Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages

Disambiguation pages ("dab pages") are (like redirects) non-article pages in the article namespace. Dab pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles, usually when a user searches for an ambiguous term. This style guideline is intended to make this process more efficient by giving disambiguation pages a consistent look and avoiding distracting information, such as extraneous links.

This guide applies to pages containing only disambiguation content, whether or not the page title contains the word (disambiguation). This guide does not apply to articles which are about a principal subject but contain a "see also" notice or the like.

Leading line

Like a standard article, the title of the page should be in bold, but it should consist of a sentence fragment introducing a bulleted list, and ending with a colon:

Interval may mean: John Smith is the name of: ABC may stand for:

Individual entries

Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the page they want quickly and easily.

• Start each entry with a bullet (an asterisk in wiki markup) and a capital letter.
• Try to link to the disambiguated page in first word in the line, so:
  • Goal (soccer), the thing at each end of a soccer field.
  • not: In soccer, goal means the thing at each end of a soccer field.
• Redlinks (links to articles not yet written) may be included only if you are confident that an encyclopedia article could be written on the subject. Don't include dictionary definitions.
• Unlike a regular article page, don't wikilink any other words in the line, unless they may be essential to help the reader determine which page they are looking for; these pages aren't for exploration, but only to help the user navigate to a specific place. Thus:
  • Dark Star, a song by The Grateful Dead
  • not: Dark Star, a song by the psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead

Example:

Interval may mean: Interval (mathematics), a set containing a range of integers Interval (music), the distance between two notes

For people, include their birth and death years, if known, and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Keep in mind the conventions for birth and death dates, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death.

John Smith is the name of: John Smith (mathematician) (1886-1928) John Smith (actor) (1776-1824) John Smith (composer) (born 1955), who wrote the theme music to Seinfeld

For places, it may only be necessary to write the name of the article.

Jacksonville may mean: Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville, Alabama Jacksonville, Arkansas

If the link is to a synonym, simply use it as it is named:

Serving spoon may also be: Tablespoon

If the item described appears as part of another page, link to the relevant section of that page instead (using the #anchor notation) and conceal that by making it a piped link, as shown with "coin", below. In this case the link may not start the line, but it should still be the only wikilink.

Tail may also be: The reverse side of a coin Part of an airplane fuselage Part of a bird's anatomy

Only use this feature if the item being described actually appears on the page you're linking to, so avoid:

• On-off switch is what turns on a television set

if the television article doesn't mention it.

Piping

Piping means concealing the actual title of an linked article by replacing it with other text, typically to suppress parenthetical expressions.

• Don't pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed, e.g. Moment (physics). In many cases this may be all the user needs to find what they're looking for.
• If exceptionally a word of the description is wikified, you may use piping in the description.
• Use piping if you're linking to an anchor point on the target page.

Linking back to the main article

When a page has (disambiguation) in the title, users are unlikely to stumble on it by accident. Almost always, they will get there by clicking on a link from the main article with the same name, similar to this:

For other meanings, see School (disambiguation)

Therefore, it's very unlikely that this principal meaning is what they're looking for, so it shouldn't be mixed in with the other meanings. It is recommended to place the link to the principal meaning back at the top, before the bullet list, like this:

A school is an institution for learning. School may also mean: Swarm of fish

Although this example has only one other definition, these pages should always have at least two alternative definitions; otherwise, the link on the page School should go directly to the other definition, without needing a separate disambiguation page.

Order of entries

In most cases, place the items in order of usage, with the most-used meanings appearing at the top and less common meanings below. A recommended order is

1. articles with a clarifier in parentheses (Anticipation (music))
2. articles with the item as part of the name (Computer keyboard as part of a Keyboard dab page)
3. synonyms
4. larger subject articles which treat this item in a section (Medieval art from a Fresco dab page).

For places or people, alphabetical or chronological order may make more sense — but only for articles that are equally common. Always place the most-common meaning(s) at the top.

Unless the list is quite short, separate the articles in categories (1) and (2) from those in (3) and (4), with the "may also be" line shown below:

Thingymabob may mean: Thingymabob (mathematics), the square root of minus-pi Thingymabob (music), a note slightly higher than Q-sharp House thingymabob, a phallic door-knocker Computer thingymabob, carving-knife device for cutting off mouse's tail Thingymabob may also be: Whatchamacallit Doodad A fetish used in Tribal ceremonies.

Longer lists

If the number of entries is large, the list may be broken up by subject area, as shown:

Thingamajig may mean: In science: Thingamajig (chemistry), an isotope of chlorine Thingamajig (physics), a kind of pulsar Thingamajig (biology), an invasive plant used as ground cover In world music: Thingamajig (Qatar), a seven-stringed musical instrument Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos

If the list is extremely long (more than thirty entries), you may use section headers instead (or in addition), as on John Taylor (disambiguation). To shorten the page suppress the table of contents by placing __NOTOC__ near the top of the page or use {{TOCright}} to place the table on the right hand side.

The "See also" section

There may be a "see also" section for similar terms which may be confused, misspellings, and the like, but don't use "see also" for any legitimate use of the main title word.

The disambig notice

Place the template {{disambig}} at the bottom of the page. It produces the following message (as of May 2005), and also assigns the Category:Disambiguation to the page.

Don't use {{subst:disambig}} as the contents of this notice may change in the future.

Break rules

For every style suggestion above, there's some page which has a good reason to do something else. These guidelines are intended for consistency, but usefulness to the reader is the principal goal. So ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason.