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Proposed solution

Having looked at William's history in more depth now, I agree with some of his points, although not the manner that he went forward against objections. I never felt that strongly about rejoining the *LC subcategories, because I don't generally work on them myself (I have more fun with broad complicated words like Star and Knot and Point), but if there ARE people who work on these regularly, I didn't hear any strong arguments from them supporting subcatting. This is one of the problems with voting as opposed to discussion -- most people in the straw poll only listed their names, not their reasons.

However, one point I found in buried among the links provided, which I hadn't considered before, is that it may be useful to separate the abbreviations/acronyms etc. into a separate section in a print encyclopedia -- if someone had mentioned that in previous discussions, I might have chosen differently.

I propose some solutions:

  1. Given the cleaning up that William has accomplished, allow the *LC categories (and only those categories) as subcats of Category:Disambiguation, as it was with TLA before.
  2. Include Category:Disambiguation on the *LC templates so that these pages are included in that cat as well. This allows link disambiguation via automated means (bot, Nav popups, etc) to function without requiring reprogramming for each subcat. Since this is an administrative cat, it doesn't matter that it violates the "don't use both parent and child cat" guideline.
  3. Stipulate that the MoS:DP should apply to these pages. These articles should look as uniform and consistent as other disambig pages, for the same reasons -- minimal wikilinks and description do aid readers. (I do agree that Tedernst has often gone too far in trimming these pages.)
    1. If there are reasons that certain different guidelines should apply to *LC pages, then let's work out what they are and add a section about them here in the MoS.

This would satisfy most of my problems. Does anyone else agree with me? — Catherine\talk 17:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I certainly do. I especially agree with your second and third points. If I understand correctly, by also having the *LC templates be in Category:Disambiguation , they would both be able to be categorized by their *LC status (a concern of one side), and still be considered disambiguation pages (a concern of another side). And I especially agree with your third point - even if they do function as a dualy-categorized pages, they should look the same as disambiguation pages, because they have similar function (and generally look the same anyway). -- Natalya 17:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
It might be a violation of categorization guidelines to have pages be in both a category (i.e. *LC) and its parent category (disambiguation). The guideline does allow for exceptions, but you might want to tread carefully. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
As I said above, this is an administrative category, never meant as a user-browsing category. It's already breaking cat guidelines by having 30,000 some-odd items in it.  :) Other than that, does this solution sound workable to you? — Catherine\talk 19:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Another proposed solution

This is similar to Catherine's proposal above, but it does differ slightly.

  • A seperate categorisation system (completely independent of the templates or Category:Disambiguation) will be set up. Something like Category:Specialised dab pages. Subcategories would be anything that helps humans work on particular dab pages, eg *LC or humandis (which has been used effectively before) or townshipdis etc. Categories will be manually added to the bottom of dab pages.

Thoughts?--Commander Keane 19:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

That seems like it would get around the possible problems of having them be in a category and a subcategory. Providing it wouldn't be too challenging to set up the new system and implement it, it sounds good (at least to me). -- Natalya 21:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I would support that as well. — Catherine\talk 23:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Ditto/wangi 23:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I haven't participated in these discussions much (because, to be honest, I don't care that much and will abide by whatever others decide), but I'll chirp in here to say that yep, I'd support this one, and to ask a question.
Has a list of abbreviations, rather than a category, been considered? This would mean there is both a one-stop place for abbreviations, and the (redundant) subcategories won't be there. This goes for abbreviations only (not topical). The list would be rather systemic, so not hard to compile or maintain.
If so, why is this a bad idea? If not, then can this become another proposal? Neonumbers 03:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately there are several already existing lists, in both the article and the Wikipedia namespaces -- I think most of them are listed at Lists of abbreviations. List of all two-letter combinations and Wikipedia:TLAs are also helpful.
The main advantage of categories is the ease of maintenance; hand-maintained lists are perennially behind. And as seen from that proliferation of acronym/abbreviation/initialism lists, it can be hard to know where (on what list) one should be adding an entry; it's much easier to add and/or change a category while working on the page itself. Personally, I don't think a list would be better than a category in this case. — Catherine\talk 05:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I have some sympathies with these ideas, but I strongly encourage you to move this discussion to Wikipedia:Disambiguation because it doesn't deal at all with the MOSDAB. Also, anything like this will need a major airing and there's much more traffic on that page. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
For everyone's information: Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Disambiguation and abbreviation. Thanks/wangi 13:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion is now continuing at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation--Commander Keane 16:29, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Interstatedis

