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Islands

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)#Islands -- Chuq 08:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Replacing "may mean" with "may refer to"

It is common that the title word does not mean the listed item in a disambiguation page. For example, listing "Band, Afghanistan" or "rubber band" as a meaning for the term "band" would not be correct. In the examples here, too, this error is found: "school" does not mean "School Street"; while a person may mean "School Street" in a particular context when they use the word "school" (though this is highly doubtful considering the ambiguity and is better reason not to use "mean"), the word does not mean "School Street". Further, where a particular usage in a context may have a certain meaning, it is not merely possible ("may") that the term has these meanings, it does regardless of what the user is looking for. Is there some better term instead of "may refer to"? So, I propose that "may refer to", or possibly some heretofore unknown better term, be favored over "may mean" where appropriate, which is in all or nearly all cases. - Centrx 16:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I find that saying "may refer to" works the best; you have a good point about "may mean" not fiting, it sounds better then "can refer to", and it's important to say "may" because all the definitions may not be on the disambiguation page. -- Natalya 16:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree about the limitations of "may mean" -- it is only applicable in fairly narrow contexts. I'm confused by your final question though -- Is there some better term instead of "may refer to"? -- you articulated shortcomings of "may mean", yet you end by questioning "may refer to". I agree with Natalya that although it may not be perfect, "may refer to" is a simple and relatively clear formulation. In terms of the purpose of a disambiguation page, a reader arrives at the page and is presumably looking for a specific usage of an ambiguous term. Hence I think the "may" is appropriate in such a context. I'd be willing to consider alternative formulations, but this has been discussed before. Problem is, to be completely accurate we'd probably have to say something like "Term X" has {several|multiple|some|many|a few|a couple of} possible meanings. You may be looking for one of the following:". Personally, I like the simplicity of "may refer to", even if it might not perfectly pass non-contextual logical and grammatical purity tests. older ≠ wiser 16:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

That final question was supposed to mean: "may refer to" is better than "may mean", and maybe there is some other alternative that is more appropriate than "may refer to"? I have clarified that last part in my original comment. - Centrx 18:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, some people hate "refers to". See this message I received a while ago. So in the guideline we let you choose if you want to use "may mean", "may refer to" or whatever. There is a fair bit of discussion about this in the archives somewhere (but I'm not inclinded to find it :-)).--Commander Keane 19:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Heh, heh. I remember (and likely helped to fuel the flames of) a few such discussions. There are a few editors for whom the Use-mention distinction is something of a hobby-horse. Personally I think that while articles should certainly avoid "refers to" in introducing a term, it is completely appropriate on disambiguation pages precisely because such pages are about a term as a term, an ambiguous term with multiple possible referents. older ≠ wiser 20:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Very good point - disambiguation pages are different than articles, which is why "refers to" is appropriate. -- Natalya 21:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I dug these previous discussions up from the archives: MoS:DP archive 6, archive 8, archive 15, WikiProject Dab archive 2. --Muchness 20:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

for me (be warned - not english native) may refer to is the best I have seen. may better than can (because it something might be missing), and refer better than mean for the reason given by Centrx. I would like this to go in the (a?) Policy. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 21:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

_ _ At one point i argued against "may be", bcz of the rare cases where the dab'd term is not a noun. But these are so rare (and so likely to involve dict-defs rather than legitimate 'pedia topics) that they should be no consideration for the predominant (or even universal) wording.
_ _ Thus on further reflection, i am using

X may be:

bcz this is a navigational device, not a damn philosophical treatise. Anything more complex than "may be" invites the user to wonder at least subconsciously "what distinction are they trying to make here?" They got to the Dab by typing, or clicking on, something that they thot or hoped would get them straight to their topic, and philosophical precision is a distraction as unwelcome on a Dab page as images, external lks, or the 99% of "extra" lks (which provide info that could conceivably aid dab'n for 1% or less of users). KISS.
_ _ It should also be borne in mind that the user expects the freshly presented page to begin, like a good WP article, with a dict-def or its biographical equivalent. "May be" requires the least possible mental shifting of gears from "is", bcz the only mental adjustment they need is from waiting for an

X is ...

(indicative mode) to seeing an

X may be:

(conditional mode), and thus taking on the momentary role of choosing among the tree that is a plant, the tree that is a mathematical entity, and the tree that is a receptacle for coats and hats. Believe me, the user wants an article, not the joy of seeing a tour de force of use/mention discrimination. Give her a quick route to an article, rather than a self-indulgent demonstration of our ability to screw with her head.
--Jerzy•t 02:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

First, aside from semantic problems, cases where the title term does not directly correspond to listed items are, in fact, numerous. I listed above only a couple--which remain good reason for not using "may mean", and even less "may be"--but many others can easily be found. Second, why is a normal, reasonable sentence without any especially complex words, distracting or an attempt to "screw" with someone's head?

