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Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 47

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Latest comment: 6 years ago by Thryduulf in topic Vagabond (disambiguation) and The Vagabond
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A couple questions, one of which is an example here

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

One of the examples used in parenthetical disambiguation is Union (set theory). I would think that Union (mathematics) would be more appropriate as it's the more general field, and we'd only want to specify the particular area of math if a term is used in different ones, like End (topology) vs End (category theory) vs End (graph theory), etc. Am I just off-base here? And speaking of the example of End, would it be good, bad, or just pointless to make a separate End (mathematics) disambiguation page (the various math uses are all listed at End, which is the main disambig page)? Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

The mathematical topic isn't the primary topic for "Union", so disambiguation is needed. The selection of the disambiguating term is up to the WP:AT naming conventions and the topic project's naming conventions. For the second question, it would be bad to make End (mathematics) an incomplete disambiguation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
End (mathematics) would be a standard redirect to the main dab page at End (as an {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}). In such cases the creation of a separate dab page is generally undesirable because of the duplication of content (and the increase in maintenance). – Uanfala (talk) 23:12, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Clarifying WP:INCDAB

Latest comment: 6 years ago82 comments12 people in discussion

The original discussion on this Talk page back in 2007 that preceded the inclusion of [[WP:INCDAB]] in WP:D applied specifically to "pages on Wikipedia that have "incomplete" parenthetical disambiguation and no clear primary topic". Unfortunately, that primary topic qualification did not make it into the WP:INCDAB text that was actually inserted. However, the failed effort to make WP:PDAB a guideline, along with incomplete disambiguations of primary topics that are accepted as titles, like Lost (TV series), demonstrate where community consensus is on this issue.

I propose clarifying INCDAB accordingly.

Current wording at WP:INCDAB:

When a more specific title is still ambiguous, but not enough so to call for double disambiguation, it should redirect back to the main disambiguation page (or a section of it). This aids navigation, and helps editors to avoid creating new articles under the ambiguous title by accident.

Proposed wording:

When a qualified title remains ambiguous, has no primary topic, and is not a disambiguation page itself (like Springfield Township, Pennsylvania), it should redirect to the most appropriate disambiguation page (or a section of it). This aids navigation, and helps editors to avoid creating new articles under the ambiguous title by accident. Incomplete disambiguations that have primary topics should be article titles of, or WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs to, the corresponding primary topic article (examples: Kiss (band); Lost (TV series); New York, New York; Stormy Weather (song); Thriller (album)).

--В²C ☎ 19:41, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The selection of qualifier (disambiguating term) is up to the topic project for the article, not to the disambiguation project. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC applies only to undisambiguated titles. If the TV project wants to use (TV series) as a disambiguating term for one topic and (foo TV series) for another topic, they can, but it doesn't make the first topic WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, since it's not at the base name. So, proposing
When a qualified title is unusable as an article title because it requires further qualification for any article based on the naming conventions, it should redirect back to the main disambiguation page (or a section of it). This aids navigation and helps editors to avoid creating new articles with the inappropriate qualifier by accident.
-- JHunterJ (talk) 19:55, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Nothing in my proposal precludes a project from selecting some title other than a primary topic incomplete disambiguation. Your counter-proposal is a rehash of WP:PDAB which was rejected. --В²C ☎ 20:09, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Uh huh. Nonetheless, it's a proposal here, and seems to be in line with the community consensus. I guess. It's hard to tell what misunderstanding or misapplication you're trying to address. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Lost (TV series) is an incomplete/partial dab that is never-the-less accepted as a valid title because it's consider to have a primary topic. The current wording of INCDAB could be interpreted to make it an unacceptable title because it leaves no provision for primary topics of incomplete/partial dabs. Your proposed wording would definitely make it unacceptable. The change I propose reflects acceptance of incomplete/partial dabs like Lost (series) to be used as article titles or WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs, because they are. --В²C ☎ 21:01, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
The ultimate example is Kiss (band), which has remained at that title despite various attempts to move it in light of the short-lived Kiss (South Korean band). I agree that it should be made clear that it is possible for a "Foo (bar)" title to exist even where "Foo" is ambiguous and there are trivial other instances of "bar" named "Foo". bd2412 T 21:08, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I agree that it should be made clear that it is possible for a "Foo (bar)" title to exist even where "Foo" is ambiguous and there are trivial other instances of "bar" named "Foo". Although I find foos and bars very hard to read in passing. It is demonstrably, evidently, possible. "Foo (bar)" can exist even where "Foo" is ambiguous. I think real examples read easier. E.g. Thriller (album) is an accepted article title, even though "Thriller" is ambiguous. I think an important point consistent with the historical WP:PDAB controversy is "The WP:Primary Topic threshold for parenthetically disambiguated titles is higher than for naturally disambiguated titles." --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:55, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Qualified support — I think this is a change rather than a clarification, but it looks sensible at first sight. It fits in with the principle of least surprise, as applied to unqualified titles. I'd write "When a disambiguated qualified title remains ambiguous...", because the pedant in me asks how a disambiguated title can remain ambiguous. Certes (talk) 21:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Can we specify a parenthetical qualifier (or disambiguator)? I have had several instances of people incorrectly invoking INCOMPDAB to merge "City, State" disambiguation pages into the "City" page names. bd2412 T 21:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Can we treat commas and parentheses the same here? New York, New York is a primary redirect to our favourite city page. Other meanings such as New York county are relegated to New York, New York (disambiguation). That treatment is similar to Lost, and I think it's correct. Certes (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't think commas and parentheses should be treated the same. Comma disambiguation is a real world thing, really quite common, for people, for places, especially. Parenthetical disambiguation is an unnatural Wikipedia-specific, pseudo-subtitling style. Wikipedia should resist wandering unnecessarily down the roads of becoming comfortable with its own perverse styles, they are barriers to readers. Comma disambiguation is easy for a reader, parenthetical disambiguation is a Wikipedia-editor affection that is not easy for readers. Ambiguous parenthetical disambiguation is the worst. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:03, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, New York, New York and Kiss (band) are also examples of partial/incomplete disambiguations with a primary topic used as WP:PRIMARYREDIRECTs to, and titles of, the corresponding primary topic article respectively. I'm adding these examples to the proposal, along with Thriller (album) and Stormy Weather (song). --В²C ☎ 22:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
My point is that something like Springfield Township, Pennsylvania should be its own disambiguation page, and should not be merged into Springfield Township. Although that particular page has not been touched, I have seen (and reverted) efforts by editors to merge pages like the former into pages like the latter on WP:INCOMPDAB grounds, which is of no help to someone who specifically searches for "Springfield Township, Pennsylvania", or to someone trying to disambiguate links to that term. bd2412 T 22:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I think Springfield Township, Pennsylvania should be at Springfield Township, Pennsylvania (disambiguation), and Springfield Township, Pennsylvania should be a redirect to the disambiguation page. It is unreasonable to expect newcomers to anticipate that Springfield Township, Pennsylvania is not a proper article on a township in Pennsylvania. Similarly for Springfield Township (disambiguation). In fact, all disambiguation pages should be disambiguated from proper articles, including wp:conceptdabs, with "(disambiguation)". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:09, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
I get it. got a think about how best to explain it. Special case for US cities? Or is there an underlying general principle here? --В²C ☎ 22:34, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Is that the same problem? Of course Springfield Township, Pennsylvania can have its own page. But suppose, hypothetically, that Springfield Township, Bradford County, Pennsylvania were a globally important metropolis. Shouldn't we then point the title Springfield Township, Pennsylvania at that primary topic, with a hatnote to the current page which would live at Springfield Township, Pennsylvania (disambiguation) or similar? Certes (talk) 22:53, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I now see your point. I think we need to retain the phrase I've highlighted from the current version's When a more specific title is still ambiguous, but not enough so to call for double disambiguation, ... Certes (talk) 23:02, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I was thinking that was covered in the new wording with, "to the most appropriate disambiguation page", which could be another dab page. --В²C ☎ 23:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Then maybe we just need to change the preceding word "redirect", to indicate that Springfield Township, Pennsylvania can be a page in its own right and need not redirect to the next best available other page (i.e. Springfield Township). Is this mechanism specific to comma disambiguation, or are there examples with parentheses, and if so are they valid? Certes (talk) 23:50, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Oh, I see! Okay, I added a separate clause about that as part of this edit to be extra clear. Good? --В²C ☎ 00:50, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Adding this phrase , and is not a disambiguation page itself (like Springfield Township, Pennsylvania), makes it more problematic. Just been dealing with some editors who want titles like Prospekt Mira (Moscow Metro) to be a disambiguation page alongside Prospekt Mira. older ≠ wiser 01:04, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
That is why I propose to distinguish parenthetical disambiguation from comma disambiguation for these purposes. Parentheticals are usually not part of the full name of a thing. Commas usually are. bd2412 T 03:12, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Distinguishing parenthetical from comma disambiguation would be novel, I think. I don't believe we do that anywhere else, but I get why you think it would be appropriate here. But I still would like to resolve this without having to do that. After all, in theory, there is nothing inherently wrong with having Prospekt Mira (Moscow Metro) be a dab page, if that were the appropriate thing to do (I get that it happens to be not the case). So I think here we need to be agnostic on whether pdabs should be dab page titles in any particular case, without providing grist for one side or another in any given case. How best to handle this? --В²C ☎ 03:43, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
The basic idea is that parentheticals are expected to disambiguate, whereas commas are not. We use City-comma-State titles for most U.S. cities and towns (those that aren't famous enough to basically be mononyms), whether they city has a unique name or not, because that is considered the name. Most other instances where a title has a something-comma-something, it is because the comma is part of the name. bd2412 T 04:19, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
While one can reasonably argue that comma is part of the city's name for US cities (and I would dispute that), we DO use commas to disambiguate - for cities in almost all countries outside of the US, for example. --В²C ☎ 05:43, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Neutral for now: Too many wording changes (mostly sensible) have been proposed. Would like to see these combined into a new draft and for that to proceed as the proposal. I have concerns about the idea that "Foo (bar)" should redirect to a single article rather than to a DAB page when there are multiple bars named Foo. We routinely move "Title (song)" to "Title (Artist song)" virtually any time there are multiple songs named "Title" and we have link targets for them (song articles, or album or artist articles that mention the songs), even if one is more popular than the other. I think this would turn standard practice on its ear, even if there some outlying exceptions like Lost (TV series) (the game show by the same name was technically also a TV series, so the the drama/sci-fi/weird-nonsense show should probably actually be at Lost (2004 TV series). I think the only reason it is not is there are only two Lost TV shows, so a DAB hatnote is sufficient. And it's perfectly fine for partial disambiguations to redirect to sections; it is not necessary at all that Springfield Township, Pennsylvania exist, especially when the exact same material is also in Springfield Township#Pennsylvania. If we keep these redundant micro-DAB pages, then they should be code such that the broader DAB pages transclude them, and we do not have duplicate but forkable lists in different DAB pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  07:36, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
    • All suggestions with apparent consensus support have been incorporated above in the original proposal text, and noted accordingly. Still trying to figure out what to do about the comma vs parentheses issue... no apparent consensus for that. --В²C ☎ 22:35, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
      I can !vote for that, with the minor quibble that I'd say "and does not merit a disambiguation page itself" rather than is not. The only outstanding issues I see are whether a subtopic with a parenthetic qualifier can ever merit both a primary subtopic and a WP:DOUBLEDAB subpage and, if so, what to call it that subpage. That case is probably so rare that we can work around it without creating an abomination like Thriller (album) (disambiguation). Certes (talk) 10:43, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
    • @SMcCandlish: Note that if you click Springfield Township#Pennsylvania, the section on Pennsylvania does not appear at the top of the page, because the disambiguation page is too short to accommodate that. For me, the first visible section to appear is for places named Springfield Township in Minnesota. It is, at least, immediately less helpful to take a reader searching for "Springfield Township, Pennsylvania" to that page than to Springfield Township, Pennsylvania, which only contains terms ambiguous to "Springfield Township, Pennsylvania". bd2412 T 22:39, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
      • @BD2412: I fixed it, possibly without breaking anything else. --В²C ☎ 00:23, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
        • Perhaps it is dependent on screen size, but for me it now still starts with a half dozen lines of Springfield Townships in Ohio. In any case, we're not about to start adding blank lines to the ends of the thousands of disambiguation pages involved just so we can merge in townships from different states. Also, compare Jefferson Township, which would have well over a hundred entries on the page if we went that route. bd2412 T 00:25, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
          • Okay, but isn't this best covered at WP:DDAB (immediately above WP:INCDAB)? --В²C ☎ 00:31, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
            • I only raised it as a point here because I have seen instances of editors merging DDAB pages on the basis that they were INCOMPDAB pages. As long as we are considering changes to the language, I would like to clarify it to highlight that while parenthetical INCOMPDAB pages must be merged, there is nothing to fix with a DDAB page. bd2412 T 03:48, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
      This is a viewport-size matter and has nothing to do with DAB pages in particular, but how anchors on Web pages work in most browsers (put link target at top of viewport if it is not "above the fold", but if it is, do nothing). If someone puts in "Springfield Township, Pennsylvania" and ends up at Springfield Township but has a brain melt and can't understand the the Pennsylvania entries are in the Pennsylvania section, there's nothing we can do for them and everything about Wikipedia (most of life) will be horribly confusing for them. I don't object to the existence of the Springfield Township, Pennsylvania "micro-DAB" page, it's just an unnecessary maintenance hassle, and that's made less of a hassles by <noinclude>ing the non-entries and transcluding that page into Springfield Township#Pennsylvania. We should do this with all "sub-disambiguation" pages. It's not like I'm running off to WP:MFD to kill of a bunch of short DAB pages; with the maint. issue minimized, the extra pages may be worth the additional, if minor, reader convenience.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  08:09, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
      If we allow that, the next step that people will take from that is to decide to merge Charles, Duke of Berry into Charles (disambiguation) and Sir John Anderson, 1st Baronet into John Anderson. Or Paul Jones and Paul Smith and Paul Johnson into Paul, because they will decide that a name with a surname is as much an INCOMPDAB as a state with a state name. bd2412 T 12:41, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
      Slippery slope fallacy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  15:39, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
      Not if it actually happens. I'm pretty sure I have seen attempts not far off from that. In any case, there is a distinction in the fact that many sources outside of Wikipedia may refer to a place as "City, State" (yes, even European places); few sources outside of Wikipedia are going to refer to "Mercury (planet)", "Kiss (band)", or "Seal (emblem)". bd2412 T 03:51, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
      There's nothing wrong with a construction like "Paris, France". It's a natural feature of the language. You can also say "Paris in France", or whatever, but it's less concise. So, I'm not sure how that's supposed to relate to any problem under discussion here. Next, Sir John Anderson, 1st Baronet should not even exist as DAB page, per WP:TWODABS. Plus there's a lack of any evidence whatsoever that anyone's advocating merging Paul Jones and Paul Smith and Paul Johnson into Paul (or anything like that). Nothing in your argument to fear stands up to scrutiny. PS: The fact that a string like "Mercury (planet)" isn't something normally used in English is why we have WP:NATURAL and WP:NATURALDIS policies; we only use them as a near-last resort.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  12:58, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
      Aside: "Sir John Anderson, 1st Baronet should not even exist as DAB page, per WP:TWODABS." is incorrect. WP:TWODABS says "If there are only two topics to which a given title might refer, but per the criteria at Is there a primary topic? there is no primary topic, then the base name should lead the reader to the disambiguation page for the term." WP:TWODABS does not say that there should never be a disambiguation page for two topics. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:30, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose massively disruptive, and would lead to any editor whose main activity on Wikipedia is in pushing for ambiguous titles having license to arguing for a primary (cricketer), primary (footballer), primary (sausage), etc., on articles right across the project. The guideline needs to be tightened to prevent time-wasting RMs such as Talk:Madonna (Madonna album), not encouraged. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:54, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support – Clarifies some tricky situations. — JFG talk 18:24, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I've thought a long time about this, and agree in the end with In ictu oculi. The fact that we have a handful of incomplete DABs that redirect straight to an article is immaterial; depending on them is a WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS fallacy. The change proposed here would unleash a tendentious torrent of completely pointless and time-sucking re-litigation of probably at least thousands of redirects, and it would continue unabated for years. Per WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY and WP:COMMONSENSE, we have to remember that our systems exist to serve us, not the other way around. We can't badly break WP's very (finally!) stable disambiguation system just to account for a few outliers. It's implicit in everything about how WP works that there will be outliers and that we're not going to cut off our nose to spite our face in a desperate attempt to rationalize all of them. See alt. proposal below.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  13:33, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Except, SMcCandlish, partially disambiguated terms with primary topics are neither exceptions nor outliers. They are partially disambiguated terms with primary topics which either title the primary topic article, or redirect to it. The exceptions, if there are any left, incorrectly title, or redirect to, dab pages, and should be fixed. NOTE: This does not apply to partially disambigated terms that do not have primary topics. The partially disambiguated terms with primary topics are not exceptions, they're just something else which is treated accordingly. --В²C ☎ 22:03, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per In ictu oculi. Exceptions should remain exceptions. --woodensuperman 12:21, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. This only entrenches the obvious, that there exists a small group of search terms with parenthetical disambiguators which will have a primary topic that an overwhelming majority of people using that term will be looking for (e.g. "Thriller (album)"). There's no reason that we should make it difficult for readers to get to where they want to go when it's obvious which article they almost certainly do want to go to. RM is capable of handling debates over whether or not a topic is primary for a topic, and adding the few cases resulting from this change would not overload the system. In the end, we are here to serve readers, not to just follow rules that would prevent us from doing so because it saves on time.---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 21:47, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

It's much simpler and more practical (by many orders of magnitude – see opposes above) to just add a footnote to WP:INCOMPDAB, saying:

There have been rare exceptions – such as Kiss (band); Lost (TV series); New York, New York; and Thriller (album) – in which a local consensus at WP:Requested moves has concluded that the the primacy of a particular topic for most readers outweighs the incomplete-disambiguation principle for that title. Except when readers would almost without exception be surprised by a disambiguation page and be unlikely to be looking for its other entries, do not not propose a move or a redirect-retargeting that goes against the incomplete-disambiguation rule on basis of cases like these. They exist only because our disambiguation system is not perfect; they are not models to emulate.

Or something to this effect (I'm sure it can be shortened). Then we're just done with it. I've been writing policy both on- and off-WP for a long time here, and if I've learned anything, it is this: Do not weaken a general rule with rationalizing to account for an exception; just declare there's an exception. Doing otherwise positively begs for people to "lawyer" until the end of time to get their own wanna-be variance added. They may still try it because they see an exception at all, but they're less likely to do so if it's just declared by fiat [not really, here, but by previous consensus discussions on particular cases] than enabled by wishy-washy, convoluted wording. See also WP:CREEP, WP:AJR, and WP:BEANS. PS: I left out Stormy Weather (song) because it's a poor example and the most likely in the list to be overturned.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  13:33, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

  • How is "New York, New York" an exception? bd2412 T 15:58, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
    • I think because "New York, New York" is a natural disambiguation for "New York" (that is, it wouldn't have been used for the title of the article any more than "San Francisco, California" would have been, but is itself still ambiguous. I think we'd have an easier time writing this up around parenthetical disambiguating terms though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:21, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Vikings (TV series) below is a useful case study. With my wikilawyer wig on, I'd have to support the RM. WP:INCDAB says When a more specific title is still ambiguous, but not enough so to call for double disambiguation, it should redirect back to the main disambiguation page (or a section of it); Vikings (TV series) is certainly ambiguous; so it shouldn't point to either article. But from a common-sense viewpoint, if the vast majority of readers looking for a TV series called Vikings want to read about the Hirst drama, the status quo helps them more than the proposed change without being significantly worse for editors. Certes (talk) 10:35, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Indeed it is, and it was almost unanimously decided to retain the partially disambiguated title for its primary topic. Is this yet another exception? No - it is the status quo. I've updated the guideline accordingly. --В²C ☎ 21:55, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
That seems reasonable to me, at least in theory. Devils can be in the details, so if it causes problems we may need to revise further. I'm not going to respond to your recent ping above, because clearly there's just a terminological dispute going on – what some of us are calling exceptions to the general rule you're reacting to negatively as "exceptions" and instead calling standard practice under a different – until now unwritten – rule. I don't have any patience for this kind of nit-picking. As long as the end result helps readers and doesn't do violence to the stability of our disambiguation system or lead to an unending stream of tendentious RMs, I'll be satisfied, and I'm sure most everyone else will be, too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  01:25, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

More terminological dispute

Echoing myself from a lower section, a qualified title that doesn't lead to a disambiguation page just isn't a partial disambiguation -- it's just an article title. A qualifying term in a title might suffice for an article, even with the same qualifier plus additional qualifiers have other articles. That IMO is up to the project(s) covering the topic, not up to the disambiguation project. That they (the topic project) have decided on or against a particular scheme of qualifier hierarchy is fine, and up to them. Disambiguation is accomplished as soon as a qualifier is added, regardless of what it is. "Partial dab" is the state of having a qualifier that doesn't fit the project(s) naming scheme, and so simply redirects to the disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:41, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Do you agree "Paris" is ambiguous? After all, it could refer to any number of topics on WP - indeed we have a dab page for it: Paris (disambiguation). And yet, we have, of course, the city in Paris at Paris. I think it's the quintessential primary topic, but there are countless others.
Now, let's look at the term "Vikings (TV series)". Would you agree that this term is "qualified" (with "TV series" in parenthesis) as well as ambiguous (with Vikings (TV documentary series)? So it's a partial disambiguation, is it not? And yet the community has recently decided it should remain the title of an article, Vikings (TV series). So isn't that a qualified title that doesn't lead to a disambiguation page but nevertheless is a partial disambiguation? --В²C ☎ 18:11, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Sure, cases:
So to answer the final question, no "Vikings (TV series)" isn't ambiguous in the project sense. "Vikings" is ambiguous, and we use the WP:AT guidelines and then the project naming conventions to resolve it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:29, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Surely Vikings (TV series) is ambiguous, but project guidelines have decided that it has a primary topic of the drama, with only the documentary requiring a more detailed qualifier. That's analogous to Vikings being ambiguous, with a primary topic of the Norse seafarers. Certes (talk) 21:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
You can make the analogy, but the implementation and determination is handled by the project naming conventions. That's where the analogy breaks down, is my point. If a project wants to eschew all less-qualified phrases as soon as any of their set needs further qualification, that's workable. If they don't, that's also workable. But it's up to the naming conventions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:17, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Meh. Either a term (like "Vikings (TV series)") can reasonably refer to more than one WP topic (and is therefore ambiguous), or it can't. This particular term seems obviously ambiguous to me, since it can reasonably refer to the subject of Vikings (TV documentary series) as well as the subject of Vikings (TV series) - that's the epitome of ambiguous, in any sense, is it not? In fact, that ambiguity was the basis for the recent move proposal ("Disambiguation is not sufficient as Vikings (TV series) could equally apply to either series."). Participants in that proposal discussion did not dispute the ambiguity of the term - only that it was not significant (e.g., "Vikings (TV series) is the primary topic over the two; no further disambiguation required."). I also don't understand why you're saying this is not a WP:D issue. What about articles that are not under the purview of a project? More importantly, we have an explicit partial title matches section on WP:D. It's totally a general disambiguation issue. Finally, what does "project sense" even mean? It's not like we have separate groups making these decisions - anyone can participate in any RM. Do we really want each naming convention to specificy independently whether partial dabs can be titles if they have a primary topic? Why is that something we would even want decided on a project basis? --В²C ☎ 21:35, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Or meh, "Vikings (TV series)" can't reasonably refer to WP topics. That's why it's "parenthetical disambiguation" in WP:AT terms (as opposed to "natural" or "comma" disambiguation). And the existing process works -- if there's an unused less-qualified name for topics that projects have opted for more-fully-qualified titles, the we point the less-qualified title to the disambiguation page. Flexible, neat, tidy, and covered by the existing guidelines (disambiguation for determining that any qualifier is needed at all, the title guidelines for determining what qualifier to use). -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:45, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
If this is just semantics, then I still think the existing guidelines cover it, even if different projects opt for different "can use" / "can't use" the titles that are being called incomplete disambiguatons in this discussion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:47, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
A title qualified with parenthetical disambiguation can't refer to a WP topic? That's your position? I don't think this is semantics; it's conceptual. Whether we say "refers to" or "identifies" or "alludes to" doesn't really matter. The point is we try to make the topics of our articles distinguishable via their respective article titles from other topics, often by using parenthetical disambiguation. In that sense the titles, often qualified with parenthetical remarks, refer to their topics. "Vikings (TV series)" is no exception - it refers to a TV series named Vikings. --В²C ☎ 21:59, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, a title with a parenthetical disambiguator is already not a primary topic. If it were the primary topic, it wouldn't need parenthetical disambiguation. WP:RS and WP:COMMONNAME align with this. There is no way to get to the title "Vikings (TV series)" using common naming in reliable sourcing. Neither of the TV series titled "Vikings" is the primary topic for the title "Vikings", so they need disambiguation. They've got it. That the TV series project opts for "TV series" and "documentary TV series" in this case doesn't mean the other projects need to use analogous determinations, and it doesn't mean that the disambiguation guidelines need to dictate that example of determination to other projects. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:26, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
JHunterJ, your wording indicates you're conflating titles and topics, and that suggests your thinking about this might be muddled a bit. For example, it's nonsensical to say "a title ... is already not a primary topic". Titles are never topics, much less primary ones. You also say, "If it [what? the topic or the term?] were the primary topic [of what?], it wouldn't need parenthetical disambiguation." Remember that the topic of an article is independent of its title... that is, the topic is the topic regardless of what the title is (though we strive to have the topic be recognizable from the title, etc.). The concept of primary topic applies to terms. We consider that the term Paris has a primary topic, but the term Mercury does not. But we also recognize that New York (city) and Paris (city) have primary topics, and redirect them accordingly even though there is more than one city named Paris. The topic at New York City is primary for dozens of terms - to dismiss some of them as not having primary topics simply because they have parenthesis, like New York (city), doesn't make sense. The primary topics for the terms Paris (city) and New York (city) are the topics at Paris and New York City, respectively. Surely you can see this? Similarly, the primary topic for the term Vikings (TV series) is the topic of the article at Vikings (TV series). That the base term Vikings is also ambiguous and has a primary topic at Vikings is irrelevant to all this.
In other words, whether a term is base or parenthesized, it may be ambiguous, or not. In fact, if a term is parenthesized and ambiguous, we say it is partially disambiguated. If a term is parenthesized and unambiguous, we say it is fully disambiguated (or just disambiguated). When a term is partially disambiguated, it still may have a primary topic, just like an ambiguous base term may have primary topic. Being parenthesized does not eliminate the ability of a term to be ambiguous or to have a primary topic. --В²C ☎ 19:15, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Unconflating: a title with a parenthetical disambiguator is already not the title an article on a topic that is a primary topic. If the article were the primary topic for the title, it wouldn't need parenthetical disambiguation. WP:RS and WP:COMMONNAME align with this. There is no way to get to the title "Vikings (TV series)" using common naming in reliable sourcing. Neither of the TV series titled "Vikings" is the primary topic for the title "Vikings", so they need disambiguation. They've got it. That the TV series project opts for "TV series" and "documentary TV series" in this case doesn't mean the other projects need to use analogous determinations, and it doesn't mean that the disambiguation guidelines need to dictate that example of determination to other projects. But, the net net is: if there are titles with qualifiers that are qualified more than would otherwise be necessary because of the number of topics, and the title that is not so further qualified is opted to be unused by the topic project as title for an article on one of those topics, then that unused title is an incomplete disambiguation and should redirect to a disambiguation page. The disambiguation project shouldn't care what goes on with the hierarchy of title qualifiers otherwise, and should leave that to the project naming conventions, and avoid WP:CREEP. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:51, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Your first sentence is ambiguous (how ironic!). Shall we disambiguate it? ;-) I think you mean: a title with a parenthetical disambiguator is already not the title of an article on a topic that is a primary topic of the base name of that title. But I don't dispute that, so what's your point? What I dispute is this: a title with a parenthetical disambiguator is already not the title of an article on a topic that is a primary topic of that title qualified with a parenthetical disambiguator. In fact, a title with a parenthetical disambiguator is the title of an article on the topic that is a primary topic of that title qualified with that parenthetical disambiguator by definition! Similarly, you say, again ambiguously, "If the article were the primary topic for the title, it wouldn't need parenthetical disambiguation". I think you meant: "If the article were the primary topic for the base of the title, it wouldn't need parenthetical disambiguation". But again, I'm not disputing that. Like I said above, the primary topic of Vikings is irrelevant here. We're talking about the primary topic of Vikings (TV series) (or whatever). That said, despite your ambiguities, I think I finally get what you're saying, but it still doesn't make sense. Surely you agree WP:D should be concerned with whether a given base term requires disambiguation, and how it is disambiguated. I mean, this page is all about that. Where you seem to draw the line, for some reason I can't quite fathom, is with terms that have parenthetic disambiguation. They, for some reason, are "out of scope" for WP:D, you seem to believe. You refer to WP:RS and WP:COMMONNAME as determiners of what is "in scope" for WP:D. So, independent of other usage on WP, WP:RS and WP:COMMONNAME tell us what term a given article's title should be. Actually, let's say WP:CRITERIA or even WP:AT tells us that. And then, if such a term is ambiguous, then WP:D kicks in. And that's when we consider primary topic - only with respect to terms that are "in scope" for WP:D. So far so good? So now we say that that process results in a term with a parenthetic disambiguator that is still ambiguous. Why can't the primary topic principle still be applied to that term (including the disambiguator) to decide it should be the title of the article in question? How is that CREEP? If anything, that's unCREEP - as we're treating all terms the same, regardless of whether they have disambiguators or not. --В²C ☎ 22:38, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
How is that CREEP? Simple. The existing content project's naming conventions currently handle the selection of parenthetical disambiguating terms. You are proposing a guideline in addition to those (creep), and possibly in unnecessary contravention of some of them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:19, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
What new guideline are you under the impression that I'm proposing? You keep talking about project naming conventions as if all articles fall under one. The general naming guideline for dealing with disambiguation is here, and that's where it's most appropriate to lay out broad general principles that apply to all articles, to best comply with the consistency criterion laid out in policy at WP:AT. --В²C ☎ 19:59, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I mostly agree with JHunterJ here. I think Vikings (TV series) is not a particularly good example. That show is by design an on-going series. The documentary is essentially one show in three parts. It could just as well have been titled "Vikings (TV documentary)", but the TV project has fairly clear naming conventions for such cases. older ≠ wiser 22:09, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
How does that address whether Vikings (TV series) could reasonably refer to the documentary, much less that it couldn't and is therefore not ambiguous? --В²C ☎ 22:55, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Strictly speaking I'm not sure it is a "series". It is more of a three-part show or a programme than a series, but that sort of morass is for the TV project to sort out. Suffice it to say that the recent RM concluded that whatever ambiguity might exist wasn't sufficient reason to rename the articles. older ≠ wiser 00:10, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
In other words, Vikings (TV series), though ambiguous, has a primary topic. I really don't understand the reluctance to recognize this. --В²C ☎ 01:14, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
The ambiguity of "Vikings (TV series)" is marginal at best. older ≠ wiser 01:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
How so? I mean, if the non-documentary Vikings series didn't exist, then wouldn't it be reasonable for it to be the title of, or at least a redirect to, the documentary? After all, Planet Earth (TV series) is the actual title of that documentary. In fact, in the category of Category:2000s British documentary television series, almost all of them that are disambiguated are disambiguated with just "TV series". --В²C ☎ 01:56, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
We've also used "(miniseries)" before. There's more than one way to do things.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  02:37, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
"We" being the TV project naming conventions there. :-) -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:27, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

It may be useful to ask a slightly different question: may a title which includes a qualifier point to an article (rather than a dab), even if that title is so broad that it could also apply to other articles? Specificially, is Vikings (TV series):

  1. allowed, because the answer is Yes
  2. allowed, because the answer is generally No but this case is an exception
  3. forbidden (or at least deprecated), because the answer is No

— Certes (talk) 23:14, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

4. Allowed, if the topic of the article in question is the primary topic for the title. (Same rule, whether the ambiguous title has a qualifier or not). --В²C ☎ 01:50, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
That's what I meant by 1. Although I forgot to say so, all options are predicated on the article being the primary topic, and it has been suggested that the threshold for primality should be higher than with an unqualified title. I did not mean to imply that New York (city) could legitimately redirect to New York, Iowa. Certes (talk) 10:51, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
4. It's up to the article topic project's naming conventions, not the disambiguation guidelines. Or, as an extension of 1. allowed, because the answer is Yes, although some content projects may still eschew it in their specific naming conventions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:19, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Partial primary?

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Is there any consensus for or against whether a parenthetical disambiguator can have a primary topic? For example, if Foo (TV series) is wildly more successful and well-covered than the more obscure Foo (2015 TV series). Can anything be added to the guideline about this? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 06:46, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

We are currently discussing this issue above. Certes (talk) 12:53, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
So… is it fair to say that the question is generally contested, and it’s largely decided on a case by case basis? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 08:51, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
The qualifier that goes in the parentheses usually follows a system decided by the relevant project such as WikiProject Television. I raised the question above of whether a qualifier that doesn't fully disambiguate[a] is legitimate; I don't expect every project to have thought about that matter explicitly.
[a] such as (TV series) when the article is not the only one about a TV series of that name, just the most prominent. - Certes (talk) 12:23, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
It's fair to say it's up to the naming conventions. From a disambiguation perspective, either way works. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:17, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Continued dispute about Vikings (TV series)

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Vikings (TV series)#Requested move 13 January 2018.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  17:49, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

What is the 'mosdab' parameter in the disambiguation template?

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

I have noticed that some disambiguation pages have the parameter 'mosdab' in their {{disambiguation}} template, often mosdab=R or mosdab=U, but I can't find an article that explains what this parameter is for. Can someone point me to an explanation? Leschnei (talk) 18:19, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

They were probably added by Dabfix, which uses these codes. Certes (talk) 18:41, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
I could only find a single example with searches and that was made by yourself in [1] where you changed {{disambiguation cleanup|date=May 2017|mosdab=R}} to {{disambiguation|mosdab=R}}. Please give an example another time. I think Dabfix only uses it with {{disambiguation cleanup}}. It doesn't affect the template output but may affect how Dabfix treats the page (I don't use Dabfix). PrimeHunter (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
I think it's more by way of communication to the human editors. For Intrabody, this edit is flagging the problem that someone has included a reference, which Leschnei quite correctly removed later in the edit mentioned above. Certes (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the codes on the page that Certes suggested correspond well with what I have been seeing. I was wondering if I could remove them when I remove the cleanup part of the template. Knowing what they mean will help with that - thanks for the link and the explanation. Leschnei (talk) 19:20, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
I would suggest: if you clean everything up on a page, replace {{disambiguation cleanup}} by {{disambiguation}} and remove the mosdab= parameter. If it's just a partial cleanup, keep {{disambiguation cleanup}} and mosdab= with just those codes which still apply. Certes (talk) 21:53, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Will do, thanks. Leschnei (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Kolossus

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I'm not an expert on dab page content, so can someone please review Kolossus (disambiguation)? Some of those entries seem like a stretch. See also discussion on the talk page. Thanks! --В²C ☎ 22:57, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

They all seem to pass MOS:DABMENTION. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:51, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Article naming discussion

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Discussion is here: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RFC: Is “(anime)” a suitable disambiguator? AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 19:52, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

From a disambiguation perspective, if it keeps two articles from having the same title, it's suitable. Whether the word is useful to the project is up to the topic project's naming conventions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Partial title matches and sequels

Latest comment: 6 years ago14 comments5 people in discussion

Can I get some clarification on this? Does WP:PTM instruct against listing sequels on disambiguation pages? I can't quite tell if that is what this means: "Add a link only if the article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context—regardless of the article's title." I ask because I was reverted when removing a sequel's link (same title but with "2" added) from a disambiguation page. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 20:40, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

No one is going to think that an article on The Godfather Part II might have been titled "The Godfather", so you were right to remove the sequel from a disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:02, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. If a sequel has a subtitle but is often refered to without the subtitle then it's natural to list it like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in Jumanji (disambiguation). But I see no reason to list both X and X 2, X 3 and so on in X (disambiguation). PrimeHunter (talk) 00:37, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
In the example above, The Godfather (film series) is listed and covers the sequels, with prominent links to their main articles. Certes (talk) 01:44, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
JHunterJ, PrimeHunter, Certes: I brought this up in regard to God's Not Dead since the sequel God's Not Dead 2 was listed. I'm still unclear about where God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness (the third film) belongs, considering that its title is like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in being a non-obvious sequel title? Also, regarding The Godfather Part II, the disambiguation page godfather lists the second and third films. Is this acceptable or not? Curious to know since I try to improve navigation for various films and would like to have a best practice in mind. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 16:27, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
I would omit God's Not Dead 2, but it's arguable and I wouldn't revert if another editor added it. Listing it in See also looks like a good compromise. Certes (talk) 16:32, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I shunt things to See also in general, if the page isn't terribly long to start with. Path of least resistance. Yeah, unnumbered sequels with subtitles are harder to slot. IMO, the new Jumanji is referred to commonly as "Jumanji", because of the release date differences. The latest GND isn't referred to as just it; the audience is principally unchanged, and they need the distinction for clarity anyway. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, all. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 18:49, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
To follow up, I realized no one said anything about the Godfather films. Should the sequels (and related soundtracks) not be removed from the disambiguation page? Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 12:42, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Good gravy. Cleaned. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:48, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

So along the same lines, on Django, I'm thinking to move Django Strikes Again, Django Unchained, and Sukiyaki Western Django to See also. And Django Unchained (soundtrack) too, I guess. Does that seem reasonable? Leschnei (talk) 01:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me. Beware of Django (character), which is about two barely related topics and might be split. Certes (talk) 02:30, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up. Leschnei (talk) 12:46, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
And I'd just delete them the first time, and if they are restored, then move them to See also. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:59, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

What's to be done with this?

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Al-Jami'ah al-Islamiyyah (disambiguation) is a list of Islamic universities, none of which have Al-Jami'ah al-Islamiyyah in their text. It was originally split off from from Islamic University. Should it be converted to a list article or put back into Islamic University? Leschnei (talk) 17:58, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't know either. I think it's either a List of Islamic universities or Islamic University (disambiguation), depending whether the qualifying criteria are "being Islamic and a university", or (in the language of this wiki) "being called The Something Islamic University of Somewhere". A list may be better done as a category; a dab may suffer from partial title matches. Certes (talk) 18:27, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

How precisely are we supposed to disambiguate?

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

In the case of William R. Allen, there are at least four notable people with that initial. Someone has just redirected that page (although it only had two entries listed) to William Allen. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:30, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

There are two valid approaches here:
  1. redirect William R. Allen to William Allen, as someone just did
  2. have a secondary disambiguation page William R. Allen with just the relevant topics, as was (almost) the case before that edit
Whether to have a double disambiguation is a matter of judgement. Personally I'd go for option 1 in this case, but I wouldn't say that 2 was obviously wrong. I'm sure an expert will be along with a more experienced opinion soon. The debate at #Proposal: Clarifying WP:INCDAB above is partly about this choice. Certes (talk) 01:18, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Two more solutions:
Both have pros and cons. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:28, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
They (six actually) are already listed in William Allen, though they are not all readily apparent to the eye:
Purely by coincidence, I've also found Joseph L. Smith (disambiguation). Clarityfiend (talk) 07:42, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Here's a list of some other partially disambiguated name pages. There will be plenty more which don't contain that exact pattern. Certes (talk) 11:05, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Okay. Since there's plenty of precedent, I've restored and expanded the page. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Blue Ridge (New York)

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Dab Blue Ridge contains the perfectly reasonable entry

How should we mark this as an intentional link to (partial) dab? I think Blue Ridge (New York) (disambiguation) would work, but it feels somewhat like using a sledgehammer to adjust a delicate watch. Certes (talk) 20:59, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation vs. set index

Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments6 people in discussion

I have seen several disambiguation pages that include, among other things, a long list of people who share the term as a name (usually with more that could potentially be added). Is there any general guideline as to when/if such a list should be split off into a surname page? Leschnei (talk) 00:16, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Including surname as a disambiguation template parameter results in Category:Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists being added (same with given name). This seems to me to be a strong hint to split the page. If there are only one or two people, I don't bother. At the other extreme, if a large majority of entries are people, I usually keep them as the primary topic and create a dab page from the non-people entries. Otherwise, I create a surname list. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:41, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Are you saying that you would keep the people at, for example, Last-name, and put the other items at Last-name (disambiguation)? Leschnei (talk) 01:29, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Just like what I did two days ago with Jodi (about 40 people) vs Jodi (disambiguation) (4, none of them particularly well-known). Clarityfiend (talk) 09:01, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
A similar question was recently asked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#First names as articles or as disambiguation pages?. – Uanfala (talk) 02:01, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
I've put some notes at User:DexDor/Dabs and SIAs. By the way, any comments on that essay are welcome. DexDor (talk) 06:37, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Has the dab page, including list of people with the surname, grown to such a size that the reader will find it easier if they have to click on a further link to access a separate surname page? If the answer is "no", then leave the name-holders in the dab page: no benefit in splitting. PamD 08:55, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

This has given me a lot to read and think about - thank you all. Leschnei (talk) 14:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

One other answer: the list is split off to an anthroponymy list article as soon as any editor feels like doing so. Most of us don't feel like doing so with short lists, but if someone does split a two-name list off to a listicle, they can. The listicle is a valid link target; the disambiguation page is generally not. I do add the template parameter no matter how short the list (same as I would add "geo" even if only two places were present in a longer dab list). -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:20, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I have to remember to add those template parameters. I'm rubbish at choosing categories in general, but even I can figure out 'geo' and 'surname'!— Preceding unsigned comment added by Leschnei (talk • contribs) 12:45, 9 February 2018 (UTC) Oops! Leschnei (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Corvette and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I've proposed moving Corvette (disambiguation) to Corvette at Talk:Corvette (disambiguation) and Netoholic has raised an objection that I think warrants consideration regarding how WP:PRIMARYTOPIC should apply in situations like this. Have a gander... --В²C ☎ 20:36, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

A second opinion, please?

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

I'm trying to come up with a reason why Dorset Coast should continue to exist. One item on the page, MSTS: Dorset Coast has a link to MSTS1 and that article does not mention either Dorset or coast. The second item is Dorset which does not seem to disambiguate Dorset Coast. I searched for other likely items but found none and DabFix had nothing to suggest. The page has been dormant since 2008 (with good reason). If no one has an objection, I think that I will AfD it. Leschnei (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

It can go. Looking at the history it originally linked to MSTS: Dorset Coast. This was an article about a freeware download route for Microsoft Train Simulator. It was deleted after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MSTS: Dorset Coast. There is nothing to disambiguate. ~ GB fan 21:19, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
If there is no valid target, you can label it G6 for speedy deletion. Otherwise it can be changed to a redirect; I'd suggest that Jurassic Coast would be valid in light of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Dekimasuよ! 21:22, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I would replace it by a redirect to section Geography of Dorset#Coastline, which links prominently to Jurassic Coast and other relevant articles. Certes (talk) 22:55, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks all. I will go with Certes solution as it includes Jurassic Coast as well. Leschnei (talk) 23:09, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Mass removal of entries from dab pages and name lists

Latest comment: 6 years ago40 comments10 people in discussion

I have noticed that User:JesseRafe has removed lots of valid entries from dab pages and list articles. See [2], [3], [4], [5] for some examples, there are presumably many more. It appears nobody has raised this with them before so I would like some more eyes on it, since I'm inclined to revert most of the removals. Most of the ones I checked were fine per MOS:DABMENTION. —Xezbeth (talk) 19:01, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

I see a brightline disctinction between "Maggie Anderson may refer to:" followed with non-notables (who may have passing mention, such as non-notable individual members of a notable band) compared to a "List of notable people named Maggie/Anderson" in which blue links (or redirects to embedded subsections of characters) seems to be the standard, per my understanding of Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Selection criteria, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists#Adding individual items to a list. JesseRafe (talk) 19:05, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
WP:DABMENTION is a bright line rule allowing the inclusion of a topic on a disambiguation page if it is validly mentioned in another article. Individual notability is not a condition for inclusion on a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 19:21, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
What about this sentence on this very page Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Lists of names, "To prevent disambiguation pages from getting too long, articles on people should be listed at the disambiguation page for their first or last name only if they are reasonably well known by it." suggests two things: 1, that these lists shouldn't get too long, i.e. bloated with non-notables, and 2, "reasonably well known by it" suggests that they are reasonably well known to begin with, which a reasonable person would interpret as having the same criteria as general notability standards. JesseRafe (talk) 19:22, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
That is a different issue. We don't include Cincinnati Zoo at Zoo (disambiguation) or Cincinnati (disambiguation), not because this is a non-notable example, but because it is a partial title match. I do note, however, that some of the pages referenced by Xezbeth above are surname pages, not disambiguation pages, so WP:DABMENTION does not apply to them at all. bd2412 T 19:25, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Also do given names apply to that same standard? If so, that's then 3/4 of the ones referenced and almost all of the unlinked actions Xezbeth is referring to are on name pages, not disambig, which is where I look for them. JesseRafe (talk) 19:31, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
(ec) There is a difference between a specific name like "Maggie Anderson" which should include WP:DABMENTIONs of the name and pages that include people with the surname or given name. In those cases, unless the person is commonly known mononymously, they are candidates to be moved to a separate page for the surname or given name. However, persons who are commonly known by the single name should remain on the dab page, even if they are only mentioned in another article. older ≠ wiser 19:32, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Re-reading, yes, I think we are in agreement (Bkonrad and BD2412), per my first comment I said I saw no problem with "Maggie Anderson may refer to:" followed with non-notables" which would apply uniquely to disambigs and thus under these rules you've explained, but did have a problem with "a "List of notable people named Maggie/Anderson" containing red links" which would be found not on disambig pages, but on pages for the names Maggie or Anderson. Is that a correct understanding of the distinction? And to follow, is that a correct application of the notability standard at the given and surname pages? JesseRafe (talk) 19:36, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
I probably shouldn't have linked to MOS:DABMENTION, since that's somewhat misleading. Most of these removals are to fictional characters that are covered at either an article on a work of fiction, or a list of characters. They have been removed because they're a direct link, whereas other fictional characters have been kept because they were linked to via a redirect. These don't even count as redlinks since there's a blue link pointing the reader to the correct location. Take Kato, which I reverted: Megumi Kato and Marika Katō were both removed as they were perceived to be redlinks, despite being a major character and a protagonist respectively. Meanwhile Katō Kyōji was not removed since it's a redirect, even though he's so minor that the character list it points to doesn't even mention him. I'm aware that a lot of these aren't dab pages, but I was struggling to find any guidance on the inclusion of fictional characters in lists, even though I'm sure there must be somewhere. —Xezbeth (talk) 19:42, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

It looks like Xezbeth is going through undoing dozens of my useful edits wherein I removed non-notables, but these are not disambiguation pages. Is this appropriate? Per Bkonrad and BD2412 in this thread it seems like this was NOT the case for anthroponymy articles as distinct from DAB pages. JesseRafe (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

  • A general comment on WP:DABMENTION. The threshold for inclusion as an entry on a dab page is usually much higher than merely having a passing mention in an article. This is especially true of people: any reasonably developed biography article will include mentions of dozens of people: family members, associates, various people the subject has interacted with etc. These shouldn't be included unless the article in question has significant content about them or they're notable (or almost notable) individuals who are known primarily for their association with the subject. – Uanfala (talk) 01:08, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
Well then, I'm at a loss, it seems what I was doing was right then, yes? And those non-notables should be listed on all of these pages? Xezbeth is adding them back to dozens of pages. JesseRafe (talk) 17:00, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
It's a bit of a judgement call. Dab pages really shouldn't be a catalog of every minor person or character mentioned in an article. However, the threshold Uanfala mentions is entirely subjective. older ≠ wiser 17:12, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
Your judgement of a "non-notable" is way off. You removed major characters and protagonists yet left minor characters, purely because their name had a redirect. I doubt you even checked any of them. —Xezbeth (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
Bkonrad, but these aren't dab pages. Xezbeth is restoring non-notables to main space articles, which fall under the guidelines for notability for inclusion in lists as I quoted above, no? JesseRafe (talk) 14:25, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
JesseRafe This is becoming hard to follow without specifics. The criteria for inclusion on lists of Anthroponymy pages are similar to that of dab pages -- i.e., does the linked article have content indicating there is a character or person by that name. Questions regarding the notability of any such characters or persons should be addressed on the talk pages of the articles that mention them -- not summarily removed from the list article based on a subjective interpretation of the guidelines. older ≠ wiser 15:20, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Sure, what about this at Veronica? Xezbeth indiscriminately reverted. Those Czech film articles where the non-notable actresses should probably be deleted, no refs on almost any of them, and the lists of Hungarian weightlifters also seems tenuous. But what about the fictional characters? There's no Veronica on Questionable Content or Fallout: New Vegas pages. This is just indiscriminate "vengence" against me it would seem. Or, I've point out numerous times that from a formatting perspective saying "*Veronica [[Ronnie Mitchell]]" is much less pleasing to the eye than *Ronnie Mitchell, especially at Cassie where it was done abundantly. This user is claiming to be "rescuing valid entries" but is blanketly restoring invalid entries (as seen above) and also restoring glaring formatting errors. Seems more like a vendetta to me, rather than a thoughtful case-by-case process. JesseRafe (talk) 15:30, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Jesse, from my reading of this, you made edits and removed entries. Another editor objected and restored the entries. Now is the time to go to the talk pages and explain why you believe each entry does not belong on the page. This can lead to consensus that maybe some do belong and others don't. ~ GB fan 15:38, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Because it's been dozens of pages and there's reference made to a policy that I don't see written anywhere. I didn't start this, btw. The other editor did about me, and I'm concerned about what to do since they're seemingly following my contributions and undoing them with objectively false edit summaries and allusion to a policy that doesn't seem to apply. I've tried asking them direct questions (on my talk page) and they refuse to answer. I don't know where the appropriate venue is, but from what I can glean from the policies quoted above, my edits are in the right because these are not dab pages and this editor should stop? JesseRafe (talk) 15:53, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
There are no policies involved, there are editing guidelines and manual of style references. I gave a suggestion on a way forward because I do not think this thread will yield an answer that your removals were correct or wrong in every instance as there are way to many nuances over the dozen of pages and dozens of entries. What you do with my suggestion is all up to you. ~ GB fan 16:18, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I think JesseRafe did good cleanup work, which should not be mass-reverted. Indeed, addition of individual entries should be discussed on the relevant talk pages. — JFG talk 16:22, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I dunno. Just looking at Veronica, Jesse removed many valid entries. older ≠ wiser 16:33, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Then perhaps you can explain how these constitute good cleanup work: Removed several main characters while keeping some minor characters purely because their names had redirects; Removed at least four major characters while keeping a very minor Ouran High School Host Club character, purely because she has a redirect while the others didn't; accused some poor new editor of vandalism because they had the temerity to add a major fictional character. I haven't actually fixed that many pages; I cleaned up about a dozen before getting bored. Am I going to have to build a dossier of evidence when I visit the others? Because that will make the whole process take a lot longer. —Xezbeth (talk) 16:46, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
It's a reasonable assumption that an editor using a common first name and a common surname as a username then adding that full name to an article as their third ever edit in their first 5 minutes of creating that account is adding themselves, I've seen it hundreds of times, so, yes my reaction is to call that "vandalism". But sure, keep taking potshots at me, in any attempt to besmirch me for some reason? You still refuse to answer direct questions on now multiple talk pages, about some of the characters you added back at Veronica don't even meet your standard or where this standard is published as it fits anthroponmy articles (not dab pages). Even it's not published then fine, that's your interpretation then, so please don't say I'm breaking a law that only you know. I provided references to my interpretation of the rules and MOS that these non-notable inclusions are violating. JesseRafe (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
It's a fictional character. You could have worked this out if you spent just one moment looking at The Lorax (film). This proves that you aren't even looking at the articles in question before removing them. You also have very little understanding of what a "non-notable inclusion" is. —Xezbeth (talk) 17:00, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
The edit referred to is this one where an editor whose editname is that of a fictional character had added that character quite reasonably to a dab page, in the "Fictional characters" section, as their third of four edits to date, to be reverted as "vandalism" because JesseRafe thought they were adding an autobiographical link. Hmmm. Not a lot of care going into these removals, it seems. PamD 17:13, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
That's not a dab page. It's an article about the given name with its history and translations. And I didn't think they were adding an "autobiographical link", but adding their own name to the page. Hmmm. Not a lot of care is going into these responses. JesseRafe (talk) 17:37, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
How is adding a notable fictional character with that name to the page vandalism? Did you click the link to provided to see if there was a fictional character by that name in the film or did you just look at the username adding it and see it was the same and decide it was vandalism? ~ GB fan 17:45, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I made a mistake there, yes, as acknowledged, but it was a reasonable one. Lots of people, largely kids, add their own names or their crushes' to anthroponymy articles and film casts and lists of alumni etc all the time. If it weren't for the username, yes, it almost certainly wouldn't've been removed, but I jumped the gun there, as acknowledged. Especially as I didn't remember any characters having names in the book, it looked like some kid named Aloysius O'Hare adding himself as an Aloysius and saying he was in his favorite movie. Happens all the time here. The question is, whether it belongs on the list, not whether I made a mistake labeling its removal "rvv". JesseRafe (talk) 17:55, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Based on the above examples, this is not good cleanup, and actually impedes reader navigation by using an arbitrary criterion. The existence of a redirect is only tenuously linked to the importance of the subject matter. In fact, at WP:RFD, editors routinely cite WP:REDLINK to argue for deleting redirects on notable topics with no significant coverage on Wikipedia in order to encourage article creation (see: [6]). So in some cases, the non-existence of a redirect might mean that the topic is more important and more likely to be searched for. And based on the above thread, it looks like in at least some cases, JR is not even checking the linked articles to assess if the entry should be included or not, meaning that their removals are likely not backed by diligently checks. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 17:04, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
I see your point, but on the other hand, removing minor athletes, actresses or band members called "Veronica" who don't have an article looks like good cleanup work to me, and they shouldn't have been restored wholesale. Inclusion of manga or movie characters should be discussed on a case-by-case basis. I think both editors are acting in good faith, and they should be able to find consensus. — JFG talk 17:57, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, JFG, I tried, but the other editor absolutely refuses to engage in conversation and is incapable/unwilling to answer any direct questions as seen on my talk page. JesseRafe (talk) 18:00, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
PK: As stated, I understand there to be a distinction between DAB pages and those that are a "List of notable people in which blue links (or redirects to embedded subsections of characters) seems to be the standard, per my understanding of Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Selection criteria, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists#Adding individual items to a list. Have still not heard explicitly that this is not the case, based these three rules, where am I misapplying them? JesseRafe (talk) 18:00, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
  • "The threshold for inclusion as an entry on a dab page is usually much higher than merely having a passing mention in an article." No, it's exactly that threshold. If it's mentioned on an article and someone adds it to the dab, the two possibilities are either remove its mention from the linked article as non-encyclopedic or leave its entry on the dab page per MOS:DABMENTION. The addition of the entries to the dab does not need discussion. The deletion of such entries would require discussion. Barring ambiguity, the mentioned entries could have been created as a redirect to the articles that mentioned them. Since there's ambiguity, they can have the redirect. Since there's a disambiguation page, searching for the name won't land on search results, but rather on the disambiguation page. Removing them from the disambiguation page means that reader navigation is hindered. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:54, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
JHunterJ, sorry, I don't see why people keep talking about dab when I've said time and time again that these are not dab pages, they're articles. Lists of people should fall under the governing principles found at the following: Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Selection criteria, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists#Adding individual items to a list, is this not correct? Xezbeth is restoring scores if not hundreds of non-notables to these lists. Has nothing to do with dab pages or dabmention criteria. JesseRafe (talk) 15:18, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Probably because this is the talk page for disambiguation pages and the section header says "dab pages". If you want to talk about name listicles (separate from disambiguation pages of human names et al.), this should take place on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:47, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Luckily Trent is a dab page, and this revision demonstrates yet again that you have no idea what "non-notable" means. A heroine of a Charles Dickens novel is non-notable according to you. —Xezbeth (talk) 16:05, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
JHunterJ, I didn't bring this up here and I don't know why my argument should suffer because the other party made a mistake. Is my removal of non-notables from listicles that not dab pages appropriate or not? I've found several sources from the MOS that suggest it is, but no one is confirming that here, yet Xezbeth is still removing them from dozens of non-dab pages as well as the dab pages where I was mistaken. JesseRafe (talk) 16:31, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'm responding to the argument (not yours) as presented. The quote I gave (not yours) mentioned dab pages, and I replied to it. You took that response as if it ignored what you've said time and time again, probably because I was ignoring what you've said time and time again and was instead responding to the other user talking about dab pages on a dab talk page. Your argument, if not about dab pages, neither suffers from nor is aided by my response to another editor. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:42, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Xezbeth, please keep this conversation civil. This is just the latest of a half-dozen attacks and aspersions you've cast about me. Discuss the edits, not the editor. JesseRafe (talk) 16:32, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Jim Mayer and variations thereof

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

There are disambiguation pages for various combinations of James/Jim/Jamie Mayer/Meyer. On the Jim Mayer (disambiguation) page, @Boleyn: suggested that it be merged with James Mayer (disambiguation). I'm wondering if it would make sense to merge Jim Mayer (disambiguation), James Mayer (disambiguation), James Meyer (disambiguation) and include Jim Meyer and Jamie Mayer as items. Leschnei (talk) 15:19, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

One option is to keep Mayer and Meyer separate, with "see also" links to each other (and James Myer), but combine Jamie and Jim into James in each case.
Mayer looks a bit of mess. I doubt that Jim Mayer is the primary topic over Jim Mayer (musician) (pageviews), so we could move him to Jim Mayer (ice hockey) then make Jim Mayer and Jim Mayer (disambiguation) redirect to James Mayer. I suspect that James Mayer (SOE) is just a cover name for James Mayer (spy)!
Meyer looks more reasonable. James Meyer seems like the correct primary topic (pageviews). Jim Meyer needs the hatnote changed to provide a route to James H. Meyer who was also called Jim; a simple "other uses" to a combined James/Jim Meyer dab page should do the job. Certes (talk) 15:46, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
While I don't want to discourage this helpful discussion, IMO it would be better at wt:WikiProject Disambiguation. At least give that page a look. Andrewa (talk) 16:41, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the help Certes (and Andrewa for the heads-up). I have made both James Mayer and James Meyer into disambiguation pages, and re-directed (or moved) everything else accordingly. They're looking a little more cleaned up now. I also put hatnotes on the various Jims, James's, and Jamie's. Leschnei (talk) 17:38, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
These minor surname variants can be a pest. I'm in favour of unifying them: that helps readers, who might just have heard a name and be spelling it the best they can phonetically. Be grateful that there doesn't seem to be a James, Jamie or Jim Maier.
As I have more than once said elsewhere: choosing a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC in uncertain cases like these is a surefire way of accumulating links to the "WP:PRIMARYTOPIC" which are wrong and are misleading to readers, are bad for the project, and are almost impossible to find and correct. Pageviews are a very unreliable guide – they count where readers looked first, not necessarily what they were looking for. Narky Blert (talk) 23:32, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation of adjectives

Latest comment: 6 years ago13 comments8 people in discussion

As I see, the guideline does not cover disambiguation of adjectives. Please see the discussion in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bayesian. I filed the Afd because I see the page is a list of terms with one word in common, rather than list of articles which could have the same title. But then I see a bunch of other similar pages, such as Euclidean, digital, Pythagorean etc. They do not seem to conform the definition of WP:DPAGE. But since they exist and in abundance, then obviously there is a need in such pages. At a first glance they are closer to WP:DABCONCEPT: Bayesian lists things that exhibit "Bayesness", so to say ; same with "digitalness". But at the same time it does not feel right to list "Long bow" in the page "Long (disambiguation)".

So how do we distinguish adjectives which call for navigation from "mundane" ones? Do we need a yet another category of dab-like pages, in addition to WP:BROADCONCEPT and WP:SETINDEX? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

We have disambiguation pages for terms that are likely to be wikilinked but are ambiguous. In many cases, those terms are adjectives, and the entries in the disambiguation page should be the standard uses of that adjective. This seems unproblematic. They are not partial disambiguations, because if they were then there would be a more generic disambiguation that they should be merged into and in these cases there isn't. Or, to put it another way, if "Bayesian" lists things that exhibit "Bayesianness" then we are doing it wrong, because a list of that type should be tagged as {{sia}} not {{dab}}. The disambiguation page for "Bayesian" should list things that are likely to be the intended meaning for wikilinks to "Bayesian" (generally, articles named "Bayesian X"), not things similar in concept to the primary meaning of "Bayesian". —David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
My major point stads: We do not have any guideline of that. Especially how do we distinguish cases of Bayesian from Long or, better, from Triangular (disambiguation)? Triangular pyramid, Triangular matrix, Triangular function, Triangular number ... Triangular alopecia ("This matrix is square, but if it were triangular" <-- wikilinked but are ambiguous) -- eh? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:54, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
BTW, take a look at All pages with titles beginning with Bayesian: "Bayesian" page is a tip of an iceberg. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:02, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
We do have a guidelines for that, but it's WP:PTM. A list of "Bayesian X" articles is a list of partial title matches. Bayesian should cover that concept of Bayesianess, or if it's not a concept (encyclopedic topic), it should be unlinked, just like we don't link Long everywhere it occurs (long bow --> long bow). If there's a problem with definitions, it could be a soft redirect to Wikitionary instead. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:47, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
In this case, there's already of List of things named after Thomas Bayes that Bayesian can redirect to. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:57, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, WP:PTM is formally applicable. However since there are so many violations of WP:PTM with "technical/scientific" adjectives, I guess the guideline needs clarification/expansion, either to "legalize" or delete all these pages. In particular, your solution about "List of things" will not work for "digital" (List of things named after digit haha ;-). Staszek Lem (talk) 17:33, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I didn't recommend a general solution of redirecting to "List of things". That solution was for "In this case". The general solution is deletion (and fixing the WP:OVERLINKing as needed). -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:04, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
We have List of articles about things which are artificial. PamD 21:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
These so-called dab pages (Bayesian, Newtonian, Pythagorean, etc.) all have list pages which perform pretty much the same function. I don't see the point of maintaining two when one will do just fine. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:54, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I have nominated Bayesian for merger: see Talk:Bayesian#Merger proposal Feb 2018. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 14:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Short descriptions

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is a discussion happening at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links#Short descriptions regarding the (already-initiated) insertion of Template:Short description at the top of all dab pages that would likely be of interest to many editors here. Dekimasuよ! 22:14, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Criteria for determining whether someone is "commonly called X" for WP:NATURALDIS

Latest comment: 6 years ago31 comments10 people in discussion

WP:NATURALDIS says this:

"Using an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names."

I'm seeking clarification in regards to what qualifies as "commonly called in English reliable sources".

For example, almost all sources about Sarah Jane Brown refer to her without any middle name or initial. I can't find a single reliable magazine article, news article or book that refers to her as "Sarah Jane Brown". There are some websites that do, but that's relatively recent, and could very well be the tail wagging the dog, since we've had our article about her at this title for around 10 years now. To me, this seems clearly a case where the topic is NOT commonly called "Sarah Jane Brown", but others disagree.

This is not about that title - there may be good reasons to retain that title even if she is not "commonly called" that. I'm just looking for input on the specific question of what qualifies as "commonly called", and, as an example, per such criteria, is Sarah Jane Brown commonly called "Sarah Jane Brown"?

Do we need to qualify this section any further?

@Wbm1058:? @Amakuru:?

--В²C ☎ 16:54, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

  • "Using an alternative name that the subject is also commonly(reliably) called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names."
As long as there aren't competing sources claiming different names for something (in which case you need to sort out which one is accurate and which is in error), then the second-most commonly used name should be acceptable, even if this second-most commonly used name typically is only found in directories, biographies, obituaries and such, and not generally in ordinary news stories or in sources where who the person is is well-understood in context. wbm1058 (talk) 18:44, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. That's a reasonable position and argument. Here's the problem I see with it - the whole point of using the most common name if possible, and, if not possible, then using at least a not-as-common-but-still-common name, is recognizability. I think the intent is to not title our articles with names not commonly used in reliable sources. As one of the most popular sites on the web for research, we also have an obligation to not use names not commonly used because this can give the impression that it is commonly used, and cause others to start using it, who otherwise would not. That strikes me as a violation of our prime directive (to reflect the real world without influencing it in any particular direction). --В²C ☎ 19:18, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Imagine a high school student doing a biographical report on Sarah Brown. If WP did not exist, or if she did not look at WP, she'd probably title her report, "Sarah Brown". But if she did consult WP, she'd be more likely to go with "Sarah Jane Brown", even though none of the sources we use in our article do that. I just think there's something fundamentally wrong with that. After all, our articles should be NPOV summaries of what the reliable sources say about our topic - our articles should not present new or different information about their topics. --В²C ☎ 19:23, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Analogous to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (companies) guidance for using legal status to disambiguate, a person's full legal name, or middle initial, is always a minimally acceptable, albeit seldom preferrred, means of disambiguation. Apple Inc., not Apple (company). wbm1058 (talk) 04:41, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
That analogy fails because companies are generally well known and recognized by their official legal names; this is not the case for people who often are well known by one name which can be different from their official legal name to varying degrees. That's why we have Sarah Daniels (actress) (to use another Sarah with a middle name), Madonna (entertainer), Prince (musician), and not Sarah Elle Daniels, Madonna Louise Ciccone and Prince Rogers Nelson, for example. --В²C ☎ 16:34, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Madonna and Prince's real names are actually sort of well known. But, here's the thing. Madonna used to be located at Madonna (singer). But because, Madonna (actress), we moved her to Madonna (entertainer) because that's a convenient broad-concept that covers both. But what if there wasn't such a nice term available? Some would insist on keeping her at Madonna (singer) because that's what she's primarily known for, and hey, she "never would have made it as an actress if she wasn't a famous singer first, because, well her talent as an actress is..." which others would say no, that disrespects her acting ability and (singer) is just a too-limited-view of what she actually does and is well known for. After half a dozen discussions that couldn't settle this lacking a word like "entertainer" that covered all bases, there is a possibility the community might just have moved her to her full birth name. So, if you can think of a concise term for "wife of former Prime Minister and charity executive and campaigner" then we might be able to follow the conventions rather than make compromised exceptions. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Birth notices, death notices, plaques, and obituaries often name the subject using their full name. For many biographies, the obituary is one of the most important sources. There is nothing wrong with disambiguating with middle names. The notion that a preference to title with a commonly used name has been shown to not be reversible, it is not true that a Wikipedia title implies a commonly-known name.
    I think it should be acknowledged that the guideline's stated prohibition of "obscure or made up names" does not probit the use of a known middle name for disambiguation purposes.
    This is clearly still about Sarah Jane Brown. Regarding B2C's high schol student's fundamental problem, I fixed the problem with this edit. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:33, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I like your edit to Sarah Jane Brown. I tried to go further by changing it to "Sarah Brown (née Macaulay; born 31 October 1963), formally although not commonly Sarah Jane Brown,..." but was reverted. What do you think? Station1 (talk) 18:59, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I’m strongly opposed to any sub-criteria to determine when the existing criteria for a natural disambiguation are met: that is the job of RM participants, and trying to change policies and guidelines when it is clear the majority of the community doesn’t hold your view on it is, IMO, bordering on disruption. I agree with SmokeyJoe’s point and am fine with wbm1058’s wording. I think that update would help beyond the SJB example to clarify how natural disambiguation and common names interact: we do not require it be the most common name, only common enough. The proposed change makes that clearer. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:17, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Guys, come on. Don't be silly. Please note that saying "usually known as Sarah Brown", while accurate, is a gross understatement. It's "practically by everyone, everywhere, all the time", not merely "usually". Where and by whom is she ever known as "Sarah Jane Brown"? Here's the thing. Recognizability. What WP:NATURALDIS means, and what countless articles of people whose names require disambiguation shows our convention is, is that we use parenthetic disambiguation with information well known about the person to disambiguate, rather than a middle name or initial by which they are not well known. This is indisputable. Our articles about countless actors, sports people, writers, politicians, etc. are disambiguated parenthetically by what they are best known for, not by adding a middle name or initial which is rarely used in reliable sources. Using a middle name that is rarely if ever used in sources for disambiguation is not what our written policy is, and it's not what our convention is. That's a fact, not an opinion. Stop trying to rationalize around this. --В²C ☎ 16:22, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
      • That's a fact, not an opinion is quite simply false (as are some similar claims in the above). That question is a key part of what is under discussion here. As for being silly, please see User:Andrewa/A personal plea. TIA Andrewa (talk) 17:37, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
        • To be clear, this is what I claimed to be a fact: Using a middle name that is rarely if ever used in sources for disambiguation is not what our written policy is, and it's not what our convention is.
        You don't agree that statement is a fact? You think our policy and convention is contrary to this? Really? Perhaps I'm wrong about this. If so, I would appreciate being corrected accordingly. Do you have any counter-examples? Thanks! --В²C ☎ 18:28, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Hello, SJB is your counter-example. Of course it's not our convention, but we have to allow occasional exceptions to the convention, when there are valid reasons for making an exception. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:43, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Now we're getting somewhere. I was of course asking for counter-examples other than SJB. So you agree it is a fact? It is neither policy nor convention to use middle names in titles for disambiguation people's names when those middle names are not commonly used in reliable sources. In particular, using a middle name not commonly used in reliable sources is contrary to what NATURALDIS says, right? Now, whether an exception is warranted at SJB or any other situation is a separate issue that is out of scope for a discussion here. Does anyone disagree with any of this? --В²C ☎ 18:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
You're just spinning us in circles, and testing my ability to stay cool with Andrew's civility standards. We need to strike the first commonly from that policy line. So it becomes an indisputable "fact" that Sarah Jane Brown is a legitimate alternative title which may be allowed under policy when no better alternatives are presented. The way you're interpreting this is to say that "it is a fact" that Sarah Jane Brown would be equally equally as unacceptable a title as Sarah June Brown or Sarah Jean Brown. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. ATDAB says "read this in conjunction with NCDAB". WP:NCDAB has a different definition of natural disambiguation than you point to above. It says When there is another term (such as Apartment instead of Flat) or more complete name (such as English language instead of English) that is unambiguous, commonly used in English (even without being the most common term), and equally clear, that term is typically the best to use. I'd say that means "Sarah Jane Brown" is compliant.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:21, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. commonly used in English, not in "reliable sources". wbm1058 (talk) 19:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
"Natural" as in natural language, not as naturally commonly used in everyday reporting about notable people. Parenthetical constructions aren't so natural. wbm1058 (talk) 19:49, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree we shouldn't use a middle name for disambiguation if isn't commonly used in sources. Sarah Jessica Parker comes to mind as one where a third name is common (although I don't know if that is a middle name or if she uses two first names. Either way it's not relevant, we just follow the sources). I heed the argument that if WP says Sarah Jane Brown, other places my start to follow us because they probably wouldn't be aware that using the middle name was internal to WP for disambiguation and not often used elsewhere. We should spend our time thinking up a suitable term for Sarah Brown (descriptive term).MB 19:57, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Google calls her a British executive. Where did that come from? Is that a field in Wikidata by chance? wbm1058 (talk) 20:15, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Wikidata says British campaigner for global health and education. Is Sarah Brown (British campaigner for global health and education) an NPOV title given that it neglects to mention her relation to Gordon Brown, which is the most commonly used defining characteristic in reliable sources? Would a parenthetical this long be a better or worse violation of the conciseness criterion than the current title's violation of the "commonly used" criterion? wbm1058 (talk) 20:32, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Okay, Wbm1058, I agree "Sarah Jane Brown" is better than "Sarah June Brown", of course, but per what MB says just above, just because it's better doesn't mean it's good enough. Right? As to striking the first commonly, do we really want to use names in our title by which the topics are NOT commonly called in reliable sources? --В²C ☎ 22:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
At Talk:Sarah Jane Brown, every RM since RM#6, has supported or ratified as good enough, "Sarah Jane Brown". The preference for titling by common name needs to be weakened to "preference", the notion that a name that is not commonly used must never be used as a title is demonstrably false. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:12, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Only when there's no better option. Observe that Wikidata does not have the same limitation as Wikipedia when it comes to naming. Wikidata titles don't have to be unique. Sarah Joy Brown and Sarah Jane Brown are both just "Sarah Brown" on Wikidata. My 2016 Community Wishlist Survey proposal for Administrator- and Page mover-editable display titles, that make more than cosmetic changes to the title did not get much traction. If that were implemented, then both articles could share the same title as they do on Wikidata. You have an aptitude for campaigning. In the US candidates for federal office start running their next campaign years before the actual election. If this idea is to have a ghost of a chance of making the top ten in the 2018 wishlist survey, you need to start relentlessly campaigning for it now, to build up a groundswell of unstoppable support. Once we can change the title that readers actually see at the top of the page, I trust nobody will get too worked up about what the unique title is set to within the internal plumbing of the project. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
I oppose breaking the connection between the title and the url. The url is the most obvious thing indicating the content before downloading the page. The url supports hovertext, and the explicit url is available to the reader on most browsers. The WikiData method is ok because few humans care about wikidata. Wikipedia, unlike WikiData, is for human browsing. NB "Only when there's no better option" is tautological. All titles are used subject to there being no better option. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:40, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
"In grammar, a statement may be said to be tautological where it uses unnecessary repetition, or more words than necessary, to say the same thing." Confess I had to look that up. I don't quite follow your rationale for objecting to my community wishlist proposal, but it's not that important. If B2C doesn't like my idea, then there's no point it pursuing it. It would take the developers significant time to implement, and the tradeoff would be between the significant community time consumed on long-running article-title discussions and developer time to implement a solution to mitigate that. wbm1058 (talk) 15:42, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Abitrary break

(Well, not completely arbitrary, as I was going to reboot the stringing anyway, partly owing to the mixed indents above.)

From above You don't agree that statement is a fact? You think our policy and convention is contrary to this? Really? Perhaps I'm wrong about this. If so, I would appreciate being corrected accordingly. Do you have any counter-examples? [7] with edit summary reply to AndrewA - do you have any counter-examples?

As I said above, your claim that this is fact is simply false. It is your opinion. As has already been pointed out by others, you have yourself given the counter example of Sarah Jane Brown.

It's unfortunate that no consensus was reached in the RM you raised, but here is not the place to rediscuss the requested move or to discuss its close. As it stands, that matter has been for the moment resolved, with due consideration given to policy and convention.

And I've just noticed that the guideline cited above reads Natural disambiguation: Using an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names. I'd like to draw attention to the fact that it doesn't say reliable secondary sources. I was thinking that perhaps we should remove the word secondary, but it's not there to remove!

It seems to me that, in this context, commonsense would indicate that passports, birth certificates etc., although they are primary sources, can be considered both reliable and significant, and that on careful reading that's what our current guidelines and policies say too, although perhaps not as clearly as they might. Andrewa (talk) 05:23, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

haven't exactly been following the conversation that much but BLPSOURCES forbids Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:40, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Very interesting point. Calling attention to court judgements that have not appeared in RSS might be very damaging, or even the outing of a previous name again not present in RSS. But this is about gaining additional support for a name already in RSS and still used by the subject. It's a rather different scenario. Again, maybe the policy needs clarification, but I think it's what the guideline banner terms commonsense (noting that wp:BLPSOURCES is a policy and doesn't have the guideline banner). Andrewa (talk) 19:40, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

B2C do you remember your opposition to the redefining of common name to from "commonly used [in all sources]" to "commonly used in reliable sources" as expressed here and many other places. So you do change you mind sometimes :-) In this case I think that redefining common name to be the name commonly used in reliable sources allowed us to simplify what used to be complicated rules in guidelines (naming conventions) that were workarounds to produce article titles similar to those in reliable sources. EG the rules of WP:NCROY usually produced useful titles such as Mary I of England (instead of Bloody Mary), but also led to titles like Victoria of the United Kingdom, and Gustav II Adolph of Sweden (who?); Or WP:FLORA (shudder) were the two of us made ourselves unpopular with a number of botanists, partly with their misunderstanding of COMMONNAME as defined in policy and common name as defined by scientists, and partly because some of them wanted everything under the scientific name even when there was an better known alternative eg horse-chestnut.

You recently listed a number of page names that you thought eventually ended up at a stable name. One of them way Yogurt. I supported the first requested move back to Yogurt under primary author of a none stub, as I did with the first requested move for Gasoline, and the first with Tram all in 2005.

In the case of Yoghurt I thought that the persistent attempts to rename it, particularly when they occurred less than six month apart was a breach of the consensus policy. While consensus can change, if the interval is too short addressing the same issue time and again, (often in several forums), becomes disruptive (because it is a huge time sink for everyone involved and distracts from building an encyclopaedia).

Not one of the titles I have listed in 2005 were decided on WP:COMMONNAME they were decided on WP:TITLECHANGES (first contributor). If the article title Sarah Jane Brown distresses you so much then walk away from it. Come back in 3 years time and if it is still at title you disagree with providing no one has initiated a requested move in the previous six months then request one. But I think that your behaviour over the now archived page on WT:RM and here is disruptive (because it is a time sink, it does not seem to me to be moving people towards a consensus and seems to be creating disharmony). -- PBS (talk) 23:18, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Advice please

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Advice please. I'm seeking advice on Ped-, Pedo and Cryo – articles that look like dab pages but aren't. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 06:04, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Indents on lists within dab pages

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

It looks like indents are used in lists like header indents or responses to comments. Example on this project page at 6.3 style, a blue dot is indented, why? It looks mistyped (double tapped). I want to miner edit as remove double indent, but there may be underling reasons, which is why I am on this page to begin with. One small clean-up on a 2015 Dab list was left, it appeared these double taps were the issue, till I noticed the hierarchy of the indent, wherein I ceased until I found out the style guideline. Its a lot of reading and confusing to find, so sign me up to help, I learn fast, I am Deermouse (talk) 23:49, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello Deermouse. It looks from your contribution history as if we're talking about Britannia (disambiguation). Each set of entries with an indented blue dot (a double asterisk in the wikitext) forms a sublist within the main list. For example, Britannia Inferior, Britannia Superior, Britannia Prima and Britannia Secunda are all subtopics within the more general topic of Provincia Britannia. Sometimes the double indent can be a mistake, but in this case I think it's correct to indent these four rows to group them together as a sublist of the main list. Certes (talk) 00:39, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
It also occurred to me here (Britannia) there are multiple areas on the list which some did not appear hierarchical. The first one or two, so maybe some should be repaired and some not?00:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
On the more specific question of 6.3, I think the point Rarely should a bulleted entry have more than one navigable link... is meant as a subpoint within the main point Each bulleted entry should have a navigable (blue) link.... It does look a bit odd, and removing the indent wouldn't be wrong, but I think it's also correct as it stands. Certes (talk) 00:45, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
So now my question are there tools (I've seen some in one of the many pages I've read) that scan these parameters, or How do make these decisions to change or leave alone?
I think the indentation makes the list much better for navigation. Britannia (disambiguation) has a lot of items and several levels. The levels are
Heading 1 (title) "Britannia (disambiguation)"
Heading 2 eg "Transport"
Heading 3 eg "Land"
Dot point unindented. eg "Britannia Class, BR Standard Class 7 steam locomotives built for and operated by British Railways from 1951"
Dot point indented once. eg "BR standard class 7 70000 Britannia, the first Britannia Class steam locomotive"
I think this is fine. Another level, Dot point indented twice might be OK, but no more. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:03, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
It would be a very unusual circumstance for a triple+ indented bullet to even be considered, but among the few cases where it might be considered, it would be no less likely to be warranted. (And as a clarifying aside, the section level and the bullet level are independent; subbullets are used when the "grouping" is another ambiguous entry; subsections are used when the "grouping" itself is not ambiguous.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:22, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Peter Augustus Jay

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

Peter Augustus Jay is a redirect to Peter Augustus Jay (lawyer) and the disambiguation page lives at Peter Augustus Jay (disambiguation). Should Peter Augustus Jay be listed at the top of Peter Augustus Jay (disambiguation) as the primary topic or should Peter Augustus Jay become the disambiguation page and Peter Augustus Jay (disambiguation) a redirect? Leschnei (talk) 23:09, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Peter Augustus Jay certainly shouldn't be a redirect. If the lawyer is the primary topic then his article should be moved to Peter Augustus Jay and, as you say, be listed at the top of the dab. But if there's no primary topic (each page got one view yesterday!) then we should move the dab. If in doubt I'd go for the latter option. Certes (talk) 23:45, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
I have gone ahead and made Peter Augustus Jay the disambiguation page and Peter Augustus Jay (disambiguation) a redirect. No doubt someone will let me know if that was an error. Leschnei (talk) 00:51, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm not quite sure what to do with the redlink for the lawyer's son Peter (1821-1855). Normally I'd add a blue link to the article where it's mentioned, but that is already listed in its own right. There are no incoming links, so we could remove it. Certes (talk) 01:17, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Another editor has removed the link but left the item - the best solution, I think. Leschnei (talk) 11:51, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Amateur and Amateur (disambiguation)

Latest comment: 6 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

Amateur is a stub that consists entirely of a one-sentence definition and a list of See also items. I think that it would be better to make Amateur the disambiguation page, however, there are hundreds thousands of links to Amateur that would suddenly become inappropriate links to a DAB page. Is there any way to deal with this without having to edit the pages individually? Many (most?) of these could probably be changed to a wiktionary link or removed altogether. Leschnei (talk) 22:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think WP:Dicdef applies here. Some of the links could go to an article about amateurs in a particular field, such as Amateur radio in India, but most of them should probably be unlinked. I don't think a link to Wiktionary would be very helpful for such a widely understood word. Certes (talk) 23:38, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
But how do we handle an article with so many incoming links? If I move the disambiguation page to Amateur, the 1000s of links to the term 'Amateur' suddenly become disambiguation links that need to be resoved. Leschnei (talk) 00:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
There are about 1200 links. Many of them fall into classes: for example, pages such as Mark Davey could link to amateur boxing or just be unlinked. Once the big groups have been done we can make Amateur into a dab and fix the last few hundred with a tool such as DisamAssist, probably unlinking most of them. But let's wait for someone else to add their thoughts before doing anything. Certes (talk) 00:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Amateur used to be much longer and more substantial. It was gutted in 2015 with the edit summary "remove rambling, unsourced WP:OR, essay features. The 'see also' is the only useful part of this article, apart from the definition", although it was sourced, just not with inline citations. It certainly wasn't the best possible article, but one possibility might be to restore and/or rewrite it. Station1 (talk) 06:27, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
I would opt to restore the well-sourced and informative article contents, adding inline citations, then let the normal editing process improve it. — JFG talk 09:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
I have put back and edited the gutted material, and added some inline references. It could still use a lot of work, but at least it makes more sense for the incoming links. I also added Amateur as the primary topic on Amateur (disambiguation). Leschnei (talk) 19:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Great job! Looks like a decent article now. Station1 (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Unnecessary double parenthetical disambiguation?

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

I've noticed a lot of our articles on individual episodes of the various Star Trek shows (maybe most, out of a total of like 500 -- sorry, I'm a "soft-core" trekkie) have titles that require parenthetical disambiguation to distinguish them from non-Trek articles, but they all also include the full title of their individual show, even though there is no other Star Trek article from which to disambiguate them, oftentimes without the simple disambiguator "(Star Trek)" existing as a redirect. Taking just season 1 of Voyager, we have articles on all 12 of the following, but at present only one is a blue link:

Is this normal? I'd create the redirects myself, but honestly I'm wondering if it would be better to move all the articles to their simpler titles.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:22, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I apparently noticed this problem four months ago... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:37, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
It's standard to give the full name of the tv series for episodes, also for other franchises like Golden Parachute (CSI: Miami) versus Unspoken (CSI: NY). It's mentioned early at Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Trek. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:49, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Huh. I hadn't noticed that. That said, most TV series aren't parts of larger franchises that are much better known than any of the individual shows. (If talking to a non-Trekkie, I would almost certainly refer to any of the above episodes as "the Star Trek episode" than "the Voyager [or Star Trek: Voyager] episode", since TOS and TNG are basically the only entries in the franchise that are widely-known outside the fanbase.) Not sure if the same applies to CSI or other such franchises, but at the very least the argument could be made that CSI: Miami is only one character longer than the theoretical shorter Star Trek disambiguator, and so couldn't needlessly inflate the article title into something like We'll Always Have Paris (Star Trek: The Next Generation). I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to discuss amending the guideline to discourage unnecessary disambiguation in cases like this? (I should probably disclose that the reason I noticed this is because I'm a fan of a certain online video producer, who does a weekly review of a Star Trek episode, but his schedule doesn't say which show the episode is from; I come to Wikipedia and type "[Episode Title] (Star Trek)" and as a result of the lack of redirects I usually have to click through something extra to find the page I was looking for. Making more redirects would solve this problem, but I'm really not convinced it's the best solution, and if the status quo is standard across the project then asking WP:TREK to fix it would be out of the question.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:01, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it's better to move the articles with unambiguous titles to their unambiguous, unqualified title, per WP:PRECISION. Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Trek can't override WP:PRECISION (see WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: "For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a wikiproject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:58, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, misread the question. If the episode title is unambiguous on Wikipedia, no qualifier is needed. But if a qualifier is needed, it doesn't matter (from a disambiguation perspective) which qualifier is chosen and the project can indeed specify what to use for consistency. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:01, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television)#Episode and character articles says "add the show name in parentheses" and doesn't mention exceptions for long show names with a shorter widely understood version. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is often just called Buffy but we have numerous episode articles with "(Buffy the Vampire Slayer)" in the title. See e.g. Category:Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 7) episodes. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:30, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Help with Septemberist

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I've gone as far as I'm able improving Septemberist; could someone please have a look at and fix as needed? There are some alternate spellings, other page redirects, like Septembrism, and Septemberism, and other squirrely things, and I've tried to unscramble everything as best I could, but this is a bit beyond my disambig skills.

Had a hard time finding the right doc at WP:D covering things like, e.g., how to link to another disambig page with a related title. (I stuck it in a "See also" sentence.) Also, was pretty sure the initial, "may refer to" sentence at the top needed to have the actual redirect page title in it, bolded, and it didn't. There are some other peculiarities, such as an existing redirect for Septemberism which goes to a rock album; seems like that's not right. Also, I'm not sure that Septemberist really is used to refer to members of the Black September Organization, is that a valid link?

As a final point: is there a recommended practice concerning a forthcoming link from a Disambig page to an article currently in Draft and not yet ready? (I'm assuming disambig entries don't link to Draft space.) I don't want to forget to update Septemberist with a new entry, when this draft is done. The draft will end up having something related to Septembristas adapted from a section on this Spanish page, and once it does, the disambig page will need a new entry to point to it. (That Spanish page is interesting in itself, as it seems to be an article that functions as a wordy disambig page, while not identified as such.) Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:08, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello @Mathglot: I've made a few changes in two edits. The redirect Septemberism pointed to Real Talk (Man Overboard album) because it's a song on the album. I included the song on the dab page and retargeted the redirect. With regard to your final point, I think you'll just have to remember to link your new page to the dab page (and to Argentine Civil Wars and perhaps others)! Hope that helps, and perhaps others can help top. Regards, Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 05:34, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I also retargeted Septembrism to a section at History of Portugal (1834–1910)#Setembrismo and Cartismo and added a hatnote there. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 05:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 06:07, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Avenida Amílcar Cabral

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

What's the best way to handle a page such as Avenida Amílcar Cabral? I suspect that the sole entry with an article is the primary topic, but it may be a case like Urney. (Pretend that the second link in the box is red for that example to remain relevant.) Certes (talk) 11:44, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Yep, it's the primary topic, and the disambiguation page can be deleted, since none of the other entries have a blue link in the description either, and so are for topics not yet covered on Wikipedia. Different than the former state of Urney, when the other topics were covered on Wikipedia, but just didn't have articles of their own yet. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. That sounds very reasonable. I've restored the redirect for now, but ideally we should undo the page move to leave the article at the base name. Certes (talk) 00:26, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
  Done -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:03, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Request: Big Enough (disambiguation)

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Can someone please make a disambiguation page for "Big Enough"? I notice there's the song by Ayiesha Woods at Big Enough, there's the documentary film at Big Enough (film), and there's more recently another song by Kirin J Callinan, the article for which is not created and has been requested at Wikipedia:Requested articles/music/Songs. Thanks! 2601:589:8000:2ED0:4883:345A:8134:909F (talk) 01:58, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

  Done -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:19, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Long-term significance vs usage

Latest comment: 6 years ago121 comments26 people in discussion

I made a change to the primary topic section, switching the order of the two criteria given. Wikipedia:Five Pillars are our core values, and chief among them is that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". In an encyclopedia, long-term significance of general knowledge topics is the primary value for inclusion. "Usage" (aka page views, search results) certainly has value, especially in a digital medium such as us, but should not be presented as the top criterion. Usage is a fluid and fickle thing - it is heavily dependent on time, region, and context. Taking the example in that section, apple is given primary topic because it is a general knowledge topic compared to the transient commercial popularity of Apple Inc.. Usage is perhaps better presented as a "tie-breaker" when two topics have roughly equal long-term encyclopedic significance.

As such, I would like to reinstate my edit, switching the order, as a first step. I think this community should also discuss rewording the two criterion so that it is clear that usage is used when long-term significance doesn't give a clear result - perhaps changing the line to "A topic may be primary for a term with respect to usage..." while the other line stays "A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance...". -- Netoholic @ 05:02, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead. In this situation there must be a way for the reader to navigate quickly from the page that first appears to any of the other possible desired articles. So when the reader types a search term, we're aiming to provide the page they expected and desired, even if another page might advance their knowledge of a topic that we consider more worthy. Usage, over a period of decades rather than months, is a good indicator of what's expected and desired. Where it conflicts with the general knowledge criterion, we probably have no primary topic and should put a dab at the base name. Certes (talk) 10:09, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Netoholic, in one respect, if discussion here establishes consensus for the change then I'm OK with that. But it is a significant change. The criteria was based primarily of usage from the earliest days and the long-term significance criteria was added later (and is still disputed by some). I don't think a subjective reading of WP:5P justifies elevation of that criteria without some broader discussion and consensus. older ≠ wiser 15:35, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, it's bad enough that long-term significance even got added as a criterion; trying to make it a higher priority is even worse. We are building an encyclopedia, but it's an online encyclopedia, and we're trying to serve our readers as well as possible. That includes trying to get them to the article they are seeking in the fewest clicks possible, when reasonable. I've long held that historical significance is inherent in likelihood of being sought. That is, if it's that historically significant, then that supposed significance should be reflected in how often the article is sought, thus page view counts, link counts, etc. There is no need for a separate historical significance criterion. It does nothing to improve the encyclopedia, and just gums up the primary topic decision-making process. --В²C ☎ 02:44, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
We have access to many techniques which can get a reader quickly to an article. A PRIMARYTOPIC debate rarely (never?) requires more than a single extra click for the reader who lands on a subject they were expecting, so the effect is negligible. Even the best encyclopedias (print ones) often had to include page references to guide the reader. We also have the major benefit of search engine technology, which I think almost makes this concern moot. Its a small sacrifice (if you can even call it that) for the benefit of being a reputable encyclopedia which prioritizes its topics appropriately by putting general human knowledge about commercial products, fan content, etc. -- Netoholic @ 05:39, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
There is a long-standing and insoluble problem with page views. As for being a reputable encyclopedia, things like the NYRM2016 fiasco certainly don't help that. We will only be reputable to the extent we follow our own rules.
One of the problems with primary topic is that Wikipedia is becoming a citeable authority to others. Google search cites us for example. So our use of language, and in particular our choice of article title and in particular of primary topic, influences English usage. It has become in this sense content. However, it's not content that can be related to its sources by citations in the same way that article content can be, and in presenting it as content we are subtly violating both NPOV and NOR.
We would stand far more chance both of being regarded as a reputable encyclopedia and of attracting and retaining good editors if we got rid of the problematic and unnecessary concept of primary topic altogether. It seemed a good idea to the founders. It has proven otherwise. Andrewa (talk) 19:21, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
"Proven" how? We should move William Shakespeare (disambiguation) to the base name? Mexico (disambiguation)? Bread (disambiguation)? No, it may be at times problematic (and not necessarily insolubly so), but it most certainly is necessary. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:25, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Proven by experience in many RM discussions and others such as this one. Yes, it would do no harm to have William Shakespeare (playwright) as the article title, and similarly for the others. It would take some getting used to by the old hands!
Why exactly is it most certainly... necessary? Andrewa (talk) 19:43, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
To keep exactly that from happening: to add qualifiers to a bajillion titles that don't need them, hindering both readers (predominantly looking for the, hm, "primary" topic for a title) and editors (who now have to figure out which qualifier to add to nearly every wikilink to a "primary" topic). -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:03, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, and for answering the whole question, that is, you've said not only that you think William Shakespeare the playwright should be at the base name but that this is for three reasons: To avoid needing to change many articles (I agree that's a consideration but I think the task is manageable); To spare some readers (hopefully a majority) from loading a short page and needing then a single mouse click to get to the page they want; And to spare editors the need to choose and type a disambiguator. I don't think any of those are serious problems. Andrewa (talk) 04:36, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
They are serious impacts with negative return on investment. You say "some readers" and "short page" and "single mouse click" to minimize it, but that is exactly the negative return on this investment you're seeking: we do a bunch of editor work (and increase the ongoing maintenance editor work) in order to worsen the overall reader encyclopedia experience. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:47, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
See my replies at User talk:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic#Ongoing discussion. Andrewa (talk) 16:29, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the change. IMO it's an improvement, and will save a little editor time and improve overall reader experience a little. A far bigger improvement would be to abandon the whole problematic and Wikipedia-invented concept of primary topic and disambiguate whenever there is ambiguity, but I can't see that happening. Andrewa (talk) 05:28, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
If I've understood you correctly Andrewa, your change would make Corvette a dab, and I don't think that's what Netholic had in mind! Certes (talk) 10:53, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
I would indeed make Corvette a DAB, and would retire the pseudo-disambiguator (disambiguation) completely, as unnecessary. I concede that this is unlikely to be accepted, in fact I'm not sure it will ever have any (other) supporters at all! But I can see many positives, and absolutely no negatives, to this approach. One more click does no reader significant damage, and yet we spend many person-hours seeking this elusive primary topic, which achieves nothing significant. Andrewa (talk) 11:17, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
We would need to keep a redirect at William Shakespeare (disambiguation) to mark the few wikilinks which are genuinely intended for the dab page, so the long-suffering gnomes can skip them when editing the daily torrent of new links to dab page William Shakespeare to read William Shakespeare (playwright). Certes (talk) 16:04, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Agree. Exactly.
We might even keep a long term concept of primary topic just to help partly automate this process. But primary redirects and pages named XYZ (disambiguation) would go. The DAB names would still be there for navigation, but they'd be redirects not pages, and ambiguous primary redirects would point to a DAB (or in some cases be one). And non-ambiguous redirects aren't primary redirects at all, and would be unaffected. Andrewa (talk) 16:35, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
I too support the change. It seems clear from the move discussions I've participated in, that long-term significance is more important than page hits.--Ykraps (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
Again, see user:andrewa/The Problem With Page Views, and please add to the Examples section there. And while it's not the only or even the best evidence of search term likelihood, it's almost always the only one cited, and the arguments above demonstrate this unfortunate tendency too. Andrewa (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
The problem with page views is that a large proportion of the community don't believe they should determine Primary Topic. When it first came into being, Primary Topic was about the "most important" and "central meaning" of a word or phrase.[[8]] Page views were later introduced, only as one of a number of ways to help determine this.[[9]] Since then of course, the importance of page views has been pushed to the forefront to the point that some people think they are now the determining factor. Rather than try to force this view on an unaccepting community,[[10]] the guidelines ought to be rewritten to reflect what is actually the custom.--Ykraps (talk) 09:35, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Great summary of some key evolutionary steps of this section. It really makes me wonder how we've strayed so far. I think the problem stems from human nature, and how we have a bias toward "countable" factors like page views over more in-depth criteria that is involved in determining long-term significance. We really need to add some alternative advice to replace the simple page view measures. Criteria like: "If you were forced to pick one article to delete from then encyclopedia, that article is likely not a primary topic". -- Netoholic @ 14:42, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
Agree. The PT guideline is busted, see the latest evidence. Whether fixing it is practical... perhaps it's worth having a go, as it's a lot less work than abandoning it. But I'm not convinced that there's any more prospect of consensus to fix it than there is of consensus to abandon it. Andrewa (talk) 00:02, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Well analysed, Ykraps, and well put. I missed that post at first. Andrewa (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
There's no problem with "a large potion of the community" disagreeing with the consensus here in particular. Large portions of the community disagree with many of the consensus guidelines and policies. Wikipedia consensus is not unanimity. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Agree.
But I don't think that's being challenged anywhere here. The question with regard to specific RMs is, what do we do when there is no consensus? The question with regard to the guidelines is, can we build consensus here to improve them, and how? Andrewa (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
It was challenged above. My statement "There's no problem" is a direct contradiction of the "The problem with page views" claim (and the follow-up comments congratulating it). If the issue is with how to handle RMs with no concensus, WT:RM would seem to be the correct venue. The question here seemed instead to be "has consensus changed on the use of page views along with long-term significance". Which it doesn't seem to have. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:45, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

It was challenged above. My statement "There's no problem" is a direct contradiction of the "The problem with page views" claim (and the follow-up comments congratulating it). OK, so when you say There's no problem with "a large potion of the community" disagreeing with the consensus here in particular you mean that there's no problem with taking page views as the end-of-all-discussion in RMs. I didn't understand that. Yes, that view is both expressed and challenged both above and elsewhere.

If the issue is with how to handle RMs with no concensus, WT:RM would seem to be the correct venue. That's one of several correct venues, depending on how we propose to improve things. RM closers consider the instructions at WP:RM certainly, but also the closing instructions and other policies and guidelines, including of course this one. A change to the instructions at RM would need consensus on its talk page, certainly.

The question here seemed instead to be "has consensus changed on the use of page views along with long-term significance". Maybe. It's also possible that we just need to clarify the guideline rather than change its intent.

But the original question wasn't just about page views, it was long-term significance vs usage. Part of the problem is that page views seem to be taken by some as end-of-discussion evidence of usage, which of course they are not. They're an excellent starting point but a very poor closing. Which is what my essay says, and what you dispute, is that correct?

Which it doesn't seem to have. Too early to call IMO. Andrewa (talk) 20:37, 20 February 2018 (

  • No, I wasn't saying that.
  • This is one of many more incorrect venues for discussing how to handle RM's with no consensus.
  • You are seeking to change the intent of the current guideline to one, not clarify the existing guidelines.
  • I've stated my position above, unsplintered. I'll await the eventual formal RfC or other proposal, rather than continue down this hole. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:58, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I'm very glad that you weren't saying that there's no problem with taking page views as the end-of-all-discussion in RMs, but I can't then see what you were saying by a direct contradiction of the "The problem with page views" claim (and the follow-up comments congratulating it... (my emphasis) since that is the whole point of the essay in question. I can only hope that others read the essay rather than accept your dismissal of it at face value. And of course it belongs to the whole project, not to me, so help in clarifying what it does say (obviously not as well as it might) is always welcome.
I think I've already answered the second point, but I guess you could similarly say this is an incorrect place to discuss the essay. That didn't stop you, nor should it have stopped you. It's relevant to the project page, and therefore discussion on the project talk page (ie here) is appropriate.
The third point could be seen as a personal attack, or as irrelevant speculation. In either case it's just a distraction (whether deliberate or not). You say you disagree with my essay. You deny that you disagree with what it says. You just don't like it, but nor do you seem to understand it.
Thanks for foreshadowing the sort of opposition such an RfC would receive from yourself, I think that is helpful. I'm unlikely to move any such until the dust finally clears from NYRM, whose loose ends still include deciding whether NYC is primary topic for New York, and whether if so we should move the city to the base name. That's obviously related to this discussion. But I'd probably participate if someone else wants to get it started. Best. Andrewa (talk) 00:07, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

I support the change. Srnec (talk) 20:19, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Or just drop PT altogether

I'm encouraged by the response... it's negative but not as negative as I had feared, and more encouraging still, the arguments against so far are very easily answered IMO. But it's not ready for this talk page IMO, and has gone off-topic for this section. See User talk:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic and its user page, where I intend to try to develop the proposal. Comments welcome there of course! Andrewa (talk) 06:30, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

I am completely onboard with eliminating "primary topics", the use of (disambiguation) pages, and in fact, I'd love to get rid of all parenthetical disambiguation and replace it with a "subtitle" field so that each page could be named as they should, and the subtitle would be a of short phrase of clarifying text (very much like you see on Wikidata entries). This would also require that our wikilinking mechanism work like Wikidata's dropdown selection menu rather than straight text. This is probably a big change to the mediawiki interface. Your solution might be a good one in the meantime, since any conversion process could move anything in a parenthetical into that subtitle field. -- Netoholic @ 21:12, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
I empathise with this position and can see the benefits (not least the potential to massively reduce discussions like the one about Corvette). However, if we remove primary topic entirely that introduces new problems shown by a couple examples:
  1. Mathematics is ambiguous. Do we really want to disambiguate one of the top-ten vital articles? When the competing terms are 2 relatively obscure songs and a hip-hop producer? And even if we did, how do you clarify such a major topic further?
  2. Bangkok is apparently unique. Even if it is today, that could change tomorrow. That means messing with stability, generating page moves and adjusting thousands of links, just because of a new article with less than 10 links. Is that good? We could avoid that by pre-emptively disambiguating everything? But is that wise?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:28, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Exactly. Maybe Mathematics (primary topic)? :-) Primary topic is a solution, not a problem. User essays are fine, but I'm not going to go read and comment on them when they have no chance of becoming consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough. I felt I needed to give you the opportunity as I have replied there to two of your posts here, and will probably do the same to the points you just made (such as a solution, not a problem). But if and when this comes back here, you'll have ample opportunity to comment then. Andrewa (talk) 23:12, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Reply now at User:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic#Objection 3 if anyone else is interested. But even better, take a look at User:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic#Creating new articles. The benefits of abandoning this tangled web of locally invented linguistics are far greater than I thought. Andrewa (talk) 09:10, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
Two excellent points, thank you, and the example of Mathematics (disambiguation) is an excellent one, I doubt we will find a more challenging example. I'll add them to my user page and critique them there. Andrewa (talk) 23:12, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
I have added them at User talk:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic#Mathematics etc and User talk:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic#Bangkok and there is some discussion there already, more would of course be welcome. Andrewa (talk) 02:45, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Wow, that's an even bigger project. As you say, this would be a good first step. I'll need to digest the pros and cons of your proposal. Andrewa (talk) 23:16, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think that abolishing PT entirely is viable; it would produce absurdities like "Water (H2O)", "Mathematics (numerical science)", "Africa (continent)" and "Sky (blue layer above your head)".
    However I would support raising the threshold for PT from the current "more likely than all the other topics combined" (which is effectively 50%+1) to "much more likely than all the other topics combined". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:39, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Support raising the PT threshold considerably. I suggest the level at which everyone familiar with any one of the ambiguous topics is necessarily familiar with the PT. This will apply mostly to topics that are the original term and from which all others derive. Avatar would meet this. Paris would not. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:44, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
    That would be a horrible threshold. All you would need is one editor saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT (only phrased as "I've never even heard of {the fruit called apple|the Muse in mythology|the prime minister named Churchill}) and we'd move the dab to the base name? *shudder* -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:25, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
    Any reasonably likely reader, group of readers, not any editor’s claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs) 12:31, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
    "every reasonably likely reader familiar with" is an improvement over "everyone familiar with". Still has the problem with "Muse (band)" vs. "Muse" (the myth). There are indeed fans of the band who have no idea where the name comes from. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:58, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
    I think the PT threshold should be higher, but the driving reason is not simplicity. There will still be arguments. It will not simplify the Avatar arguments, but will fit the underlying principles that rubbed so badly against “PT goes to maximum usage”. Concise it good, but too concise is not good. Much of the PT low threshold support seems to have as an objective having the most frequently downloaded pages at the shortest titles, which I think is a pretty pointless objective. I don’t understand the point of your Muse example. Muse is currently a DAB page, which I think is good. Muse is both ancient mythology, and a simple word. Simple words usually mean a DAB page is best, I think. NOTDICT tells us not to make word definition articles, it does not tell readers that Wikipedia doesn’t do words. We do the wiktionary linkbox, which goes great on DAB pages. On Muse, the most popular topic would be the currently trading entertainment group, and as a for-profit organisation trading under a catchy single-word name, I think it needs to pass a very high hurdle before being given PT for the word. As for Muse group fans who don’t know the meaning of the name, I hold the sometimes contentious view that Wikipedia is a scholarly reference work that should bias towards the scholarly, not the music fan base looking for gossip or tour information. Any serious scholar interested in the group should know the meaning of the name, or should be prepared to quickly find out when visiting Wikipedia. I’m not sure how this speaks to your point? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:17, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
  • I admire the subtitling system used by Britannica online, which is similar to the approach outlined by Netoholic above. Every article gets a two or three word subtitle that also serves as a parenthetical descriptor and pops up during the autocomplete process. This approach eliminates the need for both primary topics and for disambiguation pages. But there would have to be a software upgrade to strongly encourage editors to follow the new rules. Until then, primary topic remains the least awful option. If editors were willing to accept an unambiguous criteria like page views, the process would be less frustrating and the results far more reasonable. Nine Zulu queens (talk) 08:44, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
    • To clarify the above, I favor an article as primary topic as long as the alternative is to make a disambiguation page primary. These pages are often poorly written and few readers appreciate being sent to them. If a "(disambiguation)" parenthetical was attached to every DAB page, they could be avoided more easily. Nine Zulu queens (talk) 01:35, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Less radically

Interesting comment here As stated above, the fact that there is a legitimate argument over what the primary topic is is a good sign of the lack of a primary topic. I tried wading through the previous discussion and didn't find the as stated above but did see links to two previous archived RMs. Presumably it's there somewhere (diff appreciated if you find it... or perhaps Old Naval Rooftops might chime in here and give it).

Could this principle be usefully incorporated in the disambiguation guidelines, or the the closing instructions, or preferably both? It stands to save a lot of wasted editor time and ruffled feathers. The main problem I see is just assessing what is legitimate, and note that the emphasis is there in the original post.

Not to mention (which of course means I will... English is like that), some poor admin or page-mover or a very bold user who is neither will need to close this RM eventually. Give them a break? Andrewa (talk) 16:45, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm with you in wanting a dab but there is a subtle distinction. If there's legitimate argument over what the primary topic is (is it topic A or topic B?) then that's a strong argument for a dab. But if there's agreement that A is the only candidate and the argument is only over whether A passes the threshold, then things are less clear. I think Corvette may be the latter case, despite the quote. Certes (talk) 19:09, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Agree that the distinction is important.
I'm trying to avoid !voting on that particular RM. Certainly under my radical proposal we would have a DAB at the base name, but under the current rules it is less clear, and I think this matters.
Again, the devil is in deciding what's a legitimate argument. In both this RM and the farcical NYRM, there have been three camps, those who suggested A or B as candidates for primary topic as well as those who said neither, and in fact the foreshadowed NYRM2018 is to decide this very issue. But were their arguments legitimate? Andrewa (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
He might be referring to a sentence that used to be in the guideline: "There are no absolute rules for determining primary topics; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic." I never found it especially helpful; it only led to added discussion as to whether or not it was in fact a sign in the particular case. Station1 (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Good point. Again, the devil is in deciding what is legitimate. Andrewa (talk) 20:04, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I haven't been following this thread – so apologies if what I say is irrelevant – but if the motivation for these rather bold proposals is the existence of controversies over at RM, then I think the issue has less to do with the guidelines and more to do with editor behaviour. From my experience so far (not very extensive, let me admit), all the primary-topic-related controversies have seemed to be caused by a small number of tenacious RM regulars who apparently pretend that PTOPIC doesn't exist. – Uanfala (talk) 20:23, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
    • Very relevant IMO, can you give an example (the best readily to hand) of one of these primary-topic-related controversies that have seemed to be caused by a small number of tenacious RM regulars who apparently pretend that PTOPIC doesn't exist? I've replied further here. Andrewa (talk) 01:33, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
      • Uanfala has now provided two examples as requested. One of these they proposed and we were both heavily involved in the subsequent discussion, and they were heavily involved in the other but I was not involved at all.
      • Both discussions were long, involved and passionate, with Uanfala arguing for a move of the DAB away from the base name on the grounds that a primary topic exists. Both closed as no consensus and therefore no move.
      • Both would have closed with the identical practical result under either of my proposals, just far more quickly, in fact possibly neither move would have been proposed.
      • Agree that neither was a good result, in that no consensus is never a good result.
      • Disagree that this is a behavioural issue.
      • In my opinion, both examples demonstrate that both of my proposals have at least some merit. See User talk:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic#Behaviour of the regulars for more on this. Andrewa (talk) 17:59, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I suppose, yes, I do need to give context for "as stated above". My comment was in reference to the lack of consensus in the RM itself, not to any specific proposal that the car is the primary topic for "Corvette". Take a look here: my "as stated above" referenced Certes's refutation of WP:IAR. ONR (talk) 13:06, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Still less radically

Which solution best serves readers who type in "Corvette", and surprises them least? The fact that a panel of experienced editors disagree suggests that the answer is a dab. [11]

This suggests to me that, at the very least, no-consensus decisions on primary topic should default to no primary topic, rather than to no move as at present. Particularly interested in Certes view on this as it's their comment and I don't want to be misquoting them. This would also clarify the two examples quoted by Uanfala above, confirming those decisions, and would have reversed my old hobbyhorse NYRM2016 without all the hassle of NYRM2017 and possibly now NYRM2018. Andrewa (talk) 16:59, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I hope that if one editor thinks topic A is primary and another thinks topic B is primary then each will see that the term is more ambiguous than they thought, and they may reach a consensus to put a dab at the base page. But if no such consensus emerges, the established procedure is that we keep the status quo. Certes (talk) 17:18, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Exactly.
But the examples considered to date all suggest to me that this established procedure is not the best. Basically it reduces our article naming to the child's game of I bags. Andrewa (talk) 04:57, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
User:Andrewa, I haven't been keeping up with this. I do believe there are times when discussion showing that there is no strong consensus in favor of moving a primary topic out of the way can also be good evidence that a dab should be at the base title... and I believe I have closed discussions like that, rarely, in the past. Usually I would be likely to let the request sit for longer than usual in that event to see if the discussion will straighten itself out. But the type of discussion now ongoing at Talk:Bad Company#Requested move 7 March 2018 seems like a good reason to worry about the criterion "a panel of editors disagree." We don't want to encourage initiating move requests without a rationale with the purpose of gauging whether the discussion can reach "no consensus," do we? It seems that "the default is no primary topic" is an interpretation that's been picked up by some along the way. Dekimasuよ! 23:25, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Interesting example, thank you. This is on the back burner while I gather such examples and try to make sense of them all, but it's certainly not abandoned, see here and here. Andrewa (talk) 04:51, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

A hopefully quick !vote

There are many detailed discussions above, but do we think we've reached agreement to swap the order by putting long-term significance above usage? Certes (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

  • Long term significance is the more important. Usage is a quick and easy rough indicator. Avatar is a good example of where long term significance and original versus derivative use beats recent usage. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Long-term significance is a subjective factor, so overemphasising it is problematic. Usage, if averaged out over a sufficiently long period (not excluding the future), probably approximates most understandings of "significance". – Uanfala (talk) 22:28, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
  • There is no real consensus among editors, either generally or often in individual cases, as to which, if either, criterion is more important. One is objective and one is subjective. The guideline doesn't and shouldn't favor one over the other, so there's no reason to change the order. Station1 (talk) 07:51, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Long-term significance is the more important. Usage is a handy tie-breaker between topics of equal (or both relatively low) long-term significance. Topics of general knowledge should always trump topics of fleeting popularity, like commercial products, entertainment, news of the day, and the like. These general knowledge topics may not "sexy" in the moment, but their presence is core to what it means when we call ourselves an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a zeitgeist and its not a popularity contest. In the era of modern search engines, primary topic status is relatively unimportant as searchers will generally get delivered immediately to the right article based on keywords and context. Yes, some people type URL address manually, but I think that's rare. In fact, high usage on a disambiguated topic is proof that people are finding the way to it without a problem. We need to stop worrying so much. The importance of primary topic isn't about usage, its about being taken seriously as encyclopedia. (added) It occurs to me that maybe we shouldn't even call it "long-term significance", but rather rewrite it to describe primary topic in terms of general knowledge trumping specialized, pop culture, or niche knowledge. At issue should be how many people are aware of a topic, not how many view the page (ironically, the more widely known a topic is, the less people look it up). Very few people view the apple page, yet most know what it is and would be astonished if it wasn't the primary topic over a company. -- Netoholic @ 10:18, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) I think we should promote long-term significance over page hits. Station1 is correct in that the guideline doesn't favour one over the other but having page hits at the top appears to have the psychological effect of giving it greater significance. Those who think I'm talking nonsense surely won't mind indulging me.--Ykraps (talk) 09:58, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Usage isn't just page hits. And usage by its nature (being used) encompasses much of significance. The significance is there as a reason to go against the usage to avoid surprise, like with "apple". The usage-then-significance order reflects the process, not the prioritization, so they shouldn't be swapped. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Long-term significance should trump recent usage, especially in light of WP:NOT#NEWS, when an article gets spikes in coverage and lots of editing. Example: Scott Walker (politician) came to attention during the latest Republican primaries and was crowned primary topic in July 2015 against Scott Walker (singer) and other less-notable dab entries. Editors a year later moved the dab page back to the unadorned base name Scott Walker, but much energy was wasted fixing links back and forth. Paying more attention to long-term significance would have prevented the 2015 PT grab. Several editors had justified their support for the 2015 move by interepreting the guideline as giving primacy to usage, e.g. Clearly meets the objective primary topic criterion, usage – I don't think anyone would disagree with that. The other criterion, long-term significance, is of course subjective. Personally I would say a governor and presidential candidate has more long-term significance than a singer, but I guess others could disagree.
This thread also reminds me fondly of the PT discussion about Fingering: is it primarily a musical or a sexual skill?   I feel the proposed change will avoid much unnecessary drama. — JFG talk 15:43, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Should we add something to the relevant section about timescales? A chart-topping singer who was unknown last month may not be a candidate for primary topic, but a product that's been famous for 30 years may be. Certes (talk) 16:25, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I think more important is to preclude currently promoted topics from claiming PT over pre-existing topics or even common dictionary words. Last month's chart-topping singer will be subjected to her manager's promotion machinations. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:20, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
  • For the record, long-term significance is more than adequately represented by the usage criteria (the extent to which a topic is historically significant is reflected in usage in reliable English sources), and, if it must stay, then it certainly has to be secondary to usage. --В²C ☎ 02:14, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support giving long-term significance priority over current usage, partly because of the difficulty noted in deciding just what timescale is current and what is long-term and what is just recentism. (Still prefer to abolish PT as a concept and still gathering evidence there!) Andrewa (talk) 20:53, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Usage is the best (not the only!) way to determine what our readers and editors expect as the primarytopic. Dohn joe (talk) 21:16, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support giving long-term significance priority over current usage. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; it is not clickbait, nor is it a sales-driven tabloid newspaper, or a ratings-chasing TV show, and favouring usage amounts to prioritising transient news or pop culture. Current usage should only ever be a tie-breaker criterion .
    I also support the proposal that no consensus defaults to no primary topic, because chosing one topic as primary over others should require an explicit consensus without first mover advantage. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:25, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
That seems to be a no-brainer to me. If we can't get consensus on a primary topic, then surely it's best to assume there is none, rather than defaulting to squatter's rights. I still don't think that goes far enough, but it would solve the most blatant (and sometimes downright ridiculous) cases. Andrewa (talk) 04:08, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
If editors make reasonable cases for two different PTs then I also suggest there is no PT. But if everyone agrees that there is only one candidate for PT and the debate is merely over whether it passes the PT threshold then it's not clearcut. Certes (talk) 09:15, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Agree. Andrewa (talk) 07:20, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
  • No – a PT should be avoided unless both long-term significance and clear majority usage coincide. Otherwise, disambiguation is better. Dicklyon (talk) 03:59, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Agree (I don't think that goes far enough but that would be a step in the right direction at least). Do you think we have any chance of getting that accepted? Andrewa (talk) 05:23, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly support giving primacy to long-term significance, and using the popularity as a tie-breaker. I'm still appalled that Luther is a dab page because some editors considered that a TV crime series in 2011 was at least as important as the father of the Reformation. — JFG talk 12:59, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Both elements are taken together with the main goal of getting readers to the information they're looking for in the quickest fashion. The second bullet, especially being as subjective as it is, is certainly not more important than the patterns of use by our readers, and so changing the order is unnecessary. The problem with overemphasizing a subjective measure of significance over an objective measure like use is that it will very often come down to what the small selection of Wikipedia editors who participated in the RM happen to think is the primary use. That is bound to create more situations like we're experiencing at Plymouth, where a topic that gets only a fraction of the page views and that many people don't agree is the primary use, has been treated as the primary use regardless″.--Cúchullain t/c 18:37, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Primary topic should be based on page views and on a page of search engine results. How do you measure long-term significance? There is no indication in the guideline. There isn't even an indication of what time scale is meant. I interpret "long-term significance" as an attempt to limit the influence of pop culture of the current generation. But many editors interpret it to mean that the older subject must be primary, even though the guideline itself says that, "historical age is not determinative." Nine Zulu queens (talk) 08:00, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly Support. Long-term significance defines encyclopedic information, and should be listed as the first criteria. Many editors never mention or take into serious consideration, in RMs and other Wikipedia discussion formats, this equal point in the two-tier determination of primary topic. Acting more like this is a search engine rather than an encyclopedia they then sometimes engage in attempts to place primary naming determination to song titles, the names of current celebrities, film titles, etc. Long-term significance has everything to do with encyclopedic knowledge and, specifically, how Wikipedia will define and pass this knowledge on to the human race through the coming years. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:07, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly support giving long-term importance automatic favour over page viewing figures when it comes to establishing what to designate as a primary topic. We already do it in practice in so many places (Supernatural over Supernatural (U.S. TV series) for instance), so it would be best to have that enshrined in our guidelines. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:45, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, since this debate is still ongoing. Well. Sort of oppose. There's nothing wrong with enshrining primary topics as the "main" title when they're highly relevant encyclopedic topics. However, I would draw the line of what qualifies as this rather more narrowly than many on the support side seem to, and experience has shown that people are very subjective about what is "primary" enough past the most obvious cases. Something like Atlanta or Mathematics or a major celestial body like a moon, fine, that's probably a good cause to invoke primary topic. Then there are more borderline cases like smaller towns or philosophical concepts, or cases where there might be a clear "original" but the "based on" version is much more popular / influential. Primary topic deserves to be a consideration for these, but it shouldn't be treated as some instant win. Finally, and this is the main point of dispute I'd want to bring up, sometimes primary topic gets invoked for phrases / things that are not actually encyclopedic and are really WP:DICDEFs in disguise, or in support of woefully minor subtopics of an article. This is the one that I'd raise special opposition to; it doesn't matter that there might be a commonly used English meaning if there isn't an encyclopedia article to write about it, so any primary topic arguments are instantly forfeit. It's especially aggravating when this policy is wielded against "unfit" topics of pop culture wherein the implication is that no TV show / video game / movie / whatever could possibly come close to any other meaning. If it's sharing a name with a genuine primary topic, get out of the way, but if it's just two normal topics, even if one is pop culture, it should be decided using page views & Google hits like any other naming decision. SnowFire (talk) 23:17, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps just avoid rather than abolish

I've been away, and was pleased if a little surprised to see this still going.

So I've had another go at User:Andrewa/Why primary topic is to be avoided, incorporating some more recent thoughts based on comments above. It addresses the original question Long-term significance vs usage more directly than my previous attempt.

Comments on its talk page and/or here welcome of course. Andrewa (talk) 05:24, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't really support you're plan of abolishing ptopic, however I do agree on raising the bar somewhat. If it isn't very clear I do think a disambiguation page is best, to reduce bad links and a dab is often better for the reader to get to, but in other cases it'd be ridiculous IMO to have the page disambiguated, and it'd also lead to a lot more problems of links having to be fixed (it'd be a pain to have to link Michael Jackson (American singer) or whatever it would be then, every time, and Donald Trump (president) and so on, and people would constantly have to fix those links) Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:18, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the input!
It would take some getting used to, but I disagree it would be ridiculous or a pain to have to link to [[Donald Trump (president)|]] (etc) rather than just [[Donald Trump]] as presently, and the resulting running text is identical. Yes, it's a few more keystrokes. We need to consider those against the benefits.
And the benefits are somewhat greater than even I first supposed. See User:Andrewa/negative benefit for my latest analysis. Andrewa (talk) 18:28, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

A case in point

See Talk:Plymouth#Discussion. A very messy RM, and just the latest. ISTM that there would be a case here for saying, no possibility of consensus so the DAB goes to the base name, and we disambiguate the town as proposed. That principle if applied generally would raise the bar on P T considerably. Comments? (And feel free to join the RM discussion of course.) Andrewa (talk) 18:14, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, please. Far too many sketchy primarytopic grabs. Disambiguation is always a better idea when one topic does not have an overwhelming majority of views. Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
As in, an overwhelming majority of !votes? Andrewa (talk) 05:24, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Page views are neither votes nor !votes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:29, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I'd welcome some more clarity on this point - long-term significance is always more of a "know it when you see it" kind of thing. In this as in most cases, if reasonable people are disagreeing about whether something is ambiguous, it probably is. In general, in cases where the page view evidence is clear-cut that something isn't primary in terms of use, it should take a very strong long-term significance case for it to be considered primary. It's better to err on the side of caution and have a dab page be the baseline, rather than risk sending readers to the wrong topic. When it goes the other way - ie, page view evidence is clear-cut in support of a topic being primary, but another topic is more historically significant (as often happens when a recent popular culture topic gets more page views than a more historically significant topic) - there's more room for debate about what should be done.--Cúchullain t/c 16:19, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
To clarify in terms of my comment in the section below, there's a substantial difference between a reasoned statement based upon "knowing it when you see it" and a blunt statement that the primary topic is self-evident. Dekimasuよ! 18:03, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
In practice I think the two types of argument have rather a lot in common.--Cúchullain t/c 18:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Clarity needed first

Over at the 6th (is it?) RM at Talk:Plymouth, many of the discussions this time round have centred on the meaning of the second bullet of WP:PTOPIC - about long-term significance (LTS). Basically that bullet says that it's necessary to consider whether a topic has a lot more LTS than any other topic associated with the term. The average reader would understand that to mean the need to compare the topic's LTS with each other topic's LTS separately, and not the sum of all the other topics' LTSs – as in "this car is faster than any other car I've driven".

This interpretation is encouraged by the use of the same phrase "any other topic" in the first bullet, where one needs firstly to compare the topic's usage with that of any other topic, and secondly to compare it with the usage of all the other topics combined. If "any other topic" meant the same as "all the other topics combined", the first bullet wouldn't make any sense.

Now, there seems to be a widely-held opinion – often voiced and often swaying RM discussions – that despite the wording of the second bullet (the need to compare individual LTSs), what it really intends is that it is necessary to compare the topic's LTS with that of all the other topics combined. This is a much higher hurdle, and it may be a sensible one to set to ensure that primary topics are really really much more significant than the contenders, even though the need for a "substantially greater" amount of LTS is already specified.

So here's my question: Is that the intent of the second bullet, and if it is, how should PTOPIC be worded to make it clear?

I am of course ignoring the difficulty of actually determining "enduring notability and educational value", which is what LTS actually means; and I'm particularly ignoring the difficulty posed by the need to add together the quantities of LTS inherent in each contender topic, which can potentially be about widely different subjects. Those are different, probably more complex, issues that may or may not need to be considered separately.  —SMALLJIM  19:03, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

I've always interpreted the second bullet to imply that the topic should be more significant than all other topics combined. That's just common sense - we shouldn't be treating something as the primary topic if it insn't the most significant of all, especially if it's also not primary in use. I'd support amending the wording accordingly.--Cúchullain t/c 16:24, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
But, but... what you've written there isn't common sense at all. Shoot me down if I'm wrong, but what you're saying is (IF, just for the sake of this argument, we could assign numbers to these factors), that if topic A has 10 units, B has 5, C has 4, and D has 3, then A cannot be PT because it doesn't have substantially more than 12 units (5 + 4 + 3) – it would need to have something like 20 units. In contrast, I'd say that A could be PT because it has substantially more than each of the others – and (to use your words) it still is "the most significant of all" (same as saying it's the fastest car of all). That is the standard that the guideline as written clearly requires.
But if there is consensus for your view (that a super-excess of 20 units would be required) then the significance criterion needs to be rewritten to change "...than any other topic" to "...than all the other topics combined". It appears from the comments below that Galobtter and Dekimasu support your interpretation.  —SMALLJIM  21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
If it were possible to reasonably convert long-term significance to "units", then yes, the topic should have more "units" than all the others combined, or close to it, to be considered primary in significance. And of course it would still be considered along with actual use. Otherwise it makes no sense to send all readers to that topic, especially if it's not also the thing most readers are actually looking for. The issue is that there's no way to measure long-term significance in that way, so we have to look at different measures and rely on editors' judgement.--Cúchullain t/c 19:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. So if I understand you correctly – just considering the second bullet here – a form of words that would match your interpretation would change the comparison from "substantially greater" to something like "a similar degree of", and also change the test from being with each other topic individually to be with all the other topics combined:
  • A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has at least a similar degree of enduring notability and educational value than all the other topics associated with that term, combined.
I thought you were still requiring a super-excess of LTS, e.g. as in the above numerical example, something like 20 units, so that A's 10 units stood no chance of making it PT, whereas since 10 units is quite close to the 12 gained by adding B, C and D's units together, A may be in with a chance. So I now wonder whether the bullet as currently worded does approximate to your requirement in most cases (especially since we're trying to make comparisons of an inherently uncountable factor here) and you are perhaps unconsciously applying a higher standard than you intend to.  —SMALLJIM  11:28, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
I too would support; if there are 5 topics of similar significance and one is somewhat more that doesn't mean it is the primary topic. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:31, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, though the standard required is "significantly more", not "somewhat more".  —SMALLJIM  21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure that rewording this to be more explicit would be helpful. How long is a piece of string? The "long-term significance" criterion is necessarily subjective, and I'd rather not be attempting to "count up" significances or adjudicating disputes over whether a politician, a footballer, and an author combined amount to a similar "amount" of significance as a famous singer. There's enough of that sort of thing already without attempting to place numerical values on significance (what User:Smalljim called "quantities of LTS" above). The statement that significance should be "substantially greater" just requires a broad consensus (in practice) that one article is particularly important to the encyclopedia, rather than an analysis showing that individual editors have properly weighed significances.
I do think improvements to the guideline could be made. We could add a statement related to arguments to avoid in discussions of long-term significance, such as appeals to the idea that a primary topic is "simply obvious" or that it is particularly relevant whether B is a namesake of A. And in the case of discussions like Talk:Plymouth, it would also be much cleaner to have a guideline that resolves the paradox between discussions that 1) show no consensus to move anything, which logically defaults to taking no action and 2) show no consensus that there is a primary topic, which would logically default to moving the dab to the base name. Dekimasuよ! 18:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
'...I'd rather not be attempting to "count up" significances...' Yet we do that all the time with the first bullet – we use pageviews as a countable proxy for the indeterminable "to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term", even though it's generally accepted that it's a really poor substitute. I think we could consider incoming wikilinks to be a countable proxy for "enduring notability and educational value". Incoming wikilinks are first in the list of tools at WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY; seem to me to be at least as good as pageviews is for searches; and giving more weight to them would help avoid the problem of personal biases swaying the result depending on who turns up at the RM.
But the main point here is the degree of excess required and your use of the word "combined" in your 3rd sentence seems to indicate you are in favour of the massive excess position and consequent necessary rewording of PTOPIC.  —SMALLJIM  21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
I don't think any measure yet identified could serve as a proxy for long-term significance on its own. Page views can be useful, but they have negatives of their own. They're affected only by pages that have been created, not that could/should be created, and our systemic bias has a lot to do with that. Templates and mislinks also throw them off. I prefer Gbooks and news searches (there's still some systemic bias involved, but at least it's not Wikipedia's internal bias). However, I don't think any of them really give a full picture.--Cúchullain t/c 19:42, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Did you mean to write "Incoming wikilinks" rather than "Page views" there?  —SMALLJIM  11:33, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, sorry.--Cúchullain t/c 14:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
I think clarity would be helpful to remove confusion as to what we're really talking about - that something really needs to be the most significant topic to be considered primary - and to discourage people from picking around the edges of the wording to support their preferences (in this particular way, at least). I would also support making some closing recommendations along the lines you suggest. I would also support adding arguments to avoid, though that would be more for the closer to be able to point to and say "here's why I gave your argument less consideration"; I don't think it would have an affect on people coming into arguments and saying it's "simply obvious" any more than WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS stops people from otherstuffism.--Cúchullain t/c 19:22, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

At the risk of flogging a sleepy but perhaps not yet brain-dead horse, I'm skeptical that the second P T "criterion" can be made useful. Significant to whom? To a citizen of Albany the P T of New York by long-term significance is New York State. To a citizen of Hobbys Yards and I guess to most of the world who live more than a few miles from New York, it's New York City. If we have a vote on it, we introduce a systematic bias which it would be good to avoid for many reasons, including but not only POV and waste of time (both of readers and editors). The solution to me is simple: Avoid P T whenever possible. It's just a bit radical for many. Andrewa (talk) 20:08, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

For the first criterion we use pageviews as a countable proxy for searches. I'd assert that we should use a countable proxy for long-term significance too. As explained above, incoming wikilinks would seem to be a good one, and their use (or the use of any other determinable, unbiased proxy) would eliminate your "significant to whom?" problem.  —SMALLJIM  21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Our use of pageviews is neither absolute nor without its problems, see User:Andrewa/The Problem With Page Views and of course the very wording of WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY... Tools that may help to support the determination of a primary topic in a discussion (but are not considered absolute determining factors, due to unreliability, potential bias, and other reasons) include... (emphasis as in the guideline).
So no, that doesn't address the problem at all, it just introduces others. Andrewa (talk) 11:06, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I take your point, but isn't the use of some sort of countable property, even if rather inaccurate, better at giving an indication of whatever we're trying to determine than the alternative which is personal opinion? To quote the emphasis back to you: "tools that may help", not "tools that shouldn't be used at all".  —SMALLJIM  11:49, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
The second bullet useless in cases like that. But it's useful when you have a conflict between a historically important topic and another that gets more pageviews. It happens fairly regularly that a current pop culture topic gets more views than a more significant topic - for instance, Atlanta (TV series) currently has more views than Atlanta. The second bullet is useful establishing the TV show should never take the base name "Atlanta" as no one could seriously argue that it has more long-term significance than the city it's set in.
I find your call to abolish PT intriguing but I don't agree, as yet, that no topic should ever take a base name.--Cúchullain t/c 20:40, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I've modified my original proposal considerably... I'm no longer pushing the extreme position that no topic should ever take a base name (actually I never was, my suggestion was that no topic should ever take an ambiguous base name).
But I'm still suggesting that there are relatively few cases in which it's in the readers' interest to have an article at an ambiguous base name. Even the common assumption that it saves mouse clicks is shaky. It seems so obvious... like the fact that the earth is flat ("it is where I live")... but it's not quite so simple!
I suspect that, if and when we get to considering case by case taking this latest analysis into account, we'll find that these valid (in terms of reader experience) primary topic candidates are few enough that we might then reconsider abandoning the concept entirely, again for reader experience. But cross that bridge if and when we come to it. Andrewa (talk) 23:13, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I've changed my mind considerably about the benefits of making disambiguation more of the "when in doubt" option over the last few years. I used to feel that disambiguation should be avoided as much as possible, but that requires the RM closers to have a real sense of the relevant policies and guidelines, and know where and how to put the necessary hat notes and dab pages. But I've noticed many more less-than-optimal RM closes than there used to be, largely attributable to the expansion of page move rights (this isn't a knock on the page movers, the situation was worse before, when pages would routinely stay in the backlog for weeks or even months.) But this appears to be the new normal, and defaulting more often to a dab page, where readers can at least find their topic, is better than the inconsistency that we have now.--Cúchullain t/c 16:46, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
My suggestion of abolishing P T was probably politically counterproductive. (My political incompetence is well proven, I know the theory but fail miserably in the practice.) So many of us have invested so much time over the years in deciding P T issues, it was never going to be easy to sell the idea that we were wasting at least some of that time. I think we may eventually get consensus that it's in the readers' interests to raise the P T bar considerably, but even that requires a certain amount of repentance and is still not an easy sell for that reason. Andrewa (talk) 11:17, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
In the reader's interest is the key phrase here. There's a great deal of discussion above about the time spend by editors in discussing these issues, the energy spend by editors in fixing links, the frustration of editors when there's no perfect solution to a given case (which sometimes there isn't), and so forth. This matters, but the readers' experience is what really matters.
Have readers been complaining? Do we have any survey results? If not, then maybe nothing's broken. Herostratus (talk) 02:30, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
Herostratus: Hard to say. I've seen cases where readers (or rather, anons/new accounts who are apparently readers first) express frustration or confusion when an article isn't where they expected it to be. I can't think of all the examples off the top of my head, but it happened repeatedly at Talk:Phalangeriformes when it was located at Possum. Of course there, a solution was found even under the present disambiguation practices, so I'm not sure that's evidence that a major change is needed. I'd say the better argument for that is following creation of the page mover right, there's been a lot inconsistency in RM closes and the subsequent cleanup of links, redirects and dab pages, which can hurt the user experience. It may be in readers' interests for us to increase the level to which we treat disambiguation as a "when in doubt" option.--Cúchullain t/c 14:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Asaf Ali and Asif Ali

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

The red link on the Asif Ali disambiguation page is actually Asaf Ali. Would it be appropriate to replace 'Asif Ali may refer to:' with 'Asif Ali or Asaf Ali may refer to:' on the Asif Ali page and put Asaf Ali as the primary topic? or would it be better to stick him in the See also section? Leschnei (talk) 15:28, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd shift him to See also (fixing the link) and leave the rest of the page untouched. This is not a disambiguation page for Asaf Ali, though clearly at least one person would think of looking for him here. Certes (talk) 16:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughts, Leschnei (talk) 16:46, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
That was a good move, and I also added a {{Distinguish}} hatnote on top of the Asaf Ali article.[12] — JFG talk 12:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Wyatt and Wyatt (disambiguation)

Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

Wyatt and Wyatt (disambiguation) were both listed as disambiguation pages, so I changed Wyatt to a set index, but I'm not sure that this is correct. Would it be more appropriate to move Wyatt to Wyatt (name)? Then Wyatt could become the disambiguation page and Wyatt (disambiguation) a redirect to Wyatt. Leschnei (talk) 23:57, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. If there is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Wyatt I would think it's the human name, and I don't see sufficient reason to split it into an article (SIA or otherwise) on the surname and its use as a given name. We do sometimes do that, but usually not for content this short. More like John (given name) and John (surname) kinds of cases. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:18, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
I think that I was fussing unnecessarily about whether or not a set index page should include given name, surname, and fictional characters. I've removed the set index template from Wyatt and I'll leave it at that. Leschnei (talk) 02:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Have done a bit of tidying-up on Wyatt (disambiguation). PamD 05:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
And the surname page needs a source re derivation. PamD 05:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Dab cleaned up. Widefox; talk 17:48, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

George Cross Disambiguation

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

See Talk:Douglas Ford (GC)#Requested move 5 July 2018 and Talk:Walter Anderson (GC)#Requested move 11 July 2018. Should we disambiguate people only notable for winning certain high awards by those awards? This definitely affects Category:Recipients of the George Cross, Category:Recipients of the Victoria Cross and Category:Recipients of the Medal of Honor, all of which use this form of disambiguation. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:52, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Use of potentially unnecessary "technical" term as disambiguator?

Latest comment: 6 years ago12 comments4 people in discussion

I wrote the article Aisome-gawa (Noh) last year; theoretically, Aisome-gawa (play) or Aisome-gawa (theatre) would have been okay in the short term, but there's actually another work of ... "performance art" of the same title, and I'll be writing an article on that one at some point if no one else gets to it first, so "(Noh)" is probably the best term to fully disambiguate the title, and I suspect the words "Noh" and "kabuki" (though perhaps not "bunraku") might be recognizable enough to our readers that it's not a big issue.

But I'm considering writing another one on Ugetsu (Noh); there don't appear to be any other theatrical works of that title, so I'm wondering if "play" or "theatre" would be preferable. But then there are philosophical questions of whether Noh libretti are actually "plays"; I think they are, but I take a broad definition of "play" under which operas are also "plays", honestly Noh are probably closer to operas than plays (the Japanese sources call them yōkyoku, or songs), and it seems "(opera)" as a parenthetical disambiguator has pretty broad acceptance (a total 70 articles in Category:Italian-language operas and Category:Italian-language opera stubs incorporate it). But almost no one calls Noh "opera" in English, AFAIK.

I could get around the problem by just using "(theatre)", but that would unnecessarily break MOS:COMMONALITY, and frankly I prefer "X is a(n) Y"-type disambiguators to "X is a work for the Y", and the generally project-wide tendency to default to the former seems to agree with me.

Looking around at others in Category:Noh plays, it seems "(play)" is the most common (although I'm skeptical about whether all of them are Noh or were just miscategorized, and checking that is beyond the scope of my current problem) and In ictu oculi (talk · contribs) back in 2013 and Xanthoxyl (talk · contribs) back in 2007 collectively created three "(Noh play)" articles, where we currently have no other articles on plays with those titles. I'd be happy to move the Aisome-gawa (Noh) article to conform to the precedent set by those (sorry, I hadn't checked until now), but I really feel like setting a standard now would be better, since currently none of the articles in that category need disambiguation beyond "play".

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:14, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

It should be "(noh)" per MOS:GENRECAPS, and it seems fine as a disambiguator because (WP:RECOGNIZABLE): "a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize". If you're familiar with noh and works of noh you'll be familiar with the word noh, pretty much by definition. If there were not a second-level ambiguity problem, "(theatre)" would be fine, as it is not a COMMONALITY / ENGVAR problem; the spelling is routinely used even in the US in reference to live stage performances, as opposed to movie theaters. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: I am not sure exactly why, but Noh is almost always spelled with an upper-case N in English. This is not the case with any of the examples listed at MOS:GENRECAPS, so I have to wonder whether it applies. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:11, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Because it's the same kinds of publication who capitalize Waltz and Ballet; it's a specialized style fallacy. Some dictionary research suggests the habit was helped along by it commonly being spelled "No" in English and the caps being applied as a disambiguation, as with the game Go. This habit pre-dates digital typography, and really shouldn't be used on Wikipedia. We have {{lang|ja-Latn|noh}} → noh markup for a reason. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:23, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Your argument is fairly compelling by itself, but do you have any reliable sources? I looked around and was able to find some (a very small minority...) English books that don't capitalize it, but my personal favourite, Seeds in the Heart, uses its author's personal style preference -- marking the long o with a macron despite "oh" being very common in English -- and still capitalizes ("Nō"), and while I can't establish whether he would capitalize "Waltz" and "Ballet", he doesn't capitalize the related terms "kyōgen", "sarugaku" or "dengaku", so I see no reason to assume he would do so for less-similar western genres. And while I'm anything but well-read on ballet and waltz, I've honestly never seen those words capitalized for the reason you give, so it is at the very least a much less common practice than "Noh". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:47, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
The RS are all around us: theatre, dance, film, and other arts sources routinely capitalize any and all genres/styles/movements/schools of those things, while other sources tend not to; the fact that it's not always done means it's not really a proper name (see if you can find any reliable source that writes "queen elizabeth" or "the ussr" or "mount vesuvius"), so per MOS:CAPS it should be in lower case. This is as much a WP:CSF as WP:SSF case; it's not just a specialist fallacy but a "commonness" fallacy. It's also overwhelmingly common to use "less" when "fewer" is meant ("15 items or less"), but WP doesn't write that way. In this one weird case, we have people capitalizing a genre term more broadly, but it's just out of a combination of disambiguation (not necessary with the h) and unfamiliarity. If there were some performance style called vallëshqiptare and often capitalized Vallëshqiptare in performance publications, English-language writers unfamiliar with Albanian would be fairly likely to capitalize it by mimicry rather than try to do research to figure out if it was a proper noun or just "genre capping". This isn't a case I would push very hard about; the noh fans are all likely to want the capital N and will fight to keep it, and we have better things to do. After a few more years of WP:NCCAPS / MOS:CAPS cleanup across dance and theatre and other arts articles, maybe approach it then with an additional WP:CONSITENCY argument. [shrug]. Same with go, shortened from igo; there is no proper noun in its history. People just capitalize this Japanese loanword as an alternative to italics. It's an "old plain-ASCII Internet" habit that's rubbed off. But few English-speaking players of the game want to hear the facts; they're emotionally invested in their precious capital g. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:06, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
The disambiguation guidelines provide guidance on when a qualifier is needed, but it is typically up to WP:AT and the content-area project(s), such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan or Wikipedia:WikiProject Theatre, to determine a consistent set of qualifiers to use when they are needed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:15, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Hello @Hijiri88: notwithstanding others' advice above, there isn't a page Aisome-gawa. If Aisome-gawa (Noh) is the primary topic then it should be moved to the base name. If Aisome-gawa (otogi-zōshi) is the primary topic then it should be moved to the base name. If there is no primary topic then Aisome-gawa should be created as a disambiguation page. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 09:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
@Shhhnotsoloud: Sorry to be so late, but there is another work with the same title, but none is the primary topic; all three are fairly obscure, and are all named for an actual river that doesn't currently have an entry on English Wikipedia because of systemic bias (and I'm guilty of that -- I don't generally care about geographic features enough to write articles on them as geographic features), and is also apparently a name given to the Shakujii River in Tokyo. Japanese Wikipedia just has a disambiguation page even though none has a standalone article (thank you User:DFT B3LYP for highlighting the absurdity of the situation that en.wiki has articles on multiple aspects of Japanese traditional culture that are not covered on ja.wiki). Basically what I am saying is that Aisome-gawa should definitely be a disambig page (and Aisomegawa should redirect to it), and the reason I didn't create one is that I was super-busy last November (disambig pages don't qualify for Wikipedia Asian Month) and I'm just generally not very good at it. (In fact, the only reason I created the Noh article in the first place was because the otogi-zoshi article I wanted to write would likely be dependent on it.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:11, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
@Hijiri88: I created a new disambiguation page Aisome-gawa and a number of redirects. If you do change Noh to noh please change the link at the disambiguation page too. I hope that helps! Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 09:27, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll be sure to do that. Although I'm still not entirely convinced that "noh" is superior to "Noh"... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:47, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I would just let it go for now, though it should probably have language markup (outside of an actual article title, of course). The capitalization is common enough in English, and as long as people don't try to use it to capitalize everything related to performing arts or Japan it should be okay. (However, it's not consistently capitalized in other languages that use capitalization for proper nouns, so it's not one. The capitalization in English is just because it's a short, ambiguous [in one spelling] word in a field where people like to capitalize for emphasis.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:19, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Does renaming one article to a NATURALDAB title mean that the other articles that it was ambiguous with can use less precise disambiguation, since the NATURALDAB renamed title is no longer ambiguous with the remaining options? -- 65.94.42.168 (talk) 04:56, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Possibly, but without knowing the articles concerned it is not going to be possible to say for certain as things like primary topics, naming conventions, incoming links, etc. might need to be considered. Thryduulf (talk) 06:26, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Red White and Blue

Latest comment: 6 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

At one time Red White and Blue was a long DAB consisting mostly of flag icons (as seen here). I felt that none of the flags other than the flag of the United States were really referred to as "red, white, and blue" (as mentioned in the infobox of that article), so I removed them. I thought it analogous to WP:DABABBREV; essentially, just because the other flags can be called "red, white, and blue" because they contain those colors does not mean they are known by that term. As a concession, I included a link to List of flags by color combination#White, red, blue.

Recently, more flags are creeping back in (thankfully, without the icons). So I want to make sure I'm understanding the guideline and reach a consensus on whether flags other than that of the US should be included. Thoughts? Hoof Hearted (talk) 14:41, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, for a start the Union Flag has always been referred to as the red, white and blue.[[13]] [[14]] [[15]] So I suggest reverting, pending further research.--Ykraps (talk) 15:20, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Being a Yank, I'll plead ignorance, but I mean no offense: you've provided links to a song's lyrics, a pub, and a school event. If there were a pub named The Yellow, Red, and White with a picture of the flag of Dorset on it I would not necessarily conclude that the flag is well-known by that name (just that the pub had taken its name from the colors of the flag). The lyrics seem to convey a broader understanding of the connection between "red white and blue" and the UK flag (or at least British patriotism) - so I'll grant that I may have overstepped by removing that particular flag. I still think this moniker needs to be added to the Union Jack article, and probably cited for good measure, before it goes on the DAB page (per MOS:DABMENTION).
But now we're on a slippery slope. If "red white and blue" can mean the Union Jack, does that mean every flag that contains the Union Jack is also known as "red white and blue"? (New Zealand, Australia, the US state of Hawaii, etc.). And if those get added I can see other editors adding any flags that contain the three colors, regardless of whether it's truly known by this name. I agree that more research is needed, and I welcome any further comments. Hoof Hearted (talk) 16:24, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Are you denigrating the references I have provided whilst producing as your evidence; an unreferenced mention in Wikipedia, an online 'encyclopaedia' almost universally recognised as unreliable? Red, White and Blue Day is not a school event, it is a national event [[16]] which some schools subscribe to. Please look at the link again. I don't know if other countries refer to their flags as the red, white and blue; like you I haven't bothered to do any research, but I can assure you that the British flag is.[[17]][[18]][[19]][[20]][[21]] So again, I suggest you revert and avoid making controversial moves based on what you "feel" is right.--Ykraps (talk) 07:26, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
To answer your question: I am not producing evidence but applying a wikipedia guideline (MOS:DABMENTION). I have bothered to do some research, but it's difficult separating basic descriptions of these flags vs commonly held nicknames - perhaps I'm being to strict in looking for a reference that says, "this flag is also known as 'the red, white, and blue'". Rest assured, I believe "red, white, and blue" can represent the Union Jack (or British nationalism), and it belongs on the DAB page Red White and Blue. I'll reiterate that per MOS:DABMENTION the term (or a very close variation) should appear on the target article, which was my main issue with all the other flags I removed. Hoof Hearted (talk) 13:24, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Someone searching for or attempting to link to an article about the Flag of the Republic of China might try Flag of Taiwan, Flag of Taipei, maybe Flags of China, Flag of nationalist China or even Flag of Formosa, but no one is going to type Red White and Blue expecting that to be the title of the article they are looking for. Even for the U.S. flag, "the red, white and blue" is occasionally used as a colloquial nickname, but no one would really expect it to be the title of its encyclopedia article. So I think all the flags can safely be deleted as useless clutter. At most, List of flags by color combination could be at the bottom of the See Also section. Station1 (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
You have a point that although the term is derived from the colors of the flag, so say that it means the flag is somewhat mis-leading. I still feel most users would expect "red, white and blue" to represent "all things American" (or British). I'm wondering if American nationalism (and British nationalism) might be better targets? Or ____ patriotism, ideology, ...something like that? Hoof Hearted (talk) 13:53, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I've just created Red, white and blue flags and Red, white and blue flag as redirects to List of flags by color combination#White, red, blue as search results didn't include that article but did include the dab page. Thryduulf (talk) 21:37, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Stuart Jamieson

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I have found articles for Stuart Jamieson, Stuart W. Jamieson, and Stuart Jamieson Fuller. How should we disambiguate someone arriving at "Stuart Jamieson", looking for the latter two men? I am unsure whether to create Stuart Jamieson (disambiguation) or move the present "Stuart Jamieson" to Stuart Jamieson (politician). Your advice is welcome. Flibirigit (talk) 01:30, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

A hatnote at Stuart Jamieson will handle it all. PamD 07:13, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Done. PamD 07:16, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
As a postscript, no reader should be looking for Stuart Jamieson Fuller under the name "Stuart Jamieson", unless that is the way in which the subject is consistently referred. We would require evidence to that effect to change our current title scheme. bd2412 T 17:17, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
True - his mention in the hatnote is perhaps unnecessary: it's not as if "Jamieson" was ever his own surname, as it's his mother's maiden name. Feel free to remove it. PamD 22:40, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Frances Murray

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Hi, quick question, a new article has been created for Frances Murray (suffragist) but the article Frances Murray is a nom de plume for the writer Rosemary Frances Booth, née Sutherland. Looking to therefore create a disambiguation page at Frances Murray which would link to both Frances Murray (suffragist) and Rosemary Frances Sutherland from there. What would be the best way of doing this without messing up links to/from and version history of pages? (I've not needed to create a disambiguation page before where the best title for that page already has an article there so looking to see what constitutes best practice). Many thanks, Stinglehammer (talk) 13:26, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

@Stinglehammer: Hello. Since there are only two articles — Frances Murray and Frances Murray (suffragist) — if we assume (at least for the time being) that the author is the primary topic then a disambiguation page is not required: a hatnote at Frances Murray will suffice (and I have done that). If you think there is no primary topic, then you could follow the procedure at WP:Requested moves to move Frances Murray to Frances Murray (author) in order to create a disambiguation page at Frances Murray (but to be honest readers will find what they want through the hatnote anyway). Hope this helps. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 18:47, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
@Shhhnotsoloud: Many thanks for this, good to know. Cheers Stinglehammer (talk) 11:35, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Primary topic

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

This change by Red Slash clarifies the threshold for "primary with respect to usage" as much more likely "than any other single topic" (rather than the more stringent test of "…than all other topics combined"). However, I think it introduces ambiguity as to whether "primary with respect to long-term significance" requires greater notability than any single topic or than all other topics combined. Can we agree on which meaning is intended and find a clearer wording? Certes (talk) 12:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the clarification to the usage test is helpful, as it further distinguishes “much more likely than any other single topic” from “more likely than all the other topics combined”. I don’t agree with the change to the second bullet; it should be “substantially more” than any one other topic, not substantially more than all of them together.--Trystan (talk) 14:06, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I didn't read the change from Red Slash as "substantially more than all of them together", but I see now the ambiguity. The previous wording for the second bullet was clearer (as long as no change in meaning was intended). If a change in meaning was intended, yeah, we should discuss first. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Should discuss and almost certainly shouldn't substantively change! Doing so would open a floodgate of relitigation of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of old RMs. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:13, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. For "long-term significance", I've reinstated the previous wording pending any consensus to change it. I've kept the improvement to "usage". Certes (talk) 23:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 August 2018

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

In the section Naming the specific topic articles, in this sentence Natural disambiguation that is unambiguous, commonly used, and clear is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation; for instance mechanical fan and hand fan are used instead of fan (mechanical) and fan (implement)., Mechanical fan is called Fan (machine). Can you please move Fan (machine) to Mechanical fan so that it maintains its accuracy? Thank you. 2601:196:8400:C90:A47C:38B4:C9D2:F297 (talk) 13:46, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

  Not done, because that would have to be done via a page move, not an edit to this article. However, perhaps someone could update this page with a better example. I don't know a good one offhand. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:07, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, we need a better example, because moving the article back to Mechanical fan will likely not happen (such fans are not often called mechanical fans, but just fans, while hand fans are in fact typically called hand fans in contemporary English). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:48, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Good catch; thanks for reporting it. I've replaced the example. Certes (talk) 16:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Robert Maxwell (disambiguation)

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

The Robert Maxwell (disambiguation) page lists many Robert Maxwells, one of them is Robert Maxwell (bishop), an Irish bishop. I want to create an article about Robert Maxwell, Bishop of Orkney so since the normal naming style is already taken, what's the procedure in this case. --Bill Reid | (talk) 11:23, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Since the existing bishop was the bishop of more than one place, the best option would be to move it to Robert Maxwell (Irish bishop). The new article should follow the same naming scheme and Robert Maxwell (bishop) can redirect to Robert Maxwell (disambiguation) as an R from incomplete disambiguation. —Xezbeth (talk) 12:08, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll follow that procedure. --Bill Reid | (talk) 18:20, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Vagabond (disambiguation) and The Vagabond

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is quite a large overlap between Vagabond (disambiguation) and The Vagabond, so I have proposed at talk:Vagabond (disambiguation)#Proposed merge with The Vagabond that the latter be merged into the former. Thryduulf (talk) 14:44, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

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