Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC

Should WP:PRIMARYTOPIC specifically say something stronger about our geek-TV-mp3 systematic bias? Such as "page views are not a reliable indicator of what is the real primary topic for an encyclopedia when one of the topics is related to popular culture" ? In ictu oculi (talk) 04:16, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so. Page views are still reliable for usage, even for pop culture topics, when there is not a single topic that meets "long-term significance". Pop culture topics without long-term significance are handled by that criterion. Readers of the encyclopedia who are interested in pop culture topics are also served, and topics inappropriate for encyclopedia coverage should be deleted instead of changing the primary topic criteria. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:00, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Given how the usage criteria has been discounted in recent move discussions, we might as well remove it altogether as a criterion. older ≠ wiser 21:03, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I have observed the same thing, and recommended before that we simply scrap the criteria entirely, since every title's discussion goes with WP:IAR, and those that want to use usage can continue to do so without needing permission here, and those that want historical significance can do so without needing permission here. Once any given title's kerfuffle has settled and either there's a primary topic or not, the dab guidelines can show how to arrange them and format the dab. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:50, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Set index articles

Do Set index articles have a talk page template, or not? --DThomsen8 (talk) 19:29, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

They can, as appropriate to their subject matter, just like any list article can. They aren't disambiguation pages, though, so they don't use the disambiguation project talk page template. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:17, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I have added {{WikiProject Anthroponymy|class=list|importance=low}} to the Withe:talk page, above my earlier question there. Please help me understand how to untangle Withe as a surname from the term withy or withe for the thatching material. I want disambiguation for the different word usages for a surname, and a material. How can I do that?--DThomsen8 (talk) 23:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Can you move the page to Withe (surname)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs) 00:02, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

That would be inadvisable unless another page were created at Withe. --BDD (talk) 01:57, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

From the above, I believe I know what to do, but not late at night. --DThomsen8 (talk) 02:56, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually another editor added a hatnote, which solves the dilemma.--DThomsen8 (talk) 21:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Problematic disambiguation template

There is a species list generating template that is very problematic. Please comment on it at Template talk:Species abbreviation#No good for disambiguation. Thanks, Ego White Tray (talk) 02:46, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Partial title match discussion in progress

Please see Talk:Digital#Disambiguation page -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:50, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, too bad you waited till the 3rd time you reverted to actually join the discussion. And your friend DexDor didn't even join the discussion when reverting it again today. But I guess you consider your weak consensus of 2 people enough to justify your sloppy hatchet job edit warring tag team. Then you had the nerve to tell me not to revert with only edit summaries. Take your own advice. At least I was in on the actual discussion page of the disambiguation page.

You didn't mention why you think any of the links you deleted specifically had no significant risk of confusion or the article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) couldn't plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context. DexDor only mentioned 1 "Digital Surf" when he deleted the 13 other links. To be honest, I don't give a sh!t about the entertainment titles or the organizations. I didn't add the links. I just left them there from previous edits because they weren't being addressed case-by-case. It's the links under technology that are often misunderstood or oversimplified as digital. It's the links under technology that prove neither of you are being careful with your administrative "efforts" if you can call it that. It doesn't take much effort to destructively delete content and point to a guide.

Go ahead. Tell me you've never heard electronic media colloquially or generically referred to as "digital." Go ahead. Just keep running around looking for disambiguation pages to apply your beloved guidelines to without getting involved in the discussion. Just keep shooting from the hip with your vague subjective MOS badge of authority. Way to go folks! Way to encourage participation! Oicumayberight (talk) 05:14, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I didn't "join" the conversation, I started the conversation after the move request was closed and carried out; it's too bad you didn't start the conversation instead of reverting. It's also too bad you cast edits you disagree with as "bot like". It's too bad you assume that anyone else who reverts your edits must be doing so because they're my friend. It's too bad that you disagree with the disambiguation guidelines and think that streamlining the readers' navigation means a "hatchet job". And it's too bad you're using this forum to discuss Digital rather than Talk:Digital. Just keep shooting from the hip with your vague subjective IAR badge of authority. Way to go folk! Way to work with the community! -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I did work with the community. I worked with it from the detailed surgical "boots on the ground" level at talk:digital data and that specific disambiguation page. I worked constructively. And I got plenty of cooperation for good reason. The MOS was applied destructively at a hatchet bot-like "drone from the sky" level with little regard for what was going on at the detailed level, on the ground. You dropped a bomb on your own troops. You didn't care about the specifics of the articles. You are obviously looking at just the titles and assuming that the guide applies. WP:IAR is not about authority. It's about encouragement and concern for quality when the rules and guides oversimplify the problem. Oicumayberight (talk) 15:27, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Parenthetical dismbiguatory terms and article titles

See Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Inadequacy of current WP:UE guideline with regard to Chinese names, where it is discussed if non-English characters are ever acceptable in article titles, even in disambiguatory parens. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 03:25, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Subjective CREEP

It's no surprise that 2 of the 3 people whom have tag-teamed reverting my edits to the digital page are behind the development and advocacy for this policy. The wording of this section is vague. There's no way to prove evidence of absence in the "no significant risk of confusion or reference." Evidence I've shown of exceptions "article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context—regardless of the article's title" is being rejected as "dubious ambiguity" (whatever that means) and excluding "informal conversations on chat boards" as evidence of any use in a generic context.

PTM is WP:CREEP being used as a fake badge of authority to make sweeping changes and shoot from the hip bold edits without building consensus. PTM is being applied sloppily with little regard for details or harm it may do to specific topics. And there's no proof of principle when the legislators are also the main enforcers. Oicumayberight (talk) 03:36, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Erm, while the specialized language used here can be confusing, I hope you realize that the "partially disambiguated page names" (WP:PDAB) discussed in the preceding sections is a completely different topic that the "partial title matches" (WP:PTM) you have been edit warring over. older ≠ wiser 03:56, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I've made it it's own section now. You could have just moved it yourself, but I don't mind the jab. Oicumayberight (talk) 04:41, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't meant to be a jab (well, perhaps the mention of edit warring was). But I try to avoid refactoring comments by other editors except in extreme cases. older ≠ wiser 04:50, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Sadly, it's no surprise that one editor who has been revert-warring against multiple editors and the broader consensus is grasping at straws and resorting to wikilawyering. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:JUSTAPOLICY is not "broader consensus." Oicumayberight (talk) 18:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Grasping at straws again. Yes, the policies and guidelines are indeed the broader consensus. Their application to disambiguation pages in general and to Digital in particular has been explained beyond simple linking to the policy, so WP:JUSTAPOLICY is not a counter argument here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure there's broader consensus on what should be said/intended by the policy. There's no broad consensus on the individual articles that were reverted based on the policy. WP:JUSTAPOLICY reverts without discussion was what occurred 3 times before you got involved in the discussion. Why are you so defensive if your certain you were justified by the policy? Oicumayberight (talk) 19:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Like everything else, you misunderstand. My responses are not defensive, but explanatory. They only seem defensive by comparison to the aggression in your comments. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:53, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm talking about your actions as they relate to the policy as evidence to room for improvement in the wording in the policy. You haven't mentioned the wording once. Your first post in this section was an attack on my intent as "grasping at straws." You don't seem to be here to discuss the policy. You only seem to be here to defend your actions and condemn mine. Try being constructive. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You're starting from the assumption that the policy is wrong and you're right, and trying to change the wording of the policy to agree with you. Your first note here referred to the multiple editors who reverted you as a tag-team. You accused Bkonrad of a jab where there was none. You then accused me of being defensive. Yes, some constructive comments would be useful, and even more useful after some reflection on why the guidelines are the way they are and where your approach might benefit from changing to align better with the policy, rather than trying to align the guidelines to your preferred approach. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I've read the policy. I'm not convinced of it's clarity, which means there's room for improvement if not simply the wording to make it more convincing to people like me. You're actions are proof that the subjectivity in the guide is potentially problematic. Deal with it or accept it. You wouldn't be going round and round with me if you didn't think you had anything to lose. Nobody is threatening you. There's only room for improvement here. If you can't see that room for improvement in the actual guiding potential of the guide, then move on. I'm sure there's some other messy disambiguation pages that could use your bot-like editing style. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

No proof here, other than of your wikilawyering. Accept it or deal with it. Your attempts at deducing my motivations for being here are as inaccurate as your reading of WP:PTM. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

"Inaccurate reading" is an assumption on your part, which is telling. Go ahead, tell me which words you think I've misinterpreted. Just don't try to tell me that I've misinterpreted an adjective or adverbs. The fact that you assumed I didn't read it accurately leads me to believe that you are basing that assumption on the fact that I didn't interpret the subjective parts the same way you interpreted them. This leads me to believe that you fail to see that adjectives are subjective. Assuming good faith, this would explain your overconfidence in your ability to edit without stirring up conflict, applying WP:JUSTAPOLICY and ignoring WP:BRD while deleting multiple links in bot-like fashion. If you don't understand what subjectivity is, then of course you wouldn't know it when you see it in PTM. I'll give you a hint, look at the PTM policy words that end in "ly". Oicumayberight (talk) 03:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

• PTM is a sound guideline and not new. This is absurd. --BDD (talk) 15:49, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the subjectivity of the wording was ever noticed or challenged as a problem until it has been stretched and over-applied recently while ignoring WP:BRD with JHunter's 3 attempts at WP:JUSTAPOLICY on the digital page alone. And now we have Bkonrad interpreting it in the strictest possible way on the discussion page, obviously lacking neutrality in the debate.

I've encountered a similar situation where another user was reverting using WP:ICONDECORATION with no discussion other than WP:JUSTAPOLICY in the comments. There was only one user that was abusing the guide, but never saw himself as the problem. The conflict escalated when the non-neutral advocates for the guide jumped in on the side of the one abuser. After several pages of discussion and dozens of other users complaining about the same type of abuse, that section was reworded to be more objective. I'm sure that most editors aren't as assertive as I am and would just give up when WP:JUSTAPOLICY is thrown at them, never knowing that WP:IAR is an option. So you'd never suspect that subjective wording would be a problem if it weren't for the rare editor willing to WP:IAR. And I would consider myself to be a rarer of the rare editors willing to collaborate on improving a guide that is used against their own edits.

This is how the guide gets improved with neutrality. The original developers and newer advocates never see a problem with their own guide until someone like me who's not an advocate for the guide gets involved. If the guide made perfect sense to everyone who reads it, than nobody would ever have a problem with it. If you don't see how the subjectivity in the guide could get exploited, then you may miss the opportunity to improve the guide. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• Ok, that was a bit harsh, so I should elaborate. Listing a bunch of titles at a dab that just happen to share one or more words in their titles is bad practice because it results in cluttered pages that become less useful to readers. A partial title is only ok to list on a dab when that entity could reasonably referred to by that name alone. So it's ok to list Pittsburgh Penguins at Penguin (disambiguation). You might hear something like "The Penguins won last night" to refer to the hockey team. But to pull some examples from Digital, you would never hear a term like digital divide referred to solely as "digital." The role of a dab is not to perform a search for the reader. There's nothing wrong with using an {{intitle}}, as Digital has, but the template is all the more reason to avoid listing PTMs. --BDD (talk) 16:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

They wouldn't call it "digital." But they might only link the word "digital" in a phrase from an article that said something to the effect of "digital country" or "digital nation" to refer to a country that is mostly "digital" not knowing that there was an article titled "digital divide." The disambiguation page would make it easier to find the digital divide article without knowing that was the common term, but not if it was buried with hundreds of other links with the word "digital" in the title. And "digital divide" may not be the best article to describe the concept, but I'm certain it would be more accurate than "digital data." It's better to have a disambiguation page with the 10 or 20 most common meanings than to have the 3 or 4 of the most oversimplified meanings and then 1 link to hundreds of other alternate meanings at the bottom of the page. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

There might be scope for a broad-concept article serving as an overview of all things digital. But that would be separate from the disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 16:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

That was discussed on Talk:Digital data before the page was renamed. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:52, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The existence of a disambiguation page for truly ambiguous uses of a term does not preclude a broad concept article addressing related variations on the theme. See Particle, Particle (disambiguation). Cheers! bd2412 T 22:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It was one of my suggestions in the discussion. The disambiguation page seemed to be the easier fix for now if only temporary. And the way things are turning out, it was very temporary. It only lasted 2 days before someone deleted half the links. Oicumayberight (talk) 22:18, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• I also don't see any reason to dispute the PTM policy based on what's been going on at digital, it's still as clear and meaningful as before. If anyone wants to change "digital" into a broad concept article, that's orthogonal to the partial title match policy. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I consider the subjectivity in the policy a road hazard. Sure the drivers may be partially at fault for the collision that has occurred. But the road conditions and traffic signals could be improved. I can see three possible ways of improving it:

1. Remove the subjectivity either by reducing the adjectives in the wording or showing more examples of how to determine what's ambiguous enough to be linked on the page. All adjectives are subjective to a degree.

2. Add more thorough instructions as to how to apply the guide to avoid the temptation of WP:JUSTAPOLICY from people who lack the ability to judge more carefully or just like to make bot-like edits. Maybe Add a rule that PTV shouldn't be applied without discussion on the talk page (instead of the edit comment) and without discussing each link removed case-by-case in the case of multiple links removed.

3. Add more thorough instructions to what doesn't apply. For example, I don't think WP:V applies to this policy, nor was it meant to be used in this policy. Even if it applies, it shouldn't be applied as strictly as it has in this case. Verifying of ambiguity to a degree acceptable for the deletionists wikipedians isn't as easy as proving something as absolute as facts or quotes from reliable sources. And a directory pages and listings aren't the same as articles that are supposed to be factual. It should be a judgement call, but not one that is made legalistic by wikipedia rules designed to solve problems of a different nature.

