on the same page for:

• TITLE and Title
• Title town and Title township
  • An example is Willow Valley, which lists a town of that name as well as "Willow Valley Township" in another state.

[edit] Given names or surnames

Shortcuts: MOS:DABNAME MOS:DABSUR

Persons who have the disambiguated term as surname or given name should not be mixed in with the other links unless they are very frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g. Elvis, Shakespeare). For short lists of such persons, new sections of Persons with the surname Xxxx and/or Persons with the given name Xxxx can be added below the main disambiguation list. For longer lists, create a separate page called Xxxx (name), Xxxx (surname) and/or Xxxx (given name), and link to it from the disambiguation page.

Pages only listing persons with a certain given name or surname (unless they are very frequently referred to by that name alone) are not disambiguation pages, and this Manual of Style does not apply to them. In such cases, do not use {{disambig}} or {{hndis}}, but {{given name}} or {{surname}} instead.

[edit] Misspellings

Common misspellings should be listed only if there is a genuine risk of confusion or misspelling. These cross-links should be placed in a separate section entitled "Common misspellings" or "See also". For example, in a page called Kington (disambiguation), a link to Kingston (disambiguation) would appropriately be included in the "See also" section.

[edit] Piping and redirects

Shortcut: WP:PIPING

Piping and redirects are two different mechanisms, both having the effect that the displayed text of a link is not the same as the title of the article at which readers will arrive when they click that link.

• Piping means concealing the actual title of a linked article by replacing it with other text, often to suppress parenthetical expressions in an article. For example, instead of linking Moment (physics) in a normal article, it will be presented as [[Moment (physics)|Moment]] to display as a single word: Moment.
• A redirect is a special page used to "jump" readers from one page title to an article with a different title. For example, a redirect is used at the title 9/11 to send users who navigate there to the article at September 11 attacks.

Subject to certain exceptions as listed below, piping or redirects should not be used in disambiguation pages. This is to make it clear to the reader which article is being suggested, so that the reader remains in control of the choice of article. For example, in the Moment disambiguation page, with the entry for Moment (physics), "physics" should be visible to the reader. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need to be able to find the intended article. In addition, raw section and anchor points should not be displayed. See section and anchor point linking for the handling of these cases.

Even when the disambiguated term is an acronym, initialism or alphabetism, links should not use redirects to conceal the expanded version of that initialism. For example, on the disambiguation page BNL, linking to the full article title Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is preferable to linking to a redirect at BNL (bank).

[edit] Exceptions

Though piping and redirects should generally not be used in disambiguation pages, there are certain cases in which they may be useful to the reader:

[edit] Where redirecting may be appropriate

• A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article only if the title of that section is more or less synonymous with the disambiguated topic. This indicates a higher possibility that the topic may eventually have its own article. For example:

Delta may refer to: (correct) Delta Quadrant, in the Star Trek universe ([[Delta Quadrant]], in the ''Star Trek'' universe) (incorrect) Delta Quadrant, in the Star Trek universe ([[Galactic quadrant#Delta Quadrant|Delta Quadrant]], in the ''Star Trek'' universe)

• The above technique should be used only when the link is the subject of the line, not when it is in the description. For description sections, consider piping instead.
• Linking to a redirect can also be helpful when the redirect contains the disambiguated term and could serve as an alternative name for the target article, meaning an alternate term which is already in the article's lead section. For example:

James Cary may refer to: (correct) James Carrey or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actor ([[James Carrey]] or Jim Carrey, (born 1962), Canadian actor) (incorrect) James Carrey or Jim Carrey (born 1962), Canadian actor (James Carrey or [[Jim Carrey]], (born 1962), Canadian actor)

• The above example of a redirect is only appropriate because James Carrey is indicated as a name in the lead section of the Jim Carrey article. If it were not, then the second example could have been used instead.
• For situations where the primary topic is a redirect, see Linking to a primary topic above.

[edit] Where piping may be appropriate

• Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance, Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "School" (song), Saturnalia (dinosaur), "Hush" (Buffy episode), Neo (The Matrix).
• Similarly, use piping if the article title differs from what it should be due to technical limitations per {{wrongtitle}}; for instance, The Singles 86>98 or Softimage|XSI.
• When the link is in the description, rather than at the start of the entry, piping can be used more freely. However, the text of the link should still be close to the title of the target article, to avoid confusing the reader. For example:

Switch may refer to: "Switch", a song by Siouxsie & the Banshees from The Scream ("Switch", a song by Siouxsie & the Banshees from ''[[The Scream (album)|The Scream]]'')

• When a disambiguation page is linking to a specific section of an article, rather than an entire article, piping may be used for linking to that section via anchor points or section linking. This technique is used commonly for piping to the track listing section of an album; a further example, from E (disambiguation), is that the piped ESRB ([[ESRB#Current | ESRB]]) is preferred to simply linking to the top of the target page ESRB.

