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Tupac

I have been attempting to keep this obscure edit out of the page for some time. I do not understand the editor's rationale for utilizing the redirect "Tupac Amaru Shakur" when the main link "Tupac Shakur" is valid. Discussion is still taking place here. Any assistance in sorting this mess would be most appreciated. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I commented there, but Tupac looks like a name list article instead of a dab page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

lists of lists

Given the current discussion on List of bookstores and my own independent stumbling upon List of animals, I've got a list of some "List of" articles that are tagged as dabs that should be fixed. Either they are dabs and should be moved to a title that doesn't start with "List of", or they are regular lists (like the lists roads I fixed today), or they are lists of lists and should be moved to "Lists of" and fixed. I've got a list of lists of lists tagged as dabs at User:JHunterJ/List of X dabs to fix‎. Anyone is welcome to help, and I'd be happy to move it to a project subpage as well. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

  • Are we sure this is a good idea? One side effect of your efforts is that lists that were formerly tagged as disambiguation pages are now being tagged as orphans, e.g. Lists of bookstores. But I can't think of a good reason to link to this page, because it effectively functions as a disambiguation page, i.e. to "resolve a conflict that occurs when a single term can be associated with more than one topic." Is there any reason why a page cannot be both a list of lists and a disambiguation page? List of ABC shows is another example of a "list of lists" that functions as a disambiguation page, since "ABC" is an ambiguous term. The case for this page being considered a disambiguation page is even stronger, because I can't think of a single purpose of ever linking to "List of ABC shows", whereas "List of bookstores" could at least potentially be expanded to a longer list of lists which might appear on a topic list somewhere. If there is consensus that lists of lists should never be considered disambiguation pages, then we need to resolve the "orphaned page" problem some other way. DHowell (talk) 04:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
The principal reason is that list articles are articles, while disambiguation pages are not articles. I think many of the lists of lists were created when first one list existed, then another editor came up with a new similar list and moved the first list away from its original name instead of just leaving it and naming the new list uniquely (which they've tended to do anyway). If the lists have unique names, and no pages link to the list of lists, then the the list of lists can probably be deleted -- readers looking for things do not tend to enter "List of ABC shows" in the Go box, so there is no navigational need for the page if the pages that intend one list or the other link correctly to them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
I disagree that someone would not enter "List of ABC shows" in the Go box. We have List of CBS shows and List of NBC shows as redirects, so these are apparently useful search terms. If "ABC" were unambiguous, List of ABC shows would be a plain redirect. But as "ABC" is ambiguous, List of ABC shows is indeed a useful disambiguation page. "Lists of ABC shows" is entirely useless as an article, however. I don't think anyone looking for information would normally type "Lists of ABC shows", and no one typing "List of ABC shows" is really expecting an article about "all the lists of shows on all the networks which happen to share the abbreviation 'ABC'". I still don't understand why you believe a list of lists cannot be considered a disambiguation page, when that is exactly its function. If it has to be one or the other, I'd rather it be a disambiguation page at "List of..." than a list of lists at "Lists of". DHowell (talk) 03:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
The existence of an article does not imply the usefulness of a search term. List of CBS shows, for example, is not an orphan. It has many incoming links. So deleting List of ABC shows and Lists of ABC shows, once all the incoming links are disambiguated, may be useful. All lists are articles, no dabs are articles, therefore dabs aren't lists. It is possible that some of the list articles would be better purposed as disambiguation pages, but I believe the number is small (if not zero), because I think that readers don't search on "list of X" but use instead "X", so no navigational aid would be provided. If other editors believe that readers search on "List of ABC shows" (for example) and that the list of lists of ABC shows is not itself a list article, then we should revert my changes (but just on those pages; some of the lists are lists of lists that are not ambiguous, and others are not orphans and don't need to be). I have paused my edits on the "list of X" dabs while we discuss; it would be nice to hear from some other members. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
List of CBS shows is a redirect, and has no mainspace incoming links to that name. The incoming links are to List of programs broadcast by CBS, the target of that redirect. List of ABC shows, as a disambiguation page, serves much the same purpose as List of CBS shows as a redirect; it helps the reader get to the information they were likely looking for. Deleting List of ABC shows would not be useful, because then the reader would be directed to a search page, which has the list for the American network on the first page of results, but the Australian network list is nowhere to be found! A disambiguation page is essentially a special type of list; we just have a different guideline for lists which we treat as disambiguation pages and lists which we treat as articles. But I don't see why we need to rigidly apply rules to call these "lists of lists" one or the other; I do notice that we do have a exceptional type of list we call a set index article, and although we say that a set index article is not a disambiguation page, and don't apply the manual of style rules for disambiguation pages to them, we do tag them with {{SIA}} which puts them in Category:Set indices which is a subcategory of Category:Disambiguation pages, and we treat them like disambiguation pages for other purposes (e.g. not marking them as orphaned if nothing links to them). Perhaps we need to make another exceptional case, a {{listdab}}, maybe. Perhaps in some cases we consider it an article, in others we consider it a dab, maybe it's neither, or maybe it's both; perhaps it's a "list of lists dab article"! Whatever they're called, and however they're styled, I don't really care; as long as we don't require all of them to be full-fledged articles, and we figure out a way to keep the bots from tagging them as orphans. DHowell (talk) 06:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Only if the reader were searching for "list of abc shows", which as I've said I don't think happens. Set index articles are also not disambiguation pages, correct. Correcting the cateogory heirarchy has come up before, but hasn't happened yet. Perhaps simply adding the list of lists category to the ones that the orphan detectors ignores would solve the problem. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