Any or all of the above would be an improvement. A broad concept article would only fix one problem. Fixing PTM wouldn't hurt. It could only help. It could avoid this sort of collision in the future. Or we could just let it happen again. This time, maybe it was hurt feelings and damaged reputations. In the future, it may lead to good editors and even users getting turned off from wikipedia altogether. Oicumayberight (talk) 01:30, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Personally I don't really see the problem. The examples now used in the policy are fairly clear to me: the first is an apposition (Baltimore Zoo) and the second is an adjective (North Carolina). Allowing the vernacular uses of "digital" to creep into the disambiguation page as if they were disambiguation items would be a very slippery slope and it would be contrary to the spirit of the partial title match policy - keep the disambiguation pages straightforward, rather than a messy amorphous mass. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

The examples in the PTM wording are not good examples of what we are dealing with on the actual disambiguation page. Both examples are about nouns, places, explicit locations, not about adjectives like "digital." Adjectives are much more ambiguous than locations. Adjectives get used more often. Just google the words "mississippi,"[1] "zoo,"[2] and "digital"[3]. The word "digital" gets 10 times more hits. The word "digital" is used much more often than the other two words. Oicumayberight (talk) 17:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. If "digital" is a disambiguation page, it needs to list the different meanings of the word "digital". It does not need to list all the various phrases in which the word "digital" is also used. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:07, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

The page didn't simply list phrases that contained the word "digital." There are hundreds of phrases that contain the word "digital." The page listed only a dozen or less of the most common concepts (not labels) that could generically and colloquially be referred to as "digital" whether or not the word "digital" was used in the terms. But the guide was over applied and over half were carelessly removed while some of the least common uses were allowed to stay. It should have been a case-by-case edit with more discussion than WP:JUSTAPOLICY. The subjectivity in the policy mistaken as objective is what invites this kind of abuse. Oicumayberight (talk) 21:42, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that that edit was subjective. For example, it was pointless to link to "electronic media" because the linked article doesn't even mention this usage. Another clear example is "digital native" - it's both undocumented in the target article, and quite confusing, because you simply don't call one of those people "a digital", IOW there's no ambiguity between "digital" and "digital native". Besides, you seem to be missing the more general point: disambiguation exists to distinguish between several eponymous but different topics. Electronic media and digital media and the other uses of "digital" aren't ambiguous, rather, they're applications of the same broad concept. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:49, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

First, when someone mistakes "digital" to simply mean "electronic," then it's an oversimplification. There is no need to mention the misuse in the article if the misuse is mentioned in the disambiguation page. If they found the article any other way besides the disambiguation page, then they obviously aren't making the mistake. The disambiguation page only serves to correct the mistake in that regard. An editor may even find the digital media article and see that it's an oversimplification. But not knowing that there's an electronic media article which includes digital media, they might simply link "digital" as part of a phrase.

Second, as mentioned before, because digital is an adjective, it's often linked by itself as part of a phrase. So it's unlikely that someone will call a digital native, simply a "digital." But not knowing there's an article called "digital native" someone might link just the single word "digital" in that phrase (e.g. digital native) or the single word "digital" in a similar phrase such as "digital youth" or "digital generation." If they were to link the entire phrase, a redirect might solve the problem. But the disambiguation page could serve to preempt the need for a redirect. Not all editors will think to use a redirect. I've found dozens of articles where they simply link the adjective digital. If you don't believe me, check the "what links here" for digital data. Most of those links were made before the article was renamed from the single word "digital." Many of them are still linked from a single word even after the bot linked the single word to digital data.

Third, I don't see disambiguation pages as exclusively for linking to ambiguous concept articles. I see how a disambiguation page can help (more accurately than search) clear up confusion when linking from ambiguous terms. So although the articles aren't ambiguous, the links from the term "digital" even as part of a phrase is often ambiguous enough to link to an oversimplification or misunderstood meaning in the context in the article it was linked from, not the article it links to. I'm not missing the more general point of disambiguation pages. Instead some of the project disambiguation members seem to be misunderstanding the full scope of what it means to be ambiguous. People who project there own perspective on to other people tend to think somethings are not ambiguous just because they personally understand the context themselves. What makes a term ambiguous is whether or not one or most people understand it, but instead, whether or not it could be misunderstood by anyone. It's never a question of whether or not an adjective like "digital" is ambiguous, even as part of a phrase. All adjectives are ambiguous to a degree. The question is whether or not any particular usage of the adjective by itself or as part of a phrase is ambiguous enough to be included in the disambiguation page along with any synonyms whether or not they include the adjective. It's a question that should be answered on a case-by-case basis. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:39, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, there are several noun senses of "Digital", as the name of songs or albums. All words are potentially "ambiguous" to the degree that people are paying attention. Somewhere out there is a person who would confuse digital with didgeridoo, but if we listed every possible point of misunderstanding, our disambiguation pages would be endless, and therefore useless to anyone trying to find the most likely search target. bd2412 T 20:16, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

It looks like my main point that's not coming across is that "digital" would no longer be a disambiguation page, rather it would contain the broad-concept article. In other words, the broad concept would be the seen as the primary topic, and the disambiguation page would move out, and in turn be linked from a hatnote. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 20:21, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I understand that the broad concept article would make the difference, if it existed. And even if it existed, it's not mutually exclusive from a more helpful disambiguation page. The disambiguation page could serve as an easy temporary fix if it only listed 10 or 20 of the most common usage and misuses of the term. It doesn't have to be hundreds of links. There's already hundreds of links in the links from the see also section. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:33, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

We'll just have to agree to disagree, I guess. I still think that a disambiguation page should simply be a disambiguation page, it shouldn't attempt to fix all sorts of tangentially related problems - a broad concept article can do so instead. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• All flaming aside, I'm not looking to have PTM removed. I'm mainly looking for acknowledgement of the obvious ambiguity in the wording rather than simple denial, and for someone to address my 3 numbered suggestions for improvement midway through the discussion. Either tell me why they wouldn't improve the usability of this guide or consider supporting a rewording effort. Oicumayberight (talk) 21:28, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Do you think Running back, Running mate, Running on Empty, Running Scared, and Running with Scissors should be on Running (disambiguation)? That is the sort of thing that this policy is intended to stem. If we included every title containing "Running" then the page would expand by about 300 entries, most of which would never be something someone would look for, or expect to find, under the word "Running" alone. That's why the page only includes things that can be shown to be referred to by the disambiguation term alone. bd2412 T 03:29, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
    • That's not the same problem. I understand that PTM is to keep too many links from ending up on a single disambiguation page. Limiting the number of links can be as simple as saying no more than a dozen or two dozen links per page. Then it would just require a little judgment on determining which links are most likely. However, disambiguating a noun (like the "zoo" or "mississippi" examples in the PTM wording) or a verb (like the "running" In the examples you give) isn't the same as disambiguating an adjective like "digital." I can't see that a person would link just the word "running" in the word "running back." But more often than not, if single adjectives like the word "digital" are linked, they will be linked as single words in part of a phrase. The examples given in the PTM wording are easy noun examples that don't address the more difficult and more likely use of ambiguous adjectives. Oicumayberight (talk) 04:23, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Here's some examples of "digital" linked as a single word in part of a phrase: [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Oicumayberight (talk) 05:12, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
      • First, "running" is both a verb and a noun. The senses on the page are primarily noun senses. Second, we can't limit a disambiguation page to a certain number of links. Look at Phoenix and John Smith. Each has dozens and dozens of exact title matches. Without a PTM rule, a numerical limitation would be meaningless. How would you decide which ones to leave out? Finally, as to your examples, when used purely as an adjective, digital should not be linked at all. When used as part of a phrase like "digital landscape" or "digital switching systems", the entire phrase is the thing that should be linked, and ideally should link or redirect to a relevant article. We have this issue with pages like Beautiful, where there are many songs, albums, and similar works by that name, but where the adjective by itself is a common word that should never be linked. bd2412 T 12:18, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

You said "without a PTM rule." Again, I'm not advocating to get rid of PTM. I'm advocating to improve the wording of PTM. Yes, PTM should primarily determine what doesn't get linked.

It is good that you have addressed an adjective this time. We are getting closer to understanding each other. PTM works well on disambiguation pages like beautiful where there's lots of articles and uses with the single word title, and there is a broad concept article. Most people know that beauty is subjective and know that linking just the single word "beautiful" of a phrase (not a title) will be used in the intended context. There are very few alternate meanings, although it wouldn't hurt to have a link to aesthetics and Taste (sociology) in the disambiguation page.

However, In the case of "digital," a particular user's interpretation of PTM didn't work well. There is no broad concept article. There isn't as many single word title articles. I'm finding more often than not, articles linking the single word are not in the intended context. And there is more than just a couple of alternative meanings. Since digital is the near opposite meaning of analog, it should almost be a mirror inverse of what the analog disambiguation page looks like. You can see by the Talk:Analog page that it was handled with a little more sensitivity by the same user in hindsight of how the digital disambiguation page was handled. Oicumayberight (talk) 17:34, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

"A particular user's interpretation" is incorrect since it is "All but one of the editors' interpretations". And it is working well. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

"All but one?" how soon we forget. So now it's about WP:MAJORITY? And that assumes that all the editors before you got involved agree with your deletions too. I know they didn't put the links there just to have them removed. I suggest you take a cue from your fellow wikiproject disambiguation member bd2412 and address the actual points of the discussion. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:24, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh BTW bd2412, on your last point, I agree that the entire phrase should be linked and pointed to an actual article. My goal is to make disambiguation pages more useful in helping editors find the most relevant articles, without making the disambiguation page too long to browse or too short to be functional. Thats why I think if the disambiguation page has no more than a dozen or two links and they are listed in order of most common to least common usage, it will work as well as it could without being a search engine. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:46, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

No. Listing "in order of most common to least common usage" (rather than dividing into sections for people, places, books etc) would make dab pages harder to use - and much harder to maintain. DexDor (talk) 05:18, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

You can still divide into sections and sort the sections from most common to least common usage in the context of the word or term. Then you could sort the links within the sections from most common to least common usage within each section. It's what is known as a multiple sort criteria. It's what's already in effect. There isn't that much consistency the way it is now. Sometimes people even sort alphabetically. Oicumayberight (talk) 16:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Oicumayberight, I'm not sure how many more times can we rehash the same argument... please write the broad concept article! :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Joy [shallot], I've agreed with you on the need for a broad concept article, although I probably won't contribute outside of the talk page. I've accepted your agreement to disagree on the need to improve the wording of PTM in the guide and digital disambiguation page. If you don't have anything more to add, I'm here to discuss it with anyone else who is willing. So far, bd2412 has been the only one willing to advanced the discussion by addressing PTM as it applies to adjectives. Oicumayberight (talk) 16:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Support WP:PTM staying. It's common sense but I've seen many an example of folk linking to things just like the Baltimore Zoo example. --RA (✍) 23:03, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is advocating removing WP:PTM. I'm advocating amending and maybe rewording it to help the guide users be a little more sensitive towards disambiguating adjectives. Oicumayberight (talk) 01:38, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:PRIMARYTOPIC

I think the term 'primary topic' needs to be further defined. When there is a term that has two or more commonly used meanings but one term is more common, the page should not be redirected. Redirecting the page would cause many users using the Wikipedia search engine to be directed to the wrong page and therefore have to use alternative terminology to reach the page they are looking for. This effectively means Wikipedia is influencing the terminology people use to describe an entity which I don't think is right. An example would be the Britain article, which currently isn't redirected to the most common topic (the United Kingdom) however could be under the current policy. Regards, Rob (talk) 19:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

It already has to be "much more used than any other", along with being "more than all others combined". The identification of an agreeable extension to that has proved elusive, and the extension to "use a disambiguation page at the base name for every ambiguous title" has also proved unworkable (as it would displace William Shakespeare, Earth, and Banana). It could be further undefined to simply leave every PT decision the the base name's talk page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:41, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Based on your explanation, The Dark Knight (film) should be moved to The Dark Knight without a discussion. Randomuser112 (talk) 21:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

That would be an incorrect conclusion from my explanation of one of the criteria for primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that it is vitally important that we remember that disambiguation pages are not an end in themselves. They are merely a navigational aid, like an index or a table of contents. Where most people will be looking for a particular meaning of a term, there is no need to provide further navigational assistance. Where there are only two or three meanings, and one is the most prominent, putting the other meanings in a hatnote can provide all the navigational assistance that is needed. I think Apple has it exactly right - a primary topic based on historic significance, and a hatnote indicating the most likely second choice, and linking to a disambiguation page for all other meanings. bd2412 T 00:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• I disagree ever so slightly. A disambiguation page is more than a navigation aid. As a reader, I often find disambiguation pages very useful for the quick summary on a number of related, conceptually and phonetically, subjects. Much more useful than any Portal page I've seen! --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:47, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

  I agree with SmokeyJoe here. Not infrequently, a disambig page clues me in to an important relationship about my topic that I was unaware of. I say "oh, there were two people by that name, and I had them in mind as one", or "hey, that movie came from a book, which might be where I'll find what I'm looking for", or "whoa, so many cities with this name", or whatever. Dicklyon (talk) 05:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

  They are happenstance means to discovery, sure, and those unexpected discoveries can be cool. But that's not disambiguation's mission, it's just a happy side effect. And the side effect is still achieved whether the dab page is at the base name or not. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

  If a movie came from a book, it should say so in the lede of the article about the movie (and probably should have a hatnote to this effect). Since many movies come from books with titles different from the title of the movie, it should not generally be left to disambiguation pages to convey that relationship. As for other relationships with other terms, if this is significant than it should be mentioned in the article. For example, the article on Jupiter says, "The Romans named the planet after the Roman god Jupiter". In the rare case that there is much more to be said about the word itself, then we can have an article on the word, such as Eureka (word). As a practical matter, we need to balance the desire of those who wish to be whisked along random paths of discovery with those who are actually searching for a specific, concrete result. bd2412 T 16:42, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Going back to my example, most people searching the term Britain will be looking for the United Kingdom however there will still be a huge amount of people looking for Great Britain. Even though more people are looking for the United Kingdom then all other pages combined, it still wouldn't be right as a huge amount of readers would end up at the wrong page. I really don't think hatnotes are ideal because readers will still be influenced to use alternative terminology to get to the Great Britain article in future. Regards, Rob (talk) 13:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the hypothetical influence on future terminology selection is going to be significant or detrimental. If more people are looking for "UK" than all other pages combined, then sending them to the "UK" could be right. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:06, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

There would still be a huge amount of people looking the the Great Britain article who would end up at the wrong article. I don't think primary topics should be decided on ratios. Disambiguation pages really aren't that inconvenient and therefore I think a primary topic should only be chosen if all other pages are rarely described using the term. Regards Rob (talk) 14:38, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Then we'd have to understand "rarely" (which would still move the disambiguation pages for "Apple", "Earth", "Adam", "School", etc., etc. to the base name. They have alternate meanings that are more-than-rarely described using the term, which would not be the consensus). So we're back to my original response: there are plenty of opinions on what primary topics shouldn't be decided upon, but precious little agreement on what they should be decided upon. Usage and long-term significance are the best we've got so far, and we're willing to accept those rather than put those not-too-inconvenient dab pages at the base name. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:40, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

