Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation

Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Adopting disambiguation pages

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

Pygmalion issues help wanted

I am not sure if this is outside the scope of this project. I have been attempting to refine improper linking to Pygmalion (play) and Pygmalion (mythology), and I could use some assistance cleaning up {{Pygmalion}}, {{Pygmalion navbox}}, and {{My Fair Lady}} (the latter two which I have recently created). I have posted some particular issues at Talk:Pygmalion (play)#Template:Pygmalion. Please feel free to jump in and edit the templates or leave comments there.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyTheTiger (talk • contribs) 23:44, 23 February 2013‎ (UTC)

awkward: disambig for 1 article + 1 wiktionary page

What do we do when there's just 1 article + 1 wiktionary definition on a disamb page for an acronym? The Wiktionary box prescribed by the MOS seems confusing to me in this case. Possibly somebody could improve YGM. The list of internet slang it used to link to is now at wiktionary, so all I could figure to do was this edit Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 13:40, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

 Done[1] -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:25, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 00:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC).

Help with hatnote on Depression (mood)?

Presently, at Depression (mood) we have:

"Despair" redirects here. For other uses of despair, see Despair (disambiguation). For the mood disorder, see Major depressive disorder.

I'd like to propose on the article's talk page that we change that to:

For the mood disorders sometimes called simply "depression", see Major depressive disorder and Dysthymic disorder. "Despair" redirects here; for other uses of "despair" see Despair (disambiguation).

What template/fields do I use to create that? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:01, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I'd stack {{for}} and {{redirect}} -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Category for abbreviations

There are categories and templates for {{Letter-Number Combination Disambiguation}} and {{numberdis}} but no category for DAB pages that contain abbreviations consisting of letters only. There are some DAB pages, such as AAA or LAPD (disambiguation) that consist primarily of initialisms, and other pages like Cats or Goa that include a section of acronyms or abbreviations. It seems like it would be possible to create a category similar to Category:Genus disambiguation pages as a parameter of the {{disambiguation}} template. I see in the archives this suggestion from 2005 that the scope of this WikiProject should "avoid abbreviations", but I didn't find anything else. Is it simply unneeded, or is there some reason in principle to avoid such a category? Cnilep (talk) 03:28, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

What's the reason to create such a category? It's certainly possible, but I don't see the benefit. (Then again, I don't understand the benefit of the letter-number combination disambiguation or numberdis categories either.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:53, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

There used to be one a long time ago, see Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 June 14#Category:TLAs. It doesn't strike me as something worth doing though. —Xezbeth (talk) 12:21, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know that there is a need for such a category (as I suggested, it could be "simply unneeded"); I just wondered about the lack of parallel with numbers and letter-number combinations. Sometimes useful things come of such idle curiosity, but sometimes... not. Thanks, Xezbeth, for the background. Cnilep (talk) 01:08, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Clarify

Connaught Park & Talk:Connaught Park#Clarify: Do we really mean Connaught, Calgary? Peter Horn User talk 23:14, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Washington Convention

The article Washington Convention has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Only the CITES article uses the phrase "Washington Convention". The "International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes" article never uses this phrase; thus, there's no need for disambiguation.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.
--LukasMatt (talk) 01:27, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The article was redirected rather than deleted. Looks good.

--LukasMatt (talk) 03:23, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

This should remain as is (redirect). The full unexpurgated title of this treaty is Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora which, by any standard, is a bit of a mouthful. Generally, it is referred to as either CITES or, more commonly, as the Washington Convention. All those in the field understand and use all these names interchangeably and so all roads should lead to the same page.

