Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 6

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Templates

So I find:

Are there others? Can we consolidate the 2nd (just a dozen or two articles it's used on) into the 3rd? Cburnett 19:29, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is a set I started using with a few variations:

The last one probably duplicates the "dablink". One that may be missing is "[XZ] redirects here, see [Xerox Zoo] (disambiguation) for other uses."


Others may use:

For other uses, see [[{{{1}}} (disambiguation)]].

-- User:Docu


I would like to point out that Stevertigo (talk · contribs) has created yet another disambiguation template, Template:For. Perhaps someone else might have a better idea than I do why he thinks the right side of the screen is where disambiguation text "belongs"? -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:40, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have redirected {{Otherpersons}} to {{Otherpeople}}, which seems to do essentially the same thing. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:48, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

OtherUses vs. Otherusesabout templates

Still another template has been created, {{OtherUses}}, that has a distinct function from {{Otheruses}}; in the interests of sanity, I have redirected this template to {{Otherusesabout}}. (for more information see also talk page and uses page)

Flexibility in disambig pages?

Content of this section, which became a proposal to develop a style for disambiguation pages, has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Style.

Monitoring Disambiguation pages

I've looked high and low, and I can't find any way of monitoring the inbound links to disambiguation pages - basically, a Watchlist on What links here. I tried creating a page with a list of links to Special:Whatlinkshere?target=whatever, and then looking for Recent Changes, but that didn't give me what I want. Can it even be done, or do I need to do a daily sweep over all the things I've ever disambiguated? Josh Parris ✉ 04:37, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

An easy way to do disambiguations is the solve_disambiguation.py script from meta:Pywikipediabot. It can be called from a batch file for each monitored page. If you edit the script to exclude most namespaces other than article namespaces, it just prompts you in the cases where there is something to do. -- User:Docu

Dab headers

User:Steinsky and I have come to a disagreement. On Replicator (Star Trek) and Chocolat (movie) (and others) he's removed the {{dablink}} on the grounds that it's unnecessary because the page is already disambiguated and calling the dablink "trivia" [1].

I see no harm in linking to Replicator or Chocolat. I guarantee that all users do not understand WP's dab process. Furthermore, no one can guarantee that all links are correct. Steinsky hinges his argument that Replicator (Star Trek) and Chocolat (movie) are already dab'ed and require no header.

The only relevant thing on WP:D that I can find is this extremely short bit:

Do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page, if there is no risk of confusion.

If you assume that all links are always correct and that no one visits WP from external sources (e.g., google) and that everyone understands WP's disambiguation procedure (e.g., Replicator (Star Trek) is about the Star Trek replicator) then it may be a safe assumption that there is no risk of confusion. However, the chances of this are extremely small and I really don't see the harm in linking back to the dab page.

(What gets me is the utter extreme "deletionism" on WP:D and the utter extreme "inclusionism" on WP:R.)

What I'm proposing is amending WP:D to allow an optional dablink at the top of articles. Really, what's the harm in putting:

This article is about the Star Trek replicator. See replicator for other uses.

or

This article is about the movie. See Chocolat for the novel.