You have a good point. Personally I would have all these terms moved to disambiguation however as you say that would not be the consensus. I would like to see long-term significance part of the policy as it would remove anomalies such as Britain. Regards, Rob (talk) 16:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Being taken to a disambiguation page can be a great inconvenience to the person who is clicking through from a link in another page, and expects to be taken to the subject of that link instead of a possibly massive directory of terms that might have been meant (but obviously were not). bd2412 T 16:46, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Initially yes, but eventually all links could be directed to the appropriate pages. Short term issues really shouldn't decide what decisions are taken. The only real disadvantage is when using the wikipedia search engine, however I would argue that it's better for all readers to be taken to a disambiguation page rather then have some readers being directed to a page they are not looking for. Regards, Rob (talk) 17:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no "initially" and "eventually" here, as this is a constantly evolving project, with new links constantly being added. We already have hundreds of thousands of disambiguation links, and get hundreds of new erroneous links every single day to clearly ambiguous topics like Mercury and Phoenix and MA. Imagine how many we would get if Apple and George Washington and Mouse were also disambiguation pages, just because some readers have another meaning in mind when they search for the term. bd2412 T 23:24, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Long-term significance is currently part of the guideline: "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to long-term significance, if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term." -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:47, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I can't believe I missed that. Thanks, Rob (talk) 17:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious what exactly is meant by educational value? Would this exclude Britain from being redirected to the United Kingdom due to it also being used to describe Great Britain? Thanks, Rob (talk) 19:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I noticed this: '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.' Surely this would mean there effectively isn't a primary topic and therefore the term should be left at the disambiguation page? Regards, Rob (talk) 18:12, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It means consensus determines if one of the topics is primary or if there isn't a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:44, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with Rob and Smokey Joe. The Disambiguation pages should be more useful than search. The recent edits based on just a handful of interpreters of this guide are making it no better than search by their own admission. I know this wasn't a primary topic dispute, but it's the same effect. Disambiguations pages are being stripped of their usefulness. It seems to be putting forum over function. What's the point? Oicumayberight (talk) 21:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with Rob, Smokey Joe and Oicumayberight. Disambiguation pages originated to overcome a technical limitation of the Mediawiki software, but they are right now used by the community as micro-portals that link to the entry points of the major topics described - that means including articles even if they don't adhere to a strict interpretation of ambiguous title. If the guideline isn't describing this current practice, the guideline is wrong and should be amended accordingly. Diego (talk) 21:53, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
    • It's a matter of basic mathematics. If two thirds of users are looking for a particular meaning, then having that answer at the undisambiguated title with a hatnote reduces by half the number of clicks users must make on average to find what they want. If one meaning is the target of half of the traffic, and there is a second meaning that is the target of, say, a third of the traffic, then having the option of going either to the second choice or to a disambiguation page for third choices has the same effect, because no further searching is required to find the second option presented in the hatnote (as with Apple). This being the case, there is no reason to ever have a disambiguation page for a term with only two or three meanings, if one of those meanings can be identified as the likely target of over 50% of the searches; and there is no reason to have a disambiguation page at the base page name if one meaning can be identified as the likely target of over 50% of the searches, and another meaning can be identified as the likely target of over 25% of the searches. Whatever else you may think about disambiguation pages, people will usually get what they are seeking the fastest if those principles are followed. bd2412 T 23:33, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Right now the community uses the disambiguation pages as they are right now described by the guidelines as micro-portals, right up until the pages described by the guidelines no longer suit their micro-portal needs, at which point the community creates set indexes or list articles or broad concept articles or... and so maximizing the utility of the encyclopedia, providing information to those who seek it without sacrificing navigational efficiency for those seeking other information; so the guidelines are currently describing the current practice. The guidelines do not put form over function; they put primary function (navigation) over coincidental function (micro-portal). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:00, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
      • Even if the guideline is not putting form over function, interpretation and bot-like application of the guide is what's putting form over function. Better wording could fix that. Simply stating goals and easy examples aren't enough to make it accurately guide, especially in the hands of the biased, even if the intent is clear. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
        • Your bot-like rants on the talk pages are less useful. The equation is not "consistency of application rules I happen to disagree with = bot-like". -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
          • When use of links based on adjectives (not the nouns that are in the example of PTM) aren't considered case-by-case, that's bot-like. When there's multiple removals of links with little or no discussion other than WP:JUSTAPOLICY, that's bot-like. It has nothing to do with whether or not I agree or disagree. I can't disagree with what hasn't been discussed. Oicumayberight (talk) 21:33, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
            • Your use of "bot-like" is incorrect, however you want to rationalize it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
              • Okay then. No need to explain your criteria or rationale for labeling it "wrong." We should just take your word for it. If JHunterJ says it's "wrong," then it must be wrong. Got it!!!! Oicumayberight (talk) 22:43, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
                • On the other hand, when editors repeatedly explain to you exactly what is wrong and you ignore them, we're supposed to continue to put up with your rants. older ≠ wiser 22:51, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
                  • No rant. Just calling tactics to avoid discussion as I see it. When someone actually explains what is wrong instead of avoiding discussion or just pointing to policies that don't apply without subjective interpretation, there's no reason to rant, if you can call it a rant. Oicumayberight (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
                    • When you stop ignoring the explanations just because you disagree with them, it will look less rant-y. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:25, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
                      • Addressing and rebutting explanations is not "ignoring." You could agree to disagree or you could rebut my rebuttal. Don't expect me to just accept your ad hominem so called "explanations" as Gospel without question. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

3 (music)

3 (music) is a disambiguation page. That can't be right. bd2412 T 00:39, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Why not? Looks like a reasonable split from 3 (disambiguation). Diego (talk) 09:03, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Dab pages are not so split. WP:Incomplete disambiguation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:45, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

PRIMARYTOPIC, wikilawyering and plain good old good sense: To run or not to run - that's the redirect question

When is a runner not a runner?

• 1. I have run into a spot of trouble that appears to be a running theme over here ... I was looking for "runner" (mechanical) and saw that although it appeared on a dismbiguagtion page, the page had been redirected to "running" (sport). I changed it back to a straight disambiguation page, as there were already two points on it that would take the readder to "running".
• 2. My change was reverted by an editor who is no stranger to this page, citing some "malplaced disambiguation" (whatever that means). The same editor has just reverted it for the third time. Same editor suggests I request a move. It is rich that he reverts willy-nilly, but I must request a move. I can't find that policy page that explains that some are more equal than others.
• 3. Does it makes sense that to get to "runner", I have to first be taken to "running", to then switch back to "runner", whereas running is already a direct entry and there are two points at which the reader can hop from "runner" to "running"? Who would go looking for "runner" (athlete) in the first place? Would one go looking for "boxer" or "boxing"? "high jumper" or "high jumping"? "tennis player" or "tennis"? The fact that the pages named after the practitioner have bee redirected to the pages named after the sporting activity already says it all. The mere fact of making "runner" point to "running" is corroboration of the fact that we presume readers will mostly look up the activity and not the practitioner - ie that the majority of readers will go to "running" and not "runner" if they are looking for "runner" in the context of the sport. It is like consulting a dictionary - you don't look up "disgusted" or "annoyed", you look up "disgust" or "annoy/ annoyance" - you look up the main term, which - as far as the sport is concerned - is "running". But for other instances, "runner" is the main term. So what we are doing is sacrificing a base name disambiguation page for the sake of the minority of users who go to "runner" when they actually wanted to go to "running" .... It is like going to the dictionary, looking up "screw" (fastener [hardware]) and finding that it tells you to consult "sexual intercourse", then at "sexual intercourse" to read that "screw" may also refer to a metal fastener with a helical ridge. Back and forth, and back and forth and back .....
• Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 11:00, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

See WP:MALPLACED -- Bkonrad linked to it in the edit summary. Yes, you must request the move, because you want to change the assumed existing consensus of the primary topic of "runner" being "one who engages in running". (See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the explanation of why some pages are more equal than others.) There is already a hatnote on running that would take the reader to the disambiguation page. Yes, it makes sense that if you are looking for a non-primary topic for a title that has a primary topic, you have to land at the primary topic article, click through the hatnote to the disambiguation page, and then click through to the non-primary topic article. Point 3 is the kind of thing you'd include in your discussion for the WP:RM, if you decide to request it. No back and forth is needed. -- JHunterJ 11:25, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

JHunterJ (you forgot to sign). You say no back and forth? What do you call (quoting from your comment:

• 1. There is already a hatnote on running that would take the reader to the disambiguation page.
• 2. for a title that has a primary topic, you have to land at the primary topic article,
• 3. click through the hatnote to the disambiguation page,
• 4. and then click through to the non-primary topic article.

I get it - "no back and forth". Got it!

And please don't rush to reply before taking the time to understand what you are reading - I never said anything about any pages being more equal than others. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 12:30, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

There's no back and forth in that sequence, only "forward". You said "I can't find that policy page that explains that some are more equal than others." Feel free to take your time before replying to understand what you've already written. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:31, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, JHunterJ - reading is obviously NOT your strong card, so let me help you: "Same editor suggests I request a move. It is rich that he reverts willy-nilly, but I must request a move. I can't find that policy page that explains that some are more equal than others." It OBVIOUSLY refers to editors, not pages, as you interpreted here: "See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the explanation of why some pages are more equal than others". Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 23:22, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for clarifying what you wrote above, since writing for clarity is obviously NOT your strong suit. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:46, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• I'd like to know where they are getting the statistics that proves a primary topic is the intended usage often enough for it to be considered a primary topic. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:13, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

  It's never "proven"; we're not wikilawyering. Usage stats are available through the tool linked at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, however, and then those are (hopefully) considered by the editors forming consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:31, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

  • Sounds like you are saying that it's a matter of case-by-case judgement that may require article talk page discussion and not a simple matter of pointing to a policy.. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:45, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
    • It sounds like what I've been saying all along: get consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:55, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
      • I guess as long as we both know that a policy ≠ consensus for an article edit or revert, we are in agreement. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • (ec2) Yea, those number get cut and diced to support a position. I believe that there is more then one case where the 'primary' article was selected with under 50% of the page views. Then you have the issue of which page view to consider. That is like the wild, wild west with no rules at all! Page views are only one part of the story. What may be more important is when editors simply refuse to even look at how a topic is used by the press and simply decide what is meant even if there are actual facts that show something very different. My opinion is that page links are best used to show that something is not the primary topic. That is usually safe. Another metric is inbound links which we tend to ignore. The problem with counting those links is they can also provide false information. Take the case of SFO airport. It is not in SF, but at least one city south in a different county. However every airline that flies in lists the destination, by convention, as SF. Likewise for reference purposes, at least in the US, when something happens, mileage and direction are generally given from the legal definition of the center of the major city in the area. Both of these facts tend to over inflate the number of links to a specific city article. People also like to ignore the work done to disambiguate inbound links to a topic. If a large number of inbound links are to the wrong page, there is something wrong with the article at the main name space. But a lot of editors simply don't care about this. Probably because if the topic is truly ambiguous it requires work to figure out what links are correct and which are not. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:07, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Greetings! Let me see if I can help here. Of course, some terms have many meanings, and some meanings have many terms that refer to them. A person looking up Barack Obama may merely type Obama, or may type his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.. The fact that multiple routes lead to the same end does not suggest that the person who merely types Obama was really looking for some different meaning of term, even if one exists (or if many exist. For each term with multiple meanings, we have to determine whether there is a primary topic, or whether there is no primary topic. Usually the primary topic is what we expect people to be looking for most of the time when they type in that term. That's why Running is where it is, despite there being other meanings of "Running". There would be no point in having separate articles on "running" (speedy bipedal locomotion) and "runner" (the person who engages in running), so one title points to the other. This doesn't mean that "runner" in the sense of the person who runs is not the primary topic of "runner". There just needs to be one title to which the other redirects. Compare skier, bicyclist, entertainer. Whether a term is primary is determined by its popular use, but also by historically important meanings of a term, which is why Apple is about a fruit and Avatar is about a Hindu religious figure. There have been "runners" for as long as animals have had legs. It therefore seems sensible that both in terms of what people expect "runner" to mean, and in terms of the historical importance of the term, that the primary topic would coincide with running. bd2412 T 20:08, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• Standby Rui Gabriel Correia. I can see that Runner (disambiguation) has yet to get the abrasive clean up job that some other disambiguation pages have gotten. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:24, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually, everything on that page seems fine to me, as every line describes something commonly called a "runner" in reliable sources, without the need for additional terms to qualify it as a "something runner" or a "runner something". bd2412 T 21:59, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't see what you are referring to as "reliable sources." All I see is links and descriptions as to why they are on the disambiguation page. Oicumayberight (talk) 22:26, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
      • The sources are where the sources always go, in the articles themselves. bd2412 T 23:22, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
        • Fair enough. Oicumayberight (talk) 00:30, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
• OK, let's look at another case. A case can be made that the article currently at Las Vegas Valley is the primary use of 'Las Vegas'. By the numbers, sightly less then 95% of the hotel rooms and gaming income does not come from the city but from the other communities in the valley. This entire area is the destination known as 'Las Vegas'. Since 85%, maybe more of the hotel rooms and gaming income are in unincorporated areas everything gets lumped in under the general destination of Las Vegas. Visitors and locals tend to ignore and not care about the differences. But since there is a city with that name, many editors believe that it has to be the primary topic. So what is the primary topic? Where people who go to 'Las Vegas' actually go or when they may think that they go? And which answer is more encyclopedic? Vegaswikian (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Partial title matches - talk section?

