Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation

Tracking down missing entries

If a new page gets created at say, Foo (song), then usually an entry for it will get added to the disambiguation page at Foo. However, this doesn't get done with absolute consistency and I'm wondering if there's a way to track down the ones that have slipped away. Can we get some report listing all articles with reasonably disambiguated titles (e.g. Foo (bar), or Foo, Bar) that are not linked from the article at the bare title (Foo in this case)? – Uanfala 10:35, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, yes, yes. This is a hobby-horse of mine: whenever I see a new article or stub with a bracketed disambiguation (or a location with a comma disambiguation) I check to see that it's linked from a dab page, or a hatnote at the primary topic, or a redirect (for comma-disambiguated places). There are huge numbers which aren't linked. A few years ago I had some thoughts about a big project to try and catch up with all of these: I'll try to find what I wrote. You'd start by looking for titles with brackets which didn't have a link from the primary topic or from "primary topic (disambiguation)" ... but of course some books, films, etc have brackets anyway which aren't disambiguators, and you'd not manage to do the same with the "Xxxville, Texas" kind of titles, as commas are so common anyway. But any automation, or creation of a category of disambiguated articles not linked from primary topic, would be a great start. PamD 10:54, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Ta-daaa: Found it: see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Disambiguation/Archive_35#Missing_links:_thoughts_about_a_project. PamD 11:03, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

And here's my research which gave me the "2%" figure. PamD 11:08, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Oh, that's good! In the linked thread you describe a concrete algorithm for dealing with the bracketed ones. Do you think this could be requested as a bot task? – Uanfala 11:46, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

We'd need to check it through even more carefully, and establish that there are people interested in the project of cleaning up the articles in the various categories, else no point. Would need a total bot run initially, perhaps chunked into A-Z portions or some more meaningful categories, and then perhaps a regular run on articles created since the last run. Let's see what other people think. Pinging @JHunterJ and BD2412: who commented on the last discussion (not a lot of people seemed interested!). PamD 15:19, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I am interested, but I also feel like I have seen this done before. @R'n'B: yes? bd2412 T 15:27, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Not that I can recall. You're welcome to look through my list of reports yourself (some of these are quite old and outdated), but I couldn't find any that fit the bill. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:36, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Will probably be impossible to track down now, but I think the reports that I vaguely recall were created by an editor who was not a dab project regular. I think it discussed on a village pump, or possibly at WP:AT/NC. older ≠ wiser 19:18, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

It's a long term TODO for Dabfix. I figure its going to take 10-30 hours to do (iteration is slow with 1 hour queries). — Dispenser 17:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

A good idea. I am running this quite often when handling newpages. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:28, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

(ec) I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall someone created some database reports a long time back which, at least in part, addressed this. If I recall correctly, these reports were primarily dealing with the multiplicity of place naming styles. Some of these report pages may still be hanging around somewhere in non-article space, although I think they may have been deleted once their purpose was served. Sorry I can't recall anything about who created them or what they were titled. older ≠ wiser 17:32, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Well, it seems there's no concrete trace of this having been done before, and even if it has, it will have gone stale long ago, so I think we could roll up our sleeves and do it from scratch? Dispenser, I'm not sure I completely understood what you said: is this a task that you plan to add as a capability to Dabfix? How do you envisage it would work, in broad terms? Is 10-30 hours an estimate of the time required to program it, or is that the time needed for the bot run? – Uanfala 18:36, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

  10-30 hours for programming and testing. It would run automatically monthly. The results are stored on my server and users can click "random" to work on a page that hasn't been done yet (no edit conflicts) in Dabfix. Dabfix lists blue links with automatically generated descriptions in a suggestion section that can be easily copied and pasted. — Dispenser 19:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

  Sounds great! I imagine that this will entail outputting a report which will give the total number of pages done and remaining? Also, it's essential that individual articles can be marked as exceptions and not come up in subsequent reports, as there'll be a number of articles where the comma or the parentheses aren't disambiguators. That's part of the plan, I'd imagine? PamD, what do you think of Dispenser's solution, which might probably differ in the specifics from what you've previously proposed?

  And what articles would fall under the scope of this task? I guess it goes without saying that we'll have to start with titles containing commas or parentheses, as these are probably going to be the ones with the lowest number of false positives. But maybe this should then be expanded to include titles with certain natural-language disambiguators, like "language" or "River" (Foo language almost invariably being commonly referred to as Foo)? – Uanfala 21:21, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Follow up

@Uanfala, PamD, Staszek Lem, and Bkonrad:

So I think it's taken about 10 hours, but it's up on the Dabfix landing page. The report takes about less than an hour to run and to kick it off we have 16,535 disambiguation pages to add links to. — Dispenser 16:32, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Brilliant, Dispenser, this is precisely what we need! I like the way the report is structured, and I notice neat little things, like the inclusion of The foo along with Foo (bar). Well done! And now two follow-up questions: 1) How often will the report be run? With so many entries, it's unlikely for different people working along to run into each other, so probably doesn't need to be very often? 2) Is there a way to have the functionality of adding exceptions? Like marking Foo (bar) as exempt from appearing in future reports?

Now, given the expectedly large amount of work ahead and the desirability of getting more editors involved, maybe the next step would be the creation of a little page with an explanation somewhere in projectspace, which we could then link to from edit summaries as we go along (shortcut WP:DABMISSING?). Any thoughts anyone? – Uanfala 19:42, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

1) At least once a month. It can be updated daily, but it depends on if people are using it. In the last 5 days [1] (start of forced Dabfix usage) I see User:Tassedethe (40 edits), myself (17 edits), and you (4 edit). Improvement would depend on Return-On-Investment. It great having reports and tools, but they may as well not exist if nobody's using them. I have ideas for lockout, but people seem to be very choosy and want it to be stupidly easy to use. 2) Currently no way of adding exceptions and I'm using a cap to keep (season 1-12) TV episode series list articles from appearing on the list — Dispenser 20:55, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

The capability of adding exceptions isn't essential at this stage, but I think it's the single most important feature needed to keep this sustainable in the long run. Anyway, so far I've inspected about 15 entries, most of the additions I did manually (still easing into dabfix). Regardless of the tool used, this is a slow process as I find myself effectively curating the pages I'm going through: for example the entry for MACI had me seek help from Wikiproject Medicine, which resulted in a series of mergers; while Ora (mythological creature) had me make a trip to the library to double-check it is not a hoax. The report is doing a brilliant job not only of listing missing dab entries but also of indirectly identifying areas of the encyclopedia that need work. We knew this was going to be slow, no? – Uanfala 22:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

@Dispenser: Looks great, thanks for your work. I can't quite get my head round it at moment, got a cold on top of other health stuff and just generally under the weather. But I look forward to working with it when I can get my brain back into gear. An introductory page about it sounds a very good idea. Good luck! PamD 20:30, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

OK, I had a go anyway (polished off the handful of years like 263 and a couple more oddments). One thought: would it be possible for the items in the right-hand column to be clickable links? Can't add to dab page without seeing the actual article, or at least a mouse-over. Another slight puzzle: Ability (1910) was listed, but Ability (1878) wasn't. Any particular reason, or is this some slight glitch? I'm delighted to see that you've included links from different capitalisations - Arba to ARBA and Byala reka to Byala Reka. If we get all this lot tidied up we'll have a much smarter encyclopedia. Thanks again. PamD 21:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Maybe deserves a Signpost article? Once we've sorted out any bugs etc and worked out good ways of working from the list. Might attract more gnomes who'd like to help. PamD 21:06, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

@PamD: The idea is you click on "Missing entries" on the table left, it allocates an article to work on and send you to Dabfix. Dabfix cleanup the existing disambiguation page and generates a suggestions section with text for making into a description.

