Talk:Coffer (disambiguation)

Why disambig?

Moved form my talk page

Hi Mikkalai,

Please tell me why you keep reverting my edits on the Coffer (disambiguation) page. I don't mind you disagreeing with me, but at least provide an explanation of why. I provided a reason for redirecting the page to Coffer when I did so; the only entries currently on the disambiguation page that have corresponding articles that even mention the word "coffer" are Coffer and Chest (furniture). Considering Coffer is the primary article, there are not sufficient entries to constitute a disambiguation page. Even if there were, the disambiguation page currently strays far from the guidelines in WP:MOSDAB, and without any identifiable reason. Please either explain why you disagree with my reasoning, or allow me to revert the disambiguation page to a redirect.

Neelix (talk) 00:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

First off, please make yourself a rule to discuss articles in article talk page, unless you think the issue is really trivial or personal. In this way the discussion is not limited between you and me, and other wikipedians may voice their opinion. In addition, this helps to avoid this ugly practice when the thread of Q/A in a talk is split between two user pages, so that after some time you cannot find heads nor tails. If you want to attract an immediate attention of an opponent, post a brief invitation in his talk page, kinda "Please comment in Talk:Coffer".

Second, now back to the point. The disambiguation page is for navigation between different pages that describe things which may be called in the same way. Clearly, strongbox is called coffer. Therefore the proper way is to add the synonym "coffer" into "strongbox", rather than to delete it from disambig page. In the case you doubt that it is a synonym, please ask for clarification in talk:Strongbox, looking first into a good dictionary of synonyms. The underlying most fundamental idea is that you must never delete correct verifiable non-trivia information from wikipedia. If you disagree with his idea you may stop reading and I will stop writing to you and consider we are in permanent edit war; I call the opposition to this idea "destructionism") Along the same "anti-destructionist" lines, the correct way of handling the "coffer a hollow lodgment" is to attempt to split it into into a separate article, preferably after minimal verification in google. In this case you will immediately find a sizable article in 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, which you may freely copy into wikipedia. Regularly failing to do this is called "lazy destructionism" in my vocabulary; feel free to feel offended. `'Míkka>t 01:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mikka,

My intention in writing my message on your talk page rather than this talk page was simply to request that you provide reason for your reversion of my edits. Please assume good faith. Although I generally have an inclusionist philosophy, I tend somewhat more towards exclusionism on disambiguation pages because of my belief that they exist solely to organize information already existing on articles rather than to add new information. "Destructivism", as you have called it, would never be my intention. Thank you for creating the Coffer (fortification) article. I hope my cleanup of this disambiguation page is to your liking.

Neelix (talk) 01:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

"Your belief" must be updated with the healthy desire to add missing information into article pages, rather than delete it from disambig page. In other words, to avoid excessive formalism, remembering that the primary goal is to write encyclopedia with easily cross-referenced information, rather than filled with nice and regular disambig pages which miss half possible connections just because not all synonyms are listed in topical pages written by somewhat carelless others. Wikipedia is not perfect, and the slack must be towards future perfection rather than towards nice-looking but incomplete today's version. 01:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)