Template talk:Other uses/Archive 1

Summary of discussions

The purpose of this section is to summarize some points per Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages. This is a Wikipedia:disambiguation template. This template used to have other formats and wording. Some contentious issues have been:

• "This article is about..." Should that be in the disambiguation header, or just left up to the first line of the article?
  • Note the 'See also section above.
  • The Wikipedia:Avoid self-references guideline has been brought up in arguments, but on closer examination it does not seem applicable to this issue.
  • use of italics/not for article name.
• "For other uses..." isn't always complete or accurate.

Some issues where consensus appears to have been reached:

• do not use colors, fancy frames, boldface or other visual detractors here.
• do not use this template indiscriminately. Disambiguation pages do not always contain the word disambiguation in the title.

If this summary is out of date or just plain wrong, please fix it. I am intentionally leaving it unsigned to encourage its use as a living document.

margins and classes

From user_talk:Netoholic:

I am well aware of the benefits of using a CSS class, but the notice class has 1.2em of margin and padding. Disambig links have been marked up in this way for years, so I would like to know how you justify changing the default appearance of half the pages on Wikipedia without discussion? Also classes should not be used just because their current properties suit your needs. The notice class, not designed for top-line disambig notices, may need to be changed, and shouldn't be tied down by extra uses. The dablink class already exists for disambig links ("dablink"), and this class should be modified to add any padding which, until you've had a discussion about it, should be on the left only. ed g2s • talk 15:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

template:dablink

See template:dablink for an alternative to this profoundly obnoxious one-size-fits-all straightjacket that is the "otheruses" template. Michael Hardy 02:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Template move

I propose a move of this template to Template:Othersenses to be consistent with what Michael Hardy wrote on my talk page. Any objections?? Georgia guy 00:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

For the record, here's what I wrote there:

The "alternateuses" and "otheruses" templates are horribly obnoxious because they are (as I said in the edit summary) strictly one-size-fits-all. They forbid the user to choose judiciously between capital and lower-case in the name of the disambiguation page to which they link or to rephrase in a way that best suits the subject matter. "Uses" is not a good word to use for this purpose. The context of the article--in this case, derivatives, as that term is understood in calculus--could cause a reasonable reader to think it means other uses of the thing the article is about, i.e., in this case, other uses of derivatives, rather than other senses of the same word. A template is indeed a simplified version, and simpler is better when the simpler version is equivalent to the the more complicated one, but in this case they are obviously not equivalent. And I think that's actually true of most cases, with this particular template. Michael Hardy 00:04, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the current version "other uses". Please excuse me for not following Georgia guy's talk page. -- User:Docu

This discussion seems closed. -- Ec5618 15:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Request to add category

Can [[Category:Disambiguation and Redirection templates|Otheruses]] be added? —Mark Adler (markles) 22:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC) Added request template here. -- Ec5618 15:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. howcheng {chat} 19:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Rendering underscores in transclusions

Why is PAGENAMEE required instead of PAGENAME? The reason given with this edit was "use Other_uses/Archive_1, so the link works if the page has '' in it". Another effect is that any titles with spaces render as underscores. --Christopherlin 06:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

See Roman Empire for example. --Khoikhoi 06:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Please fix it, it makes our 'pedia look terrible. I can't find any mention of it on this page, either, so I don't think it was talked about first. —Fitch 07:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I changed it back to PAGENAME: beforehand I checked "what links here", and no articles' titles using this template contain '' (and I can't imagine why an article's title would ever contain ''). I was also bold and implemented the change I suggested here on 2nd Feb (see above - no-one objected). By the way, users who, like me, have set a preference for underlined links would not have noticed the underscores. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

"Term"

Please revert this edit. The template is protected and the wording has been the subject of much edit warring. The previous wording is best because that template may be used on articles, like names or places, that can't properly be described as a "term". -- Netoholic @ 19:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not really concerned with previous edit warring, just with the clarity to the reader. The three words "For other uses" alone are not very clear to people unfamiliar with our layout (ie, non-Wikipedians). "Term" can apply to single words, phrases, titles, or basically anything. Wikipedians know that the word "uses" can mean nothing except "uses of the word/phrase/term", so it is better to be less ambiguous in the disambiguation notice. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-8 19:58
  • What I mean is that exact phrase has been tried and removed before. You shouldn't be changing a protected page, especially in a way that several other editors have disagreed with. -- Netoholic @ 20:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Every page goes through cycles of change. Simply because this wording has been tried/removed before doesn't imply that it shouldn't be this way. My purpose to make the template clearer to the reader. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-8 21:11
      • Yes, all pages do go through cycles of changes. But when a page is in protection, you shouldn't make changes without proposing them on the talk page and getting consensus first. My prefered wording is "For other articles that could share this name...", since that is why we should be disambiguating in the first place. -- AJR | Talk 22:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Either of these seem alright. I just wanted to keep it as close to the previous version as possible, and as short as possible. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-01-8 22:56
          • I agree with Netoholic. Please change it back Brian. Not every Wikipedia articles is about a term. --Khoikhoi 00:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
            • Please? --Khoikhoi 02:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
              • Come on, guys. This is stupid. Not all articles are about terms. --Khoikhoi 03:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

New proposal: why not:

"''For other uses of "{{PAGENAME}}", see [[{{PAGENAME}} (disambiguation)]]''? --RobertG ♬ talk 10:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

• Implemented. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Other uses of honey??

So for "other uses of Honey" see blah blah blah. I guess that's what honey should be used for!! This page is incredibly obnoxious, and RobertG's new edit is very destructive. Michael Hardy 03:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Damnit, can we just have it back to the way it used to be? "for other uses, see ___". --Khoikhoi 03:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Because that's almost as bad. The "dablink" template exists and unlike the "otheruses" template, is not a straightjacket. Michael Hardy 03:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. This template is good for pages that just need a link to its dab page at the top. --Khoikhoi 03:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Indentation

This template is not indented as far as the other disambig templates are, which makes it look ugly when it is used in combination with them (for example, see Eth). Please add a : in front of it. Hairy Dude 05:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

That page may look better if you wrap both parts in one {{dablink}}. -- Netoholic @ 06:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is an accidental change from span to div, which doesn't match other templates. Unfortunately, only an admin can fix the admin error.

--William Allen Simpson 01:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki link to vi:

Please add an interwiki link to the Vietnamese version of this template:

[[vi:Tiêu bản:Otheruses]]

Thanks.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 01:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Please also add interwiki to sv. With "noinclude"-tags, it doesn't show in the articles - and it is a help for users who travel between different wikis, to find similar templates in other wikis. It should look something like this:

<noinclude>

[[sv:Mall:Olika betydelser]]

[[vi:Tiêu bản:Otheruses]]

</noinclude>

// Habj 16:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Note: the template is locked for editing, it takes an admin to do it which is why I write here rather than do it myself. // 213.89.235.236 18:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Recommend merger

There is an excessive proliferation of disambiguation templates. I would recommend redirecting this template to Template:Otherusesof. That template does pretty much the same thing as this one when all of its optional parameters are left blank. The phrasing is slightly different, but better, if you ask me. But it could be changed to match the phrasing of this template if people prefer that; it should be standardized between the two. -- Beland 17:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

This template should be permanently deleted

Here's what this template does:

• For other uses of women, see -----.
• For other things to use KY-jelly for, see -----.
• For other uses of honey, see ---- (for example, you can use honey to lubricate your car's engine, maybe???).
• For other uses of slaves, see ----.
• For 1001 uses for a dead cat, see ----.

Oh, and don't forget: the word Honey must always have a capitalized initial "H" in the middle of a sentence, because this template says so!! The "dablink" template is a civilized alternative to this idiotic page. Michael Hardy 03:47, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

So go forth and use it and stop bothering this page. older ≠ wiser 03:50, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Now User:Bkonrad is telling us, erroneously, that for a long time this page said "For other uses of personal lubricants, see....". It did not. It said "For other uses, see....". Michael Hardy 03:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you just get rid of the "term" crap and switch it back to the way it used to be? --Khoikhoi 04:00, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, it is not entirely erroneous -- a scan through history will show it has turned up a number of times. However, I will admit that if I had looked at it more closely, I would have put it back to the version Khoikhoi suggested above. I'm not going to get into a revert war over this though. If someone else wants to take a stab at undoing the stupidity of "the term" usage, I'd welcome it. older ≠ wiser 04:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

We would, but the template is protected. "this term" is poor phrasing for this generic template - "For other uses, see..." works broadly. Michael should leave this alone and replace the few instances that offend him to use Dablink. -- Netoholic @ 04:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please. --Khoikhoi 04:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think "For other uses, see ..." works broadly. But I'm a bit rushed right now, so I'll address the other matter: Why do the users of this template considere it important to use an incorrectly capitalized initial letter, as in "...see [[Xyz (disambiguation)]], instead of "...see [[xyz (disambiguation)]]". ? Michael Hardy 23:56, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, perhaps because the supposed miscapitalization is so insignificant as to be imperceptible. Why do you see this as a problem of such importance? older ≠ wiser 00:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not imperceptible to people who know standard English; it's conspicuous. Why would I see it as a problem if "monastery" is misspelled as "monestary" and the misspelling is built in to the software? Michael Hardy 03:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see how it's incorrect, or at least how decapitalizing everything is more correct. You seem to think that "For other uses, see Honey (disambiguation)" is wrong because "honey", as a common noun, should not be capitalized because Standard English dictates that common nouns are not capitalized. Yet you seem to reach this conclusion about "honey" by appealing to a particular, unambiguous use of the term: the sweet liquid. We are talking about an ambiguous term here. What about the 2003 film Honey? Or the song "Honey" by Mariah Carey? Standard English dictates that proper nouns such as these are always capitalized. "For other uses, see honey (disambiguation)" does not encompass these examples. On the other hand, while it is never OK to write proper nouns in lower case, it is sometimes OK to capitalize common nouns ("Honey is a sweet and viscous fluid...").

Additionally, one may choose to argue that the content that comprises "Honey (disambiguation)" is irrelevent for determining whether it should be capitalized. "Honey (disambiguation)" in the phrase "For other uses, see Honey (disambiguation)" actually is referring to the title of a webpage, and titles of webpages are by convention always capitalized, at least that's the present configuration. (Contrast with something like "There are other uses of this term" which is not referring to a page title; the key missing word is "see".)—jiy (talk) 20:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The PAGENAME was not an issue when the template read "For other uses, see ...". Please put it back. -- Netoholic @ 03:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Bkonrad! But can you please get rid of the extra padding? --Khoikhoi 03:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

...as to the claim that "For other uses, see ..." works broadly: I frankly don't think it would be generally understood by persons not accustomed to Wikipedia. A Wikipedia article is seldom about a word or a phrase; so why would "other uses" mean other uses of a word or a phrase, unless it explicitly said so? An article is about honey; saying "For other uses, see ..." is admittedly not as bad as saying "For other uses of honey, see...", but the latter interpretation -- what can honey be used for -- which is obviously not the intended one, seems likely to be the one that the reader will get. Michael Hardy 01:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

More wording discussion

Please see Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#"Other uses" of what?. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Older discussions

2004 - 2005

Destruction of helpful words

I really don't like using this page. I wrote a bespoke "This article is about the person named X famous for Y. For other famouses Xs see X (disambiguation). This was replaced by Other uses, see X (disambiguation). Why the pointless destruction of helpful words? Pcb21| Pete 10:52, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This type of da is very common now. I find having too many words on top to be hideous. For what the article is about, one can just look into the first sentence of the article. Furthermore, the person's name is inherent in the title of the page and it's already implied that the other Xs are famous if they have articles here. Perhaps Wikipedia talk:disambiguation will be a better place to discuss this, since this format seems to be officially prescribed? --Jiang 11:02, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Now that I know the template exists, I will use it where appropriate, but I do think that over-writing previously existing notices is a bit of a waste of time... each to the their own of course! I would like to see the template be a little longer. At the moment it is not a complete sentence. Pcb21| Pete 11:59, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I mainly see this as a shorthand for one of the two ways to link to the disambiguation page. Personally I prefer this one, as the longer version generally repeats the first sentence of the article. BTW is it a complete sentence or would it need an exclamation mark? -- User:Docu

Maybe adding a "For" at the start would make it a complete sentence. I don't like this version because it is too generic. If it is a word used in alternate ways, it is ok, but "Alternate uses, see Joe Bloggs (disambiguation)" does not sound right. It is not an alternate use of Joe Bloggs, it is a different person called Joe Bloggs. I can't help but see it as another attempt to use templates because they're there rather than considering that the "one size fits all" approach is not always appropriate, and besides templates make things confusing for new editors. Pcb21| Pete 12:43, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Please do not use this template indiscriminately!

This template should not be used indiscriminately. Obviously, disambiguation pages do not always, and should not always, contain the word disambiguation in the title. See, for example field. I'll list others here as I think of them.

OK, another is partition. Michael Hardy 00:51, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Alternate vs. Alternative

One common meaning of alternate is "Serving or used in place of another; substitute: an alternate plan." And alternative has an unfortunate connotation of "a. Existing outside traditional or established institutions or systems: an alternative lifestyle. b. Espousing or reflecting values that are different from those of the establishment or mainstream: an alternative newspaper; alternative greeting cards". I think alternate is preferable to alternative in this context. older≠wiser 04:12, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

New format

I don't think much of the new format. It is too bold and makes it look like a header rather than an aside. - SimonP 18:45, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

I agree: it was a quite intrusive. I have unboldened and italicised instead to see if that works a bit better. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:23, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(deleted my own mistaken comment) -- ALoan (Talk)

I'm not sure what you're referring to. Jiang reverted to a non-bold, italics format. IMO, it is by far the least obtrusive format of those tried out in the last few days. older≠wiser 10:40, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Mea cupla - I have struck my stupid comment from the record. I agree that italics is the least intrusive/obtrusive, although I quite liked the coloured background. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:25, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have a problem with including an initial colon (:) in the template. This prevents its use after a clarifying sentence on the same line, like this:

This article is about the novel. For other uses, see...

''This article is about the novel.'' {{alternateuses}}

- dcljr 07:50, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I thought the idea was that it would be obvious what the article was about, because the first sentence of the first paragraph will tell you, so an extra clarificatory sentence should not be needed, no? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:24, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The initial paragraph probably needs to be re-written where such a clarification would be needed. BTW, maybe we should move the text to Template:Otheruses now that the wording was changed. {{otheruses}} does already work thanks to the redirect. - User:Docu

Move please

Some admin please move this page to Template talk:Otheruses. Thanks. --Cantus 03:03, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Spasibo bol′šoe. --Cantus 03:46, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

Alternate template

For an alternate, verbose template that uses the most common wording (which violates Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, alas) is available at Template:This article is about. See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (news)#Disambiguation template. • Benc • 17:19, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Mass changes

I'd like to change all the disambiguating phrases to use one template or another. This would standardize and centralize all these messages. Obviously, I'm seeking consensus to go ahead, as is common sense before doing anything even remotely like this.

For now, I propose using both Template:This article is about and Template:Otheruses, though I personally like the latter much better as it avoids the self-reference. If it's possible to get a consensus as to which one to use, that would be even better. If no consensus is possible, I'd at least like to change everything to use templates, without actually changing the wordings of the existing messages. This will make it much easier to do a second mass change if a consensus is reached in the future.

