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This is a Sisyphusian effort!

My goodness, this seems to be a never-ending effort. I just picked the "Roman" links (mostly because I remember the subject from school). It seems like new links are constantly being added to that disambig pageat an incredible rate (according to the dump there were around 350 links, when I did a quick check before I started there were at least 450! And the dump wasn't done that long ago!) And this is only ONE of the pages... Geez! --Mmounties (Talk) 17:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

It is true that it will likely be a never ending effort. However, as I was commenting to User:Commander Keane just the other day, I have seen some progress in the time that I've been here. When I first started dabbling (pun perhaps partially intended) in this project, the pure numbers were always much higher [1], and now it seems rare that # of links for a specific page is more than 300. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 17:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
P.S.- Hmmm, looking at the current database dump more closely, perhaps I am wrong. Oh well, we can always dream of the day when dumps come back and we only have ~100 links per dab page to repair. :o) EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 18:04, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeh. Well, looking at the bright side, if anyone needs edits in main space, this is sure the place to get them.  ;-) --Mmounties (Talk) 22:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Mmounties, please keep in mind that the report shows links from the main namespace only, 450 was the total count instead. But certainly gone are the days when the hundredth most linked to dab page had 13 links to it [2] (not that I was around). But the report has been improving over time. Those of us that scaled [American] (5051 links) and [Album] (4819 links) in September '05 [3] can only smile at the head of the the current report. You might also be interested in some statistics that show that while the total number of links to dab pages has increased over time, the number per page has been decreasing - due to this project I imagine. I have a good feeling about the current dump - we are going to complete it, or at least give it a good shake.--Commander Keane 07:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I think we should do something to educate casual editors about dab pages and to check and see that they don't link to them. Not sure the best way to do this, however. Also, we could have and "adopt a dab page" system or something like that where someone regularly checks a dab page (or a few) and regurally checks them for links. --Phantom784 00:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
  • hahaha, well I'm glad you guys are still around and didn't die of thin air scaling those heights, CK. Not sure much can be done about educating new users, Phantom. It just takes a while to learn all this. I'm fixing some of my own beginners' faux-pas now. I think unless we restrict editing to only experienced users this will always be an issue that needs looking after. And if we did that we'd need to ask ourselves "how are they supposed to get the experience if we don't let them edit". So, IMO this is the lesser evil. (But I'll sure be able to tell my mother that she doesn't have the first clue about "Sisyphus".) I think the edit summary "You can help" link is definitely a good idea that should help get some more people to notice and help. --Mmounties (Talk) 00:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Phantom784: I like your idea of adopting a dab page. For example, the Wikiproject music (or albums), can adopt the music related dab links (album, rock, hip hop, folk, etc) and clear away those that belong to music-related pages. Server and other similar dab pages can be adopted by a computer-related wikiproject. Or maybe just make a mention of it on the page. It'll help raise awareness of the issue and possibly get a few people who will fix the links periodically. GfloresTalk 01:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I know a few people have pet pages anyway... The list of generally 'bad' pages is at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages maintenance. Personally, I disambiguate Vatican every month or 6 weeks, which is why it hasn't made it onto the database dump lists for the last 8 months (and I expect it's time to do it again ho hum). I do like the idea of adopting a page and adding an informative message or template to the talk page ~ Veledan • Talk 17:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Also feel free to do disambiguation on pages that aren't on the database dump (as Veledan is doing above). For example, I decided to search for ESP the other day and thought to myself, "Wow, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if this page showed up at WP:DPL one day." Sure enough, it has 50-100 links to it. So, just be on the lookout and feel free to do disambiguation that is "outside the project." (With the same "You can help!" edit summary, of course. ;) ) EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 18:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Frank Miller

Can I suggest making Frank Miller redirect to Frank Miller (comics)? I've scanned the entire list for links that suggest anyone other than the writer and artist of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City. I only found one, and I fixed it. Most don't even warrant checking because they are pages like History of Batman and 2006 in comics. Frank Miller (politician) has a substantial article but he was only "briefly Premier of Ontario in 1985", and, again, nobody's linking to him. The other two Frank Miller articles are brief stubs. --The Famous Movie Director 11:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

While no one is linking to Frank Miller (politician) from the disambiguation page, there are about 150 links directly to the page. Even though almost all of the 200+ links to Frank Miller are referring to Frank Miller (comics), there are few links directly to the page, and I would be hesitant to make it the primary topic since it does not seem vastly more well-known than Frank Miller (politician).
On a completely unrelated topic, it seems like the articles about the three cartoonists all named Frank Miller should be renamed with titles that differentiate them more: Frank Miller (comics), Frank Miller (1898-1949), and Frank Miller (editorial cartoonist) (though a redlink). -- Natalya 16:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
On the Frank Miller talk page, a user called Mr. Snow says he's actually determined that every link to the disambiguation page is referring to the comics guy. A redirect would sure save a lot of work. I do think that the comics Frank Miller is more well-known; we're talking about a dead man who was briefly a premier in 1985 versus one of the most important people in the entertainment industry right now (besides his importance in comics, he's written screenplays and his fame is increasing due to the film of Sin City and its upcoming sequel).
Secondly, Wikipedians are a worldwide network of nerds, with an intense interest in topics like comics (for a nice illustration, compare the Gorilla Grodd article to the one on, say, Leopold Bloom). The people who write intensely detailed articles about comics are going to keep linking to the disambiguation page forever. We could solve that entire problem with one redirect (and, of course, a header on the Frank Miller (comics) page, directing people who are looking for other Frank Millers elsewhere). --The Famous Movie Director 05:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
As a result of ongoing disambiguation and adding interwiki links, Special:Whatlinkshere/Frank Miller (politician) reports substantively more than one link now. -- Robocoder 17:57, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Trance

There are now only 7 main namespace articles linking to Trance.

Pachinko and Shaman (band) use the word entrance, and I am not familiar enough with these subjects to decide whether this is intended to refer to an altered state of consciousness or merely fascination.

Gnawa and Joujouka refer to trance music, which appears not to be trance music.

Bajau refers to trance dancing, which is probably related to altered state of consciousness.

Exalt claims that Exaltation is a theological word for trance, but the Exaltation page doesn't seem to mention this.

Latin verbs (A to K) presumably means that the word trance is derived from the Latin eo, ire, ii, itum, in which case I don't know where it should link, as most of the definitions of trance are presumably related.

If anyone has any insight into what I should do, or feels that I am not bold enough and wants to finish this off, I would be most grateful.