No one else is chiming in. How about I go back and re-cast some of the lists as dabs using this test: if there's a dab page for one of the keywords in "Y" in the title "List of X Y Z" (such as ABC (disambiguation) for List of ABC shows), and there are two lists of X Y Z that need to be disambiguated by those entries, then it's a dab. If there are no ambiguous terms, and the lists are just lists of the same things but different (such as "by GDP" vs "by population"; or "A-E" "F-R" "S-Z"), then it's a list of lists. ? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonable compromise. I'm still not sure what to do about List of bookstores though; the options seem to be (a) recast as dab page, not quite following the rule you've come up with, (b) get the orphan-tagging bots to not tag "list of lists" articles, (c) figure out somewhere to link to List of bookstores, or (d) redirect List of bookstores to List of bookstore chains and let those looking for independent bookstores follow the link already in that article. DHowell (talk) 04:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Henry Purcell

Currently there is both a Purcell and a Purcell (disambiguation) page. I propose that the contents of the former be merged with the latter, and that Purcell become a redirect to Henry Purcell (which has a link to the disambiguation page). I am not aware of any person called Purcell being as notable as Henry Purcell, but I appreciate that I may be underinformed! Any comments? almost-instinct 22:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The pages should certainly be merged. Another user attempted what you propose -- moved the disambiguation page to Purcell (disambiguation) and changed Purcell to be a redirect to Henry Purcell -- with the result that unknowing subsequent editors changed the redirect into a duplicate disambiguation page. Without stronger evidence that the composer is unequivocally the primary topic, I think the disambiguation page should remain at Purcell. older ≠ wiser 22:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Since I posted that I've been looking at the pages for the other Purcells, and also googling "Purcell". Aside from pages for things named after Henry Purcell (eg the Purcell Room concert hall) and various living people with that name, it takes a while before one finds a reference to eg the Nobel physicist; in other words I haven't been able to find any evidence that Henry Purcell isn't the primary topic. In the interests of being bold I'm going to do as I proposed; I'm sure that if I end up infringing on the sensibilities of those looking after other Purcells, they'll be sure to tell me! almost-instinct 22:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I suggest doing a history merge first. I don't necessarily disagree that the composer is tops, but I'm not sure how you are googling -- when I filter out wikipedia, googling "Purcell" [1] returns quite a variety in the top hits besides the composer. I don't see a very strong case for primary topic yet. older ≠ wiser 23:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
7 out of the first 10 on that list are to do with the composer! almost-instinct 23:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, and 30% are not. How does that relate to much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer (significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings)? 30% is pretty significant. older ≠ wiser 23:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
2 of the ten aren't covered by WP (one's a helicopter skiing school) and the tenth is the Nobel Scientist. He's viewed about 1,300 times a month, whereas the composer is viewed over 20,000 times a month. IMO that counts as "much more used" almost-instinct 23:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, yes, if we were evaluating what the primary topic for "Henry Purcell" should be, there's not question. But it is a little more tricky to establish that a partial match such as "Purcell" should be a redirect. Also, of the top ten there are two articles: both Purcell School and Purcell, Oklahoma have articles, and the count is off in that 4 of the 10 do not directly pertain to the composer. older ≠ wiser 00:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I think Purcell is up there with Dickens and Bach as a primary usage of his surname, so would support the idea of making a redirect from Purcell to Henry Purcell and uniting everything else at Purcell (disambiguation). PamD (talk) 00:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
  1. Sorry about missing the Purcell, Oklahoma. In Feb it was viewed 619 times.
  2. Where do you think the Purcell School - a music school - got its name!?
From this point on I think we're arguing the toss: I think I'm right, you think you are, so I'm going to duck out at the this point. almost-instinct 10:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
While the evidence presented isn't exactly overwhelming, I don't feel all that strongly about the matter either way. Unless there is a very strong case for primary topic, I tend to prefer having the disambiguation page at the base name. In this case, it is entirely possible that Purcell is primary and the case just hasn't been made very clearly. Regards the Purcell School, of course the name is derivative. But it is listed as an option on the disambiguation page. It may be that it is not an appropriate entry for the disambiguation page -- that is, that readers searching for "Purcell" would not be looking for the "Purcell School". But until that determination is made, it is one other match. older ≠ wiser 22:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Set index articles have no project banners

Can {{DisambigProject}} be placed on SIA even though they aren't Disambig pages just so that they can be headed by a project and thus appear in the listings of some project and that people notice when there are changes made on these articles. Lincher (talk) 12:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd say "no"; they ought to be maintained by the project covering whatever topic the articles in the set in question belong to; that project's banner ought to be added. This ought to be easy to determine by visiting a few articles linked from the SIA. Do you have a specific example in mind? --Rogerb67 (talk) 13:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Already did what you mentioned, just wanted to know if the SIA could be added to the WP or not. Thanks for the info. Lincher (talk) 22:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Strange page created by SmackBot

I note Smackbot has created the page 1984 (album) (disambiguation) which has been put up for deletion, quite correctly in my opinion. It is my understanding that WP:DABNAME should only be applied to DAB pages at an undisambiguated name, rather than one at an incomplete disambiguation. Does my view reflect consensus? Presumably if Smackbot created this one, it will be creating others too (I haven't worked out a search to check this yet). --Rogerb67 (talk) 23:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree. The owner of that bot will have to "re-program" it or something. Such redirects really serve no purpose. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 23:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I've left what I hope is a polite notice on the bot's owner's user page. It quite possibly is a bug; he may not have anticipated this case. --Rogerb67 (talk) 02:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Further news

It appears the page was created deliberately; SmackBot's owner, Rich Farmbrough has voted in the deletion debate to keep. --Rogerb67 (talk) 11:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Does Smackbot have permission to do that sort of change. I was under the impression that all bots had to have their every process approved. speednat (talk) 13:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Names of bands: disambig or not?