The WP:PTM section has a dispute tag pointing to the talk section "Appropriate use," but I cannot find any such section on this current talk page or its most recent archive. Is the dispute still active? Which current talk section, if any, is most relevant? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 19:24, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I removed the tag. It's related to Oicumayberight's objections in multiple sections above, but there's no change in the consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:49, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The section it's most related to is the section titled "Subjective CREEP". And it's still under dispute. I'm not convince that anyone has address the subjectivity, especially in regard to adjectives/adverbs in the language and special consideration when disambiguating adjectives. Oicumayberight (talk) 21:03, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion at Talk:America re-opened

In case anyone is interested, discussion for a proposal to move the disambiguation page at America to America (disambiguation) and change America to redirect to the United States has been re-opened. An experiment using specially constructed redirects on the dab page was agreed upon, but after claims were made of the stats being manipulated, some participants are suggesting the traffic stats be ignored. older ≠ wiser 04:18, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Primary topics - acronyms

(moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation to unify discussion with Dicklyon's proposed WP:NOTFORNERDS change to PRIMARYTOPIC [11]with Talk:DNS#NOTFORNERDS)

For acronyms, would it be useful if WP:PRIMARYTOPIC mentioned how it is contrasts with WP:ACRONYMTITLE which some editors are explicitly conflating, others seemingly conflating in the discussion? Widefox; talk 08:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

How does it contrast with WP:ACRONYMTITLE? That is, what would we change or add in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:39, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Clarify...WP:ACRONYMTITLE talks about "To determine the prominence of the abbreviation over the full name, " and to check abbreviations.com. My hunch is the awareness of those may be distorting the PRIMARYTOPIC debate which should be focussed on likelihood and longevity. As to what to add, maybe something along the lines of "In contrast to WP:ACRONYMTITLE, the selection of an acronym as a primary topic is unrelated to usage of the full title versus the acronym, and solely about in comparison with the other ambiguous terms." That is one thing I'm thinking, but it may need some work so rather than contrast, maybe unite would be better, a suggestion. Widefox; talk 12:50, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I like that. In general, not just with acronyms, the article titling guidelines are about "Here's a topic. What title should it have?" While disambiguation asks "Here's a title. What topic should it have?" A topic article always has to have a title, but a title doesn't always have to have a (primary) topic. It doesn't matter if the Title1's topic should be titled "Title2" -- that just means we redirect Title1 to Title2. If Topic1's title should have Topic2 (the primary topic for the title is Topic2), then Topic1 needs a qualifier appeneded to the title. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:59, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

There's separate issues going on coming out of the DNS primary topic discussion (Domain Name System), I will try to summise:

1. (Strong candidate for) most likely article is technical (arguably obscure or nerdy)
2. Usage of acronym (like any other alternative name), and in particular primary topic redirects
3. Countering systemic bias - how do we factor that in? e.g. WP:NOTFORNERDS is to counter the IT/technical/obscure bias
4. Readers come to articles through Google "DNS": #1 is Domain Name System which didn't have a hatnote as there was no DNS redirect to it, and I guess others didn't consider this (as it wasn't a primary topic)
5. article popularity may not be correlated with acronym popularity (or any alternative title) - having stats on clickthroughs from DABs would simply tell us (http referer or server logs for example) - this may be overkill but would focus on DAB usage (e.g. America experiment)
6. WP:ACRONYMTITLE and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC are not the same thing, not in conflict, and can both be satisfied in a 1:n fashion
7. Awareness of the acronym (or alternative title) is a deciding factor in WP:ACRONYMTITLE, but arguably isn't in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (per 6)
8. discussions involving primary topic selection are getting sidetracked with confusion over article titling, when no articles are getting renamed anyhow WP:PRIMARYTOPIC =/= WP:ACRONYMTITLE

1, 3 and 4 together: If we counter systemic bias by biasing so strongly against current usage for technical terms, we cut our nose off to spite our face when access via routes like Google give readers the article in one click anyhow, not via a DAB and we didn't have a hatnote for the other DNS uses. There must be a balance for each case. I'm not sure how the DAB is the right place to counter systemic bias of the readership (unless a weak or pathological example)...I don't know.

Lots aren't known to the wider readership, but neither are lots of non-IT acronyms, and WP is fully of nerdy topics/acronyms so a WP:WARONNERDY seems counterproductive IMHO. Examples of primary topic redirects (acronyms):

• technical
  • HP (disambiguation) - well known, although also a sauce in the UK, and horsepower giving it a run
  • URL (disambiguation)
  • DHCP (disambiguation)
  • SDIF (disambiguation)
  • IETF (disambiguation)
  • ATX (disambiguation)
  • AIX (disambiguation)
  • QQ (disambiguation) - popular in China
  • PAL (disambiguation) - nerdy in some countries, possibly unknown in others
  • ATSC (disambiguation)
  • MP4 (disambiguation)
• RM Candidates
  • DNS
  • TCP (Weaker)
  • TLS (Weaker)
• US centric
  • IRS (disambiguation) - US tax
  • NSA (disambiguation) - currently well known
  • FBI (disambiguation) - well known
  • CIA (disambiguation) - well known
  • USMC (disambiguation) - US military
  • SAT (disambiguation)
  • EPA (disambiguation)
• other
  • CND (disambiguation) - UK/nuclear nerdy
  • RAF (disambiguation) - UK/military nerdy
  • GRU (disambiguation) - Russian nerdy - primary might need looking at - marked for cleanup
  • KERIS (disambiguation) - could be moved to Keris (disambiguation)
  • UFO (disambiguation) - widely known if nerdy
  • UAE (disambiguation) - widely known?
  • AWOL (disambiguation) - might be general language
  • EDTA (disambiguation) - Chemistry
  • V6 (disambiguation) - engine nerds
  • V8 (disambiguation) - engine nerds
  • V10 (disambiguation) - engine nerds
• likely consensus on these ones
  • G8 (disambiguation)
  • G7 (disambiguation) (maybe)
  • H2O (disambiguation) (1st primary redirect water) - chemistry
    • HOH (disambiguation) redir->lowercase DAB (2nd primary redirect water) - arguably too obscure
    • Hoh (disambiguation) (primary redirect Hoh Indian Tribe of the Hoh Indian Reservation)
  • EU (disambiguation) - well known in EU
  • EEC (disambiguation) (maybe)
  • UN (disambiguation) - no doubt about that one
  • UK (disambiguation) - no doubt about that one
  • CD (disambiguation) - tech
• non-redirects but worth a nerdy mention
  • O14 (disambiguation)
• just one example of redirects without a DAB, but with an alternative
  • NQR (disambiguation) - physics nerds

...etc...there's probably hundreds or thousands Widefox; talk 15:26, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

If it helps, there is a Category:Lists of TLAs, from which you can see lists of all three letter acronyms in the encyclopedia. You can see which ones are red links, and with the right skin you can see which ones are disambiguation pages (which is most of them), and which ones are articles or redirects. As a general matter, I prefer to have disambiguation pages at such titles unless there is a clear primary topic, and no other topics reasonably vying for primary topic status. bd2412 T 16:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

(ec from DNS)...Anyone Googling DNS finds the page anyway, and never sees the DAB, the move/discussion is somewhat moot. There was no hatnote until now at the WP:PRIMARYUSAGE to discover the other DNSs. What some folk are arguing for, is that WP:PRIMARYUSAGE and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC should be different. Let them make their case. Primaryusage topics, and "Google primarytopics" at least need a hatnote to cover that route. This is important and useful to prevent walled gardens (primarytopics get redirect hatnotes anyhow). I think we're trying to be too posh and dropping the ball. It's just a DAB, how exactly inconveniencing 97% of current readers help / steer / inform / correct systemic bias needs to be justified more that NOTFORNERDS. WP is for the readership of WP, including nerds - any flavour of nerd is welcome. There's a spectrum of primary topic redirect acronyms, at one end, I'm sure nobody is arguing for removing the likes of UK or UN, but theres lots at the generally unknown end DHCP and TLS TCP. Widefox; talk 00:22, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

There's a related issue of hatnotes when they aren't primary topics - see Wikipedia talk:Hatnote#Fixing NAMB. Widefox; talk 12:02, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Note that an acronym can be little known - is with NQR - and still have one topic that is clearly the primary topic for that acronym from among all possible choices. bd2412 T 13:37, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

We agree, but others didn't about the red-herring of widespread knowledge of the acronym (c.f. ACRONYMTITLE) in the PT discussion at DNS (disambiguation) needs to be clarified in PT to prevent such distractions in future as a shorthand. Widefox; talk 14:02, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

What is the primary topic for "Oprah Winfrey"?

It seems obvious to me that the primary topic for "Oprah Winfrey" is the topic of the article at Oprah Winfrey. The primary topic for "Whyalla" is the topic of Whyalla. The primary topic of Oprah is also the topic of Oprah Winfrey, so Oprah redirects to Oprah Winfrey.

This notion seems so obvious to me it seems like it should not have to be said. Others too. For example, today, sroc (talk · contribs) implied it was obvious in this edit at WP:PLACE, where he simplified:

City or Town alone is "acceptable if the name is unique, or if the place-name is the primary topic for that name"

to say:

"the name of a city or town may be used alone if the place is the primary topic for that name "

He clarified on the talk page that he thinks "unique" is redundant ("if it's unique, it will be the primary topic") [12].

But, as I've run into objections to this notion in the past, for clarity I thought we should modify WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to say this explicitly. But when tried to do this in the past [13], by adding the following text to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:

When a word, name or phrase refers to only one topic on Wikipedia, then that topic is the unique use, and so also the primary topic for that term.

It was reverted by SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs) [14] for reasoning I cannot comprehend ("No. A dictionary word, or swear word, or neologism, and other things may make a uniqui topic an inappropriate title").

I can't comprehend this because I don't know how a topic can be made into a title. A topic is the subject of an article - which can have many names, but none of the names is the topic. For example, the topic of Oprah Winfrey is not "Oprah Winfrey", but the biography of the celebrity known as Oprah Winfrey. A topic is a concept that is the subject of the article, and the primary topic for a given term is the topic most likely to be sought by someone searching with that term. If that term has only one topic associated with it, isn't it obviously the primary topic?

Anyway, that was a few months ago and I didn't pursue Smokey's objection.

But prompted by sroc's edit today at WP:PLACE, I tried again[15] by adding the following statement to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:

Whenever a word, name or phrase is used to refer to only one topic on Wikipedia, that topic is the primary topic for that term. This is the topic to which the term should lead, serving as the title of (or a redirect to) the relevant article.

Pretty obvious, right? Yet it too was reverted, this time by Dicklyon (talk · contribs) [16], with the rather unhelpful edit summary, "I don't think we're ready to commit to that extreme case."

Extreme case? Recognizing that the primary topic of "Whyalla" is the topic of Whyalla is extreme?

What am I missing? --B2C 00:46, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem that I see with "Whenever a word, name or phrase is used to refer to only one topic on Wikipedia, that topic is the primary topic for that term", is that it expands the definition of a primary topic. It is pretty hard to imagine anything not being a primary topic that only occurs in one place, though. Apteva (talk) 01:05, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, we can certainly imagine a term that has only one use on Wikipedia. I gave three examples above. Oprah Winfrey, Oprah and Whyalla. Here are a few more: United States of America (a redirect to United States that has no other uses), Anarcho-syndicalism (title of article about unique use of "Anarcho-syndicalism"), Ubristes (title of article about the genus Ubristes).

And we can all ask the question: in such cases is the topic of these articles the primary topic for each of these terms with unique uses on WP?

What's the answer? No, because it expands the definition of primary topic? Does it? You would argue that "Oprah" has no primary topic? Because it has only one use? Really?

People like sroc edit policy pages assuming the definition already encompasses such terms.

I think it can only help to clarify it one way or another. It's just a definition. We should be clear on whether we have to say "or is the unique use of the term", or whether that's already implied by saying WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. No? --B2C 01:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Primary topic only has significance when there is more than one topic that might have the same title. When a title is unique, there is no question of primary topic. Sroc's edit introduced imprecision into the other guideline. older ≠ wiser 02:09, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, I think I follow that. If a particular title has only one topic, there is no primary topic per se and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is irrelevant. Ergo, strictly speaking, deleting "unique" from "unique, or… the primary topic" excludes cases where the name is unique and there are no other uses (hence no primary topic). I suppose my edit was also intended to reflect cases where the name might be unique amongst places but there are other uses (besides places) and hence a question arises whether the place is the primary topic deserving of an undisambiguated title; being "unique" as a place name is not enough. Anyway, I thought my edit made it clear enough that this would apply where the place name was truly unique (not used for anything else), but I have no objection to restoring the "unique" if its omission causes a fuss. —sroc 💬 03:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Right, when a title is unique, like with Oprah, there is no question of primary topic, because the primary topic is obviously the topic of the article to which it uniquely refers. What's wrong with defining it like that? --B2C 04:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

B2C, there are a few things at least wrong with it. That it not reading clearly what you intend is certainly one. Requiring deciphering of your intent per se means that ita title is unique, there is no question of primary topic is not ready for the guideline. One problem of logic is that it effectively redefines "primary", and it is not reasonable to provide multiple definitions in parallel, presumably in the hope that one of them will be read correctly.

A particular problem is the "on Wikipedia". We should always be looking outward, not inward (a founding principle). The definition of PT (still thinking on how it should be renamed, the current name being very poor) should not depend on Wikipedia content or existing titles, but on external measures, such as usage in sources, whether "best" sources, or "currently referenced" sources etc, whether recognisable by what (all/educated/online/English-speaking/subject-aware?) readers.

A dictionary words, or local-use swear words, or neologisms typically don't have existing topics, but they will prevent a new invention from being able to claim PT.

Is Wagga the PT for Wagga Wagga, or is PT an ambiguous consideration, or is PT not the primary consideration? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Since Wagga redirects to Wagga Wagga, if there is no error, the PT of "Wagga" is the topic of Wagga Wagga. If that article's topic is not the PT for "Wagga", then Wagga should not redirect to that article. This is the definition of PT.

What's the problem? --B2C 04:12, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I think, maybe, "PT" is not normally considered a property of a term, but instead a term may or may not be a "PT" of a topic. ? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

No. A term is not a topic, so a term can't be a primary topic. Also, you can't have a topic of a topic, so the phrase "'PT' of a topic" is nonsensical.

A term can refers to a topic (or to several topics), and a topic to which a given term refers may be the primary topic of that term.

For example, the term Ford refers to many topics (see Ford (disambiguation), but one of those topics, the topic of the article at Ford Motor Company, is consider to be the primary topic of the term "Ford", so Ford is a redirect which takes you to Ford Motor Company. Make sense? --B2C 21:01, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

• comment I'm not sure I understand either side of the story here. If you're the only person in a room, you're also the tallest person in the room. And the shortest. And the most handsome. etc. All of these are trivially true - but they ARE true. However, I'm not sure why we need to enter a trivial identity into the guideline.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:26, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

• Is the solution "Unambiguous terms may be redirected to the relevant article"? If so, an if worth mentioning, it surely belongs on Wikipedia:Redirect? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:36, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

• You've got it, Obiwankenobi (talk · contribs). It is a trivial identity. I too wouldn't think we need to state it in the guideline, except that a surprising number of even experienced editors don't get it. The practical implication is that every time any other guideline refers to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, it needs to qualify the trivial identity case. So, for example, WP:PLACE can't just say, "If the city is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of its name, then ...". Instead, it needs to say, "If the city is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of its name, or the name refers to no other topics besides the city, then ...". It's awkward. And that awkwardness can be avoided (not only in many guidelines, but also in countless discussions) if the trivial identity is stated here in the guideline. Make sense? --B2C 21:01, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

"The primary topic of Oprah is also the topic of Oprah Winfrey, so Oprah redirects to Oprah Winfrey."

What do you mean by topic?

Did you mean to write "The primary topic of Oprah is also the primary topic of Oprah Winfrey, so Oprah redirects to Oprah Winfrey."

If so, does not this mean that "The" [singular] "primary topic" is ill defined because one topic may have multiple "primary topics"?

Sorry, but this "primary topic" jargon is so confusing. It appears to be wikipedia ill defined jargon, used to mean whatever the writer shooses it to mean at the time.