Template:Interstatedis has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Interstatedis. Thank you. (also a few redirects) Tedernst | talk 20:11, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

{{primary}}

Moved from discussion "headings: less is more" above. Hope no-one minds. Neonumbers 10:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you kind folks take a look at the use of {{Primary}} in Gary Moore (disambiguation) and James Garner (disambiguation) to see if I am going in the right direction? I don't see any other editors using this template for human names. I have tried to address "You have no idea what that primary item is about unless you click on it" by appending a clue in italics. I am not crazy about putting "guitar" in parens, as it looks like a qualifier that's part of the article name. Your thoughts? And did we ever settle on a preference of 5 '=' or 4 '=' or semicolon bolding for sections, or leave it flexible? Chris the speller 03:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I'd agree with that use, in fact, I'd go a step further and incorporate it into the template. Description or clarifier in parens, doesn't matter.
The current guideline on sectioning, which hasn't been changed, is to use bolding for shorter pages, and level-2 headings for longer pages of about thirty or more entries. (I've just realised the level isn't specified on the manual itself... hmm...) Semicolon bolding has basically the same effect, as a pedantic thing I like to leave the colon unbolded so I normally use normal bolding — remember that often not the entire line is bolded (as in the manual's example).
Anyway, back to {{primary}}. This is a new template, so as a quick question, who likes it? Actually, let me rephrase that, who would like it if it had a description tag in it, as Chris demonstrated (except incorporated into the template)? Neonumbers 10:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, is there a way to make it optional? That is, when a second parameter isn't added, just don't have the text? Most of the time, I don't find any need for explanatory text. The Primary topic isn't supposed to be used unless there is a "well-known" topic, currently less than 3% of pages. Thus, most folks won't need any explanation. The clarifier should be in parentheses, just as it would be for a generic topic.

--William Allen Simpson 11:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know much about template markup... I guess the purpose of the description/clarifier isn't so much to describe the link as it is to show why the link's there... remember that "primary topic" isn't that explanatory, and well, it makes the page look complete. (That was a lousy job of explaining it. It's not the link needs explanation, it's that that lone link looks strange and empty.) I'd be quite happy to go with parentheses always, we'd probably find it ends up being like that in practice anyway, that'd be more than enough, I agree. Neonumbers 11:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been looking at the examples Chris gave, and not so good. Under the current guidelines, neither of these should exist!

--William Allen Simpson 11:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Two comments. 1)Is it important for the note to be in italics? I mean, with other notes, I believe italics are used to set the note apart from the page's content -- to emphasize that the note was different in nature from the rest of the page. I don't think that is the case with this -- I think the goadl here is to provide some standardization for how these backlinks to primary topics look. But they are in essence just another meaning of the term being disambiguated. 2) I think setting the optional description off with commas is preferable to parentheses. This is because I would think the description should be more like the descriptions of the other links on the page rather than a parenthetical disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 14:31, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  1. William, you're right that those are questionable dab pages, but I think these pages were chosen as guinea pigs for the template because they were relatively insignificant.
  2. Bkonrad, the reason for the italics is to mirror the {{otheruses}} template. These will only be used (someone correct me if I'm wrong) for pages with "disambiguation" in the title, like School (disambiguation) would use this template for linking back to School. Almost the only way someone would get to that dab page is from the "otheruses" link from School, so it's extremely unlikely that School is the article they're looking for. We're including it for completeness.
  3. I think the use of the word "also" is unnecessary on those example pages (e.g. "Gary Moore may also refer to:").
  4. The headings discussion should be somewhere else on this page. That's a whole other can of worms.
—Wahoofive (talk) 16:44, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  1. Oh, and why is there so much space to the right of the template? That makes Bkonrad's suggestion of using a comma for the qualifier (otherwise an excellent suggestion) kind of weird-looking. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Wahoo5 is on target with all his comments, but I still feel that "also" has its place in acknowledging the existence of the primary article that is mentioned right above it. Chris the speller 17:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Wahoofive, I think I understand how they were intended to be used. I just don't see why it should have to match the {{otheruses}} template. That template is intended as a hatnote. Like other hatnotes and many other sorts of note templates, it is italicized to set it apart from the content of the article. But this reference to the primary topic is really not so very different from the rest of the dab page. older ≠ wiser 17:46, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know about anyone else, but I find "Primary" to be a bit of unnesessary jargon. Even though I am familiar with dab pages, I never use "primary" to describe that type of dab page - how do we expect a reader to interpret what it means? I just find something like:
Gary Moore is a guitarist.
Gary Moore may also refer to:
to be clearer, even though it uses redundant phrasing (which I don't like). Is there a clearer option?--Commander Keane 17:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I agree with Commander Keane -- I commented above on the look and feel of the template, assuming that there were at least some people who were going to use it. At this point, I doubt that I would bother to use a template to replace a single line. older ≠ wiser 18:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't feel that strongly about it myself. Commander Keane's example matches the compromise we made when the page was created, and what's on the page now. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I only proposed {{primary}} as a solution to the argument over where to put the backlink, above the blurb, below the blurb, etc.

