Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages/Archive 13

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Removal of redlinks from dab pages

It appears that User:Tedernst has begun on a relatively aggressive campaign to rid disambiguation pages of red-links based on the notion that if there isn't an article, there shouldn't be an entry on the dab page. I'm personally not planning to do anything about this but I thought it should be pointed out considering some of the discussions that have taken place about the appropriateness or lack thereof of including red-links on dab pages. User:Ceyockey 01:01, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

It's nothing organized, actually. Some pages just look really ugly and most of the redlinks look sketchy. If someone adds one or more of the redlinks back, I will leave them alone, especially if there's something said about noteability of the particular links. I'm not a zealot, contrary to how some of my edits might make me seem. :-) I'm also a fan of Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, for whatever that's worth. Tedernst | talk 03:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I just took a look at Cabal (disambiguation). I think the only way to stop your wholesale gutting of pages is to produce a lot of redirects to trick you into thinking that there are really articles, perhaps. I suppose it's a matter of whether a sub-article concept (i.e. something that is addressed in part of an article) is worthy of any consideration in the disambiguation universe or not. I would take your actions to mean that you do not believe anything below the level of a full article should be addressed at the dab page level, correct? User:Ceyockey 03:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

No, if it's addressed in the linked article, I leave it. Tedernst | talk 06:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

That is not the approach you took with Cabal (disambiguation). Bkonrad restored some material, I see, where the term is mentioned in the linked article but you had deleted the links. User:Ceyockey 04:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Here on the general talk page, I'm giving you my general principles. Do I make mistakes? Surely. Do I forget my principles sometimes? Possibly. If there's a problem with a specific page, please correct me and note the reason for your change (partial-revert) in the edit summary and I'll learn from that. If there's a larger issue, certainly we can address it on this page. I'm just not sure what that larger issue is. Tedernst | talk 06:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Let me be a bit more to the point. Consider Uniform (disambiguation), which I just worked on. According to your actions to date, I would anticipate that the "U" entry would be deleted as not associated with an article and therefore not worthy of disambiguation. If I am right then the only way to keep it from disappearing would be to create U (NATO) as a redirect (tagged with {{R to list entry}} most likely) to NATO phonetic alphabet. This redirect creation would seem to be useless because nobody will search for "U (NATO)" nor will they insert and wikilink this text into an article; its only reason for existence would be to allow existence on a dab page as a blue-link. Is this really what you are striving for? Before you answer that, look at NATO phonetic alphabet#Alphabet and pronunciation and consider whether "uniform" is a legitimate term that should be leading to this place in some fashion, be it dab or redirect. User:Ceyockey 03:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I see no point in having that entry for the letter U, no. What is its purpose? Tedernst | talk 06:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, let's see -- the word "uniform" is used to represent the letter "U". What is so difficult to understand? older≠wiser 13:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand. Why would anyone search for "uniform" when they mean "U"? Why would anyone link to "uniform" when they mean "U"? You seem to think this is obviously to anyone more intelligent than a potted plant, but I don't see it at all. Tedernst | talk 16:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

While my instinct is to agree with Tedernst that no one would link or search for "uniform" in this case, it's occurred to me that if I wanted more information about this alphabet (for example, I couldn't remember what word corresponded to V), I wouldn't necessarily know what article name to look under. I've heard of "alpha, bravo, charlie" etc. (not to mention abel, baker), but I wouldn't have had the foggiest idea that it's a NATO invention until I read this thread. Although I might be able to find it by starting with "alphabet," another reasonable approach would be to search for whatever words I could remember. When someone's searching an encyclopedia, they're not always certain what they're looking for at first.