It could instead be that a person confronted with a sentence of confused meaning would be distracted. Yet, without knowing which might in fact be more distracting, or whether either is really distracting at all, why not have the page say what it means, in plain English? This does not entail that strings of words like "Tree may be tree (graph theory)" or "Tree may be World Tree" make much sense. Ultimately, it may be okay for some pages to have "may mean", but all those pages for which that is not a well-formed sentence, including the "school" example in the MoS, ought to be changed. - Centrx 04:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Why not dodge the whole philosophical issue with something like, "You may be looking for," or "The following are all referred to as Foo:," or even "The word Foo may refer to:"? In other words, why not make something besides foo (in the "use" sense, not the "mention" sense) the subject of the sentence? It isn't an article, it's a dab page; we don't have to directly address the topic immediately, not even knowing which one the reader has in mind. Or is anything besides "Foo may be," "Foo may mean," or "Foo may refer to," a terrible idea? -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

When disambiguating human names, "may refer to" wastes few words, seldom causes confusion, and seldom offends. Archie Fooberg may refer to Lord Archibald Fooberg in a tabloid headline, but would not be appropriate in formal correspondence. Using "is" or "be" for human names seems too strong for me, as one name is not another name, but any form of a person's name may, in some case, refer to the person. Chris the speller 15:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Chris has a very good point about human names. And not to push the "may refer to" point, but it really does cover all bases. By saying "may refer to", we're saying "any of these entries may have been based off the word 'foo', even if they are someone's name or included in the title of something, etc", but in a very concise way. -- Natalya 16:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

_ _ I'm simply confused by the Archie Fooberg example. Is your point that Archie Fooberg is too rude for the 'pedia? That we have to distinguish rude names from effete ones? I don't grasp what else you could mean, but making such points as those is outside the scope of Dab'n, and suitable material in the one article the user is looking for -- but not in the Dab, where it impedes the process of finding the one article for all the users who are looking for one of the other articles on the Dab page. If people see "Archie Fooberg" in a tabloid and don't know that it means "Lord Archibald Fooberg", it seems to me it's the job of a Dab or Rdr to help them toward that article without the delay of lectures that distinguish the status of one name from that of the other.

_ _ IMO construing "John Smith may be ... John Smith, the novelist" as "The name 'John Smith' may be the novelist named John Smith" is an example of what i meant by screwing with the user's head: it's on a par with standing behind a counter with a coffee pot, when someone says "I'd like a cup of regular decaf", and responding "Do you mean you're pleased by the regular decaf i gave to the guy at the other end of the counter, even if i give you nothing?" As in coffee shops, our users know what they are here for, and the user who lands at the John Smith Dab page knows without our help that they got there by invoking (typing, or clicking on a lk) a string of 10 characters; she has no real interest in whether we think it represents the person, the name, the topic, the article, or some other possibility. She may value the reassurance that her invocation of that string didn't land her in the Divine Madness Dab page or the Baghdad Battery article (or the Amazon.Com page for Mapplethorpe's "The Perfect Moment"), but "John Smith" at the top of the Dab page serves that purpose that makes it irrelevant whether that string refers to person, name, topic, or article, whether actual or hypothetical: ignoring those disinctions is just like the non-head-screwing coffee guy saying "one regular decaf, coming up".

_ _ With that in mind, we might be wise to dispense with the declarative mode altogether in the Dab lead: it wouldn't be crazy for the first line to read

For John Smith, select from:

or

Select your John Smith from:

The essence of my advocacy for

John Smith may be:

is that "may be:" is about as terse, flexible, and non-commital as we can make it, in light of the fact that the user doesn't need more than that from us. The more and bigger and narrower words we use, the more likely that we are mischaracterizing some special case (like yellow as a verb or adjective, not our usual noun-titled articles), or (more seriously) inviting the user to waste time wondering if we've correctly modeled thing vs. name or use vs. mention, in a situation where complete agnosticism about the ontology of the Dab page would be ideal.