on Replicator (Star Trek) and Chocolat (movie), respectively. I think it's safer to assume that links aren't always correct and a lot of visitors come from external sources and not everyone understands the disambiguation procedure...so I see more good than harm from adding dablinks. Cburnett 14:33, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • support - Per the unsuccessful proposal above (#Proposal: When to disambiguate section), I did not change the policy text to be more inclusive. On the other hand, the if there is no risk of confusion text is sufficiently ambiguous that I've been liberally adding dablinks. Perhaps the text I proposed went too far, but I strongly support making some sort of change along these lines. Wikipedia is not a closed universe. People do occasionally get to articles by means other than wikilinks. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:56, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
BTW - in the poll above, most of the oppose responses seem to be arguing against adding entries to disambiguation pages, rather than specifically adding {{dablink}}-style headers. IMO the current proposal is different enough that the reasoning given in the votes above is largely irrelevant. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:10, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the reasons given in the previous poll above. Disambiguation links are still not needed in these cases. Joe D (t) 15:35, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • In the interests of WP:CIVILITY, I've deleted some comments that were here (they're still in the history). In case it's not obvious to anyone, Joe D is User:Steinsky, who is the other party in the dispute that prompted this proposal by Cburnett. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:21, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
Not a vote (IMO, this vote is premature--there has been relatively little discussion here; see m:Don't vote on everything and m:Polls are evil). I don't like unnecessary dab links, because I regard them as unaesthetic clutter. However, that leaves open precisely what is "unnecessary". Regarding the specific cases mentioned here, there is a link to the novel chocolat in the first sentence of the movie article, so including it in a dab note is unnecessarily redundant. The dablink to the other movie OTOH is necessary. As for the Replicator articles, while I don't strictly see the dablink as necessary, there is a sort of nerdy cross-referencing between the sci-fi series, which might merit some linkage. older≠wiser 12:42, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)
But nerdy cross-linking isn't disambiguation, and would be better placed in a trivia section. Joe D (t) 20:37, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So if linking to Replicator isn't dab'ing, then you can't use WP:D to rationalize it's deletion. Cburnett 06:40, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
And you shouldn't use a disambiguation link to it, or use google links as an excuse to have the link there. Joe D (t) 14:56, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It's interesting to note that either no one wants to get involved in this "cat fight" or that no one cares. Cburnett 15:51, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

I also think that semi-disambiguation is not necessary, as it is not very likely that one will follow the wrong disambiguated link and instead of that article immediately want to see all meanings. If people insist on having this option, it can be done automatically by the mediawiki software (just stripping / (\S+)$/ from the title) and made optional in the skin settings. --Joy [shallot] 12:36, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Name disambiguation policy

Proposal

Recently, the page Alessandra was listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Alessandra. Also, recently, some users have edited on pages such as Alice [2], Alicia [3], and Michael [4], removing large numbers of useful links. These users justify these nominations for deletion and the removal of these links with the following text from Wikipedia:Disambiguation, which I have removed:

  • In most cases, do not list names of which Title is a part, unless the persons are very frequently referred to simply by their first or last name (e.g. Shakespeare, Galileo).

I believe that part of the policy should be changed. This policy is inherently contradictory to the policy on Wikipedia:Redirect, which states that redirects should not be deleted if:

  • They aid searches on certain terms.
  • Someone finds them useful. Hint: If someone says they find a redirect useful, they probably do. You might not find it useful — this is not because the other person is a liar, but because you browse Wikipedia in different ways.

To see how this situation is similar to that for first-name disambiguation pages, we can consider the page Noam, which serves as a perfect example. Examining the page history of Noam, we see that the article started out as a redirect to Noam Chomsky (who is not commonly known by his first name). This page was then changed to a redirect to Noam Federman, at which point an edit war began between two users with the users changing the redirect back and forth between Noam Chomsky and Noam Federman. The obvious solution to this edit war, which I implemented, was to turn the redirect page into a disambiguation page for people named Noam.

By the logic of the policy quoted above on Wikipedia:Redirect, the redirect should not be deleted. But that leads to disputes over the most famous usage of a particular name. Disambiguations prevent exactly this problem, yet by the logic of the policy quoted above from Wikipedia:Disambiguation, the disambiguation page that solves this problem should be deleted!

Not only would removing the above policy help to avoid edit wars and make Wikipedia:Disambiguation more consistent with Wikipedia:Redirect, but moreover, this would make the policy on name disambiguation pages more consistent. If we have disambiguation pages that disambiguate last names, then why shouldn't we have disambiguations pages that disambiguate first names? If a name is used both as a first name and a last name, why should the disambiguation page only link to those people who use that name as a last name? Why should a page like Michael link only to royalty with the first name Michael while excluding everyone else with the first name Michael?

Furthermore, many users, including myself, find it useful to have first name pages which link to people with that first name. Sometimes, one has some particular person in mind but can only recall a first name; such a disambiguation page would help in this case. One may be interested in a list of all encyclopedic people who share a particular name. One may also be interested in learning what other persons share some particular person's name, and whom some person's namesake might be. If one wishes to find articles on Wikipedia of people with a particular first name, why must one be forced to take the extra step of using the search function instead of just referring to the disambiguation page of the first name? This would save everyone time.