• When piping is used on a disambiguation page to link to an article section, the link should be in the description, and should avoid surprising the reader. The text of the link should not be the title of a different article. For example:

Ten may refer to: (correct) Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media (Ten or Tien Shinhan, a [[List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan|character in ''Dragon Ball'' media]]) (incorrect) Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character in Dragon Ball media (Ten or Tien Shinhan, a character in ''[[List of Dragon Ball characters#Tien Shinhan|Dragon Ball]]'' media)

[edit] Section and anchor point linking

Section and anchor points in links should not be visible to the reader (e.g., [[Galactic quadrant#Delta Quadrant]]). If an anchor-point link is needed:

• For linking the subject, link to a redirect to the anchor point (or leave the subject unlinked and move the link to the description).
• For links in the description, link to a redirect or use an anchor-point link with piping to display text similar to the article title.

When creating a redirect to a section, add the template {{R to section}} on the redirect page.

[edit] Specific entry types

[edit] External links

External links do not belong on disambiguation pages; they should not be used.

[edit] Foreign languages

For foreign-language terms, be sure an article exists or could be written for the word or phrase in question. Usually this means that the term has been at least partially adopted into English or is used by specialists.

Tambo may refer to: Tambo (weapon), a very short staff used in martial arts

Avoid adding lines for words or phrases that are simply spelled the same as an English term. For example, do not include:

• Tambo, a Japanese word (田んぼ) for rice paddy

Instead, consider linking to Wiktionary.

[edit] People

For people, include their birth and death years (when known), and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Keep in mind the conventions for birth and death dates—see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death. Do not include a, an or the before the description of the person's occupation or role.

John Adams (1735–1826) was the second President of the United States. John Adams may also refer to: John Adams (composer) (born 1947), American composer who came to prominence with his opera Nixon in China John Adams (physicist) (1920–1984), Director general of CERN and particle accelerator designer John Adams (martyr) (died 1586), Catholic priest and martyr under Elizabeth I of England

[edit] Places

For places, it may only be necessary to write the name of the article.

Jacksonville may refer to: Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville, Alabama Jacksonville, Arkansas

It may be appropriate to add the country after the link. Leave the country unlinked.

Kimberley may refer to: Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, England Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada

[edit] Red links

Shortcut: MOS:DABRL

A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when an article (not just disambiguation pages) also includes that red link. Do not create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or are likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics. To find out if any article uses the red link, click on it, and then click "What links here" on the toolbox on the left side of the page. If the only pages that use the red link are disambiguation pages, unlink the entry word but still keep a blue link in the description.

Red links should not be the only link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information. The linked article should contain some meaningful information about the term.

In the following (made-up) example, the architectural motif is judged to be appropriate for a future article, but the noodle is not; therefore, only the entry for the architectural motif includes a red link (and this assumes that the fictitious "flibbygibby" entries are described in their respective linked articles):

Flibbygibby may refer to: Flibbygibby (architecture), a flamingo motif used on cornices Flibbygibby, a type of noodle

[edit] Synonyms

If the link is to a synonym, simply use it as it is named:

Serving spoon may also refer to: Tablespoon

[edit] Items appearing within other articles

If a topic does not have an article of its own, but is mentioned within another article, then a link to that article should be included. In this case, the link does not start the line, but it should still be the only blue wikilink. For example:

Tail may also refer to: The empennage of an aircraft The luminous matter anti-sunwards from a comet

It is often useful to link to the relevant section of the target page (using the #anchor notation) and conceal that by making it a piped link. For examples, see "Where piping may be appropriate" under Exceptions, above.

[edit] Organization

[edit] Order of entries

Entries should generally be ordered as follows:

1. The primary topic should be placed at the top. In unusual cases, several of the most common meanings may be placed at the top, with other meanings below.
2. Long dab pages should be organized into subject sections, as described below.
3. Within each section, entries should then be grouped by how similar the name of the target article is to the name of the disambiguation page. A recommended order is:
   1. Articles with a clarifier in parentheses: e.g., South Pacific (film)
   2. Articles with a clarifier following a comma: e.g., Kneeland, California
   3. Articles with the item as part of the name: e.g., Electronic keyboard as part of a Keyboard dab page (Only include articles whose subject might reasonably be called by the ambiguous title.)
   4. Synonyms: e.g., Bite as part of a Nibble dab page
   5. Broader-subject articles that treat the topic in a section: e.g., Medieval art as part of a Fresco dab page
      Often, the latter two groups (synonyms and broader articles) should be separated from the rest of the entries, into a See also section.
4. Finally, within the above groups, entries should be ordered to best assist the reader in finding their intended article. This order might be by most likely target, alphabetically, chronologically, or some other method.