--Matthew Auger 22:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd leave messages on one or more of the editors' talk pages and ask them to pick the right one. I haven't come across one yet that didn't gladly attend to it once they were aware that their link didn't help all that much. --Mmounties (Talk) 22:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Full agreement to that, and also I'd say don't be afraid to remove the link if there is no good alternative on the dab page. If you are right about Gnawa and Joujouka, for example, I'd say the link should certainly be removed because it's misleading. If I'm not completely sure about one I leave a note on the article's talk page saying why I've removed it and inviting people to correct it if I was wrong ~ Veledan • Talk 17:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Bookmarklet?

I've been trying to find a way to make it easier to sort out the links on the "links here" pages using bookmarklets. It would detect which links have User:, Talk:, and Wikipedia: in them and apply the "display:none" CSS property to them. 69.23.68.252 19:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I found what I was looking for from someone at the MozillaZine forums. Here it is for anyone interested:

javascript:(function() {var links = document.evaluate('//a[contains(@href, "/wiki/Talk:")]/parent::li|//a[contains(@href, "/wiki/User:")]/parent::li|//a[contains(@href, "/wiki/Wikipedia:")]/parent::li|//a[contains(@href, "/wiki/User_talk:")]/parent::li|//a[contains(@href, "/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:")]/parent::li', document, null, XPathResult.UNORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null); for (var i = 0; i < links.snapshotLength; i++) {link = links.snapshotItem(i);link.style.display = "none";}})();

This is a time saver! Thanks for anyone that tried :D 69.23.68.252 05:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

So, is there any way to add this to my monobook.js or whatever so it will hide these automatically? —This unsigned comment was added by Jonathan Kovaciny (talk • contribs) .
Not sure if that would be a good idea for it to be automatic. Then you won't be able to access any userpages, talk pages, etc. I think it could be done though, but I don't even know what monobook.js is. I added more code to the above to include User_talk, and Wikipedia_talk. 69.23.68.252 17:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a similar tool that was created - the discussion is in the archive, but you can see it here. -- Natalya 18:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

MA disambig

For the Master of Arts disamig, do I point it to "Master of Arts (postgraduate)" if I don't see Scotland or Oxbridge anywhere? Not sure what to do for those and don't want to edit 50 articles just to get it reverted. Chris83 06:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems like that is a complicated one. It sounds like you should only link it to Master of Arts (postgraduate) if the university in question is in North America. Otherwise, it might be best to let the dab link stay until other articles can be made about MA degrees outside the UK/US. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 02:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Template:Dabhelp

To make it easier to explain to users how to avoid creating amiguous links, I have created Template:Dabhelp, intended to be used like this: {{subst:dabhelp|Ambiguous article|The article we want}}, e.g. {{subst:dabhelp|Republican|Republican Party (United States)}}

Any thoughts, suggestions, or changes? I asked User:Commander Keane and he says it's too long and a bit patronising, and he may be right. He also reckons that most offenders know how to avoid this, but are just lazy: I think that's possibly true, but that a how-to message is probably the politest form of reminder to be less lazy.

If anyone else feels it's useful and would like to polish it to a useable state, please feel free to set to work. --BrownHairedGirl 15:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It's a cool idea, but I don't know how necessary such a template is. Usually it's just people being careless - a quick reminder to let them know to check their links in the future usually does the job. Still, nice job putting it together. -- Natalya 19:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Metropolitan and college campuses

Take a look at DePaul University's infobox. It has a link to Metropolitan to describe the kind of campus. I'm not sure how to disambiguate this one, and others like it. Remove the link? Point to Wiktionary? Call it 'Urban'? New article describing the types of campuses? ArglebargleIV 17:19, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's just describing that the campus is in a metropolitan area, which I would change the link to. -- Natalya 17:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Where do new projects go?

I would like to add the disambiguation page "EP" to this project page (it has 157 pages linked to it). I seemed to have put it in the database dump secion, and that was probably the wrong thing to do so I reverted my edit. Should it go in the "Current disambiguation collaboration" section? Thanks in advance for helping out a new disambiguation link repairman! -EdGl 01:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The list is automatically generated everytime there is a new dump - therefore, pages should not be manually added to it. EP must have gathered it's over 100 links since the most recent dump. However, you are welcome to either correct the links to EP on your own (or others I'm sure will do it, now that you've mentioned it!), or wait for the next dump, in which it should appear. -- Natalya 02:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I've been working on it a little. Thanks for your help! -EdGl 03:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


Mississippi River

Mississippi River has just been made into a dab page pointing to Mississippi River (United States) and Mississippi River (Ontario) creating 1000 some articles that now point to a dab page. Is there any way somebody can straighten this out so that it's more like the Cairo page. Obviously most of the Mississippi river articles are going to point to the United States link, I see no need to create this kind of mess. I'd try to fix it, but I don't want to screw it up and make things worse. Thanks for the help. --Dual Freq 03:01, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it should be a dab page. Mississippi River should redirect to Mississippi River (United States). At the top of that page should be a "Mississippi River redirects here" notice, with a link to the Ontario river, much as it is now. Disambiguation pages, in my opinion, are for situations where there are at least three articles under one title. --Jonathan Kovaciny 03:25, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree, this should be a redirect with a note at the top about the Mississippi River in Ontario. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 03:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it's been (mostly) fixed - see the discussion at Talk:Mississippi_River_(United_States)#Article_Move. -- Natalya 11:26, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help fixing this. I knew I came to the right people on this. --Dual Freq 03:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit summary

How about we change the edit summary we use from

Disambiguation link repair - [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links|You can help!]]

to

Disambiguation link repair - [[WP:DPL|You can help!]]

I had this One Problem using AWB whre my edit summay was so long part of it got cut off. (Alternative rock Disambiguation link repair - You can help! & clean up (Remove Excess White Space) and added stub tag using [[Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser|AW)

Or is the shortcut bad to use becose of server pressuere. Any way edit summary code isn't really visable so i'd day the shorter the better--E-Bod 23:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Done pages

What happens to the 'done' pages when new dumps are made ? Some of the pages there seems to be back to many links that need fixing (for instance: french), do they remain forever 'done'. ?

The pages are only 'done' as long as link-upkeep is done on them. If a page has all the disambiguation links fixed, and then gains more than 100 links before the next dump (as many commonly linked to page do), then it will reappear in the dump. There's not really much that can be done about it except to keep checking back on the pages once you fix the links once. -- Natalya 01:53, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

When is it done?

I just finished a pass through the links to the Power disambiguation page. The number of entries on the "What links here?" page is down from about 300 to about 150. Most of what is left is not in the main space.

