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Speaking of TWODABS...

I always thought the original point of TWODABS was that a dab page was not necessary when there are only two topics; that either one could be at the base name with a hatnote to the other. The one at the base name did not need to meet primary topic criteria unless there were more than two uses of that term.

Indeed, prior to September 22, 2008, WP:AT had the following wording about the situation in which there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic:

"If there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic, then a disambiguation page may be used; an alternative is to set up a redirect from the term to one of the topics, and use disambiguation links only."

But on September 22, 2008, the "alternative" wording was removed, without explanation (nor discussion so far as I can tell), in this edit, and changed to this:

If there are two topics for a term but neither is considered the primary topic, then a disambiguation page is required.

Why should a dab page be required when a hat note could work just as well? Isn't that WP:CREEP and unnecessary baggage?

What is the harm in having an article be at the base name even though it is not the primary topic? What is the point of creating a dab page with two lame links and putting it at the base name in that situation?

Even if we put the less popular of the two uses at the base name, say the one that 40% seek (while 60% seek the other), then 40% will end up at the article they seek, and 60% will be one click away from the article they seek. If we put a dab page at the base name, as the current wording at TWODABS requires, then 0% will land immediately on the article they seek, and 100% are still one click away. It might seem more egalitarian, but it's less efficient and less helpful to our users. No one is better off compared to the alternative; and 40% are worse off.

Accordingly, I propose we restore the original intent to TWODABS, with a slight variation:

If there are only two topics for a term, an article for one of the two topics, or a redirect to one of the two articles, not a 2-entry dab page, should be at the base term, even if neither of the two uses strictly meets the primary topic criteria. The article at the base name should have a hat note link to the other article. When deciding which of the two to place at the base name, the one with more page views is usually chosen. This way at least most users searching with the term will be taken to the article they seek, while the remainder will be just one (hat note) click away from the article they seek, just as they would be if they landed on a dab page.

--B2C 19:14, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

This has been already discussed and rejected. Number of clicks is a bad measure of the time a user needs to wait. If an article is long, wrongly sending users to it is much worse than loading a short DAB page. Diego (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

This has been discussed, but it has never really been decided one way or the other. We have also never put forward the question of whether a shorter article (which loads faster) should be a more likely primary target than a long disambiguation page. bd2412 T 21:43, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Policy says: if an ambiguous term has no primary topic, then that term needs to lead to a disambiguation page. In other words, where no topic is primary, the disambiguation page is placed at the base name. Seems pretty much decided to me. I suggest you stop reverting policy-compliant moves, it may be disruptive - or if you do, at least follow editing guidelines and insert a hatnote to the disambiguation page. Diego (talk) 06:28, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

First, I generally add a hatnote where one is justified (although there have been a number of occasions where an existing article has been moved to disambiguate against a redlink, so there is nothing for a hatnote to point to). Secondly, WP:RM specifically states that editors must initiate a discussion "if there is any reason to believe a move would be contested". I am enforcing that to the letter. My experience administrating the Chelsea Manning dispute has made it very clear that questionable moves should be reverted immediately, before confusion sets in over who bears what burden of showing that the move should have been made. Thirdly, I don't blindly revert every move. I revert moves where a longstanding article with a large number of links is moved without discussion in order to create a TWODABS page, where there is a reasonable case for the longstanding article to be the primary topic of the term. Such moves are not uncontroversial, and deserve discussion before a move is permitted to disrupt settled expectations. bd2412 T 15:58, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

In terms of semantics:

1. "not necessary" is a very weak statement. We do many things that are "not necessary". Opening this thread was "not necessary", so why was it opened?

2. When the question is "what is the harm", to be fair to the reader, it should be posed in parallel with "what is the harm" of the alternatives. Even better, in terms of enjoying a collegial collaborative positive project building environment, it would be better if questions were posed positively. eg. What is the benefit of doing this? what is the benefit of doing that?

On the substance:

Agree that guidelines should avoid telling editors that it is "required" to create something. By the reader? Or does the requirement to make the dab page apply to some special editor?

"What is the harm in having an article be at the base name even though it is not the primary topic?". or "What is the benefit in having an article more precisely titled when it is not the primary topic?" The benefit of a more precise, more unambiguously recognizable title is that readers will less often load a page that looks like the one they were expected, by is not. It maximises the utility of their internet allowance (time and data), and minimises disappointment, especially when considering minority readers.

What is the benefit of placing one topic at an ambiguous title, and another at a disambiguated title linked by a hatnote? The benefit is maximising ease of access for the most frequent users (assuming the more popular page is placed at the short title).

Weighing these two, I see it as coming down to whether to choose to value the needs of the more frequent reader over the disadvantaged (limited access) minority reader. I believe the second should be weighed more highly, because it is more in line with the goal of making our content freely and widely available. Targeting advantaged large subgroups leads to disadvantaged subgroups being neglected. Readers who frequently access popular topics with easy access do not need special consideration, the biases are already titled to them.

In terms of helpfulness, all readers are helped by informative titles that unambiguously identify the topic with respect to similarly titleable topics that are unrelated to their interest. No reader is helped by a slighter shorter title. It is not as if readers type the url to download it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

In the context of a situation where something is claimed to be necessary ("required"), the issue of whether it actually is necessary is quite relevant and central. That is the case here, as the current language says a dab page is required when neither use of two is primary.

I thought it was obvious that having three entities (two articles and a dab page) is inherently more complex and prone to problems than having two entities (two articles and no dab page), and so there must be some kind of "harm" caused by the simpler two-entity setup to justify the more complex three-entity setup. Hence the question, "what is the harm"?

We disagree about the magnitude of the significance between the cost of landing on the wrong article vs landing on a dab page. I consider that difference to be essentially nil. I'll also repeat BDD's point: many dab pages are longer than many articles.

There is no need to assume the more popular page is placed at the short ambiguous title in order to see a benefit of placing one topic there. As noted previously, even if the less popular one is placed there, at least those people will get to their sought article immediately, while the remaining (majority) will be one click away from theirs, just as they would be if they initially landed on a dab page rather than a wrong article. As long as some benefit, and the situation for the others, even a majority, is neutral, it's a net benefit.

Who exactly are these "disadvantaged (limited access) minority readers", how many are there, and how exactly are they affected by landing on the "wrong" article rather than a dab page? Either way it's not the article being sought (and, again, the dab page may be longer than the "wrong" article).

Yes, readers are not helped by shorter titles. Titles are not short in order to help readers. Short (yet comprehensive, another component of concise) titles are preferred for a variety of reasons, including to make title decisions less contentious. Without preferring short titles, the list of reasonable candidate titles for most of our articles would grow considerably, perhaps without bounds, and with no additional guidance on how we are to select among them.

Say a topic has five choices for its title, all approximately equal in terms of being comprehensive and reasonable. How do we pick which one to use as the title, and which be redirects, if we don't favor the shortest one? Vote based on arbitrary personal preferences? Ignoring WP:NOTDEM, that leads to a very unstable title situation which is subject to the personal whims of whoever happens to show up at each RM. But if we favor shortness (all other criteria held equal, taking into account the to someone familiar with scope limitation on recognizability), then the decision is straightforward: the shortest is the title; the longer ones are redirects. --B2C 23:40, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

"Necessary" & "required". DAB pages are not necessary and should not be required. Google will get readers to what they want. However, DAB pages can be desirable. It is desirable that Wikipedia is not dependent on Google.

I dispute that the complexity of a three-page setup is harm. There is no WP:PERFORMANCE issue. People only go to the dab page if they have searched ambiguously, and if they search ambiguously the concise information at the DAB page is helpful. Or a link needs fixing. Or they actually wanted the DAB page to review the range of simiar topics.

"many dab pages are longer than many articles". Seems a random quote of no obvious bearing. Wikipedia has stubs, and therefore shouldn't have DAB pages??!

Placing an obscure topic at an ambiguous short title has no merit that I can imagine. Is that a strawman?

Why you value the cost of clicks above the cost of downloading a unwanted lengthy page seems very odd to me. I assume that you have an advanced personal computer or device, very fast access, and good control of page tabbing. I am sure that you know that these things are not universal.

Who exactly are these "disadvantaged (limited access) minority readers". They include school children in Borneo, unencultered with the dominant internet culture, who have limited access to old shared computers and unreliable slow connectivity. They include old people without experience in using computers, who may want something very specific. They include people using cached versions, offline versions, and print versions.

"Titles are not short in order to help readers." I'm glad you have agreed. Now to get you to agree that the purpose of the project is to serve the readers, all of them. "Short ... titles are preferred ... to make title decisions less contentious" is your weirdest, most misorientated barrow. Consensus building is not helped by the introduction of artificial constraints. Contentiousness is reduced by clarity in the documentation, and focus on the ultimate goal, which is wide accessibility to quality information. Titles are at the top of content, and are content. Altering content to optimize backroom workings at the expense of serving readers wells is not the way to go.

"Without preferring short titles, the list of reasonable candidate titles for most of our articles would grow considerably, perhaps without bounds, and with no additional guidance on how we are to select among them." This is a strawman. Titles in reliable sources are not considerably long, without bounds. No one wants unbounded titles. Your fear of ridiculous titles is unfounded, and you have too little faith in the ordinary editor to choose titles without your guidance. On this point, I suggest that we agree that a title is not getting too long per se until it occupies more than one line in the default downloaded PDF.

How do we pick a title from a set of close contenders? Start with WP:RETAIN. Begin a discussion, see if participants can build a consensus. Value the opinions of editors who appear to value the opinions of others, who can learn and share learning. Do not invite yourself to invent a titling algorithm that devalues ordinary editors. Minimalist titling has not been shown to improve the product for readers. See WP:PPP. RM process issues and titling policy beauty concerns should not be allowed to compromise the product. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:08, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• I continue to hold that a disambiguation page is necessary when there is no primary topic, whether there are two topics for the ambiguous title or 200 topics for the ambiguous topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, the fact that we may only have two articles should not mean that we can not have a dab page. A separate issue is, if there is a dab page and no primary topic, what should be at the base name? Vegaswikian (talk) 00:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
  • JHunterJ (talk · contribs) and Vegaswikian (talk · contribs), thanks for sharing your opinions here. Now, how about letting us know why you hold these opinions? Thanks.

    Vegas, the entire reason for disambiguation is to resolve title space naming conflicts (no two articles can have the same title). As long as one is disambiguated, there is no conflict that needs to be resolved. There is no need to disambiguate the other one, by definition.

    For any set of topics that share one name, if any one of those topics was the only use (assume the other uses don't exist), the title of that use would be the base name. Right? So why is it a problem for that same article to be at the base name just because the other uses do exist, as long as they are at disambiguated titles? Let's not exaggerate the value of titles. --B2C 01:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

    Born2cycle (talk · contribs), it's not my opinion. It's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated)." If you put one of the topics at the base name, it is the primary topic. If there's no primary topic, then there's no topic at the base name, by definition. A two-element disambiguation page at the base name creates no problem and avoids the problem of debating which of two non-primary topics should be forced into primary-ness. A short dab page load for all readers is not necessarily worse than a possibly long incorrect article load for half the readers. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

B2C, you say that you don't like requiring a disambiguation page. But what you are suggesting would require that a disambiguation page not be used. You happen to prefer the latter. But a single additional click to reach an article is a trivial issue, compared to the benefit to the reader: with a dab page, it's immediately obvious that the term is ambiguous, and the reader simply chooses the article that s/he wants -- simple, easy, clear. Hatnotes are useful in many situations, but not as obvious in a case like this. Clarity is worth more than avoiding a single click. Omnedon (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

There is a flip side to this. On many occasions, I have seen an editor, without discussion, move on article on a good-sized city or on a person who is clearly influential in an important field so that the editor can create a twodabs page to "disambiguate" this meaning from a two-line stub on an insignificant subdivision with a population in the low hundreds, or a person who is barely meets any notability criteria, except that they played in a handful of professional sports events during a brief career, or once recorded a single which climbed the lower rungs of some music chart. I now routinely revert these moves and require evidence that the original topic is not the primary topic of the title. While I disagree with the notion of having a coin flip decision on a primary topic page, I think that the community is much better served by having a primary topic with a hatnote for any situation where there are two possible topics, and one is clearly more prominent than the other (I would say 60/40 is good enough). This clarity also assists us in draining the still-massive swamp of disambiguation links, so that we can finally hone in and fix the most pernicious and confusing examples. bd2412 T 05:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Wait - have you just suggested to avoid creating links to disambiguation pages by deciding the target at random? There is a clear benefit of having links to a disambiguation page from main space - at least you're sure that readers won't be sent to the wrong article, which is the worst possible outcome. An administrative issue like having a shorter backlog shouldn't take priority over giving readers a good experience. Having an article at the base name when it's not a primary topic is simply a bad idea, not "clarity". Diego (talk) 06:13, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

@Diego, I think you have misunderstood me, as your question assumes that I said roughly the exact opposite of what I actually said. bd2412 T 12:28, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

You said that you wouldn't like deciding at random, but defended doing it anyway (and yes, a 60/40 split is essentially a random decision, as there's no way to assess which is more "prominent" with such a small error margin). There should be evidence that a topic is primary before we treat it as such, not the other way around. Diego (talk) 12:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

A 60/40 split is "evidence that a topic is primary" in a TWODABS situation, as it is nearly 2/3 in favor of one topic. I have absolutely not defended deciding at random. I advocate deciding based on specific evidence. bd2412 T 13:17, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The kind of evidence we can compile easily (incoming links, number of visitors, Google hits) are too unreliable for a 60/40 split to be statistically significant. I usually request a 90/10 difference as the minimun to consider having a primary topic for reasons of volume, and only if there is no criterion based on historical significance. However these two-dab, no primary situations tend to be decided on "whichever article was written first" anyway, which is ridiculous. Diego (talk) 14:08, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

If one article has been in place for a decade by the time the other was written, that is a pretty good indicator that the first one written was a fundamental enough topic to inspire that early treatment, while the later article was an exercise in filling our gaps by including minor villages, city council members, and lesser known songs of lesser known bands. This is not always the case, but on close inspection it often is. bd2412 T 14:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. If there's an article at the base name and no ambiguity, then that's the primary topic when Wikipedia ambiguity is introduced. It might be easy to get consensus that the new article is primary or that neither article is now primary, but it's not automatic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

90/10 (nine times as many) is too high a bar. 60/40 (half again as many) is perhaps too low, but 66/33 (twice as many) is fine IMO, and 75/25 (three times as many) is certainly adequate. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm fine with 66/33. I have also mentioned before that I believe that if the split is between a natural history topic on the one hand, and a popular culture topic named for the natural history topic on the other, I think the natural history topic should get the base page name irrespective of current popularity (i.e., if a band names itself Garter Snake and becomes wildly popular and sucks up most of the Google hits and page views, the reptile should still get the title; it was significant to human history long before the band, and will continue to be so long after. Incidentally, it has just occurred to me that Garter Snake would be a great name for a band. bd2412 T 14:47, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

(to continue along this tangent) but with Garter snake, the snake would continue to be primary and the band could be the primary for Garter Snake. WP:DIFFCAPS -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• In a TWODABS situation in which there is no primary topic, I think a disambiguation page is better than the common situation where the title redirects to one of the two pages (usually the first page that was created). We Wikipedia contributors have a habit of creating internal links without checking to make sure that the link actually points to the intended destination. When the link redirects to the wrong page, it may exist for months or years before anyone notices the issue. When the link points to a disambiguation page, sooner or later it will get noticed by a bot, if not by a human user -- and it will be fixed. --Orlady (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  Nice in theory, but we still have over 2,000 links that have been tagged as needing to be fixed in Category:Articles with links needing disambiguation from June 2011 alone. We are getting in a deeper and deeper hole with the number of disambiguation pages with incoming links, in no small part because there is little governance to prevent the creation of a disambiguation page at a title for which there is a likely primary target, or for which which the entire page is WP:DABCONCEPT. On the flip side, there will always be editors who link to George Washington or CIA or Shark when they mean something other than the clear primary topic of those terms. What we need here is a middle ground, a way to review potentially incorrect links to primary topics without making disambiguation pages at titles like these. bd2412 T 17:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking more about situations like New Bethel Baptist Church, where I recently converted a redirect to a two-item disambiguation page -- and resolved several misdirected links from other articles. Neither of those articles get a huge number of hits, and there's little reason to pick one of them as a primary topic. IMO, the disambiguation page will be more effective at preventing and resolving confusion than a hatnote on one of the articles could have been. There are many DAB situations around Wikipedia that involve obscure articles like those -- and I don't think it's a big problem if users interested in those topics encounter a DAB page en route to the article they were actually looking for. --Orlady (talk) 18:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Some proportion of users are bound to find disambiguation pages disorienting and off-putting. We, as editors, are used to them and expect them, but that is not reflective of the experience of the real world, and of the general encyclopedia user. With respect to the example you provide, however, I would totally agree that no one should expect such a generic name to lead to a specific result. bd2412 T 18:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

(ec)As a creator of some of those links, I have to disagree! Those pages get tagged because someone is looking at the link to the dab page and can not figure out what is intended. Now how does that get fixed? By readers with some knowledge of the subject matter or followers of the article? There was a bot that notified editors if they created a link to a dab page. Is that still running and does it catch redirects that wind up at a dab page? I will be honest in that using sources to write a new article, I have left links to a dab page since the sources don't explain which is meant. So clearly the dab page is not the problem but part of the solution! Vegaswikian (talk) 18:57, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

There are no absolutes here. Almost everyone agrees, for example, that George Washington and Bill Clinton and Florida should not be disambiguation pages, and that John Smith and Springfield should be disambiguation pages - even though there will inevitably be some "bad" links in both directions. The question is what principles to follow in drawing the line in any given case. Since we are talking about TWODABS pages here, there is a question about whether a separate page for disambiguation is needed at all, since the whole contents of the disambiguation page (that one other link) can be tucked into a hatnote at the top of one of the pages. Since most readers have no way to know whether a blue link is pointing to a disambiguation page until they click it, the existence of the hatnote can very often provide all the context that is needed to indicate that the page it sits on might be the wrong landing spot (although, if we go with the page that gets a clear and substantial majority of hits, it will most often be the right landing spot anyway). bd2412 T 19:56, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

But does having the hat note eliminate the possibility of a dab page? That is my point. Then we have the issue of, is there a primary topic? One interesting side effect of having a dab page, is that even if there are only two some of the assistance tools will also show red links to the dab page that are not yet acceptable for listing. In some cases, those red links are actually the correct one for a link to the dab page. So what harm is done by allowing a dab page? Again I think that there are several issues being discussed which makes it difficult to reach a consensus. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:07, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

In that case, there's nothing wrong with having a dab page at the "Foo (disambiguation)" title, with a hatnote on the primary topic page pointing to two options - the other meaning for which an article exists, and that "Foo (disambiguation)" page for everything else. There are countless instances where those red links are for non-notable people who will never meet any criteria for inclusion in the encyclopedia, and should not be linked to in articles in the first place (I can't tell you how many names of CFOs and CIOs of small companies I have unlinked); and I have no doubt, also, that there are red links for "missing" people named "George Washington" and "Bill Clinton". However, for every Bruce Williamson (a name made of common elements, for which there are likely to be others so named), there's a page like Characters in the Wheel of Time series or a Charles Mansfield Clarke. bd2412 T 20:27, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Disorientation on arriving at a DAB page

BD2412, why would you expect "Some proportion of users are bound to find disambiguation pages disorienting"? Off-putting, yes, we all might prefer to given what we want immediately, even if we didn't ask clearly, but disorientating? A DAB page is much like a chapter's contents page. It is quite normal to open a book to the front contents page, to go to a chapter expecting content, and to find another index on the indicated page. This might be frustrating, especially if you hadn't appreciated the breadth of similar topics, but disorientating? You find yourself looking at a refined list related to what you are looking for, all with brief notes, and an obvious course of action, which is to choose one of them.