Please see here. Thank you. --Kleinzach 03:45, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Moran

There are now

  • Moran, which is a strange combination of (a) unsourced truth/fantasy about the surname Moran--which, if worth anything, should go in a surname dictionary--plus (b) a disambiguation page for people named Moran, and
  • Moran (disambiguation), which is what it says and contains many people.

I suggest:

  • cutting the preamble from Moran
  • moving the straightforward disambiguation page that results from this to Moran (surname)
  • adding to it any bluelinked human names (whether of real or of fictional people) that don't appear in it but do appear in Moran (disambiguation) (including anybody named Morán, etc)
  • removing all human names from Moran (disambiguation)
  • renaming the latter Moran

How does that sound? (I'm not at all well versed in the relevant rules.) Morenoodles (talk) 04:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

While I sympathise to some extent with your comments on the name preamble, it is common practice to keep these; consensus appears to be that such topics can be expanded to constitute more than a dicdef and should be retained; there is even a featured article: Yuan (surname). There is no doubt this particular article on a name could be improved; you might like to do so or tag it as needing improvement so that others might be warned or find it to improve it. It is also common practice to combine these pages with a list of people who have the name as a surname or first name; this is covered in MOS:DABSUR. Such pages are not disambiguation pages however. Looking at the DAB page, I see plenty of possibly fairly notable entries; I don't really see that the article on the surname is a primary topic.
I suggest as a course of action:
  1. Move the page on the surname to Moran (surname), complete with text content ("preamble"), improved if possible.
  2. Edit any pages in template and article space that link to Moran so that they link to Moran (surname) (or elsewhere if appropriate). Don't just edit redirects, as you are moving the DAB page over the original page in this case.
  3. Move the disambiguation page to Moran. I don't think you'll be able to do this move without administrative powers; request the move using {{db-move}} as described on the template page page and at WP:SPEEDY; use a justification such as "there is no primary topic for this article name". (Alternatively list as an uncontroversial move at WP:RM, but I recommend being bold and taking the former route.)
  4. Move all the people with this surname currently on the DAB page to Moran (surname), with the exception of any who are widely known only as "Moran" – per the examples at MOS:DABSUR – who should be on both pages (I'm not aware of any such cases).
I'm sure others will chime in if I'm way off here. Hope this helps. --Rogerb67 (talk) 12:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
P.S. apologies if I'm "teaching grandma to suck eggs" here with the page moving details; I'll leave them in in case they're useful --Rogerb67 (talk) 12:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Morán and Moran (surname) should probably be merged. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I moved some entries around; anything that is at a page named "Moran (something)" should be on the Moran disambiguation page, person or not, as should anything known only as "Moran"; MOS:DABSUR relates to people with the DAB name as part of their name, not the whole name. Also, "Baron Moran" is a title, not an example of the Moran surname, indeed the holders have the surname Wilson. Individual Barons should not go on that DAB page, but the overall term should. --Rogerb67 (talk) 00:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Troll

Anyone have a better solution at Troll (disambiguation)? There is one primary (the beast) and two strong secondaries (fishing and internet). There's some discussion the talk page. (John User:Jwy talk) 01:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Hun

We seem to be getting into a bit of a edit war over at Hun (disambiguation) concerning the correct way to list the term's use in relation to Protestantism and football. It would be helpful to get a few more eyeballs on this and break the deadlock. --DanielRigal (talk) 21:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

AssessorTags

Hello! I thought that I'd bring to your attention a new script which I have created, AssessorTags, which helps to add WikiProject banners to talk pages. The banner for this project has have now been included in the script, so it may be helpful when locating and tagging articles. Documentation for the script can be found here, and if you have any questions feel free to ask at my talk page. Please not that I will probably not be watching this page, so comments left here will not be responded to. –Drilnoth (T • C) 01:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Altaria Divinity Disambiguation page - Minor Change

I just noticed that an album from the finnish metal band Altaria bears the name "Divinity" and is not mentioned in the Divinity (disambiguation) page. Climatic4 (talk) 12:49, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:51, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Gaya

Looks like we have an issue here according to this. The last thing I want to do is get into an edit war over something quite mundane. Who can back me up here? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm with you. (John User:Jwy talk) 00:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps you could move the offending copy into a stub? --AndrewHowse (talk) 00:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
If they don't step up to do so, I will. But I imagine they would have more enthusiasm for the idea and more info. I dropped a note on the last editor's page. (John User:Jwy talk) 00:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