  • Folks are most likely to arrive at the page via the primary topic, so there's really no need to be too descriptive.
  • Yes, only with "(disambiguation)" in the title. I find it hard to imagine anybody typing "Foobar (disambiguation)" as the search term.
  • It makes the pages look uniform, and that seems to be a concern, or at least the latest fad.
  • Indented italic is uniform with the hatnote style.
  • It keeps the text from lapping wiktionary templates.
  • Using a template means that changes to the .css are quickly accomodated automatically, which has been a recent problem.

All in all, it seems to fit the bill. But really, Primary topic pages should be so few and far (2-3%?) between that worrying about this is not a big concern.

--William Allen Simpson 01:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
If there's going to be a {{primary}} bandwagon, I'll get on it, but Commander Keane's example seems to have some support from Wahoofive and older≠wiser, so that looks like the way to go. Thanks for the answers. Chris the speller 02:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Section level

I had a demonstration going at Aurora (disambiguation), and the only comment was that 2 '==' and 5 '=====' didn't make any difference, especially with the semi-colon ';' sub-headings. Should we stick with 2?

--William Allen Simpson 11:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The previous guideline said

If the list is longer than a single display page (more than thirty entries), use section headers instead (or in addition)....

I counted the display page on the usual font on my iMacG5, and it's only 24, after all the usual Title lines and other common.css. Seemed to me like twenty is a better rule of thumb.

--William Allen Simpson 16:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

bold subject headings

The current example uses wiki-bold (3 primes) followed by a colon. This colon seems superfluous with the colon on the "may be:" lede. Semicolon bold list headings will not allow a trailing colon. Also, for wiki-section (2 or more equal), these don't usually have a trailing colon.

Uniformity would suggest no colon on any heading.

--William Allen Simpson 12:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Complaints about examples of {{primary}} usage

This section is in response to the off-topic comments by William Allen Simpson about the examples for {{primary}}.

I did not create the dab pages, I only connected them and cleaned them up a little.

I was thinking about the person who looks up Garry Moore when they want Gary Moore, and vice versa. The best way to help them seemed to be cross-linked dab pages.