Far more disorientating is to be taken to an article that you didn't want, especially for readers who have pages load slowly and process. Try Frank Burns for example. Slow to load, flicks around when loaded.

I agree with your concern about links to disambiguation pages, links that should point to a disambiguated page. It is frustrating to have followed an inaccurate link, absolutely. It is also very easy to understand that ordinary editors have, and will always continue to, create links to short titles, unthinking of the possible need for disambiguation. However, I don't think your solution is the best. I see as the major culprit here the long standing practice of not allowing base names to redirect to explicitly titled disambiguation pages (not allowing Foo to redirect to Foo (disambiguation)). The advantages of Foo (disambiguation) include: (1) the reader will immediately know that they are about to download, downloading, and reading (due to that big text at the top called a title), a special type of page, not a proper article; (2) direct wikilinks to the disambiguation page are not going to made unthinkingly; (3) The assignment or reassignment of Foo to a PrimaryTopic or ConceptDAB will not interfere with the few proper links to Foo (disambiguation).

As to erroneous links to disambiguation pages being a large problem in need of solution, I suggest that all DAB pages should include a header (not a footer) note, encouraging (not merely mentioning the possibility) of fixing it. Eg. "If an internal link led you here by mistake, please change the link to point directly to the intended article." --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:27, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I tend to think that users will be more disoriented by hatnotes than by disambiguation pages. I hadn't previously thought about slow page-loading as an issue, but that might sometimes be a good reason to use a disambiguation page instead of a hatnote. --Orlady (talk) 21:14, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Semantics and stuff

Just because an article is at a base name, does not mean it's the primary topic. Primary topic means that, of multiples uses of a given name, one use is significantly more likely to be sought than the others (details at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC).

It could be the only topic on WP that uses that name, so the PT concept is inapplicable. It could be at the base name in error. Or, I'm suggesting, it could be there because it's one of two uses of the name, though it's not primary.

Let's review why we sometimes want to have articles at ambiguous titles (that is, why we have primary topics at all). The underlying idea is that if someone is searching with that term, they are most likely looking for the primary topic, so we should take everyone there. The ones that get there incorrectly can click on a hatlink note that takes them to their sought article or a dab page. This principle for why we have primary topics is important to keep in mind.

While it's true that we've technically declared "If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated)." at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, as JHunterJ (talk · contribs) has reminded us, I believe this statement does not have the two dabs situation in full consideration. I suggest there should be extra allowance in two dabs situation. Or perhaps we should loosen the criteria for what a primary topic is when there are only two uses.

There has been some discussion about a reasonable cutoff (90/10, 75/25, 66/33, 60/30, and so on). So let's review again why we have primary topics at all, and why we put a dab page at the base name when there is no primary topic. But before that, let's review the fundamental PT criteria:

if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.

We see that there are two criteria, and both must be met:

1. much more likely than any other topic to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
2. more likely than all the other topics combined to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.

Now, in a two dabs case, the second criteria, "more likely than all the other topics combined", is met even in a 51/49 situation. So, all that is left is #1, "much more likely than any other topic", which means, in the 2 dabs case, "much more likely than the other topic".

So what constitutes "much more likely" between two uses? Twice as likely? Half against as likely? If a cancer doctor tells you 45% survival rate or 55% survival rate... would it make much of a difference to you? What about 40% vs 60%? Isn't 60% much more likely than 40%?

And remember, in the two-dabs case, criteria #2 is already met no matter what the differences are, as long as we have the more-likely-to-be-sought use at the base name. So do we really need to be sure criteria #1 is met as well?

If we decide a 66/33 situation warrants a primary topic, what are the practical implications? It means 66% land on the sought article, while 33% need to click on a hatnote link. And if we do that in 51/49 situation? 51% land on the sought article, and 49% need to click on the hatnote link. Is that worse? What's the alternative? 100% land on a dab page with two entries, and 100% need to click on one of the two links. Is that better? Really? Why?

If we recognize sending 66% (or 75%) to the sought article and require 33% (or 25%) to click on a hatnote link is preferred to sending 100% to a dab page, why don't we also prefer sending 51% to the sought article and 49% to click on a hatnote link over sending 100% to a dab page?

--B2C 21:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Why is a single extra click such a big deal to you? Omnedon (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

If the reader who goes to the article finds it was not the one he was looking for, and must click a link in the hatnote, why is that extra click such a big deal? Actually, if it's a TWODABS situation, it's not even an extra click. bd2412 T 21:55, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Personally I'm not concerned about an extra click, or lack thereof. I think there are bigger issues than that at play here. Omnedon (talk) 21:58, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

There's just one big issue at play: what best serves the reader? If the typical reader is more likely to be looking for a particular page, we should generally try to take them to that page. bd2412 T 22:01, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps he is very concerned about readers with small smart phones and fat fingers? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• An nn/NN situation should refer usage in reliable sources, with weighting on the more reputable sources, and further weighting on introductory use. It should not refer primarily to page views or click counts, because these measures are biased to readers with easy access.

  If all ambiguous topics were titled with sufficient precision, then quality searches and accurate page linking will see the reader arrive with confidence at the desired page. No one should be surprised that an insufficiently queried search might lead to a dab page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

It strikes me that you are generally opposed to the use of ambiguous names for article titles, except maybe for universally recognized topics, like Paris, Oxygen, James Madison, etc. But the concept of PT goes far beyond endorsing ambiguous titles for universally recognized topics. It indicates such use for any ambiguous title that is more likely to be sought than all the other uses combined, and much more likely than any other, even if it is a fairly obscure topic to the public in general. If you want to take this on, go ahead, but don't presume you have community consensus with you on this point. I assure you; you don't.

As to discounting the value of page view counts because "these measures are biased to readers with easy access", that's irrelevant. What we're trying to ascertain is how likely each topic is to be sought, relative to the others. Not how likely it is to be sought by those without easy access. The use of these measures to estimate these relative likelihoods is based on the assumption that access in the past is generally a good predictor of what seeking likelihoods are to be in the future. Of course in individual cases that can change, as topics increase and decrease in popularity relative to each other, but generally speaking, if one topic has been viewed more often than another, it will be sought more often in the future. These measures may be biased in favor of readers with easy access, but the probabilities of each topic being sought are equally biased in favor of these same readers. So that's exactly what we want to use. --B2C 22:52, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Omnedon (talk · contribs) asks: Why is a single extra click such a big deal to you?

My answer: It's no more of a big deal to me that it is to the community, as reflected in policy, at least implicitly. A single extra click required by landing on a dab page is a big enough deal to the community that it has defined the concept of the primary topic, and implemented titles, accordingly. Avoiding a single extra click is ultimately why we have primary topic articles at ambiguous titles.

So, I take it as a given that it's important to the community, or we would have simply said no ambiguous article titles, period. But we didn't. We allow ambiguous article titles for primary topics, precisely so that users don't land on dab pages and have to go through an extra click. That's why a single extra click is such a big deal to me, too. Because it's a big deal to the community. --B2C 22:37, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's true. Who says that the "concept of the primary topic" came about mainly to avoid a mouse click? You do, certainly. Surely there are better reasons for a primary topic than that. Omnedon (talk) 01:45, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

One very good reason for having primary topics is that we are an encyclopedia, and therefore should value knowledge in accordance with its place in the sum of human knowledge. This is why we deem topics primary if they are of substantially greater historic or educational value, for example having an article on a fruit at Apple, on an animal at Mouse, on an ancient religious concept at Avatar, and on a Supreme Court Chief Justice at John Roberts. This is why, if we have a TWODABS situation and one of the topics is a natural history topic and the other is some ephemeral pop culture crap, the natural history topic should be primary. bd2412 T 02:10, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The whole "historic or educational value" component now described at PT is relatively recent; only a few years old. That complication aside, relevant on only a few pages, the traditional and primary purpose of PT is to have the most likely search target for a given term, or a redirect to it, located at the search term, rather than have a dab page or another article there. What reason can there be for that other than to help users avoid mouse clicks? Of course it is to take users directly, without any mouse clicks, to the articles they seek more often than not. If not for that, all ambiguous search terms could and would be dab pages, or redirects to dab pages. --B2C 02:22, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Avoiding mouse clicks is not the primary objective. Linking to the correct article is! Of course one could argue that always having the dab page at the main name space is correct since no reader ever accidentally gets sent to the wrong page. I challenge anyone to tell me that they know which muscle on a dab page is the correct one for every link, yea, some of us do use those dab pages. Only an expert in the field may be able to answers that. Most readers are going to assume that if we link to a specific page we know what we are doing. It is clear that we do not. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

If you're talking about a page like Adductor muscle, that should not be a disambig at all. It should be an article on the concept of an adductor muscle (any muscle that pulls a structure or part toward the midline of the body, or of a limb), with a list of examples - or, at worst, a redirect to List of adductors of the human body. Many of our problematic disambigs are like that. bd2412 T 04:04, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Vegaswikian (talk · contribs), linking to the correct article is the primary objective of primary topics? Because editors are likely to expect the primary topic (when there is one) to be at the base name, so they are apt to link to it without checking? And it's in readers' interests that those links are correct? Well, okay. Let's just say that correct linking and getting readers directly to the articles they seek without having to click as often as practicable are both reasons to have primary topics. Either way, relative page view counts among multiple uses of the same base name is a reasonable method for ascertaining whether there is a primary topic.

Placing the dab page at the ambiguous base name ignores both of these objectives, which can be met in the case of two dabs by putting the page with higher page views at the base name.

I agree with BD2412 (talk · contribs) about Abductor muscle. --B2C 04:36, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

In principle, you would be right; that's why a topic can be primary with respect to use. However, you're advocating a solution where 40% of users get the wrong information for their request. Any process with such an humongous error rate would be laughed at if we had any form of quality control. Conversely a disambiguation page is always a valid answer to a title query, as 100% of users are guided with a dedicated page to the information they're looking for. Diego (talk) 07:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Well said, Diego Moya. All this concern about number of clicks is mystifying. older ≠ wiser 11:09, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

• User:Born2Cycle, there's no need to add "technically" to facts you disagree with, such as the fact of the current consensus: "If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated)." And, despite my introduction of 66/33 and 75/25, I'd oppose the addition of any numerical formula to the primary topic guidelines. The editors decide the primary topic based on the guidelines. Formulas, once adopted, tend to be used blindly. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:15, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

JHunterJ, I agree. As for the "adductor muscle" issue, I think the way it is now is good. It's useful and helpful in getting the reader to the specific article that s/he wants. I don't see anything problematic about that. And I have yet to see any evidence that saving a mouse click has ever been a primary basis for policies here. Omnedon (talk) 13:13, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Consider the situation where, according to some source, the day before he was eaten by sharks, Joe Smith wrote in his journal that he "pulled an adductor muscle"; or where a researcher says that a certain drug "relaxes all adductor muscles". This goes into the article (because it is sourced), but is impossible to fix as a disambiguation link because there will never be any further information from which we can tell which adductor muscle Joe meant, and because the researcher is referring to them as a broad concept. That is the great problem with DABCONCEPT pages (along with the fact that they tend to be full of partial title matches while missing components of the class that do not include the title term in their name). Linking to the disambiguation page itself only gives a curt summary and a list that is unhelpful in these cases. bd2412 T 14:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

”Minimizing clicks” should be seen as a shorthand for avoiding points of wasted time, of confusion and even points of impasse for our readers. When we use this phrase we should be neither especially worried about our users’ danger of contracting carpal tunnel syndrome or their frustration at having to depress their finger again. The issue is that when a user clicks on Jane Doe seeking (the somnambulist) and not Jane Doe (the spelunker) or Jane Doe (the contortionist) or..., and they end up at a DAB page with 25 entries, they, no matter what, need to read through the entries to find their Jane Doe to reach it. Some will find their entry after that inconvenience. Some will find this a point of frustration and not bother. Some will find this an actual barrier to finding the entry.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:33, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

And without dealing with numbers in any way -- some will have no problem with it. Consider an alternative way of being frustrated: ending up at an article that is not the one you wanted. For an ambiguous search term, looking at a list of possible matches is very likely. That's not a bad thing. Might as well go there right away instead of trying to guess at what the reader wanted. Omnedon (talk) 14:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

And if someone searches for Jane Doe and gives up upon finding a disambiguation page, there seems little we can do to help. Disambiguation pages are intended to provided better assistance for finding something or someone known as "Jane Doe" than a general search for that term. Unless there is consensus that there is a primary topic, I don't see something other than a disambiguation page provides a better alternative. older ≠ wiser 15:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Lest we get two far afield, the original bone of contention here was TWODABS pages, where the entire disambiguation page can fit in a hatnote that takes you directly to the page you were looking for, if it was something other than the primary topic. This even applies where there are three short topics, or where there are many topics, but one is primary, a second is the most likely alternative, and the rest are comparatively minor, as with Apple. bd2412 T 15:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The same basic principles apply though. If there is no primary topic, there is no basis for choosing to send all readers to one instead of another. older ≠ wiser 17:36, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

But choosing either as a destination for all is better than choosing the dab as the destination. If we can, we should choose the one more likely to be sought. But if we can't, choosing randomly, or alphabetically, even if that results in the one less likely to be sought to be at the base name, is better than choosing the dab as the destination. Full explanation is below. --B2C 18:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

But choosing either as a destination for all is better than choosing the dab as the destination. No, that is simply not true, except in the extremely limited perspective that one click or two is more important than the appearance that one topic is more important than others to be placed at the undisambiguated title. IMO, web site traffic optimization is by far a secondary objective behind that of creating a credible encyclopedia. Choosing one topic as primary when there is no strong basis is not conducive to encyclopedic credibility. older ≠ wiser 18:33, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. If we can't determine a primary topic, choosing the dab as the destination is better than making a non-primary topic primary. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

We are confusing means and ends here. A disambiguation page is not, and never has been, an end in and of itself. The end is navigation. The question in a TWODABS situation (and often where there are only three options) is where should that navigation take place? Can it be accomplished with a hatnote, or is an entirely separate page required to fulfill that function? The default should be not to create extra pages unless we need to, because some circumstance makes it is impossible to use a hatnote. bd2412 T 19:10, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Primary topic, errors, error rates, why click counts are a concern... especially in 2-dab situations

Well, I think this has turned out to be a fruitful discussion. Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback. A standout comment in my view, endorsed by Bkonrad (talk · contribs), is this statement by Diego Moya (talk · contribs):

However, you're advocating a solution where 40% of users get the wrong information for their request. Any process with such an humongous error rate would be laughed at if we had any form of quality control. Conversely a disambiguation page is always a valid answer to a title query, as 100% of users are guided with a dedicated page to the information they're looking for.

First, it seems to me that if this opinion had broad community support, we would have no primary topics, only dab pages, at base names of potential titles ambiguous to multiple topics covered on WP. After all, "a disambiguation page is always a valid answer to a title query, as 100% of users are guided with a dedicated page to the information they're looking for."

This idea that "a disambiguation is always a valid answer" is simply not supported by consensus. When one seeks a particular article with a given query, a dab page is not a valid answer, because it's not the article being sought. That this view is widely held is a major reason for the existence of primary topics, and the support for their articles, and not dab pages, to be placed at base names.

Now, I concede there is something to be said for the position that a dab page should get "partial credit", while a wrong article does not. However, a wrong article with a hatnote link direct to the sought article is also worthy of "partial credit", arguably as much as a dab page (admittedly, that is a purely subjective call).

Indeed, PRIMARY TOPIC tries to strike a balance between these views. That's why the criteria holds us to make sure that an article at an ambiguous title is more likely than all other uses to be the one being sought, etc., and it tolerates the placement of a "partial credit" dab page at the base name when none of the uses meet the criteria.

But the criteria is (wisely, as others have noted) expressed in words, not numbers. Still, we can use numbers in these discussions to better understand how we're each interpreting these words in various situations. That brings us back to Diego's point, where he contends a 40% error rate is "humongous" and deserving of laughter in the context of quality control. I find this argument opposing a position that allows a 40% error rate to be striking in discussing a standard that explicitly allows for error rates over 50%. If consensus determines that a given topic meets the long-term significance criteria, its article can be at the base name even if it doesn't meet the usage criteria, which means it does not have to be more likely than all the others topics combined to be the one being sought. In numbers, that means the likelihood of it being sought could be less than 50%, thus allowing for error rates over 50%.

Further, there are surely countless situations similar to 60/10/10/10/10 or 60/30/5/5 or 60/20/20 distributions in which the 60% topic is considered primary and its article is located at the base name. So if a 60% likelihood (and thus a 40% "error" rate) is acceptable in those situations, why not in a 60/40 2-dab situation? And as BD2412 (talk · contribs) keeps reminding us, we should be more tolerant of the "error" in the 2-dab situation since there is a direct hatnote link to the sought article at the top of the page, which is usually not the case in the multi-dab situations.

Since others keep bringing it up, I think one more point deserves more attention. Bkonrad wrote, "All this concern about number of clicks is mystifying".

If number of clicks was not a concern, why should we care at all about how likely a given topic is to be sought relative to the other uses in deciding whether it is the primary topic? Why not just randomly choose among the articles at issue to put there? Or just always put the dab page there? After all, either way, the only practical effect of our decision to users is... how many will be subject to how many clicks. Please allow me to illustrate.

For example, say we have three uses, A, B and C for title T, and the seek likelihood distribution is 60/30/10. If we put the dab page at T, everyone is sent there, and, so, 100% have one click to get to their page (total click score: 100). If we put A at T, 60% have zero clicks, and 40% have 2 clicks (one to get to the dab page, and one more to get to the sought article, B or C) (total click score: 80). If we put B at T, 30% have zero clicks, and 70% have 2 clicks (total click score: 140). And if we put C at T, 10% have zero clicks, and 90% have 2 clicks (180). If we weren't concern about click numbers, why would it matter which one we would put at T? The only distinction among our choices is number of clicks.

Now that we all hopefully understand why the community cares about click counts, notice that if putting an article at the base name results in a total click score less than 100, that should be preferred over putting the dab page at the base name (which is always a total click score of 100). For example, if the seek likelihood distribution is 34/33/33, if we put A at T, the total click score is 0 + 2 * 33 + 2 * 33 = 132, thus favoring putting the dab page at the base name (which has a lesser total click score of 34 + 33 + 33 = 100).

Finally, we can talk about the 2-dab situation. Here, note that even with a 99/1 seek distribution between topics A and B, and even if we put B (1%) at the base name, the total click score is still less than 100 (99), since the one user seeking B gets to her article in zero clicks, and the 99 users seeking A have to click only once (on the hatnote link) to get to their desired article. Of course, putting A at the base name is even better, resulting in a total click count of 1. A more realistic distribution is 60/40, with total click counts of 60 or 40, depending on which we put at the base name, but both are far better than the 100 if we put a dab page at the base name.