I took shortcuts in writing the report, so it see that Ability (1878) was already linked from SIA Innisfallen. And it wont suggest anything for Borisov government (Created Jan 2014)/Borisov Government (Created Nov 2014) since they might be different topics. The report is capable of matching accent character too, but is disabled as Dabfix is currently incapable of finding Aspås for Aspas. — Dispenser 22:03, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Just remarking on the modus operandi: I don't know if I'm representative of the WP DAB population as a whole, but I prefer working directly from the report and choosing what to fix: if I had to deal with pages randomly allocated to me then the likely preponderance of biographies and songs/albums will probably make me loose interest for good. – Uanfala 22:38, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

@Dispenser: OMG! this is just fantastic; I am so going to use this. @Uanfala: What works for me is a) go to the list of entries, b) add a filter, then select a page to open in a new tab. I have Dabfix as a bookmarklet that I can then click and go. If the links in the missing_entries page had an option for Dabfix (currently Read, Edit, History, Last edit) that would really make it simple. Tassedethe (talk) 00:30, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

@Tassedethe: I've decided to simplify completely and have only a single link. This should make it easier for everyone to quickly work on pages that they're interested in. — Dispenser 18:37, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Titles like British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) v British Columbia (Council of Human Rights) will no longer be normalized to British_Columbia, but Holland (hamlet), New York will still be normalized. This has eliminated less than 300 results. — Dispenser 16:27, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

• We have enough to keep us busy now, but just noting that it would be great if the report could ultimately detect the absence of links not only from dab pages but also from the hatnotes (or ledes) of primary-topic articles. – Uanfala 22:11, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
  • The query can to do that, but the lack of time and the presentation was too complex. It wasn't "Add these links to this disambiguation page", but "These links can go on either or both disambiguation pages" or "These two disambiguation pages vary only by capitalization or accent characters" or "These links need hatnotes or a new disambiguation page". — Dispenser 03:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Ordering of titles of songs, album names, book titles, films etc.

Is there a set practice for the order of disambiguation entries for things like songs, albums, book and film titles? MOS:DABORDER doesn't quite address this.

For a practical example, I'm looking at Indian Summer; in particular the Songs section. I was going to put them in alphabetical order by artist (which it mostly seems to follow), but then chronological order suggests itself (as in the Film section).

Is there a standard practice? TJRC (talk) 22:31, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Personally I prefer alpha sort for albums and songs, as I think the year of release means very little for most readers/listeners. Even for songs I know well, I often only have the vaguest sense of which decade they might have come out in, though I can usually readily recall the band/performer. For films, it's unusual to have more than a handful of with the same title so chronological sorting makes more sense. In addition, I think the naming conventions are different -- whereas films use the year of release as the primary disambiguator, songs and albums use the group name, and so the different sorting orders will more closely approximate the article titles. older ≠ wiser 22:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation categories

Hello all, is there a Disambiguation (species) category in a similar format to the one that exists for Disambiguation (genus)? Loopy30 (talk) 02:57, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

{{Species Latin name disambiguation}} is the best existing dab template for situations such as Hypsipetes malaccensis. Usage of that template includes pages where there is a homonoym in a single kingdom as well as cases where a particular binomial is used for both a plant and an animal (e.g. Gaussia princeps, Ficus variegata) Plantdrew (talk) 04:03, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Meijin (shogi)#Hiroshi Kobayashi disambiguation

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Meijin (shogi)#Hiroshi Kobayashi disambiguation. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:48, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Template:Z48

Dabfix

The link to Dabfix appears to be dead :-( Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 07:33, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, the DDNS homenet.org is gone to a domain squatter. I've made the old Toolserver links (tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/dabfix.py) point to where ever the new domain ends up being. — Dispenser 15:21, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

experienced eyes and opinions welcome

There's some discussion at Talk:Enclosure#Requested move 23 September 2017, which really is RM potentially affecting a disambiguation page displacing what had been a primary topic. Also, there have been some questionable edits to enclosure (disambiguation) as well as links to enclosure using a variety of redirects, and the creation of subsidiary stubs/broad concept articles/dab pages such as Animal enclosure. older ≠ wiser 15:09, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Second more opinions at the RM are welcome. I cleaned the dab Enclosure (disambiguation) in the meantime. I agree there may be scope for a broadconcept. The sock that was disrupting the dab (and much other disambiguation) is now blocked. There's discussion at WP:ANI about mass deletion. Widefox; talk 21:10, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Big dab, no valid entries