This is probably is going to end up being a huge project requiring a helper bot, but I know my Python and am willing to do grunt work. • Benc • 17:19, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think may be a use for both templates. There are at least a few cases in which there are redirects to an article with a significantly different name, although there is a disambiguation page for the redirect. So some explanation is helpful in such cases. For example, FBI redirects to Federal Bureau of Investigation, although there is a FBI (disambiguation). Chippewa redirects to Ojibwa, though there is Chippewa (disambiguation). I seem to recall that there were some others as well, but those are the only ones I can remember. For some reason, it does not seem to be possible to use {{Otheruses}} to add any explanation at the beginning. Or at least not without having it show up on a separate line. older≠wiser17:47, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"This article is about" is not a "self-reference to be avoided" in this context: such self-references are thos to "Wikipedia", and they are to be avoided to ensure portability. If the use of the/these templates means that seamless, human-edited disambiguation ("for the programming language, see Python") is going to be converted to parenthetical or awkward disambiguation, ("for the programming language, see Python programming language" or "for the programming language, see Python (programming language)" ) I'd avoid it.- Nunh-huh 22:59, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think both are useful. You'd use the first one for articles only having one other article (thus not really requiring a disambiguation page), and the second for anything that has a list using a disambiguation page. Also I think it should be something like:
This article is about {{{about=}}}. See also {{{see_also=}}}
--[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 13:21, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please don't do mass changes. The size of the collection of old versions is already growing fast enough. If you want to change them, just do them when you happen to want to make some other change to the article. But... how do you expect this text to change? There's not a lot of point in using a template for unchanging text. That just adds extra load to the servers for no net benefit. Jamesday 05:01, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I see your points about added server strain, and the fact that the text is (ideally) unchanging. I just assumed that since Template:stub, Template:disambig, and so forth have unchanging text and are used widely, the servers could handle another.

Could you clarify one thing you said, though: our edit histories are indeed getting long, but how is that a good reason to not do a useful bot-assisted mass change? (Note that you've already convinced me that this may not be such a useful mass change.) Do you mean that the lengthy histories mean that we need to make extra sure that all mass changes are very useful, or that no mass changes should ever be done? Nevermind, you've done so at Template talk:This article is about. That makes sense; gradual change is good. • Benc • 05:29, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible to edit this template to cause it to begin the page name with a lower-case letter? Michael Hardy 23:25, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

New colors?

I don't like the new colors so much. For one, it's distracting, which I don't think is necessary. It's already the first thing one sees upon entering the article, so I don't see why it needs to be more noticeable. Also, I initially thought that I had received comments on my talk page, and can foresee this happening again. Of course, the colors are not the same as those of the new messages one, but it's close enough that upon a glance, one might mistake the message. - Vague | Rant 08:28, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

"For other articles sharing this title, see...", etc.

It's very common for disambiguated pages not to share the same title. Considering the number of articles where this template is used, please attempt to keep it as general as possible. Also, please don't use colors, fancy frames and other visual distractors here. Simplicity is the way to go. -- Naive cynic 11:34, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is a desire to make this message more visible, both by formatting and by increasing its length. -- Netoholic @ 17:06, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)

"There is a desire" sounds a bit mystic. This message is quite visible enough as it is, being the first thing you read on the page. What's more the text isn't even centered in the double lines. Some pages don't use this template and just use the standard :''Text''. There is nothing wrong with this standard, and now this is going to just be out of sync with all the non-template disambigs. ed g2s • talk 18:24, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, it was discussed on IRC. But I'm happy to have no colour. Though a very light pastel colour would be nice IMO. But I'll go with consensus here. - Ta bu shi da yu 19:56, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Discussions on IRC hold no weight for validating changes here. Changes should be discussed here first for a widely-used template like this which affects thousands of pages. older≠wiser 20:00, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Agree completely with Ed g2s. older≠wiser 18:31, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this template should be simple and sparse. If it is made more obvious it will look like a title rather than an aside. - SimonP 20:45, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Compromise wording

I think what is called for here is at least an attempt at compromise. It is clear that some people feel a change is in order, and some are reverting back to a specific old form. I think though, that simple reverting back to the old short form is not an appropriate action when it is clear some people wish a change. At least on my part, every edit has been different in order to find some sort of middle ground, which may not be everyone's ideal. It's frustrating that few are trying to work towards a compromise though. Now then, let's try to figure out what that compromise version should be. Please add your suggested wordings to the list below, and sign each you agree with in principle. -- Netoholic @ 22:07, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)

Suggested wordings

For other uses of the term "Other uses/Archive 1" or pages which include it in their title, see Other uses/Archive 1 (disambiguation).

• Netoholic @ 22:07, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC) -- simply saying "other uses" isn't always accurate, and the message should be a little more verbose to be noticeable when someone reaches it by accident. I would be happy to leave the message as text only (no colors or border) if it were longer.
• I agree. -- ALoan (Talk) 02:46, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Disagree. Faulty wording. Disambig pages are not for listing all possible pages that contain a certain word in its titles, only for articles that describe things that may be referred to by exactly the same word, possibly as an abbreviation. For example MCI may sometimes refer to MCI Communications, but gas or chamber never refer to gas chamber. Mikkalai 20:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Comments

(Netoholic) Can you give an example of when "other uses" would not be accurate? I *might* be able to accept a more verbose phrasing if needed, but I haven't seen any necessity. It would be nice if you provided a rationale and an explanation for high-impact changes rather than just assuming everything is OK just because some (unspecified and indeterminate) people might feel a change is in order. It is frustrating that people just start making major changes without any attempt to explain what they are doing. older≠wiser 03:06, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

• The phrase "other uses" only fully applies if a word or phrase has multiple definitions. In reality, most disambig pages actually contain alternate definitions of the word plus instances where the word is a part of another title.
  As for your other comments - it's frustrating when people say "discuss changes first!" when the community is told to be bold. It's MORE frustrating to have decent suggestions dismissed out-of-hand and reverted back to a months-old version with edit summaries calling them "odd" and "unnecessary". -- Netoholic @ 03:40, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)
  • What do you mean that The phrase "other uses" only fully applies if a word or phrase has multiple definitions. I don't understand. Can you give some specific examples to illustrate? I do not see how a word or phrase being used as part of another title makes "other uses" inapplicable. In the abstract, it seems perfectly applicable to me.
    As for your other comments, there are places to be bold and places where discretion is the better part of valor. While you can LOUDLY trumpet your greater frustration, I can also complain that it is EVEN MORE FRUSTRATING when people make changes that impact thousands of pages without making even the least attempt to explain their actions or gauge consensus for such highly visible changes. But shouting gets us nowhere. You seem to imply that there is something inherently bad about reverting to a "months-old version", when in fact that version has served very well. My apologies if the "odd" characterization offended--I could have found a better expression. However, "unnecessary" is quite apt, IMO. older≠wiser 04:24, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
    • Beaver (disambiguation) (randomly picked) is an example of what I mean. Only a few of the article links can be described as "other uses" for the word "beaver". The rest include the word "beaver", but are not strictly "other uses" for that word in common speech. Additionally, for people who are not strong English speakers, "For other uses, see Beaver (disambiguation)" implies other uses for the animal, not the word. -- Netoholic @ 08:52, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)
      • I can't speak for all non-native English speakers, but your reasoning doesn't seem to be accurate. —Cantus…☎ 17:41, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

Full stop

I don't want to dive into the revert war, but this template needs a full stop at the end. --Yath 05:39, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Please leave the full stop in. -- User:Docu

{{see also|template:alt}} SV|t|add 05:13, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Shall Wikipedia allow other encylopedias' stylings to dictate our own?

I'm really not sure what User:Cantus was referring to in these edits [1] and [2], but even if other encyclopedias use such styling, I most emphatically do not see that as a good reason for us to blindly adopt the same styling, and certainly not without some discussion. older≠wiser 02:05, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

It's all about style: the whole sentence is in italics, but the article name should be distiguished from the rest of the sentence and be placed in italics, but because all the text is in italics, italics over italics becomes normal text. It's really quite simple. There is no reason not to learn from older, wiser encyclopedias. You could always argue that Wikipedia has already copied Encarta's style enough, but that is not the point. —Cantus…☎ 08:31, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any reason distinguish the article name. It looks fine in the same style as the rest of the sentence. --Yath 13:52, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

It may look fine to you, but it isn't correct in academic circles. —Cantus…☎ 19:04, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

You don't need italics to make a "meta-reference": the abovementioned "academic circles" have long been used quotation marks for this purpose. Mikkalai 20:33, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Whatever ugly the style might be, PLEASE don't edit change such visible things as connomly used and long-established templates without seeking consent first. And yes, I know that you have right to be bold. Mikkalai 20:29, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Do I need to make a comment about the duplicity of your statement, considering you yourself edited it (reverted) without prior discussion? My edit was discussed on this talk page, as far back as December. I incorported Cantus' suggested formatting also, which I think is reasonable and innocuous. -- Netoholic @ 20:59, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

Your edit was not accepted by several persons, not only by me. Also, the text is wrong, as explained above. As for my duplicity, sorry for careless choice of words (replaced). (Do I need also to explicitely indicate that I didn't mean edits that fix typos, put/remove commas, etc.?) I was specifically referring to an established version that lived for a long time. As far as I understand, rules for editing technical things, such as policies, templates, infoboxes, etc., require a higher level of consensus than ordinary articles. Mikkalai 21:17, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

In addition to what I've said above, your phrase that dab pages contain alternate definitions of the word plus instances where the word is a part of another title means that these pages must be cleaned from these latter "instances", in accordance with disambiguation policy, which clearly states:

"Disambiguation pages serve a single purpose: To let the reader choose between different pages that might reside under the same title."

"Disambiguation pages are not search indices -- do not add links that merely contain part of the page title where there is no significant risk of confusion".

The fact that a word may be a part of some title is merely coincidental to the primary issue of confusion avoidance. Some disambig pages have links to pages that do not contain the disambigged terms whatsoever: they are given as alternate names in the body of the article, rather than in the title. Mikkalai 21:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible to edit this template to cause it to begin the page name with a lower-case letter?

Is it possible to edit this template to cause it to begin the page name with a lower-case letter? Michael Hardy 21:35, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Arthur said the situation was "deplorable".

According to the sample, I suppose we should update the template from:

''For other uses of the term "{{PAGENAME}}," see [[{{PAGENAME}} (disambiguation)]].''

to:

''For other uses of the term "{{PAGENAME}}", see [[{{PAGENAME}} (disambiguation)]].''

or is there another way we should try to apply Manual of Style#Quotation marks? -- User:Docu

Adding page information to template

I propose changing the template message to give more information about the atricle. The new template would look like

:<span class="dablink">''This article is about '''{{{ArticleInformation}}}'''. For other uses, see [[{{PAGENAME}} (disambiguation)]].''</span>

Exaple of use..

{{OtherUses| ArticleInformation=the country Brazil |}}

It would appear as..

This article is about the country Brazil. For other uses, see Brazil (disambiguation).

Temporary template for testing is located at Template:TempOtherUses

--DuKot 9 July 2005 00:31 (UTC)

As I have not heard any objections, I have created Template:OtherUses in the new format. I will be slowly migrating articles which uses the current template to the new template. --DuKot 18:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted the edit which made this template a redirect to Template:OtherUses. This is because it was breaking the templates on a large number of articles. I don't think this template change is a good idea, because the opening "This article is about..." is usually unnecessary, as the intro paragraph should clearly identify the subject of the article. Involving another variable in the otheruses template is therefore needless and will only create unnecessary work. In cases where an explanatory line is needed before the (disambiguation) link, the entire message can always be put in manually; the extra typing needed to fill your new variable defeats much of its purpose. I encourage you to stop your conversions until more people have chimed in; you could list it at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), for example. -- Hadal 06:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Hadal. I do not find it to be an improvement. I believe that its increased verbosity draws undue attention to the notice, and the need to find a clear and concise phrase to distinguish the primary sense from the others is a small but unnecessary drain of effort or opportunity for disagreement. — Pekinensis 19:54, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

If an article would need Template:OtherUses, it might just be a sign that its introduction needs re-writing. -- User:Docu

First of all let me apologize for some coversions I have done in the last couple of days. I did not notice this discussion. That said I still think it is useful to add the information message in the template. This way you do not need to read the full introduction paragraph before you figure out what the article is about. --DuKot 02:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Note that {{OtherUses}} has been redirected to {{Otheruses}}, and no longer works as shown above. {{Otheruses1}} has this functionality. I found many pages with red links, because they were written using OtherUses, and no longer worked correctly after this was redirected to Otheruses, almost a year ago!--Srleffler 19:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Major undiscussed change

I changed "For other uses" to "For other articles named like this" which, IMHO, is much more intuitive for the regular user. Comments? —Cantus…☎ 19:56, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I find that wording clumsy, as well as misleading, since the disambiguation page may refer to pages named completely differently. The old wording is admirably concise. — Pekinensis 20:25, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

"For other uses" might be simple, but it comes off as strange for a first time Wikipedia reader. The only way you will experience this is by visiting Wikipedia less regularly. Then you will see that a lot of stuff you think is now perfect is actually quite a bit backwards. Cheers. —Cantus…☎ 20:57, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

I like "For other uses, see ... " but can see the concern: how about "For other articles with a similar name, see ..." ? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:56, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

But the other articles might not have a similar name. — Pekinensis 14:54, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, if this template is on page 'X', isn't it really saying "This article is about one use of the term 'X'. If you are looking for an article about another use of the term 'X', try the 'X' disambiguation page". The current wording, "For other uses, see ..." is admirably terse, but is it immediately clear to a first-time reader what it means? Just adding an unadorned link to the relevant disambiguation page at the top of an article would be just as clear for regular users: "See also ..." or "Disambiguation: ..." or simply "..." would work just as well. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:54, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the reason that all the very terse wordings work, both the old one and ALoan's suggestions, is that the word "disambiguation" is right there in the link text. That is the key.

How about "For other meanings, see ..."? — Pekinensis 16:05, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

My $.02, conciseness is worth much more than unnecessary verbosity. IMO, the additional words add little value. older≠wiser 03:41, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

"Other senses" makes more sense to me than "other uses". But generally I find this template obnoxious. One of my objections is that the editor is not allowed to decide whether to use a capital or lower-case initial letter; the template always uses the capital. Michael Hardy 19:26, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm using this template less and less. I find Template:Otheruses1 much better. —Cantus…☎ 03:24, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Another good example of why "otheruses" templates are stupid

Today I found the "otheruses" template used at the top of an article about a person! The article was William Herschel. I just said

For other uses, see William Herschel (disambiguation).

That's it. I would think it would be obvious to everyone how incongrous and stupid that looks. But vast hordes of people are eager to die for the sacred cause of preserving the holy institution of "otheruses" templates, so I will belabor the obvious for a moment. This is English Wikipedia; that means it's supposed to be written in English, not in jargon known to users of Wikipedia and unknown to other English-speaking people. An ordinary intelligent and educated English-speaking person, seeing the phrase "For other uses, see ..." has no reason to think that means "For articles about other persons named William Herschel, see ...".

I changed it to the "dablink" template and wrote something comprehensible in its place. It says:

For other persons named William Herschel, see William Herschel (disambiguation).

Some users of the various versions of "otheruses" template are aware of the obvious fact that cases like this look stupid. Therefore they've created a plethora of differently phrased "otheruses" templates and tried to choose the right one for each occasion. But one must sometimes struggle to make them fit.

The obvious solution: a style manual will prescribe phrasings of typical disambiguation notices for various sorts of occasions, and readers would use their heads on each occasion, sometimes using a phrasing not verbatim identical to any of the examples, just as they do, for example, with opening sentences of articles.

This template encourages knee-jerkism and nonthinking. If even the William Herschel example does not convince you of that, please let doctors harvest your organs and transplant them into living patients who need them and have some use for them. Rarely in life will one see a worse case of wandering around in a mental fog unwilling to be aware of what one is doing than this case of putting this template at the top of that article. Michael Hardy 17:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

This seems quite an overreaction to poor language in the William Herschel article. Some style guidelines sound like a good idea. Getting upset about this template, not so much. --Yath 18:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I was NOT reacting to just one article; I've said similar things about the use of the various "otheruses" templates in other articles. Michael Hardy 18:59, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

OH NOEZ, WIki templates aren't perfectly nuanced to conform to the semantics of the English language!!! Bad, bad, naughty Wikipedia! You are inspiring retarded neologisms like "knee-jerkism" and "nonthinking"!

That last sentence ("Rarely in life...") made me laugh out loud. I'm sharing it with my friends. —Down10 ^TACO 00:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Calm down. This means is that the template needs better wording and should not be blindly used. —Centrx→talk • 16:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The way to discourage blind use and encourage judicious choice of words is to use a style manual with examples of appropriate dab-notice phrasing for various circumstances, instead of a bunch of templates. Michael Hardy 18:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

eu interwiki

Please, add the next interwiki if it is possible. eu:Txantiloi:Argitzeko. Thanks.--Berria · (talk) 09:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Done --  Netsnipe  ►  13:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki link to es

Please add es:Plantilla:Otros usos.

Would appreciate it. Pasajero 01:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This seems to have already been done... JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Edit request: doc page pattern

Please replace the content of template:otheruses with exactly this (verbatim) to apply the template doc page pattern. I've prepared template:otheruses/doc. --Ligulem 13:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Done.--Konstable 06:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

All the meaning problems...

I feel like all the meaning issues could be avoided by changing the term "uses" to "meanings," which makes it obvious that we're referring to senses of the word, rather than uses of the subject itself. It doesn't add bulk or change anything, and "uses" only seems to still be in use because of momentum. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

No. The word "mean" should not come within a 500m radius of a disambiguation page. Wiktionary is for meanings of words, Wikipedia is for larger ideas. Using the word "mean" near a disambiguation page just encourages people to try to think of all the meanings of a word (eg. dictionary definitions) and add them to disambiguation pages, without regard to whether the meaning they're adding can ever have an encyclopedia entry. Believe me when I say that it takes a lot of work to clean these up. --Interiot 17:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't really think we've cracked it:

For other meanings, see William Herschel (disambiguation).

Do you see? No more meaningful than the original. AndyJones 18:53, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The point is not to be "more meaningful" but rather to not piss off the people who feel like "other uses" sounds too much like we're talking about how to use people and objects rather than the terms for them. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I've got an idea. How about something more along the lines of, "Not what you were looking for? Try PageName (disambiguation)" ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

That feels too chatty and webspecific. Wikipedia articles need to make sense outside of the context of the web; that's why we don't use self-references or pipelinks. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

All right, let's take the idea of Wikipedia outside the web. There's been some talk of a paper version, let's pretend we're looking at a paper version of Wikipedia. Now... there's no use for a disambiguation page. None at all. Paper encyclopedias have see alsos, but not disambiguation. The articles follow each other one after another in alphabetical order. For biographies of people with the same name, it's in date order. It's because Wikipedia is not paper that we need disambiguation pages to begin with. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The general idea that I usually think of is "would this make sense if I printed out the article and read it on paper?" That means things like "click here" are silly. Even in a paper encyclopedia, we'd have disambig-like pages, such as the rockefeller entry, which points to a bunch of people that it could refer to. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

It didn't say "click here". It said "Try PageName (disambiguation)". It could also say "See PageName (disambiguation). And have you ever looked up Rockefeller in a paper encyclopedia? I've never seen anything remotely resembling a disambiguation entry in my 1992(I think that's the year) World Book. When there are multiple biographies for people with the same name they are in order by date of birth. For things like FBI, where someone might look up FBI but want Federal Bureau of Investigation it has a little note that tells you to look under Federal. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 13:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

There are other articles with similar names. See PageName (disambiguation) if this isn't what you were looking for. — Omegatron 00:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I like it. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 01:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent change.

I propose a revert, at least for now, due to the fact that the new template is nonsense and despite saying "per talk", the changed version doesn't even seem to be the version proposed here. First off, the old one had the virtue of brevity, which is not insubstantial. Secondly...

There are other articles with similar names; see Otheruses (disambiguation).

This states a fact, then orders the reader to click on the disambig page regardless of the fact that the current page may be what they want! Compare this to:

For other uses, see Otheruses (disambiguation)

Well, if the reader wants an "other use," then they can see the disambig page. Simple.

If you wanted to change it to "For other articles with similar names, see Otheruses (disambiguation)," then that'd be one thing. I disagree with that change, but it's not "wrong." The current version, however, is; it means something different than what it is trying to say.

More generally, if we want to change how otheruses works, it should probably be a change across ALL the otheruses templates. We're asking for inconsistency by just changing this one. SnowFire 03:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I would support the text proposed by SnowFire: For other articles with similar names, see Otheruses (disambiguation) The current text which uses a semicolon is definitely a regression. -- Bovineone 04:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I changed it accordingly. — Omegatron 03:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems much better than the old wording. Thanks. —Michael Z. 2006-11-01 03:52 Z

I apologise for coming into this discussion so late. Yesterday's wording change There are other articles with similar names; is both wordy and inaccurate. For example, there is an article called The Complete Peerage that is another use of Cockayne, hence the link {{otheruses}}. This seems to be very common, and the reason why the other uses phrase has stuck around for so long. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Is that really incorrect? Someone looking for an article on "Cockayne the book" will search for "Cockayne". They'll find Cockayne, see that it's about a place, and follow the link to the disambig page. The disambig page instructs them on the correct title of the article they are looking for. Sounds like the template and disambig pages are working correctly and accurately to me.
2. How common is that, really? Even if you think it's inaccurate or wrong with this template, what's wrong with replacing it with a more specialized template? — Omegatron 13:57, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the new one is very inaccurate, especially because the other articles may not actually exist yet, but should still be represented on the disambig page. I wish people would get a consensus of more than two users before changing a protected template used on thousands of articles. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

1. If the advice in the docs to discuss wording changes at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation and Wikipedia talk:Hatnotes had been followed, then it might indeed have got the better airing that you and I wanted, Night Gyr. The same wording question applies to 4 or 5 topnote templates. That said, it is our own fault for not having the template on our watchlists.
2. If other articles don't exist yet, I think there should not be a disambiguation page, nor this template. A disambig page can be made by the editor who creates the article on the third topic to be disambiguated. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:38, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

How this template is obnoxious. What the readily available alternative is (the "dablink" template).

For other uses, see Otheruses (disambiguation).

[and please note the period at the end of the sentence]
is obnoxious for a variety of reasons:

• It forbids the editor to choose judiciously between a capital and a lower-case initial letter;
• "For other uses", in many contexts, sounds as if it means "For other uses of the thing this article is about", rather than for other senses of the word ("For other uses of Honey, see..."; "For other uses of Jews, see...", etc.). Articles are supposed to be about the things the words refer to, not about the words themselves, but "other uses" seems to be intended by users of this template to be about the term that is the title of the article. The disambiguation notice can say that it---the notice---is about the word: "For other senses of this word, see ...";
• This template is not adaptable. It is a Procrustean bed. There should be standardization by means of a style manual for disambiguation notices at the top of the page; the style manual could give examples of the various forms appropiate for various circumstances; the editor could then adapt the notice intelligently to the particular occasion. Nobody would then have to say "Well, this notice looks good in 90% of cases, so that outweighs the fact that it looks stupid in the other 10%." As it is, that problem has been responded to by several dozen different versions of the "otheruses" template, so that the user can choose among them intelligently. That is unwieldy. Few editors can keep track of them all. I doubt if more than one or two Wikipedians has any good working knowledge of their variety. Maybe none at all.

The "dablink" template works well; it has none of the problems that this one has. Michael Hardy 04:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Er... I'm not sure why you stuck this under my reversion, as this seems to be an argument for deletion of the template and not connected to the recent change. Mind if I switch it to its own section? (Switch it back if I misinterpreted you.) SnowFire 04:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with Michael Hardy (below) in that the otheruses template should be deprecated, since those 10% of the pages can simply choose to use dablink. btw, I think I have a reasonable working knowledge and appreciation of the existing template variety, though I agree that there might be some opportunity to combine a few of them via more optional parameters. -- Bovineone 04:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The {{dablink}} template discourages a uniform style, and requires extra typing and spellchecking. According to WP:TM/GENERAL it is for situations "where none of the following templates are appropriate." So by all means use {{dablink}} when {{otheruses}} is obnoxious. However, why not allow those of us who dislike extra typing to use it when it does fit?

There are not several dozen variations, if you exclude those deprecated; there are only 13 in the agreed list; though I agree there could be fewer, as well as some polymorphism. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

If the dablink template discourages a uniform style, then allowing newbies to create articles discourages uniform style. We have style manuals for that; we can have a style manual for the use of the dablink template, establishing such uniformity as is appropriate, and allowing such adaptability as is needed. Michael Hardy 18:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the one who thinks the figure is 10%; I think it's more nearly 90%. Michael Hardy 18:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the meaning is simply unclear, and the text should be reworded. —Michael Z. 2006-10-31 18:49 Z

I don't meant to object to Michael Hardy's call for a style guide (as long as its simple.) When it comes down to it, templates are only shorcuts for writing in a particular style. If particular templates work against good style then they should not be used. I think if a style guide were to be written, however, I think it might include the wording and layout in {{otheruses}} . --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 14:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

But it would allow adaptability. Michael Hardy 23:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Adaptability is bad. The whole reason templates exist is to make things conform to a style that everyone has agreed is optimal. We don't want every dablink to be completely different from the rest. We want them all to contain the same information in a way that is helpful and intuitive for newcomers to follow. If there's a problem with the way a template is being used, we can address the problem at the template itself, instead of going around changing every one you see to a non-conforming style that may or may not be an improvement and may or may not fulfill our needs when something about navigation fundamentally changes in the future. It would be much better to make an improvement in one place that automatically updates thousands of pages to the improved version, don't you think? — Omegatron 13:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Adaptability is bad? We can't conform to a uniform style and have adaptability? That is nonsense. There are contexts in which "For other uses see..." sounds as if it means something entirely different from what it would mean in other contexts. Why don't we have a uniform table of contents that applies to all articles? Michael Hardy 16:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

1. How would you "conform to a uniform style" and yet also "have adaptability"?
2. There are contexts in which "For other uses see..." sounds

   You continue to say this. Have you looked at the template lately? It doesn't use the word "uses" anymore. I wholeheartedly agree with you that "uses" is ambiguous, so I changed the template. The problem you keep bringing up has already been fixed and the fix has migrated to every article (except for the hundreds that you disruptively removed the template from).

3. Why don't we have a uniform table of contents that applies to all articles?

   We do. Your argument is like saying it would be better if the table of contents was written in wikicode, by hand, in a unique way for each page. — Omegatron 17:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• I will answer the first question above at some length below, but it will take me a while. Stay tuned....
• In the mean time, please note: I am probably the foremost exponent of standardization and conformance to style conventions on English Wikipedia. Here I speak, not of urging standardization on various talk pages (although I've done a lot of that---I suspect far, far more than Omegatron has done), but rather of what I've done even more than that: editing pages to conform to style conventions. A couple of dozen or more per day, maybe, for nearly four years now. My user page shows you the many, many pages I've originated, but does not so clearly show you this other matter, but I suspect I am nonethless justified in saying I am well-known for that. Only about five or six Wikipedians have longer edit histories than mine. Michael Hardy 18:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

  And that's relevant because...? Willy on Wheels has a pretty high edit count, too. Please focus on the present discussion. — Omegatron 18:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

It's relevant because it makes clear that I don't need to be preached to about the need for standardization of format.

And note that we do not have a standard table of contents for all articles. The number of sections, the number of subsections and subsubsections, etc., the content of the headings, and so forth, are different in different articles; they're adapted to the occasion. That does not prevent standardization, as you can see. Michael Hardy 20:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Your personal opinion of your own qualifications is quite irrelevant to this discussion.

Of course we have a standard Table of Contents. It's so standardized that the only aspect controllable by editors is whether it appears in an article and where. — Omegatron 22:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not give my opinion of my qualifications. I explained why it is unnecessary to preach to me about standardization. You don't need to convert the pope to Catholicism.

There's no standard table of contents, obviously, as I explained. Did you read the explanation? Michael Hardy 22:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

"For other uses, see..." If I were a newbie, I might think that means "For other uses of Wikipedia..." rather than for other uses of the term that is the title of the article. Michael Hardy 23:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

You've made that argument at least six times on this page alone. Why are you saying it yet again? The template doesn't even use that wording any more. — Omegatron 13:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, the last few messages by Michael are an impressive display of avoiding the question. Anyway, this is not meant to disparage Michael, for whom I have the greatest respect. I do, however, disagree with him on this issue (at least to the extent that I can see what his point is.) Clearly, the best approach is to have a standardized set of templates for "otheruses" and to use them wherever possible, reserving the more flexible templates for rarer cases where the less flexible ones don't work. The most flexible template of all, dablink, should be very rarely used. Now, I see Michael's point about the former "For other uses" wording. Great. The solution to that is to find a better wording for the template(s) that will handle the bulk of the disambiguations, not to work against standardization by overusing dablink.--Srleffler 02:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I'm not sure I like the complaint at the very top that otheruses "forbids the editor to choose judiciously between a capital and a lower-case initial letter". When an article title appears as a title, it should always be capitalized, the same as the title of a print article would be. Thus, when a dablink refers a user to another article, the title of that article should be capitalized except in very unusual circumstances. It's kind of analogous to the use-mention distinction. There is a difference between referring to a thing, like say a spider, and referring to the article about that thing, as in "See Spider".--Srleffler 03:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted for the sake of sanity and brevity, so that the template text once again matches its title, and does not create a needless pattern of self-references. Also, it's important to remember that not everything listed at [[{{PAGENAME}} (disambiguation)]] actually matches the title of an existing article. At any given time, such a page might contain only red links, or some of the concepts might exist only as part of a list article. "Sharing the same title" is totally misleading anyway, as no two articles can actually "share" a title, hence the meed for the parenthetical suffixes in the first place. — CharlotteWebb 10:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Please revert back to the version that several agreed was an improvement. If you don't like it, discuss your objections here. "Brevity" is entirely unimportant compared to clarity and accuracy. — Omegatron 17:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

No, let's leave it as it was (and as it had been for a long time) until a few editors reached pseudo-consensus to change it. As can be easily seen from even a casual perusal of this page, there has been much discussion about the wording. I disagree with Michael Hardy's assessment (although I feel somewhat less strongly about it now--my earlier reaction was mostly to the arrogant and condescending posturing). Simetrical had earlier proposed a minor rewording Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#"Other uses" of what? which seemed to have some support (or at least did not raise too many objections). The suggested change was to say "For other uses of the term..." AFAIC, that phrasing is far better than the more recent revision: "There are other articles with similar names". older ≠ wiser 17:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Omegatron, you've asked me to discuss my objections here. I thought I already did, in the same paragraph you just replied to. In case nothing I said really jumped out at you, let me be more blunt. You are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. The phrase "for other articles with similar names" is poorly chosen, because it's too long, and instead of adding value, the extra text makes inappropriate assumptions about the content being linked to:

1. Why would we assume that every alternate use listed on a disambiguation page has an associated article? If we did assume this, would we go around pruning red links from disambiguation pages? Or removing items where the alternate use being listed is not the [[bracketed portion of the text]]? I should hope not.
2. Even if an item listed on a disambiguation page does have its own article, why would we assume that its title is similar to that of the article it's been linked from? Could you define "similar" in this context anyway? If the related article does not have the same root word or whatever, does that make the link any less useful? No, though it might already be irrelevant for a different reason, which is another matter altogether.
3. Finally, what, exactly, is so attractive about verbose dab-link text?

The intended clarity and accuracy have failed. Let's go with sanity and brevity, like i said. Brevity is important, especially when infoboxes and such are expected to share the intro space. — CharlotteWebb 23:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Charlotte, did you ask those questions because you wanted responsive and informative answers? If so, see above. Please tell me what your specific objection is to my statement that "other uses" could reasonably be expected to be understood by newbies to mean other uses of Wikipedia, and to my other specific objections to this obnoxious template. Michael Hardy 19:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know I'm not objecting to you, but rather to Omegatron's edit.

• Inaccurate. It implies that each item disambiguation page is an existing article, and that each existing article has a title similar to that of the originating page.
• May be interpreted by some editors as a rationale for removing otherwise useful content from disambiguation pages.
• Too verbose. Takes up too much space. Wraps to two lines at lower screen resolutions.

However, if "other uses" is as confusing as you say ("for other uses of... a shotgun!", etc.), then maybe we should move the template from its original title to {{othermeanings}} and update the verbiage accordingly. Updating all the substed and/or manually written instances for conformity would be great, but would also take an awfully long time. — CharlotteWebb 02:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And it's been established that the new version is not accurate. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The suggested change was to say "For other uses of the term..."

That wording is fine, but that's for {{otheruses1}}; it wouldn't work with this template.

AFAIC, that phrasing is far better than the more recent revision: "There are other articles with similar names".

Why?

The phrase "for other articles with similar names" is poorly chosen, because it's too long,

Too long for what?

Why would we assume that every alternate use listed on a disambiguation page has an associated article?

Even if an item listed on a disambiguation page does have its own article, why would we assume that its title is similar to that of the article it's been linked from?

Inaccurate. It implies that each item disambiguation page is an existing article, and that each existing article has a title similar to that of the originating page.

Why does it matter? Our visitor is looking for an article about a certain concept. Maybe that article exists. Maybe it doesn't. What's important is that they've ended up, through a Google search most likely, on an article about a different concept with a similar name. They'll find what they were looking for at the disambig page. Maybe it's an article, maybe it's a redlink, maybe it's a one-line definition that will become an article in the future, etc. The new version will help them find it. "For other uses" won't.

Finally, what, exactly, is so attractive about verbose dab-link text?

What, exactly, is so attractive about dab-link text that's short and misleading?

Brevity is important, especially when infoboxes and such are expected to share the intro space.

Huh? It's plain text. It wraps around infoboxes like everything else.

Too verbose. Takes up too much space. Wraps to two lines at lower screen resolutions.

Are you objecting to a template because it wraps to two lines? On what basis is this a bad thing?

Updating all the substed and/or manually written instances for conformity would be great, but would also take an awfully long time.

It would be best to reword this template so that it works for everyone, and convert all those substed and manual versions back to using this template. (Actually, it would be best if people discussed the problems with this template and fixed it instead of replacing hundreds of instances with manually-entered dablinks in the first place.)

"For other uses" is inaccurate, misleading, and worthless for newcomers who don't know how disambiguation works. The "similar names" version is an improvement and was supported by several users. If you want it even better, go right ahead and suggest a better wording, but revert to the improved version in the meantime. Wikipedia works best when users edit collaboratively. Complaining and reverting to problematic versions without providing alternate solutions is not productive. — Omegatron 17:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

I've posted a reason why the current wording is incorrect there. short version, just look at bolt. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:31, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The bolt disambig page? What does that have to do with this template? — Omegatron 05:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Most of the articles on that page have titles that aren't at all similar to "bolt." Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:18, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

But a user looking for any of those pages will follow the link and find them through the disambig. — Omegatron 08:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

That'll happen with any number of phrases pointing to the disambig. Why not use one that's actually true? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 08:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we don't seem to have a phrase that is both true and clear. We seem to have divided into two camps, one of which prefers clear to strictly true, and the other of which prefers strict truth at the expense of clarity.--Srleffler 06:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason we can't have both. We aren't limited to the five or so phrases that people have listed on this page. Think! — Omegatron 03:49, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I've already posted a longer version of this on the other talk page. Could you respond there? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 08:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

visual formatting should be done in CSS, not wiki markup

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Disambig_link_formatting — Omegatron 16:33, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Other senses

Does anyone object to changing the text of template:otheruses to read "For other senses, see..."? This will clarify, because this synonym of "other uses" clearly applies to words, rather than to whatever the subject of the article is. —Michael Z. 2006-11-15 17:04 Z

See the objections to my suggestion of "other meanings" above. Also, what goes on the top of sight, sound, taste, touch... Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I search the page for "other meanings", and I only find it mentioned twice, with no objections. Why do you object to "other senses"?

This change reduces confusability of the notice in thousands of articles. If it's potentially confusing in "taste" and "touch", I'll be glad to change the wording in those two articles myself. (Sight, visual perception, sound, hearing and feeling are not affected.) —Michael Z. 2006-11-15 17:43 Z

See #All_the_meaning_problems... above. I wasn't the one who raised the objections, I just like meanings better than senses. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

As I posted at the Village Pump, I think what we need is a template or set of templates that encompass not one ideal use, but a range of uses. For example, some subjects like disorder (dab page) may have a number of different but somewhat related subjects, like entropy and randomness. In that case, a wording like "senses" makes sense - we do not "use" disorder, but it covers a certain number of senses of the word in chaos, entropy, randomness, or anarchy. On the other hand, for an article like sight, where the word "sense" can't apply and "uses" might apply to either the use of the ability to perceive objects visually or to an aiming device, the third possibility that comes to mind is "meaning." With these examples in hand, it is clear that there isn't one obvious solution. A range of wordings need to exist to combat a range of ambiguities. The danger in affording a range of possibility is misuse, but with limitations on the available wordings, there should come a point where any conceivable way of expressing the existence of ambiguity from one article to another can be worded using an available template as sorted by appropriate use. Nihiltres 05:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

If you're limiting yourself to a template that says "For other x", then yes, we'd need a number of templates to handle every situation. But why must it be a permutation of "For other x"? — Omegatron 08:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

AFAIC, {{Otheruses}} is just fine most of the time. Where some variation is appropriate, just use {{dablink}}. I don't see much point to constructed an elaborate array of templates -- but then there are a lot of things on WP that I don't really see the point of (like stub-sorting, or overly specific categorization). older ≠ wiser 14:11, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

You say "Where some variation is appropriate, just use {{dablink}}" but then you say the exact opposite: "I don't see much point to constructed an elaborate array of templates". Why not just create one template that works in almost all cases? "For other uses" does not. — Omegatron 16:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see that those statements are in opposition. IMO, "for other uses" DOES indeed work just fine in most cases. For those cases where it doesn't, there is dablink. That is hardly "an elaborate array of templates". older ≠ wiser 17:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not just use dablink? It works for all cases. —Centrx→talk • 02:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it does work for all cases, but it also increases the likelihood of disparate idiosyncratic phrasings. Many editors feel some degree of standardization in the phrasing is a good thing. older ≠ wiser 18:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is now we have uniform idiosyncratic phrasing. —Centrx→talk • 00:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It only seems to be a problem for some people. older ≠ wiser 01:22, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, well then who cares? Why bother trying to please everyone? It's not like this is a wiki or something. — Omegatron 01:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

protected format

Can an admin please restore the older version of this template? The current protected one looks really bad on some articles because it's no longer italicized and not indented, thank you. Sonic3KMaster^(talk) 04:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC) Oops, forgot to purge my cache.... Sonic3KMaster^(talk) 04:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

ru interwiki link

Please add ru:Шаблон:Другие значения --Yuriy Lapitskiy 11:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. —Centrx→talk • 16:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

"For other articles, see X (disambiguation)."

