Talk:Qasr

Qasr, an architectural type mainly from the Umayyad period

This meaning, widely used in the context of the Desert castles, is fully missing. It arguably deserves a page of its own, or at least a clear mention on the disamb. page. Arminden (talk) 18:46, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Why DAB, not redirect to glossary; etc.

I only partially agree with Shhhnotsoloud's edit.

1. Those 3 villages are not notable, in no way "primary topic" among the dozens of places called Qasr or Kasr. No need to list specifically them, "All arts. with title containing..." is enough.
2. The DAB page in this restored form offers more systematic info than the glossary page - Altenmann had replaced the DAB with a redirect linking to Glossary of Arabic toponyms: Qasr. The user lost information. Must be kept though under "See also".

Arminden (talk) 11:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Altenmann did not replace DAB with redirect. There was no DAB at that moment. Now I am fine with the page. - Altenmann >talk 16:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

​Thank you, so we have a winner.

Just to set the record straight: click on the link you posted and read what's at the bottom of the page:

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Qasr.

But that's irrelevant now. More than that: the DAB wins by adding the link to the glossary, and by going there I noticed that Qal'at and Kasbah should also be added to "See also", so thank you for that as well!

I'm more in favour of this page as it is now because it holds more information than the glossary entry. A matter of format I guess. Otherwise I did appreciate & consider your option. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 17:49, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Just to set the record even straighter: I was sloppy here: instead of writing "There was no DAB at that moment" I should have wtritten "It was an invalid DAB page, with no disambiguated items". (I guess you got distracted at that time and did not finish your work, because in the previous nearby history the page did contain valid dabbed items.) - Altenmann >talk 18:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Arminden: A disambiguation page, which this is, is a list of articles whose titles might otherwise have the same title. There are three article in English Wikipedia that might otherwise be called Qasr. There are not dozens of places called solely Qasr. If you don't think those 3 are notable then take them to WP:AfD. If you think there is a primary topic (the toponym) then either move, or use WP:RM to move, the disambiguation page to Qasr (disambiguation) and redirect Qasr as a primary topic redirect. The current situation, the disambiguation page at the base name, indicates there is no primary topic. Otherwise please leave the perfectly valid disambiguation page alone. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 12:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Shhhnotsoloud, hi. Thank you for the compliment ("perfectly valid disambiguation page"), I've written most of it. So what do you mean by "leaving it alone"?

I also don't know what you mean with those villages. There is no single "primary topic" as in: one notable building or place called Qasr. Also, there is no article called simply "qasr/Qasr" other than the DAB I wrote here. There are however 4 (four) small, insignificant villages in MENA and Iran called "Qasr, XY": if you want them listed here, that's illogical (there are dozens called "Qasr-XY", which in most cases is exactly the same, just graphically, i.e. transliteration-wise, different: they all translate to "Qasr of XY"), but if you insist, we can easily add them. How do I know there are 4? I clicked on the 1st link there. So...

Most are from Iran. It looks as if some (semi-?) official Iranian body made a point of adding literally THOUSANDS of pages for all their villages, no more than stubs, all in the same bare-bone standard format. There was an attempt at stopping the flood, but it didn't succeed. I guess they're still at it.

OK, so now please tell me: would you now agree to leave it as it is, or do you insist on those 4? But then you must promise to take care of updating when more are popping up.

Disclosure: my main interest here, from the start, were the desert castles, and keeping them apart from other buildings or places called Qasr XY. With time I got more interested in other forms of Islamic urbanism and architecture. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 13:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't write it, I just restructured much of it. I've worked on this more or less in parallel with Desert castles, Rabat (disambiguation), Qalat, etc. - a whole bag of terms from the same area. Arminden (talk) 13:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

this is what was here when I started amending it. Arminden (talk) 13:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Back to 3 Qasrs: "Qasr, Libya" is actually a mistake, it's "Qasr Lebia" ("Olbia Castle"), also spelled by... some "Qasr Libya". That's where you end up when you go into villages & hamlets. Local editors who have a hard time with transliteration with no one to fix the mistakes. Arminden (talk) 13:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed: ONLY places called solely Qasr to be listed

​ See above: ONLY items called "solely Qasr" are to be listed, the rest are included in catch-all links "All articles with titles beginning with/containing qasr". The 3 villages are called just Qasr. The "comma-region" part after Qasr is not part of the 3 villages' names. (I had removed those 3 villages too, but Shhhnotsoloud made a point and we agreed).