Mountain High School all WP:PTM. Opinions? Widefox; talk 01:35, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Probably best to nominate this for deletion. If there is nothing actually called "Mountain High School", there should not be a dab for such a name. bd2412 T 01:48, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

On second thought, a Google search does show a few entities apparently named just "Mountain High School" ([2], [3], and one mention in Wikipedia for a "Mountain High School" in the Rim of the World Unified School District). bd2412 T 01:54, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

• There is a school by the name in Davis School District in Davis County, Utah, there's one in Mountain (CDP), Wisconsin, and West Orange High School (New Jersey) used to be named "Mountain High School". -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:15, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
  • In light of these findings, let's just reduce the page to matching titles that meet WP:DABMENTION. Also, I have created Draft:Mountain High School (Mountain, Wisconsin), since it is apparently on the NRHP. bd2412 T 02:20, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
•  Done, regards. Widefox; talk 02:49, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Cage

Opinions sought at Talk:Cage_(enclosure)#Requested_move_1_October_2017 for Cage (enclosure) to be the broadconcept primarytopic at Cage. The current dab at Cage then moves to Cage (disambiguation). Widefox; talk 20:56, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Tipping point, Tipping Point, The Tipping point and The Tipping Point

Following the July 2007 merger of Tipping point (disambiguation) and The Tipping Point (disambiguation), the all-inclusive dab page has been titled Tipping point, with no indicated WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. It does, however, contain an inline cite.

In February 2017, this dab page was tagged with a {dabconcept} template: "The present disambiguation page holds the title of a primary topic, and an article needs to be written about it. It is believed to qualify as a broad-concept article. It may be written directly at this page or drafted elsewhere and then moved over here. Related titles should be described in Tipping point, while unrelated titles should be moved to Tipping point (disambiguation)".

A related WP:RM at Talk:The Tipping Point#Requested move 25 September 2017 is seeking a consensus as to whether the book The Tipping Point is the primary topic of the Tipping point dab page or should be disambiguated with either a parenthetical qualifier (The Tipping Point (book)) or its full title (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference). —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 22:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I cleaned up the dab page to remove the def and inline cite. I left the dabconcept tag for now but don't know if really belongs. Station1 (talk) 23:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the dabconcept tag. A tipping point, generally, is a point at which a series of changes have led to an inevitable continuation and acceleration of that direction of change. All of the lower case tipping points on the page are examples of that principle; all of the upper case variations are references to it. bd2412 T 00:02, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Dabconcept of the month.

I have created Category:Broad-concept article drafts to house the drafts I have created for missing primary topics that should displace existing disambiguation pages. You would be amazed at the kinds of things we are missing in that regard. I believe that it is as important to this project create these missing articles as appropriate targets for their incoming links as it is to fix truly ambiguous links. I would like for us, as a community, to pick one of these to knock out per month through our own crowd wisdom. bd2412 T 00:29, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I fully support this endeavor. It's wonderful that we have, for example, the newly created Cage broadconcept (broadened from an animal enclosure), especially as there's no Encyclopedia Brittanica on cage. Who would have thought, so there's likely other low-hanging fruit, ready for hungry editors. Widefox; talk 00:12, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

There definitely are. I am particular to Draft:Accusation, Draft:Conspiracy, Draft:Rivalry, Draft:Stranger, and Draft:Welcome. bd2412 T 01:35, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Orphan dabs

We have 589 titles (list) such as 19th Corps (disambiguation) which lack a corresponding base article (i.e. 19th Corps is a redlink). From a random sample, all are redirects to a dab page with a similar name (XIX Corps in this case), though I expect there will be a few exceptions. Is this a problem and, if so, what's the best fix?

