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Permit redirects from ambiguous terms not only to dab pages, but also to articles

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This template is a good idea, but I propose to extend its applicability slightly. This template marks various ambiguous titles which have not to be linked from articles, but it does not imply that the target of such a redirect should always be a disambiguation page. There are such terms as NetBEUI/NetBIOS Enhanced User Interface which are known to be broadly used in an incorrect sense (and hence inbound links should be undesirable), but have good reasons to be redirected to articles. For example, it would be unwise to make "NetBEUI" dab page, because a reason of the confusion is well explained in the NetBIOS article. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:12, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've raised your suggestion over at Wikipedia Disambiguation Josh Parris 07:51, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So you're proposing to strike "to a disambiguation page" from the description of the template? This will now read:
This is a redirect from an ambiguous term. These redirects are pointed to by links that should always be disambiguated.  ? Josh Parris 01:06, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Like that, but now I try to realize how many templates and categories do we need to classify ambiguous redirects. There are {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} and {{R to disambiguation page}} which classify redirects to dabs only. Should we invent a template parameter which will permit to list ambiguous→article and ambiguous→dab redirs in two distinct categories? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:25, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the main issue here is that, most of the time, Foo redirecting to Foo Bar will in fact mean that Foo Bar is the primary topic for Foo and that it's perfectly okay for links to Foo to exist and not be replaced by direct links to Foo Bar. Were it not so, Foo shouldn't be a redirect in the first place, instead it should be a disambiguation page. What you're looking for is something more similar to {{R with possibilities}}, I think. But I do recognize the gray area that exists between these two options. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:23, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Aaand I just hit that gray area at [1] - when we have a redirect where primary topic status is moot at best, but there's no consensus to change to full disambiguation, yet nobody would protest if we disambiguated all the incoming links. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguous but printworthy

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There should be the option to mark these redirects as printworthy. This is to allow for situations where multiple ambiguous terms are disambiguated on one disambiguation page. For example Locked redirects to the disambig page at Lock but it is a printworthy term itself. Thryduulf (talk) 09:13, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Done – (To editor Thryduulf: sorry it took so long.) – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 19:12, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Printworthiness

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Why are these redirects marked as unprintworthy by default? I would have thought they would more likely be printworthy. Say Foos is an ambiguous term that redirects to FooBar, surely if someone were looking for Foos in an index of a print Wikipedia, it would be useful to have Foos listed with a note to see FooBar. This is essentially the case for most redirects. McLerristarr | Mclay1 12:26, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 15 April 2017

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:55, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Template:R from ambiguous page → Template:R from ambiguous term – I believe using term would be clearer and better reflect the language used in the description of the RCAT. -- Tavix (talk) 23:35, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I wonder if this was an error to begin with. Policy pages sometimes talk about ambiguous page titles, but calling a page ambiguous implies that the content is ambiguous. —Ringbang (talk) 02:35, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Template-protected edit request on 25 January 2018

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Please remove the {{Tfm/dated}} from the template. Nihlus 00:27, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:55, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

R from incomplete disambiguation

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A discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2018_January_16#Template:R_from_ambiguous_term decided to keep both this template and {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} and clarified when each should be used.

Done:

In progress:

Not done:

  • review redirects with comma such as Kiso, Nagano - it's unclear which template is better, so I've left the previous editor's choice in place

Please shout if I'm causing problems or have missed anything. Certes (talk) 12:45, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We had a consensus to keep both templates, but it's less clear whether there is a consensus on how to define the members of each category.
I was hoping that Help:Incomplete disambiguation would clarify the definition of the members of the "incomplete" category.
I noticed what you were up to when my watchlist signaled a change to Edward Latimer Beach. That's an incomplete disambiguation because it partially disambiguates both Edward Beach – which it redirects back to (all incomplete disambiguations redirect back to a more complete disambiguation) –and Edward L. Beach. You seem to be disallowing any naturally incomplete disambiguations. Why? – wbm1058 (talk) 13:40, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see that others believe the distinction is not based on whether page redirects to a more complete disambiguation, but on "printability". I've always had a foggy conception of the meaning of that term. I think misspellings and miscapitalizations are clearly unprintable. Beyond that, I'm not sure what is. Why would (parenthetically) disambiguated titles not be printable? wbm1058 (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies. I'll put this change on hold for now and await further comments, then revert if necessary. Certes (talk) 13:49, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In contrast to the Ed L. Beaches, Mike Smith is truly just an {{R from ambiguous name}}. That title doesn't partially disambiguate Michael Smith at all, as every Michael Smith could, at least theoretically, have the nickname "Mike". – wbm1058 (talk) 14:18, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. We have a primary topic for Ed Beach. That page was missing a hatnote, which I added. If Edward Leon "Ed" Beach Jr. is the primary topic for "Ed" Beach, should he also be the primary topic for Edward L. Beach? wbm1058 (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily, because (if the articles are to be believed) both were known as Edward L. but only Jr was known as Ed. Certes (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
But can we really just expect searching readers to "know" that Sr "never" went by Ed. Surely somebody called him Ed sometime and somewhere in his life. Even if he had to correct them with "please call me Edward". I think it's reasonable to assume that the "Ed" nickname does not indisputably disambiguate father from son. wbm1058 (talk) 15:16, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And you may be right that Edward L. Beach is an ambiguous term, because all three Ed Beaches in our disambiguation have the middle intitial L. But others may think that L is a partial disambiguator, even though at the moment it partially disambiguates exactly nobody. See Help talk:Incomplete disambiguation. Is Philip W. Anderson (editor) really an incomplete disambiguation is there is only exactly one Philip W. Anderson in the encyclopedia who could be called an editor. A set of one seems like a pretty complete disambiguation to me. Philip W. Anderson (film editor) is unnecessary given there is no Philip W. Anderson (newspaper editor) or Philip W. Anderson (magazine editor). – wbm1058 (talk) 14:46, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Philip W. Anderson (editor) is an {{R from other disambiguation}}. I'm not planning to change pages of that type, because it doesn't use either of the two templates we're looking at and doesn't redirect to a disambiguation page. But the pedant in me wants to move the page to (editor).Certes (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I changed it to other. Paine Ellsworth thought that was incomplete. Roman Spinner thought that further disambiguation was helpful. wbm1058 (talk) 15:08, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A quick note on my logic: before I meddled, R from ambiguous term had 286 uses with parentheses; 10,183 without. R from incomplete disambiguation had 21,647 uses with parentheses; 1,278 without. I read those figures as a consensus that R from incomplete disambiguation was for titles containing a Wikipedia-style qualifier such as 1 (album), whilst R from ambiguous term was for natural titles such as Edward Latimer Beach that someone unfamiliar with Wikipedia's conventions might actually type in. But I can understand the opposing view. Certes (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The muddy grayness of the examples described here is why I switched from oppose to neutral on merging the two templates. I'm not sure it's going to be easy to delineate the subtle boundaries between the two. And if we can't do that, then that's actually a pretty decent argument for merging them. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:08, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Given the fuzzy boundaries, I'm not sure that it really matters much which of the two templates is on a particular page, as long as at least one of them is. So I'm not going to ask you to revert any of your bulk changes. My attitude on this at the moment is something like "not broken"... in other words I'd place a very low priority on "fixing" these. More important to me is syncing the talk pages, and my Bot1058 continues to do that once per day. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:28, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And I will never forgive you for that! (kidding) What is really compelling for me is that there are so many more editors these days who are climbing in and helping with redirects and their categorization. For many years I was pretty much nearly alone in that, but now more and more editors are finding the challenges and helping to correct them (or figuring out ways to live with them and improve them). Can't thank you enough!!!  Paine  17:28, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Paine Ellsworth: As an editor with more experience of these matters than most, do you have any views or suggestions on when we should use each of these templates? Certes (talk) 10:27, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To editors Certes and ­wbm1058: yes, I do, and they may not be the same as those of other editors. For example, as you may already know I disagree that Philip W. Anderson (editor) is just an"other" disambiguation of Philip W. Anderson (film editor). The subtle distinction made by wbm1058 is too subtle for most editors who, like myself, see that redirect as an obvious incomplete disambiguation. We should apply WP:KISS whenever we can so as not to confuse inexperienced editors who are trying to help with redirect categorization. In Anderson's case, it might be better to move the page back to "(editor)" and make "(film editor)" a redirect from unnecessary disambiguation.
Along the same vein, and while I think the new Help:Incomplete disambiguation page could be very helpful to editors, it can still stand some improvement. For example, the table seems to imply that incomplete disambiguations may only target dab pages. The texts from both rcats are in disagreement with that:
R from ambiguous term reads This is a redirect from an ambiguous page name to a page or list that disambiguates it. That can be any page and does not have to be specifically a dab page.
R from incomplete disambiguation reads Such titles should redirect to an appropriate disambiguation page (or section of it), or to a more complete disambiguation. Again, these redirects may or may not specifically target a dab page.
Another item that comes to mind is the distinction of "descriptive title" disambiguation. I searched long and hard for an example, and each time I think I've found one, it seems more suited to being an ambiguous term rather than an incomplete dab. So unless an appropriate example can be found, it would be confusing to keep that distinction in the table on the help page.
I think we're coming along with the distinctions, and I can't say enough how much I appreciate your work on this!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  11:17, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi to Certes and Paine Ellsworth, I stumbled upon this discussion three years late, but I'm glad neither of you followed through on your inclination of moving Philip W. Anderson (film editor) back to Philip W. Anderson (editor). Not only is the more distinctive disambiguation (film editor) the standard (as you would see when looking through the categories of film editors), it is the far better choice – not because there is another editor of any sort named Philip W. Anderson (there isn't, to my knowledge) but because the term "editor" itself is too broad and ambiguous. Besides the fact that "editor" is even used for non-humans, like text editing software, there are numerous occupations from very different branches that use the word "editor". The most common association people rightly have upon reading only that word, is someone working in publishing or journalism. Therefore, as Roman Spinner fittingly wrote when moving the page in 2015: "enhanced qualifier will more specifically indicate subject's professional affiliation with cinema (such usage is standard)". Not even within the film industry is "editor" reserved for only one occupation; there are also sound editors, music editors, VFX editors, commissioning editors...