_ _ Frankly, i don't that much like "John Smith may be:", but i'm skeptical that "For John Smith, select from:" could be seriously considered.
--Jerzy•t 08:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

You may have read too much into my example. I only meant that it is perfectly OK for Archie Fooberg to disambiguate to the article on Lord Archibald Fooberg, so the person who sees Archie Fooberg in a tabloid headline can easily look him up, but saying "Archie Fooberg is" suggests an equality between the two names, and the names are not equal, though either one can refer to the same person in different contexts. "Archie Fooberg may be" suggests the same thing to me, but less strongly. "Archie Fooberg may refer to" is accurate, reasonably short, and inoffensive.

As for "select from:", I don't like computers or encyclopedias telling me what to do. A list of links on a dab page looks like a list of choices to me, and I don't need to be told to make a choice. Indeed, it is quite possible that the article I am seeking is not among the choices. Chris the speller 22:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Order of entries

The "may mean" / "may be" distinction is still useful for dab pages that are divided into two separate sections as described in the Order of entries section. I've restored the mean/be usage for this specific case. --Muchness 23:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Piping and human name pages

Does the anti-piping "rule" apply as strongly to human name disambiguation pages? I generally agree with not piping the links on a disambiguation page, however, I also don't have much expereience with human name disambigution pages. Consider Ladislaus. This is the name of a bunch of kings and princes around Poland/Hungary/etc. who each wind up being known by 2, 3 or 4 different preferred "variations". One result, is that currently Ladislaus Posthumus of Bohemia and Hungary shows up as 3 different links László V, Ladislaus, Ladislav but never as the actual name of the article. Thoughts? Ewlyahoocom 23:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Before piping, consider the reader who is struggling to find an article, who investigates Ladislaus, then Ladislav, only to find the same article. There would be less astonishment if the links were not piped. This page does present a challenge, for sure. I would put the proper link, followed by "referred to as Ladislav by the Bohemians" or something like that. Ten editors would do this page ten different ways. BTW, I bet Ted Knight never went by his middle name, so he shouldn't be there. Chris the speller 04:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Even if the names are slightly different, and may not be spelled the same way as "Ladislaus", they all belong on the disambiguation page in whatever form they are. -- Natalya 17:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Bizarre double primary topic format

Hey All! For better or worse, Wikipedia is (mostly) case-sensitive -- so it's possible to have 2 (or more!) "primary topics". For example, Jim Crow is a redirect to Jim Crow laws; and Jim crow is some kind of bending tool. I tried a double primary topic format, but it looked a little strange and has since been reorganized. But how would you have handled it? Ewlyahoocom 15:50, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I recently had the same problem with ETA, eta, and ETA (disambiguation). ETA goes to the apparently primary topic about the Basque nationalist group, while eta redirects to ETA (disambiguation). If ETA was the true primary topic, eta should redirect to it instead. Then the question came up of whether eta (letter) should also be a primary topic, and if eta should redirect to that. It seems much too confusing to have different cases of the search redirect to different pages. If there is a situation (such as the two above) where different cases lead to two separate but equally primary articles, I'd think that having all the searches redirect to the disambiguation page would be best. This makes it as un-confusing as possible -- Natalya 17:05, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, too many dab pages can be confusing, even if proper. And the Jim Crow page looks better after the reorganization. Chris the speller 17:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

My thoughts -- for Jim crow, I'd argue that there is really only one primary topic and the somewhat specialized and not very commonly known railway tool should be renamed, something like Jim crow (rail bender). Jim Crow laws would remain the primary topic and all the uses would be listed at Jim Crow (disambiguation). ETA and eta is a little more interesting, the Basque organization is certainly the primary topic for all caps "ETA", while there is a very good case for the greek letter as the primary topic for lower-case "eta" (or due to Wiki software limitations, "Eta"). Nearly all of the links to Eta are for the Greek letter. But practically, I think having two primary topics for the same three-letter combination would lead to confusion. I think the current situation seems pretty reasonable. ETA, the Basque group is rarely spelled in lower case, so I don't see why "eta" or "Eta" should redirect there--seems more sensible to redirect that to the disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 17:32, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Good points about ETA/Eta. That's probably a case where ignoring all the rules ends up for the best. -- Natalya 17:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Jim crow (tool) might be better than Jim crow (rail bender), which might be taken for an occupation. 208.58.242.29 23:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Images to disambig?