A few seem to be RfD candidates, e.g. Π-Guy (disambiguation). For the rest, I'd suggest:

• divert incoming links to appropriate articles or the "proper" redirect, e.g. XIX Corps (disambiguation), creating if necessary;
• rename the redirect to the base name, e.g. move 19th Corps (disambiguation) to 19th Corps.

Do we mend the resulting double redirect, or just not create it? The latter is effectively deletion, but probably falls under Moving pages from a title unambiguously created in error (WP:CSD#G6). It would also need a WP:page mover - I'm not one but probably have a decent case for applying. What does the team think? Certes (talk) 11:26, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

In this case, I would create 19th Corps as a redirect to XIX Corps, but also keep 19th Corps (disambiguation) in case an editor wants to make a WP:INTDABLINK from that title. bd2412 T 12:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

A lot of that list consists of alternate capitalization leftovers from page moves. Creating the base terms would be uncontroversial but I'm not sure it's a big deal either way. —Xezbeth (talk) 12:23, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I've checked a larger sample and they seem harmless, so I'll leave them in peace. I'll add redirects from the base name where appropriate. Certes (talk) 14:47, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

A sticky six five

Six years ago I asked User:R'n'B to pull together a list of disambiguation links appearing very early in the article, on the theory that they might be erroneous hatnotes. All of the actual hatnote links are fixed, but from the original list of several thousand links, six sticky errors remain:

1. François Le Fort contains link to Vitry at position 53
2. Fritz Katz contains link to Zaborze at position 56
3. Ivar Lunde contains link to Pavlovsk at position 79
4. Noam Braslavsky contains link to Poriya at position 66
5. Tadeusz Dominik contains link to Szymanowo at position 37
6. Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus contains link to Temple of Jupiter at position 14

I can't solve these. Anyone? bd2412 T 00:22, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

6. looks like a standard valid hatnote to dab; if you meant Temple of Zeus then Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus#Second building mentions Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens in a similar context so I'd go for that. 2. is probably Zabrze but that's less clear. Certes (talk) 01:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

No. 5 done. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:00, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

No. 2 done. This one was tricky. He was born in Zaborze, a village which is now part of the city of Zabrze. We have no article about it, so it's not listed in the disamb. page. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:16, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

@Kpalion:. Great research on #2! I've now added a {{ill}} link in Fritz Katz to German Wiki. Narky Blert (talk) 20:49, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd seen Ivar Lunde before. The best I could find was this unhelpful citation. I'd put a small sum of money on Pavlovsk, Saint Petersburg, but cannot prove it or even get suggestive evidence. I was unable to find out anything useful about his parents. Narky Blert (talk) 21:08, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

myheritage.com shows a map of Pavlovsk, Saint Petersburg if you hover the mouse over the map pin icon. It also has the wrong year of birth, so should perhaps be taken with a mineful of salt. Certes (talk) 21:47, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd also seen Noam Braslavsky before. I've had another look, but can still find nothing but useless Wiki scrapes. Narky Blert (talk) 21:12, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Redirects to dab pages

We have WP:INCDAB with the example of redirects from parenthetic titles to dab section names. What about the validity of other redirects to dab pages? This is being discussed in the context of Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2017_September_30#Animal_enclosure, recently G5ed, previously at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2017_September_28#Animal_enclosure.

