Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages

Disambiguation
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Disambiguation form

The current example:

Example A

A school is an institution for learning.

School or the school may also refer to:

• School of thought, a number of individuals with shared styles, approaches or aims
• School (fish), a group of fish swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner

Is poor form because it puts the bold term in link brackets (dont link bold text) and it puts the first term in the list at the top in a confusing way: Proper form has long been:

Example B

School may refer to:

• School, an institution for learning
• School of thought, a number of individuals with shared styles, approaches, or aims
• School (fish), a group of fish

There are some false arguments about what people do or don't "want to see" on disambiguation pages. They don't make sense. Disambiguation pages work because they are simple and complete (or try to be). -Inowen (nlfte) 22:41, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with everything here. (For transparency, Inowen and I have been discussing this topic on another page and I invited them to open discussion here since it's a more appropriate venue.) Take a look at school (disambiguation), apple (disambiguation), car (disambiguation), fish (disambiguation). They all clearly identify the primary topic at the top, as it should be. I don't see anywhere that indicates that proper form has long been what you're suggesting it is. This is the Wikipedia page that reflects the consensus and what the community has decided on as proper form. Having the primary topic (when there is one) at the top in bold draws the eye straight to it and easily identifies it. Users are not going to school (disambiguation) to find school, so it should not be mixed in with the other links. All the rationale in the section WP:DABPRIMARY is solid as it stands, and is in keeping with current practices. cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 22:51, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I have laid out my thoughts clearly. There is some need for community consensus on this issue. -Inowen (nlfte) 23:02, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

There is existing community consensus, supporting the long-standing current example you quote above. It is not "poor form". PamD 23:19, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

In the current discussion is the Boston Massacre (disambiguation) page, which was mistakenly called a two-term disambiguation, because the first term was listed with the opening text. -Inowen (nlfte) 02:05, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────┘ Inowen, I don't understand your objection(s). Maybe if you discuss what doesn't make sense to you in the Linking to a primary topic section, we can understand better what the issue is. --John (User:Jwy/talk)

Inowen, there is guidance to avoid wikilinks in bold title words (WP:BOLDAVOID), but that manual of style is for articles. The manual of style for disambiguation pages (which are not articles) uses a bolded wikilink to link to a primary topic, where one exists. This is still simple and complete. Consensuses you disagree with are not "false arguments". There is indeed community consensus on this issue. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:26, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Inowen, Boston Massacre (disambiguation) is a two-term disambiguation (well, now, a one-term since one of the other entries was removed). The primary topic, the Boston Massacre, is located at Boston Massacre and that is where people will land when searching "Boston Massacre". Thus, the disambiguation page exists to disambiguate other uses of that term. cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 17:21, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I'll say it again. The examples above have been labelled A and B. Example A is poor form. It's also illogical, as it assumes one definion of "school" is its top definition. The proper thing to do is to have all meanings of "school" within one single list. -Inowen (nlfte) 22:26, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Example A reflects that one topic for "school" is primary, as is proper and good form. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:29, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@Inowen: but there is a "top definition" (Wikipedia's term being "primary topic") for the term "school". The article about it is hosted at School. When you say "school", a vast majority of the time you're referring to an educational institution. Therefore, it's the primary topic. There is enduring consensus for this being how we disambiguate terms with a primary topic on Wikipedia, and there is also a process in place for disambiguating terms without a primary topic. In your arguments on here, I don't really ever see a solid reason why we should discontinue the practice, just that it's "poor form". cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 17:13, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Nicknames

The pages listed at The Dark Destroyer all have a backlink to that disambiguation page for their nickname in the hat. Is that appropriate? I am unconvinced it is. WillJonesUK (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

It's not necessary for disambiguation, since none of them is the primary for it. I suspect that it is inappropriate, but that's a topic for WT:HATNOTE -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:31, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Sidebar in disambiguation page

Is it useful to have a sidebar at 2000s? For me this is not efficiently guide the readers, similar to why a bulleted entry don't have more than one navigable link. They both have similar sidebar at the non-disambiguation page: "Decades of the 2000s" sidebar can be found at 21st century and "Centuries of the 2000s" sidebar can be found at 3rd millennium, both are linked from 2000s. Hddty. (talk) 16:00, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Nope. MOS:DABICON. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:12, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I am nominating the templates for deletion here. Thanks. Hddty. (talk) 04:56, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Redirects from alternative names

The guideline under § Piping and redirects states:

Linking to a redirect can also be helpful when both:

1. the redirect target article contains the disambiguated term; and
2. the redirect could serve as an alternative name for the target article, meaning an alternative term that is already in the article's lead section.

Isn't this redundant? How can a term be in the lead section without also being present in the article? Is the lead section not a part of the article? It seems like #2 is all we need to say. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:37, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The term needs to be in the article. The redirect used doesn't necessarily need to include the term. Perhaps that latter part needs to be tightened to make it clear that this is only for redirects that include the ambiguous term. I figure that's what it meant. But that's not what it says. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:59, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the term needs to be in the article. My point is that "the articles's lead section" per #2 above is part of the article, so #2 contains all necessary information. I see now that it doesn't specify which term is being referred to. However, the James Carrey example that follows is clearly about a redirect from an "alternative term" that is just the term being disambiguated, in other words a primary topic that's also a redirect. The text above could be condensed to something like:

Linking to a redirect can also be helpful when the ambiguous term redirects to a page where it could serve as an alternative title, meaning that is used as a synonym for the title in the article's lead section. For example...

—Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:44, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The current language allows a link to a redirect where the redirect is an alternative name but the redirect does not include the ambiguous term. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:11, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Such as? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:09, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Beats me. I just pointed out that the change you made changed the meaning. I'd be happy to support the change, BTW. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:32, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

At the top of the page

Wonky aspects of the "At the top of the page" section:

The very first paragraph is a mess of backwards instructions.

The "linking to primary topic" sort of forgets to lead with the basic instruction. Also, it could be more explicit in how it directly contradicts the MOS for article space.

Feel free to discuss my bold fixes here. CapnZapp (talk) 17:04, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Bold fix User:PamD's, not mine, but anyways - two questions regarding:

When the term being disambiguated has a primary topic (ie when the disambiguation page has a title ending in "(disambiguation)"), the introductory line includes the word "also": see the "school" example above.

1. Is it invariably true that "title ending in (disambiguation)" is the definition of a term having a primary topic? 2. "see example here" isn't it better to hyperlink to a section referenced, or even better: provide an example right then and there? Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 10:51, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: Thanks.

1: Not sure. Have changed to "usually" to be on the safe side. Can you think of an example where not? (Probably something complicated involving redirects?)

2: Have linked to the section for the "school" example: I was trying to save space by not duplicating it. PamD 11:30, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

1: A term "foo" having a primary topic means that the disambiguation page isn't at "foo". It might not be at "foo (disambiguation)" either, if the term "foo" shares a disambiguation page with, say, "fu". But a disambiguation page at a "foo (disambiguation)" title does invariably have a primary topic line (or needs to be moved per WP:MALPLACED). So the terms with disambiguation pages at "foo (disambiguation)" is a subset of all terms with a primary topic, and the "usually" isn't needed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:26, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for exactly the kind of answer I fished for :) Doesn't this mean we should not use "the disambiguation page has a title ending in "(disambiguation)" as the definition of "term has primary topic", even though it is always true? :) CapnZapp (talk) 13:32, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

As PamD alluded to, its possible for a disambiguation page to be at a base name, without the "(disambiguation)" qualifier, but still be the target of a "foo (disambiguation)" redirect because it serves to disambiguate two (or more) titles, one or more of which does have a primary topic. But the base-name disambiguation would not have the "also" in its intro. I'll suss out an example... -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

For example: Etc. (has a primary topic) and ETC (doesn't). So "etc." is a term that has a primary topic whose disambiguation page's title doesn't end in "(disambiguation)". There's probably a better example, but they are hard to search for. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:11, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Please note that my main impetus isn't "is what Pam wrote false?". It is "is 'the disambiguation page has a title ending in "(disambiguation)"' really the best definition of "has a primary topic"? Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 16:19, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

No. Mechanically, a title "Foo" has a primary topic if clicking on the wikilink [[Foo]] (Foo) lands the clicker on an article (full or section). Here, though, 'the disambiguation page has a title ending in "(disambiguation)"' is an excellent way to describe the (somewhat implicit) subject of the instruction: "the introductory lines for a disambiguation page titled with a term that has a primary topic". -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:26, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

External links

I would have thought that external links are never acceptable on dab pages, full stop. But then the dab page Hole had until a recent "cleanup" a See also link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry for holes [1]. Now that in my opinion is one rare instance where an external link is actually a good idea. There exists an encyclopedic topic (of a WP:BCA type) that readers might expect to find here, the topic is a major one for the ambiguous term (arguably the primary topic in this case), wikipedia doesn't have an article about the topic yet, but one is available, with the same scope as you would expect to find here, in a different encylopedia, and that encyclopedia has compatible values (neutral, scholarly, freely available online, ad-free, etc). I don't remember seeing these conditions being met elsewhere, but they are here and that I think makes this external link appropriate. One editor, however, has apparently disagreed, so I'm bringing this up here for further input. – Uanfala (talk) 13:57, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Oppose external links (apart from Wiktionary) as it's much better to have a clear simple rule than to have complicated rules (and hence more editor disagreement) about when/not ELs can be added. Either a page is a dab or it's not (e.g. it's a BCA) - anything that blurs that distinction is bad. DexDor ^(talk) 06:40, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not proposing any change to the existing rules. The situations I imagine external links to be appropriate are way too rare to warrant mention in the stylebook. – Uanfala (talk) 11:18, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

We shouldn't add external links to diambiguation pages. These are for getting you to an English wikipedia article where you can find something about the topic. If there is an important topic that is missing, the answer is to write the article or include it in another relevant article and then include the link on the diambiguation page. ~ GB fan 12:45, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

• I think GB fan says it just right. I would add that we actually have articles for Pinhole and Perforation, and an article on holes generally should be easy to write. Also, the SEP article actually is not very good. It reads like an essay designed to show off the writer's vocabulary. In any case, I have just created Draft:Hole. Let's build it, and fill this hole in the encyclopedia. bd2412 T 13:01, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Would anyone like to pitch in to help get this draft written? bd2412 T 22:50, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Note: I have now proposed to move the disambiguation page to make way for the draft to become the primary topic. Please have a look. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:54, 18 December 2018 (UTC)