~~Bkonrad~~Ceyockey, you started this thread with a wholesale accusation about Tedernst. Surely you have more examples than this one. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Er, where did I make a "wholesale accusation"? While I disagree with some of Tedernst edits, I don't recall making any broad accusations. In another thread I did comment that I thought Tedernst may be a little too hard-line in the approach to editing (and I don't think I was alone in that thought), but I certainly did not intend that as a wholesale accusation. older≠wiser 18:20, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The "wholesale accusation" came from me, not Bkonrad. Let's get our attributions correct, shall we? User:Ceyockey 03:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Apologies to Bkonrad. The accusation is of a relatively aggressive campaign to rid disambiguation pages of red-links. Could you provide examples other than Uniform? —Wahoofive (talk) 04:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Uniform (disambiguation) was brought up as an example where I've asked "what would you do with this one" which is were the "U" material comes from. Examples can be gleaned from Tedernst's contributions page, but the one that started this thread was Cabal (disambiguation). Like Tedernst said, it's not a campaign but an occasional activity which is why I changed the title from the inflammatory "jihad" reference; if you insist on having a list, I'll generate one, but I think that would be counterproductive considering where this thread is going right now. User:Ceyockey 04:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

On the matter of "why would anyone search for uniform when they are looking for U: consider the NATO tranliteration of "cut" which would be "Charlie-Uniform-Tango". It is not unreasonable for anyone familiar with "Charlie = C" as was mentioned above to assume that "Charlie-Uniform-Tango" is another way of saying "CUT". The question is whether one would want to provide the facility for a person to actually check this or not; one method that is available to us to provide such a check is to include the NATO transliterations on the pages Charlie (a dab page), Uniform (disambiguation) (linked from Uniform) and Tango (another dab page). This makes sense to me; it doesn't need to make perfect sense to all persons in order for it to be considered for inclusion on the appropriate dab pages, in my opinion, because inclusion does not violate the notion of the dab page as an assist to navigation. Now, prepare yourself, I'm going to shoot myself down by asking "why shouldn't this go into Wiktionary?" I don't have a good argument against that and it is a reasonable use of the Wikipedia-Wiktionary interlinkages, and I'm a pretty strong proponent of using Wiktionary more vigorously than we usually do. User:Ceyockey 04:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

For the record, Wiktionary lists the alphabet as the ICAO spelling alphabet, although it has a Wikipedia cross-link to NATO. I only mention this in regard to a hypothetical user not clear what the alphabet is called, but wanting to look for it. BTW, I tried starting at alphabet and wouldn't have been able to find it if this thread hadn't already clued me in. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I've spruced up the Wiktionary:Uniform entry a bit so it might be more helpful now (?). User:Ceyockey 05:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Please don't remove red links! Sometimes, those serve to indicate that an ambiguity is well-known, and a page needs to be written. For example, when there are 4 towns in a country with the same name (or across several countries in the case of the Yugoslavia breakup), it's best to list them all. I've found so many cases where some poor editor links a name, it shows up as existing, and has no idea that the link is to a similarly named place in an adjacent country. Heck, I've sometimes had to check the coordinates visually to ensure that I've found the places. Using disambiguation pages helps editors find the correct article!

I've also run into cases where an overly aggressive editor (cough Ted cough) removes several perfectly valid links, when the linked word doesn't appear in the lede. For example, cities often have several older names in the History section. The older names may even be more commonly used in other articles than the current name. Please don't remove those links, either. It helps editors find the correct article!

Of course, I'm assuming that every editor always checks every link to ensure that it's not going to a disambiguation page, and that it's actually pointing to the correct article....

--William Allen Simpson 13:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

please wikify the letter U again. Users may also use Whatlinkshere on the U page. So it's intersting to see that Uniform links there. IMO red links for towns with the same name as pointed out by William are 100% necessary. About wikify alternative names - this can be a problem if they are redirects to the same article. Then users click on the alternativ names and get the same content. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 14:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Someone just brought a page to my attention that I'd edited a while back. As a compromise solution to red-link removal from dab pages, I put information on the talk page in the case of Talk:Ai. Just an example of something I've done in the past that fits into this discussion thread. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

What if I want to follow the rules rather than break them?