I wrote this to you because I am busy moving all the remaining film editor pages that have only an (editor) as disambiguation to (film editor) – and would really appreciate no-one undoing that! By having standardized this, we are doing a service to readers. Greetings from --Sprachraum (talk) 11:27, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To editor Sprachraum: seems to me that this could be a little tricky. I'm no expert and yet I can perceive at least two definitions of "film" in this context. There is the broader idea based on "I'm going to see a movie" or "I'm going to see a film," and in that context "sound editors", "music editors" and so on could be seen as film editors. Then there is the more specific usage of "film". My inexperienced mind envisions (probably archaic) the old man in the back room cutting and splicing the actual "film", because some scenes don't quite "fit", or because someone decided that the film exceeded some time limit, and so on. Tricky, yes, at least from my limited POV. I see this as an area where a more knowledgable editor would come in and correct (read that "improve") some of my past edits to redirects on this subject. So I would say, "Keep up the good work! " P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 13:29, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Paine Ellsworth, thanks for your kind reply, and I intend to keep working on this topic, yes. You are right, "film" is an umbrella term that can easily seem to the uninitiated to encompass a sound editor as well – but the occupations I name above are all well defined within the film industry. Here on Wikipedia though, there is much work still to be done – starting with the fact, that there isn't even a separate article named Film editor right now, just a relink to film editing. That will be one of my future big jobs here (if no-one else beats me to it): Separating that article into two, and improving both beyond their current state. The vision that you described, of a back room person handling the actual film, was once quite true, but of course the work is done on computers now. There was always much more to it than "because some scenes don't quite "fit", or because someone decided that the film exceeded some time limit", though. Film editors are co-creators of a film and closely collaborate with directors and producers to shape its final narrative and impact. The creative input and relevance of film editors is on the same level as that of cinematographers, but many people outside the film industry don't realize that. Here is a reasonably written starting point, if you are interested: The career guide page from Princeton. --Sprachraum (talk) 14:53, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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