disambig when dab would have same name except capitalization as another

I was involved in setting up "Octagon House (disambiguation)" deliberately rather than "Octagon House" as a disambiguation page, given that Octagon house main topic article exists. User BD2412 just undid that, making it "Octagon House" as dab differing only by capitalization from "Octagon house". I think it should be put back the way it was (although keeping the helpful Talk edit history merge that Bd2412 accomplished). Comments? Question raised first, and some back and forth already, at User talk:BD2412#Octagon House disambiguation etc. Thanks, doncram (talk) 02:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I would just point out that Octagon House was a redirect to Octagon House (disambiguation), and I moved it in accordance with Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages. If it is preferable for Octagon House to redirect to Octagon house, that's fine with me, but that wasn't the case when I moved it. bd2412 T 02:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Okay, i see that "Malplaced disambiguation pages" link seems to describe this situation, mostly. It would apply directly if "Octagon house" didn't exist. In this case, there is that: a topic article on Octagon house. If someone types in "Octagon House" with capital H, it seems to me that they are looking for one of the proper noun places named that. And sending them to a disambiguation page, e.g. "Octagon House (disambiguation)" seems right, especially as it offers "Octagon house" as a place to go to. While it seems wrong to have a disambiguation page "Octagon House" differing only by capitalization from "Octagon house". It seems to me that your policy or this campaign at "Malplaced disambiguation pages" needs to be modified. doncram (talk) 04:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Why does it seem wrong to have them differ by capitalization? See also Iron maiden, Iron Maiden. Malplaced dabs applies in this case even though Octagon house exists. The other solution would be to move the dab page to Octagon house (disambiguation), but that is not as good a solution since the dabbed articles are "Octagon House". -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I don't know, it seemed wrong to me. Not sure this is like when you stare at a word and then eventually you can't tell if it is spelled correctly or not. Some fresh perspective is what I am seeking. The "Iron maiden" / "Iron Maiden" comparison is not exactly the same, and doesn't seem as wrong to me. Iron maiden is the dab, which includes Iron maiden (torture device) and one specific proper noun Iron Maiden. Here, Octagon house is a regular article, and there are multiple proper noun "Octagon House" places to disambiguate. I agree that the "Octagon house (disambiguation)" is not a solution because the multiple places are named Octagon House. To narrow the description of what is wrong, let's say it seems wrong to have "disambig by dab that is the same except capitalized vs. a regular article". That description applies to Octagon House & Octagon house, but not to the Iron maiden & Iron Maiden pairing. doncram (talk) 12:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Iron Maiden is the regular article. Iron maiden is the disambig page that is the same except for capitalization. Yes, here the dab is the common-case and the article is the title-case instead of the other way around, but it matches the parts that seem wrong to you in Octagon H/house. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes it is the same except for how it is not the same, being reversed. So it does not match. :) Are there any other examples that do match? Another way to "resolve" this is to move "Octagon house" to "Octagon house architecture" or something like that, which i've now asked about at Talk:Octagon house. That idea was discussed and not liked, a while back, though. doncram (talk) 14:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
It does match your description: they differ only by capitalization. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:22, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Pygmy

Is there a better solution to this than linking to Special:PrefixIndex? I had a look at WP:DAB but it seemed to suggest that a standard Pygmy (disambiguation) would not be appropriate as most aren't whole-text matches. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 19:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)PamD (talk) 20:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

  • Looks as if there's enough material for a dab page - (novel) and (Greek mythology) as well as the primary usage, so that can include a "See also" to {{lookfrom|Pygmy}}. PamD (talk) 20:50, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Incomplete dab without a base dab

What to do with something like Christian Democracy (Italy)? Normally, I would just point it back to the base dab, but in this case there doesn't appear to be a base dab. Another solution would be to move one of the dabbed pages to just (Italy) and have a hatnote point other readers to the other Italy page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It could be redirected to this list? --AndrewHowse (talk) 12:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
That seems like a good idea. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I recently made a post about the possibility of a bot to automatically aid link disambiguation over here. Since this is covered by this project, any comments or suggestions would be great. Thank you :) AlekseyFy (talk) 21:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Stunting

under the stunt page the driving offense 'stunting' should be listed. I don't know if its an American offense or not but it is a Canada driving offense Tydoni (talk) 04:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Discuss on Talk:Stunt (disambiguation), but be sure to mention which article about the driving offense is to be disambiguated. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

American

There are multiple, recurring issues regarding the formatting of American that need to be addressed. Such issues include formatting, which entries to include (ie, entries that are not only referred to as "American"), whether certain entries should include inline citations, and recently, whether this disambig page should take the further, unconventional step of including a disambig hat note to deepen the disambiguation. Since it's such a high traffic dab page, we need to make sure it's clean and effective, and serves the reader in the best way possible. --Cúchullain t/c 16:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI: matters of dispute

Discussion of the (more complex than usual) considerations involved with regard to the disambiguation page American (Americans also redirects there) has been in process (or suspension) for some time. Survey the talk page well before diving in. :) --Proofreader77 (talk) 23:42, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Methods of addressing recurring contentions of the page

citations on a dab page? (another "solution" is in place)

  • It appears the interest in adding citations flowed from the (understandable) negative reaction of (some, many?) readers/editors to referring to American English as simply "American."
  • Many editors seeing such an entry, deleted it on sight.
  • NOTE: I deleted it once myself while RC patrolling—which is how the page got on my watchlist.
  • BUT, the next time I happened upon the entry, someone had added a reference link to a dictionary, which stopped me from deleting it.
  • THEN, HOWEVER, the assertion was made that the guidelines prohibited references, and they were disallowed.
  • SO, we were back to the same problem.
  • ONE "SOLUTION": Acknowledge the "casual" nature of the reference to American English as "American" in the description/link. I.E., by giving readers/editors a cue that the people who have edited the page before understand and acknowledge the usage is not the pure formal construct they are used to as correct, they will think before they delete, and think, "OK, casual usage."

SO: If that solution "works" (it has, so far), then it seems we can forget about citations in this case.