That's why I believe this page originally allowed for no dab page in any two dab situation, without a primary topic requirement[1]. I still believe this should be restored, even more explicitly, as I proposed above. Whether you agree or not, at least I hope my reasoning is now better understood. --B2C 18:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

You keep saying that the community cares about the number of clicks, which is based on the assumption that the number of clicks is the only practical effect of the primary topic decision. I see no evidence that the community cares about one extra click. I see that you care about it. And there is surely a much more important effect of the primary topic decision, as that is the article that the person will see first if searching for that title. It's not about counting clicks; it is about what is shown to the reader. If we don't have a pretty good idea of what the reader is looking for, then a disambiguation page is useful. Omnedon (talk) 18:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

If number of clicks was not a community concern, why should we care at all about how likely a given topic is to be sought relative to the other uses in deciding whether it is the primary topic? --B2C 18:18, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Why do you assume that the number of clicks is the only possible reason for caring about the primary topic? I still see no evidence that the community shares your concern -- only a questionable inference about the community's concern. Omnedon (talk) 18:33, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I'm blind. But I just don't see any other reason to care at all about how likely a given topic is to be sought relative to the other uses in deciding whether it is the primary topic. The apparent inability of you or anyone else to give any reason other than number of clicks for caring about how likely a given topic is to be sought relative to the other uses suggests I'm not seeing it not because I'm blind, but because there simply is no other reason. --B2C 18:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you are blind. Reasons have already been given but, not surprisingly, you've ignored them. It's about making the encyclopedia better for readers. If we don't have a good idea of what the reader is looking for with a particular search, then we shouldn't assume they want this article, or this article. Instead we can say, "Were you looking for one of these articles?" That's helpful; that's useful. Omnedon (talk) 19:05, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

So we care about how likely a given topic is to be sought relative to the other uses to make sure we have a pretty good idea that what the reader is looking for is probably a certain topic before we put that topic's article at the base name. But what about the others? They still end up at the wrong article. Why don't we care about that? Why don't we just put the dab page at the base name so nobody is sent to the wrong article? --B2C 19:22, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

We assist read navigation. You're right, when there is a primary topic, we put the primary topic at the base name primarily because that makes for better reader navigation (and means that most readers get fewer clicks to reach the topic sought while still avoiding surprise for the other readers -- readers reaching George Washington but intending one of the non-primary topics are unlikely to be surprised at finding themselves there). But when there's no primary topic (for two or two hundred topics for an ambiguous title), we put the disambiguation page at the base name, because that makes for better reader navigation, in this case through the surprise-avoidance (and the click benefit was not enough to mitigate). -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. The only reason to not put a dab page at the base name for every ambiguous potential title is because of the click benefit. If not for the click benefit, we would not even have the primary topic concept. That's why we care about number of clicks. If we don't care about number of clicks, then we might as well dispense with PRIMARYTOPIC altogether. --B2C 19:22, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Reductio ad absurdum. older ≠ wiser 19:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Well then, please explain why we have PRIMARYTOPIC at all. By putting any article at an ambiguous name, anyone seeking another use of that name is being sent to the wrong article. Why is that acceptable? Why not just put the dab page there - then everyone is taken to the dab page, and nobody is taken to the wrong article. Seriously. What reason is there to not do that other than to save clicks for the majority who are seeking the primary topic article? It's a simple question. --19:35, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Most reasonable people expect Paris to be about the city in France in an general-purpose English language encyclopedia. The concept of primary topic is better mapped to the principle of least surprise than to the optimizing the number of clicks needed. older ≠ wiser 19:45, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I think most reasonable people would or should expect a species to take precedence over a song title, and a Supreme Court justice to take precedence over an athlete, unless the song title and the athlete happened to be unusually outstanding in their respective fields. bd2412 T 19:54, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

(ec) BD2412, in general, I think I'd agree, but I doubt a "rule" could be made that didn't have so many exceptions as to make it useless. older ≠ wiser 20:12, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Bkonrad (talk · contribs), the example of Paris only applies to the minority of primary topics that are widely recognized terms. But the concept applies to the highly likely sought topic of any ambiguous term, even if it is not widely recognized, like We will bury you or Sligo. Would someone looking for Sligo, Pennsylvania by searching with Sligo expect to find an article about a city in Ireland with 20,000 people? The principle of least surprise suggests only well-known topics like Paris be primary topics, but that is not what we do. Why do we recognize lesser-known topics as primary when they are most likely to be sought relative to the other relevant uses, if not to reduce the number of clicks for our readers? --B2C 20:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Paris is a prototypical example of primary topic that nearly everyone agrees on. Would someone looking for Sligo, Pennsylvania, population 720, in a rural area, be surprised that a much larger city in Ireland (which also happens to be the namesake of the Pennsylvania place) be surprised at the current arrangement? I doubt it. Are there any indications whatsoever that the city in Ireland is not the primary topic? Or that the notorious Khrushchev phrase is not the primary topic? While there are undoubtedly many edge cases, these are not. We recognize a primary topic, regardless of how widely known it may be, when there is consensus that it is more likely with regards to usage and long-term significance to be what is likely to be expected (i.e, the least surprising). Reducing the number of clicks is not a consideration. older ≠ wiser 20:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I'll grant that the principle of least surprise plays an important role in deciding whether a given topic is primary, but it doesn't explain why we bother with primary topics at all. Are you saying in the case of primary topics it would be surprising to find a dab page rather than the primary topic article at the base name? Again, I can see that for extreme cases like Paris, but I still think for most primary topics it's not true that the reason we don't put a dab page at the base name is the principle of least surprise. Absent any other explanation, I still think it's about ease of use, in particular about reducing clicks. --B2C 21:10, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I think primary topic is a corollary of common name. We place a topic at it's common name. Where there are more than one topics with a claim to the name, disambiguation is necessary. Where one topic is more widely recognized by that name than any of the others, it is the primary topic. If there is no significant difference among topics in recognition by that title, a disambiguation page is appropriate. older ≠ wiser 22:26, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, if "one topic is more widely recognized by that name than any of the others", we recognize and treat it as the primary topic instead of putting the dab page there. But WHY? --B2C 22:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

At the risk of tautology, because it is the most recognizable topic with that title. I mean is that really so difficult to comprehend? older ≠ wiser 22:34, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is impossible to understand because it is a tautology. When a name is ambiguous and it has no "most recognizable topic", we put a dab page at that name. But when one of the uses of the name is the "most recognizable topic" for that name, we have a choice. We can do either one:

1. Put the article about "the most recognizable topic" at the name.
2. Put the dab page at the name.

Why, if not for ease of use by reducing clicks, do we choose #1 over #2? --B2C 22:56, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Once again, although you continue to deny it, it is a perfectly sufficient reason to place the most recognizable topic at the common name. Yes, sure it is possible to do something else, but why do you think this is not a sufficient reason? older ≠ wiser 23:45, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not a sufficient reason because it's not a reason at all. Placing the most recognizable topic at the common name is explaining WHAT you are doing. It is not explaining WHY you are doing it, much less explaining why you are doing that (#1) instead of #2.

It's like saying you took the shortest route because it's the shortest route. Well, that's not the reason you took the shortest route. The reason is to save time, to save gas, to save wear and tear, etc. Likewise, to save clicks is the reason I believe the community favors placing the most recognizable topic at the common name, because it's the only reason I can fathom. What I don't understand is what you reason you have to favor it. --B2C 00:05, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

We're obviously talking past each other. You can believe whatever you like about clicks, but that doesn't make it so. The plain reason is simply that it makes sense to place the most recognizable topic at the title because most reasonable people would expect that topic to be at that title (or at the very least can readily understand why that topic is at that title rather than another. older ≠ wiser 02:31, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I hear you loud and clear. Nothing you have said explains why #1 is preferable to #2. So what if "most reasonable people" would expect that topic to be at that title? What's wrong with having them find the dab page there instead? Would that be a problem? How much of a problem? What about the minority that with #1 ends up at the wrong article? They will "readily understand" why that topic is at that title? Are you sure? I thought you conceded earlier that that was often not the case with primary topics. Yes, you said, "... there are undoubtedly many edge cases" with respect to this issue. Does merely the benefit of meeting the expectation of those reasonable people who would expect that primary topic article to be there make up for cost of sending so many to the wrong article? --B2C 05:50, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

How is it not an explanation? Why would we NOT want to do what most reasonable people would do? I thought you conceded earlier that that was often not the case with primary topics. I think that must be a misunderstanding. When I mentioned edge cases, I meant that while the examples you gave did not very well illustrate the point you were attempting to make, I was conceding that there may currently be many articles at the primary topic title, some of which, if they came up for due consideration would be moved, and some others, because of differences of opinion in how to apply primary topic criteria might not be moved. As for your contrived cost-benefit analysis, almost by definition for a primary topic, yes, the "cost" is acceptable. older ≠ wiser 11:27, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

B2C, I wish you'd drop the click thing. It's not about clicks. It's about ease of use. If we are fairly certain of what people are looking for with a particular search, fine. But if we are not, that's when a disambiguation page is helpful to the reader. Clicks don't enter into it. Omnedon (talk) 20:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I honestly don't get it. How does putting the most likely to be sought topic at the base name ease use if not by reducing clicks? If it's not about easing use by reducing clicks, then why not always put the dab page at the ambiguous name? --B2C 20:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

It is not about clicks! It is about readers getting to the correct article, or probably even better keeping readers from getting to the wrong article when they may not know it. Even if your choice would be correct 70% of the time, that means that 30% of the readers arrive at the wrong page. That is simply too high of an error rate! Vegaswikian (talk) 22:56, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

30% is too high of an error rate? Okay what about 20%? 10%? Why is that acceptable? To what end? What is the benefit of putting the primary topic at the base name that makes any error worth it? Why not always put the dab page at the ambiguous name? --B2C 23:01, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Why not indeed! I don't know what, if any, error rate is acceptable. But I'm pretty sure that it would need to be approaching 0% before it could be considered as acceptable. What failure rate do you accept on a bicycle pedal not working as a problem? Vegaswikian (talk) 23:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

But, by placing primary topics at the common ambiguous name, we accept a much higher error rate than 0%. In cases where we select the primary topic based on historical significance, we can accept an error rate higher than 50%. Why?

The only explanation I can fathom is to save clicks. Do you know of any other reason? --B2C 00:05, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Stupidity? Blind adherence to rules? Thinking that there is a black and white rule for every case? As I have said, a dab page is ofter better then the wrong article for a large number of readers! Vegaswikian (talk) 00:59, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so you also don't know of any reason to have primary topic articles, rather than dab page, at ambiguous base names, except to save clicks. I presume you recognize the practice does save clicks, you just don't believe that's a good enough reason to do it, right? --B2C 02:05, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Unwanted kilobytes downloaded might be a useful metric. Clicks? No. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:27, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

How about the unwanted kilobytes of downloading the disambiguation page itself, for the majority representing those who are seeking the most-searched page? bd2412 T 03:38, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

There will be clear cut cases based on using all of the guidelines in this area for an article at the main name space. However there are likely many more cases where there really and truly is no primary topic for the main name space. Some editors may think there is one or know in their mind there is one. But that does not make it so. Based on current discussions I'd say that we have some articles in the primary name space based on supposition and not fact. So if you want me to say that we should have a dab page at the primary name space more often, then yes! It is better then guessing wrong and sending readers to the wrong page especially in a topic that they have no chance of knowing they are at the wrong article. My goal is to avoid readers winding up at the wrong article. I know we can not really get there 100% of the time, but that should be the goal. Your goal is codify some rules that can be applied and will guarantee that some percentage of readers will wind up at the wrong article. Now which makes sense from the readers point of view? Vegaswikian (talk) 03:41, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The disambiguation page itself is itself the wrong article - it is not the page the reader ever wants to land on. Other than the possibility of landing on the wrong page and having to wait a long time for it to load (which is only an issue for long pages), what is wrong with sticking the disambiguation page in a hatnote on the more likely target? bd2412 T 04:01, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I and others have disputed this assertion previously. A DAB page is the right page if someone is unknowingly searching ambiguously. DAB pages disambiguate for the reader much better than a hat note. And sometimes I Want the DAB page to review similar topics. Yes, if the DAB page is unwanted, it's size should be considered, weighed against the size of the unwanted weakly-PT page a minority are sent to. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:14, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that if the proposed PT page is very long, that is a sign that it is an important enough topic for a lot to be written about it, and it may well strengthen the case for it being the primary topic. In fact, when we were debating the primacy of Jerome Frank, I nearly tripled the size of the article while gathering support for the importance of the subject in multiple fields. Conversely, a page that is a bare-bones stub (at this stage in Wikipedia's development) is likely to be a topic that has not drawn a lot of interest or activity (compare Jerome Frank (psychiatrist)). Of course, we have never before considered the length of the target pages in determining the primacy of the page, and it is disturbing to think that a page might be determined to be a primary topic when it is short, and then lose this status because it is substantially expanded. As for wanting to look at the dab page itself, that is only a consideration for us because we are insiders. It should not color our view of how the typical reader experiences Wikipedia. bd2412 T 04:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

re: we have never before considered the length of the target pages in determining the primacy of the page We might not have ever had any formal criteria in this regard, but I'm certain it is something that is taken into consideration in an very general sense. In evaluating two pages, one of which is a fully formed article, with multiple references in diverse sources and another is a barely referenced stub, I doubt there would be too much dissent in determining primary topic (seems like there may always be some contrarians, whether because they have a bee in their bonnet over some policy dispute or because of affection for the stub subject). In the Jerome Frank discussion, at the outset, the difference was not so obvious (especially for people not familiar with U.S. judiciary, politics and history). Your improvements to the article made that difference rather obvious. However, I don't agree that the disambiguation page itself is itself the wrong article -- where we have no basis for determining a primary topic, the disambiguation page IS the correct article. It might not be what every reader is looking for, but if there is no basis for saying one topic is primary due to usage or long-term significance, then I don't see how tossing a coin to pick one as primary is a credible tactic for an encyclopedia. older ≠ wiser 11:40, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I completely agree that "where we have no basis for determining a primary topic, the disambiguation page IS the correct article". The converse of that statement is that where we have a sound basis (I will not go so far as to say any basis) for determining a primary topic, that should be enough to determine a primary topic and use a hatnote to do the disambiguation. I consider sound bases in a TWODABS situation to include one topic having inherently greater historic or educational value (an animal species, even an obscure one, over the name of a barely-there band, a governor over a juggler); one topic having substantially more page views, Google hits, or incoming links made; one topic being a regionalism while the other topic is known worldwide; and one topic being a substantial and well-developed article while the other is a stub. bd2412 T 16:50, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

• Please - Leave as is, leave as previous consensus - The John Quested example on WP:TWODABS was discussed extensively before addition and works well. There is no evidence that readers who have already clicked on dozen of other links to get anywhere in Wikipedia will explode with anger if confronted by a choice requiring another click between 2 articles that cover topics equally notable. Plus when articles are not hidden or disguised by removing WP:CRITERIA information from the title the article is easier to find in the two main ways we find articles (a) top right search box, (b) Google. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:24, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
• From what I saw there was not much of a consensus, if any, to add it. The idea behind that section is contrary to the idea of TWODABS; it goes contrary to the entire reason we even have that redirect, which is to say that we require a much lesser threshold for primary topic when there are only two possible topics. I linked to WP:TWODABS in a discussion recently and the person I was talking with was genuinely confused because in the past few months the reason for TWODABS was flipped on its head. Red Slash 18:35, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

  OTOH, from what I've seen there is no consensus for anything like "we have a much lesser threshold for primary topic when there are only two possibly topics". The TWODABS consensus that we do have it that there is no need for a dab at all when there are only two topics for the title and one of them is primary. You may have been misusing the redirect to justify making a non-primary topic primary, but that's never been the consensus, nor the message of these guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:30, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

  It is incumbent on us to remember that disambiguation pages are only a navigational tool. We should not create a disambiguation page as a separate page unless doing so is the most effective way to allow navigation of Wikipedia. A disambiguation page that is more than that, of course, ceases to serve the purpose of a disambiguation page, and may as well becomes an article about the word itself, or about a concept. I grant that there are situations where there is no possibility of determining a primary topic, and it would be improper to assign one or the other term primacy, but there are often many means by which a best target can be selected. bd2412 T 01:52, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

  Agreed, and we have the means by which the best target can be selected described under WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. If there's a primary topic, it's the best target for the title, and it goes at the base name or is the target of the base name redirect. If there's no primary target, then the dab page is the best destination for the title, and it goes at the base name or is the target of the base name redirect. No special handling of primary target is needed for cases where there are only two topics for the ambiguous title; the primary topic guidelines cover them as well, and with them we put the navigational tools to good use. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:01, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

• Please - Leave as is, leave as previous consensus. The current guidance works well, and follows a simple approach: if the topics are broadly similar, give the reader a clear choice. A 2-irem disambiguation page is quick to load, and easy to speed-read. Whichever topic the reader was looking for, they get there quickly with minimal hassle. However, sending a reader to the wrong page is a big impediment to usability: the hatnotes are just a small item in a wall of text, and are not easily distinguished.
  (BTW, this discussion has been marred by tldr comments from one editor. Less verbosity please.) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:59, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
  • What do you mean, "if the topics are broadly similar"? For disambiguation to be used, the topics must be unrelated. Otherwise, WP:DABCONCEPT may apply. bd2412 T 17:31, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

linking to dab pages on navbox templates

Is there any specific guidance anywhere regarding including links to disambiguation pages in navbox templates? older ≠ wiser 17:08, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

If it's a navbox for use in articles,I think the general guidance of "don't link to dabs from the article space" applies. If it's a navbox for disambiguation pages, I think the guidance of "don't put templates on dab pages" applies. No specific exceptions for navboxes that I'm aware of. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:18, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

BTW, many of the ones created by the infoboxes are difficult to find. Also, they are difficult to fix without knowledge of the infobox. Some you can fix inline, and others have a parameter for the correct link. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:34, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

TWODABS opt out for obscure names

I've added an opt-out of TWODABS for obscure names. Otherwise we'd have e.g. language articles with a dozen hat notes for obsolete names that hardly anyone is ever likely to use. For example, Indo-Pacific languages lists hundreds of names which have hardly been used for a century, and after hours of searching I still can't ID many of them. Such things could easily pile up in hat notes if we were to take TWODABS literally, but I think common sense would suggest that they should exceptions. — kwami (talk) 21:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I have reverted your edit, as it would do the opposite of what you are saying here. The "opt-out" language you used would require us to have an actual disambiguation page at the primary topic title, if one of the meanings was well known and the other was obscure. bd2412 T 21:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:DABCONCEPT and broadly described geographic regions.

I have added the following section to WP:DABCONCEPT specifically addressing broadly described geographic regions.

• Central Asia, Northern Europe, and Southern United States are geographic designations that have been used with respect to different specific boundaries over time. Varying uses for broad geographic terms can be discussed in the context of an article describing the overall agreement of which areas definitely fall within that designation, and which areas are only occasionally described as falling with that designation, for certain purposes.

I have noticed that there are some pages like Northern China, for which the "ambiguous" terms are primarily merely differing descriptions of the boundaries of the same territory. bd2412 T 15:02, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I find the concept for Wikipedia:DABCONCEPT#Broad-concept_articles quite appealing, but somehow have trouble comprehending the text. The sentences are all longish, and there is more text devoted to examples than to explanation. Would it be possible to simplify the language? As for the many examples, I think that in general, it is better communication to have more explanation than examples. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:56, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
  • In my experience, there are several broad classes of common dabconcept problems, of which geographic designations with amorphous borders is just one. I would actually like to have something along the lines of CSD, where we categorize common dabconcept pages by type, and explain why each type is a problem. bd2412 T 22:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
    • I would be interested in reading this. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:11, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
      • I will start a draft this weekend. bd2412 T 16:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Request/suggestion: remove "Dsl" disambiguation

The setup for the DSL (disambiguation) page seems a bit odd:

• If a reader searches for "DSL" then they'll land at Digital Subscriber Line, which states that "DSL" redirects there and includes the link to the disambiguation page.
• If the reader accidentally used mixed-case or (as many do) lower-case, they land at the disambiguation page even though all of the alternatives there are also acronyms and thus should likely use capital letters.

