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[edit] Using alternate names as disambiguators? In naming discussions, I've seen some people suggest titles where the big in parentheses is just an alternate name. For example: - Kumul (city): called Kumul in Uyghur and Hami in Mandarin, someone moved it to [[Kumul (Hami)]] (I later moved it to its current title).
- Yue Chinese: there's a discussion going on over whether to call this Yue or Cantonese. Some people have suggested titles like [[Yue (Cantonese)]] and [[Cantonese (Yue)]].
Are titles like this appropriate? My opinion was that they weren't, since the thing in parentheses is not a disambiguator or a descriptor, it's just an alternate name—and thus it doesn't fit the more logical format (like "Kumul (city)" or "Yue (language)"). But I don't see anything explicit about this in WP:DAB. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 20:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC) - The guidelines guide against using proper names as the disambiguator, so "city" is better than "Hami", and "language" is better than "Cantonese". It tucked over in WP:NCDAB. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:42, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
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- And the mammoth discussion regarding the title Football (soccer) clearly demonstrated overwhelming consensus against such a naming format, even among users for whom the alternative entailed removing the subject's familiar name from the title. —David Levy 16:13, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Navigation tool vs. Research guide Why not turn the "See also" Section into the Research guide? There's a clear demand & need for it. --Ludvikus (talk) 09:39, 11 October 2009 (UTC) - There is no clear consensus for the demand for it. What is the need for it (what problem does it solve)? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:48, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Best practise for assessing set index articles? I'm wondering whether set index articles would be better assessed as List-Class or Disambig-Class? The guideline states that a set index article is "a list article" and "not a disambiguation page", but on the other hand set index templates such as {{surname}} are {{dmbox}} disambiguation templates. PC78 (talk) 23:08, 18 October 2009 (UTC) - List-class. Set index articles are articles, not disambiguation pages. If the templates are causing confusion on that, the templates should be updated to minimize the confusion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
- Not just the templates. User:Pyrospirit/metadata (also a popular gadget) gives set index articles the colour of dab pages rather than lists. Perhaps an {{lmbox}} meta would be useful for set index templates and the likes of {{incomplete list}} and ({{expand list}} etc.? PC78 (talk) 00:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
- Sounds like the gadget also needs to be updated, or the bits it relies on updated, or something -- I'm not familiar with it. Yes, a parallel meta sounds like a good idea, especially if it solves both problems. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
- This is a perennial bit of confusion. Set index articles are in a neither here nor there status. They have been declared to not be disambiguation pages, and yet to most ordinary readers, such pages look very much like a disambiguation page and so far as links to such pages are frequently mistaken links, they are not truly articles. For the most part they are disambiguation pages that have been disowned by Disambiguation Wikiproject because they refuse to conform to the stringent specifications of disambiguation pages, and yet they continue to serve a disambiguation function for most other purposes. older ≠ wiser 02:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, where they disambiguate other articles, they should be disambiguation pages (or be split to disambiguation pages). But the projects that work on them (such as the ship indexers and the hurricane indexers) prefer both their differences from the disambiguation guidelines (not just the stringent ones, but the ones inherent to navigational-as-opposed-to-explorational pages) and their ambiguous titling. Those are other issues that could be usefully addressed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
- There's the {{SIA}} template (and variants), which try to make it clear that the article is a list article, not a disambiguation article. It's unfortunate that some SIA templates are build on a poor choice of meta-template. —hike395 (talk) 04:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Redirect to an article section How should a dab link look when redirecting to an article section? Specifically, at Second, I want to redirect to the chess term at Glossary_of_chess#Second. I've done this: ... but I wonder if there is a better way. I can't find a guideline. Peter Ballard (talk) 01:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC) - See WP:PIPING in MOSDAB. Create a redirect such as Second (chess) with the target being Glossary of chess#Second and tag it as {{R to section}}. Then use the redirect rather than the piped link on the disambiguation page (and I'm guessing you meant Second (disambiguation) rather than Second. older ≠ wiser 01:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
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- (Yes Second (disambiguation) is what I meant). Thanks for the link to WP:PIPING. Though after reading it, I think what I've done (link to a section and use piping to hide the ugly "#") is also acceptable. (In particular the section beginning with this sentence seems to describe what to do: 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...). So I'll leave it as is. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
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- That sentence is an indented sub-bullet under the bullet that begins When the link is in the description, rather than at the start of the entry, piping can be used more freely. The sentence you quoted is specific to links within the description of the entry rather than at the head. See the examples under Where redirecting may be appropriate, in particular the incorrect example which illustrates what you describe (a piped link to a section in the head of the entry). Also in the bullet that you refer to, if you examine the example mentioned from E (disambiguation), is that the piped ESRB ([[ESRB#Current | ESRB]]) is preferred to simply linking to the top of the target page ESRB, you'll see that that usage is in the description of the entry not in the head. older ≠ wiser 02:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
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- OK, I see that now. Thanks. Peter Ballard (talk) 05:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Subject Headings After reorganizing the subject headings on about 30 disambiguation pages (in some contexts, 30 samples is considered the minimum of a valid statistical sampling), these are my proposed standard subject headings on disambiguation pages. Depending on how many entries are present on the disambiguation page, the subject headings may be split or combined as noted. The rationale for the groupings of subjects has to do with subjects that have overlap (e.g. Science vs. Technology) and subjects that do not have overlap (People vs. Places), and the frequency of occurrence of the subject in Wikipedia. Note that the entries in the subject Organizations (groups of people) are separated from the subject that the organization has as their goal or purpose. However, individual people associated with a subject are in that subject (musicians, sports figures, fictional characters, etc.), and the People category is a catch-all for other people.