NOTE: If you disagree that we have to think about things like this in this way (saying, e.g., that some people will always be dissatisfied), then we can discuss this further at greater length, elsewhere.  :) -- Proofreader77 (talk) 06:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

disambig hat note? (a link to an article about the "word" up top by wikitionary link)

  • American is an inherently contentious word, e.g., American hegemony etc.
  • Since this is one of the relatively rare cases where a disambiguation page has a related article explicitly addressing the various (conflicting) meanings of the "word" itself, putting a link to that article about the word up top beside the wiktionary link, quickly directs people who wish to contend over the meaning of American to the article, where such contentions may be addressed with more elaboration.
  • Cúchullain's reference to this link to the article about the word's meaning as an "unconventional step of including a disambig hat note to deepen the disambiguation" is a characterization which seems to imply "beyond the pale," "bad," "shoot it!." Is it? See previous bullet.

BOTTOM LINE: American is not a run-of-the-mill disambiguation page. Cúchullain believes that the disambiguation guidelines (with no adjustments for unique page characteristics) demand that the link to American (word) absolutely, positively cannot be at the top of the page ... and asserts his concern is for preventing reader confusion by following the wisdom of the "consensus" of the guidelines ... without adjustment, unless Cúchullain can be persuaded that the guidelines can be adjusted, which he will not consider, because he doesn't believe in adjusting the guidelines. :)
-- Proofreader77 (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

(meta comment)

COMMENT: Notice how many words I am being forced to write because of the assertion of the absolute unwavering authority of the disambiguation guidelines. It appears it will take a few hundred hours of my time to get this "clarified" from a policy perspective. One page is not the issue. This is not one particular content dispute. THE QUESTION is whether disambiguation guidelines can be used to browbeat (yes, browbeat) other editors into not making adjustments to pages that are in the best interest of the encyclopedia. (NOTE: Yes, the last sentence makes a rhetorical flourish at the end waving toward the greater good—similar to the one at the end of Cúchullain's last sentence—but mine is sincere. lol) Proofreader77 (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion (2 moves): American → American (disambiguation) / American (word) → American

Thanks for that recap, Proofreader77. I have one more question: has the possibility of moving American (word) to the base name (as the primary topic) and moving American to American (disambiguation) been considered or discussed somewhere? -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
re: moving Hi, and you're welcome. Scanning the talk page it appears moving (in general) generates much discussion. :) See:
I haven't read through all that yet, but I suspect your specific suggestion has not been raised. A quick skim suggests there have been past moving wars, so any change is delicate a matter (apparently:) ... Let me read some more, and see if a case for what you suggest might prevail. Sounds reasonable, but that doesn't mean much, does it? lol Cheers. Proofreader77 (talk) 19:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I did not find it either, but I thought it might be buried in one of the other page histories. I've set up the formal WP:RM request, to see what kind of discussion or consensus it might generate. Thanks. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Zombie powder

I really see no purpose in this dab page. There's only one item out of the two there that can be referred to as "Zombie Powder" or similar. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 13:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Why can't the other be referred to as zombie powder? Even so, I think a hatnote on the manga pointing to the section of the fish article should suffice in place of the dab page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Morán and Moran: combine

Picking up from above here: Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Moran Morán and Moran (surname) should probably be merged. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC).

I say: should surely be merged as per Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Combining terms on disambiguation pages: titles with diacritic mark differences are to be combined. Next problem: Moran (surname) is combination of article + dab. I'll be back here on that. -DePiep (talk) 11:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) opens with: no article content on a DAB. So now Moran (surname) should be changed: spliced into article and dab.
I suggest we work onto the next situation:
  1. Moran (Irish surname) non-dab, with the article content (now in Moran (surname))
  2. Moran (surname) dab, including Morán surnames
  3. Moran as dab, including the link to: Moran (surname)
  4. Morán (now the Spanish surname dab) redirect to Moran (surname)
  5. Morin kept separate, looks like a different name with different beackground (not just different spelling). Stays in See Also part.
Further detail: Moran (surname) could be fully into Moran (dab), making it quite a long page. Mixing surnames and other uses in one dab. Any advice on this?

-DePiep (talk) 11:55, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Moran (surname) is not a disambiguation page. Why would you want to merge that page with the dab page Moran? I'm not seeing what the problem is. older ≠ wiser 12:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Moran (surname) does currently have the template {{hndis}}, saying that it is a disambiguation page. I did not put it there. Also, exept from the surnames, it lists fictional characters, and it has See Also's to Moran-alike pages. (Further, left for research, is every surname Moran Irish? Are there non-Irish Morans in the list?)
  • Why should I want to merge it??? I said we could merge it, since it is common practice in dab's: mixing surnames and other uses, see MOS:DAB#Given names or surnames. I was just asking advice on this, clearly.
  • This is where the problem comes from: A. MOS:DAB says we can/should combine Moran and Morán into one dab. B. That would need the pagename Moran (surname). C. That name is used for an article(/dab), about part of the title (Irish only). Solution: as mentioned. Would use the pagenames correctly (conform contents & dabs).
-DePiep (talk) 13:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I fixed Moran (surname) to use the surname tag instead of the dab tag. See alsos are fine there. The surname-holder list, or lists if they are combined, should remain separate from the dab page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
As a non-disambiguation page, the guidance on combining Moran and Morán is not really applicable to surname pages. However, it may indeed be worth having separate pages for surnames of differing origins. But that would be a call for the Anthropomyny project. older ≠ wiser 13:33, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
RE talk and older ≠ wiser: ~Thanx, OK and clear to me now. Surnames are not dab. So no merging surnames Moran and Morán fromm here, and no page-moving. I'll just check on true dab-aspects (non-surnames). -DePiep (talk) 13:41, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Set index image