Are there any criteria about when the process is far enough along to move the page to the "Done" list? (By the way, I'm new at this.) Gerry Ashton 01:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Generally when there are no more (hopefully zero) links to fix.--Commander Keane 06:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
That's links in the main namespace--don't bother fixing links on Talk:, Wikipedia: and User: pages, which are not the main space. Usually you'll end up with a list of non-mainspace pages left over at the end. Make sure you try going to the next page of links to make sure you've got them all--then you're done. Good luck! --Grace 08:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Commander Keane wrote "...whene there are no more ... links to fix". Can I take that to mean it is OK to leave a few dozen links where I think the disambiguation page is the most appropriate place to point, since the word may have several meanings in the context of the linking article? Or is it better in that case to change from a link to a plain word in the linking article? Gerry Ashton 12:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
It varies case by case. You're welcome to ask for comment on the specific example on this talk page, or on the talk page of the article or disambiguation page. As a general rule, remove the link rather than leaving a link to the disambiguation page. Ask yourself whether having the link would add anything to a reader's understanding of the article. I saw a page once that had a link to "cut" in describing the preparation of food; I think that's an example of an irrelevant link. In a couple of rare cases it's been suggested that leaving a link to a disambiguation page was best (see the discussions under "Newbie questions" and "Trance" on this talk page). --Grace 13:18, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
There are very few (if any) situations where links in the mainspace are appropriate to be left to the disambiguation page. It may be that there is no article on the topic that is being linked to, but links that are meant to be to the disambiguation pages are usually only ever found in the other namespaces. Grace had a good point, if you are not sure about which meaning is appropriate, it's good to leave a message on the talk page of the article, for most editors will know the answer and get back to you swiftly. -- Natalya 21:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

As for articles in the main namespace that deliberately link to dabs, sometimes other dabs do that. For example, Powers links to Power. As another example, the article on Power (communication) begins with the sentence

For other uses of the term, see Power.

Gerry Ashton 21:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Tools

Perhaps we could add a "Tools" section under the "How to help" rubric? On some of the multi-hundred links, I know I'd've gone nuts a long time ago if not for pywikipedia's solve-disambiguation.py, and I understand a lot of people are using Lupin's tool, to name just two. --maru (talk) contribs 04:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

We have /Guide at the moment. I don't know if you spotted it, but if not then perhaps make the link more prominent. --Commander Keane 05:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that'd definitely be a good idea. --maru (talk) contribs 05:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Problems with templates causing links to dab page unknown

I'm working on unknown, it's mostly done, but I've got some issues I need help with. For example, in the article Durham Wasps, the template Template:UKIceHockey team automatically links the "Head Coach" line. The template is used in 35-40 articles, and 6 of them are causing links to unknown. A quick check of other articles, however, show some valid links for this line. I've left a message on the template creator's page: User talk:Y control, but have not gotten a reponse.

I have modified the template to avoid a default setting for linking, so the above problem is resolves. Y control 15:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I've got a similar problem with Template:painting for the "artist" line, for 2 articles. Any suggestions? thanks. Simon12 04:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the entries in the 2 articles from Unknown to Anonymous, so issue is resolved. Simon12 16:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Diaphragm

start quote

Diaphragm: 116 links - Down to 5 articles using the term just to mean a divider, which isn't one of the choices. Now what? --Jamoche 03:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like they are just "general use" of the word, so in each article delink and (if needed) explain that, in this context, diaphragm means a divider - or just rewrite without the word diaphragm, or use a link to wiktionary. In fact, should linking to wiktionary be a standard way to clear up some of the links to dab pages? Carcharoth 14:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Oops. Had a closer look. One was a redirect to diaphragm (optics), but it's not so easy to decide what to do with Shear_wall, William_Robert_Grove, and Bryozoa. Carcharoth 15:59, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I've now extended the definitions at Diaphragm, so hopefully that clears up a little bit of confusion. It would be interesting to see something on the history of how the word spread to be used in such diverse areas. Carcharoth 16:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

end quote

I've now moved this entry down to the "Done" row and removed the comments to here. Carcharoth 02:12, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Pound (currency)

I have cleared a lot of the pound (currency) links (with just a few to go). Mostly what is left are list of stamp issuers (e.g. Compendium of postage stamp issuers (A - Al). These pages give currency details for the issuers and whenever the currency was a pound it links back to the disambiguation page. The problem I have is that most of these issuers were British colonies and they oftened tended to have multiple versions of the pound in circulation at any one time. For example the British Solomon Islands seemed to have used their own currency, pound sterling and the Australian pound at the same time (see. [4]). I would prefer to disambiguate these links but I'm note sure what to link to instead. --MarkS (talk) 19:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Motif

Re: pages linking to the Motif disambiguation, there are many instances of the word "motif" being used where "theme" would be more accurate, particularly in literature-related entries. Should those be sent to Motif (literature) as the closest match?

There's also somewhat of a gray area in other uses, particularly in film and game entries. Depending upon usage (imagery vs. storytelling), there are places where "theme" would also seem more appropriate. However, a case could also be made for Motif (literature) or Motif (art) (the latter of which is a one-line entry) on a case-by-case basis. I did my best with ~10 entries before stopping. I don't want to make more work for other Wikipedians. Some help and discussion would be greatly appreciated. —PaperTruths 03:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Newbie questions

Don't thwap me, but I couldn't find answers that I understood in the archives. Specifically, I spent some time with Eve and have gotten most of the main namespace links fixed. There are a few oddball cases that I don't know how to handle, though. List of three-letter English words? List of EDA companies? Redirect pages?

Yes, indeed, I do feel silly, but some explanations would be lovely. :D Please? --PaperTruths 05:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

You browsed the archives!? Advance to go collect ψ200, no thwaping for you good lady. This is a perfectly reasonable question, there are often oddball entries to deal with.
For the List of EDA companies I googled and found that the company is more fully known as Emulation and Verification Engineering (diff), hopefully I'm right on that.
I did some googling, and found EVE is the engineering company with the website http://www.eve-team.com, and their web page verifies that they will exhibit at the 2006 Design Automation Conference (I think I attended that conference once years ago.) I modified the 'List of EDA companies' article to point to http://www.eve-team.com. Gerry Ashton 18:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I think we just leave List of three-letter English words alone, I would tend to change the link in that case to point to Wiktionary (eg eve) but someone may disagree, and I'm not even sure it's a valid article.
You work on the links to redirect pages just like any other, but you can't do anything about the actual link itself - it just exists. Not sure if that's what you were asking.
Please ask more questions :-)--Commander Keane 09:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Your wish is my command! Thanks for your help with the above. Here's the next bit.
In the pages linking to the chronic dab, there are several usages that don't really mesh with any of the articles. Example: dysfunctional family. In such instances, the word seems just to be used as a word, meaning "recurring" or sometimes "long-term" or "with cumulative effect". What should I do with those? —PaperTruths 02:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest delinking or linking to wiktionary. In most cases, I prefer delinking. To the dab fixer community at large: is there a consensus on this either way? D-Rock (Yell at D-Rock) 02:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The Project Page, Step 6, states "Also, when the link refers to a general meaning of the word, for which there is no relevant article, removing may be the most sensible option. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links). Take care not to remove useful links, though." When I worked on "base" and especially "unknown", delinking made the most sense in many cases. Simon12 02:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks muchly, both of you! ...yeah, I really should have remembered the Step 6 thing, but you know. :D Totally and completely a newbie—joined a few days ago. I live in fear of accidentally making more work rather than helping clear a backlog...but this is fun, and the less complicated dab projects are great to do while watching TV. Anyway, the patience and help is tremendously appreciated. I second D-Rock's question, though. Is there a more specific policy about delinking? While browsing, I ran across some vandalism warnings that had to do with dewikifying links. Eep. —PaperTruths 06:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
You could use Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context as a guideline when linking/delinking, but common sense is usually sufficient. If it's an article that you think might be created, then leave the red link in. For example, Villa del Balbianello has a bunch of red links, but they are all for topics that could likely be made into an article, if someone chose to do so. On the other hand, if the link that is put in links to a disambiguation page rather than an actual article, and there is no appropriate article to link to, and it is something that people know the definition of anyway (which is usally the case), then delinking is important to do. -- Natalya 10:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration?