[edit] Organizing long lists by subject

Longer pages should be broken up by subject area. Subject areas should be chosen carefully to simplify navigation. Use subject areas that are well-defined, and that group the entries into similarly-sized sections. Very small sections may impede navigation, and should usually be avoided. Disambiguation pages will often have an "Other uses" section at the end for entries that don't fit neatly into another section; this is perfectly acceptable. Keep in mind that a particular division scheme may not work equally well on all disambiguation pages. An example:

Thingamajig may refer to: In science: Thingamajig (chemistry), an isotope of chlorine Thingamajig (physics), a kind of pulsar Thingamajig (biology), an invasive plant used as ground cover In world music: Thingamajig (Qatar), a seven-stringed musical instrument Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos Thingamajig (UK), a wind instrument, similar to, but longer than the Peruvian one

On longer lists, section headings should be used instead of, or in addition to, bold headings. Using more than one level may be necessary, as on Aurora (disambiguation). Always use ==Level two== as the highest-level header. Section headings should not include links. See Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Headings for more.

On longer lists, {{TOCright}} may be used to move the table of contents to the right hand side of the page. This reduces the amount of white space and may improve the readability of the page. (For more information, see Help:Section#Floating the TOC.) If used, {{TOCright}} should be placed after the lead section of the wiki markup and immediately before the first section heading. Users of screen readers do not expect any text between the TOC and the first heading, and having no text above the TOC is confusing. (For more information, see Wikipedia:Accessibility#Article_structure.)

[edit] "See also" section

There may be a "See also" section, which can include such items as:

• Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket
• Likely misspellings of Title, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont
• Different forms of Title, for example Splitting, Split, and Splitter
• Links to indexes of article titles beginning with Title (using {{lookfrom|Title}}) and/or article titles containing Title (using {{intitle|Title}})

The "See also" should always be separated from the other entries with a section header. Links to other disambiguation pages should use the "(disambiguation)" link per WP:INTDABLINK. When appropriate, place easily confused terms in a hatnote.

[edit] Images and templates

Including images and templates is discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles on the particular search term in question. Examples of this are the images at Congo (disambiguation) and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation).

[edit] The disambig notice and categorization

After all of the disambiguation content (including the See also section, if present), but before any categories (see below) or interlanguage links, a template should be placed identifying the page as a disambiguation page. This generates a message to the reader explaining the purpose of the page, and also places the page in the appropriate category or categories.

The usual template to use is {{disambig}}, which produces a general disambiguation notice, and places the page in Category:Disambiguation pages. Parameters can be added to place the page additionally into other more specific disambiguation categories. For example, if a page includes multiple places and multiple people with the same surname (and possibly other items), use {{disambig|geo|surname}}. A full list of available parameters and their corresponding categories can be found in the {{disambig}} template documentation.

If a disambiguation page consists exclusively of items in one of the more specific classes, then a specific template should be used instead of {{disambig}}. For example, use {{roaddis}} for highways, {{geodis}} for locations, {{hndis}} for human names and so on. A full list can be found in the {{disambig}} template documentation.

If a disambiguation page needs cleaning up to bring it into conformance with this style manual, use {{disambig-cleanup}}. This replaces both {{disambig}} and {{cleanup-date}}.

Do not use {{subst:disambig}} or {{subst:disambig-cleanup}}, as the contents of this notice may change in the future (see Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits). Also, the Wikipedia software relies on links to the templates to determine which pages are disambiguation pages (see MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage), and subst'ing breaks this feature.

Most disambiguation pages do not need to be placed into any categories other than those generated by the template. If such cases do arise (for example, specific categories of personal names that do not have corresponding template parameters), then the additional categories should be placed after the template.

If new topical categories of disambiguation pages seem to be needed, please bring this up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation.

[edit] Exceptions

[edit] Set index articles

Set index articles are list articles about a set of items that have similar or identical names. Set index articles are disambiguation-like pages that do not obey the style outlined on this page. Note that the set index article exception was designed to be narrow: for pages that contain links to articles about different topics, please follow this style guide for disambiguation pages. One example of a set index article is a list of ships with the same name. For more information about such ship lists, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines#Index pages.

[edit] Disambiguation pages with only two entries

Shortcut: WP:2DAB

Some disambiguation pages with "(disambiguation)" in the title list only two meanings, one of them being the primary topic. In such cases, the disambiguation page is not strictly necessary, but is harmless. The recommended practice in these situations is to place a hatnote on the primary topic article to link directly to the secondary topic. The {{for}} and {{redirect}} templates are useful.

If neither of the two meanings is primary, then a normal disambiguation page is used at the base name.

[edit] Break rules

Application of these guidelines will generally produce useful disambiguation pages which are consistent with each other and therefore easily usable by most readers. Usefulness to the reader is their principal goal. However, for every style recommendation above, there may be pages in which a good reason exists to use another way; so ignore these guidelines if doing so will be more helpful to readers than following them.

[edit] See also

• Disambiguation do's and don'ts
• Disambiguation pages with links
• Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup