 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Hatnotes take up minimal space on articles, but they do consume a prominent position. They are helpful when it's one of the first things a reader should know. |
Hatnotes can save users time, such as by eliminating the need to use a disambiguation page or alerting the reader they are at the wrong article. For the desired effect, the hatnote must be displayed prominently up front. As with the article title and first sentence, this prominence requires responsibility.
Hatnotes are cheap, taking little space. However, hatnote overuse can leave the reader feeling peppered with undesired information, similar to online ads – an undesirable kind of cheap. The key is keeping the information relevant to the reader.
- 1. If the number of articles of a similar name is low, use hatnotes to alleviate the need for an extra disambiguation page.
- 2. Removing a hatnote will not save database memory.[1] Only remove hatnotes that are a net negative for readers.
- 3. Do remove hatnotes that are:
- misleading
- confusing
- needlessly astonishing
- 4. Do not add hatnotes for their own sake. See Wikipedia:Hatnote for more.
- 5. Hatnotes can be used as alternatives to a move discussion: where a hatnote addition is a legitimate and likely outcome of the discussion, the discussion can be avoided by adding the hatnote. Consensus should still be sought via discussion (or the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, for less contentious topics).
Notes
edit- ^ For a technical perspective, removing a hatnote actually adds very slightly to the size of the database (since reverted edits are not really purged from the article history, just not included in the latest live version). For a practical matter, database memory is not an issue anyway.