Proposed standard subject headings for disambiguation pages (in approximate order of descending frequency of usage):
- Science, Technology, and Medicine, or break into
- Science and Technology
- Medicine and Biology
- Biology
- Aviation
- Mathematics
- Chemistry and Physics
- Chemistry
- Psychology
- Motion Picture, Video, and Audio production
- Computers
- Video Games (should this be Computer Games?)
- Organizations, or break into types
- Organizations, Business
- Organizations, Education
- Organizations, Sports
- Organizations, Military/Government
- Organizations, Political
- Organizations, etc.
- Organizations, other
- Transportation
- Places
- Television, Film, Music, and Comic Books, or break into
- Television, Film, and Music
- Television and Film
- Music
- Fiction and Entertainment
- Entertainment
- Business
- Sports
- Publications
- People, or break into
- People, non-fictional
- People, mythical and fictional
- Books
- Education
- Military and Government, or break into
- Religion
- Games and Hobbies
- Art and Culture
- Food and Meals
- Land Surveying
- International relations
- Languages
- Other uses
- See also
Work needed: Definitions/examples of the subjects.
Obankston (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
- I have the impression that standardizing the sections will do little to assist readers to the appropriate article. It might make dab page editors' lives easier, but that's not the goal. The "best" (IMHO) for a given topic "depends." It depends on how many entries might be included in various intelligible divisions of the links on the page, for example. The editor should attempt to spread the links out into roughly equal intelligible sections. That means flexibility. Codifying the sections might help a little by providing a familiar layout, but I don't think it will be useful enough to codify here. (John User:Jwy talk) 19:56, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
- Are you suggesting that all dab pages must use standard headings? IMO, suggested headings could be helpful, but often the content of a particular dab page doesn't fit standards. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
- I could perhaps see some use for suggesting a few basic headings to use, but there far too many variations to produce a standardized list -- and I fear it could foment disagreements about which standard mschema to use. Also, headings should capitalize only the first word unless it is a proper noun. older ≠ wiser 20:21, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
- I don't see that a standardised set of headings is useful - terms vary so much as to what they are used for. And in particular, the proposal "However, individual people associated with a subject are in that subject (musicians, sports figures, fictional characters, etc.), and the People category is a catch-all for other people." is a radical departure from existing practice, and I would not support it. PamD (talk) 20:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
[edit] External links Shouldn't the "What not to include" section also mention that external links are always inappropriate on a disambiguation page? I occasionally notice that a page I've been despamming on my watchlist has actually had spam links on the disambiguation page that links to it, for months. --McGeddon (talk) 21:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC) - WP:MOSDAB includes that prohibition. We could add it here too, if needed. There's a known outstanding issue that the two pages could use some clean up to make their roles clearer. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
[edit] New look Does anyone else find the new standard format for disambiguation pages both confusing and esthetically unappealing? The first line doesn't have a bullet and is in bold so that it stands out. To me it is forcing the reader to see one entry as the correct entry. It also is visually cluttered, the eye is drawn to the first entry because it is both in bold and is unbulleted. Why does one entry have to be given preference over the other. I am assuming it is because it has the same name as the disambiguation page, but no one goes to a disambiguation page directly, they come from the page called "John Smith" to get to the page called "John Smith (disambiguation)" if the person wasn't who they were looking for on the first page, so why emphasize the one you are not looking for? The question is: why is "John Smith" in bold and unbulleted? See: John Wingfield (disambiguation) for an example. Anyone know where this is discussed to try and change it? Anyone else find it esthetically unappealing and confusing? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC) - New look?? AFAIK, dab pages have always been like this. In the example you mention, John Wingfield is bolded on the first line because it's the primary use of that term. That's not somethig new. PC78 (talk) 23:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
- Agree with PC78. Plus, the bolding thing applies to all pages, not just dab pages: the first reference of the title in the opening is bolded. --Auntof6 (talk) 23:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
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- A little more explanation: When there is a primary target (an article at the dabbed term name), it is given special treatment for exactly the reasons you mention. Most people will not come to the dab page looking for that definition as they would have stopped at the original page. By keeping that entry different, it makes it easier (after one gets used to it) to scan immediately the other entries that are most likely of interest. (John User:Jwy talk) 00:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
- All of which is covered in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Linking to a primary topic, which is "new" as of 9 May 2005 -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
- It was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Archive 1#Linking to the main article -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Red links on disambiguation pages Is it good practice to include red links on disambiguation pages? I would think not, but found no guidance on this. Walter Siegmund (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC) - See WP:MOSDABRL for guidance. Red links with an appropriate blue link in the description are OK if the red link appears in the linked article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:46, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you. Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:05, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
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