After finding out that I've been doing DAB pages the wrong way, I am now on a crusade to bring all DAB's I come across into conformance with the MOSDAB. So I have one question:

Q. Will my zealous campaign make other editors so mad that they get together and conspire to murder me in my sleep? RlyehRising03:14, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW. I notice a sudden upsurge in the interest given to DAB pages. Could this be because I've been putting links to here in the edit summary? I should note that one reason I include those links is to provide a rationale for my changes, but also (and perhaps more importantly) so that other editors can check my work. RlyehRising 03:25, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Taking a look at the Participants list, the upsurge in activity around here occurred around November - probably not the RlyehRising factor :). Many of us put an edit summary linking here - as a justifcation, and as an education device. To tell you the truth, I didn't even recognise WP:MOSDAB as an available redirect to here. You may wish to consider using the complete "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)" in the edit summary - it's more effective at getting the message across and editors don't have to follow a link to find out what it's all about.

Will you be mudered in slumber? There will certainly be some opposition to your edits (which I have had a quick look at and agree with, the edits that is). Oppostion can come from ignorance of the purpose of a disambiguation page. Opposition can come from those who disagree with this style guideline. I recommend you place pages you edit on your watchlist; more than once my edit to a dab page has been reverted. Finally, when you get dissolutioned you should take a break from the style side of things and work on link repair (that my opinion anyway).--Commander Keane 09:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I get the some push-back and the occasional stubborn reverter, but generally, editors seem to appreciate a disambiguation page that goes from an ugly mess to a neat list of links. I get the sense that linking to the project helps a lot (my usual edit summary is "Disambiguation page style repair (you can help!)"). When a discussion starts up, politely pointing out MOS:DP can often settle it. I usually insist on de-linking non-disambiguating terms, but if other editors restore some red links or questionable items, I'll leave them in as a compromise. Don't bother starting revert wars; there are plenty of other pages to clean up. —Michael Z. 2005-12-28 09:45 Z

That's been my experience too -- a few minor disagreements quickly cleared up, and a few more stubborn issues, some of which can be solved with existing measures (see Congo above), and some which can't. I think in most cases if someone is defending the status quo strongly, it's better to let it go, and go fix up one of the thousands of other dab pages that need help. The page in question will eventually be addressed again by someone (and the more important the page, the quicker that will happen), and either the defender will have moved on, or s/he will see that it's not just an individual crusade of yours. — Catherine\^talk 22:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

If there's a dispute, it can also be useful to figure out what aspect of the page is dear to someone, and just clean up the others. Instead of doing a massive reorg/cleanup/link-culling of a disambiguation page, do simple edits whose individual purpose is clear. Useful edit summaries include the following. —Michael Z. 2005-12-28 23:45 Z

"format according to MOS:DP"
"sort according to MOS:DP"
"alpha-sort"
"de-linking non-disambiguating terms "xxx" and "yyy""
"removing non-encyclopedic term "zzz""

Akita

Would anyone like to take a look at Akita and Talk:Akita? Thanks! Tedernst | talk 22:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

My suggestion - walk away from the page for 20 weeks or more then come back. User:Ceyockey 22:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you (Tedernst) may be taking too hard of a line with your edits. While I generally dislike categorizing dab pages, sometimes it is unavoidable and I don't think there is any hard and fast rule against it. Similarly, some of the "extra" information on that page is helpful for understanding which link is intended. I think the extra links are unnecessary, but the verbiage is not so excessive as to get in the way. older≠wiser 22:39, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

sigh*... I guess Ceyockey's got a good way of going about it. Don't let it discourage you, Tedernst, there are other pages, thousands of them. Neonumbers 23:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. Good advice. There are plenty of other pages. I'll just move on. Thanks! Tedernst | talk 23:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I had a stab at it too, and after a revert (putting back largely pointless Japanese text) I think it's at a pretty reasonable state. Thanks/wangi 23:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Yup, it's okay the way it is. Remember rule no. 8: MOS:DP#Break rules. —Michael Z. 2005-12-29 18:55 Z