The collaboration bit on this page says "pending". Can we add suggestions there, or should we discuss them here? I recently tagged a page with the disambig tag, and it has over 200 links to it that need dabbing. It is a bit of a nasty one though: membrane. Carcharoth 13:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Very careful consideration is required, please bring up a suggestion here first. The last collaboration page I ordained went pear shaped; difficult/nasty pages can be troublesome as the collaboration and should be avoided.--Commander Keane 11:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Pear-shaped? Really? What happened? :-) Actually, what I really want to do is discuss a few cases with someone to try and get the hang of some of the more intricate problems, and the accepted way of dealing with them. I'm still not clear, for example on when delinking or wiktionarying is preferred. Carcharoth 22:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
When I come to an impass, I usually leave a note on the article's talk page, take a deep breath, and move on. Leaving a note here can't hurt either. D-Rock (Yell at D-Rock) 00:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

New dump

Did the standard for the new dump change from 100 links to 125 or do we really not have anything between 100 and 125? Metros232 13:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

My heart wishes we really didn't have anything between 100 and 125, but my brain tells me that Russ has clipped dump - which is a great idea that has presented a sane target.--Commander Keane 11:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Your brain is spot on... The list was just getting too long to deal with. If anyone wants to see a more extensive list, however, it is freely viewable at User:RussBlau/DPL. --Russ Blau (talk) 20:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

CART

CART has 152 links, IIRC. They're all from racing related articles which far predate the creation of CART as a disambiguation page. The page disambiguates between champ car racing and some research facility in California for high school students.

Is the right thing to do realy to edit 152 articles? It seems like the proper approach is to move Champ Car Racing back to CART, and add a sentence at the top linking to the research facility.

Comments? -- Mikeblas 02:47, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a case where Champ Car should be the primary topic. -- Natalya 02:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
The general procedure would be to make a proposal to redirect CART to Champ Car at Talk:CART. Then wait a couple of days and see what people think. You can also make a note at CART's entry on the dump list so people will take a look (or on this talk page, which is already done :-)).--Commander Keane 03:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, ya'll. I've posted a proposal at Talk:CART.--Mikeblas 13:51, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Style of disambiguation pages

I'd like to discuss and clarify a few things about the style of disambiguation pages. Sometimes there are dab pages for words and concepts that are, to put it mildly, widely ranging in their uses, having a range of different senses and meanings (sometimes closely related and with only subtle differences), rather than just being different names for objects. Is there an accepted style for such dab pages? (I feel that sometimes slightly more detailed descriptions help people disambiguate and also help show the relationships between the words). If such pages veer too much towards etymology and OED-style dictionary entries, is Wikitionary a better place for that sort of thing? Or can you have pages on Wikipedia about the history of a word or name?

Links to a few examples and a discussion:

Comments would be welcomed. Thanks. Carcharoth 10:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I like septum and diaphragm. They have links to the Wiktionary definition, which is fine--then disambiguate the link. I don't have much of a problem with membrane, but it seems like the definition would some day be moved to Wiktionary and left as a link from that disambiguation page. I actually prefer having the definition on the page itself (and not in Wiktionary), but I think that ends up being counter to the "not a dictionary" mandate. I certainly don't think the history or etymology of the term belongs on Wikipedia, tho. --Mikeblas 13:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion about dab page styles

I've started a discussion here about dab page styles, and how pages aimed at readers are not always as helpful as they could be for editors. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks. Carcharoth 17:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

What if two meanings apply?

I am starting to disambiguate Power; this is my first attempt at disambiguation on a significant scale. The first article from the main namespace is Alfred Korzybski. This article uses the word in a way that could mean either Power (sociology) or Economic power. Should I just ignore it, or is there a way to flag it so the next time the list of pages needing disambiguation is refreshed, the Alfred Korzybski article will be not be picked up? Gerry Ashton 19:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd say power (sociology) is a more appropriate meaning, since it is a bit broader, and the use of it in Alfred Korzybski does not seem to be directly economic (although an economic example is given in parenthesis). -- Natalya 20:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Change EP from disambig to redirect (to extended play)?

This is because most of the links to EP are for the extended play article. What do you guys think? EdGl 22:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and did it, after seeing another support on the EP talk page, and seeing no objections. —EdGl 01:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Re-redirected

An editor changed the redirect at EP from Extended play to European Parliament. I invited him to comment at Talk:EP and encourage other interested parties to do the same. —D-Rock 11:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration

I propose American as the next collaboration. Most of the links will got to the same place, and should go pretty quickly. Comments? Objections? D-Rock (Yell at D-Rock) 05:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I'll put it up.--Commander Keane 05:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I've worked on this page in the past (it's a never-ending battle, for obvious reasons). 99% of the links will go to United States, but you do have to be careful not to overlook the other 1% that go somewhere else (usually to Americas). --Russ Blau (talk) 10:03, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a good collaboration - not super complicated, just requires a lot of work. -- Natalya 16:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to be able to put disambig pages on a watchlist that alerts me whenever a new page links to the disambig page. Does anybody know if this is technically feasible? If so, does anyone else think this is a good idea? bd2412 T 04:06, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll kind of answer your question in a backwards fashion than you asked. I think it's a great idea...I have no clue if it's technically feasable. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 04:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
That would be pretty awesome! But I'll stick with EWS23 and say that I have no idea how to make it work :) -- Natalya 05:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it'd be helpful, but (speaking as a technical neophyte) I expect that such a feature might be too much of a resource hog to run in real-time. You might get a better response about the feasibility at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). older ≠ wiser 11:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
This is technically feasible and wouldn't be a resource hog, but a quick glance at the wiki database layout [5] tells me it would involve modifications of the DB (dates of links are not currently stored), convincing the team working on the wiki software that this is a good feature to implement might prove difficult. Equendil 16:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Editing edit