We are planning to change the icon used for set index article boxes such as {{SIA}}. See discussion and examples at Template talk:Dmbox#Set index image.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

"May refer to"

This edit is a fairly good example of why the stock phrase "may refer to" is not always the best phrasing and can get used as a substitute for putting brain in gear. The phrase "calculus on manifolds" may indeed refer to one of the items listed: Calculus on Manifolds (book). The other two links are articles in which one can read about calculus on manifolds, but it is not correct to say that the titles of those articles refer to the same thing as the phrase calculus on manifolds. Is there a suitable conventional stock phrase for that situation, or should I just improvise? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Then I would move the book to the base name. Is there something about the other two that is actually in danger of being in an article titled "Calculus on manifolds", and therefore requiring a disambiguation page? -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Moving the book to the base name does not make sense. "Calculus on manifolds" is not just the title of a book; it's the subject the book is about. Potentially there could be an article about that subject.

This isn't all that unusual a situation—if it were I probably would not have brought it up here. I think I've seen hundreds of such cases where "may refer to" doesn't make sense. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no reason to worry over phrasing. MOS:DAB is a guideline which advises editors to break rules. The mantra "may refer to" is offered as an example of how to phrase the introductory line, but not insisted upon – the point is to introduce a bulleted list in a way that makes sense. And besides, if one wished to insist on "may refer to" in the example you cite, it takes but a simple fix:
Calculus on manifolds may refer to:
See? Simple. 212.32.88.209 (talk) 08:43, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
"Potentially there could be an article about that subject" doesn't have any bearing on the use of the base name for an article now. If/when the potential article materializes, then the book article can be moved again if it is no longer the primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I have to disagree. This disregards the fact that links to "calculus on manifolds" may have in mind the book's topic rather than the book itself. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:58, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Is it the case that an article automatically deserves precedence over an article section when it comes to determining a primary topic, or whether one exists? We have Differentiable manifold#Calculus on manifolds, which is more substantial than many a stub. 212.32.88.209 (talk) 12:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
No, it's not automatic, although I would expect there to exist a redirect at (in this case) Calculus on manifolds (differential manifold) if neither were the PT, or that Calculus on manifolds would redirect to the section (and the dab page go to Calculus on manifolds (disambiguation) if neither were the PT). -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Ship indices

Ships of the same name are disambiguated by the {{Shipindex}} template. This generates a notice that says to consider linking to a specific article if a link lead to the shipindex page. Recently, some shipindex pages have been tagged as orphans. According to the rationale generated by the template, there should be few (if any) links to the shipindex page, and the use of the orphan tag is contrary to this. Mjroots (talk) 05:36, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

My First dab! How does it look?

Hi, no questions from me here now. I just finished the Congo dab (269 to ~5). Since it is my first big dab in this project, someone from here might like to take an extra look at the results. Maybe I could learn something more. Noteworthy experiences:

  • Some references to Wikisource could not be resolved (disambiguated) by me.
Example: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kinshasa. It has a link to a sister project: {{Wikisource1913CatholicEnc|Congo|Belgian Congo}}. "Belgian Congo" shows up OK in the article as expected, but since the target article on Wikisource is titled "Congo", we cannot change that name on our (this) en:wikipedia. No problem so far. Then, when I check the "What links here" for the DAB-page "Congo", it keeps showing up. So I cannot disambiguate this link, it is still there (little teardrop here). Maybe it can be done with some more knowledge in this matter.
  • I chose to introduce a new dab-page: 'Congo (country)'. All the Congo-links to dab that clearly referred to one of the two Congo-states Congo-Kinshasa of Congo-Brazzaville link to the new page. So this is a sub-dab for all of the Congo-dabs being: only one out of these two Congo-meanings. Did a too long explanation on the Talkpage there. Anyway: 80(!) of the Congo-links now link there. Thought I might break a rule here (dunno which one). Details: a incoming link can be disambiguatied to both countries too, and to a historical Congo-country. And imo it does not interfere with the Congo dab-page/dab-actions.
  • Layout (graphics), TOC and ordering of the resulting Congo page were a bit troublesome (just there where are little guidelines ;-)).
  • Anyway, I'll see what happens. Bye, -DePiep (talk) 09:56, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Congo (country) is an incomplete disambiguation page. It should redirect to Congo (disambiguation) as an {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}. If useful, an section link (with or without an actual section) can lead the read to the "countries" section of the Congo dab, but since those two lead off the dab page, that may not be needed. But Congo (country) shouldn't be a dab page itself and shouldn't have incoming links. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
I understand the main part. But shouldn't have incoming links I do not follow. Using [[Congo (country)|Congo]] creates an incoming link to the page. Even if redirected to Congo, we should not throw away the information that is in there: (country). Now we know that these links are surely not the Congo River etc.: we have narrowed the dab in these cases. Why sould we add the Congo River, Congo (film) etc. to the dab-problem of that link?
-Helpful is: these country-redirects are grouped. Also when R'd to the main dab-page. And look: in the What-links-here-list they are still grouped! under the redirect. Keep.
-On {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} (the Help I found was not complete here): if it is an information, OK. But if it is an invitation to edit the incoming links into skipping (bot): unwanted, see above. As says WP:REDIRECT#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken.
-On linking to a section (would be like </nowiki>[[Congo#Country}]]</nowiki>, fictuous here): very bad idea, even when the HELP:s say it. It does tie the dab-page to a fixed (required) content, i.e. the section #Country must exist! And a future editor does not (have to) know this. (OK, the link would end up on top the page, but still it is a broken link). So far for the #Section-trick.
-Just to check the line of thought: the dab-page Congolese could have the same treatment? Incomplete dab-page, Congo is more complete. So redirect to Congo, & goal is in the end no incoming links?
-Do I understand that, with 80 dab's from 260 unsolved, we cannot consider this job as Done? Do other people here really reach the zero (excl Talks etc)?
-Before I forget: thanx for the critique. I even asked for it ;-)-DePiep (talk) 13:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Dab pages (and redirects to dab pages) should have 0 unintentional incoming links, correct. If an article intends to link to a country named Congo, it should link to the article about whichever country named Congo it intends. Section links using the # notation can be set up so that future editors are aware of them (by placing a comment there; there may even be a template for this) and/or so they work without a section (using {{Anchor}}). I don't see any major problem with leaving links to Congo (country) alone, once Congo (country) redirects to Congo. Congolese is not an incomplete dab. Incomplete dabs refer to pages that have a supposedly disambiguating phrase in parentheses, except that the disambiguating phrase doesn't full disambiguate the title. The goal, as long as "Congolese" is ambiguous, is still to have 0 untintentional links to Congolese, and to have intentional links to it use Congolese (disambiguation) (once it is created for that purpose, as a {{R to disambiguation page}}. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
One further suggestion: It is not obligatory for each line to begin with the disambiguated term. When the linked article is synonymous with the dabbed term, the link should come first. For example:
should be
And
  • Kongo or yawara, a martial arts weapon
should be
  • Yawara, or kongo, a martial arts weapon
--ShelfSkewed Talk 17:52, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
RE ShelfSkewed: done. Also used "or X" when synonym, not (X). More to follow on this talk. -DePiep (talk) 11:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 Done Redirect, use Anchor, rm selflink, talk on Talk, and clarified in the Done-section+Talk. Now 80 incoming links, cannot do from DABMOS alone. I'll leave it here, I guess. -DePiep (talk) 13:42, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