The purpose of a disambiguation page is to link to common usages of that word, term, or phrase. In the case of a first name, common usages of the first name would include famous people who have that first name.

This is why the policy as it stood was unacceptable and must be changed.

—Lowellian (talk) 17:28, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Opposition

Dab pages have a specific technical purpose, not to bloated. To help in searches, various articles of type "List of..." exist. For this particular case a HUGE List of people by name exists.

Being even more particular, please look at the table of contents of the List of people by name: Ale. Feel free to update it with Alessandra.

And finally, see how it must be done at the disambiguation page Bow. mikka (t) 20:10, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, the top of the policy runs: Feel free to update the page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes. This is clearly a major one, so I reverted the deletion. mikka (t) 19:44, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that bow is a particularly bad example considering that there is only one person listed with that name. What is the point in asking people to make additional clicks (to what is potentially an overly-large and confusing page) when a few names can appear on the disambig page. violet/riga (t) 20:49, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This only because wikipedia is underpopulated with people with the name Bow. Also, looking into the complete list of names it is easier to find people, if you don't know the correct spelling. For example, what if in fact you need a person called Bowe? Dab page is hardly helpful. To a degree, I would agree that rare names may go into the dab page, but certainly not John and Mary. In any case, you cannot say that the case of Alexander in List of people by name: Ale is bad. And if the page is large and confusing to someone, it is only because someone didn't expect so many people with so similar names: alexander, alexandre, alexandr, aleksandr, alessandro, ... Are you sure you got the name correctly? mikka (t) 21:10, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Did you look at Alexander (disambiguation)? It contains most of those names and is, I believe, an appropriate way of dealing with the situation. violet/riga (t) 21:32, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Only entries for persons known precisely as "Alexander" will be left there. There are plenty of dab pages even in worse state, created well before the final policy was molded. mikka (t) 22:22, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Furthermore, the sentence you removed (now restored by User:Mikkalai) was only an example of a principle expressed throughout this page. Look at the very first sentences:
    Disambiguation pages serve a single purpose: To let the reader choose between different pages that might reside under the same title.
    Do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page, if there is no risk of confusion. Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", would they expect to view any of the articles listed on the disambiguation page?
  • In other words, would someone expect to find Michael Crichton if they just typed in "Michael" into the search field? Of course not. The next sentence:
    Disambiguation pages are not search indices -- do not add links that merely contain part of the page title where there is no significant risk of confusion.
  • You're proposing a really substantial change in the function of disambiguation pages. Even if you get a handful of "Yes" votes here, that wouldn't justify such a wholesale redefinition of how dab pages are defined. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:29, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In the case of two Noams, I would have suggested

Noam may mean:
See also:
  • Gnome, a small mythical creature

But guess what? List of people goes by last name. I suppose you could shoe-horn the appropriate Noams, but what about the Michaels? I think the problem with Noam is that it's inappropriate for either Noam to be on a dab page about Noams, because, let's face it, Noam ain't how they're known. So links to Noam are just plain wrong and should be redlinked. And that flies in the face of what the Redirect guideline says on this particular case of the Noam article. But guess what? It's not the dab guideline that's wrong here, it's the redirect. It's conceivable that an article on the origins and history of the name Noam could be written. Would the articles that had a link to Noam be expecting that? I suspect not. So those articles are wrongly linked.

I had a similar problem to Lowellian's with Bugs, with two editors going hard in an edit war over directing to Bugs Bunny or Bugs (Television Programme). Looking at the inbound links to Bugs showed five Computer Bugs and one Bugs (Television Programme), so after dabbing them all I redirected to Bugs (disambiguation), which mentions the two alternating possibilites plus a link to Bug (disambiguation). Then I gave them both a good telling off for not disambiguating the imbound links.

