Talk:Business Unusual

The Name Game

When I'd originally created a spot for this book on the Past Doctor Adventures page, I set the name as Business Unusual (Doctor Who). That was subsequently changed on that page back to just Business Unusual. Then, in preparation for writing the actual stub, I did a search on Amazon and found other works of the same name[1][2][3][4]. So I changed it back to Business Unusual (Doctor Who). Now it's back again to just Business Unusual.

So my question, as a newbie, is what's the "wikistandard" for who gets the honor of the simple, "un-disambiguated" name? Does a Doctor Who novel really get precedence over a United Nations report? Is it more in the public eye than a work of workplace erotic fiction? Is it more "mainstream" than a collection of workplace themed comic strips? I can understand where the name is absolutely unique, as with the first novel of the series, but I'm more than a little confused over wiki naming conventions when other works of the same title exist. Any help you can provide in shedding light on this would be appreciated. CzechOut 01:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I grant you it's a judgment call, but in this case, the title Business Unusual does not exist on Wikipedia and unless it is actually likely that these other books with the same title will surface eventually on Wikipedia, I'd say there's no need to disambiguate. As a counter-example, take School Reunion (Doctor Who). Some might argue that as there is no "school reunion" article, there's no need to disambiguate. However, it seems to be that eventually someone's going to write an article about school reunions. I could be wrong - it is entirely possible :) - but the term "school reunion" is such a common term that someone typing it into Wikipedia might be someone who is not looking for the Doctor Who episode. Similarly, think about the average, probably non-Who fan typing the term into the search space. How likely is it that he's looking for School Reunion the episode rather than general information about school reunions? Applying this to the present situation, when a person types in "Business Unusual", what are the odds he's looking for something else other than the Doctor Who book? If the other titles are more common, sure, but unless it can be demonstrated that they are, over the PDA, I would say there's no need to disambiguate. Hope this makes it a little clearer. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 02:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who first changed the link on the PDA page, and now I'm not sure I was right to do so. The rule given at Wikipedia:Disambiguation is:

"Ask yourself: When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they realistically be expecting to view as a result? When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate nor add a link to a disambiguation page."

I think it's entirely realistic that a reader might be looking for the UN report, or even this Australian consulting firm.

I usually use Google as a rough gauge of whether the meaning I associate with a title is the most common one. A Google search for "Business Unusual" yields only three links relating to the Doctor Who novel in the first two pages. That tells me that the phrase "Business Unusual" might well be used by someone looking for something other than Gary Russell's novel. I don't know whether any one of the other meanings is more common than the Doctor Who novel, but taken together I think that the other meanings are more common. I think that in this case we should probably keep the page at Business Unusual (Doctor Who), with a redirect at Business Unusual which can be changed into a disambiguation page if any of the other meanings accrue pages down the road.

By contrast, a search for "Corpse Marker" provides almost nothing but the Chris Boucher novel, so there's no need to disambiguate there. (I actually spent a fair bit of time a few nights back Googling the names of nearly all the PDAs to see which ones were common enough to need disambiguation — but I seem to have made a mistake on this one, at least, so I don't know how good my methodology was.)

I dunno, I'm not really an authority on the ins and outs of disambiguation — but that's my take on it. And I think I was wrong to remove the disambiguation for this page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)