Even if we ignore the important point that "DSL" is universally recognized in English as referring to broadband Internet, I feel its usefulness to readers is questionable at best. The most 'relevant' links are small-niche uses where the capitalization is haphazard, and people aware of them will also know what "DSL" normally means in English:

• Danish Sign Language is a stub consisting only of speculation on which other sign languages it's close to. People that actually use Danish Sign refer to it as DDL, and likely wouldn't be using English Wikipedia.
• Damn Small Linux is about a Linux distro that hasn't had a stable release since ’08. As a longtime Linux user, I haven't seen people use the acronym in several years, and then it was only after using the full name.
• Definitive software library is a tiny stub consisting of a definition that states it was renamed "definitive media library" by a standards org.
• Design Science License is a stub that doesn't use the acronym, which only appears once in the 13-year-old lone reference as part of the author's email address.
• Domain-specific language is the closest to a real alternative, but anybody with the advanced technical knowledge needed to be aware of the article itself will definitely know what "DSL" normally means.

Most of the other articles listed on the page are stubs; regardless of length, they all either don't use the acronym themselves, or use it for brevity without indicating anywhere in the text or reference descriptions that the acronym is normally used outside Wikipedia. I'd be very surprised if fewer than 99% of visitors were there for the Digital Subscriber Line article. (The above was cross-posted with edits from the DSL Disambiguation talk page.)

I wasn't intending to make the changes myself; it was just something I ran across and felt should be pointed out to editors more inclined to make major changes than I am. I hope you all have a good week/weekend. —xyzzy 12:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

 DoneI reverted Dsl to the subscriber line topic.-- JHunterJ (talk) 13:13, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

The initialism for Domain Specific Language is certainly used in PL theory forums without context, so it's not uncommon for someone having to look for the term and finding the disambiguation page useful. And what would you expect would be gained from deleting the disambiguation page? Diego (talk) 13:53, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposal for words coming from non-Roman writing systems

Since transliteration from non-Roman writing systems is fuzzy and even prone to "religious wars" between competing schemes, I propose an explicit policy encouraging showing DAB words in their native writing systems. This is one of Unicode's under-appreciated possibilities and it's time to put it to good use.

Anchoring a cloud of transliterations in one specific word clarifies things, just as Oncorhynchus nerka is much clearer than Redfish. Take Jainagar, Bihar for example. It is variously transliterated to Jainagar, Jayanagar and Jaynagar but always natively written जयनगर in Devanagari. Or the river that may appear as Ganges, Ganga or Gunga but constantly गंगा in Devanagari. In Western pronunciation there is overlap with ganja, but in Devanagari the psychoactive herb is गञ्जा and there is no ambiguity.

We can then mention other words whose transliterations overlap, assigning these to other specific words in their native scripts. Overlapping transliterations often prove to come from entirely different languages! LADave (talk) 19:29, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

We do something similar (or perhaps even more overt) with some Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese titles, where we title the disambiguation page with the non-Roman writing system title and list the topics that are ambiguous with it. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/CJKV task force. Is that what you mean? Or is the suggestion on how pages such as Jayanagar (disambiguation) should be formatted? If everything on Jayanagar (disambiguation) has the same Devanagari source, how does listing it on the dab (as well as on the topic articles) assist with navigation? -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of this CJKV project but it's a great analogy. I think issues overlap although I haven't attempted to learn any CJKV writing systems and there could be important additional justifications there. Nevertheless the problems of transliteration changing over time are about the same. There are parallel issues stemming from inter-language differences in how voiced/unvoiced and aspirated/unaspirated consonants are resolved or not in writing too.

Taking Jayanagar as an example, there are two issues to disambiguate. First, multiple transliterations that are (natively) the same word. Second, disconnected places sharing the same name. Naïve readers can constructively be shown how there is no reliable correlation between transliteration variations and locations. Present DAB page notwithstanding, it is fallacious to infer that "Jainagar" is in Bihar but "Jayanagar" is in Nepal. Perhaps transliterations should still be dabbed in topic articles as well, but it seems needlessly cryptic not to do it in a DAB page. LADave (talk) 23:20, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Oops, a third and fourth issue: (3) related -- yet natively different -- words (4) words that appear similar but aren't e.g. Ganges/ganja. LADave (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not clear with the concrete goal, either in the language of this guideline or in the implementation on a page like Jayanagar (disambiguation). Can you show how you would have the dab page formatted, either in a mock up here or boldly on the page itself? -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:31, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Dabconcept template

The Wikipedia:DABCONCEPT page itself needs disambiguation! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.226.22 (talk) 00:19, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Plymouth demonstrates problem with WP:PRIMARYTOPIC

<rant> The current discussion at Talk:Plymouth#Requested move at 22:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC) demonstrates the problem with adding the "historical significance" consideration to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: it leaves no basis in policy or guidelines for anyone to follow. Reasonable arguments could be made to support or oppose. In other words, any JDLI preference can be supported by this one "guideline". What kind of guideline is that? It literally provides no guidance at all. This is what it says:

In a few cases, there is some conflict between a topic of primary usage and one of primary long-term significance. In such a case, consensus determines which article, if either, is the primary topic.

Consensus based on what, besides WP:JDLI?

It should go without saying here that consensus make these determinations. What should be stated here is guidance for consensus to follow. This does the exact opposite.

</rant> --B2C 21:49, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Um, how about persuasiveness of the arguments pro and con? And at times, the persistent boorishness of participants will often incline me to support the opposite side. But that is just a part of learning to participate in civil discourse and respecting the opinions of others, even if you don't agree. The world will not end if "consensus" in some cases is determined by what you consider to be JDLI. older ≠ wiser 21:58, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd say that discussion is an example of precisely why the guideline being phrased like that is a good thing - it encourages discussion about what the right answer is. Consensus is not generated by a strict algorithmic approach, but by reasoned discussion between users. Some users will favour hard facts and figures, while either would look at it more subjectively, it doesn't mean either is right or wrong

One issue I can see with the guideline as written is the "more likely than all the other topics combined" only applies to usage. Surely it should be true to both criteria?--Nilfanion (talk) 23:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

• Of course long term significance must be important. Long term significance means it is important, very likely the base topic, and is an important counter balance to recentism.

What instead is a problem is B2C's bluelink labelling as JDLI any opinion he finds uncomfortable, which means anything that doesn't fit into his concept of policy-couched algorithmic decision making.

The guidance should not be prescriptive, as prescriptive guidance discourages thinking. The guidance should note important considerations for editors to think about when forming opinions in consensus finding discussions.

NB. My B2C-problematic-comments at Talk:Plymouth are not even a vote, I am undecided, but the raising of thoughts for others to consider. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:21, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I completely agree with respect to the importance of long term significance. This is an encyclopedia, not a pop culture trivia handbook. Consider the case of Avatar - a longstanding philosophical concept that should not be upset by a film or TV series of transitory significance. bd2412 T 00:24, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Which is very different then a comparison of place names and other uses. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:58, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

There are places that are of greater enduring historical importance than other places; they probably tend to coincide with the places that are the most common search targets for the name, though. bd2412 T 02:15, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Correct. But the inverse is that being a city in England or being the first place established with a specific name does not make it the primary topic. In some cases this could be the case based on the totality of the information. But being in the wrong country should not exclude another place. Likewise, the primary topic is based on the totality of the usage and should not be reduced to a comparison of two or three possibilities when the name is shared by 30 places. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:06, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I use WP:JDLI to refer to any opinion that is not based on policy or guidelines without regard to whether I happen to agree with it or not. When policy and guidelines don't give guidance, then every argument is necessarily JDLI. That is, either side can reasonably argue their personal preference.

Imagine a Martian (a hypothetical thought experiment to personify someone totally unburdened by subjective JDLI bias) is asked to decide primary topic in a case where one use clearly is much more likely to be sought and another use is clearly more historically significant? How would he decide? We're giving him two criteria to consider, each of which indicates a different answer, and no guidance on how to resolve this conflict. --B2C 01:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

That depends, have we informed this Martian that we're building an encyclopedia here, and that it is intended to be a project that endures for hundreds of years, and that topics should be considered in terms of their likely importance over that period. bd2412 T 02:23, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

That's not what WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or WP:AT says. People who have been making that argument in other contexts (for example to counter WP:COMMONNAME, have been shot down repeatedly by consensus. --B2C 17:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

That is exactly what long-term significance means. bd2412 T 17:28, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

(ec) shot down repeatedly by consensus. I'd say the opposite, actually. There have been a number of high profile discussions where long-term encyclopedic usage overrode popular usage by consensus. For example, Madonna is a disambiguation page rather than about the entertainer, as it would be if we were only concerned with page traffic. older ≠ wiser 17:30, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and Corvette is another example. But there is also Boston, etc. There are plenty of examples from both sides. The problem is that there is no guidance on when we should favor which consideration. We give no indication to our hypothetical Martian (see below) on how he should !vote in these situations. So, these decisions are not based on anything other than the whims of those who happen to be participating. --B2C 08:22, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

The large majority to retain Plymouth at Plymouth and the rejection of the car as competition for primary, doesn't seem to suggest a "wikt:whim" but a healthy understanding of the characteristics of an encyclopedia. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• So, your JDLI usage is unexpected and unintuitive. You are blind to anything not explicitly blue-linkable, and if that leaves nothing, you accuse the other person of wasting space with empty comment. Funny, that elsewhere you are trying to stop people from calling a vandal a vandal, and yet you are so quick and easy to insult people by labelling considered comments as JDLI, aka worthless. Please try using words at their face value. Please consider that policy is incomplete, out-of-date, and representative of a biased subset of the community, that there can be valuable input to a discussion not written into policy. Also consider that requiring comments to be couched in policy-speak is a requirement that participants must first be educated in policy, and that this is an undesirable hurdle for new participant.

A newly arrive Martian should not be welcomed to supervote-close a discussion as you suggest is possible. In consensus decision-making, given two conflicting opinions, it is necessary that further participants compare, contrast, comment and develop the discussion. If that discussion needed to be closed, then it should be as "no consensus". Any my opinion: "more likely to be sought" means that the search engines will be automatically optimised to direct the search query to the most likely wanted target, regardless of article title. "More likely to be sought" is a consideration, but not something that should override logical titling. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:36, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I did not suggest the Martian should be able to supervote. He should be able to find guidance on how to !vote in a particular RM, however. That's what WP:PRIMARYTOPIC should provide. --B2C 17:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Redirects in dab pages

While rescuing the dab page Doko (which had been over-written by a new unsourced stub), I found several redirects which seemed appropriate entries. I then has a look at WP:MOSDAB and had second thoughts about the languages, and reworded them to avoid using redirects. But what about Tania Doko? There was an existing redirect to the article on the pop duo Bachelor Girl of which she is a member. The letter of MOSDAB seems to tell me not to include the redirect, but just to give her name and a link to the duo. But my instinct is to use the redirect, because then if she some time acquires notability and has a separate article, the dab page will still link to it. Thoughts? PamD 09:59, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Redirects that match the ambiguous title are preferred, not avoided, per WP:MOSDAB#Where redirecting may be appropriate. IMO this version was fine. If there's language in the guidelines that makes that seem incorrect, I'd be in favor of updating the guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Move WP:UNDAB?

I wonder if the shortcut WP:UNDAB should be moved to WP:UNDAB ESSAY to prevent confusion? I know there's no policy against these kind of shortcuts, just that this looks so similar to WP:DAB it may be worthwhile to make an exception. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• There should be policy against them. Project space has become littered with excess shortcuts, many not short at all, many overly cute, even pointy, and with the effect of dumbing down interpretation of documented policy. Usually a link to the full title is better. So many shortcuts makes the project more difficult for newcomers. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
  • There is a guideline against them, at least when talking to newbies. Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers explicitly commands us to "Avoid Wikipedia jargon. When linking to policies or guidelines, do so in whole phrases, not wiki shorthand." There's also the essay WP:OMGWTFBBQ. Diego (talk) 12:25, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe Diego, good points. So what do you suggest if anything should be done about the shortcut. A move to WP:UNDAB ESSAY wouldn't delete the original shortcut but would gradually bring about decreasing use. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• This page doesn't really address the idea of unnecessary disambiguation. What would you do with the existing shortcut, delete it? This would be better discussed at RfD. --BDD (talk) 18:01, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

DAB and capitalization

Is the capitalization between 2 subjects enough to disambiguate between two terms? For example:

• Vector Group and Vector group

Is this sufficient? Or should it be more like, for example

• Vector Group (company) and vector group?

An editor asked me about this, and honestly I've seen it done both ways across the project, so I wasn't sure which one was correct. (Or maybe its a judgement call?) Let me know. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 18:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization is sufficient in most cases. If the Title Cased topic is also the primary topic for the lowercase topic, then the lowercase name redirects to it and the lowercase title needs a qualifier. Usually, though, the lowercase topic is primary for the lowercase title. See WP:DIFFCAPS for more. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:15, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Note that screen readers used by visually disabled readers do not distinguish between upper-case and lower-case titles, so the foregoing advice may not be consistent with our aspiration to be accessible to all, at least where the title is being displayed to the user (where it is hidden by piping, then this is not so much of an issue). --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The two topic articles should hatnote to each other, so they'll be just as accessible as any pair of articles with distinguish hatnotes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:14, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

twodabs and subtopic

Does Wikipedia:TWODABS apply to subtopics too? E.g. Matador (TV series) is a redirect to Matador#Film and TV (disambiguation), but there is just two series named Matador. Christian75 (talk) 07:15, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

None of the series seem to be a primary topic, so TWODABS wouldn't make any difference. The current section at Matador (disambiguation) is enough to satisfy the requirement that Matador (TV series) directs the reader to an adequate disambiguation page. Diego (talk) 10:18, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, neither series is the primary topic, which leads to an incomplete disambiguation phrase for the article title 'Matador (TV series)'. Such article titles should always redirect the main disambiguation page. LittleWink (talk) 20:37, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation of rivers

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rivers#River disambiguation on the issue of whether brackets or commas should be used.--Mhockey (talk) 18:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Which is part of the article naming conventions and article title guidelines. As long as they end up with unique titles, they're disambiguated sufficiently. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation terms "in the middle"

Under what conditions should a disambiguator be in the middle of the title. We have Georgia (U.S. state) wine and while Georgia is a special case, I'm wondering what the general rule should be. If for example we had two different bands, one from the 1950s Band123 (1950s) and the other from the 2010s Band123 (2010s) that were well known enough to have separate discography articles, would be have Band123 (1950s) Discography and Band123 (2010s) Discography?

I would prefer to see the wine article moved to Wine in Georgia (U.S. state) or Wine of Georgia (U.S. state), depending on whether the article is about consumption or production. bd2412 T 19:09, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I deliberately picked wine because a good number of the Georgia (U.S. state) XXX entries are redirects caused by the fancy templates that want to be able to link everything to State name XXX automagically. How would you handle the Band situation?Naraht (talk) 19:21, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I would probably prefer Discography of Band123 (1950s) titles, although I recognize that this breaks with the norm for discographies. We must already have some actual discography situations like this, though, since there are many ambiguous band names out there. bd2412 T 19:35, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I would also prefer to see them at the end, but it seems to be standard approach for things like Ossining (town), New York and Ossining (village), New York. Put either "village new york" or "town new york" in the search box (without the quotes) to see more. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

We've also got Annie (Norwegian singer) discography and Tarkan (singer) discography.Naraht (talk) 15:37, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I think the "Foo (disamb)" name should be treated like the parallel "Foobar" names, with the disambiguator always appear next to the term to be disambiguated, when disambiguation is needed, and the established pattern of names being followed. Use "Georgia (U.S. state)" as you'd use "California", use "Annie (Norwegian singer)" as you'd use "Maddy Prior", in a situation where plain "Annie" is ambiguous. PamD 16:27, 23 April 2014 (UTC), amended 16:34, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

RfC in progress that affects WP:DABNAME

There is currently an RfC in progress that could affect the guideline at WP:DABNAME, specifically the instructions regarding using the word "The" in the disambiguation page title. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name)/Archive 2#RfC. Steel1943 (talk) 15:18, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:FIXDABLINKS

WP:FIXDABLINKS reads in part Before moving an article to a qualified name (in order to create a disambiguation page at the base name, to move an existing disambiguation page to that name, or to redirect that name to a disambiguation page), click on What links here to find all of the incoming links. Repair all of those incoming links to use the new article name.

With justification I think, this is being interpreted as meaning that the closing admin must fix all the incoming links in moves such as Talk:Jason Johnson (disambiguation)#Requested move (this is not the first one I've seen, just the most recent).

Is this reasonable? These links could just as easily be fixed by the proposer and/or those in favour of the move. We have, in my opinion, enough trouble keeping the RM backlog under control without this.

Other views? Andrewa (talk) 02:57, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I would put this burden on the editor requesting the page move. bd2412 T 04:00, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. It's too much to ask of the closing administrator to do all the work. I read the intent of the quote above to apply to someone initiating a page move, but see how it could be read to refer to the closer. SchreiberBike talk 04:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that too often those links don't get cleaned up. Perhaps we need a template message for the moving admin to put on the proposer's talk page to say "I have made the move from A to B which you requested. Before creating a disambiguation page at A or changing it to redirect to a page other than B, please remember to check all the incoming links to A and update those which are intended for B." or better wording to that effect. PamD 05:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes... but as I've told you previously, [2] placing this burden on the closing admin is no solution, in my opinion. Andrewa (talk) 10:26, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks... I've posted a heads-up to this discussion at the RM in question. It will be interesting to see what the closing admin's interpretation is. Andrewa (talk) 10:26, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it's not the responsibility of the admin closing the move. Note also that WP:FIXDABLINKS leads off by describing itself as a "code of honor", not as a burden. Perhaps there is a maintenance task that could be performed so that the closing admin (or move proposer) could add the moved dab to a Disambiguation-Project list of those to address. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Ideally, the proposer should have fixed all the links before proposing the page move. But, as JHunterJ says above, it's a "code of honor" and not a rule. The closing admin shouldn't be responsible for fixing links, although (as another "code of honor") it would be a good thing if that admin would remind the proposer that there are links that need fixing (if in fact there are). --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:34, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

That might work unless other editors revert these changes. I know of one editor who reverts changes in the area as WP:BLP violations if our article name does not match the sourced name (no matter that the sources don't use our article to artificially limit the area covered or intended. Vegaswikian (talk) 16:05, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't make sense to ask people to fix links before a page is moved if consensus determines the move is unwarranted. older ≠ wiser 23:44, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a change in policy is in order, then. If there is consensus for a page move that is going to disrupt a large number of links (or, really, any number of links), then the closing admin should close the discussion with a determination that there is consensus for the move, but not actually move the page until those links have been fixed. bd2412 T 00:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

That, to me, seems like the obvious solution. The closing administrator shouldn't be obligated to update the incoming links, but it's careless to perform the actual move without first ensuring that someone has. —David Levy 02:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, that sounds a good way forward: the proposer of a move can't be expected to make changes to incoming links until they know the move is going to go forward (even if they've proposed it as an "uncontested technical move" there's a chance someone may decide it's not uncontroversial, and a Move Discussion can go either way), but if the closer of the Move Discussion could put a template on the proposer's page, and on the article talk page, saying something on the lines of "Move approved: let me know when the incoming links are fixed and I will then make the Move", then whoever wants to make the move happen has an incentive to fix those links. (A thought: are there any complications about incoming redirects, where changes made in anticipation of a move might be interpreted by a bot as "double redirects" and helpfully "fixed" in a wrong way? I can't quite work it out.) PamD 14:36, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of TWODABs

There's a request for comments at WT:CSD about deleting disambiguation pages with only two listed articles through the G6 criterion. Diego (talk) 11:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation page

User Biruitorul redirects disambiguation page ”Dan Spătaru (disambiguation)” to article Dan Spătaru without leaving dab page. But we have here 2 article of persons with the same name: Dan Spătaru and Dan Spătaru (footballer). Should exist dab page Dan Spătaru (disambiguation)? XXN (talk) 14:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Per WP:TWODABS, if there are only two subjects sharing the name, and one can be considered primary, then a hatnote is all the disambiguation that is needed. The redirect seems pointless, but harmless. bd2412 T 14:03, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • A redirect from a page titled with "(disambiguation)" to an article is an error and should either be deleted or retargeted to an appropriate disambiguation page, if there is one. On the other hand, while pointless, there is no harm to having a disambiguation page with only two entries where there is a primary topic. older ≠ wiser 16:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • We agree, at least, on the "pointless" part: not only do no pages link to Dan Spătaru (disambiguation), the chances that someone looking for either Dan Spătaru will type in "Dan Spătaru (disambiguation)" are almost nil. This is a classic illustration of what hatnotes are for. - Biruitorul ^Talk 18:59, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Keming / Kerning

Should a link to Kerning be added to Keming (maybe as a 'See also'?) - proposed at Talk:Keming#Kerning. 183.89.161.174 (talk) 05:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Military occupation of France

Please see Talk:Military occupation of France were there is a dispute over whether the page is a disambiguation page or something else -- PBS (talk) 18:01, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Clarification of SIA definition

WP:SIA currently says "A set index article is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that share the same (or similar) name.". It's clear that a list drawn up based on names (e.g. List of peaks named Olympus) meets this definition, but what if a list is drawn up based on other criteria and it's then found that all the entries in the list have a (somewhat) similar name ? E.g. a list of facilities operated by a society all have similar names or every entry in a list of earthquakes uses the word "earthquake" ? IMO that's not how WP:SIA should be interpreted and (AFAICS) most articles that would meet that interpretation of WP:SIA (e.g. a list in which every entry begins "USCGC") are not currently tagged as a SIA. I propose an addition to WP:SIA along the lines of "A list is only a SIA if inclusion of an item in the list is due to the name of the item." (suggestions for better wording are welcome). If, on the other hand, the definition of SIAs is intended to include such articles then different clarification is needed (e.g. how similar do the names of entries in a list have to be for it to become/remain a SIA?).