Moral of the story? There's nothing ambiguous about Noam. It's someone's first name. The Redirect was a wrong one to have, and putting a dab page there merely compounded the error. Josh Parris ✉ 03:42, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)


  • It is entirely invalid to remove a policy you don't like while you debate it, and it's nearly abuse to do so. I have been involved in endless messes with Robert and William. Here I was with a number of saints known as "Saint William" and "Saint Robert," and what did I find? Well, nice etymologies, dictionary mess, and, of course, the ever-popular obsessive-compulsive "List of people with this name." Can anything be more counter-productive? Believe it or not, there are many, many medieval figures known by first name + descriptor, and these folks are very, very often referred to by historians with only the first name. First name articles really need to disambiguate the figures. This gets even more important when there are several ways of describing the figure. Some places call him Robert of Auxere, some Auxerre, some de Auxere. So the first name article is vital for establishing a link to the one article we do carry and allowing links to work. This is not a purpose for redirects (redirect all Roberts to which one, exactly?). I'm a pretty mellow fellow, but this one gets me extremely upset. You want a List of article? Put it in at the end of a first name disambiguation with "For a list of people named Goober, please see List of famous Goobers," and don't substitue the evil, pointless, destructive list for the disambiguation. (Yes, I am this upset about it.) Geogre 02:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • You don't make any sense here. First, you say it is imperative in some cases, then you say it is horrible in others. So in first name articles where Geogre can make valid disamgigs, like Rober and William, it is ok. But on all others, Geogre says it is wrong to have them. Huh. On Noam, Allesandra, and who knows which others, we have people fighting over the first name. Some people are obviously referring to these people by their first name basis. Thus, it's valid to use these as dab pages. Delete them now and then what? A week later someone makes them again as a redirect to their favorite. SchmuckyTheCat 04:14, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't understand your argument either. You say that disambiguation pages for first names are absolutely necessary, so why are you opposing? If what you are trying to say is that each disambiguation page for a first name must be separated from the first name article, that doesn't make sense: making a list of people whose first name is XYZ just takes up more space on Wikipedia. —Lowellian (talk) 04:44, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
Very well, here is the existing policy (until removed): Disambiguation pages on first names should be employed whenever multiple persons are known only by that name. So, any royal name (George, William, Alexander), any name of multiple individuals from the medieval period (Hugh, Robert), the article should disambiguate, not point to anyone and everyone who has the first name. I.e. the issue is whether people known quite well by two names should be included in a nominal dab. Every time someone adds that junk, it will get removed. When an article consists of only that junk, it properly gets listed on VfD, because it has no valid contents. If you have an article called Jimbo, then you're not going to have a dab need, and therefore you shouldn't have it at all. First name articles cannot turn into an excuse for List of articles. "Takes up more space" is no argument, I'm told, as, I'm told every day or so, Wikipedia is not paper; Wikipedia is also not useful if our first name dabs get overwhelmed by the kiddie wiki habit of list making. Geogre 11:41, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I cannot find anything on Wikipedia:Redirect that justifies the use of a redirect for a first name, unless of course that first name is a psuedonym. Neonumbers 11:19, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why should a page like Michael link only to royalty with the first name Michael while excluding everyone else with the first name Michael?

That they are royalty is not the point - the point is that those people were referred to only by their first name in some (encyclopedic) contexts. Meaning, someone might actually try to legitimately talk about just "Michael", link it, and presume that people will know who that is without much elaboration of context. In the same vein, one could argue that many disambiguation pages are cluttered by entries where the title is merely mentioned in the title and that they don't actually disambiguate some uses - those should be removed. Anyway, we don't disambiguate all words that begin with "a" on the article a, so let's not try to disambiguate all people whose name begins with a given name on the given name's article. --Joy [shallot] 12:59, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Votes