Enquire (talk) 07:14, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

California (disambiguation)

User:Enquire and I have a disagreement about the latest change made to the page. The discussion was begun at User talk:Clarityfiend#California (disambiguation). Briefly, my stance is that it violates (1) WP:Partial title match with the Alta California and Baja California entries, and (2) the style guideline with some long descriptions. Alta and Baja California have their own dab pages, which are listed in the See also section. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:22, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Cleaned and taken up at Talk:California (disambiguation). Please continue the conversation there. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:11, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with the most recent changes. I do note WP:Partial title match, but also did read the paragraph enclosed which includes the caveat:

Add a link only if the 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.

I respectfully submit that Baja California and Alta California are and can be plausibly referred to in the same context. The examples given in WP:Partial title match are: Baltimore Zoo and Mississippi River where the principal noun is "Zoo" and "River" respectively. So, one would not logically expect either to appear in the disambiguation pages for "Zoo" or for "River" (although possibly in "List of ...). WP:Partial title match continues, and I quote:

Place names are often divided between a specific and generic part: "North Carolina" (where "Carolina" is the specific, and "North" the generic part). Other common generics are compass points, upper/lower, old/new, big/small, etc. It is entirely proper to include such place names in disambiguation pages with the specific title (North Carolina is properly listed at Carolina (disambiguation)); but only exceptionally in the generic title (we don't expect to see North Carolina in North (disambiguation), just as we don't expect to see Mississippi River in River (disambiguation)).

See for example: Carolina, also a disambiguation page - there you will see, as subordinated bullets:

• The Carolinas, term used to refer collectively to the states of North and South Carolina
  • North Carolina, U.S. state
  • South Carolina, U.S. state
  • Province of Carolina, the British colonial province until 1729
• Carolina, Alabama
• etc.

So, I think it is clear that the WP:Partial title match rule is not intended to be applied to related geographic entities. Note also that: "Alta" (Uupper in English); "Baja" (Lower in English); "Norte" (North in English); and, "Sud" (South in English) are, as such, the generic parts of place names which are all derived historically and linguistically from the same root noun "California."

Moreover, from a geographic and historical context; Alta California (Upper California) includes all of the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah; as well as western Colorado and southwestern Wyoming. The Californias (Spanish: Las Californias), is the predecessor state to all of: California, USA; as well as both Baja California (Norte) as well as Baja California Sur. Further, the latter two Mexican states comprise the Baja California peninsula (now in "See also" section, even though Baja California Sur, strangely, does not currently appear anywhere on this page at all) ... although the Gulf of California which separates the Mexican mainland and the two Mexican California states is included in the lead disambiguation cluster. I do not believe that the intention of WP:Partial title match is to distance these highly interrelated state entities which have a long and tangled history.

For the record and to avoid repetition of my primary points and for convenience of reference for others, I include the discussion between User:Clarityfiend and myself here:

You reverted my edit to the above disambiguation page. With due respect, did you pay any attention to my edit? IMHO it would seem not, the only comment you made was: "(Reverted good faith edits by Enquire (talk): Short descriptions are the guideline, just enough for ID purposes. (TW))". With due respect, I took great care to make this edit manually, because on several occasions now I have in he past re-insert references to Baja California, The Californias, and so on, when so called good-faith editors have changed such references to simply California, apparently oblivious of the not so subtle distinctions between the various historical and contemporary territorial entities in the region of SW USA and NW Mexico. I do not mean to suggest that you are unaware of these distinctions, but it has been my experience on Wikipedia as well as in the real world that there are a significant population of otherwise knowledgeable people, who only have superficial knowledge of the historical and factual origins of "California". I trust you understand; I have taken the liberty to revert your reversion of my earlier edit, please take a closer look. You should note that, in addition to organizing and grouping entries, I added a few new ones that should have been on the disambiguation page before, but were not. You may feel that there is excessive editorial, but in my experience, there is a great deal of confusion and misinformation about the distinctions between these various state entities and that, therefore, some rudimentary explanation is appropriate.
Enquire (talk) 03:33, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