Any comments on the use of an image on this disambig page to aid it: Mississippi Delta (disambiguation)? Thanks/wangi 20:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

This is one of the few examples where an image does assist in disambiguation. There was another example once, I can't remember, but it was very similar. -- Natalya 20:47, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, in this instance it does help... But in the general case I wouldn't say so. I've converted it to use the {{legend}} template now/wangi 21:12, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Awesome - it looks perfect. -- Natalya 22:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Congo (disambiguation) was the earlier example, discussed in Archive 16. Chris the speller 01:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

And I just changed it to use the {{legend}} template. Thanks for the lesson, Wangi! Chris the speller 04:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I found the image at Footpath to be (unintentionally?) appropriate, so I let it stay. Any other "hidden gems" out there like this one? Ewlyahoocom 13:20, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Not really a hidden gem, but I've always liked the image at Field - in truth it probably shouldn't be there, but it makes the page look nice, and doesn't get in the way. -- Natalya 14:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

The footpath photo does not even show a footpath, just a road and signs that point to footpaths that are not visible. It sure doesn't help disambiguate, as it could apply to two of the three articles, and doesn't indicate which article(s) it applies to. As usual, Natalya is right; the photo at Field should not be there. "Green field" and "paddock" appear nowhere on the page, except in the caption. A reader could spend quite a few seconds trying to decide which article it applies to. It's an OK photo, but should probably be on Field (agriculture) instead of the dab page. It slows down the loading of the page and probably distracts most readers, whereas the Mississippi and Congo images definitely help to disambiguate. Chris the speller 05:03, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, c'mon! The Footpath photo is just funny (in self-referential way). Or am I the only one who thinks this? Ewlyahoocom 08:42, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ewlyahoocom about the footpath sign. It'll be a sad day when a such an innocuous tiny bit of levity is prohibited. Is it really such a bad thing that a reader might spend a moment to stop and smile? At worst they might wonder WTF is that picture doing there--I find it extremely difficult to believe it would contribute to any genuine confusion though. The field image is somewhat less clever though, IMO. older ≠ wiser 12:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

On your suggestion, Chris, I added the field image to Field (agriculture), and it is now in the correct place. -- Natalya 16:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Boo! I'm sorry I opened this subsection of the thread. It is far more controversial than I imagined. Ewlyahoocom 20:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't worry about it! It's not really as controversial as it seems. :) -- Natalya 00:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to add an explicit recommendation to the project page along the lines of "Images are discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles"? Or, are there cases (such as pillar), where there is a primary article linked to in the lead sentence, and that primary meaning is closely related to several of the other disambig lines? --Interiot 19:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that case - the primary article is defined enough that it doesn't seem like it would be easily confused with any of the other entries. -- Natalya 19:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see the line Interiot mentioned ("Images are discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles") added to the guideline. The image in Pillar isn't helping and should be removed.--Commander Keane 19:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Whoa

How's this for a nasty disambig page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=DB&oldid=51737242

!?!?!!!! /wangi 21:13, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It looks much prettier now. :) -- Natalya 22:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Dates of birth/death

I would like to axe the requirement for including birth/death dates on human name disambiguation pages. While this can sometimes be useful, in many cases it adds nothing, i.e. where people with the same name were born at around the same time, and would be better replaced by a short description. Chris Evans is an example I found recently - I was searching for the ginger haired radio presenter but I didn't really know his year of birth so this info just distracted me from a quick and easy disambiguation. — SteveRwanda 09:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Normally you'd see both dates and short description on a name dab, e.g.:

Chris Evans (broadcaster) (1966—), ginger haired wanker

/wangi 10:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

True, but the question remains as to whether the year seriously aids disambiguation. Do you think there's anyone out there who is unaware that he's a ginger haired wanker, but will immediately leap to that article on the basis that he was born in 1966? I personally find the two pairs of brackets: (broadcaster) (1966—) more distracting than helpful. — SteveRwanda 10:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I've seen it done nicely with "name, born whenver, a whatever whatever". That way, the information is given, but it's not distracting. -- Natalya 11:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

An example would be John Williams (disambiguation). There are so many political entries, you need the dates as well. CarolGray 13:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Not so bold, me

I would like to propose text for the main page here, but I haven't been around long enough to start messing with a style sheet. However, I feel like this page jumps immediately into technical details and does not adress the most common user-experienced problem with disambig pages. Viz:

"Disambiguation pages should be as concise as possible while allowing readers to locate the specific page they are looking for. Because disambiguation pages are edited less frequently than much of wikipedia, and generally do not have talk pages, they can become an environment where POV and unverified claims persist. Descriptions should rarely need to be more than one sentence, and should not have citations or make claims that are in need of citations."