Support

  1. Concur strongly obviously, since I started this discussion. —Lowellian (talk) 04:38, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
  2. Concur - A disambiguation page by definition stops ambiguities if there are many people of the same name, then it can get ambiguous. Celestianpower 17:42, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  3. Concur - the purpose of a disambiguation page is, well, disambiguation; it works well in the way Lowellian states and should be meant as such.--Mitsukai 17:49, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  4. Concur, there's no harm in it being there but it may help people. violet/riga (t) 19:29, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  5. Concur/agree/support, dab pages have become too deletionist and this one is inherently contradictory to WP:R. Cburnett 19:54, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
  6. Absolutely AGREE Dab pages exist for user convenience. I don't even comprehend why Noam or Allesandra were put on VfD - that's user inconvenience for no good purpose whatsoever. SchmuckyTheCat 01:29, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  7. Absolutely agree. (Can we split the yays and nays up?) I've always wondered why we've limited the disambiguation pages to a few not-so-important people sharing that name, and ignore a whole bunch of others. I'd really like to be able to go to a particular name, and say, find a bunch of notable people whose name I share. Ambi 11:50, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Crazy. Not an issue for weird names like "Noam", but the idea that the Michael page is going to list every Michael in the world is impossible. It's useless bloat. It's trying to turn WP into a search engine. If you can't remember the last name of the Michael who wrote "Jurassic Park", use Google. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:05, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually, that's yet another reason why first name disambiguations would be useful: some people have last names, like Michael Crichton, that can be hard to spell. If you remember the first name but are not sure how to spell the last name, then the first name disambiguation will help get you to the page you are looking for. —Lowellian (talk) 18:24, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
      • The point is, you could search for him via Jurassic Park. You're trying to make a WP article into an index page.—Wahoofive (talk) 21:20, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Also, there is no reason why Wikipedia users should be forced to go check another website, Google, when they can have that function served with the disambiguation page here. —Lowellian (talk) 18:24, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
      • By that argument we may as well include every phone directory, every website, every dictionary entry. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be all things to all people. It has a specialized function. Being a directory is not that function. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:20, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • but Dab pages ARE that function! Not a directory, but as a user convenience. SchmuckyTheCat 01:29, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Noam is a common Jewish name. Are you suggesting that first name disambiguations are not acceptable, except in cases where you feel the name is "weird"? How do we determine whether a name is "weird" without being POV? —Lowellian (talk) 18:27, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
      • I wouldn't draw a line. I support what was the policy up until you removed it. It just bothers me more on common names.—Wahoofive (talk) 21:20, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • And in any case, it's much better than having that page lie redundant becuase how are you going to decide between many allessandras for example (and as said by Lowellian)? Celestianpower 18:29, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Michael is not a disambig page and therefore that policy cannot be applied to it. violet/riga (t) 19:29, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Nor is it a redirect page.—Wahoofive (talk) 21:20, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • No, it's not, but I don't believe that counteracts my argument. violet/riga (t) 21:32, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  2. Oppose Dab pages have a specific technical purpose, not to bloated. To help in searches, various articles of type "List of..." exist. For this particular case a HUGEList of people by name exists. mikka (t) 19:44, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • list of people by name is not an index either. What new user is going to go looking there when they can't find who they want by typing Noam into the search engine - THAT IS NOT the returned page. SchmuckyTheCat 01:29, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. The example that led to this proposal is flawed. The guideline is appropriate as it stands. Josh Parris ✉ 03:42, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  4. Oppose with every fiber of my being: You want a list, make a list. That's not what disambiguations do. Leave the dabs alone, slap a link to the list at the end of it, and don't break the links that have already been established throughout Wikipedia because you don't like a VfD listing. Geogre 02:47, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Making list of people whose first name is XXX articles just take up more space on Wikipedia and is hard to type. The disambiguation page can serve the purpose without resorting to unnecessary articles with such long names. —Lowellian (talk) 04:40, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