When working on fixing links, I often end up pasting the wrong thing into the edit description window. Is it possible to edit edit descriptions after the fact? I suppose not, so how woul I request that feature? What about a feature that keeps my favorite edit descriptions in a dropdown shown on the editing page so I can jam 'em in quickly, without using my desktop clipboard? Where would I go to suggest or request such features? -- Mikeblas 19:22, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I think those are very good ideas; I would request them at the Village Pump --EdGl 19:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I can see a lot of those being very helpful. I'm positive we've all had times where we type our edit summaries and submit, only to thwak ourselves on the head realising we said something stupid/messed up the syntax. -- Natalya 21:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes you can set your browser to remember entries. I use Safari (Mac OS, unfortunately), and the auto-fill option remembers what I've put in entry boxes of the same type. So, for example, if I type "d", it gives me a list of the edit summaries I've started with "d", sorted by most recent use. Usually, that means "disambiguation link repair - [[WP:DPL|You can help!]]".  :) I found that option in my browser preferences. —PaperTruths(Talk) 04:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, Firefox should be able to do the same thing. Go to Tools -> Options -> Saved Forms and make sure that box is ticked. I'm almost certain IE does it too. --Grace 08:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't it do that by default? I cannot remember a time when FF didn't do that (god bless its little C heart). --maru (talk) contribs 16:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
It's a function that you can turn off and on in most/all browsers. -- Natalya 23:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Solve disambiguation.py

I've read here about the Solve disambiguation.py script being useful in fixing links to disambiguation pages, but I can't figure out how to use it. Can anyone point to a good explaination? --Gerry Ashton 18:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you be more specific with your problem? I struggled with it too until I figured it out, and now I'm fairly happy with it. --maru (talk) contribs 19:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Since I posted, I did some more research. I found out that I had to install a recent version of Python, and download the Python Wikipedia Robot Framework. Then I would start the framework in a Windows command prompt window, and issue various line commands to perform the link repairs.
The instructions say something about getting bot approval as described at WP:BOT. It is not clear to me whether this kind of approval was only required to get the Solve disambiguation.py bot in the first place, or if each user who wants to use it must get approval. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry Ashton (talk • contribs)
Solve-disambiguation.py is a semi-automated process (you have to manually confirm each edit), so a bot flag isn't actually needed. Certainly, having one is more convenient for other people since it hides in RC (and you can go at a pretty good clip once you start remembering the numbers for various disambiguation options), and it's possible you will eventually want to also do automatic edits (for which you do need a flag), so getting one is nice and desirable but not mandatory. I think login.py may try to enforce getting a separate account, but that's pretty easy to subvert simply by commenting out some stuff in login.py itself. --maru (talk) contribs 21:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

minor error in project page

This project page references a "disambiguation block" and points the user to Wikipedia:Disambiguation, which doesn't contain the word "block". Is this a reference to lines like these: "Bach" redirects here. For other uses, see Bach (disambiguation).? --Kchase02 (T) 06:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure...

What is the standard thing to do? Do I mark disamb edits as minor or not? Thanks, E Asterion u talking to me? 21:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I mark them as minor edits. After all, you're not changing the content of the article really. —EdGl 23:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks!--E Asterion u talking to me? 20:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Solve_disambiguation.py

Hi, I'm a user on the Dutchlanguaged wikipedia where I use solve_disambiguation.py to edit links to disambiguation pages. However I've got the idea that a lot of links here are fixed manually, so is usage of solve...py not wanted? Regards, Erwin85 20:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC).

Speaking only for myself, I use it a lot. You still have to review each link manually; the bot just makes the process go much more quickly. --Russ Blau (talk) 20:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
So I can just request a bot status and if approved use it here? Erwin85 21:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
No, just go ahead and use it on your regular account. Bot status is needed only for fully automatic bots, AFAIK; semi-automatic bots don't need flags- separate accounts and flags are optional, but nice. --maru (talk) contribs 00:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I've already created a botaccount and requested permission, so I'll wait for a reply there. Thanks for your replies, Russ Blau and maru. Erwin85 06:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Clarification

The goal of "Disambiguation pages with links" is inarguably a good one, but there needs to be formal standards for how these links should be fixed. It's easy when you can just point the link to the appropriate page, but sometimes wikilinks should be deleted, sometimes the disambig page needs to be changed, and sometimes the disambig page should be deleted altogether. We need a formal method of dealing with this. Nscheffey(T/C) 12:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation, perhaps? --Russ Blau (talk) 12:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, it was late at night when I wrote this and I didn't spend enough time, or any time really, looking for answers before posting this comment (in the wrong place at that). Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Nscheffey(T/C) 23:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
You can also take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation, both of which go over a lot of style guidelines for the pages. -- Natalya 19:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Reconciling with Redirect guideline

Per the Redirect guideline (Wikipedia:Redirect):

Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken
Some editors are tempted, upon finding links using a legitimate redirect target, to edit the page to "fix" the link so that it points "straight" at the "correct" page. Unless the link displays incorrectly—for instance, if the link is to a misspelling or other unprintworthy redirect, or if the hint that appears when you hover over the link is misleading—there is no need to edit the link. Most especially, there should never be a need to replace [[redirect]] with [[direct|redirect]].

Some editors are under the mistaken impression that fixing such links improves the capacity of the Wikipedia servers. But because editing a page is thousands of times more expensive for the servers than following a redirect, the opposite is actually true.


I am reading this incorrectly, or is this saying not to fix disambiguation pages with links?? CPAScott 19:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It has nothing to do directly with disambiguation pages. Linking to a disambiguation page is almost always a mistaken link that should be fixed. In contrast, linking to an article through a redirect is relatively unproblematic. I'm a little surprised that the page you quote has phrased it so strongly, but in general it is not a very productive use of resources to edit a page for the sole purpose of avoiding a redirect. A while back there were several bots that did exactly that, causing a minor bit of disruption as many watchlists were suddenly polluted by vast numbers of inconsequential edits. older ≠ wiser 19:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Lease

The disambig Lease has only two links, to Leasing and to Concession (territory). As far as I can tell nearly all the links to [Lease] are about [Leasing] with only a handful that should point at [Concession]. Assuming this handful is fixed, is there any reason not to make [Lease] a redirect to [Leasing]? If needed there could also be a disambig blurb at the top of [Leasing] that points to [Concession]. --squirrel 12:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It is definitly appropriate to make that a redirect! And putting any type of disambiguation link at the top of Leasing should take care of any confusion with Concession (territory). -- Natalya 18:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Done! and thanks! --squirrel 20:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Progress?