Please don't make a mess of articles in the name of MoS:DP

Take a look at USS Merrimack as of 5 December 2005. Now compare it with the version that "more inline with MoS:DP". All the information has been removed! This is a stupid thing to have done, because (1) the deleted information is what readers needed in order to determine which article they wanted; (2) the deleted information appears nowhere else in Wikipedia. Please, please, don't do this. It's plain vandalism. Gdr 18:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Gdr, the USS Merrimack page is not an article, it is a disambiguation page. Its purpose is to point readers to the actual articles. Disambiguation pages are not dumping grounds for information that should be in other articles - that should be in stub articles. I have created three new stubs containing the information which was on that page and edited the page to conform more closely to the manual of style. Thanks/wangi 18:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Unless you're seeing a problem pattern across pages, this should be dealt with at Talk:USS Merrimack. Also, it's not correct to label good-faith editing as vandalism. Editors can disagree without either of them being vandals. Tedernst | talk 19:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Gdr's point is valid and appropriate to be brought up in this forum. It has always been my personal policy to ensure that any information I remove from a disambiguation page is either available somewhere else in Wikipedia, or in a dictionary. I'm surprised/disappointed that this is not followed by others. USS Merrimack may very well be an article (of the signpost variety).--Commander Keane 19:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There are many articles which list ships of the same name in a navy. These articles occupy an intermediate position between disambiguation pages and articles proper. Remember that the main purpose of a disambiguation page is to direct the reader to the article they are looking for. Quite a lot of information is needed to adequately distinguish ships of the same name: a reader may come to the page knowing a date that the ship was in service, or the name of a notable captain or officer, or a battle in which the ship took part, or what kind of ship it was. A simple list of ships with launch dates or hull numbers is not sufficient to direct the reader to the right article.

A suggested format for ship disambiguation articles is given at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships. I propose that there should be a note at MoS:DP directing editors to defer to WikiProject Ships for these ship disambiguation articles. Gdr 21:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not see ships as a special case at all. The example given on that project page does not tie into the MoS at all - it is wikilinking to various other articles rather than just the articles it is disambiguating between, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Individual entries "Unlike a regular article page, don't wikilink any other words in the line, unless they may be essential to help the reader determine which page they are looking for; these pages aren't for exploration, but only to help the user navigate to a specific place". Thanks/wangi 22:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Like it or not, the multi-stub page is at present a legitimate page type. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Now USS Merrimack has been changed back to a bare list. This is useless. Suppose I have a reference to a Merrimack shipwrecked off Cape Cod. How do I find it using this page?

If it would stop useful pages being stripped of their text to conform to some straightjacket of style, perhaps we could remove the {{disambig}} template from these ship index pages? Gdr 00:55, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Gdr, my main beef isn't with the overly long descriptions (although they were far too long - what do you think of the edit i've just done?), but rather with the wikilinking of other terms in the page. Why do you feel this is neccessary? As I said above it goes against the consensus here of only wikilinking to the disabiguated articles. Any other wikilink simply gets in the way. Thanks/wangi

It's better now. But date ranges are not conventional for ships as they are for people: you need to specify "laid down" "launched", "purchased", or "commissioned" for the first date, and "sunk", "decomissioned", "sold", "broken up" or whatever for the second date (we can't just assume "birth" and "death" as we can with people). Also, you are missing the shared information that these are all ships of the United States Navy and that they are all named after the Merrimack River.

The reason for linking in ship index articles are the same as for any other article: a link indicates that the other article exists and provides a quick way of getting there. In my opinion it is a serious mistake for MoS:DP to be so severe on the subject of links. Links in disambiguation pages do no harm and may do some good. After all, someone who has typed "USS Merrimack" in the search box may well be looking for CSS Virginia. Why make that person click twice instead of once? You can see from the complaints above and elsewhere that I'm not the only editor to feel this way.

Maybe a change in the wording of MoS:DP is needed? It could suggest reducing the number of links instead of requiring eliminating them. Gdr 01:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, so that's moving on to a much broader topic - by all means start a discussion here about the wikilinking issue and see if you can gain consensus for such a change. However what we normally see doing dab work is folk being very vocal and then once they've read and thought through MoS:DP they start to understand the reasons behind it.

