Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Adopting disambiguation pages

• Updates of Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Adopting disambiguation pages seem to be flagging. • Ling.Nut

Qajar

This used to be redirect to Qajar dynasty, but somene changed it to point to Kajars sometimes last month. I've changed it to point to Qacar because it's the same word, just varying English spellings. Now, the catch is that most links pointing to Qajar want to go to Qajar dynasty not to Kajars or the dab. I'm very busy with the crazy arbitration on Muhammad's images, so I won't have time fix those myself. Sorry for the inconvenience. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 17:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there some reason why the dynasty is no longer the primary topic for that title? Varying spellings can have different primary topics, and if there's no new consensus for changing from the old primary topic of "Qajar", the redirect should be restored. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't object to restoring it as a redirect to the dynasty. I've just left a message to the editor who changed the redirect to the ethnic group. Xe didn't specify a reason (in the edit summary) when xe made that change. But xe hasn't edited since Dec 4 either, so I'm not certain we'll hear back soon. Perhaps just restoring the redirect to the dynasty while waiting for a response would be the most practical course of action. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 22:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Came across it during TWLTDP-patrolling and fixed it for the templates. Night of the Big Wind _talk 23:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That still leaves the 250+ article links to be fixed... ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 23:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the inconvenience. I redirected Qajar to Kajars just because the ethnic group is prior to the dynasty (as well as all related topics). By the way, I suggest to standardize the spelling of the name: the use of "Kajar" for the ethnic group, "Qajar" to the dynasty and "Qacar" for the disambiguation can be problematic. Perhaps the disambig page could be Qajar. Anyway, I can easily make the necessary changes on all links pointing to Qajar, if you agree about it. Cheers! Yone Fernandes (talk) 03:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no objection to swapping Qacar for Qajar, i.e. moving the actual disambiguation page to Qajar. The Qacar spelling seems non-existent in English, but is prevalent in Turkish sources. On the other hand, Kajar[s] is used in English sources to refer to the dynasty as well, just do a Google Books search. It appears to be an older English spelling. So, I don't agree that Kajar[s] mainly refers to the ethnic group. For clarity I'd prefer that Kajars be moved to Kajar people, like we have Arab people not Arabs as article title. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 15:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Use of dab as a mini-article

Is Immaculate Conception (disambiguation) a dab or an article? I am tired of arguing with a persistent sock puppet reincarnation, so help will be appreciated. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It was corrected by R'n'B. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 22:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Project banners on dab talk pages

I've run into a dispute with User:NSH001 who thinks that disambiguation pages should better not have any talk pages at all [1] and if so he seems to think that a banner of WikiProject Disambiguation is the only valid tagging. Both concepts sound a bit strange to me regarding that there is a whole Category:Disambig-Class articles stemming from project banner templates. In my opinion it should not be prohibited for any WikiProject to place tags on disambiguation class talk pages if any topic listed there is of special interest for a project. Especially dab pages that exclusively contain links associated with one WikiProject should be allowed for tagging so they can be administered from time to time. De728631 (talk) 19:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Other projects may have reasons of their own for wanting to track disambiguation pages of interest to the project. I don't see how the banners cause any problems. I think the prospect of editors with no interest in a particular project enforcing unilateral decisions as to what is or is not of interest to the project is fraught with problems. older ≠ wiser 21:07, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

NSH001 has told me that there's been a tendency to keep disambiguation pages as minimal as possible [2] but while I can see the value of it for the article side, I don't see any problems with those pages having a talk page with multiple tags. De728631 (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Keeping disambiguation pages minimal has little or nothing to do the content of talk pages or with whether or not a particular project might have an interest in the page. older ≠ wiser 23:03, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think it's possible to ban them completely, but they should be strongly discouraged. I only bothered to remove them on that particular page because it was obvious that they were added, in the first case, to an article page (not a dab page) and got left by default, and in the second case, having noticed the first, that it only applied to one entry on the page. There is really no reason why a project should be interested in a dab page unless all, or very nearly all, its entries relate to that project (this does not apply to the page in question), or there is some very special and particular reason why it matters to that project. The only purpose of a dab page is to help people navigate Wikipedia, a function that has nothing to do with projects except possibly in those cases I've mentioned. Please note, by the way, that the introduction here is not an accurate summary of what I wrote on De728631's talk page. --NSH001 (talk) 23:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Why should they be strongly discouraged? What business is it of yours which pages a project takes an interest in? The project tags on a talk page has no effect whatsoever on the disambiguation page itself. older ≠ wiser 23:12, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I have found the relevant guideline: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide. It says that "if a WikiProject says that an article is within their scope, then you may not force them to remove the banner. No editor may prohibit a group of editors from showing their interest in an article." I.e. you should not have removed the India and Middle-earth project tags from Talk:Mahal just because you think they are no longer valid as you said here. De728631 (talk) 23:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Baden disambiguation and primary topic