Is there a tool that will tell me how many links are still made to a particular disambiguation page after I've started working on it? -- Mikeblas 14:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

If you use the Pywikipediabot framework, solve_disambiguation.py will tell you how many pages remain to be fixed each time you run it. Otherwise, see this thread. --Russ Blau (talk) 16:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the links. I just finished the Hip Hop topic, and it had dozens of links. It's quite difficult to see what the counts mean: do they include links through redirect pages? Do they include user: and talk: pages? And so on. -- Mikeblas 07:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation page names

I noticed that the disambiguation page for "Rap", Rap (disambiguation) redirects to Rap. I was reading WP:D, which seems to indicate that it should be the other way around, Rap should redirect to Rap (disambiguation) - which should contain all the disambig info that is currently on Rap. It's not a big deal, but I was wondering if there were any experts around that can help me understand that better. Thanks! Dreadlocke 17:18, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you may be confused. If the wording at WP:D is confusing, please make it clearer or ask someone on the talk page to. The situation is that the dab page should exist at Rap and Rap (disambiguation) should redirect to Rap. Indeed there is a mini-project with aims to maintain this situation: Malplaced disambiguation pages.--Commander Keane 22:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

What would be the Trendy thign to do?

I just noticed that Trendy redirects to Trend a disambiguation page. There is no obvious article there to move the redirect to. There is a wikitionary link but I am not sure how that would work. Suggestions? Has anyone looked at "redirects to disambiguation pages"? Dalf | Talk 04:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Er, maybe I'm being dim, but I don't see what the problem is. There's lots of redirects that go to disambiguation pages. Is there a policy against it? Or do you think it has a usability problem? -- Mikeblas 05:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
No policy against it except when there is nothign on the page to justify the redirect. Which seems to me to be the case here. Dalf | Talk 21:28, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I just added {{{{wiktionarypar|trendy}} allong with the one for trend. Should do I suppose. Dalf | Talk 04:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
You can actually put them in together just by typing {{wiktionarypar|trend|trendy}} (I've fixed it). -- Natalya 11:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Malay/Malayu (let's call the whole thing off)

I'm nearly finished removing links to Malay. All that remains is three pages (Yi Jing, Malay people and Parameswara (sultan)) which point to Malayu, which in turn redirects to Malay. Problem here is that the links in question refer to the ancient kingdom of Malayu rather than Malayu as a synonym for Malay, and there's no article on the ancient kingdom at the moment. Any idea what to do? Do I de-link them, point them to a non-existent article or what? --Daduzi talk 10:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If it's just three articles, I'd leave them alone and declare victory! --Russ Blau (talk) 13:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
My personal preference in cases like this is to point them to a non-existent article, say Malayu (kingdom). It lets the owners of the articles know the article is missing, and they can then decide whether to create it, remove the link, or do nothing. In this game, I don't declare victory until every last one of the links to the dab page has been terminated. (with all the usual caveats - mainspace only, etc) Simon12 13:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Sound like good advice, I went ahead and did that (but put the pages on my watchlist just in case) and now I'm finished. Yay! --Daduzi talk 09:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

HPV

Would someone be willing to look at HPV which currently redirects to HPV (disambiguation) as well as the discussion at talk:HPV? I say it should redirect to human papillomavirus which is the most common search term for HPV and if you look at the What Links Here, the only real article that's being requested for the initialism. Another user thinks it should go to the disambig page because of an article on human powered vehicle (which redirects to human powered transport). Would someone take a look at and add their thoughts? Metros232 14:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you and said so on that talk page. (This reminds me of the EP/EP (disambiguation)/Extended play/European Parliament argument that is going on right now. If anyone wants to give their two cents, please respond at Talk:EP. We haven't had enough opinions to reach a consensus yet!) —EdGl 15:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for adding your thoughts. I'm trying to get some opinions from people who work with disambig pages and have a better idea about their use and don't have any personal attachment to a particular article on there (like Widemind does for the human powered vehicle article). I've also added my 2 cents on the EP talk page. Hopefully it helps somehow. Metros232 16:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I prefer a disambiguation page over a Template:Otheruses link at the beginning of the major page, they are all too easily overlooked or deleted. HPV for human power vehicle is a very common usage, see ASME etc. Not to mention of course the Hyperbolic Projection Viewer. Bejnar 20:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Particle

I'm trying to take care of the dab page for Particle, and I've found that the majority of the links tend to refer to the general set of all scientific particles (molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles), rather than to any of the specific ones. For the most part, I've removed these links entirely, as they're being used in a general sense for which there is no article. I've had one user comment on this as a bad thing, and I'd like more input before I continue. When possible, if the specific type of particle is referenced elsewhere in the article, I'll try to link to the correct article (such as Subatomic particles), but more frequently there is no specific type of particle. I guess the best alternate solution would be to link to List of particles...any thoughts? --Mbell 19:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Reading your talk page reaffirmed my initial opinion: that you are correct in removing the links. This is what sometimes has to be done, and theres no problem with that. Not every word has to be linked (see how annoying it would be?). It is possible that the negative comment on your talk page was given because he thought that it was a bot doing that and possibly removing necessary links in the process. Removing links doesn't necessarily make an article worse. —EdGl 19:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
It seems very appropriate to remove the links in that case, and I'm impressed to see that you're linking to the correct type of particle when appropriate - keep on going! -- Natalya 22:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the thoughts; I'll keep going as before. --Mbell 17:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
To summarize my original talk page message, while I can see links to disambiguation pages being undesirable, in many cases the links in question were removed as opposed to retargetted. I re-linked a few of the more valid cases to subatomic particle(elementary particle) or gauge boson, as appropriate for the context. What I'm asking for is that more care be taken in assessing where a link to particle should actually go, before deciding to remove it for lack of unambiguous targets. --Christopher Thomas 19:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
That's certainly fair - perhaps knowing the range of article that could be linked instead would help. -- Natalya 22:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I've just been noting the changes made to physics articles that are on my watchlist, so I have an incomplete sample, but the cases I've seen were generally referring to point objects in a particle physics context (which would be elementary particles), or to particles that are the mechanism by which forces are transmitted (which are mostly the gauge bosons, though you can argue that virtual mesons qualify too). In other contexts, other links (or the absence of a link) might be more appropriate. Most of the options available are listed at particle. --Christopher Thomas 23:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
All right, I'll see what I can do about digging deeper when figuring out what to do with the links. --Mbell 03:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Demonym article and disambiguation