A disambiguation page is not the place to deal with "confusion and misinformation". It is strictly a navigation tool, with specific guidelines. DABENTRY states "Keep the description associated with a link to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link." I forgot to mention it in my edit comment, but the Baja California entries also violate WP:Partial title matches. If you still disagree, I suggest you ask for a second opinion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, I think the MoS link you referenced is actually Wikipedia:DABENTRY#Individual_entries. right? On this matter, I would entirely agree that a disambiguation page is not the place to deal with "confusion and misinformation". However, there is confusion and misinformation and therefore it is important that this disambiguation page (in particular) clarifies the not so subtle distinctions between the various state entities (present and historical) clearly and concisely. IMHO, I think the current version does that. Maybe the entry for Alta California appears at first glance to be a little verbose, but I could not see any obvious redundant string of words that could be deleted without detracting from a concise differentiation of the various current and former states, provinces and territories without introducing some level of ambiguity. Overall, I feel that as is, including the indented sub-entries is a clear way to classify and disambiguate the various meanings of "California" as a state / province / territory. If you feel otherwise, and not wishing to be perceived as driven by pride of authorship, perhaps we should start a discussion on Talk:California_(disambiguation)?

Enquire (talk) 06:59, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

As a footnote, I have a friend who lives in San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur and I needed to send documents overnight via FedEx. FedEx dispatch called me to tell me that I had made a mistake on the label and wanted to know if this package was to go to California or Mexico. The wanted me to either replace the word "California" with "Mexico" (to make "Baja Mexico Sur") OR to delete "Mexico" and add a "US zip code". I forget how long I was on the phone, but it could have been over an hour. I demanded to speak to a supervisor, who was not much more knowledgeable ... but finally, I was able to convince someone at FedEx that "Baja California Sur" is a real state that really does exist in Mexico. Considering that employees of an International logistics company are confused just speaks volumes on the need to make a clear and concise disambiguation page for "California". Please note, prior to my edit, there were no entries at all for: Alta California; Baja California (Norte); or, Baja California Sur.

Enquire (talk) 07:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

We'll get a quicker response at the project's talk page, so I'm going to start the discussion there. P.S. There aren't supposed to be entries for anything other than California. Two of the three you cited have their own dab pages. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:17, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok, let's do that. Enquire (talk) 21:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

In conclusion, I submit that since California, Alta California, Baja California (Norte), Baja California Sur are all state entities that are constituent parts of the former Spanish, then Mexican state of Las Californias; and that the US state of California is the westerly part of the former Spanish, then Mexican province/territory of Alta California; and that therefore, they should be logically grouped together. If the disambiguation page is to serve its purpose of helping readers find the specific Wikipedia article that is relevant to their search (whether they are among the confused/misinformed or not), then I suggest that they rationally should be grouped together for clarity.

Enquire (talk) 21:28, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Rivoli Cinema

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2014_April_21#Rivoli_Cinema about the DABs for this. I tidied one entry at the DAB up from redlink Rivoli Cinemas which I believed (and seems to be the case) was entirely uncontroversial – the one-liner said and still says it is a multiplex chain in Melbourne, Australia – to Rivoli Cinemas (Melbourne).

But Rivoli Theatre (disambiguation) only has four entries, and the DAB at Rivoli only has nine: they could easily be combined. User:Thryduulf, a stalwart at WP:RfD, created today Rivoli Theater (disambiguation) as an {{R from alternate spelling}}, because three of the entries at the first-mentioned are for "Rivoli Theater" with the American spelling (Rivoli Theater redirects to Rivoli Theatre with the British spelling) and one to Rivoli Theatre (Portugal) with the British spelling. There seems to be an excess of redirects and DABs for a title that doesn't have many topics on it. I'd like to cut out some of the vermicelli: although I am an inclusionist I think this hinders rather than helps a reader to search. Si Trew (talk) 23:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