There are also articles like List of songs in Glee where the inclusion of a song in the list is unrelated to the song's name, however, the list has been split into several sub-lists so the (top) article (currently) contains just links to the sub-lists which (naturally) are all similarly named wp articles (containing words "List" and "Glee"). Again, most articles that contain links to a number of similarly named wp articles (example) aren't currently tagged as a SIA. The change proposed above would make it clearer that such articles don't fall within the definition of a SIA. DexDor (talk) 06:37, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Looks good to me. And more: I'm ready to split Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Set index articles to Wikipedia:Set index articles, to further enforce the "SIAs are articles, not disambiguation pages" part. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:49, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

It may be because I tend to know SIAs as disambiguating articles (i.e. that they are disambiguating where several things of the same type share the same name, with ships being the clearest example - e.g. Chilean ship Cochrane), but I'm not especially clear on the above by DexDor. Am I correct in saying that the above only applies to SIAs that are already List of x, and that we're clarifying that it doesn't apply to all lists of the same type, just ones where they are the same type and name? Because I don't want the impression to begin that SIAs are only lists and must start "List of". So for instance, the current discussion going on with military occupations of France features items that do not have article titles of such, but all have in common that they feature various different occupations.

I'd definitely support splitting it to its own page to reinforce the fact that they are not just disambiguation pages, but I think we also need to reinforce the fact that they are not all entitled List of x. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:15, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

No, the above applies to all set index articles, whether or not they follow the suggested "List of" titling. SIAs are only lists, but there is no requirement that they must start with "List of" (although it's a good idea); the "List of" article can also be the target of the redirect from the non-List-of title. It applies to any list article that lists things of one type that share a name. It's not that are not "just" disambiguation pages; they are not disambiguation pages "at all" -- SIAs are articles, and disambiguation pages are not articles, and ne'er the twain shall meet. If we want to redo an SIA as a disambiguation page (consensually), we can, by formatting it according to the dab style guidelines. Typically the ones that are "close enough" to be reformatted that way are not done that way because another project would prefer not to format it as a disambiguation page, and would like to keep additional links on each entry, or include red links with no coverage on Wikipedia, etc. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

But this is the problem. By requiring that all articles linked to share the same name, it becomes inherently disambiguating, which ambiguates it with disambiguation pages (if you'll pardon the phrase). For instance, the earthquake example linked to by DexDor is of List of earthquakes in Chile occurring in 2010, which to me is a classic set index article - it lists all articles of a specific set (i.e. the set of earthquakes that occurred in one place in one year). By excluding those from the definition of a 'set index article', we run the risk of making set index articles more like disambiguation pages, not less. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:39, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

It becomes redundant with the disambiguation page, yes. If there are problems with leaving the SIA at the base name, it can be moved to the "List of" title and the base name made a dab; or it can be moved to the "List of" title and the base name left as a redirect to it and a dab created at the "(disambiguation)" title; or it can be left at the base name and a dab created as the "(disambiguation)" title. There is nothing "inherently" a non-article disambiguation page about a set index article; if it is a disambiguation page masquerading as a set index list article, it should be fixed reformatted as a dab page. One of the several reasons for splitting the section off from here is that I don't have any interest in how set index articles are formatted or defined. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

@Sasuke Sarutobi. WP:SIA defines a SIA as "a list ... of items ... that share the same ...name"., but it does not require that "all articles linked to share the same name" (e.g. see List of places named Mallory, or indeed the examples linked from WP:SIA). DexDor (talk) 21:02, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I support the proposed split. It would be a step in separating SIAs from dab pages and allow the information about SIAs to be expanded (e.g. to explain how they differ from dabs and from other lists). 21:02, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Longest Wikipedia Disambig page

A media report about our longest disambiguation page:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/05/30/longest_disambiguation_pages_on_wikipedia_an_investigation.html?wpisrc=obnetwork

Ego White Tray (talk) 22:42, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Cool article in general too. Thanks! -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. 250,000 disambiguation pages sounds low to me though. I wonder if the counter on Category:All disambiguation pages is current. And interesting observation that Most common length is 2! older ≠ wiser 17:13, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Interesting to note that number 5 on the list, List of greatest hits albums hasn't been categorised as a disambiguation page since 3 May 2014. It's a list, rather than a dab page. If you remove it, then All Saints Church enters the top 10. Communist Party pushes the margins perhaps but seems a very useful entity, whether it's strictly a dab page or more of a list: a case to WP:IAR if necessary. PamD 18:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

And Saint Paul (disambiguation) (number 15 on the spreadsheet linked from the article - here) has a section on "Buildings and Institutions: Churches" with a very unclear relationship with St. Paul's Church! Each has 5 churches in Canada, for example, with an overlap of one. One starts with Australia , one with Belgium (not present in the other). An interesting project for someone to tackle. PamD 19:09, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

And in view of the recent discussion about Stellar it's interesting to see Star (disambiguation) at number 20, looking like a pretty respectable dab page (includes the plural and capitalised forms). PamD 19:11, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Longest Wikipedia Disambig page *name*

When I first saw this, I was expecting something on the longest page name for a disambiguation page. Any idea how to track that down?Naraht (talk) 18:43, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Find a list of "longest page names in Wikipedia" and then search it for "disambiguation"? But that leaves the question of whether and where such a list exists! Let us know if you find an answer. PamD 21:18, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia records

I've just found the above page for the first time while looking for an answer to @Naraht:'s question above. I've added a section on Dab pages, currently listing the top 3 from Schneider's article. On the talk page I've asked whether anyone has any ideas about longest dab page title. (The 7 longest Wikipedia article titles are listed, all over 150 characters, but none of them are dab pages!) PamD 22:21, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Hawaiian cuisine

I nominated Hawaiian cuisine for deletion in order to clear the way to redirect the page to a primary topic title, and instead have gotten a cluster of responses making things worse. The page has gone from being a WP:TWODABS dabconcept page to being a collection of mismatched titles for foods eaten in Hawaii, and the participants seem to be willfully opposed to understanding WP:DABCONCEPT. Some help is needed in setting this straight, as the page links from one of those "topic" templates that makes it show up in a number of articles, without any reasonable possibility of fixing it in the template itself. bd2412 T 14:30, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

@BD2412: It sounds as if it is developing into a List page or possibly a set-index page. Why not change the deletion to merge to List of Hawaiian dishes. Then the area will be available after merger. --Bejnar (talk) 00:14, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

It's a moot point as long as nothing points there. I have fixed the topic template to prevent that for now. bd2412 T 02:23, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Swift (programming language)

Shouldt Swift (programming language) be redirected to Swift (disambiguation) or ? (its to hard to discuss with an admin, so I will not revert him). Christian75 (talk) 22:32, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

• Absolutely, per WP:INCOMPDAB. bd2412 T 23:12, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

"If both topics are obscure"

See here, where my addition of a word was reverted. I don't think it's WP consensus that two obscure topics require a disambiguation page. This turns the entire concept of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC on its head by saying that an article with multiple sources viewed 5 times a day can't have primary topic over one with one source that's viewed 5 times a year. Both topics being "obscure" doesn't mean we discard the far-more-longstanding concept of primary topic. I therefore introduced the word "equally". Isn't that an improvement and a more accurate reflection of practice? Red Slash 23:12, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• Disagree. Given multiple narrow interest fields, each unrelated to the other, readers familiar with one may be astonished to be uploading another. Astonishing the readers is a bad thing. Uploading a small disambiguation page due to an ambiguous followed link or search is not a very bad thing. Ideally, all such clashing titles should be changed to more informative titles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:34, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  • We have had this discussion a number of times over, and it has never resulted in a clear consensus one way or the other, just lengthy philosophical arguments about the purpose of disambiguation and the relative pros and cons of arriving at a disambiguation page, or the "wrong" page with a hatnote. In terms of obscurity, 5 views per day is still at the very low end of things, and that difference could represent the more viewed topic being more trendy in a purely pop culture sense, or having a discrete handful of interested people visiting it regularly rather than a steady stream of new visitors. I would suggest that to determine a primary topic in a WP:TWODABS situation based on pageviews, the more viewed page should be doing better than a dozen a day, and should be a topic of more basic importance. bd2412 T 03:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
    • What consensus has ever said that there's a bottom limit like what you're suggesting? (Not saying it's a bad idea per se.) If there isn't one... Red Slash 08:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
      • Page views, especially page views on obscure topics, should be used with more than just care, but with a large grain of salt. Page view statistics are biased. They are biased towards idle browsers with easy access. They are biased against users with difficult access, and severely against users relying on mirrors. Page view statistics, I'm sure, could be manipulated. Decisions should not be made solely on the basis of page views. We are not, for example, much interested in advertising, or streamling access to, Wikipedia's most view pages, and certainly not the most viewed images. The most frequent users of Wikipedia are not to be assumed to be Wikipedia's most valued users.

        Instead, some intellectual consideration should be given to why one page is receiving more views, and whether one topic has more encyclopedic importance. Encyclopedic importance generally weighs highly things of historic or scholarly significance, and lowly things of temporary current significance. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:24, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of disambig pages

There is a discussion of speedy deletion of disambig pages ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Tightening speedy deletion of disambiguation pages. Thank you, Ego White Tray (talk) 14:43, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Foreign language disambiguation page

Hello. I was just wondering what the policy was, for disambiguation pages that had non-English characters as its title, such as ニサ. I couldn't see anything relevant in the project page. KJ ^{«Click Here»} 02:53, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that the guidance given for redirects applies here - if the terms disambiguated are related to the language of the title, it can stay. The characters appear to be Japanese. In this case, I can only find two of the targets (Nippon Ichi Software and Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency) that are related to Japan in any way. In addition, this isn't even a translation - it's just random topics with the same pronunciation. This should be deleted and I will now nominate it. Ego White Tray (talk) 05:07, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ニサ Ego White Tray (talk) 05:12, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Echoing Ego White Tray's first note: it's the same as the policy for redirects that have non-English characters as their title. When such legitimate redirects have multiple possible targets, a disambiguation page is needed. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/CJKV task force -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Typos?

Internment just received a hatnote disambiguation template for "internet" because "interned" redirected to internment. My understanding was that these templates shouldn't be used for typos, but this page makes no reference to such cases as far as I can see. Any comments? Thanks. TheMightyQuill (talk) 05:04, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a problem for their use for typos; if "interned" could have been (absent the other) a "redirect from misspelling" for Internet and a redirect to Internment, reader navigation still needs to be accomplished when both are possible. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:13, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

disambiguation vs. set indexes

According to our guidelines, any set of disambiguation links that are limited to items of a particular type should be considered a set index and not a disambiguation page. Why then, do we have disambiguation page templates such as:

• {{Hospital disambiguation}} (hospitals)
• {{School disambiguation}} (schools)
• {{Airport disambiguation}} (airports)
• {{geodis}} (geographical locations)
• {{Hndis}} (people, full names)

While the following are set indexes:

• {{Mountain index}} (mountains)
• {{plant common name}} (plants, common name)
• {{surname}} (people, surname)

The fact that {{Hndis}} and {{surname}} are not the same type is especially confusing. Can anyone explain the logic here or is it just totally random? Kaldari (talk) 22:09, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The disambiguation templates are used for disambiguation pages. Nobody (thankfully) is interested in creating set indexes of non-notable hospitals that happen to share a name. The set index templates are used for set indexes, either for lists on which non-notable (red linked with no available blue link) entries are listed (mountains, ships) or where the entries themselves are not ambiguous with the title (given names, surnames). I suppose it would be possible to create {{mountain disambiguation}} for those lists of mountains that do restrict themselves to disambiguation-page-suitable entries. Or, for that matter, to create {{hospital index}} for lists of hospitals that don't. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:05, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@JHunterJ: In that case, shouldn't {{plant common name}} be a disambiguation template rather than a set index template (since species are always notable)? Kaldari (talk) 02:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Kaldari, Some of the pages using that template (e.g. Gampi) have redlink-only entries with references - thus, would not be valid as a dab page. I would prefer many of the plant SIAs to be converted to dab pages; it would make little/no direct difference to readers but would mean that any editor linking to such a page would get a DPLbot warning that the term is ambiguous and hopefully they would point the link to the correct plant. Where do you think the guidance says "any set of disambiguation links that are limited to items of a particular type should be considered a set index and not a disambiguation page" ? DexDor (talk) 05:26, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

"A set index article is not a disambiguation page: A disambiguation page is a list of things, possibly of different types, that share the same (or similar) name, formatted for best navigating the reader to the sought topic. A set index lists things of only one type and need not follow the formatting rules for disambiguation pages; however, many do by convention."[3] The rest was what I inferred from the descriptions, but I guess I didn't read closely enough. Most of the plant SIAs I've seen have few or no redlinks and basically look like disambiguation pages, for example, Dinosaur plant. However they are not treated as disambiguation pages by any software since they are technically set indexes (and don't get the DISAMBIG magic word). There is also the complicating factor that Wikidata classifies articles as disambiguation pages as well, but doesn't have a classification for set indexes, so lots of set indexes are listed as disambiguation pages, and lots of them aren't. There's no consistency and it's just a big mess. I guess I should create a plant names disambiguation template and start migrating the ones that don't have redlinks. If you want my honest opinion, I think we should ditch the idea of set indexes and just call them list articles so that we don't have all this confusion and inconsistency. Kaldari (talk) 05:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Created {{Plant disambiguation}}. Kaldari (talk) 06:17, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Add ? gif to all dab pages

Currently when searching on an Android a dab page comes up with a "no image" / "broken image" blue square in the thumbnail... in other words identical with a poorly developed article with no infobox image. Would it be possible for a bot to add a small gif ? signal in the RH top corner of all dab pages? The weight of such a gif could be only 3kb., not a significant irritation to PC browsers, but a big help to mobile users. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, this doesn't apply to searching with Google, but only searching with Wikipedia's own search system. On Android 4 browser, it appears as a placeholder image symbol rather than a broken image symbol. Having a bot add a tiny image to the page would be a terrible way to do it, though. Instead, we should change our mobile search software to place a disambiguation symbol of some kind when one of the entries is a disambiguation page. I'll bring this up at village pump technical. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:55, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 127#Disambiguation pages in search results on mobile devices. Latest archive at time of post was number 127. Ego White Tray (talk) 05:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Camelcase

I think there is guidance on titles such as aNYway somewhere but doesn't appear to be here. Anyone know where it is? In ictu oculi (talk) 14:08, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:NCCAPS, WP:MOSCAPS, and/or WP:DIFFCAPS, depending. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:36, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

If you meant getting the first "a" lowercased, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Lowercase first letter. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:38, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

One America News Network, and other articles

A disambiguation page and some hatnotes are needed for One America News Network, OAN,Open-access network, and the place in Japan, as ways to find articles with the same acronym. Because of redirects, this is fairly complicated. Some editor who likes technical challenges may find this rewarding.--DThomsen8 (talk) 17:14, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

This seems now to have been resolved: there's a nice dab page at OAN created by Bkonrad at 10:26 today. PamD 18:38, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

He also found more uses of the acronym, and added a hatnote for that Japanese town. Good work, Bkonrad!--DThomsen8 (talk) 03:02, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Orange Emperor

Recently a number of (what were) dab pages have been retagged[4] as SIAs. E.g. Orange Emperor which (currently) has 2 entries - a butterfly and a dragonfly. IMO, anyone finding themselves on that page is likely to be interested in either the butterfly or the dragonfly (rather than in all things called "Orange Emperor") and hence that page should be a dab rather than a SIA (which are for pages like Toyota Yaris that are valid navigation targets). In the short term it will have little effect on readers (the dab and SIA being almost identical), but in the longer term if such pages are no longer dabs they are likely to accrue inlinks as they are no longer being watched by DPLBot and the expert disambiguators (e.g. many ship SIAs have inlinks from articles saying things like "He served on [[HMS Foo]]"). The discussion that has encouraged editors (mostly botanists) to convert pages from dabs to SIAs is at Template_talk:Set_index_article#Promotion_and_use_in_Wikipedia (note: that's really a page for discussing changes to that template, not to discuss dab/SIA policy). Part of the problem appears to be that some editors seem to think that photos are never allowed on dab pages, but that's not what Mos:dab#Images_and_templates says ("images ... are discouraged unless they aid in selecting ..."). What do other editors think? Should WP:D and/or WP:SIA be changed to make clearer that pages like Orange Emperor should be dabs rather than SIAs? Note: There's a related discussion above at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#disambiguation_vs._set_indexes. DexDor (talk) 06:02, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Historical simulation

I am working on an article historical dynamics and want to add a disambiguation page for Historical simulation which is the more common name for historical dynamics. There is already an article on "Historical simulation" which should be "Historical simulation (finance)".

1. Move "Historical simulation" to "Historical simulation (finance)" and then edit "Historical simulation" to be a dab page pointing to "Historical simulation" and "Historical simulation (finance)"

2. However, the proper term for "historical dynamics" is "historical simulation", so it might be better to move "historical simulation" to "historical simulation (finance)", then move "historical dynamics" to "historical simulation", and note the specific use of "historical simulation (finance)" with a hatnote.