I monitor Chinese people from time to time to keep it link free. Recently Demonym popped up on the radar, and I'm not entirealy sure how to deal with it. Given that the article is mainly referring to words rather than the objects the words apply to I'm tempted to just change a lot of the links to point to Wiktionary, but I thought it worthwhile to post here and get some ideas as to how to best approach it. --Daduzi talk 22:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Personally I would leave it alone since it is not a disambiguation page and links to it are okay :-) —EdGl 22:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't make that as clear as it could have been: I'm talking about dealing with the link to Chinese people from Demonym, not links to Demonym from other articles. --Daduzi talk 17:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
To me the links look to be examples of linguistic forms, and I'm inclined to say that you'd be correct in linking to Wiktionary (or in just removing the links). Linking to China seems OK to me as well. --Mbell 18:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Son and Son (disambuguation)

Son and Son (disambiguation) should be merged, I think. I'll go add mergeto/mergefrom tags, but Son is a heavily-linked-to disambiguation page in sheep's clothing. IS there a better way to handle the issue than a straight-up merge? -- Mikeblas 15:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Son seems to contain a bit of free association of the term. A merge does seem appropriate, and it seems that most of the information at Son can be removed, or at least cut down. -- Natalya 15:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk page disambiguation

I've been working on the "Development disambiguation page" (DDP). One of the pages that links there is the Talk:Jane Jacobs page. I spent a great deal of time finding and repairing or eliminating the links; now I've received this comment:

Hi Chidom. I know your intentions are good, but this is contrary to WP:TPG#Behavior that is unacceptable on Wikipedia which states:
As a rule, refrain from editing others' comments without their permission. Though it may appear helpful to correct typing errors, grammar, etc, please do not go out of your way to bring talk pages to publishing standards, since it is not terribly productive and will tend to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting.
The trouble is that by disambiguating links, or even more so by adding links that didn't exist, you distort the historical record of what other people said on the talk page. My view is that the Talk Page Guidelines are correct and do apply here, and that the changes you have made would best be reverted (which needs to be done manually). -- JimR 06:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Point taken. I completely misread the directions in Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links with regard to administrative pages. I read the list of adminsitrative pages as pages that needed to be done, not as pages that didn't necessarily need to be fixed. It might be helpful to split the pages that are less important off into their own numbered item.

How to help
  1. Pick a disambiguation page to fix from the list below.
  2. Visit the target disambiguation page.
  3. Click on the What links here link in the "toolbox" on the left-hand side of the page if you are using the default monobook skin.
  4. For each of the pages you see there, visit that page and change the link that goes to the disambiguation page to a link to one of the articles listed on the disambiguation page. The most important thing is to fix articles in the main namespace.
  5. Administrative pages—"Talk:", "User:", and "Wikipedia:"—do not necessarily need to be fixed.

However, if the Talk:Jane Jacobs links don't get fixed, the page will keep appearing on the list of pages that need to be fixed. I can understand the argument for going back and taking out the links that I added, although I can still disagree that it's necessary or changes the meaning of the comments. (Case in point: the first time on the page that the phrase "economic development" appeared, I linked it to the Economic development article.)

  • My preference here would be to leave the edits alone. In my opinion, they don't change the meaning of the comments, but I didn't make the comments, so my opinion hardly matters.
  • Alternatively, I can see going back and taking out all the added links and deleting the links to the disambiguity page.
  • My least favorite solution would be to revert the page back to the state it was in when I started and leave the links to the disambiguity page intact.

Whatever decision is reached here, it would be helpful to future newbies to be really clear in the How to help section about how links to disambiguity pages should be handled on Talk pages.

Help, please. Thanks. Chidom 08:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

As a general rule, you shouldn't edit others' comments on Talk pages without their permission, period. Further, links from Talk: pages, or any other pages outside the main article namespace, are not counted in compiling the list of links needing fixing that appears on this page. --Russ Blau (talk) 10:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify slightly, it might be worthwhile to fix links in Template: space, and maybe on main pages (but not talk pages) in Wikipedia: space, but the rest should generally be left alone. --Daduzi talk 12:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Will undo changes, then. Chidom 20:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the undo, Chidom! To avoid future confusion about Talk pages, I've edited point 4 in How to help to draw attention to the Talk Page Guideline that other people's comments should not be edited. -- JimR 05:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh lordy, I've dab'd a lot of talk pages recently. I'll stop doing it, but do I really need to go back and undo the ones I've done? The main reason I was doing some talk pages is because there were so many talk dabs in the some of the dumps that it made it a bit difficult to sort through and find articles or user pages. Dreadlocke 19:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Goodness no. Disambigging talk pages when the intent is clear and not part of a meta-discussion is a good thing; why would you want to undo it? --maru (talk) contribs 21:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Maru! I totally agree with you. The recent changes, specifically [6], and [7] and the above discussion confused me on the issue of talk page dabs. Dreadlocke 21:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone given much thought to writing a bit of custom javascript for people to put on their User: username/monobook.js files that woudl strip out talk pages etc. from "what links here". I suspect it would be easy to writ though my JS skills are slightly lacking. Dalf | Talk 00:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The reasons for not disambiguating links in other people's entries Talk pages are the same as the reasons for not correcting their grammar, spelling or wording: it's wrong to presume you know what was in someone else's mind (by choosing one link branch over another in the dab case); and changing a Talk posting distorts the historical record of what was said. If an addition to monobook.js or some other technical solution can avoid people working on disambiguation from being distracted by Talk pages, it would be a boon. -- JimR 11:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
In the past I have updated links on talkpages eg when the target of the link was moved like here, where neither the original author nor the owner of the talkpage objected. Agathoclea 11:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that if a Talk page link was unambiguous when the author wrote it but it later becomes ambiguous, it may be reasonable to disambiguate it to preserve the author's original intention. But if authors link to a dab page (at the time they write), that's their choice (deliberate or implicit), and it shouldn't be changed. In particular, note that others may partly judge talk page postings by the Wikipedia experience of the poster; to mask a poorly chosen link by disambiguating it raises the poster's apparent competence retrospectively. But as I said above, a more significant objection is that you would be second-guessing which dab link they really meant — even if there's an obvious guess, you can't be sure they didn't intend something else, or even that they deliberately selected the general case of the dab page itself. Articles are everyone's to edit, but tampering with people's Talk postings is a slippery slope, a bit like Winston Smith's day job. -- JimR 11:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it certainly is true when someone is discussing disambig pages and articles, it is not safe to disambig, but what if they link to a disambig through ignorant? For example, I just did a bot run on William Gibson, to which many people linked on the assumption that of course that was the actual article on the sci-fi writer; it was so obvious to them that William Gibson would not be a disambig page ('cause what other William Gibson have you ever heard of?) that they never even checked if that was true; there were instances like "the sci-fi writer William Gibson". It may be a slippery slope, but most times there is an obvious Right Thing. Besides, "don't submit your writings if you don't want them mercilessly edited". --maru (talk) contribs 03:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Rarely is it unclear what dab link an editor means, that's the whole of what we do when we fix them - decide what it was meant to link to. Editing talk page postings isn't any more of a slippery slope than editing articles or fighting vandals or personal attacks on talk pages. Fixing dabs requires a great deal of care no matter where they might be. If the intent was to link to a dab page, then I'm sure we'd all leave it that way. Changing a talk page dab when there is no change to the intent or message, should be allowed. I’m more concerned about the quality of Wikipedia, and the links that a reader may try to access, rather than whether or not an editor chose a link poorly – even on a talk page. Dreadlocke 04:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The reason I called it a slippery slope is that it leads to the idea that it's legitimate to edit other people's talk pages generally. This was illustrated by [8] , where even beyond disambiguating links on a talk page, Chidom added wikilinks retrospectively into other people's comments (including mine), where no links at all had existed. I'm quite capable of deciding for myself when I do and when I don't want wikilinks in my talk page comments. Furthermore, as I said above, to disambiguate a link which someone wrote changes the impression other readers gain of that person's posting. It's just as much a distortion of someone's comment to "improve" it by disguising their ignorance as it would be to make a change which lowered their apparent competence. Maru says "don't submit your writings if you don't want them mercilessly edited", apparently adapted from WP:5P, but the context of that pillar refers explicitly to articles, and it is not intended to apply to talk pages. As WP:TPG makes clear, the publishing quality standards for articles do not apply to talk pages. When carrying out discussions on talk pages, we need to be able to assume (without going through the history) that the text we are replying to is what the author wrote — not some sanitised or modified version. -- JimR 05:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