All items called by a name of the "Qasr + other words" format are to be left out, the catch-all links are covering those just fine.

Btw: Qasr Prison is just a redirect, the article is actually titled "Museum of Qasr Prison". The redirect does show up at catch-all page! So all is fine. Arminden (talk) 19:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The dab pages are for things named by the same name. We have plenty of dab pages which contain redirects from former names. E.g. Jerusalem (disambiguation) contains "Jerusalem, Virginia, former name of Courtland, a town in Southampton County", "Jerusalem (Königsberg), a former quarter of Königsberg, Prussia" - Altenmann >talk

P.S. clarafication: not "called solely <something>", but "may be called solely <something>" For example Lincoln (disambiguation) contains a bunch of schools, because it is common to say "I attended Lincoln". Same with mountains, rivers, lakes, etc. - Altenmann >talk 20:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Altenmann, you are a smart person, I'm sure you know it's not the point. Go to the catch-all link: there are dozens, if not hundreds of items. The principle is to bundle them together into categories with their separate DAB and/or individual pages, and only link those "bundles" from the higher DAB page. Otherwise you end up with metre-long DAB pages nobody has any benefit from.

Good night. Arminden (talk) 20:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Re. Qasr Prison: you can't just revert things under discussion. Bring up your arguments and we'll see. You look like you're angry with something. Pls don't let it out here. Many of us have their own hard times to deal with now, nobody comes here for needless conflicts and aggravation. Thanks for your undertanding. Arminden (talk) 20:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I am not that smart just nitpicking. And I am not angry; may be it is my English; on the contrary, I am happy with the way the issue was resolved. All these dozens of items are not called simply "Quasr". If it is proven that some of them is called simply Qasr, belong to the dab page. As you may see, there are not that many of them, unlike many stupid "given name" pages, such as Igor. I myself am addiding "intitle" in dab pages, because, as I noticed, over time new namesakes are being added to Wikipedia, but often creators dont bother to add them to dab pages. I periodically go over the ones I created and update them from "intitle". - Altenmann >talk 20:44, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're wrong. It's not Qasr, it's Qasr Prison (capital P, part of name), and actually Museum of the Qasr Prison. We have multiple dozens like that. Please, let's drop it. Arminden (talk) 20:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Alcatraz Prison is Alcatraz Prison, not Alcatraz which happened to be a prison or mean prison in Spanish. I didn't think we'd need to go there. Arminden (talk) 20:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

That's the benefit of the catch-all templates: no need to constantly update. It's a digital medium, we're trying to get rid of the repetitive work if we can and leave it to the bots :) Arminden (talk) 20:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, did you pay attention my argument above about "Lincoln"? I am more than happy to resolve the issue in talk page of MOS:DAB (where experts on DAB congregate), because, as I mentioned, it is not only about "Prison", but also "Mountain", "Castle" and the likes. - Altenmann >talk 20:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

At Lincoln is exactly as I said:

• Abe L is the "primary topic"
• L town a close second
• "Lincoln (name), a surname and given name" is BUNDLED TOGETHER, leads to a lower-level DAB. Exactly my point.

Plus a small number of lesser items not fitting anywhere else - yet.

