Talk:Little Flock

JW term

I created a dab item to the term as used by Jehovah's Witnesses, which looked like this:

• The "little flock" of anointed Christians, a Jehovah's Witnesses interpretation of the biblical passage at Luke 12:32

Another user commented, "...be brief & to only use one link..." and revised the line to read:

• The 144,000 anointed ones described in the Jehovah's Witnesses' theology of salvation

I believe "little flock of anointed Christians" is brief, more germane than "144,000 anointed ones", and superior to it as a dab item. Scriptural citations have almost never been held to the same standard as other external links, but if "Luke 12:32" is the issue, I've no objection to removing the external link.
--AuthorityTam (talk) 17:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi AuthorityTam, thanks for the explanation. Actually, the "issue" is just that I was reading the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation for the first time and realizing that our DAB page didn't fit. I read those pages, prompted by your comment that the link should have the term being disambiguated within the link; I wanted to see if the pages said that anywhere. Turned out they did not, but I came across some more stuff on the page, such as:

WP:MOSDAB

Never include external links, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web.

That's why I cut the Watchtower link

The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link. In many cases, the title of the article alone will be sufficient and no additional description is necessary.

That's why I cut down the description. I would note that I realized that my initial edit failed this test, hence I cut it down later.

Subject to certain exceptions as listed below, piping or redirects should not be used in disambiguation pages. This is to make it clear to the reader which article is being suggested, so that the reader remains in control of the choice of article.

Thankfully, we meet one of those exceptions (since the thing being linked to is a section title). However, the spirit here is to be noted; that is, to make it clear to the reader what is being linked to so there isn't any "gotcha!" feeling of the reader being potentially misled. That is why I changed the originally submitted link, which was "*Little flock, a term used by Jesus at Luke 12:32" which did not inform the reader that it has anything to do with Jehovah's Witnesses. The reader could easily have been led to expect an entire article about Jesus using the term "little flock", or perhaps a commentary on the Luke passage, when actually the article is about salvation theology within Jehovah's Witnesses.

When piping is used on a disambiguation page to link to an article section, the link should be in the description, and should avoid surprising the reader. The text of the link should not be the title of a different article.

Oops, just noticed we are failing that one, since the link is the first term and apparently should not be, since it is linking to a section. Open to suggestions.

WP:DAB

Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link; including more than one link can confuse the reader.

Another reason why the Watchtower link was cut.

Remember, the premise of a disambiguation page is that the user is looking for something; either they are following a link to "Little Flock" or they have typed it into the search box, and are expecting an article. The purpose of the page isn't really to introduce new ideas or terms, but to help to reader find whatever it was they were looking for. The question is, what article are they expecting? That is why I modified the link to be explicit in saying that the article being linked to is Jehovah's Witness. As to the 144,000, I believe that the 144,000 number is a term that many people both inside and outside the Jehovah's Witness movement are familiar with, aiding in the user's quest to correctly identify the page they are looking for.

Also, the term "little flock" is not necessary unless it is the primary title. The page says The term "Little Flock" may refer to: so we already know that "Little Flock" is an alternate title for for anything that is linked here (otherwise, why is it here?). Therefore, it is not required (and can sometimes hurt) to force the link to say "little flock" somewhere: See the Joker / jester for an example. You'll notice for this reason I also deleted "little flock" from the Local Churches entry. It is actually a little redundant when it is not the primary title, and can confuse readers into thinking it IS the primary title when it is not.

Anyway, I'm no DAB expert; I was reading it for the first time and realizing that the page could be made more useful by making the entries brief and compliant with the guidelines, hence my edits. My paramount concern is that the reader be able to quickly locate the page they are looking for (if it is the JW page), or in any case, to readily and easily identify what is being linked to in case it is NOT what they are looking for. These issues (should!) apply in any and all DAB pages across Wikipedia. Open to suggestions.

-- Joren (talk) 21:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Since I noticed it is still failing one of these guidelines (the one about linking to sections within an article), maybe it should look more like this:

• The 144,000 'anointed ones', described in the Jehovah's Witnesses' theology of salvation

Ok, it's up now. What do you think?

-- Joren (talk) 04:13, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

(P.S. if "doctrine" or "teaching" or "idea" or whatever is a better word than "theology", go for it)

-- Joren (talk) 21:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)