• Editors have suggested targeting Enclosure (disambiguation)
  • Is it valid to include a category as a dab entry? (which would be say a plausible navigation route for the above redir). Widefox; talk 00:45, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't see anything terribly wrong about a redirect from animal enclosure to enclosure (disambiguation) with the redirect marked as {{R from ambiguous term}}. This sort of thing is not uncommon. As for a category as a dab entry, this is somewhat more exceptional. I recall seeing several instances, although none come to mind now. older ≠ wiser 02:00, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

As noted, redirects from ambiguous terms (with or without parentheticals) to disambiguation pages are common and correct when there is a correspondence between the search term and a dab page or section and no primary topic. I'm too tired to look for examples right now (I'm on UTC+1) but I recall several category links on dab pages where they were relevant (mostly as see also entries I think) and I see no problem with this at all. Thryduulf (talk) 02:23, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Update: the animal section didn't have any valid entries, and the entry linking the category seemed best in the see also (if at all). I've removed the section. This means any incoming redirect wouldn't target a section name (as per INCDAB).

OK thanks both of you, good to be corrected that such redirects are not wrong per se (seems counterintuitive that dab incomings are generally incorrect, and the only obvious exception guidance is INCDAB which has parenthetic term -> dab section name). Is that useful if there's no dab entries, no section name (like INCDAB) and they're covered only by a category? I didn't see any guidance in MOSDAB or WP:D, is there any elsewhere? Widefox; talk 02:27, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I think you might be getting confused. Just because intentional links from mainspace pages to disambiguation pages should always link to or via a page ending in (disambiguation), does not mean that only pages ending in (disambiguation) should redirect to dab pages. The ones without parentheticals should not be linked from mainspace pages but can be useful and indeed the correct way to take someone using an ambiguous search term to the disambiguation page where that term is disambiguated. For example Canons redirects to the disambiguation page at Canon - people are equally likely to search for singular and plural but we don't want or need either two disambiguation pages or one set of readers have to go via the unpredictable and less useful search results. Thryduulf (talk) 09:46, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Thryduulf INCDAB never redirects a "..(disambiguation)" to a "..(disambiguation)", if that's what you mean. Of course if you just mean with parentheticals other than "(disambiguation)" that's INCDAB which is not disputed. Outside of INCDAB, the proposal to redirect Animal enclosure to target Enclosure (disambiguation) leads readers to a dab with zero valid animal enclosure article links. It wouldn't take someone to where the term is disambiguated as it's only a category and nothing else. I don't think we should confuse readers. Widefox; talk 11:32, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I would generally agree that a "Foo (bar)" title (or a "Bar Foo" title) should not redirect to a "Foo" disambiguation page or a "Foo (disambiguation)" page unless there are links on that page that are specifically relevant to the "Foo (bar)" title. bd2412 T 16:12, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Redirects from "...(disambiguation)" to a different "...(disambiguation)" are not uncommon either, e.g. EMU (disambiguation) → Emu (disambiguation), they are used when one page disambiguates multiple related terms/capitalisations/spellings/etc. Of course nothing should redirect to a disambiguation page with no relevant entries on it, but categories can be good entries on disambiguation pages in some circumstances. This discussion is about the general case though, please keep all discussion about the specific animal enclosure redirect on the relevant RfD to keep discussion in one place and avoid any appearance of forum shopping. Thryduulf (talk) 17:52, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Sure, combining dabs is done as normal per WP:DPAGE, offtopic for this discussion, as is INCDAB. It's relevancy is to eliminate this proposed type of redirect as not being DPAGE or INCDAB. So:

This general case redirecting to a dab with no matching valid article entries isn't something I've seen, doesn't seem helpful, and isn't covered by guideline or have consensus here. When the category name is a long way from the ambiguous term (Category:Buildings and structures used to confine animals vs enclosure for example), it seems doubly hard to justify a category link (which is itself, something I don't know another example of on a dab). Widefox; talk 12:29, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

• There's some overlapping discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#WP:INTDAB; one of these threads should probably be closed, with a pointer to the other one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:43, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Style guidelines

• User:Thryduulf raised a concern which I've posted here as the appropriate venue: "If style guidelines say that articles and categories about enclosures do not belong on enclosure (disambiguation) then the style guidelines need changing or ignoring because they are clearly harming the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 3:47 pm, 9 October 2017, last Monday (4 days ago) (UTC+1)" [4]