I propose this wording. This wording has not been discussed on this talk page before. "For other articles that share this name" and its variants have been discussed, but they are not what I am proposing. In my view, this new wording presents a sensible compromise that addresses the main points of contention regarding the wording of this template.

To summarize the debates: The word uses does not adapt well to all content. Some readers, for example, may interpret "For other uses, see Honey (disambiguation)" to mean other uses of the bee-fluid, when in fact it means other uses of the term honey. Readers who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia or the English language are especially susceptible to this pitfall. For this reason, it has been proposed to replace use with similar words, such as meanings, senses, etc. These have also failed because they do not work broadly and may be just as confusing and unclear as uses. Some proposals attempt to clarify what uses means by introducing new language. "For other uses of the term" is an example. However, such proposals have been criticized for being too clumsy and verbose. Term, word, name, etc. also do not work broadly.

I propose a wording that in my view escapes these problems: For other articles, see X (disambiguation).

When we refer readers to a disambiguation page, we are referring them to a list of articles to select from, not a list of uses/meanings/senses of words/terms/names to read as if it were a dictionary entry (the descriptions are there only to help with selection). Therefore, it would be a natural move to replace uses and other such words with articles in the template that does the referring. While people may dispute whether uses, meanings, senses, or something else more properly applies to the articles listed at Honey (disambiguation), no one will dispute that the articles are articles. The wording is vague enough work broadly across Wikipedia, succinct enough to satisfy space concerns, and clear enough to be understood by practically everyone.

An objection that may apply to this wording is that it prompts the question "what articles?" First of all, that same exact objection applies to the current wording too—"other uses of what?" Keep in mind that this is compromise, not an attempt to construct the Perfect Wording (which will probably never come to be). Secondly, to answer more practically, the scope is implicit in the title of the disambiguation page, and most readers should be able to figure it out (the uses wording also relies upon this assumption).

Another objection may be that the articles wording implies that every entry on a disambiguation page actually has an article, i.e. not a red link. First of all, this wording is once again only a compromise, not an attempt at the Perfect Wording. Put another way, solving the major old problems at the expense of introducing a new, minor problem is worth it. Secondly, it can be argued that this is not a problem at all: an article can be called an article whether it is theoretical or actual. Thirdly, ideally every entry on a disambiguation page should actually have an article. Redlinks should only be added if the editor is confident the article can exist, and if that were the case, then they may as well create the stub themselves. Punctured Bicycle 01:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC) (edited 18:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC))

"For other articles" doesn't seem any worse than "for other uses", but IMO it isn't any better either. Yes, the dab page link will dab other articles, but those other articles deal with other uses. I wouldn't object to the rewording, but I'd suggest that (if changed) this template should also be renamed "otherarticles". "This is the primary topic for the term X; see X (disambiguation) for articles on other topics for the term." would be more accurate, but then at the expense of brevity. (Apologies if I'm repeating earlier discussions.) -- JHunterJ 14:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you expand upon why you think it isn't any better? In my view it is better because it doesn't suffer from the problems I listed above in the debate summary. P.S. I've clarified the fourth paragraph. Punctured Bicycle 18:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't think of a situation where seeing "For other articles, see ..." would be more useful to the user than "For other uses, see ..." Both are (happily) briefer than the full meaning they are representing: "This is the primary topic for the term X; see X (disambiguation) for articles on other topics for the term." -- JHunterJ 19:30, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No, "for other uses" is a problem because it is not accurate, for example on articles about usable things. "For other uses of plastic, see X" means something quite different from what is intended by this template. The link does not go to other uses of plastic, it goes to other uses of the word plastic. This is covered numerous times on this talk page, and was merely accepted as a necessary evil. —Centrx→talk • 19:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The current template doesn't result in "For other uses of plastic", though. "For other articles" is also not perfectly accurate, for the same necessary so-called "evil", brevity. No worse than the current version, except that it matches the name otheruses less. -- JHunterJ 20:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

• For other uses, see Plastic (disambiguation) can be interpreted in two ways: A. Other uses of the material plastic. For example, aliens might use it for food. B. Other uses of the term plastic. For example, the term plastic can be used as slang for "credit card". Having the wording be susceptible to two interpretations is a problem because only one is correct (the latter). This specific problem is the "evil", not brevity in general.
• For other articles, see Plastic (disambiguation) can't be interpreted in two problematic ways, at least none that I know of. Punctured Bicycle 20:57, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree; I don't think it's an actual improvement, however, since I don't think users of Wikipedia interpret the current wording under the incorrect possibility, that's all. I don't object to the change (it's not any worse), but if made I would like to see the template itself renamed for mnemonic purposes -- if it says "other articles", I'd like to see it called otherarticles (or better, "other articles". -- JHunterJ 21:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this one is that it doesn't specify what other articles. You could find other articles by clicking "random artcle," but why would you want to go there? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

"Other uses" doesn't specify what other uses either. —Centrx→talk • 21:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Which is why I'd prefer "meanings" "senses" or "uses of the term" instead. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Since it's evident that you didn't read the proposal fully, I'll say it once again: This is compromise, not an attempt to construct the Perfect Wording (which will probably never come to be). The wordings you prefer have already been rejected, so it's time to try something else. Punctured Bicycle 21:53, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

If by rejected, you mean reverted by one or two users. They have more support than this change. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

By rejected I mean there was lack of consensus to adopt them, as indicated by the discussions about them on this talk page. Feel free to revive their discussions and attempt to gather consensus if you think they're better. This, however, is a different discussion: Is the "article" wording better than the "uses" wording, yes or no? If no, give arguments why. Punctured Bicycle 23:13, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:Other

Is Template:Other generally considered deprecated in favor of Template:Otheruses? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

If you view it, you'll see that it's just a redirect to this template. Feel free to use it as shorthand since it really doesn't effect the performance or Wikipedia or anything to use {{other}} over {{otheruses}} —Fitch 18:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I was asking in relation to the thought that maybe it should be listed in Category:Deprecated templates. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably not... there are many template redirects floating about... and the category doesn't seem to include many (any?) of them. --Interiot 21:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Lack of use is not necessarily an indication of lack of utility. It would be useful to use this category for templates that one would prefer not to delete but which one would want to discourage the use of ... Template:Other being among those, I think. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

TfD notice

{{Tfd|Other uses/Archive 1|Otheruses templates}}

I've nominated the Otheruses templates for discussion on Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. --JB Adder | Talk 14:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Substituting a graphic?

This is just a shot in the dark, but has there ever been any discussion of using something a little more graphic-oriented to distinguish the little italicized text at the top of a page from the rest of the article? I sometimes have trouble noticing I'm not actually reading what I thought I was reading until I notice the "other uses" tag. Maybe just make it bold or something? Maybe not.--Metron4 20:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

That would probably be far too invasive, pushing unrelated images onto the top of an article. —Centrx→talk • 15:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Otheruse

Should that be merged here? I see that the purpose is the same as this. --Edmund the King of the Woods! (talk) 08:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

confusing

Shouldn't this say (for example):

For other uses of the word "EXAMPLE" see EXAMPLE (disambiguation)

?Noahwoo (talk) 01:57, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The title of an article is not necessarily a single word. older ≠ wiser 04:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

İnterwiki

az:Şablon:Digər məna, tr:Şablon:Diğer anlamı--Uannis (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Those are both already linked to through the (unprotected) /doc subpage. Nihiltres^{t.l} 15:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)