I've added info re the USN and river to the dab page. I still can't see that a dab page requires the level of detail on dates that you imply. Thanks/wangi 01:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not level of detail, it's plain accuracy. You can't just put dates next to some noun and expect the reader to understand what they mean unless there's a commonly understood convention, which there is in the case of people, but not in the case of ships. Gdr 11:13, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Gdr, the issue of secondary wikilinks on dab pages has come up over and over and over again. The current suggestion in the guideline that there be one link per line has survived many discussions up to this point. As far as bare links on a dab page, it is a terrible mistake to have bare links on a ship-topic disambiguation page for exactly the reasons you've provided; the point is that the dab page is a navigational aid and there should be sufficient information on the page to provide people with ammunition enough to make the right choice for them at any particular time. Having additional wikilinks does not assist in this choice making process, but longer than average descriptive lines does. I do disagree with wangi on the matter of ship names not being special; ship names are special because it appears that the need for disambiguation hits a FAR higher % of article titles in this topic space than any other that I've seen, so much so that disambiguation seems almost the rule rather than the exception. Considering the magnitude of the ship name issue I don't see a problem in carving out some special space for this topic in the dab universe ... but I wouldn't go so far as relaxing the one-link-per-line guideline. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Any fact about the subject of an article may be the one that disambiguates this thing for a particular reader, but responding to that would require putting the full articles on a disambiguation page! The disambiguation page needs enough information to make the difference clear. If someone still can't tell which article they seek, then they will just have to click on two or more links and do a bit of reading. Perhaps this will prompt them to disambiguate the link which brought them to the dab page in the first place. Remember: a link to a disambiguation page is a broken link. —Michael Z. 2005-12-31 19:47 Z

Why do I have difficulty finding a "suggested format for ship disambiguation articles ... given at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships"? Or is the ship index page another name for a disambiguation page? No wonder we can't agree on very much. If they are different things, why should a ship index page have a disambiguation template? Should we have a different template, so people trying to clean up disambiguation pages don't 1) waste their time and energy and 2) get vilified for it ("stupid thing to have done")? I'm a volunteer, and I wouldn't put up with such abuse even if I were being paid. Can't we make this easier? Chris the speller 04:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that the page meant was Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships), which is linked from Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships#Naming conventions. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:42, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

That has not answered my question. Those two ship pages use "index page" here, and "disambiguation page" there, not making it clear which is which. Or are they the same thing, in which case why do we need two names for the same type of page? If they are different things, and a "index page" for ships has a format different from that of a "disambiguation page", is there a template other than "disambig" for use on a ship's "index page"? That would be a clue for disambig-fixers to steer clear. At the very least, any disambig page that needs a different format because it is a ship should include a nondisplayable comment at the top to warn dismbig-fixers. Chris the speller 17:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The multi-stub page is described on WP:D, even though it's something totally different from any pages described by this MOS — and that's what these ship pages are. Maybe they need a different name. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships has a suggested format for a page listing several ships with the same name. Please bear in mind that this format was worked out long before people started to get picky about disambiguation page format, so it's not reasonable for you to expect the ship index page format to conform to the disambiguation page rules.

So how do we stop editors blindly (but in good faith) making a mess of ship index articles and other pages which have more text or links than the straightjacket of MoS:DP demands? It would be nice not to have to change the {{disambig}} template on thousands of ship index pages: after all, it was there long before MoS:DP was written. It would be much better to change the MoS:DP guidelines. Perhaps a simple note of this form: "WikiProjects have their own guidelines for disambiguation pages; for example many articles listing ships with the same name follow the format recommended at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships. Please respect the conventions of these WikiProjects when editing these disambiguation pages." Gdr 02:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I had a similar problem on Akira to those outlined above. The initial edit by Tedernst (t c) was very severe, removing far too much information, including nearly all context of the dab entries and removing the page from its category. I reverted and left a note for Ted on his talk page. We then discussed the situation on Talk:Akira, but did not come to a reasonable compromise until others stepped in. The initial very severe edit was overly strict in my opinion, since it removed far too much information. While I believe Ted did it in good faith, and we had a clear and reasonable discussion about it, I don't think this kind of cleanup is advisable for most disambig pages. If the policy or MoS supports these kinds of edits, it needs to be revised. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 21:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Freakofnurture reverts of Tedernst: mediation needed?

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Freakofnurture reverts of Tedernst: mediation needed?

TLA discussion

moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories#TLA discussion

TLA poll

moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories#TLA poll

Disambiguation subcategory and template poll

moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories#Disambiguation subcategory and template poll