"May refer to" again.........

I undid that part of this edit that seemed to offend common sense. "Included angle" is a concept that occurs in both of those two articles. But the phrase "included angle" does not refer to the same thing that either of those titles refers to. I think there should be some examples in the disambiguation style manual that mention this possibility, to keep in check those who cultivate a knee-jerk reflex in the matter and point to the manual to justify it. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

church disambig template deletion

Please take notice of Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 April 17#Template:Church disambig and consider commenting there. doncram (talk) 14:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Promoted to general interest in new section #'Xxx disambig' is a category only below

Page view stats as measure

When a dab page is not at the base name, but rather at a secondary name, incoming links to the base name do not get disambiguated. It occurs to me that the desirability of disambiguating these links might be estimated by looking at the number of page views of the dab page vs the base page. I am thinking that a statistical analysis of page views to (eg) Foo (disambiguation) vs Foo might be informative. Has anyone tried doing this analysis? --Una Smith (talk) 15:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Craigslist Killer

I'm not convinced that Craigslist Killer is an actual topic. From what I can tell it is a glorified disambiguation page pointing to three topics, Michael John Anderson, John Katehis, and Philip Markoff. I've started a discussion over at Talk:Craigslist Killer#Disambiguation page, but I'm going to need some feedback. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 00:21, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Need help with proper formatting. Viriditas (talk) 21:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I had a go at it: eliminated the intro, trimmed the descriptions, & removed the refs section and inappropriate category. I was on the fence about the See also link; it's not really necessary, but I left it as harmless.--ShelfSkewed Talk 22:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you! Viriditas (talk) 22:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
No problem. Those talk-page discussions were interesting reading... --ShelfSkewed Talk 22:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, it's somewhat complicated. A user tries to keep turning this dab page into an article about the topic, except there aren't any sources that actually support the subject. Can you (or anyone else) start a section on the talk page, explaining in neutral terms the requirements for a dab page? In other words, if this is/isn't qualified to be a dab page, what is the criteria? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 06:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Hatnote, but to which disambiguation page?

There's a question there on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Hatnote, but to which disambiguation page?. -DePiep (talk) 09:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

followup feedback sought on NRHP disambiguation

I've done a lot of developing and cleaning up dab pages involving U.S. National Register of Historic Places articles, in the six months since getting a lot of guidance here, in this discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 13#what is wp:NRHP doing wrong RE disambiguation?. The guidance provided has served very well since, removing NRHP disambiguation pages entirely from AfD contention, which was frequent previously. There are currently 476 NRHP dab pages in Category:Disambig-Class National Register of Historic Places articles and more developed that weren't put in the category yet.

Now, with hundreds of pages including most of the biggest ones converted over to newer format, I'm personally interested in getting feedback on possible refinements. I'd welcome thoughtful comments on any articles in the category. I hope you will please, however, bear with me on any ones tagged {{NRHP dab needing cleanup}}; I am actively working on cleaning those up, but more are being created and tagged with that by other wp:NRHP editors (a good thing) so it is taking me longer to get through them all than i hoped.