Did you plan to rfd the small-town mayor (note the hyphen, the mayor is not a midget), or nuke the dab page and leave it orphaned? There was no way to go to "James Garner" and then navigate to the mayor when I found this page; there was no hatnote at all, but there were two alternative pages and a dab page. I followed the MoS:D instructions: "If there is more than one such alternative page, create a link to a disambiguation page". Trying to help the readers of this encyclopedia, even in a fairly skillful manner, is often rewarded by a kick in the teeth, and one person seems to be doing most of the kicking. If it keeps up, what incentive is there for any editor to try and understand and follow all these poorly written guidelines? He or she may start doing whatever seems like fun, or may decide to leave the dab pages as they are, which would not help Wikipedia work well or look professional. Chris the speller 20:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that you were beefing (incorrectly) on another page about these ad hominem attacks. Yet, here you are, and this is very clearly attacking the messenger. Please desist.
I've never used a hyphen in small town. Small is an adjective describing town. Is that a Briticism? And why is this important to your argument?
The comments were not off-topic. They were about the examples themselves. Indeed, the sentence subject is clearly "the examples". And nothing in the text is an attack on the messenger.
Sure, you've made some screwups. But I'd entirely forgotten about your involvement with {{shipindex}}, because it was quickly and amicably settled. And really, I've got other things to remember in life. So, enough with the thin skin. Nobody is out to get you.
I agree that the guidelines need work. I've been doing my share. And endured the slings and arrows....
And quite frankly, I think leaving the disambiguation pages as they are is preferable to many things that have been done lately. The real task is WP:DPL. But that's really tedious....
Heck, the worst are being changed from Generic to Primary topic pages, forgetting that Primary topic pages with incorrect links should be disambiguated, too!
--William Allen Simpson 00:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh yes, I probably should AfD the mayor as non-notable. He can have his 15 minutes of fame at Political Graveyard. I'm cat-sitting this weekend for the former member with the most expensive Congressional primary in history, and she doesn't have an article yet.... Oh, yes she does! Thank you, Bkonrad. My, that needs updating.... Onto the watchlist it goes.
--William Allen Simpson 01:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Ad hominem attacks, thin skin and screwups? Those are not as severe as some barbs you've used on others. I think maybe you kind of like me. Maybe we can work together after all. If I find a total mess and fix 95% of it, maybe you'll fix the other 5% and not call me an idiot. Or you can fix the other 5% AND call me an idiot. That would be somewhat of an improvement, too. I welcome the new spirit of teamwork. Chris the speller 04:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Chris, sarcasm does not become you. You're not an admin, or I'd be calling for a formal apology. I've 30 years experience working with consensus based groups. I've founded some. And, I believe that I'm pretty good at describing a problem without ascribing it to an individual, until that individual makes it personal (you in this case). That's what is expected here. Your lament has no place in this general discussion area. Thank you.
--William Allen Simpson 16:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
*Yawn* Wake me up when you're done tiffing, so we can go back to work on the encyclopedia. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:06, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Wake-up call for Wahoofive: I'm done tiffing. Now that you and others have answered my question, I'm back to work on WP. Thanks again for the answer. Chris the speller 01:48, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

MoS:DP#Longer lists

We've discussed this before, and the changes to Aurora (disambiguation) example. However, SNIyer12 just changed the bold subheadings to level 3 sections. Is this what we want? Or do we need more explanation?

--William Allen Simpson 10:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
No, we don't want that. Sub-headings take up too much space and stuff like that... we should never have to go to headings at more than one level at all. Maybe this is an exception, I haven't looked at it in detail.
Aurora might be long, but I reckon it's too long to be an example page, we run the risk of people using conventions on it on long but not so long pages. Neonumbers 10:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, at this moment it hardly matters, as Moverton (talk · contribs) just did a "copy and paste" move of Aurora (disambiguation) to Aurora (but didn't move the Talk), a piece of Aurora to Aurora (mythology) instead of the more appropriate Aurora (goddess), losing the Primary topic language information and personal name information. Not being an administrator, I'll need help fixing them all anyway.

I'd made that a Primary topic after a careful count of the links to Aurora/Eos goddess/human name/astronomy/etc. I'm horrified that somebody would hack the pages without regard to the extensive discussion we've had about it as an example!

Time to sleep, this utter disregard for guidelines is very disconcerting!

--William Allen Simpson 10:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I think I've restored it to the state prior to moverton's cut and paste moves (at least Aurora and Aurora (disambiguation) -- I haven't touched the mythology or godess pagess. Let there be some discussion first and then if agreed upon, move the pages correctly. older ≠ wiser 14:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

swapped text with WP:D

Based on today's Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation at "Replace Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation pages" (a direct link doesn't seem to work with two # in it), I spent a couple of hours swapping text. Now most of the details about the page style is exclusively here. Also, I re-ordered the sections in the same order as the page is composed, and alphabetized some sections (where a couple of things had been added out of order).