If you don't mean that "Oprah is also the primary topic of Oprah Winfrey", then Oprah must be possibly ambiguous, and then no, it should not be redirected. (Aside, actually Oprah is arguably ambiguous between the person and the product)

No, I am not the only one. So many RMs contain both "Move per primary topic" and "Oppose per primary topic".

The term "Primary topic" is inherently a bad term. It would probably be very much better for communication if everyone could minimise or avoid unnecessary use of the phrase "primary topic". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:29, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I meant exactly what I wrote. Please read WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Every article has a topic. The article at Oprah Winfrey has a topic - the subject of that article (the celebrity).

Terms refer to topics. "Oprah Winfrey" is a term that refers to the topic of the article at Oprah Winfrey. "Oprah" is another term that refers to that same topic.

Some terms refer to more than one topic. If one of those topics is most likely the one being sought and more likely than all the others, by someone using that term to search, then we call that topic the PT for that term. The trivial case is when a term refers to only one topic... It's that term's PT for the same reason the only person in a room is the tallest person in the room.

"Oprah" and "Oprah Winfrey" are two terms that (both trivially) refer to the same PT. So each one must either be the title or a redirect to the article about that topic. Since Oprah Winfrey is the title, and "the primary topic of (the term) "Oprah" is also the topic of (the article at) Oprah Winfrey, Oprah redirects to Oprah Winfrey."

Make sense? --B2C 05:26, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

In summary:

• The primary topic* of Oprah Winfrey is the American talk show host named Oprah Winfrey; it is the primary topic because it is more likely that anyone going to that article will be looking for that topic than for anything else. (It is also the most appropriate article title for this person in accordance with WP:NCP, so the article goes here.)
• The primary topic of Oprah is the same person, so this name redirects to the above article. "Oprah" has a secondary topic being her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which is therefore included in a hatnote at the top of the article.
• James Smith has no primary topic. There are many people with this name, none of which is so well known that they are more likely than all the others to be who the reader is looking for. Therefore, this title returns a disambiguation page.
• James Brown has a primary topic, being an American musician referred to as "The Godfather of Soul". Even though there are many other people with the same name, it is more likely that readers going to that article will be looking for an article about him than about any other. Others with the same name are listed at James Brown (disambiguation).

*Arguably, there is no "primary topic" for Oprah Winfrey if there is no other topic associated with this name. However, it may be argued that The Oprah Winfrey Show is also associated with the same name, so the person is the primary topic and the talk show is a secondary topic.

—sroc 💬 10:34, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, arguably, there is a "primary topic" for Oprah Winfrey if there is no other topic associated with this name - it's a trivial mathematical identity - if there's only once choice, that choice is primary. But what I don't understand is, why does it matter either way? Can someone give a specific example where a unambiguous title with no other options being "primary", or not being "primary", matters? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:43, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Obiwankenobi that a truly unique title is trivially also a primary topic. In the context of disambiguation, it seems unnecessary to point this out. To modify my earlier statement, Primary topic only has significance when there is more than one topic that might have the same title. When a title is unique, there is no question of primary topic is a trivial consideration. As an aside, why does the hatnote only mention Oprah's now defunct television show? There are any number of other potentially ambiguous media properties such as the Oprah Winfrey Network (U.S. TV channel), Oprah Winfrey Network (Canadian TV channel), O, The Oprah Magazine, Oprah Winfrey Foundation, and numerous other less likely but potentially ambiguous (through ellipsis). older ≠ wiser 13:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I expected to see the others listed under Oprah Winfrey#See_also, but no. That section, appropriately filled, could virtually serve as a disambiguation section since all the other uses relate to/derive from her. —sroc 💬 14:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Bkonrad, well, I wouldn't quite say that "a truly unique title is trivially also a primary topic". I would say "the topic of a unique title is trivially the primary topic of that title". I don't quite agree that it's a trivial consideration, because if we're not clear about this here, then any place we refer to a primary topic we also have to clarify with something like "or is the only use".

I remind you this was prompted by a real guideline edit that is affected by whether we modify here or there. The problem with not modifying here is that we have to modify in countless theres. See below. --B2C 23:03, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

• comment We should all recall that primary topic is a wikipedia invention. it's sole purpose is to avoid users having to click a second time on a dab page, and bring them directly to where we think they are going. If we eliminated primary topic, then ambiguous titles would always go a DAB page. So, while it's certainly a useful thing, we should not elevate primary topic to some great importance - its ultimate purpose is to save a single click.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

It arose as an issue because I replaced a reference that said if a place name is unique or the primary topic to say if a place name is the primary topic (paraphrased), and someone claimed that place name that is "unique" would not be the "primary topic" (and "unique" is better understood anyway) so we should keep both. Then, for better or worse, Born2cycle thought it necessary to revise WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to include cases where a title has a sole topic within the meaning of "primary topic" (although I think this is unnecessary). —sroc 💬 13:03, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

is there a specific case where this actually makes a difference? Hmm, I think I do agree with B2C on this, we should be consistent, and the easiest way is to always use Primary topic, and define a unique name as being trivially the Primary Topic to avoid having to say "unique name or primary topic" everywhere else.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I think I was relying on common sense, but of course, Wikipedia requires it to be set out in a guideline (see WP:COMMONSENSE). —sroc 💬 14:19, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I think JHunterJ said it brilliantly in a discussion above:

“ The article titling guidelines are about "Here's a topic. What title should it have?" While disambiguation asks "Here's a title. What topic should it have?" A topic article always has to have a title, but a title doesn't always have to have a (primary) topic. It doesn't matter if the Title1's topic should be titled "Title2" -- that just means we redirect Title1 to Title2. If Topic1's title should have Topic2 (the primary topic for the title is Topic2), then Topic1 needs a qualifier appended to the title. ”

In short, the question of what is the primary topic of a term is a separate and distinct inquiry from the question of what is the best title of an article discussing that topic. Of course, if the primary topic for James Brown is the soul singer, there is no compelling reason to have an article on the soul singer at any title other than James Brown. bd2412 T 13:32, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree that JHunterJ's analysis and phrasing there are pure gold. This quote should be prominently incorporated into our guidelines. Andrewa (talk) 20:20, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

JHJ's analysis is indeed spot on, but it doesn't address the problem I'm trying to address. That is this: when the text in a guideline refers to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, as in "if it is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, then...", we are currently unclear on whether that condition applies when a term has only one unique use. We can address this two ways:

1. Clarify this trivial case once in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, as I originally did (documented/linked at top of this section), OR
2. In every such relevant guideline and countless discussions clarify such phrases as "if article topic is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term, or the topic is the only use of the term, then ...".

It seems to me that #1 is much simpler and, so far as I can tell, causes no problems. I don't understand why anyone is objecting to this, much less why so many are. --B2C 21:01, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with B2C here. If there is this much confusion, and people saying "well, that's not really primary b/c there aren't other options, therefore some different rule might apply, unless it has already been clarified in some guideline or policy as "primary topic and/or unique", we're better of settling it once and for all, and explicitly noting the trivial identity in the definition of primarytopic, so that it applies everywhere primary topic is invoked. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Can you make sense of Dicklyon's point below? I thought I finally understood, but then I realized that since PT does not favor titles over redirects, his objection stopped making sense again. --B2C 22:52, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Bkonrad (talk · contribs)? What do you think? --B2C 23:03, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Summer camp

On the first day of summer camp after everyone settled the camp leader gathered everyone and asked them to share their primary goal at the camp. Johnny went first.
Johnny: My primary goal is to make some really good friends.
Jack: My primary goal is to learn how to canoe.
Jake: My primary goal is to learn how to carve wood.
Leader: That's great, guys, how about you, Paul?
Paul: I don't have a primary goal as I have only one goal. Since I choose to interpret "primary" as a relative term, the concept of a primary goal only has relevance when one has more than one goal. So my one goal can't be a primary goal.
Leader: Okay... Paul... what ever... So what is your one goal?
Paul: Practice pointless pedantry.

The point of this is to ask, other than to practice pointless pedantry, why object to clarifying that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC applies in the trivial case like "Oprah Winfrey" where a term refers to only one topic?

What is the harm in defining WP:PRIMARYTOPIC such that the primary topic of the term "Oprah Winfrey" is the topic of the article at Oprah Winfrey?

The benefit of clearly including the trivial case in the definition of PT is that when we we are talking about PTs of terms (whether in guidelines or discussions), we are clearly including the trivial cases, and so don't need to clarify that we mean to include those cases in every such reference.

--B2C 21:01, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Please be more careful

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Could B2C avoid putting his own, untested views into the guideline, please? It's now been reverted, I notice. Good. Tony (talk) 03:33, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, B2C has quoted this particular edit as part of the strategy he's advocating at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves#When can a new RM be initiated after a controversial RM is closed?. It doesn't seem to be attracting much support there either. Andrewa (talk) 07:05, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I haven't been following that conversation. Is there a headline version of the problem with noting that if there's only one WP topic for a WP title, it's the primary topic for the title? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Not that I have seen, either at the discussion to which I linked above at WP Talk:RM or elsewhere, but I may have missed it, and would welcome a link or diff if there is.

See the current version of their user page for B2C's views. While I feel that these views depart from existing guidelines in their underlying approach, that's not a problem provided these views are promoted in the right way, and much of B2C's proposals I heartily endorse. I'm not even sure that this particular edit is a problem, that's not the point at all. But there seems some unease about B2C's approach, and again see the discussion at WP Talk:RM.

Personally I'm concerned that B2C seems to think that they have the right to interpret existing policy and guidelines and rephrase them to better reflect this particular interpretation, without prior discussion. Again see the discussion at WP Talk:RM, and sorry it's a bit convoluted. This seems to be a case in point, by B2C's own admission there. See this diff at WP Talk:RM, and comments welcome, particularly if anyone feels I am misinterpretting this particular diff. Andrewa (talk) 20:15, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, I think all contributors "have the right to interpret existing policy and guidelines and rephrase them to better reflect [any] particular interpretation, without prior discussion", as long as that interpretation is genuinely believed to improve WP and to be consistent with community consensus. This happens all the time. It's common practice. The vast majority of edits to this guideline page, for example, fall into the category of contributors exercising this right.

Of course, if such a good faith edit is reverted, we resort to discussion to develop consensus.

In this particular case, I too am looking for the headline "of the problem with noting that if there's only one WP topic for a WP title, it's the primary topic for the title?" The closest I've seen is Bkonrad pointing out that PT is part of D which only applies in the context of terms with multiple uses. But that doesn't explain the problem with stating that PT also applies for the trivial case of the unambiguous term - that the one and only topic to which the term refers is by definition its primary topic. --B2C 21:11, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure, you have the right to push your views, but when you do that directly on policy pages, as you have done so frequently for the last 7 years or so, and your views are so out of step with the mainstream, as they very frequently are, it's on the extremely annoying end of what we tolerate as "bold". Dicklyon (talk) 21:18, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The current point on which you should be very familiar with the controversy is about your wanting to define "ambiguous" as meaning only that a term could be the title of more than one WP article. Many editors interpret "ambiguous" in a broader, dictionary-like, sense, esp. as concerns the "precision" provision in title considerations. You have consistently pushed to devalue precision, and this appears to be yet another tactic in that direction. Dicklyon (talk) 21:24, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not pushing my view, Dick. I'm pushing the view of the community consensus as reflected in the first line at WP:D: "ambiguous—when it refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles."

It is your personal view - not supported by community consensus as reflected in policy and guidelines - that "ambiguous" on WP can apply to a term that refers to only one topic covered by Wikipedia articles - that is contrary to community consensus. Yes, once in a while you can find a majority of a relatively insignificantly small self-selected group of contributors who want to interpret "ambiguous" more broadly in some context, but that is not evidence that community consensus agrees with you. The position I advocate, in contrast, is right there in black and white on WP:D.

So, what your revert is all about is pushing your POV favoring the broad meaning of "ambiguous" that encompasses uses not on WP? You're concerned that some term, say "abcxyz", might have only one use on WP, perhaps the name of a book, but another use outside of WP (not on WP presumably because it's not notable or not encyclopedic - why else would it not be covered here? that's the whole point of limiting the scope of "ambiguous" to topics covered on WP), and you'll want to disambiguate it as Abcxyz (book) because of that non-notable use? And make Abcxyz a redirect to the article at Abcxyz (book)? And if we add this trivial case clarification to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, implying that the PT of "Abcxyz" is the book, you won't be able to advocate for your more precise title? But that doesn't even make sense, because as long Abcxyz is the title or a redirect to the article about the book, PT is satisfied. The issue here would be unnecessary disambiguation. But maybe you think you'll have to argue against WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to unnecessarily disambiguate the title of the article about the book? Well, thanks. I'm starting to get it, but at least one of us still unclear about something. Maybe you can take it from here? --B2C 22:47, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The page reads in part Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. I would have thought that clear enough, but we seem to be interpreting it differently. Andrewa (talk) 03:09, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

No one has explained how this edit is against consensus, or how it's even substantive. As others have noted, it's a clarification regarding the trivial case of PT. I don't have any doubt that the addition reflects consensus. But it was quickly reverted and we've been discussing since, per BRD. So, if anyone still believes it does not reflect consensus, or harms WP, of doesn't improve WP, or changes anything substantively, please explain. --B2C 05:28, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

You don't think we have a rough consensus here that your edit should have been put up for discussion first? Andrewa (talk) 08:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

The issue here is whether the trivial case content I inserted and Dicklyon reverted has community consensus support, not whether a rough consensus of a self-selected small group of contributors is that we should have discussed it first. We won't know whether it should have been discussed first until it's determined whether the substance has community consensus support. But at this point I still don't see any substantive consensus-based reasons to object to including the trivial case clarification. Do you? If not, doesn't that mean it's reasonable to conclude it has community consensus support, just as I believed when I made the original edit? --B2C 13:43, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Your wording was not describing a "trivial case", it was redefining Primary Topic to exist when there is only one article for the term (and therefore to always exist, instead of the previous "it is sometimes the case that..."). This doesn't reflect community consensus in any way. Diego (talk) 13:52, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I used the word "trivial" in the edit summary of that edit. At least one other person has described it as "the trivial case". It's like determining the "tallest" person in a room. While it is sometimes the case that one of the people in the room is clearly the "tallest", often one or more are of equal height and so there is no clear "tallest" person. But the trivial case is when there is only one person in the room - that person is trivially "tallest".