Ethan Mitchell 03:41, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

You are suggesting that this text or something like it be added to the page? - Centrx 05:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I keep seeing things on disambig pages that look like someone lost an edit war on the main page and is trying to get their two cents in where no one will bother to edit it. I think we should front-and-center the need for brief, non-controversial definitions on disambig pages. Ethan Mitchell 18:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, here's an example. On the disambig for Troglodyte, one entry used to read: "In France, it refers to modern-day persons living in caves carved out of soft rock. In 1900, 5% of the French population was living in such dwellings" The second sentence, obviously, is a surprising fact if true. I asked for a cite, and now there are two cites, one of them being the referenced page itself. To me this seems pointless and redundant. Discussion about whether or not 5% of the French lived in caves in 1900 should be consolidated to one page. There is no advantage to having odd factoids like this on the disambig page. Ethan Mitchell 18:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Again, former text on the Free Energy disambig page: "Free energy suppression is the notion that corporate energy interests deliberately suppress technologies that may provide energy at very little cost. Widespread existence of such technologies would diminish use of some corresponding sector of the energy industry, and the existing energy infrastructure has momentum defined in trillions-of-dollars. From these one fact and a supposition is derived the possibility that genuine (virtually-) free-energy-powered technologies exist, but have been well suppressed. Following the same logic, a third possibility is that false claims would arise to exploit the doubt of the situation. A fourth extension of this logic is that great argument would arise about the realities of various claims. And for this fourth point, there is evidence..."

Six sentences, basically incoherent, and POV right down to the ellipsis. What I am looking for is some blanket guideline that this sort of thing is prima facie inappropriate on a disambig page, so it does not need to get discussed every time. Ethan Mitchell 18:49, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

For the most part, these seem to be cases where the pages require cleanup (Free Energy already had the tag, and I added it to Troglodyte). I'm not inputting on the subject, just mentioning that. -- Natalya 20:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes! The best way to handle these would simply be to clean up the whole page. (Copying and pasting a sentence fragment from an articles first sentence -- if the article is decently written -- is usually easy and quick and requires a minimum of editing or thought. And if anyone disputes the blurb it you can suggest they take it up on the article itself!) Ewlyahoocom 21:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a change to the wording of this guideline is required. It already says "Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles" - which covers the POV issue.--Commander Keane 22:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I suppose my reasoning is something like this. In practice, it seems to be very unusual for any sustained discussion to occur on the talk page of a disambig page. Most d-pages have no talk page. So it would be nice if there were a blanket brevity policy that one could point to in editing down disambig pages. It doesn't seem to me that the text cited by CK is really strong enough to counter well-intentioned POV pushing. Ethan Mitchell 00:46, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

We agree with you that the dab pages should be free of POV and unverified (or even verified) claims, but the people who are loading up the dab pages with all that crud have not read this guideline, or do not heed what is already here: "The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link." Your proposed change to this guideline would be less effective than a message on an editor's talk page asking him or her to comply with the guideline as it exists already, and you always have the right to trim such junk, or tag it for cleanup. If everyone who wanted to add a paragraph to the guideline did so, it would soon be too long for sensible folks to read. With this in mind, we often agonize over adding even a short phrase to it. Chris the speller 02:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Perhaps I will start trawling the dab pages for junk. Ethan Mitchell 23:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

If you're really feeling daring, you can always take a look at Category:Disambiguation_pages_in_need_of_cleanup. :) -- Natalya 01:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Specialised Dis pages

Following on from the discussion above, if Template:Hndis, Template:Geodis, Template:Numberdis and so forth are to be kept they should have some mention on this page. Given that they're somewhat controversial (I don't think they're too useful myself, but whatever :) I've added this: "There are also specialised templates for disambiguation pages with only one type of entry (for example, Template:Hndis for pages that only list ambiguous human names); these can be found in Category:Disambiguation and redirection templates." Hopefully it is appropriately unintrusive. Regards, Ziggurat 04:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the situation is currently strange, but I have removed your addition for the time being while we try to work something out. I think everyone agrees that a centralised wording (as provided by {{disambig}}) is appropriate for all dab pages, but that these extra templates diverge from that.

Combined with the issue of some dab pages requiring multiple templates, using the standard {{disambig}} combined with categories is the way to go. Thus the templates should not be used on dab pages, and that's why they aren't mentioned in the guideline.

I think the solution is to create a new section, Categories, below The disambig notice section. It would say something like:

To aid in keeping track of specialised disambiguation pages, categories can by added to dab pages. These include:

• Category:Lists of ambiguous place names
• Category:Lists of ambiguous human names
• ...

Before creating a new category, please discuss its merits on the talk page.

--Commander Keane 19:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

It appeared to me from the template deletion debates that not everyone agrees with that, and in fact that some debates have leaned strongly the other way - so there should certainly be discussion about whether they're useful or not. Ziggurat 20:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)