Comments? Suggestions? 1 or 2 or other?

Thanks. RC711 (talk) 15:37, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that the phrase is also applicable to Living history (i.e., the literal simulation of historical periods, lifestyles, and events). bd2412 T 16:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

So, how about a disambiguation page at "Historical simulation" that links to those three articles? Diego (talk) 17:00, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think a disambiguation page is what is needed here. bd2412 T 17:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Would someone like to do it, or should I? My first dab page. RC711 (talk) 17:24, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Animal breed disambiguation

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant thread elsewhere.

Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Toward a standard for disambiguating titles of articles on domestic animal breeds may be of interest to editors here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:13, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Historical polities

There is an interesting debate going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Serbia (disambiguation) (and as a consequence, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Slovakia (disambiguation)) whether articles about history of an existing polity (naturally including historical polities of the same name) should be included on its disambiguation page. Maybe I should have sought a clarification here before nominating the page for deletion, but nonetheless I invite interested editors to weigh in on those debates. No such user (talk) 10:09, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

CHCM

CHCM is currently just one article, for a radio station, but I think it should be a disambiguation page as that is also the abbreviation of Chicago Hospital College of Medicine, a former name of Chicago Medical School. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AHelpfulStar (talk • contribs) 03:25, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• See WP:TWODABS. Since the radio station is almost certainly the primary topic, a hatnote at the top of that article ought to be sufficient. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:10, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

When is a list not a list

Is Noakes as disambiguation page or a list page? If it's a DAB page I was going to clean it up to one link per line but there seems to be some difference. GimliDotNet ^{(Speak to me,Stuff I've done)} 06:54, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

• It is a DAB page. If it were a list, it would present summary information on the surname, its origin, distribution, etc (it doesn't), and there would be a reason to group together these people (there's not, they are disparate and unrelated).

However, I wish people didn't feel the need to unthinkingly feel the need to apply a "one link per line rule". In some cases, multiple links, such as Bishop of St Davids and Archbishop of Wales are likely to be appreciated by readers quite possibly looking for these subjects, while others, such as English and actor are trivial and thus link-clutter (link clutter not appreciated in a list article either). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:28, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

• It is not a dab page, since there is no ambiguity between anything listed on that article. It is an unreferenced list article, which can presumably be fixed. If it can't, then "of English origin" needs to be removed. That still won't make it a dab page though. —Xezbeth (talk) 08:28, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

• It's a surname page, so can have as many blue links as anyone wants to add. I wish there was a way to find, and link to, a list of all biographical articles sorted by DEFAULTSORT, so that we could include a link to a useful list. It's possible for living people: this shows us 10 people, with some overlap with the 9 in the dab page. PamD 10:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid#Should we be linking readers (via disambiguation notes, etc.) to the Wikipedia/Help/Manual namespaces from the mainspace?

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid#Should we be linking readers (via disambiguation notes, etc.) to the Wikipedia/Help/Manual namespaces from the mainspace? and comment. older ≠ wiser 00:09, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Link to Wikiproject with same phrase

Can (en.Wikipedia) Wikiproject Gender gap task force be added to Gender gap disambiguation? I think it is one of those few disambiguations people might actually come to looking for a wikiproject. Thanks. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

• I would add that as a hatnote, not an entry on the list. bd2412 T 12:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! That makes sense. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 01:56, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Are these entries ok in this dab?

Joe Hale. Ran into this at List of Liberty University people where it's used as a link. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 11:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, those meet WP:DABMENTION. bd2412 T 12:58, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:17, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Ambiguous disambiguation for “Fairy Queen”

Three articles listed on Fairy Queen (disambiguation) are slight variations on the same name: Fairy Queen (the folk character), The Fairy-Queen (a musical work), and The Faerie Queene (a poem). It seems to me like any of these titles could be used for any of these subjects, and the word The, a hyphen, or a spelling variant really don’t do enough to disambiguate them from each other. What do others think? (And if this is the wrong place to ask, please feel free to move the discussion.) —174.141.182.82 (talk) 00:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• I think alternate spellings and the hyphen are insufficient disambiguation. Especially for folklore things like this that don’t have original well defined spelling or hyphenation. The leading “the” is also insufficient disambiguation, as it is often dropped or added to titles without a widely respected rule. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:35, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • These differences can't be considered individually. I don't think there is any dispute that the primary topic for this title is the folkloric Fairy Queen, to which all other uses refer. The Spenser poem actually uses an unusual spelling, The Faerie Queene (not "Fairie Queene", although this is also unusual). The opera has both a leading "The" and a hyphen, and appears to be the only usage with a hyphen, which is an unusual punctuation mark to include in the phrase. If there was an article titled Fairy Queen., I would find that to be insufficient because it might not be surprising to find a period after the phrase in some circumstances, but for punctuation that could not as reasonably be expected, WP:DIFFPUNCT is sound. bd2412 T 01:51, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure that I mean to disagree with much or any of that. DIFFPUNCT is sound in that small differences are often sufficient. I think it is well agreed that terminal periods and commas are not suffcient. Terminal punctuations ! and ? usually are, but maybe not for words typcially used with exclamation or question marks. The hyphen versus space, I'm not sure what others have thought, but I think it insufficient because hyphens and spaces are often interpreted identically, including by search engines. Fairy/fairie/faerie spelling variations I think are not sufficient as a special exception because it is a word used very often in pre-Modern English literature (when English spelling became important), and in modern times is used with spellings alluding to pre-modern English.

The question is not so heavy, because all the topics are strongly related, and derive from the same source, Fairy Queen. That article I think would be well improved by mentioning more notable derivative topics, and treating the page as a broad-concept article (DABCONCEPT). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

The thing here is that each version has several small differences. The inclusion of a leading "The" is a difference, and the use of a hyphen is a second difference, so these add up to distinguish the specific title from the general concept. With the Spenser poem in particular, there is a leading "The", an unusual spelling of "Fairy", and an unusual spelling of "Queen". We have plenty of actually ambiguous topics to address, such as the dozens of meanings of the exact word, "Mercury", so I prefer that we not trouble ourselves with manufacturing ambiguity where it doesn't really exist. bd2412 T 03:34, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Re-reading, I think my idle responses were not answering the question. I think there is enough ambiguity to justify having the dab page, and for hatnotes. I don't think there is enough ambiguity to call for further disambiguation of the titles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:37, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

• The dab page looks fine, the article titles look fine, there are useful hatnotes in place where appropriate. I've added The Fairy Queen (Fablehaven) to the dab page, and changed the redirect at The Fairy Queen, which was pointing to The Fairy-Queen, to now point to the dab page. I think it's all OK. PamD 09:44, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

  How about the incoming links to The Fairy Queen - have you also fixed those, so they don't point to the disambig? bd2412 T 22:42, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

  Oops, forgot - it's so easy to do so, isn't it. On second thoughts, and looking at the "What links here", it does seem better for that redirect to go to the opera, so I've reverted myself. I've also checked the incoming links, fixed a couple, and all the others seem to be opera-related so correct. Not sure what I was thinking of in boldly changing the redirect! Well spotted. PamD 23:30, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

"code of honor"?

This language is a bit over the top and out of place on a guideline. I attempted to change it to a more standard and neutral phrasing but was reverted on the grounds that it's been around a while. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:11, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:FIXDABLINKS. The reference to a code of honor appears to be an in-club reference, establishing a barrier between those who know what they are doing and everyone else. It is very bad form. A "code of honor" is typically a tenuous agreement between powerful camps, and does not sound much like a "consensus". At the very least, there should be a link to the origin and acceptance of this code of honor.

Preferably, the page, WP:D, should document what is done, why it is done, and the downside of doing other things, in simple terms that make it easy for someone new. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed with Nikkimaria and SmokeyJoe. I've long thought this wording sounded childish and/or judgmental, and excuse to later give someone shit for not being as perfect a disambiguator as one's own supreme self. We have no need for language like that here. Also we have gnomes who do this sort of cleanup regularly, because that's what they like to do. Not everyone is a great or happy prose writer.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:26, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

As a disambiguator, the notion that this language should be disposed of because disambiguating is "what they like to do" sounds like a proposal to dump garbage in the street because street sweepers are thrilled to pick up stray bits of garbage. It is just plain untrue. Disambiguation is often tedious, but we do it because bad links are bad for readers and bad for the project. Editors generally should not make messes and expect others to clean them up. I therefore oppose the removal of this language.

Furthermore, despite our constant efforts, the number of disambiguation links to be fixed is now steadily climbing, and we have just lost one of our best tools for fixing these links when the dabserver went offline. If this trend is not reversed, editors trying to fix the old links will never get around to the new ones. While not always the case, the editor engaged in the page moving or disambiguation page creating is quite often the editor in the best position to know why a move has been made and how those incoming links should be fixed. This is particularly the case where the fixes to be made rest on technical distinctions. bd2412 T 13:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

The message needs to be there, whether or not it's in this exact language: if you instigate a page move, you need to clear up the resulting mess. But sometimes it's an admin who actually does the move, because it's been non-trivial; some editors can't be bothered clearing up anything; there's no way to enforce anything. It's a mess, but needs discussion.

Ideally, perhaps, it needs a bot or gadget which can be used to say: "X is at present the title of an article; it's being moved to X(y) so that we can move the dab page from X(disambiguation) to X, or perhaps create a new dab page altogether; look for all the incoming links to X now, before we do the move, and change them all automatically to link to X(y)." It's as mechanical as that, or should be, because - at least in theory - all the incoming links to X were correct (weren't they?). Of course, as it's being said that "X" is not the primary topic, there's the chance that some of those links were wrong - but moving them all over automatically will make the situation no worse than it was before; someone can then, at their leisure, check the incoming links to the page X(y) (formerly known as "X"), and fix anything which needs fixing (which already needed fixing before we did the automatic run).

Would that work? If so, do we need to make a Bot Request for it? What would be the mechanics of running such a bot: we'd need to request and activate it, with the two parameters "X" and "X(y)", before moving any page with the intention of re-using its old title. There may be some other circumstances where this will be useful. (Any case where there's an existing article at primary topic Y, and there is consensus that another article, currently at Y(a), is now the primary topic: the first can be moved to Y(z), but its incoming links need to be sorted out before the now-primary article is moved from Y(a) to Y).

In short I suppose I'm suggesting that we get some technology to do the job which human editors are now sometimes doing, sometimes neglecting, sometimes arguing about. PamD 14:21, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

BD, PamD: I reworded this to be more straightforward - can we work with that instead of using this phrase? It gets across the message that people should clean things up, IMO, without the problems of the current wording. The bot/gadget issue needs discussion but isn't directly relevant to the wording. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The "code of honor" needs to go. The message can be "If you instigate a page move, please check that the incoming links are repaired after the move is carried out." -- JHunterJ (talk) 09:51, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

It's a bit more than that. Really, it should be, "If you instigate a page move, this can create a lot of incorrect links, which frustrate readers and make Wikipedia less accurate. The number of incorrect links needing to be fixed is already overwhelming, and it can not be assumed that incorrect links created by the move will be fixed by other editors. Therefore, please check that the incoming links are repaired after the move is carried out." bd2412 T 12:53, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

If the specific words "code of honor" bother people, then I have no problem getting rid of them. But whatever replaces them needs to communicate something more than "it would be nice if you would fix these links." As BD2412 suggests, we need to explain that failing to fix the links degrades our readers' experience, and that fixing them is an important part of maintaining the quality of the encyclopedia. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:08, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Works for me; BD2412's wording gets the points across clearly without being weird about it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:13, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Because this is about moving articles, I've flagged up this discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves#Cleaning_up_after_moves_-_dab_pages_etc. PamD 14:33, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

• To User:BD2412 mostly...

If the basement is flooding, and if not for the expert herculean efforts of a few upholding a code of honor, experts at mopping, it would be disastrous, maybe it is high time for a rethink.

• If ALL disambiguation pages were at foo (disambiguation), then accidental linkings wouldn't occur, any editor would likely notice the non-ideal link, the situation might become self-managing and stable. An additional advantage is that someone with difficult connectivity, someone who checks hovertext before donloading a page (someone like me), is not going to be so easily disappointed at mistakening downing a disambiguation page, or mistakeningly not downloading a disambiguation page (disambiguation pages are sometimes exactly what I want).

• Perhaps the text should say "must", with implied consequences, such as automated reminders and warnings appearing on their talk page (typically more than sufficient punishment to encourage a change in behaviour).

• If page moves of a longstanding titles are prone to create broken links and this be inherently controversial, perhaps these pages should be move-protected?

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:45, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Some thoughts in response: the degree to which disambiguation fixing has stalled can be seen in the last few months of this report. However, it is impossible to eliminate the placement of at least some disambiguation pages at base page names, as there are some pages (like John Smith) for which no topic could reasonably be designated as primary. I do like the idea of automated reminders that links from the moved page remain to be fixed, and I have long advocated for some technical bar to making undiscussed moves of pages with large numbers of incoming links. bd2412 T 00:52, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Would redirecting John Smith to John Smith (disambiguation) help? If so, let's make that a standard thing to do, end of problem. It's dark:30 my time and my caffeine's run out, so maybe I'm missing something.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:13, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

People would still be making links to John Smith, and those links would still be pointing, ultimately, to a disambiguation page. A reader following such a link, or searching for the topic, would be in no better a position. The best thing that we can do is fix as many links as we can, and hope that editors who have the knowledge to do so will fix the links that their page moves create. bd2412 T 22:40, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, so all dabs at foo (disambiguation) wouldn't help. Move protection of heavy pages, and auto-reminders to link-breakers sounds like they could be good ideas. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Those, definitely, would be good things. It would also be nice if editors would get a warning when they are about to add a bad link to an article. bd2412 T 00:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I've been trying the latest version of WP:VE, and one of its few good points is that when you make a link it shows whether the target is a dab or redirect! PamD 03:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I know - I beta tested it! bd2412 T 20:46, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Expanding and improving Wikipedia:Broad concept articles

A few months ago I broke out Wikipedia:Broad concept articles from the WP:DABCONCEPT text on this page. I have expanded it slightly by adding some clarifying language, adding subheaders to distinguish different kinds of common dabconcept situations, and adding a few examples of the application of this rule. I would like to expand this further to provide more guidance on the circumstances where this is appropriate, and on the best approaches to making these pages. I would also like to retarget WP:DABCONCEPT to point to Wikipedia:Broad concept articles, and to reduce the amount of material on this page discussing this part of the guideline, in order to avoid excess repetition. I would appreciate any thoughts on this proposal. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Rfc on what belongs on a dab page

There is a discussion at Talk:GNU_(disambiguation)#Add_and_delete_articles.3F, about adding and deleting entries from this dab list. Please add to the consensus. Please note each Add and Delete sub-section. — Lentower (talk) 05:00, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:THREEDABS

I propose to amend to Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation page or hatnotes? to note that the situation is not much different if there are three pages, of which one can be identified as primary. In that case, if links to the other two pages will fit neatly in a hatnote, there is still no reason to have a separate disambiguation page. bd2412 T 15:47, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

If any editor creates a disambiguation page for a primary topic + two non-primary topics, IMO it should be kept. "Fit neatly" is not a bright-line standard. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:26, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

We can develop a bright-line standard if needed, but my thinking here is as follows. Suppose there is a primary topic "Foo", with two non-primary topics, "Foo (bar)" and "Foo (foobar)". The reader who types "Foo" is probably looking for "Foo", but on the off chance that they are not, why have a hatnote sending them to look at a separate "Foo (disambiguation)" page to choose between "Foo (bar)" and "Foo (foobar)", when we can about as easily have a hatnote offering links to "Foo (bar)" and "Foo (foobar)"? bd2412 T 20:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

And once threedabs, then fourdabs for where three pages fit neatly in a hatnote? Or fivedabs on rarer occasions? No, think the current guidance is fine: no dab for one non-primary topic, optional for two non-primary topics (meaning that if someone creates it, more justification to delete it is needed than "threedabs"). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@JHunterJ, I can agree that an existing disambiguation page with three topics should not necessarily be deleted, but that a term with three possible meanings, for which one is primary, should have a hatnote listing the other two possible meanings, not a hatnote pointing to that disambiguation page. Since the reader coming to the primary topic title is already on the primary topic page, why send them to a separate disambiguation page (even if one exists, and is considered fine to exist) if the hatnote can fit the other two meanings they might have been looking for? bd2412 T 19:11, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

"can fit" -- how do you tell if it can fit? Could the hatnote fit three other meanings (fourdabs)? Could it fit four other meanings (fivedabs)? There's nothing here that needs to be made into new policy or guidance beyond the existing guidance. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:20, 25 August 2014‎ (UTC)

We routinely do this for topics with one primary meaning, one major secondary meaning, and a disambiguation page for many other meanings - Apple, Mouse, Windows, Calf, Durango. That's not much different from doing the same for topics with one primary meaning, one any two other meanings. bd2412 T 14:02, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep. And it can be routinely done still. We also routinely create dabs for two additional meanings for other topic, and this can be routinely done still. There's nothing here that needs to be made into new policy or guidance beyond the existing guidance. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:13, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

We should be considering utility to the reader here. If there are three topics for a term, and one is primary, where is the utility of having the reader land on primary topic page 1, and having a hatnote send them to disambiguation page 2 just to see use 2A and use 2B, when they can just as easily land on disambiguation page 1 and from the same hatnote go directly to use 2A or use 2B? bd2412 T 14:16, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

The utility is for the readers seeking the primary topic. The length of the hatnotes impacts that utility. Otherwise where is the utility in having the reader go to a disambiguation page at all? We could just include the entire disambiguation page as a hatnote on each primary topic, regardless of the number of non-primary topics. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Suppose we have a situation like Apple, except that instead of one primary, one secondary, and a bunch of tertiary uses, there is one primary, one secondary, and one tertiary use. Would we then have a hatnote saying "For use two, see Foo Two, and for other uses see Foo (disambiguation)" even though "Foo (disambiguation)" only has one other use? I agree that there's a point where a hatnote has too many links, but I don't think two links is that number. Perhaps if the base page name is already very long, so that those links will be very long, then a limit could be considered, but that is not our typical case. bd2412 T 14:55, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

In that kind of case, I suppose we could use pages like Talk:Apple to handle them case-by-case. Two links might be too long for "Really freakin' long and ambiguous title that someone used and then a band adopted and named their debut album after", for instance. The existing guidelines guide well enough to inform those case-by-case discussions, IMO. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:20, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I would argue in the other direction; there's no reason that Foo_(disambiguation) shouldn't exist just because we have Foo and Foo_(snorkelweasel), and they use DAB hatnotes instead of linking to the DAB page. Anyone aware of how WP works at least a little, which is nearly everyone literate and with Internet access at this point, and who is also aware that there are at least two meanings of "Foo", is liable to expect that the Foo_(disambiguation) page exists. There's no particular reason to make someone create a DAB page after introduction of a third Foo article, when the DAB page could have already existed. It would also be a boon to automation, statistics gathering about disambiguation, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:07, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

In theory, a disambiguation page like that is harmless. The problem comes where editors assume that because a disambiguation page exists, the article hatnote must point to the disambiguation page, and therefore not to the only one or two other possible articles to be referenced. Disambiguation pages are tools, like redirects where there is more than one possible target. They are not an end to themselves. Furthermore, they require watching, and maintenance to the extent that people unfamiliar with disambiguation will tend to add links to non-matching titles, WP:DABCONCEPT titles, prohibited external links, references to their garage band, and the like. Our goal here is to write an encyclopedia that is informative and easy to use. Making unnecessary disambiguation pages does not necessarily hurt our goals, but it has the potential to do more harm than good. bd2412 T 02:08, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

That looks a lot to me like a list of problems to address with WP's approach to disambiguation pages, not objections to having them exist for cases of two instead of three items. As for "The problem comes where editors assume that because a disambiguation page exists, the article hatnote must point to the disambiguation page", we just clarify that this isn' the case. As for "They are not an end to themselves", the entire point of "It would also be a boon to automation, statistics gathering about disambiguation, etc." is yes, they can be.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:58, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree that a hatnote pointing to two other uses is better than a dab page listing only those two plus basename, as it saves readers' time. But if there are other articles which make "See also {{in title}}" a useful addition, then we need the dab page.PamD 05:56, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

DAB links tool

Hi,

Since the Dablinks tool is down, the only way I've been able to figure out how to check for dab issues on a page for DYK/GA/other articles is to manually check each link during a read-through of the article.