Same with primary topic. When a term has multiple uses, sometimes one of those uses is clearly primary, sometimes not. But in the trivial case, when the term has only one use, it a trivial matter of semantics to define that one use to be "primary". How is that not a trivial case? Why be unclear about this? --B2C 15:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

And that's the correct use of the word "trivial" there. The trivial case for "disambiguation" is when there is no ambiguity. When a title refers to only one topic covered on Wikipedia, even if the universe has more topics that for whatever reason aren't covered on Wikipedia, that topic is the primary topic (in Wikipedia terms) for that title. Just like Wikipedia "consensus" does not mean real-world "consensus", Wikipedia "ambiguity" and "primary topic" do not mean real-world "ambiguity" or "primary topic". Putting the only WP topic at the WP base name (whether you call it the trivial case of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or just simply WP:PRECISION) is indeed the community consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Right. Put another way, when there is only one article for a term, the topic of that article clearly meets the PRIMARY TOPIC criteria for that term. That is, "it is highly likely...to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term". So the only topic for a term is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for that term by definition. Trivially.

Further, the only topic associated with a term has at least some enduring notability and educational value, and since there is no other topic associated with it, it trivially has "substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term." So it meets the long-term significance criterion too.

I definitely see objection to adding clarification about this - but I see no reasoning for the objection whatsoever. So why the objection? Anyone? --B2C 16:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Note to those reading - trivial is used here in the mathematics/computer science sense - see Trivial_(mathematics) - not in the sense of "of little significance or value" or "concerned with or involving trivia".

To reply to AndrewA's note above, obviously we are still explaining this and the edit was reverted, but if I had though of it I would have been bold and made the same edit myself, as I, like B2C and JHunterJ, see this as a trivial identity. Topics without competing topics at the same name *are* the PRIMARYTOPIC - so rules or discussions that involve PRIMARYTOPIC should apply to those articles as well. You don't need to discuss EVERY change to a policy page, but if you get reverted, then you do discuss.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

When there's only an article for a given title this is not the PRIMARYTOPIC, this is the ONLYTOPIC. I don't think using mathematical terms and redefining common English words is the proper way to write policy. Your "trivial" concept is against the current definition, which is that PRIMARYTOPIC is something that exists when "a word, name or phrase refers to more than one topic".

We're largely discussing semantics here, but I still believe in an explicit enumeration of possibilities instead of using set theory to handle degenerate cases; guidelines are written for people, not mathematicians.

There are also more pragmatic concerns for avoiding this generalization of the concept. I'm afraid that expanding the already disputed concept of PRIMARYTOPIC to cover ALL WIKIPEDIA PAGES is asking for problem, and that somebody will use this to wikilawyer their way onto unsuspecting editors. Diego (talk) 17:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

The mathematical connotation of "trivial" is being used in the discussion about whether to include the clarification in the guideline; no one is suggesting it be used in the text of the guideline itself. Understanding the wording I proposed does not even require an awareness of set theory, let alone being a mathematician.

We are discussing semantics here. Thank you for finally providing at least a hint as to why someone might think the definition of PT should not be clarified in the trivial case.

So, those who dispute the concept of PRIMARYTOPIC fear this change will weaken their case even further? That's what this is all about for you, Tony, and Dicklyon? You're objecting due to internal WP politics? Really? That makes it "pragmatic" for you? And you've got nothing else? --B2C 17:48, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll use "obvious" instead of "trivial", if that helps with the English. WP:PRECISION also covers all Wikipedia articles, and comes to the same conclusion that the addition of the obvious case of "If there's only one topic for a title, it's the primary topic for the title", if that obvious case were re-added to the dab page: "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that" -- that is, if there's only one topic for a title, that title doesn't need a qualifier to distinguish it from the non-existent WP topics that would have been ambiguous with the title if they existed. We could make it a separate ONLYTOPIC section if there's an issue with adding it to the PRIMARYTOPIC section. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:49, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

LOL. But that would be an improvement, because then we could say "if the topic is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or the WP:ONLYTOPIC for the term then ...".

Hey! We could also have WP:PRIMARYORONLYTOPIC defined as "a topic which is either the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or the WP:ONLYTOPIC for a given term is also the WP:PRIMARYONLYTOPIC for that term". Then we could simply say, "if the topic is the WP:PRIMARYORONLYTOPIC for a term....". Works for me! --B2C 20:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

"WP:OFFTOPIC" as not disambiguation. Widefox; talk 03:00, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I accept that you believed that it was a good thing to make this edit without previous discussion, and it's obvious that you were very confident in this. But this was a mistake, as the reaction showed. Everyone makes mistakes. My personal definition of an expert is someone who has already made most of their mistakes. That's how they got to be an expert.

As I pointed out previously, guidelines are headed When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. In view of your misplaced confidence that this particular edit needed no discussion first, I think you should now give an undertaking not to edit any guideline or policy without prior discussion, however trivial or logical the edit may seem to you.

I'm not saying don't edit. I am saying, in your case you should always discuss first.

The discussion may simply be a single sentence that receives no replies at all, but I expect that you will receive a surprising amount of feedback. Give it a go. Andrewa (talk) 18:38, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

WP:PDAB

There was a discussion about the brand-new inclusion of WP:PDAB, which was archived due to lack of activity (it can be found in the archive here. In the discussion it was found this section is and I will cite : "uninformative and potentially confusing/misleading", "vague", and approved with a rare consensus (7-5) at VPP. It was also suggested that its addition is not relevant to WP:D but to WP:AT, and that its inclusion "overlap" and "[is] reduntant" with WP:INCDAB. Which have to be done with this section, rewritten, merged or removed? Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Explanation

I know the explanation is really long, it lasts four pages in Microsoft Word. It was intended to be posted at WP:MRV rather than here, but I modified it for this RFC.

In my opinion, as some people have seen, is the inclusion of WP:PDAB is incorrect, not only for its content, but because in some occasion it is being used as a policy rather than a guideline. This sub guide was recently created under a really obscure discussion which managed to a consensus 7 in favor v. 5 against at VPP (linked to an archive above). The guide is badly written. First it says that if an already disambiguated term (from now “dabbed”) still being ambiguous it should have a further disambiguation, like in Party (album) as it cites, but at the same time it says and I cite: “With some naming conventions, it is appropriate to redirect a partially disambiguated term to an article. If so, a hatnote directing readers to other possible targets (or a disambiguation page) should be used.” This happens in redirects like Thriller (album) or Chicken Little (film) as two of some other examples I have found. Redirecting the articles to Thriller (Michael Jackson album) or Chicken Little (2005 film) is a WP:PRECISION violation, which at the same time is part of a policy, it is like if we move America to America (disambiguation) and left the redirect there, or it’s like if we move “Central Time Zone back to Central Time Zone (North America) just to avoid confusion with the Australian zone, but at the same time left the redirect at CTZ (NA) as it had happened until last May. The second reason why PDAB is misleading is that in the strict sense articles like Paris, United States are partial disambiguation like in Thriller (album). Oxford defines “disambiguate” as “remove uncertainty of meaning from (an ambiguous sentence, phrase, or other linguistic unit)”, while Webster “to establish a single semantic or grammatical interpretation for”. Please fill the gaps (for real):

• Paris was ______ in ____.
• The United States of _______ was founded in the 18th century.
• The album Thriller is one of the most successful albums released by ___________________.

A normal person would have answered “founded, 250 BC, America, Michael Jackson”, but the correct answers are:

• Paris was born in 1981.
• The United States of Belgium was founded in the 18th century.
• The album Thriller is one of the most successful albums released by Eddie and the Hot Rods.

If there is no context the ambiguity is clear. One may argue that they are the WP:PRIMARYTOPICS and, therefore, what readers are searching the most, but why this can/does not apply to PDAB pages, Thriller (album) with a lot more of hits than any of the other two albums (or in fact any page titled “Thriller”, even when already dabbed “Thriller (album)” receives more hits than “Thriller (Michael Jackson album)”: [17] [18], and it is not because those readers are searching Eddie and the Hot Rods or Lambchop albums [19] [20] their hits would have increased since then. Something similar has happened with Psycho (1960 film). Since its move still receiving more hits than its remake, [21] which interestingly now receive less hits than in the past since 1960’s move: [22], [23], [24], [25]. Or Poison (American band) as I linked it Thriller (MJ album) talk page. The same has applied to “Thriller” which after the move still being the page readers searches the most of any other “Thriller”. In fact the only place MJ album should go is at Thriller, but the genre and maybe the MJ song, or its respective video, can be the primary topic. The supposed reason why these full DABs are performed is because of our readers, if this is for the readers, why are we making them go from page to page and not giving them what they are looking for easily and quickly? The best example I have found is Erotica (Madonna album) versus Erotica (The Darling Buds album). The first receives 500 daily hits, while the second receives from 5 to 15 visits,[26][27]. Are readers looking for the TDB album? Maybe or maybe not, but the lack of readers Wikistats and Google results tell us they arrive there maybe for curiosity or for probable information the article doesn’t has, but it is clear Madonna’s is searched many times more.

In my opinion a reason to “support PDAB” is because confusion is intended to be avoided. And here comes a contradiction. If our readers are “confused” with our title style, that is “If I search ‘Thriller (album)’ in the search bar, why I am redirected to (before its move ‘why do I end at’) MJ album?” First of all a new reader or inexperienced reader will not search “Thriller (album)”, that’s something wiki sites use, but I don’t see the NYT or written encyclopedias using parenthesis; anyway Northwest proves this point. “North West” is the name of the daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, when she did born, “Northwest”, one of its redirects is “North West”, and , therefore, increased its page views and ended semi-protected due to vandalism. If the problem is that “Thriller (album)” is ambiguous, why it is titled like this in the first place, why these pages are not titled “Thriller (album of ‘Insert artist or band here’)”? In the search bar this kind of titles avoid *any* kind of confusion. Also using years disambiguation create confusions. Examples like HMS Speedy (1782), Titanic (1997 film), Cinderella (1950 film), etc makes me wonder if they get the article they are looking for in with the first hit. With this it is assumed the reader already knows the date in which the subject was released/created. For example, if another film(s) titled “Sleepy Hollow” is released, “Sleepy Hollow (film) should be moved to Sleepy Hollow (1999 film); until last year I didn’t know it was released in 1999, do you think every person in the world already knows when the subject of the article was created? We can’t assume readers come here with already known information about what they came to read here. During multiple RM discussions I asked PDAB supporters any kind of evidence readers are getting confused with the PDAB titles, but it never was presented, even when we have WP:FEEDBACK. Readers have the ability to complain about what happens in Wikipedia asking within Wikipedia or any other place. I’ve seen people discussing Wikipedia, in positive and negative views elsewhere.

Another problem is that some of the PDAB supporters believe pages like WP:D or WP:NCM are policies and not guidelines,[28] in either case a violation of WP:BURO. They tend to cite WP:NCM, but that page a) used to contradict itself with WP:MOSALBUM until last month somebody removed that contradiction without consensus to do so.[29], b) NCM currently contradicts itself (in the Anthrax (band) part where another band with the same name exists), and c) the problem with NCM is that another user added this information about PDABs without consensus back in 2009.[30]. The problem is these people are using these guidelines as policies, and as such, they cannot be changed or questioned by users if they are listed there. Many of these NCX pages were created many years ago (WP:NCF was created possibly in 2002 and I doubt that with a great consensus to be created), and the creators may be retired, or there is no evidence these things were created with consensus, just that these guides have been edited since then and followed blindly creating a non-action consensus, like ...Baby One More Time (song) which was obviously the primary target of any “…Baby One More Time” article, but years ago editors were accustomed to create the album page as the primary target, and the title song under the DAB, for example the article Rudebox, which was about the song , was copy-pasted to Rudebox (song) and Rudebox (album) ended there, creating a copyvio mess. I’m not sure if pages like NCM were created with consensus or they were copied from another page (compare WP:NCM part to WP:NCF or WP:NCTV parts, they have a similar writing). Before all of this, it was a tendency that the argument “The Film uses a full dab, this album must follow its style,” but it is incorrect as trying to move a video game page not under WP:NCVG but under WP:NCMAC, each project exists for a reason.

These DABs are also affecting the editors. I found a double dabbed article, Corona de lágrimas (2012 telenovela), when Corona de lágrimas didn’t even has another article, why it had a year and a type of article disambiguation? Because the person who created it thought they were necessary. The same for Lifening which was at “Lifening (Snow Patrol song) with no other article to be disambiguated. The list of unnecessary further dabs is long (at least in what I’ve found). Or what about the current RM at Talk:All the Wrong Places (song), there is no other article in Wikipedia with this name, why is the internal disambiguation needed when All the Wrong Places (book) doesn’t exit and All the Wrong Places redirects to the song?

I also found Circle the Drain (song) when there wasn’t another article. I find interesting this case in particular, if you are an admin you can verify all of this. “Circle the Drain” was a disambiguation page which contained two items, one about a song by Katy Perry (located in the article Circle the Drain (song)) and one about a song by 36 Crazyfists from the album Bitterness the Star. In the strict sense “Circle the Drain (song)” still ambiguous as 36’s is also a song; under PDAB arguments it should have been located in the first place at Circle the Drain (Katy Perry song). The same case is being applied to Another Love’s RM, there aren’t other links, but commentators were more worried about having multiple non-article songs than checking simple WP:PRECISION stuff. Also the article Left Behind: The Movie still being ambiguous as the movie Left Behind: World at War exists, should the first be moved to Left Behind: The Movie (2000 film) to avoid ambiguity?

Moving pages like Thriller (album) to MJ album is that I, and other people, asked, asks or will ask: which is the sense of moving Thriller (album) to Thriller (Michael Jackson album) if the redirect will lead there? That doesn’t solve the problem, it is moved from “Should this page be called “Thriller (album)”” to “Should “Thriller (album)” redirect here?” The title is not supposed to tell the reader what s/he is reading, that’s the function of the lead paragraph. Per PRECISION, we don’t move Energy to Energy (physics) and left a redirect of Energy to that page. It’s like moving Thriller to Thriller (disambiguation) and left the redirect there. There is no sense of disambiguate titles like these, as happended with Ohio District (LCMS) or Central Time Zone (North America), if their non-dabbed redirect page still redirecting there, why Revolver (album), Thriller (album) or The Wizard of Oz (film) are redirected to articles and not disambiguation pages? This is done under an argument “it is what they are searching”, but with a hidden message: “we want to inform the reader what s/he is reading with the article title”, why don’t we give them what they look for without redirects? They are readers, they have the ability of read.

According to In Oculi, items like “Primary albums, films, songs, plants, footballers*, cities (I put an asterisk mark to re-take it later)” has never existed in WPs, but who says they cannot be created? PDAB didn’t exist last May. First of all, as I asked before, was any of the WP:NCX created under consensus of their respective projects, or they were taken or copied from another project, or based upon WP:NC? When NC was created, common sense was applied? Because thanks to these guidelines people has lost its common sense as Deadmaus proved in its first move—yes, the “5” is an style, but it is pronounced anyway, it is not just a style, and people now believe WP:MOSTM is a policy.—Retaking the “footballers*”, if WP:FOOTY has not a primary topic about footballers, why Pelé and Pelé (footballer) are where they are when there are other three footballers with the same name, that’s a contradiction.