      • So? Add the bytes to the existing first name article, or make a new article...the loss of disk space is irrelevant. Better still, of course, would be not to make a list at all. That would please me very much. However, if people must make their lists, then they should not break existing link structures and making their lists hard to find by trying to move them up to the first name space. Note that "existing policy" means that we have existing pages done this way. To change it now means effectively multiplying chaos, as one name is at "List of" for its list and yet, from now on, the "List of" will be at the first name in some cases and at a named list in others, and we could very easily be having two articles for each name with the same contents. If that happens, the result is not VfD. It's speedy delete. Geogre 11:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • I should also point out that the other attack on this policy is people who want all first name articles to be about the name itself. These editors want the names to exist with etymologies, distributions across nations, etc. So, if first name articles aren't anymore disambigs and yet also get etymologies and other lexical materials, and then figuring out which King John (i.e. he's Ian somewhere else, perhaps) in the midst of the runs of "John Bolton John Conner (fictional) John Davis (my buddy) John Free John Gordon John Hampton" is going to mean that there really are no ways to disambiguate anymore. Geogre 21:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • While you and I are on the same side, Geogre, I urge you not to confuse the issues. The discussion here is what the disambiguation-page policy should be; whether certain pages should be dabs or not is a separate issue (which doesn't belong here).—Wahoofive (talk) 22:03, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • As one person put it, disambiguation takes place when a term is ambiguous, not when the user is confused. If we have multiple persons named just-John, we have to disambig. Anything else can be solved by categories, list-of articles, and the like. My point in introducing the extranneous is to warn that once first name articles are not reserved for disambiguations, there will be no effective policy on what they are. They won't just become lists, but they will also be lexicon entries, homes for name game trivia, etc. At present, the only grounds for deleting the self-serving matter is that first name articles are reserved for disambiguation. I.e. there is more at stake than just whether list material should be allowed. Geogre 01:36, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • You could always put a redirect to the relevant index page from the page itself. So for example, the Michael page would redirect to the List_of_people_by_name:_Mic. Does that sound like a good idea? Celestianpower 22:07, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • That sounds entirely reasonable to me. A list article is ok, and linking to the list article at the end of the dab is fine. I just don't think that first name articles should be lists in disguise. Since we've been making them as priority first-namers and then as disambigs when there are multiple priority first-namers, we should continue with that.
  5. Dab pages and lists are two entirely different things. Trying to merge them into one will get you the worst of both worlds. I suppose there's something to be said for making a "list of people named michael" and then linking that list from the dab page, but I'm not sure yet if I'd support that either. --W(t) 17:09, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)
  6. Oppose. The guidelines as they stand are not without problems, but this will do nothing to alleviate those problems. Using disambiguation pages rather than lists or categories for the purposes that led to this proposal is silly. Gene Nygaard 18:03, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  7. Oppose. Really bad idea. Trying to throw every "John" onto the John page is just crazy. For last names there's always People by Name. -R. fiend 18:24, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  8. Oppose. First names are entirely too common -- this will just lead to bloated, useless disambig pages. --Carnildo 19:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  9. Oppose — I applaud the principle, but I think this would be better solved using something like categories. We could, for example, add [[Category:People named Michael]] to biography pages, and justmention the category on whatever we put at [[Michael]] (be it a disambuation of things known as just Michael, or a history of the name). As a refinement, we could have [[Catgeory:People with the forename Michael]], but that would probably be just overkill. Bovlb 23:26, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)
  10. Oppose - granted, I have seen two fans (of Michael Jackson and Michael Bolton) to come to blows over which one is The Michael, but in general I assume that people - and especially fans - know the full name of famous and promiment people. Looking their names through what they have done is better option. If there have to be a list (and I do not think so), include it in the article about the personal name. Wikipedia also have number of articles about people with non-English names and having a disambig pages about all the possible Michels, Miguels and so on would not be particularly good idea. It could also invite lots of non-famous people with that name to include themselves ("I have that name and that seems to be the only criteria. Whaddoyoumean I am not famous enough"). And if you thing I am joking, go ahead and check the VFD archive - anon IPs have defended inclusion of their "friends" and "teachers" with similar criteria. - Skysmith 09:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  11. Oppose. I don't think that this is a matter of disambiguation. Disambiguation pages eliminate confusion, not lack of existing knowledge (i.e. the person in question's last name). If such a mechanism to help people search for people by first name (which I think is out-of-place here) is really so necessary, I could live, but not on a dab page. Neonumbers 10:52, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  12. Oppose. --Joy [shallot] 12:41, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  13. Oppose. Geogre's argument above makes perfect sense. Uppland 18:07, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  14. Oppose. Also agree with Geogre's arguments. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 18:46, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Other