Which part, WP:PTM ? Widefox; talk 09:56, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think the problem is with PTM, but with an overly zealous application of PTM by editors. A partial title match should be on the disambiguation page if the subject can be found in sources being referred to as just the disambiguation term. bd2412 T 11:40, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Agree, the guideline is sufficiently open and nuanced, the problem is editors who apparently don't bother to read its four paragraphs and instead take it to mean simply that Foo Bar should never be listed on Foo (disambiguation). – Uanfala 11:54, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

If there is one guideline that is not nuanced enough and that easily gets misinterpreted, that's WP:DABMENTION. There are all manner of cases where it's acceptable to include a term when it doesn't itself appear in the target article. – Uanfala 11:57, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

The context is an example of a type of "foo" appearing on "Foo (disambiguation)" (in this example, a subtype animal enclosure redirect targeting enclosure (disambiguation)) in the absence of a broadconcept article covering all these instances of "foo" (in this case enclosures/something that encloses). When the individual instances of the type of "foo" are referred to solely as "foo" (for example Enclosure (electrical)), then they are listed on the dab. When they are merely instance of the type or subtype but not referred to solely as "foo" (in this case cage, pen (enclosure), paddock, aviary, birdcage - there's many combinations of animal and enclosures) then we don't list them.

WP:DABCONCEPT If the primary meaning of a term proposed for disambiguation is a broad concept or type of thing that is capable of being described in an article, and a substantial portion of the links asserted to be ambiguous are instances or examples of that concept or type, then the page located at that title should be an article describing it, and not a disambiguation page.

WP:PTM just as we do not expect to see Mississippi River in River (disambiguation)). , so individual rivers are not listed on the river dab

For example, I just cleaned up Computer (disambiguation) where the primary topic is also the broadconcept - a simpler example. We wouldn't put instances of computers in the dab, and subtypes such as digital computer are not listed there (although analog computer was, and I've just moved it to the See also) as they're arguably PTMs and in any case are covered by the broadconcept which we assume readers have gone to already. We do put Human computer as it's known solely as a "computer". It would be overly zealous to remove that, or even put it in the See also.

OK, comparing the two examples, when we don't have a broadconcept, the type is an ambiguous term that has no valid entries, but is just a dictionary definition, and the subtypes and examples have nowhere to be redirected to or listed. They're just dict defs, and we can't help readers as we have no target (broadconcept, list, category) to navigate them to. Widefox; talk 11:32, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Do we agree that's the standard application of PTM and DABCONCEPT? Widefox; talk 11:32, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

My twopenn'orth. (1) A WP:SA in an article is worthless unless it links to an article (or even to a DAB page!) which is directly on point. (2) A WP:SA or a WP:PTM on a DAB page might be useful to readers. Anything which helps readers get to what they want to read from a half-remembered name is nothing but good. Narky Blert (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

@Narky Blert: "WP:SA" is itself a disambiguation page. The shortcut you seem to want is MOS:ALSO.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:44, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

150 fixes away

We are 150 fixes away from clearing Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/October 2017‎. Let's have at it! bd2412 T 13:03, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, we're also about 15,000 fixes away from clearing the missing dab entries report: https://dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/view/File_viewer#dispenser:temp:logs:missing_entries.log. – Uanfala 13:40, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Please be careful. Some links to DAB pages are intentional, e.g. the ones at Glossary of cue sports terms#8-ball and Glossary of cue sports terms#8 ball to Eight-ball (disambiguation).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:52, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I can't find a description for that report, but am I understanding correctly that it lists articles which should be included on a disambiguation page but aren't yet? -- Fyrael (talk) 19:32, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Uanfala: It is a bit impolite to hijack a thread like this. You could just as easily have started your own. It is a moot point now, though, since the October list has been cleared. This is only the second time this has ever been accomplished, and at a much faster rate than the earlier one, which should have garnered some good feelings. bd2412 T 20:26, 19 October 2017 (UTC)