At Revolver (album) which was moved to Revolver (The Beatles album) when there was clearly no consensus to move, the moving admin, Tariq, cited PDAB as possibly the “consensus” to move the page regardless the RM decision, when in fact community consensus can override *any* existing policy or guideline (excepting WP:Copyrights, WP:Libel or any other policy that can bring problems to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.). The evidence of this is Star Trek Into Darkness. “Into” is a four-letter preposition and per WP:CT the page should be called “Star Trek into Darkness”, but it was moved per WP:COMMONNAME (link), a situation ended being discussed in external references like The Independent. The policy WP:Username states that e-mail user names shouldn’t be used, then why accounts with e-mails still editing? Because we can’t obligate them to change their name, especially when this statement was added after their account creation.

Is it better to have pages like Revolver (album) (disambiguation)? I will notify users who have supported, opposed or commented in PDAB-related pages about this discussion (generally we are the same people who comment in similar situations), but also I will notify the projects affected by this, which are mostly those who have NCX pages. The intention of this survey is to see what's next for PDAB, if it is reworded, or merged, or removed with a real community participation bigger than a discussion of twelve users. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:PDAB survey

You can add modify (rewrite), merge or remove and a reason or explanation, or you simply add your comments.

• Remove as nominator for revision. The section contradicts itself with WP:PRECISION, a policy, and with WP:INCDAB in this guideline page. Tbhotch.^™Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 04:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Keep WP:PDAB, as it is a concise statement of the consensus view about this topic. I don't see that it contradicts anything, but if it does, let's work on cleaning that up. It certainly does not contradict precision (which anyway is not a policy, but rather one criterion in a suggestion on a policy page). Dicklyon (talk) 05:43, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • The guide itself do not, but Thriller (album) redirected to an article is not a solution (considering the quick answer you didn't read what I wrote, which I suggest you to do. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 07:06, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• Keep as Dicklyon says WP:PDAB is a concise statement of the editing community's longstanding consensus view about this topic. There will be exceptions, where a special case can be made, but agitation against this consensus (which already was enshrined in film and music guidelines) is coming from a very small cluster of editors on a very small number of articles. The rest of wikipedia doesn't play Billboard Charts or "Top of the Pops" to find John Brown (TOP footballer) vs John Brown (footballer, born 1962), or Trinidad (TOP town) vs Trinidad, Paraguay. The agitation for a "primary album" "primary song" "primary band" slot is disruptive in itself, and leads to needless and constantly changing competition for the "primary song" slot while providing no value and some inconvenience to the User. Let's hope this confirmation of that consensus puts an end to this. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Note that among several misunderstandings of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC above Tbhotch asks "....footballers, why Pelé and Pelé (footballer) are where they are when there are other three footballers with the same name" the question being, why does Pelé (footballer) redirect to Pelé, not to Pelé (disambiguation). The reason is that Pelé is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of everything, Hungarian villages, asteroids, volcanos, he is not merely Pelé (TOP footballer) (as if TOP album, TOP song), but he is the absolute Pelé period, full stop. This is how disambiguation on en.wp works, Pelé is the primary topic, therefore he is not disambiguated. WP:FOOTY here is typical of films, music, and en.wp as a whole. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

And what about Paris when there are multiple "Paris" references or Pelé (footballer), when there are four footballers. I had told you and presented evidence why MJ Thriller is the "top of the pops" album titled Thriller (best selling album ever?), but you never explain why your examples, in this case "John Brown (footballer, born 1962)", is the primary topic, in this case why he should go at "John Brown (footballer)"? Also, this discussion is not to explain why Thriller MJ can be at "Thriller", nor "John Brown (footballer, born 1962)" at "John Brown" (in case somebody thinks this is the idea). Now what you said about the "which already was enshrined in film and music guidelines" part. WP:NFC since its creation explains these disambiguations, the question is, was it created with consensus? WP:NOPRO was a guideline created because Raul was tired of explaining people why WP:TFAs weren't protected, now it was removed because this was a polemical guide that preferred to have BLP violations just to keep the "everyone can edit" ideology. For WP:NCM, as you know as I have explained you at least twice, this was added without consensus, just was copy-pasted from another page. How the "Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus." part was respected?

Post (edit conflict). Well you say "The reason is that Pelé is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of everything, Hungarian villages, asteroids, volcanos, he is not merelyPelé (TOP footballer) (as if TOP album, TOP song), but he is the absolute Pelé period, full stop." Michael Jackson's Thriller is the only well-known album, and probably the most important in the world, not only because I say so, but because the legacy in the R&B, funk, pop, rock and other genres categories. We can't decide that something is primary when it is not dabbed, but something can't be primary when it is dabbed.Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 07:06, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Tbhotch

The difference is this:

• Pelé is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of everything, Hungarian villages, asteroids, volcanos
• Thriller is a dab. There is no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, consequently every article will be Thriller (bracket something).

In ictu oculi (talk) 01:33, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment My general impression of the support for the PDAB guideline was that it was intended to avoid disambiguators that don't actually disambiguate. A common thought process among supporters of the guideline is that it seems strange to provide a disambiguator (e.g. "(album)") when it doesn't actually disambiguate the title from all other titles. It may appear confusing, or at least odd, to see on, for example, a disambiguation page the word "(album)" next to one article title... and then two other albums listed below. I don't feel the continued redirection of Thriller (album) to Thriller (Michael Jackson album) obfuscates that point, nor do I think it's particularly relevant when it's obvious it shouldn't be redirected to Thriller while scores of articles still use that link.

At Revolver (album) which was moved to Revolver (The Beatles album) when there was clearly no consensus to move, the moving admin, Tariq, cited PDAB as possibly the “consensus” to move the page regardless the RM decision, when in fact community consensus can override *any* existing policy or guideline Yeah, ok. Given Tbhotch's gusto against this issue, it should come as no surprise that that's an inaccurate summary of what happened at that RM. What happened was that supporters of the move cited PDAB (or the reasons that led to PDAB), while opponents either claimed that it would be harder to find the articles (which wouldn't actually happen so long as the redirect is there) or, more pertinently, expressed their disgust that PDAB even exists. Tbhotch conveniently didn't link to the very similar RM for Revolution (song), where those motives where even more transparent (with people calling it "dumb" and "a joke"). Yes, local consensus can override guidelines and policies, but there's got to be a legitimate reason to do so; your indignation that the PDAB discussion wasn't closed the way you wanted it to is not a legitimate reason. -- tariqabjotu 10:03, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I think you have a different definition of "local consensus" than the policy that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS redirects to. "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." That sounds pretty clear to me, and seems to directly contradict your opinion that "local consensus can override guidelines and policies." --BDD (talk) 17:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I think the problem was I didn't understand Tbhotch was talking about. If he's saying various guidelines and policies override the PDAB consensus, that's one thing, but I thought he was talking about the discussion at the Revolver RM overriding the consensus at PDAB.

My point about the latter stands, provided you don't take it out of context; what I said was "local consensus can override guidelines and policies, but there's got to be a legitimate reason to do so". Indeed, you'll find that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is not as absolute as you say it is if you proceed to the sentence immediately after the one you quoted. But if we were to assume Tbhotch was talking about the former ("various guidelines and policies override the PDAB consensus"), I'd like to know what those policies and guidelines are; unfortunately, they were never cited during the Revolver (album) move request. On the contrary, during that RM discussion, Tbhotch pointed out WP:NCM and WP:NCF, which have long-standing guidelines discouraging partial disambiguation. He provided examples of WikiProjects deciding a guideline for their articles (pre-WP:PDAB) despite what is commonly accepted elsewhere -- and that's something permitted by the second sentence of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. -- tariqabjotu 18:12, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. Further to Tariqabjotu's comment above. According to Revolver (disambiguation) there are 4 albums in WP called Revolver. I have no doubt in my mind which is the most important, but we always forget that the article namespace is not, and cannot, always be a faithful replication of the name (which is why we have these guidelines!) - it is at best merely a search term to find the actual article we are interested in. To call the article Revolver (The Beatles album) does not detract from searching, in fact, it assists in finding the article. Not only does it assist those looking for the Beatles album, but also those NOT looking for the Beatles album. Where is the harm in that? let's make searching for articles simpler and if it means a couple more words in the article namespace, then so be it! If we don't view article namespace as a search tool, we are opening up for the ugliest form of fancruft, "my band is better than your band" and WP editors should be rising above that. FWIW I have commented purely is respect of music titles and by extension "popular culture" where "primarytopic" can change on all almost daily basis and there is no benefit whatsoever to the continual moving of articles. --Richhoncho (talk) 10:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Wow that's a long, unfocused, and not terribly well written proposal. I read it and I'm still not sure what it's actually proposing. Not that WP:PDAB or WP:INCDAB are much clearer. But as long as the garbage about requiring that Thriller (album) redirect to Thriller doesn't come back, I don't much care. (not watching for replies, {{ping}} me if you need me) Anomie⚔ 10:56, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Move WP:PDAB to the article naming guidelines, since it is about article titling, not about disambiguation page titling. For disambiguation, either allowing or permitting a "primary song" will work. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Replace with a more sensible policy that takes into account the possibility that in some cases there is a "Foo (band)", "Foo (album)", etc., that is so overwhelmingly likely to be the search target as to make it an inconvenience to readers and disambiguators not to have that Foo disambiguated by that one word. An example would be Kiss (band). It would be absurd to have that title redirect to Kiss (disambiguation) merely because little-known Kiss (South Korean band) existed for two years. bd2412 T 12:52, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• What? I'm trying but Tbhotch's grammar and writing style is nearly impenetrable -- especially in such a long passage. What is being proposed, and why? Concisely, if you could? Powers ^T 13:53, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Nothing specific is proposed. Instead, Tbhotch is asking what, if anything, should be done with WP:PDAB: rewrite, merge or remove?

    The rest is background material on the issue presumably to help us answer. --B2C 16:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• Concern - Given that all the examples presented so far relate to music topics, I have to ask: Is this an attempt to respond to a subject specific issue (or dispute) by changing broad wiki-wide guidance? If so, I strongly urge caution. I think we need to explore potential unintended consequences... Because while a change to guidance might be beneficial in one specific topic area, it might create problems when applied to another topic area. So... Could we please discuss some examples that have nothing to do with music? Before we can approve or reject this proposal, we need to discuss how it might affect other topic areas that frequently need disambiguation. Blueboar (talk) 14:02, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Avatar (film)? bd2412 T 14:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Also Wolverine (comics). Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics is found of their inner consistency at having every major article at (comics) even when that title is ambiguous. Changing this guideline would affect many of their pages. Diego (talk) 15:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Remove per nom, and I don't see a great need to replace it with anything, although bd2412's suggestion is a sensible statement of the stable, commonsense status quo ante. Kiss is a great example of how things should work. The hypothetical reader searching for the South Korean band under "Kiss (band)" sees the page on the American band, and via the hatnote is one click away form his or her desired topic. It's just as many clicks, and almost certainly less time, than browsing Kiss (disambiguation).

As can plainly be seen, PDAB has proven quite controversial, and thus should never have been approved with such a narrow margin in support and such low turnout. I believe I asked some valid questions at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 39#Objection, though I didn't receive any answers there or anywhere else. Most importantly, was the PDAB discussion publicized? Like, in any way that would reach a single editor who doesn't watch this page?

Finally, PDAB has proven a trainwreck in implementation. Revolution (song) and Revolver (album) were particularly egregious, being moved to longer, PDAB-approved titles but with the older titles still redirecting there! Unsurprisingly, it was taken to move review, and it's still there. Kill this for now. If we must, create a new discussion and publicize it in all relevant fora. Centralized discussion, WT:RM, Film and Music WikiProjects, etc. If the idea really has broad community support, I'll shut up. I can accept consensus. Just not the paper-thin consensus that's driving PDAB right now. --BDD (talk) 15:10, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• Remove per BDD. The PDAB idea contradicts longstanding conventions. Ambiguous titles can have primary topics whether they are wholly ambiguous (Let It Be) or partially ambiguous (Let It Be (album)). The idea that Let It Be has a primary topic, and it is the album, and therefore can be a title, but Let It Be (album) because there is another album with that name cannot be a title, is logically absurd. The controversial notion of PDAB does not have consensus support, never has, and could be justifiably removed on those grounds alone. --B2C 16:02, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• remove I don't see why we are treading a title with parenthesis different than a title without. In titles without parenthetical disambiguators, they sometimes lead to DAB pages (if there is no PRIMARY), and they sometimes lead to an article. The same should apply here to titles _with_ parenthetical disambiguators - sometimes we can determine that there is a PRIMARY meaning, in which case the article can live at that title, or if moved, the PDAB can redirect to the article in question.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:15, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Everyone calling for removal should be aware that the status quo ante was to require full disambiguation at all times, and to have things like Thriller (album) redirect to Thriller (disambiguation) (possibly to a Music section of that page). I don't think that's what you want. PDAB was developed as a compromise between the two positions (one, that disambiguation should always be complete, never partial; two, that ambiguous disambiguators are okay if the article is primary within that scope). What the people calling for "Remove" are essentially saying is that that compromise was a bad idea, and that their point of view should hold sway. Powers ^T 17:29, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Powers, I'm sorry, but that's completely untrue. Did titles like Revolver (album) and Revolution (song) exist only in my mind? Am I hallucinating even now when I look at Kiss (band)? If PDAB is a "compromise" between the two positions you describe, it's an odd compromise that crushes one position and enforces the other entirely. You could say the close of the RMs related to those Beatles titles was a compromise, though it doesn't seem to be one that many editors are happy with. --BDD (talk) 17:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I can't speak to what the status quo ante was -- indeed, it doesn't look like Powers is correct on that. However, I think the two sides here are those partial disambiguators should redirect to disambiguation pages and articles should be allowed to have partial disambiguator titles. If that's the case, disallowing partial disambiguator titles while allowing them to redirect to articles is a compromise. With that in mind, pointing to my question in the Discussion below, I don't understand the opposition based on the inconvenience readers would experience by going through disambiguation pages; the PDAB guideline doesn't require them to if there is a primary sub-topic. -- tariqabjotu 17:49, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Modify, I think this situation should be handled case-by-case. For example, Michael Jackson's Thriller is clearly the most prominent album under that title, and I would be alright with it having the plain "(album)" title. However, in the case of the title Circus, you have records by Britney Spears and Lenny Kravitz, both popular artists. In that situation, it wouldn't be helpful to create a "primary" disambiguation. These issues should be decided case-by-case, and can't always be thrown into a generic policy that doesn't consider how popular a work may be. If it remains, WP:PDAB should only be a guideline to suggest a possible solution in cases where a primary work can't be established. WikiRedactor (talk) 19:11, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - WP:INCDAB should remain as it is. WP:PDAB, whether it remains in existence or no, should not restrict WP:INCDAB from serving its purpose of preventing incompletely (or partially) disambiguated titles from redirecting to articles (except in the case that the primary target for the subcategory is also the primary target in any category). Cases like Thriller (album) should not be made exceptions. I would be happy for WP:PDAB to be removed so long as WP:INCDAB remains in tact (and therefore prevents articles from being located at partially disambiguated titles). Neelix (talk) 19:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Remove per nom and Obiwan Kenobi. Discussions elsewhere (such as Talk:Nirvana (band)#Requested move) and the existence of many article titles (such as Anthrax (band) and Qi (state)) suggest that most people treat what's in the parentheses as an extension of the article title, and apply the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC principle to the complete title. -Zanhe (talk) 21:00, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• remove, per nomination the current advice is contradictory and has resulted in multiple improper and unconventional naming practises. my biggest reason for removal is that this policy/guideline is cited as a reason for page disambiguation but the application of the principal is not uniform because the wording is ambiguous. as Tbhotch pointed out, where multiple songs exist of the same name (such as Circle the Drain) no such song should exist at the page 'Circle the Drain (song)'. All such articles should exist as 'Circle the Drain (artistname song)' and Circle rhe Drain should be an disambiguation page. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 ^[talk] 22:09, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