New dump, new Collaboration

The July 17 dump is now posted for your disambiguating pleasure. I propose Charity for the new collaboration. It appears to be pretty easy -- most links should be redirected to Charitable organization; references to "acts of charity" or the "spirit of charity" or the like should be redirected to Charity (virtue). Comments? --Russ Blau (talk) 14:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds lovely (yay, new dump!). On an unrelated note, does anyone know why Media redirect to Media (disambiguation)? That's one of those things that shouldn't happen, I believe. -- Natalya 11:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but it needs an administrator to fix it, because Media has some page history so the software won't allow an ordinary user to re-move the page. Commander Keane used to do a lot of this, but seems to have moved on to other projects. If you post a nice request on his talk page, however, he might do it for you. --Russ Blau (talk) 13:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand the objection. Was there only one page using the term Media before the [[Media]] page was moved to the Mass Media page and/or the disambiguation page was created? Even so, if it would clarify the article to now have the link point toward one of the more specific articles, why not disambig the link to those pages, instead of changing them all to point to the Mass Media page. I don't think there's a "default" definition of Media, or one that is in more common use. Or am I missing something here?—Chidom talk  20:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the only point Natalya was making was that instead of Media being a redirect to Media (disambiguation), Media (disambiguation) should be a redirect to Media. Period. I think there is an explanation somewhere in Wikipedia:Disambiguation of why it's supposed to be done this way. --Russ Blau (talk) 21:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. Since there is currently to main article for "Media", the disambiguation page should be located at Media, not Media (disambiguation). Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Generic_topic pretty much covers it. Is the moving issue just that an admin needs to do it (delete and then move, I assume), or is there a deeper issue about saving histories? I would go ahead and do so, but don't want to lose something important, so I figured I'd check first. -- Natalya 23:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and did so; hopefully there's no problems, but I'm sure it was the right thing to do. —EdGl 02:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Huh? It seems to be in the same situation. Shall I just delete the current page at Media, and move Media (disambiguation) to Media? -- Natalya 02:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I don't know what happened... I'm on it. —EdGl 03:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
It seems I had edited Media (disambiguation) twice and hadn't edited Media at all. Anyway I fixed it now. —EdGl 03:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Ed, it's too late now, but please see WP:MM for an explanation of why cut-and-paste moves are discouraged. Look for "Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content ...." --Russ Blau (talk) 11:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Question on Definitions

I've been working on disambiguing Gallery, but a few questions have arisen that I'd love to have addressed. First, I've run across the issue of the use of the term gallery in a way that is not specified on the dab page. For instance, the article on the Chrysler Building has the term gallery used to reference a viewing gallery, one on the upper floor of a building that allows people to look out and view the skyline. (There is no article for viewing gallery, so I can't add it to the dab page.) Other articles have the same problem: gallery is used to reference the rear seating area of a theater, or a railed balcony on the outside of a building, etc etc. How do I deal with this?

Similarly, what is to be done on articles that link to the dab page for the definitions at the bottom? The gallery page, for example, has

Gallery may also refer to:

  • An element in architecture, a long hallway flanked with walls or rows of columns
  • A horizontal passage in an underground mine...

What do I do to articles that link to the dab page referencing those definitions, for which there is no article to link to? I thought of Wiktionary, but that doesn't seem to have sufficient definitions to cover all those different meanings.

Help would be much appreciated. I'm new to this, but I'd love to help out as much as I can. AlexDitto 22:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

One option is to just delink. Not every word needs to be linked. Another option is to link to a related article. When I worked on base, many articles referred to the base of a building, but there was no such article, so I linked to base (building|base). Also, you CAN add things to the dab page if there's no article. If you think an article might be written, add a redlink. Or you can add a line linking something else, such as
Gallery may also refer to:
and link the article to gallery Simon12 23:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding disambig pages to list

Can I just add any disambig page to the list on the main page? Specifically, the Keyboard disambig page seems to have a fair number of links to it...Can I add it to the list myself? If so, where does it say how many pages link there? --Crabbyass 23:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

No you cannot add to the list yourself; the list is compiled about every month or so with a database dump. If keyboard really does have a lot of links to it, then it'll show up in the next database dump (although the last one was pretty recent). Good question though, because I asked this myself. As for your other question, the only thing you can do is click "what links here" on the left hand side and count manually, or estimate based on how many pages of links there are (you can set how many links there are per page too). Hope this helps. Oh, one more thing: User:RussBlau/DPL. This has all the disambiguation pages with at least 50 links to them, so keyboard may be on that page. *looks at the page* Yup, it says it has 94 links to it. (Remember, you can still work on disambiguating links to keyboard even though it's not on this project page!) —EdGl 00:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I removed ~100 links to the Conductor disambig page...all that remains are User, Talk, and OtherUses links. How do I remove it from User:RussBlau/DPL? Or will the database dump do it automatically? --Crabbyass 22:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't know; I would ask him on his talk page if he doesn't see this question here. —EdGl 22:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
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