Is there another way? The Dablinks tool is awesome, any possibility it will come back?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:22, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

• Just create pages at User:CaroleHenson/monobook.css and User:CaroleHenson/monobook.js, and copy in the text at User:BD2412/monobook.css and User:BD2412/monobook.js, respectively, and disambiguation page links will be highlighted on any page that you are on. It also makes redirects show up as green links instead of blue, pages nominated for deletion show up as pink links, and self-referential links are highlighted in green. bd2412 T 21:48, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks, BD!--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:40, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, I'm trying to convince the VE designers to make dab links light up in VE, and to insure that all links on the dab page show up as options there. If that works, VE will basically function as the new dabsolver. bd2412 T 22:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

@BD2412: - Something is not working - I created the two pages, cleared my cache, but I am not seeing a visual difference on the page, like King's College on John Kampfner's page. What might I have done wrong?

(Visual editor approach sounds good, by the way)

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:10, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Oops, maybe I was expecting more... is the difference that the link is a darker blue?--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:12, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

No, it should be really apparent. Yellow highlighting on all the dab links. Hang on. bd2412 T 23:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

How about now? bd2412 T 23:42, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

@BD2412:No, and I've tried all three ways of reloading cache for Firefox.

Could I need some setting in Twinkle preferences? Or a master skin (by the wording you might see I'm out of my league). I have several css/js pages?--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:01, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, let me ping User:Anomie and see if he (or she) can help. bd2412 T 00:14, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@BD2412: First guess is that Carole is probably using Vector, not Monobook. Try just using User:CaroleHenson/common.css and User:CaroleHenson/common.js. Anomie⚔ 03:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@BD2412 and Anomie: Eureka, the functionality works now that I made the additions to the commmon css and js files! Thanks, this is going to be very helpful.--CaroleHenson (talk) 05:44, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Excellent - enjoy! bd2412 T 20:23, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Barbara Love / Barbara J. Love

I created Barbara Love (disambiguation) and am in the process of writing an article about Barbara Love. Since each of the three Barbara Loves on the disambig page are Barbara J. Love, I'm wondering if I should move/rename Barbara Love to Barbara J. Love (feminist). What do you think?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:47, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• The operative question here is whether any of these is identifiable as the primary topic, i.e. much more frequently researched or much more important historically than the others combined. If the feminist is, then that should be the article at this topic. If not, Barbara Love (feminist) should be disambiguation enough. We tend not to use middle initials or middle names unless the subject is almost exclusively referenced using them (as with Richard Dean Anderson and John C. Reilly). Cheers! bd2412 T 20:30, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Good questions!

Based upon research so far, Barbara Love the feminist has been written about and/or her work referred to more frequently than Barbara J. Love the professor / racism activist. In just a raw look at google web / google books hits it's close for books and 744K/644K difference for the web - but some of the "professor" hits pick up the "feminist" (i.e., there's many pages and books that the feminist is on that refer to another professor on that page, but not apparently vice versa). In Wikipedia, there's one article so far that I've found that refers to the professor and a dozen or so for the feminist. So, if I'm understanding you correctly, the Barbara Love does not likely need to be changed to Barbara Love (feminist).

In terms of Barbara Love vs Barbara J. Love. Her name is not exclusively given as Barbara J. Love - she's often referred to as Barbara Love. All of the links to her name in Wikipedia were just Barbara Love, if I remember correctly. (Your point about when to add the middle initial or middle name to the article name is very helpful for future reference).

So, I think the net-net is that we're good. Is that right?--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:53, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I think so. bd2412 T 00:11, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:24, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Related policy discussion

There is a discussion taking place at WT:AT that pertains to disambiguation (and arguably should have been posed here instead as a change to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC). Input is welcome. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 02:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Most complicated disambiguated article

Do you guys know what it would be? WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 22:30, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Outro

Hello,
The article Outro is a disambiguation page. I recently linked to that page directly from another article because I felt that the introductory sentence in the Outro article is the best link for the link that I made. Since this project page says that "Links to disambiguation pages from mainspace are typically errors", and I cannot see that my case fits into the list of exceptions, either

1. I made an improper link - in which case, what should I link to, since Closing credits is not exactly as good of a match as the intoduction of the Outro article.
2. We need to add to the list of exceptions
3. Outro should not be a disambiguation page

Any ideas? This is a tough one for me. Victor Victoria (talk) 17:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

• Outro used to be an article, but it was changed into a dab page in 2012; the article that used to exist is probably what you had in mind, which suggests to me that the article should be resurrected. It was never referenced though so I can understand why it was pared down to a list of links. —Xezbeth (talk) 17:45, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Please note that if you are intentionally linking to a disambiguation page, this should be done through the Outro (disambiguation) redirect per WP:INTDABLINK, to make it clear that this is intentional. Another option would be to link to the Wiktionary definition, wikt:outro. In this case, however, I think that the page is a WP:DABCONCEPT, and an article should exist there. bd2412 T 18:27, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks -- I changed the link to Outro (disambiguation). I agree that this disambiguation page should probably exist as an article. It exists as a full article in the other languages version (albeit as a stub in some cases). It seems that rather than improve the article by adding citations, the editors in 2012 took the easy way out of removing uncited content. Since this is way outside my field of expertise, I don't want to touch this article. Victor Victoria (talk) 19:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Template talk

If you've a mind to, please come and help out at Template talk:Dmbox#Should talk pages be categorized?. Thank you! – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 06:26, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Let Her Go disambiguation page

I feel like the Let Her Go disambiguation page contains too many songs. Is there a limit to how long a disambiguation page can be, or how many songs without articles can be listed? Thanks, Melonkelon (talk) 02:16, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

No limit on length. No songs without articles (for the song, or for the album that mentions the song, or for the band that mentions the song, or for any other article that mentions the song), but no limit on how many songs that are mentioned on Wikipedia (and therefore ambiguous on Wikipedia). -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:37, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

You think Let Her Go has many songs? Without You#Songs is split into decades. See also Hold On#Songs, Stay#Songs, Runaway#Songs, You (disambiguation)#Songs, Forever#Songs, Angel (disambiguation)#Songs, I Love You#Songs, I Want You#Songs, Smile (disambiguation)#Songs. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Disqualify topics less than one year old as primary topic?

As far as I see, many editors have proposed any newer topics of similar names as primary topics. To me proposals are a waste of time and space. Recently, someone proposed Louis Rosenberg (writer) to be a primary topic, but I'll bet the proposal will fail. If we determine a year of creation and... stuff like that, then we can decide how to define a primary topic more strictly than now. Thoughts? --George Ho (talk) 06:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No. To elaborate, why one year old? Why not one month, one decade, or one century? Or 3.5 years, or 4 years and 7 months and 9 days? What if the only topics ambiguous for a title are all less than a year old? Etc., etc. WP:CREEP. The existing criteria for primary topic will handle topics of any age fine. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:56, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No. Article age is irrelevant. We really want the ability to allow the exact opposite - new primary topic articles to be found first. New article =/= WP:RECENTISM. Recentism is already considered. Widefox; talk 09:19, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment on WP:INCOMPDAB issues

It is my understanding that, as a general rule, we do not allow disambiguation pages with a parenthetical other than (disambiguation) in the title. For example, although there are many albums named "Phoenix", there is no Phoenix (album) disambiguation page, but rather a redirect at that title to a section of the Phoenix disambiguation page. With this in mind, I have tagged all pages running afoul of WP:INCOMPDAB with the {{incompdab}} tag.

Recently, a handful of my additions of this tag have been reverted:

• County Road 318 (Florida), County Road 183 (Florida), County Road 150 (Florida), and County Road 138 (Florida); the tag was reverted by User:NE2 with the explanation in each case that "this is the complete disambiguation page for this subject". I note that there are no pages at the standard disambiguation titles, County Road 318 (disambiguation), County Road 183 (disambiguation), County Road 150 (disambiguation), and County Road 138 (disambiguation), and County Road 318, County Road 183, County Road 150, and County Road 138.
• Hunter (horse) and Rosalind (horse); the tag was reverted by User:Montanabw, with the explanation as to Hunter that "There are several different types of horses called "Hunters." Not sure what the problem is here???", and as to Rosalind that "On this one just confused - no one will find the separate articles, which we usually title (horse) but here we have two... how to resolve... ". Hunter exists as a redirect to hunting, and Hunter (disambiguation) exists; Rosalind is a disambiguation page (to which Rosalind (disambiguation) redirects).

As it stands, it appears to me that the county roads could easily be moved to standard disambiguation titles, and the horses could easily be merged into sections on the existing disambiguation pages. Is there something unique about horses and Florida county roads that would require an amendment to our existing practices to accommodate these issues? Are the parentheticals in these cases part of the formal name of the thing being disambiguated? bd2412 T 13:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Seems to me the pages in question should really be set indices, as they are confined to a single topic (Florida highways and horses) and tend to include a lot more detail than a disambiguation page should go into. However, if the WikiProjects primarily responsible for the maintenance of those pages have no policies and procedures for creating and maintaining the set indices (nor perhaps any interest in pursuing that option), then merging/converting these pages into appropriately named disambiguation pages seems to be the only practical thing to do, per WP:INCOMPDAB.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 21, 2014; 14:21 (UTC)

If a list article (including a set index article), it should be titled like a list article (List of albums titled Phoenix or List of roads in Florida named County Road 318, or List of horses named Hunter, for example. But BD2412 is right: we don't use parentheticals other than (disambiguation) in the titles of disambiguation pages. (There's probably an exception out there where the ambiguous title is shared by titled works that share the same parenthetical, but that's beside the point.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:28, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, the "list of..." scheme is a possible naming scheme, but it needs not be used when it makes no sense or creates unnecessary inconvenience. We have Hunter (name), for example, not a "list of people named Hunter". There are plenty of other types of set indices that tend to be the same way; how to title them is a practical matter that's best handled by the applicable WikiProject.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); October 21, 2014; 15:08 (UTC)

Anthroponymy articles are not set index articles. For naming set index articles, " If the disambiguation page carries the name of the term (as with Signal Mountain), then the set index article should be named "List of XXXs named YYY" (as in List of peaks named Signal Mountain)." WP:SIA; the examples given make sense and create no inconvenience. OTOH, there is inconvenience in titling them in such as way that confusion with incomplete disambiguations is created. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:06, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that the Florida roads could very well be switched from the disambiguation tag to the SIA tag, since the names of roads within a state, generated according to a particular local naming scheme, are clearly not unrelated topics. The Hunter (horse) article, on closer review, seems very WP:DABCONCEPT-y. The two horses named Rosalind seem genuinely ambiguous, although only one has an article, and WP:TWODABS applies. bd2412 T 16:09, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

County Road 3 (Florida) is no different from Edgewater, Florida or Minnesota State Highway 62 except in the method of disambiguation. --NE2 16:31, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Minnesota State Highway 62 is not a disambiguation page, it is a road index, with a {{Roadindex}} tag specifically indicating that it lists roads sharing the same name. That is probably the better tag for these Florida roads, since they are also roads sharing the same name. Note that if Edgewater, Florida were titled Edgewater (Florida), it would also be WP:INCOMPDAB, because it is the use of the parenthetical that suggests that it is an identifier that distinguishes the topic from what would otherwise be an ambiguous title. bd2412 T 16:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Aren't all disambiguation pages "lists of [things] associated with the same title"? --NE2 16:59, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
  • As for Edgewater, that's simply the method we choose to disambiguate. Other language wikis do it differently (e.g. pt:Edgewater (Flórida)). --NE2 17:01, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Disambiguation pages are lists of unrelated things associated with the same title. Where the articles are related, they go into a set index. For example, An Ideal Husband (film) (a list of film adaptations of a specific play); Asparagus fern (a list of ornamental species of fern); 37mm gun (a list of guns having a 37mm bore); U.S. Route 41 Business (Michigan) and State Road 1 (Washington) (lists of roads within a state). bd2412 T 17:15, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
      • You could probably find a way of calling many disambiguation pages related. For example: 10th Street Station (a list of stations lying on 10th Street), 10th meridian (a list of meridians 10 degrees from the Prime Meridian), A Christmas Carol (disambiguation) (a list of works named A Christmas Carol, all referencing the original). If there were a business in Florida called County Road 3, unrelated to the county roads, it too would belong on the County Road 3 (Florida) page. --NE2 17:46, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
        • If 10th Street Station was a list of stations lying on the same 10th Street, then an index would be in order. In this case, an index exists specifically for roads that share the same designation. Is there any substantial difference between these lists of Florida roads and State Road 1 (Washington)? bd2412 T 17:55, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
          • No, and I don't see how State Road 1 (Washington) is not a disambiguation page. If a Washington business called themselves State Road 1, would they not be added to that page? --NE2 18:06, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
            • If a Washington business called themselves State Road 1, unless it was so notable that it was more important than the actual streets, we would reference it in a hatnote on the index page (e.g. "for the business, see State Road 1 (business)"). In this case, however, the pages are in fact confined to a single topic (see User:Ezhiki's comment above). bd2412 T 18:15, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
              • So what you're saying is that many pages currently tagged as disambiguations are actually "set index pages" by virtue of everything having that name being related? Why is the distinction important then? --NE2 18:41, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                • Not many - we have an entire project dedicated to rooting them out and correcting them. Of course, new ones get made from time to time, but eventually they all get fixed. The distinction is important because related topics can be spoken of in generalities in a way that ambiguous topics can not. One can compare the common characteristics of Asparagus ferns, 37mm guns, versions of An Ideal Husband (film), and roads in Washington named State Road 1. One cannot similarly compare common characteristics of the different meanings of Mercury (an element, a planet, a god, a car), Phoenix (a mythological bird, a city, various albums and newspapers), Battery (a criminal act, an electrical device, a group of batters), Seal (an animal, a musician, an emblem, a mechanical device for keeping something closed), and so on. bd2412 T 18:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                  • So if a rapper named "37mm gun" became notable, that "set index page" would automatically become a disambiguation? I really don't get why the two types of page are distinguished from each other. --NE2 19:08, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                    • No, if a rapper named "37mm gun" became notable, we would add a hatnote to the index page, per WP:TWODABS. bd2412 T 19:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                      • And if a rapper and a criminal named "37mm gun" both became notable? Would that be enough to make it a normal disambiguation page like 50 cents? --NE2 19:30, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                        • Fixed, thanks. bd2412 T 20:01, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                          • I don't get how that was wrong, but Springfield is OK without the non-place names being split off into Springfield (disambiguation). --NE2 20:15, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                            • Even if there were only places named "Springfield" they would still be ambiguous because they will have come to be called that independently, not through some common history, or because of some common characteristic that makes them all "Springfieldy". If the name were only used for places built where there was for example actually a spring in a field, then a "springfield" would be a type of thing, and would be subject to treatment as an article, not a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 20:25, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                              • OK, then many of the highway examples have no common history or characteristic. In County Road 3 (Florida), one is an extension of a state road that fits into the state road numbering and was probably assigned by the state in the 1980s. The other was numbered by the county because of its pre-1945 number (and has a different four-digit number assigned by the state). State Road 1 (Washington) has two different routes that were numbered in different eras (main highways were only named, not numbered, between 1913 and 1923). --NE2 20:39, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                                • All of that can be explained on an index page. Am I correct in thinking that there can only be one road designated as "County Road 3" in Florida at any given time? bd2412 T 20:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
                                  • No, those two county roads both exist currently, just as there are however many Springfields (including three in New Jersey and five in Wisconsin). --NE2 20:59, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Any set index article that we want to conform to the disambiguation page guidelines can be made into a disambiguation page (or merged with an existing one). We only made them separate because some editors wanted to format them as list articles and not navigational pages. The restriction on "being a type of thing" keeps all disambiguation pages from being SIA-able, but doesn't mean that a dab that happens to list only one type of thing is an SIA. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:01, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
      • It does, however, mean that we can't keep a page at the title, County Road 3 (Florida), and call it a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 21:15, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
        • It is a disambiguation page. Whatever you choose to call it is irrelevant. --NE2 21:40, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
          • In that case, I'm sure you won't mind if we format the page and its title in conformance with disambiguation guidelines. Cheers! bd2412 T 22:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
            • It's currently in conformance, just like Edgewater, Florida. --NE2 22:28, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
              • It is not in conformance with WP:INCOMPDAB, but it will be soon. bd2412 T 22:30, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I am totally confused. Some examples of dabs that need dabs that I have encountered - and seen split - were things like Chestnut (with the problem of horse chestnut, Chestnut (horse) and Chestnut (coat) and [[Chestnut (color)}} all being totally different things. And yes, also problems/questions with Hunter, which is NOT Hunter (disambiguation), and also has Hunter (name) as a clear breakout dab, (so why not Hunter_(horse))? Also, Hunter does not dab, it instead redirects to Hunting (which is also kind of problematic, but a different issue). Definitely open to figuring out what the consensus is - this week, anyway. Montanabw^(talk) 18:38, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hunter (name) is not a disambiguation page. Here, the issue is with there being multiple disambiguation pages for the same word. Rosalind is a disambiguation page; if there were a number of cities by that name, and a number of albums, and a number of songs, we would not have separate disambiguation pages at Rosalind (place) and Rosalind (album) and Rosalind (song); we would place all of these in sections of a single disambiguation page, as we have done with Phoenix and Mercury. The horses are not particularly different; we should have a ==Horses== section on the disambiguation page to which Rosalind (horse) redirects. As for Hunter (horse), that seems to be a different issue, since the different topics there tend to be variations on a single theme, leading me to believe that it would be possible to write a broad concept article on the history and evolution of these variations. bd2412 T 18:56, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
• And Hunter being a redirect to Hunting while Hunter (disambiguation) exists is not even a little problematic. The {{redirect}} exists for this purpose. This week's consensus is also known as "the long-standing consensus". -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:55, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
  • What strikes me is that the Hunter (name) whatever-it-is is identical in format and layout to a dab page, so really there is no difference that I can see - truly a question of enlightenment. I can live with a redirect of the horse page to the main one, given that particular situation, but as for the various hunting horses, the people who split these apart did so because they cared a lot and a concept article would be a bit of a challenge at the moment, as we don't have any current UK-based people to keep an overview from being too US -Centric (which was the original reason some of the articles were split - and others just can't be merged - fox hunting alone is a huge article in size. I guess I fail to see a solution here other than the dab that exists. Montanabw^(talk) 06:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
    • The Hunter (name) article (for that's what it is) has an anthroponymy infobox. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:21, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Age determining primary topic

I just proposed a move at Talk:Worcester from Worcester to Worcester (England). I believe the reason the British city is un-disambiguated is because it is a much older meaning than the Massachusetts city. I see this as artificial because the city in Massachusetts is not that new. I would support that the use of age determining primary-topic dis-ambiguation should be done only if the newer meaning (in this case the Massachusetts city) is less than 30 years old. For situations where this is true, age is a natural reason because many people of today grew up knowing only the older meaning, and thus they consider it more well-known. But otherwise, it is less natural because many people of today grew up knowing the newer meaning as being just as valid as the older meaning. Any thoughts?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:01, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree that age should not factor in to the determination of the primary topic of "Worcester". But adding a rule for its use for young-enough newer meanings would be unneeded WP:CREEP, and the 30 year mark is arbitrary. Age should not be a determinant for primary topic. See also Boston, Winston Churchill. If multiple topics for an ambiguous title all have long-term significance, the one more often sought (more than all others combined, and much more than any one other) by the readership should be the primary. Their age may influence which one is more often sought, but that is accounted for in the existing criteria. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:43, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Is Dewulf a disambiguation page?