You can start now bundling together all the Qasr al-... villages and Qasr al-... fortifications in separate lower-level DABs if you feel like it; I sure don't. But one cannot pick here an item and there an item, ignore the rest, and add just those, or else we'd end up in one big mess. Which happens often enough, but here it's quite neat, and why disturb that? Thanks. Arminden (talk) 21:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure thing, I dont care about bundling all "al-" (but if some fanatic will care, I will not object), but there is only one prison, nowhere to bundle, unlike, say, Lincoln School. - Altenmann >talk 21:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• This reliable independent English-language source refers to Qasr Prison as "Qasr" several times, which shows me that it is a valid dab page entry. In general, the dab page "XYZ" may include many entries of the form "XYZ river", "Mount XYZ", "XYZ university", "XYZ football club", where these things are or could plausibly be referred to as "XYZ". Help the reader find the thing they are looking for. PamD 23:38, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Let's stick to the point. There is a huge number of "qasr" items. Either you list them all, which I firmly believe is not helpful to the user (but then at least have the decency to create sections, by type, country, etc.), or you cut it short. Don't start looking for "smart arguments" based on perceived exceptions. This is not about winning a debate. There will always be "yes, but what about..." questions to be asked. Everything has a shorthand - in an article about Iranian prisons, "Qasr" will be enough, in one about 9/11 "Bush" will suffice, but that says nothing about how they must be named in an encyclopedia. Can't stay here forever, it's too insignificant to continue, really. But it's a pity to see a well-sorted item eroded. Once one crack is allowed, many more will follow and in the end you get a mess. Arminden (talk) 11:49, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  The point is whether this huge number of "qasr" items are known as simply "qasr". If yes, then they belong on the disambiguation page; otherwise, they do not. older ≠ wiser 12:10, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  Bkonrad, hi. For the benefit of everyone: what does it mean to be "known as simply "qasr""? Every person, place, object has its shorthand name, so in some context, say, when you discuss neighbouring villages, or the Teheran jails, the distinguishing part of the name is enough. In football it's enough to write about the United vs City derby, and everyone would understand that you're talking about Manchester United F.C. and Manchester City F.C.. When does such a shorthand become relevant for DABs? You know we generally disagree, you're more rules-driven and I'm sticking more to what I see as common sense, so your opinion here adds an essential new aspect. Thanks. Arminden (talk) 15:18, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  While it can sometimes be confusing, it is usually pretty simple: Is the shorthand used in reliable sources? older ≠ wiser 15:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  It looks to me as if Desert castles should be on this dab page because the article states that the Arabic name for these is "qaṣr (singular), quṣur being the plural". The link to Glossary of Arabic toponyms#Qasr is also useful, though an unusual dab page entry. The dab page should probably be limited to the three villages, the prison, the two I've just mentioned, and the "look from" and "in title" links. PamD 15:58, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  And to be clear, this may mean that the article itself should use the shorthand form within the article (as is the case with Museum of the Qasr Prison) or have some explicit mention of the shorthand as an alternative name. older ≠ wiser 15:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  • in one about 9/11 "Bush" will suffice - hah!:-) not at all suffice. THat's the whole point of DAB pages: If I am not American I have no idea which "Bush" is in question, unless he is already mentioned in full in the page. If I see in a bio article "he was buried in the cemetery at Qasr", copied from some obscure book, I will have no idea whether it was in Libya or in Iran. - Altenmann >talk 17:28, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
  • When does such a shorthand become relevant for DABs?... Manchester United F.C. and Manchester City F.C. - Always. Because we have readers from all over the world. Even if I dont bloomin' care which Manchester it was, it is still may be either about a match or about perennial rivalry of cities. - Altenmann >talk 17:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Either you list them all,... or you cut it short. - no such dichotomy: Wikipedia is work in progress. Sometimes I see a poorly translated/transcribed text kinda "his wife was born in Bobrava", I have no idea whether it was Russian Bobrava or Belarusian spelling for Bobrowo or Bobrovo, so I start searching (hehe; it was a random brainpick, but it did hit the nail: it was not Bobrava, but ru:Бобрава (Курская область) and there is more of them, so I am about to create a new dab :-). Or take a look at Novy Dvor. In ruwiki it is even longer, but in enwiki I added only items which I needed for whatever reason I forgot (P.S. now I remembered: I lookek into Russian list and made a decision which places have a good chance to pop up in English sources, i.e., being lazy, I judged level of notability, although all of them are notable per WP:NGEO). Maybe someone else will need to disambiguate more "Novy Dvors" - they are welcome. - Altenmann >talk 17:51, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

    Although we would not want to expand to include unambiguous partial title matches. If "qasr" in Arabic and other languages can be used as a sort of combining form, we would only want to include those items known by the base term only. This may be similar to say '-burg' in English or how any number of geographical or man-made features might form part of the name for a nearby place, such as Spring Valley -- none of the individual places listed there would be included on the pages for Spring or Valley (disambiguation). Point is, especially with foreign place names where it may be less well-understood how word order works and semantic elements are combined, there should be reliable sources that use the term by itself to refer to a place. older ≠ wiser 18:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

    Correct; only items that may be reasonably expected to be called simply "Qasr" are to be listed here. Of course there may be borderline cases; e.g. "Qasr al-Sulayman" in some remote vilayet may be called simply Quasr by locals, but we have to use common sense. Not to say that it vast majority of cases "Quasr" is part of place name that is akin to "Palace" as in Louvre Palace (which we normally dont put into Palace (disambiguation), unless it is Buckingham Palace :-), so colleague Arminden is safe about their worry (about flooding this dab page): {{intitle}} resolves it, as they pointed out theselves. - Altenmann >talk 18:37, 16 March 2024 (UTC)