  ...where multiple songs exist of the same name (such as Circle the Drain) no such song should exist at the page 'Circle the Drain (song)'. All such articles should exist as 'Circle the Drain (artistname song)' Given your example, it sounds like you actually support PDAB or at least a modification of it. Can you clarify? It doesn't sound like Tbhotch used that example for the same reason you have. -- tariqabjotu 22:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• Question - to all those saying remove - do readers type brackets when searching? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:33, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

As I've said before, I'm fairly sure some of them do. If this is your first day on Wikipedia, no probably not. But if you've been around long enough to know how extremely common parenthetical disambiguation is, they probably do. And as one of my colleagues in the library is fond of reminding people, we're users too. In some of these discussions, we talk about readers as though they were a distinct group from editors, and that's just not the case. If users didn't type disambiguators, we could safely delete most {{R from unnecessary disambiguation}} redirects. --BDD (talk) 15:05, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• Remove there are obvious examples like Thriller (album) and Revolver (album) where the primary topic for those exact titles is not in dispute. The change to the guideline, initiated with a weak consensus, erased nearly a decade of precedent on Wikipedia and has since been used to ram through a number of requested moves. Hot Stop talk-contribs 02:54, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

User:HotStop, the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Revolver is a gun. Thriller is a dab. And the guideline was already in WP:Naming conventions (music), the idea of "primary album" sat in MOS:ALBUM for several months, not a decade. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

HotStop's point is that the guideline has been followed in practice for a decade. For example, Anthrax (UK band) has been at that name since 2003 whereas Anthrax (band) has been about the US band since 2002. -Zanhe (talk) 16:14, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• Keep there are already too many battles to determine what is primary topic of the actual name. Without this, we've had battles to determine every sublevel of disambiguation what is primary. That will get very arcane in some esoteric topics. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:14, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually the PDAB guideline causes far more trouble than PRIMARYTOPIC debates. For example, if you have a popular topic like Thriller (album) with hundreds of incoming links, and a few years later some band releases a barely notable album with the same name. With the PDAB guideline we'll have to move the existing article and redirect Thriller (album) to the dab page Thriller, and as a result hundreds of pages which link to the Michael Jackson album will have to be edited to avoid linking to the dab page. It'll be a terrible waste of people's time. -Zanhe (talk) 16:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• Remove, per the examples given by Tbhotch. And per other comments on how applying WP:PDAB would cause titles like Thriller (album) or Kiss (band) to become confusing. It becomes obvious that's it's a bad idea as soon as you start applying it to more famous titles. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:PDAB discussion

• Looking at some of the remove comments, I'm a bit intrigued that some people (e.g. BD2412, BDD, Obiwankenobi) have noted pitfalls of partially disambiguated terms redirecting to disambiguation pages. However, the way I read it, PDAB -- even as written -- does not require partial disambiguators to redirect to disambiguation pages; in fact, it says With some naming conventions, it is appropriate to redirect a partially disambiguated term to an article. Kiss (band) can still redirect to Kiss (American band) and Thriller (album) can still redirect to Thriller (Michael Jackson album). So, I'm not sure I understand that line of opposition. Is it just that the guideline, as written, is not clear enough about that? Or do you not see any value in eliminating partial disambiguators while allowing them to redirect to complete disambiguators? -- tariqabjotu 17:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

It's nonsense for Foo (band) to redirect to Foo (American band), just as it's nonsense for Foo (disambiguator) to redirect to Foo. Page titles, and especially their disambiguators, should be concise. If we're confident enough that Kiss is the primary topic for "Kiss (band)," why are we going to put it at a longer title anyway? I know this was your solution with the Beatles moves, but I don't see the problem it solves. You're siding with PDAB in form but against it in function. --BDD (talk) 17:56, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with a PDAB going to a DAB; just that it doesn't always need to. Again, I don't think we should treat page names with parenthesis differently than page names without them unless we absolutely have to. This means, if we determine that the primary topic for Thriller (album) is indeed Thriller (Michael Jackson album), then it can redirect there. We make these decisions all the time with redirects - someone decides that "X" should redirect to "Y" or to "Y (disambiguation)". If OTOH there is no primary topic for a PDAB, then it should go to a DAB page. A different issue is whether, in cases where there is a clear primary topic, should the article itself live at that PDAB, or should the article still be *further* disambiguated? On that issue, I'm for now somewhat neutral, I'm not sure it makes a big difference, but apparently there was an uproar over the Beatles move, which I haven't read... I'm not sure we can have a final word on this, it's really case by case. The advantage of keeping the title at the PDAB is stability - e.g. less maintenance and moving-around-of-things which leads to broken links and perhaps editor confusion. Think of this - (1) Editor creates Thriller (album) (2) A new garage band comes out with a barely notable record called Thriller. (3) Result - Thriller (album) has to be moved, and all articles referencing it updated accordingly, even if search volumes are 100 to 1? That doesn't make sense. So I can see a strong argument for keeping primary articles at their PDAB. OTOH, if you're *creating* a new article, the incoming links and editor confusion-about-the-name isn't there, so you could more fully disambiguate.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

As I said, the PDAB guideline permits redirects, although that should probably be more prominent in the guideline. With that, I don't understand what broken links, editor confusion, maintenance, and updating you'd have; the references from other articles aren't broken. -- tariqabjotu 18:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think that's against PDAB in function; PDAB currently says, again, that partial disambiguators can redirect to articles in some cases (although I believe this should be rewritten to be clearer). I've noted a couple points that seem to have been made in various PDAB-related discussions that put value in eliminating partial disambiguators while maintaining redirects. On the other hand, your declaration that the redirect is nonsense doesn't shed any light on why you don't see any value. I know you already think it's nonsense, but why? In other words, what harm is there to having an article at Kiss (American band) when Kiss (band) still redirects there? (That's, obviously, entirely different from Kiss (band) redirecting to Kiss (disambiguation), as evidenced by the number of people who think such a redirect inconveniences readers who have to make an extra click.) -- tariqabjotu 18:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

It wouldn't inconvenience readers to move Barack Obama to Barack Obama (politician) if the former still redirected there. But conciseness is one of our core WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Absent a compelling reason to do so, I don't know why we should ignore that when it comes to disambiguators. --BDD (talk) 18:47, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Compelling, of course, is subjective, and I doubt one could be provided that you believe falls under that adjective. Among reasons already mentioned, though, was the potential confusion and oddity of seeing an article including "(song)" when there are two other songs listed below it on a disambiguation page. Another point raised is that this prevents discussions about primary sub-topics; this seems innocuous enough with films, songs, and albums, but I'm imagining Foo (basketball player) and Foo (Turkish basketball player) -- yikes. And that doesn't even mention pre-existing disambiguation guidelines (like under WP:NATURAL) that suggest that disambiguators actually disambiguate. -- tariqabjotu 19:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Until recently, this is how the Albums section on Revolver (disambiguation) looked[31]:

Albums

• Revolver (album), an album by The Beatles
• Revolver (Lewis Black album), a comedy album
• Revolver (The Haunted album)
• Revolver (T-Pain album)

This is the kind of "potential confusion and oddity" to which you refer?

I don't see why using a pdab as a title "prevents discussions about primary sub-topics" any more than using an ambiguous term as the title of the article about that term's primary topic (i.e., none).

Nothing at WP:NATURAL indicates disambiguation needs to fully disambiguate, nor does anything there support the retention of WP:PDAB.

These are not compelling reasons to override conciseness; they're essentially not reasons to do so at all.

This goes back to my main problem with PDAB - it creates conflict (with conciseness) and ambiguity (which should reign?) for no reason whatsoever (much less for a good reason). --B2C 22:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

You're comparing apples to oranges with Obama. We don't have Kiss (band) and Kiss because it's already used. Given that Kiss (band) is ambiguous and that there's no way to use it without disambiguation to denote the American band, Wikipedia:PRECISION should kick in and create an article name that unambiguously defines the topic. If you then want to use Kiss (band) as a redirect to help navigation, that's OK, but it shouldn't be the article title. Diego (talk) 06:18, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you, BDD, but Tariq has a valid point in that user inconvenience is not a reasonable objection to PDAB in that PDAB does not say anything against the ambiguous disambiguated term redirecting to the fully disambiguated title.

However, I think the real concern regarding user inconvenience is that once something like Kiss (band) is a redirect rather than the article title it is more likely to be changed to redirect to a dab page, and such a change is likely to to be unnoticed for a long time, and can be a user inconvenience.

Indeed, Revolution (song) already has been changed to redirect to Revolution (disambiguation)#Songs [32]. While this is not explicitly endorsed by PDAB, it is certainly encouraged. That's a problem. --B2C 18:26, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Obi, some more reasons to keep it at the PDAB whenever possible:

• If the PDAB is not the title, then the PDAB is a redirect which is easy and likely to be changed to redirect to a dab page like what happened with Revolution (song).
• If our guidelines are not clear on this (i.e., WP:PDAB remains), then every single article with a PDAB title becomes perpetually controversial - with no guidance telling us which title it should have. The result? Endless pointless bickering with both sides reasonably claiming to have basis in policy. To what end?

--B2C 18:34, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

These are really weak objections. The first point can be assuaged by clarifying the guideline. Even still, people do things against policies and guidelines every day on Wikipedia, but we don't say the policies and guidelines themselves are flawed. The second point is a baseless slippery slope. One could reasonably argue that PDAB would actually result in fewer arguments about titles because one doesn't have to discern whether a particular song, album, film, etc. is the primary song, album, film, etc.

Repeating a point I mentioned to you at the move review, WP:NATURAL says According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary. For example, it would be inappropriate to title an article "Queen (rock band)", as Queen (band) is precise enough to distinguish the rock band from other uses of the term Queen. That seems to be in line with the idea behind PDAB. -- tariqabjotu 18:55, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

They are not weak objections. Solving the problem created by PDAB by removing PDAB is preferable to assuaging the problem through WP:CREEP. The same principle applies in traffic engineering - it's much more effective to design a road that causes its users to naturally behave safely (perhaps with traffic calming measures) than to try to dictatorially impose the behavior required for safety (posting a speed limit sign). Why move the title from the pdab with a primary topic to a fully disambiguated title, leaving the concise pdab out there as a redirect to the title of the primary topic article, tempting users to redirect it to a dab page, when leaving the pdab as the title would prevent the creation of that temptation and associated problems in the first place?

No, one can't reasonably argue that more ambiguity in guidance about naming titles will lead to more stable titles. One might argue that a more restrictive PDAB, one that clearly disallowed use of pdabs as titles, would eventually lead to more stability (less ambiguity, more clarity, fewer unanswered questions, more stability), but that's not what we're talking about.

Sure you can find statements in policy which PDAB happens to not contradict; that's hardly an argument for PDAB, much less a strong one. WP:PDAB is written as if WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to pdabs. This is not WP:CONSENSUS. That's the problem, period. --B2C 21:46, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:PDAB is written as if WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to pdabs. This is not WP:CONSENSUS.

So... I must say I find it quite surprising that you've quoted the move from Independence Day (film) to Independence Day (1996 film) (which you supported in May) in your essay User:Born2cycle/Yogurt Principle. Your essay is all about moves that should be done because there would be no legitimate reason to reverse them and because doing so would end all arguments about articles' titles. Perhaps you didn't notice, but the thrust behind the move of the Independence Day (1996 film) article was the belief that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (as corroborated by WP:NCF) was not meant to be applied to disambiguated titles. What has changed since then that has caused you to believe that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is actually applicable to disambiguated titles and that there would be policy reasons and controversy causing reversions of moves made according to PDAB? -- tariqabjotu 06:17, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Nothing has changed. The case for that film being the primary topic was not made there. --B2C 17:08, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• It's also worth noting that this clause about redirecting to articles was basically made up by one editor (and was re-inserted after reverting). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this was not part of the initial discussion that created PDAB. I guess it really caught on after Tariqabjotu's Beatles closes. Inasmuch as this undermines the initial thrust of PDAB, I really can't see—even though I'm trying really hard, as an opponent of it all—what PDAB in its current form is supposed to accomplish besides pedantry in titling. --BDD (talk) 19:00, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

  Considering that edit was made on June 22 and I didn't close those move requests until June 29, I highly doubt anything I did was to blame for that. -- tariqabjotu 19:11, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not a matter of blame. It's just that as far as I can see, there was a unilateral insertion in PDAB that might have faded away if it hadn't been implemented in those moves. I still disagree with the ultimate outcomes there, but you can hardly be expected to delve through the history of policies and guidelines every time you close a move request. --BDD (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

• comment I think it would help to build a matrix here, of the different end-result-for-the-user options on the table, outlining which pages would have no dab, which ones would, what the dab would be, and what about redirects. Anyone willing to give that a shot? Another general comment - my sense has always been that disambiguation is done on an as-needed basis - which is why John Kerry (MP) isn't John Kerry (16th-century English politician. This however introduces some natural drift, as new articles get created, pages need to sometimes be moved to accomodate. So John Smith (actor) may someday need to be moved if another John Smith comes along who is just as notable.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)