  1. Case by case. There shouldn't be a rule one way or the other. There are cases where it is quite useful to list a few people sharing a common name. I recently created such a page, where there were four unrelated famous people with a particular last name. On the other hand, the page Michael should not list people who are not known by that name alone; there are simply too many of them. I think Wikipedians are smart enough to know when each is appropriate. Deco 01:54, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  2. Same here. -Sean Curtin 21:45, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

My two cents (or: things that bug me)

Here's a few disambiguation issues I come across time and again and I'm getting a little tired of fixing them.

1. Disambiguation notices at the bottom of an article. I hate this. I don't think it should be allowed even for short articles because then the article gets longer without people bothering to move the notice to the top.

2. Improper use of piping in disambiguation notices. For instance, the disambiguation notice at Charles Bronson used to start, "For the Welsh prisoner, see Charles Bronson". See "Charles Bronson"? I'm already at "Charles Bronson"! Leave the parentheses in so the sentence actually makes sense.

So, please, be on the lookout for these and fix them when you see them. :)

- furrykef (Talk at me) 11:30, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To quote Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages):
Place the template {{disambig}} at the bottom of the page.
I agree with the second point though. violet/riga (t) 12:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think the first point is talking more about the use of, for example, {{dablink}} at the bottom of pages, not the disambig template. And I agree, this is bad. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:09, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that is what I meant. I have no trouble with {{disambig}} appearing at the bottom of disambiguation pages. - furrykef (Talk at me) 02:48, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Rick Block about the dablink-notice at the bottom. Can someone suggest an example of a page where putting it at the top would be intrusive? If not, we could propose a change in policy. As for piping, the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) opposes piping except in the case of anchor points — this was extensively discussed when the MOS was being developed — so feel free to remove it when it bugs you. Anyone for a WikiProject: Disambiguation Cleanup? —Wahoofive (talk) 16:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Would such a WikiProject be in favour or removing disambiguation lines from pages that already have disambiguated page names (it bugs me, anyway) ? Joe D (t) 16:52, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It is not real clear what you are talking about. Those disambiguation lines linking to the disambiguation page need to be there when entering Pagetitle in the search box or a link takes you to one of the pages listed on Pagetitle (disambiguation) rather than to the disambiguation page. Otherwise, people arriving at Pagetitle aren't going to know, and certainly won't assume, that Pagetitle (disambiguation) as well as the other pages to which it links exist. Gene Nygaard 17:57, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Joe D's comment is a reference to the discussion above, which looks distinctly unfinished. I think the suggestion is pages with titles of the form Pagetitle (some disambig text) should not have any disambiguation links. I, for one, am strongly in favor of liberal use of disambiguation links, even in this case. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:02, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
Note that Gene will now be even more confused as I'm sure you're using Pagetitle (disambiguation) in different ways. I won't confuse thing's any further ;) Joe D (t) 18:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
In regard to the second point above, I don't think that the form:
Foo refers to:
* [[Foo (bar)|Foo]], someone
* [[Foo (quux)|Foo]], something else
...is that bad. By bolding the term and putting it up front it's made reasonably obvious that this is the place one should click to get info about that thing. --Joy [shallot] 13:10, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I tend to agree that a "rule" against such piping would not be a good thing. However, I 'might not that I would not bold the items in the list -- I find that it makes the list rather more difficult to read. older≠wiser 14:37, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)
Please move discussion of this last point to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), where it has already been extensively discussed.—Wahoofive (talk) 16:21, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It's fine for disambiguation pages. It just doesn't make sense for disambiguation notices (in lieu of disambiguation pages) in articles.
Ah, missed that. You're right. --Joy [shallot] 10:01, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It makes no sense to go to "Charles Bronson" and be directed to another page that apparently has exactly the same name. It makes sense for a disambiguation page because it's clearer and disambiguation pages tend to be longer, so all the parentheses would just add clutter. But when you write "See 'Charles Bronson'", you make it look like that's the full name of the article you're being directed to, which doesn't make sense when you're already at an article with that as the full title. - furrykef (Talk at me) 07:40, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
N.B.: The use of such piping is discouraged on disambiguation pages as well, as noted on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages).—Wahoofive (talk) 17:04, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

First Name Disambiguation: an alternative guideline

We've been talking about First Name Disambiguation here, a very specialized area. I initially thought using a category is an ideal solution to this problem, but Wikipedia:Categorization says:

Article: Michael Jackson
Useful category: Category:Pop singers
Not useful: Category:Musicians whose first name starts with M

Which would imply that Category:People whose first is Michael isn't useful. Not only that, categories can't give you information to tell one person named Michael from another. For that you need an article.