Dewulf. I already know that it isn't, but I can see the impending edit war across too many articles for me to bother with, so I would appreciate if others could confirm if it is, in fact, a disambiguation page that is merely pretending to be a surname list. —Xezbeth (talk) 21:10, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• I don't see why this would be a problem. It is clearly a surname, and has no non-surname uses that I can find. The subjects listed on the page are all partial title matches, so there is no actual ambiguity. It could stand some etymological information about the origin of the name, but then again it could just be merged into De Wolf, which covers this ground (albeit without sources, at the moment). bd2412 T 21:13, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
• Looks like a surname page, not a dab page, to me. PamD 22:55, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
• If it's a surname article (only dab pages are not articles) and contains BLP material, it must be sourced. If you want to say something about the surname, please do so as long as it's sourced. Surname articles are not somehow immune from WP:RS and WP:V and WP:BLP. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:13, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't see how a BLP issue could possibly arise from saying that a person has a particular surname. I suppose issue might arise with the article title itself, but if there is a dispute about whether a particular person has a particular surname, that would belong on the article on that person. On a side note, however, it would generally be nice for surname articles to have some reference to one of the countless genealogical tomes explaining the origin of the name. See my recently created Farquhar, for example. bd2412 T 21:23, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
    • under WP:NAMELIST, it seems that somewhere someone has thought that Foo (surname) is a disambiguation page. The wording is pretty unclear if that was not meant. As you know we have {{dab|surname}} to use to contain dab pages with surname lists, so that they remain dab pages. As for bd2412's statement: our WP:MOSDAB says only minimal short blurbs about each entry is permitted. However, surname articles can contain any amount of biographical material about the holders of the surname in question, with links, refs (or not), and what have you. See Anderson (surname) for how these may look. If Anderson were a dab page or if someone created a dab page for holders of the surname, the second blue links on a line are improper. However, on surname pages they can become link farms, all consistent with the MOS. In addition, there are ethnic/religious attributions of surnames - mostly unsourced - like in Abbitt. Whether attributing something to one's surname is potentially a BLP issue is debatable. Moreover, to the extent that some people feel that surname pages are exempt from WP:RS and WP:BLP, then such crap as "Joe Blow (politician) was a child abusing murderer" or "John X.Y.Z. Doe is a fraudster" are fine as well. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:56, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
      • I clarified the wording. We have the "surname" parameter for dabs as a temporary measure until the anthroponymy list is split from the dab, not so that they remain dabs. Any BLP problems with anthroponymy articles should be hashed out at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy, since it's irrelevant to actual dab pages. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:08, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
        • I have proposed to merge Dewulf into De Wolf, of which it is a variation. bd2412 T 14:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Special cases of primary-topic dis-ambiguation

Look at Kellie Maloney. This is a trans woman. Her male birth name was Frank. Despite the presence of other (non-biased) meanings of the name "Frank Maloney", this article keeps the primary meaning of Frank Maloney despite being a biased name. Is there a general rule that the primary topic is the topic most likely to be searched for even if it uses a biased name?? Any other example of a name which is the primary meaning on a dis-ambiguation page (in this case Frank Maloney) despite being a biased name for its primary meaning and a neutral name otherwise?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:18, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

What is the bias here? Seems this was already hashed out in some detail at Talk:Frank Maloney (disambiguation)#Requested move. Most of what the person is notable for is under the prior name, so if there were no other notable persons with the name a redirect would be expected. The question then is, among the various Frank Maloneys, is one of them more notable than the others to be the primary topic. If yes, then it really doesn't matter what the current title of the article is. older ≠ wiser 15:38, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

The bias is considering the male birth name of a trans woman her proper name. Trans women like being treated like their trans names are unambiguously their names. Georgia guy (talk) 15:46, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, and that is why the article is titled Kellie Maloney. It has nothing to do with the question of what is the primary topic for Frank Maloney. older ≠ wiser 16:42, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

But having this as the primary meaning of Frank Maloney implies that it is NPOV to consider Frank Maloney an equally acceptable name for her, doesn't it?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:47, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

The only thing it implies is that we think most people searching for "Frank Maloney" are looking for this person. That's a purely factual determination.--Trystan (talk) 17:10, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

In turn, that implies that "Frank Maloney" is (not was) what they know her as. Georgia guy (talk) 17:14, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

No, being the target of a redirect implies no POV (or NPOV) at all. It reflects what the readership may be using to search out the topic of the article, that's all. If the redirect is the problem, it's an WP:RFD problem, not a disambiguation problem. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:51, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguating the Measure B article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Measure B (Los Angeles, 2012)#Article move. A WP:Permalink to that discussion is here. Flyer22 (talk) 01:57, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Two words on usage

Here I added two words to the usage criterion, making clearer that we are discussing usage on Wikipedia, which of course is what we have always meant as our criterion here. I was summarily reverted, of course, but I think it's a worthwhile clarification (as per WP:NOTDICT and other reasons). I reiterate that it's only a clarification; we obviously are only talking about Wikipedia usage here, right? Red Slash 02:51, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose "on Wikipdia". Readers, at least the vast majority of the target audience, do not live "on Wikipedia", and editors should get out of the "on Wikipedia" mindset. Editors should know what a proper encyclopedia is, but readers should not. Whatever a reader searches with, the result should be meaningful and helpful. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Dab pages are Wikipedia navigation tools. If the reader is searching the Oxford English Dictionary or the NYT microfiche, the dab page is irrelevant. Editors of Wikipedia nav pages (such as redirects and dab pages) should get into the "on Wikipedia" mindset. The readers don't have to, of course, any more than they need to get into the "OED" mindset to use the tools that its editors (with their "OED" mindsets) put there for their navigation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• Wikipedia doesn't exist in isolation; a search on Wikipedia is just one way among many of accessing an article. The general formulation is a better test to use.--Trystan (talk) 13:51, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

  And this discussion isn't about how articles appear in searches not on Wikipedia. Disambiguation pages aren't destinations; they're navigational tools to get readers to their destination. If a Google search gets the reader to the sought article, the dab, primary topic considerations, and any redirects are irrelevant. Disambiguation pages exist as the on-Wikipedia way of accessing an article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:09, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

  How articles are titled is inextricably linked to how search results outside of Wikipedia appear, and what people will see when arriving at a specific article title from outside of Wikipeda. For example, the most prominent feature of a Google search result for a Wikipedia article is the the title of the article, including the disambiguation term if that is part of the article. It therefore makes a significant difference whether we have selected a primary topic or not. Similarly, if I use my phone's operating system features to pull up the Wikipedia article with a given name (not really what I would think of when thinking of searches "on Wikipedia"), where I land depends on how we have titled the articles.--Trystan (talk) 18:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

  See response to Dicklyon below. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:04, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• But navigation hints should be based on what the user knows, not what the project helds. Requiring that readers . If you draft the disambiguation pages exclusively using the topics covered, and not the meaning, sound and overall usage of the term, you'll be forcing readers to "get into the on Wikipedia mindset" as well. Diego (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose "on Wikipdia". Ambiguity is ambiguity. Readers don't much care which other articles Wikipedia has. When an article title shows up in a search, having a title the unambiguously specifies the topic is always a good thing. Dicklyon (talk) 19:15, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

  How the article is titled is a different question than what the primary topic for a title is. The primary topic can always be the target of a redirect from the ambiguous title if the topic is better titled with something else. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:04, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose "on Wikipedia", per the above. Ambiguity is, indeed, ambiguity; it doesn't have to be limited to WP, arising from WP, or even obviously existing on WP (we do have some articles that are "pre-emptively disambiguated". The ongoing rash of animal breed name RMs raises some of these issues.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dicklyon and SMcCandlish. Both DAB pages and primary topics should be mostly decided based on the common knowledge about the ambiguous term, not the subset of that knowledge that happens to be included in our incomplete project at any particular time. Diego (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support, if only to stop, or at least to slow down, the proliferation of endless, repetitive, time-wasting, and ultimately useless discussions about the ever so subtle degrees of "ambiguity" any given term can have "in real life". Adding these two simple words confines the definition of "ambiguity" to Wikipedia articles, and ambiguity "on Wikipedia" is the foundation on which the whole structure of disambiguation is built (with only a handful of exceptions, some of which were made for good reasons and others not). Wikipedia's scope is enormous, but not limitless. If a title of one article would be ambiguous with a title of an article describing some other concept, but that latter article does not exist, either create (or request, or at least demonstrate the encyclopedic value of) that article or think whether that topic is missing for a valid reason (such as being non-notable, for example). There's no need to expand the definition of ambiguity to the infinite sundry of all possible subjects; doing so will serve no one well.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 30, 2014; 17:24 (UTC)
• Support (Double Support if nailing this down to en) as disambiguation is not about solving Google's search, LinkedIn, Wiktionary, Facebook or other info silos. Widefox; talk 22:57, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

It is about helping users find the relevant information within the Wikipedia/Wiktionary silo, though. That involves taking into account the real-world knowledge that readers from outside the Wikipedia project may have. Diego (talk) 17:13, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it is not our job to help users find dictionary words on Wiktionary, certainly not at the cost of making it harder to find articles on WP with names that match the term at issue. --В²C ☎ 22:05, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

• Support per User:Ezhiki. --В²C ☎ 22:05, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Further on usage

I do, however, agree that the language is contorted and begs copy-editing. I suggest the following change:

From

A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—, to be the topic sought when a reader searches fora reasonable user would expect to find under that term.

to

A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is much more likely than all the other topics combined, to be the topic a reasonable user would expect to find under that term.

to get away from tying "primary topic" and article titles to searches. Articles should not be altered to satisfy poor search strategy. Wikipedia now, long since, has an excellent search engine with learning algorithms, and this search engine far better serves search queries than the occasional title fiddling. If the topic is primary, readers should get what they were expecting, or at least in hindsight not be astonished, regardless of how they came to be reading the article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I think we need to change "more likely" to "much more likely", in recognition of the situation that getting to an article you didn't expect is a much worse experience than getting to a disambig page that helps you find what you want. Dicklyon (talk) 03:44, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

"much more likely than all the other topics combined". I slipped this "much" quickly in.[5] It is more restrictive than the previous language (only much more likely than a single other topic, only "more likely" than all combined). I agree that "much more likely" is much more sensible. "more likely" is kind of weak. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:58, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessarily true. I have asked the Foundation to conduct some empirical research about the experience that users have when searching for ambiguous or potentially ambiguous topics, but I don't think we can honestly say that we know for sure that a reader arriving at a usage of the term that is "more likely than all the other topics combined" to be the target of the search experiences any great distress at the fact. For more distressful, I think, is arriving at a disambiguation page containing a fairly large number of arcane and closely related terms, like Congo (where, at least, we have broken our usual rule and included a helpful image). bd2412 T 04:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Your logic, which I don't disagree with, applies equally to the existing text, doesn't it? We don't *know* "the topic sought when a reader searches".

I don't think a disambiguation page is ever more distressing than astonishment. Astonishment, as when you think you know what you are downloading, you get something you find to be unrelated, and there is not a logical route apparent to what you did want.

Is there a problem with a disambiguation page containing a fairly large number of arcane and closely related terms. Probably. Surely though that is a different problem than having primary topic defined in terms of unknowable hypothetical search behaviour and expectations. On Congo, yes it is a big information dump if you are expecting to arrive straight at the page covering a nation/place called "Congo". Perhaps the top three most likely wanted pages should be listed in the dab page lede. Maybe "other possibilities" could be in a collapsed box. Why is there a rule against a small helpful image? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:30, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Oppose. This whole concept of "search engine strategies" has no bearing on primary topic determination. Primary topic determination is about enabling users using the basic WP search mechanism, which doesn't use a strategy, but just takes the user to the article matching the name of the entered term. When a search algorithm is used, primary topic is irrelevant, because they take article content into account and criteria such as how often users pick a certain article out of the results, etc. Titles are hardly relevant when search algorithms are used. --В²C ☎ 22:11, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Should we create a {{surnamedis}}

We have thousands of essentially disambiguation pages masquerading as articles, many containing assertions about WP:BLPs without sourcing at all. The {{surname}} is often used on pages where there's little but links to two or more persons with the same surname. In essence, this is a disambiguation page in all but name. The documentation at {{surname}} states that there should be discussion of the origin of the surname. Presumably, as all material at WP must be sourced, this must also be. However, that is the exception rather than the rule. However, {{hndis}} is available for ambiguous names, where it can be placed on such pages as Michael Granger where people with that name are listed out dab style. I think rather than having a bunch of unreferenced "surname" pages, we ought to implement a {{surnamedis}} to hold those pages until someone can bother to write and source something about the surname and source each person on the list as having the surname as thus explained - for instance, someone with the surname Lee may or may not have something to do with a Chinese etymology of the name. I think this will keep surname pages that are essentially disambiguation pages (they say nothing about the surname, just who has it) are properly categorized and maintained, rather than being unsourced articles containing assertions of living people. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 20:59, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

• I think the more helpful thing would be to tag all of those surname pages as unsourced, and where possible, to merge together pages for surnames having a common origin. bd2412 T 03:31, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

• Perhaps, but there are perhaps tens of thousands of them. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 05:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that these should generally be dab pages - i.e. anyone linking to such a page should be alerted that the link should be fixed. Edits like this[6] are not improving wp. However, I'm not sure a surnamedis template is needed; it is better to use {{disambig|surname}} as otherwise it could be confusing for an editor who wants to add an entry for something that is not a surname (a place, a ship, a company etc). DexDor (talk) 06:53, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

They are not disambiguation pages. If you subscribe to this nonsense that every individual entry in a list needs to be referenced or it's "violating BLP", why does that magically stop being the case if you pretend the article is a disambiguation page? —Xezbeth (talk) 08:24, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose They are WP:SIA and as list articles they still need sources. Tag unsourced. Right problem, wrong fix. Widefox; talk 11:53, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Surname list articles are not essentially dab pages masquerading as articles. Since they are partial title matches and the topics are not ambiguous, they are not disambiguation pages, not in name, and not in function. They are list articles, and some of them are crappy list articles. Unencyclopedic list articles should be deleted, not shielded behind a mask pretending to be disambiguation pages. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Home backup#Background reading -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

• JHunterJ's comment is an interesting one. Given that many have some BLP assertions, perhaps new ones get the ole blp-prod treatment if they lack sources. Perhaps for the best, since we do have a search engine that will find all the Jane Does and John Does, when you search for "Doe", the page is unnecessary unless you need to find which John Doe, and then we have {{hndis}}. As for the older ones that cannot be blp-prod'ed, just the old prod as unnecessary but I think that someone will find it "useful" enough to make drama.... Carlossuarez46 (talk) 09:00, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Do you even know what BLP stands for? —Xezbeth (talk) 09:51, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
    • BLP states "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source", bolding in the original. What on Michael Granger is likely to be challenged? Is someone going to say, "how dare you refer to Mike Granger as an athlete, I demand a source for that proposition"? bd2412 T 16:19, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
      • Coming back to typical SIAs, any intro should be sourced but that's not a BLP issue. There's sometimes contentious claims about BLPs on dabs and SIAs - think criminals and suspects etc, uncommon though. Widefox; talk 18:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
        • Exactly, and editors who seem to misunderstand BLP should understand that it's a policy that trumps editing guidelines like DAB. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:51, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
          • I'm not sure what your point is. A BLP issue on a dab or SIA (or anywhere) can be tackled per policy, with style guidelines like WP:MOSDAB or SIAs being unrelated. The conflation of dabs and SIAs in this proposal isn't helpful as per JHunterJ's clarification of the differences. No need to delete new SIAs or dabs just because they may contain BLP issues, just fix any BLP issues as per usual. Is this theory, or are there examples of an issue? Widefox; talk 21:21, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
          • @Carlossuarez46, for an SIA page like Farquhar, the propositions that need to be cited relate to the ancient origin of the name. I don't see where a BLP issue can arise there at all. I suppose we might need to source the proposition that "Regan Farquhar" is the birth name of rapper Busdriver, but even that doesn't seem particularly contentious. bd2412 T 22:53, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

WP:Primary topic for light bulb redirect

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Light bulb (disambiguation)#What is a light bulb?. A WP:Permalink to that discussion, which now has a WP:RfC, is here. Flyer22 (talk) 19:02, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Links between dab pages

Regarding the avoidance of links to dab pages, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be best to allow them from other dab pages, if this is not already the case, and update relevant bots and guidelines in accordance. Otherwise, when a dab page is at the primary meaning (e.g. Rock, ROCK, Rok, etc), we need to link between them with either a piped link or through a redirect, each of which have their own downsides. It would seem like a simple algorithm of testing whether the page with the link is a dab page would resolve the matter, for bot and human. ENeville (talk) 00:27, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, this does not avoid the problem that sometime disambiguation links on disambiguation pages are genuinely errors - for example, the page Good Intentions currently contains a link to the disambiguation page, Red Garters; obviously, the intent there is not to link to the disambiguation page, but to link to a particular album that shares that title and appears on that page. Exempting disambiguation pages from the bot reports would mean that errors like that would not be found and fixed. bd2412 T 03:37, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Dab parameters

There is a discussion at Template_talk:Disambiguation#Dab_parameters about a recent change to the template documentation affecting how dab parameters are used. DexDor (talk) 07:30, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

MOSDAB documentation

Hello, came across this one under the Set index articles section of WP:MOSDAB: A set index article (SIA) is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that share the same (or similar) name. For example, Dodge Charger describes a set of cars

Seems to me the Dodge Charger article has gone astray, has become a broad concept article, and no longer qualifies for the SIA tag. Can someone confirm please? Thanks, --Midas02 (talk) 13:59, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Eng

Anyone remember the great Engelbert Humperdinck disambiguation discussion of 2011? Time has passed, but the issue still remains, so I've reopened the debate. See Talk:Engelbert Humperdinck#Requested move (revisited). Join in if you like. Bazonka (talk) 19:51, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Distinct disambiguation templates for national surnames

Is it OK to create a template named {{Romanian surname}} in order to replace {{surname}} with it in pages like Manolescu, Popescu, Grosu or Ilie? The template can add the Category:Romanian-language surnames automatically, I feel tempted to create it.

The same question for creating {{Romanian given name}} for pages like Călin, Costel, Silviu, etc. —  Ark25  (talk) 07:26, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Those aren't disambiguation templates. They'd be anthroponymy templates. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy would be the right place to discuss them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:05, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Right, I already asked there, TYVM. —  Ark25  (talk) 18:38, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

(mixed martial artist) or (fighter)

There is a discussion taking place on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography about discontinuing the (fighter) disambiguation suffix in favor of (mixed martial artist). I thought i would let you folks at WP:WPDAB know in case anyone wanted to partake in the discussion. Thanks! Kevlar (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2014 (UTC)