There is a discussion at Talk:Baden (disambiguation)#Requested move about whether the concept of primary topic should apply. The requested move would direct Baden to a disambiguation page, rather than to the country/province. --Bejnar (talk) 23:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Help on Phool

Hello! I want to request someone to create a disambiguation page for Phool. (Never done it myself. Hence asking here.) Phool (फूल) in Hindi language means "flower". There are two Bollywood films of this very title Phool (1945 film) and Phool (1993 film). A magazine of same title exists Phool (magazine). Also note that presently, "Phool" redirects to "Phool (magazine)". Two geographical places resemble the name; Phool Nagar and Phool Bagh. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 13:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I took a shot at it. Shame that the word is not in wiktionary yet though. older ≠ wiser 13:28, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Well... there is this entry फूल -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 09:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Blackout January 18th 05:00 UTC

As many of you know, English Wikipedia will be blacked out during January 18th 05:00 UTC - January 19th 05:00 UTC to protest SOPA and PIPA. As a result, editing via the API will be disabled (see here). This means, among other things, that there will be no Daily Disambig update on 18 January. There's basically nothing I can do about this. Some other bot tasks may also be affected. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Taiwan

Some people are of the opinion there is no clear primary topic and they want to move the island article to Taiwan (island) and the dab page to Taiwan. Now it gets funny: there is opposition not only from people that believe the island is the primary topic, but also from people that think that the ROC is the primary topic. But if there are these two opposing parties, there votes should neutralize each other, no? At least there is no majority for the island as the primary topic. Have a look at Talk:Taiwan (disambiguation)#Move request. Huayu-Huayu (talk) 13:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any guidelines for opposing parties' !votes cancelling each other out. IMO, if there's no consensus for a proposed change, there's no consensus for that proposed change. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

You both seem to be assuming incorrectly that "consensus" on Wikipedia has something to do with the will of the majority. Wikipedia discussions are not votes and "consensus" is not determined by counting the views on either side. Instead, "consensus" is determined by some random uninvolved user coming along and subjectively determining which set of views he or she finds most persuasive. Thus, contrary to JHJ's apparent conclusion, there may indeed be a "consensus" in the scenario described above. Since the discussion hasn't closed yet, we can't say whether there will be a consensus or not. (I put the word "consensus" in quotation marks because, as should be obvious, the process described above does not in the slightest resemble consensus as that term is commonly used in the English language outside Wikipedia.) --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't assuming that, no. If there's no WP:CONSENSUS for a proposed change, there's no WP:CONSENSUS for that proposed change. I have no idea how to make the leap from that tautology to anything to do with the will of the majority, and you'll note that I retermed his "vote" as "!vote" in my response above. Thus, contrary to RnB's apparent leap, if the "random" user comes along and determines a WP:CONSENSUS, then it is not true that there's no WP:CONSENSUS. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:29, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Pardon me for misunderstanding you. I wasn't entirely sure what you meant, which is why I said "apparent." It seemed you might have been implying that the fact that various users had expressed opposing views as to the primary topic would necessarily lead to a conclusion of "no consensus." I now see that that was not the case, and thank you for clarifying. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

@JHJ - of course they cancel each other out, since 1/3 says A is primary, 1/3 B is primary and 1/3 no one is primary, then the page should be a dab page, since there is no "consensus" of what is primary. Huayu-Huayu (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