• Whenever there is a disambiguation page at Foo, there should exist Foo (disambiguation) as a redirect to it (see WP:INTDABLINK). In the majority of cases where there is a page with "theatre" in the name then there should be a redirect from "theater" (and vice versa), including for disambiguation pages and (imo) intdablinks. So the real question is how many disambiguation pages should we have for the various "Rivoli"s, "Rivoli Theatre"s and "Rivoli Cinema"s? Thryduulf (talk) 09:23, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I am not arguing about the redirects but suggesting to combine the DAB pages themselves. Obviously we would then retarget the redirects as housekeeping. Si Trew (talk) 13:19, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't combine the dab for the title "Rivoli" with the other dab(s). Combine cinema, theater, and theatre, but that dab should remain separate from the dab for "Rivoli". -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Hatnotes on DAB pages?

I couldn't find anything at MOS:DAB stating that hatnotes should not be added to disambiguation pages. I noticed that the page 2nd Division, which is a {{mil-unit-dis}}, uses the hatnote template {{about}}. Since the DAB is in article space, the template returns the text, "This article is about", but of course disambiguation pages are not articles as such.

Therefore, two questions: Is it appropriate, at least sometimes, to include hatnotes on disambiguation pages? If so, is there a way to make {{about}} render the text, "This page is about", even in article name space? Cnilep (talk) 02:16, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I can certainly see that there will be some uses where hatnotes on disambiguation pages are useful - and this is a good example. The answer to the second question is that I don't know that it can, but you can use {{hatnote}} to craft a completely custom message - it would be better to add an option to {{about}} (perhaps type=page or name=page) but I'm not competent to do that myself. Thryduulf (talk) 09:15, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Or just use {{For}} instead of {{About}} on dabs. {{Distinguish}} is probably even better. And in this particular dab's case, they could be combined. Separating them by their meaning (as opposed to their titling) makes them set index articles, IMO. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:11, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

{{About}} with empty first parameter acts the same as {{For}}, I think - but it would be helpful to be able to specify what the dab page covers, in the hatnote. I'm not keen on {{distinguish}} as it allows no scope for explanation. Another option is a handcrafted hatnote using {{hatnote}}, with which you could create the required effect of "An About template which refers to page instead of article". PamD 16:00, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Have just handcrafted a revised hatnote on 2nd Division. Not sure whether the word "disambiguation" should be there or not: feel free to tweak it. PamD 16:04, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Would "This page disambiguates..." be better? Thryduulf (talk) 20:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think a dab page hatnote should refer to its subject matter, since it has none (other than the title it disambiguate). Saying the dab page is about military divisions makes it a set index article instead. Saying it disambiguated military divisions is also incorrect; it disambiguates any topic for the ambiguous title; if it handles only some topics, it's a set index. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:12, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

What is the practical difference between the two? The vast majority of readers will not care what we call the page, they're only interested in whether they are reached what they are looking for. Thryduulf (talk) 23:12, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

That is a good question, but one with a long history. The net from my point of view is that set index articles don't have to be formatted like dab pages, are articles, and so are valid link targets and subject to the usual notability, verifiability, etc. They sprang up (again, from my point of view) when editors wanted to put more links and other stuff than were needed on a dab page on their lists of whatevers. I'm not a fan of them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@JHunterJ: While a {{disambiguation}} page has no subject matter, a {{mil-unit-dis}} does have at least a general category – military units and formations. Similarly, {{geodis}} pages have places, {{hndis}} pages have the names of people, etc. In this particular case, Second Division is not a DAB page at all; it is an index of second-highest divisions in various association football leagues. Division II is a DAB page, which includes links to 'Second Division' and '2nd Division', the military unit disambiguation. Cnilep (talk) 23:36, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

{{mil-unit-dis}} has a general category, and is used when a particular ambiguous title happens to have no topics other than military units and formations. Similarly {{geodis}} have to have only places, etc., but dabs with places and other things use {{disambiguation}} with the "geo" parameter. In this case, it seems to me that the military units and formations are ambiguous with the titles "2nd Division" and "Second Division" and the sports leagues are ambiguous with the same titles, and this split is much like the Wikipedia:Partially disambiguated page names "Second Division (military unit)" and "Second Division (sports league)"--to be avoided. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