There are some things that I'm going to assert:

  1. The Redirect guidelines are Inclusionist, the Disambiguation guidelines are Deletionist. This is creating some conflict in the context of First Name Disambiguation.
  2. Disambiguation Pages should never be linked to. Except when trying to talk about an ambiguous term (such as Hex (Discworld) pipe-linking to bug (disambiguation)), but no DabBot jockey is going to do that.
  3. Redirect Pages should never be linked to. Except I've used them as placeholders for an article that ought to be written (such as script (performing arts).
  4. First names are generally not ambiguous. An exception would be people generally known by their first name: Kings, Saints, etc.

How can all these points be reconcilled? I suggest the following structure for First Names, with Goober the example name:

  1. Create a Goober (name) article. Give an etymology and history of the name Goober.
  2. Create a List of people named Goober article. Insert all the people you want to list. Goober McSimons, the inventor of navel lint; Goober Jones, who dissed the president in '88; and Goober Albertson, first person named Goober to climb Mount Albertson.
  3. Create a Goober (disambiguation) article. Point to Goober (name) and the List of people named Goober article. Insert all the people people generally known by their first name: Kings, Saints, etc.
  4. Make the Goober article redirect to Goober (disambiguation).

Any page linking to Goober is ambiguous and needs its link disambiguated. While it isn't disambiguated, the reader is taken to Goober (disambiguation) by default. Any article linking directly to Goober (disambiguation) wants to talk about the ambiguousness of Goober. Goober (name) talks about the name itself, while the List of people named Goober is a navigational aid. Josh Parris ✉ 03:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This sounds about right to me, with the exception that I think the list should begin in the dab article, and only be removed to a list article if it becomes too long (say, 10 or more people). It's true that dab articles shouldn't be linked to, but I don't see any reason to link to a tiny article named List of people named Excelsior either. I do disagree with your attempt to classify the policies as inclusionist or deletionist though. Deco 03:43, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with his classification. Redirects attempt to increase the amount of accidental linkings (that's explicitly stated somewhere) while discussion on this page can clearly show the deletionist attitude most people have here about dab pages. That said, I don't have any problems with Josh's proposal. Cburnett 05:23, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, Josh is right about the source of problem being the inconsistencies between redirect and disambiguation policy. The problem here is precisely that redirects are inclusionist, but the current disambig policy is deletionist. —Lowellian (talk) 00:18, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
While this is only a minor quibble, your proposal #4 is in violation of the page naming guidelines. Goober should be the dab page itself, not a redirect to Goober (disambiguation). This would be easy to correct in your proposal. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:13, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The only reason I suggest that is because Goober is inherently ambiguous - links to Goober need to be disambiguated, links to Goober (disambiguation) don't because they're clearly intentional. Josh Parris ✉ 05:56, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You're digging yourself deeper in. There should never be a link to either Goober or Goober (disambiguation) in this case. Dab pages are for when people type "Goober" into the search box.—Wahoofive (talk) 16:06, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Check out Hex (Discworld) pipe-linking to bug (disambiguation)). It makes it clear that a link to a dab page can, occasionally, be appropriate. Which is why I want to seperate the ambiguous page and the disambiguation page. Josh Parris ✉ 23:16, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I generally agree, except, as others have, that the Goober should probably be the disambiguation, and the reason is that double redirects are highly discouraged. I understand that you say that the person doing the link of [[Goober]] needs to learn better, but in the cases of kings and saints and medieval authors, it's not so rare for the person making the link to think that their Goober is the only Goober in the world. The more esoteric the name, the more true this will be. However, in a spirit of amity I have not displayed elsewhere in this teapot's tempest, I will suggest that the references to Goober (name) and List of Goobers be the first lines of the disambiguation page. I don't want to bury the lists (well, ok, I personally do, but not I officially or publically), but just to keep the disambiguation structure functioning. I should also point out, however, that Goober (name) may well be a deletion policy violation, if it replicates what a dictionary would have, and Wiktionary does accept names. Geogre 20:01, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. A good applicable example would be Eva, where it could be a person's first name, or a bunch of acronyms. This proposal would solve the problem since "Eva" should only contain the acronyms but not the people with the name "Eva". Those names should be placed into "Eva (name)". aCute 07:04, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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