No, they don't automatically cancel each other out, because they aren't votes and this isn't a election of consensus (as R'n'B and I were in violent agreement on above). If there's WP:CONSENSUS for a change, change occurs. If there's no WP:CONSENSUS for a change, change doesn't occur. There have been proposals to make "base name dab" the default consensus any time that a change is discussed as if "base name dab" were the unchanged state no matter when the change is brought up, but as far as I know that interpretation hasn't been adopted (or resolved with the tautology that it would appear to contradict). -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

So, you think violation of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is fine? Since the discussion clearly shows that there is no "consensus" for the existence primary topic. Huayu-Huayu (talk) 19:11, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Hysterical. I'm as staunch a defender of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as you're going to find. Your claim that !votes cancel out is misplaced; find another rationale. I haven't evaluated the discussion. Assuming there was a prior consensus (implicit or explicit), a new consensus will need to be formed to effect change. If there's no new consensus, there's no new consensus. If there's no consensus to change to "no primary topic", then there's no consensus to change to "no primary topic". If, OTOH, there's consensus that there's no primary topic (for the whatever rationale), then there's consensus that there's no primary topic. But you can't conclude that that consensus has been formed unless that consensus has been formed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Clean up on The Entombment (disambiguation)

Another editor has tagged The Entombment (disambiguation) for cleanup, but with the generic clean up request. I was about to fix it to the project-specific one, but since it's my work they are objecting to, I've refrained. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Selective

I just converted Selective to a disambiguation page, but both trying to figure out what to include and trying to figure out good descriptions were a pain, so I'm sure someone else could improve it. TimBentley (talk) 19:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, TimBentley. I've removed some of those entries, that seem suited for other dabs ("selection", "selectivity") or were partial title matches. I'm not sure about the schools. For descriptions, if needed, I usually just copy the lead sentence from the article, but the descriptions there seem fine. The problem with adjectives in particular as ambiguous names is that very few topics are actually referred to by just the adjective. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I fixed six links that intended selective school (or the NSW variety), so it seems reasonable to leave that in. TimBentley (talk) 20:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Does a generic title need a disambiguator?

There's a discussion at Talk:Science_Museum_(London)#Requested_move. PamD 07:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Golden road and The Golden Road

Can both be merged together, or no need? --George Ho (talk) 02:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

There's no obvious need. If there is a need, they could be merged. Are some of the topic likely to be sought by the other title? -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean "sought"? If merge is not necessary, then... leave them alone? --George Ho (talk) 02:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Readers seeking one of the topics for the ambiguous title have an article "sought" -- and we can't predict which one, so we give them a disambiguation page. In this case, two. If there's a good likelihood that a reader seeking an article on Golden road would enter "The Golden Road" (or vice versa), that would be a reason to merge them. Otherwise, yes, I'd leave them alone. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"The Golden Road" and "Golden road" are similarly popular, yet "The Golden Road" is more popular than the other within last 90 days. --George Ho (talk) 04:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

That won't tell us if they are popular with readers who are looking for entries on the other side. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

More eyes requested

Could other dabbers assist me with watching Big Bang Theory (disambiguation)? Several IPs have taken apparent exception to the earlier discussion for the primary topic of the capital-T title (the TV show, per Talk:Big Bang Theory) and have been disrupting the dab page without discussion. Thanks. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It was a good idea to alert WikiProject Disambiguation, but the use of WP: rollback feature by JHunterJ in an edit war is definitely not good. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• It's an interesting case, needing decisions as which of "The Big Bang Theory", "The Big Bang", "Big Bang Theory" and "Big Bang", each in all plausible capitalisations, should point to which of Big Bang (the theory), The Big Bang Theory (the sitcom), Big Bang (disambiguation) and Big Bang Theory (disambiguation). I think that just about sums it up, anyway! Have chipped in with an improved hatnote at Big Bang and a retargetted redirect at Big bang theory, as well as edits to the dab page in question. PamD 13:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

My use of rollback to combat disruption is exactly what it is meant for. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Meanwhile, the incorrect implication of the primary target by Incnis Mrsi[3] in contradiction of the discussion and the current targets of Big Bang Theory vs Big Bang theory (indicating that the caps difference is significant) is definitely not good. You have misunderstood or misapplied WP:MOSDAB#Linking to a primary topic to suit your desired outcome. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)