Since the text was merged here mostly "as is", there are probably some additional details to clean up. But knowing the folks here, it seemed time to take a breather and let folks look at it.

--William Allen Simpson 04:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)


Italics and quotes for titles with clarifier?

I was unsure of how to interpret:

  • There is no need to emphasize the link with bolding or italics, although titles (such as for books and movies) may need to be italicized, in conformance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles).

I was about to fix Harvey to comply, but would that result in non-compliance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles), under "Works of art":

so, since "(play)" and "(movie)" are not part of the title and so should not be italicized in compliance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles):

This is decidedly odd; why is the book italicized while the play and movie are not, purely by an accident of article naming? A third possibility is:

The last looks is most consistent with what currently is specified here and in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles), so I have updated the policy to make this clear. If one of the other two styles above is preferred, then this policy should be reverted and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) will need to be changed to make an exception for disambiguation pages. --TreyHarris 10:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It'll be a big pain in the neck, but your last example is doing it right, and there's no reason to make an exception for dab pages. —Wahoofive (talk) 08:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Yea, your third example is correct; with or without WP:MOS (titles) it is still a logical consequence of italics/quote marks convention. Neonumbers 08:40, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, your final edit is much better than the way you found it, which was a great example of why we shouldn't pipe links, but bear in mind that markup for titles is primarily intended to set them off when they are in open text, and slavishly following the style for titles may make it harder for the eye to run down a list, such as a dab page. This example is fine, because the art works are all in italics, but if there had also been a short story and song, it could be less than pretty (I have "fake" piped these to avoid redlinks, so look at the final rendering, not the markup language):
See if it isn't easier to search when we leave out the title markups:
Of course, your taste may vary. So there may be a reason to make an exception for dab pages. Even if there is no written exception, BEND THE RULES if it helps the reader get to the right article, which is more important than having the editor show off his or her knowledge. Chris the speller 16:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
So Chris, you're arguing for an exception in the Manual of Style for dab pages? —Wahoofive (talk) 16:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Mmmm, yes, my taste does vary. To me, the quotes and italics help me, at a glance, see "that's a short work, but that's a long work". To step away from personal taste for a moment, If I'm reading you correctly, you seem to be asserting that making every line look the same helps the reader in locating the right page. I did some undergraduate study on visual cognition, and I can assure you that's not the case; it's differences that aid recognition, not sameness. --TreyHarris 16:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Wahoo, no, I am not campaigning for a change to MoS:DP, but if someone wants to put a note in there that visual cleanliness of a list may be as important as showing that an editor knows when to use italics vs. double quotes, I won't object, but then Trey sees it differently, so there may be no consensus. There was a similar discussion here about a month ago, so I will go scour the archives. Check back later. Chris the speller 17:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

In a larger discussion about leading lines and edit warring, [1] contains the argument that WP:1SP does not apply to dab pages. It also discusses italics and such on list items. Sadly, you can now easily find my beautiful dab page and deface it. Just kidding, if you don't, someone else will. Chris the speller 17:34, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting a change to MOS:DP but to WP:MOS-T as mentioned by TreyHarris. The talk page of that guideline has an extensive discussion of its applicability to template tables, which is a similar application. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Wonderful! Another group that's divided on the same issue. But MOS-T says it applies to articles, and dab pages are not articles, so MoS:DP is not really bound by their consensus, which seems to be that they agree to disagree, no consensus. We seem to be similarly out of step, so it looks like "editor's choice", and I'm fine with that, as long as the editor's intentions are honorable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chris the speller (talk • contribs) .
While I would use quotation marks to show short stories and songs, Chris does have a point — I would get around this by putting all the ones it quotations marks in one block, without italics or "normal" entries between them, just to get the word aligned. Neonumbers 04:08, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
That has been my choice too -- pipe to achieve formatting, then group by formatting if that doesn't disrupt other notability/thematic sort orders (which it usually doesn't -- titled fictional or artistic works generally all belong together). There are always exceptions, and there have been pages where it made sense to omit the title formatting altogether, but this has been my general preference. — Catherine\talk 18:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
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