How is the split different to sections on a single dab page? Thryduulf (talk) 09:12, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Service to the reader. Dabs are there for the reader to get to the article sought. If the reader seeking a military unit lands on the sports league SIA, this is less useful than the initial landing on a disambiguation page for the ambiguous title (which would have a link to the reader's sought page). -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:58, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Template:National Youth football teams of Europe

To my surprise, Template:National Youth football teams of Europe just recently showed up at "Templates with disambiguation links". Still it looks like the links to the disambiguation pages Poland national youth football team and Scotland national youth football team are years old. Unless these pages are not dab pages but broad concept pages, I have no clue how to solve those links. Anybody an idea? The Banner talk 21:20, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

They look like set index pages to me - merely a list of subtopics sharing the name of a single topic. bd2412 T 21:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

If these (Poland and Scotland) are dab pages, then the Belgian, Swedish and Spanish equivalent pages need to be labelled as dab pages too, and all 5 should be linked from the template by a piped redirect through Poland national youth football team (disambiguation) etc. PamD 22:09, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

They're not really ambiguous, though. For example, the Scotland national under-19 football team and the Scotland national under-20 football team are both merely types of Scotland national youth football teams, i.e., a youth football team composed of players in a specific age group, representing the nation of Scotland. This is either an index, or WP:DABCONCEPT. bd2412 T 22:40, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Proposed rewording for instructions for disambiguation at the WikiProject Comics Manual of Style

A Request for Comment has been made regarding the appropriate level of generality of article title disambiguation for articles under WikiProject Comics. Please join the discussion here. Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:20, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Need help on Gigas

Not sure how to request this and implement it officially, and not an active member of wikipedia, so can someone in the know please look at this?192.249.47.186 (talk) 15:26, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

 Done. I moved the articles around and moved the existing Gigas (disambiguation) to the base name. Thanks! -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:44, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

RfC in progress that affects WP:DABNAME

There is currently an RfC in progress that could affect the guideline at WP:DABNAME, specifically the instructions regarding using the word "The" in the disambiguation page title. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name)#RfC. Steel1943 (talk) 15:33, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Detoxification

There is currently a discussion under way on how best to disambiguate the topics related to the title: detoxification and detox. See Talk:Detoxification#Requested move (2014). Rincewind42 (talk) 06:02, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

MOSDAB

There's disagreement at Talk:Blogger. Another editor is following the current wording of WP:PIPING, plus not including the ambiguous term in an entry. The former appears too strict to me, as it ignores the ease and usefulness of the ambiguous term (unless strictly in bold / lead / synonym). PIPING wording may need to be more clear on how strict. More opinions are welcome there. Widefox; talk 19:07, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Sci Fi Channel redirect

I am not sure where to take this gripe, but since it has to do with a confusion of terms, I figuure the disambiguation team could tackle it. Unless there is a "WikiProject Redirect"

Why does Sci Fi Channel redirect to Syfy Universal instead of to Syfy?

Syfy Universal did not exist as an entity in the years 1989 to 2009, when the Sci Fi Channel existed, and the entity known as Sci Fi Channel was clearly the same entity as the one renamed Syfy on March 16, 2009. Presently Sci Fi Channel (United States) does redirect to Syfy, but none of the SFC international subsidiaries ever had the "Sci Fi Channel" name -- "Sci Fi Channel (United States)" is therefore meaningless, as there is not, and has never been, a Sci Fi Channel (UK), Sci Fi Channel (Latvia) or any Sci Fi Channel (not United States) Bustter (talk) 18:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to start a discussion of this at Talk:Syfy Universal Bustter (talk) 18:32, 6 May 2014 (UTC)