Three examples that vary somewhat are:

It happens i just received some rather critical comments at Talk:Phillips House, stirring me now to ask for general feedback here sooner rather than later. doncram (talk) 07:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to several (including User:Matchups and User:PamD) who commented at Talk:Phillips House, probably coming from here. To summarize, the basic organization of the Phillips House dab page seems mostly okay, but there is suggestion that U.S. postal code abbreviations for states should be avoided altogether, and there is suggestion that NRHP should be spelled out on its first appearance. Those are differences from how I've been developing the NRHP dab pages, now >= 791 in number. On those points, I regard them as somewhat secondary to the main job of setting up disambigution that works, but I'm now adopting those suggestions at least sometimes as I develop new dab pages, and I wouldn't oppose anyone else going through to do a systematic cleanup. Thanks for the attention here! doncram (talk) 20:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Himno Nacional

Came across Himno Nacional, anthem for Dominican Republic, however, the links seem to indicate that the page should be considered to be a disambiguation, especially when looking at intitle:himno+nacional. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the reason it is at this title is that it is the only national anthem whose official name is actually Himno Nacional, as opposed to Himno Nacional Mexicano or Himno Nacional de Honduras. At least, according to the Spanish Wikipedia article. Following that logic, a Himno Nacional (disambiguation) would be in order, with a hatnote at Himno Nacional.
However, since it seems unlikely to me that this is the most likely target for someone typing "Himno Nacional" in the search box, it makes sense to me (per principle of least surprise) that this article be moved to something like Himno Nacional Dominicano (similar to http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himno_nacional_dominicano) or to National Anthem of the Dominican Republic, and Himno Nacional be turned into a disambiguation page. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:29, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
I've requested a speedy admin removal of the redirect National Anthem of the Dominican Republic so that Himno Nacional can be moved there first, before it can be turned into a dab page. --Tesscass (talk) 21:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
We did it already. --Againme (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

'Xxx disambig' is a category only

The template {{Church disambig}} has been proposed for deletion here. Apart from the conclusion there: I think in general all these 'Xxx disamb'-templates (gathering on the parent cat Category:Disambiguation pages) are constructed and used unhelpful. I take this to be within the scope of this project.

The problem: First: the Church-template claims to be Church buildings exclusively. So the Church-building-dab-page excludes an article title being written alike, but not a church-building (even excluding a church as a denomination). As a DAB: false exclusion. It also starts including articles with say spanish church names meaning the same. To DAB: false inclusion. But disambuiguation is only needed when written alike, whatever the meaning (spelling, capitalisation etc is not relevant here). This crosses the straight dab-principle: same name, do dab. If ot: do not (tip: use cat).
Second: the template Xxx disambig takes the dabpage out of the parent category. Claiming to be non-distinguished according to Wikipedia:Categorization#Duplicate categorization rule.
Proposed solution: Dab-pages now templated with Xxx disamb are merged with their non-Xxx-dab-pages: by title only (regular dab). This dab has the main Category:Disambiguation pages. It may 'also' have a Category:Church building disambiguation pages, added manually. The Church-template then means "has also churches", not "has only churches". (Probably this can be done technically via the existing template, transcluding the main Disamb-template and adding the Church-category). -DePiep (talk) 09:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
We could modify {{disambig}} so that it took an optional "subcat=Foo" parameter which would add the disambig page to Category:Foo disambiguation pages. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Could do. For the time being, we could use the existing tamplates to the same effect. Also, we want to be sure that only sub-dab-categories are used there. Main problem: change use (rule) of these templates. -DePiep (talk) 09:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Eh, has been done. See Template:Disambig/doc for existing parameter options. It accepts {{disambig|airport}} :-) Proces now: make template-options correct & complete (Church missing), let a bot change the Airport Disambig into {{disambig|airport}} etc, and delete the 15 or so Xxx templates. When options are corrected, should be done through TFD. -DePiep (talk) 12:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Update: The TfD has not yet been closed, but the consensus that evolved between DePiep and me, anyhow, seems to be to keep the Template, unless and until the main {{Disambig}} template is revised to allow for a church or places of worship or religion-related or some such subtype. Also there may be a followup CfD to perhaps rename the associated category. doncram (talk) 20:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Temple Israel set index article and disambiguation

There is a list-article Temple Israel which was labelled as a disambiguation page but is clearly much more. I just reclassified it as a Set Index Article and created Temple Israel (disambiguation) which is needed, too, I believe. Could anyone take a look at the two of them and advise, particularly the latter. I haven't created matched SIAs and disambiguation pages before. In particular I am not sure how a disambig page's entries should be set up to link to article sections, rather than to articles; how i did it for now doesn't look right. doncram (talk) 20:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we can do without the disamb-page. The SIA-article could and should contain all the entries that are in the dab-page. Then a user searching "Temple Israel" will end up in the complete article/navigation list. Great. The SIA has no disamb-category. (details: maybe edit the SIA into SIA-style. And use the "US-only" limitation that is its intro correctly: into the title, as a category, or (I think best) removed at all.). The use of #-links and possible piping would be out of sight, for this instance. -DePiep (talk) 08:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I've followed your advice as best i can. The separate disambig page i had set up is now redirected back to the set index article. I edited the set index article somewhat towards cleaning it up. I dropped the US-only limitation from its intro, although all the temples it covers are in the U.S. This does avoid any #-links now. I am not sure how else it should be revised to be a proper SIA. I'll keep watching the article to see if I should learn from anyone else's edits. But it is better now, thanks. doncram (talk) 20:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
No suprise it looks good to me ;-). The area of Set Index Articles is a bit new to me, but I think very complemantary in our wiki-navigation-thinking. See what happens to this example. -DePiep (talk) 21:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
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