Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation

For discussion related to disambiguation on Wikipedia but not to the project, please see the Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation (general disambiguation) or the Manual of Style (specific style questions).

Reformation

Does anyone objection to moving the disambiguation page at Reformation to Reformation (disambiguation), and returning Reformation as a redirect to Protestant Reformation? It was like that until a few months ago, when an editor changed Reformation back to a disambiguation page. I attempted to contact the editor who made the change, but never got a response. "The Reformation" almost always refers to the Protestant Reformation, and there are currently a huge number of links to the disambiguation page Reformation. -- Natalya 19:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

No objection here. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Neither here. Srnec (talk) 04:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Nor from me but why not go one step further and move Protestant Reformation to Reformation? Abtract (talk) 05:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Works for me, but I expect opposition. Srnec (talk) 18:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

New Wiki Cleaner version

Hi,

I have just released version 0.79 that should fix problems with SUL accounts. MediaWiki edit API has been enabled very recently on Wikipedia, so I am now using it for saving pages instead of simulating a browser. Since it's completely new, you may encounter a few problems. Please report them to me :)

--NicoV (talk) 12:15, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Disambig deletion sorting

I am an active editor to WP:AfD and because of the growing trend of disambiguations going through there, I have created a deletion sorting category for disambiguations. I thought this wikiproject might want to use it, but I don't know where to put the link on the main project page, so for now I'm putting it here. Thanks, Tavix (talk) 00:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Sine Qua Non

Sine Qua Non currently directs to Sine Qua Non (Battlestar Galactica), a Battlestar Galactica episode of that name, rather to Sine qua non, the Latin phrase. There's now a proposal to move it to direct to the winery Sine Qua Non (wine). I've made my comments on the redirect talk page Talk:Sine Qua Non, but it would perhaps benefit from comments of members of this project, who know the DAB policies and issues well. Just to declare my own bias, which is express on that talk page and probably implicit here, I think it should redirect to the Latin phrase, which should (and already does) have a hatnote to the DAB page, which should list all candidate pages. TJRC (talk) 19:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Jinx (disambiguation)

I would like to properly re-add The Jinx to this page, but don't know which blue link should be placed. Any suggestions? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, you have at least four different uses of The Jinx, based on "what links here". I suppose they could all be included, but if so they should have disambiguators added and the links in the articles corrected, such as The Jinx (magazine), The Jinx (album), etc. SlackerMom (talk) 21:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Guess I'll take care of this later, if no one beats me to it though. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 21:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, sometimes it feels better to just carefully close the lid on ol' Pandora's box...! SlackerMom (talk) 21:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't come up with a dabbing for the one at List of works by Robert E. Howard. Any thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

How 'bout delinking that sucker? Can't imagine a page for that would last long ... --AndrewHowse (talk) 01:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Delinking is certainly an option, but if you want to include it, I'd suggest The Jinx (short story). That seems to be the convention of many other titles on that page. SlackerMom (talk) 03:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help folks. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Britney Spears, Laurie Anderson, and "Radar"

Hi folks.

Kinda new here.

Issue: Britney Spears song "Radar (song)."

It's listed in the disamiguation page: Radar (disambiguation)

There's another noted song called "Radar" by Laurie Anderson's
in her Home of the Brave (soundtrack).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT77BzpMoEM

Should this Radar (song) page be turned into a disambiguation page?

Thanks.

Yartett (talk) 14:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it could just be listed at Radar (disambiguation) as Radar (Laurie Anderson song). That redlink should then be a redirect to Home of the Brave (soundtrack). --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've spotted the new entry and cleaned it up a little bit. SlackerMom (talk) 16:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmmmmmmm,
The title "Radar (Song)" compared to "Radar (Laurie Anderson Song),"
and perhaps a "Radar (Morphine Song),"
implies that Britney's Radar is more pre-eminent than Anderson's (or Morphine's);
even though Britney's is quite recent and might not stand the test of time,
while Anderson's has.

As for the redirect, it implies that Anderson's song doesn't have a story, or one more compelling than Spears'.
If there is to be a redirect, could it wait:
say a month or two?

Yartett (talk) 17:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the issue is that someone has written an article about the Britney song, whereas the others do not have articles about them. When they are written, it would be perfectly appropriate to rename all the songs more equitably. Dab pages are for distinguishing between wikipedia articles, so the existence of an article automatically gives a link more weight. SlackerMom (talk) 18:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

OTOH, please remember that the disambiguator is a tool for disamibiguating; it is not a primacy-ator. Since moving the others is a thing (and has implications for creating double redirects, etc.), and Wikipedia does not need it, it is acceptable to leave one article at (film) while another article comes along at (2007 film) or what-have-you. Discussion at Talk:Radar (song) would be appropriate, I think. The Spears song may not have stood the test of time, but it stood the test of Wikipedia: of all the Wikipedia editors, one of them opted to create an article for the Spears song before one of them opted to create the Anderson song. The inferences of story-having or compellingness are not implications.

Whatever the outcome, Radar (song) should not become an incomplete disambiguation page. If there's a tiff over which singer "gets" the (song) disambiguator, Radar (song) would become a redirect to Radar (disambiguation), not a dab page of its own, and all the places that link to it as Radar (song) would need to be updated to link to the correct article instead of the dab page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, nicely done. And I like the "primacy-ator" thing. Needless to say, I fully agree. SlackerMom (talk) 21:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

"The Spears song may not have stood the test of time, but it stood the test of Wikipedia: of all the Wikipedia editors, one of them opted to create an article for the Spears song before one of them opted to create the Anderson song."

But has it, considering that it is being considered for deletion?

I wonder if there is a generational thing going on here.

Anderson's song was made almost 2 decades before Wikipedia, and about 10 years before the Internet itself.

Britney's song is recent.

I wonder what would happen if it was switched, would there even be an article as this song might have faded in 20 years, like other Britney songs faded; or maybe we might have articles on both. I also wonder if record company hacks might have contributed, if not created the article---I hear stories about A.I. programs in chat rooms.

If the article is to stay, and I'm certainly not opposed to the existence of an article about Britney Spear's song; and not have one on Anderson's, I can live with that provided, there is either a Radar D.A.B. page link on top of the Britney Radar article, especially considering that there maybe even many other songs of this name, and perhaps some yet to be made;
and I certainly don't want to hear someone say, "You mean this 'Laurie Anderson' made a song called 'Radar?' Yeah? Well Britney did it first---Wikipedia says so. (It says 'song' not 'Britney Spears song'.)"

Yartett (talk) 16:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no generational thing going on here, unless you're referring to the older generation (of which I'm a part) seeing the change in musical tastes as a personal affront. The sequence of Anderson song -> Internet -> Wikipedia -> Spears song is irrelevant. There are other policies for moving pages (see WP:RM) and for the placement of hatnotes (WP:HN); while dab notes on pages with parenthetical dab phrases are usually avoided, if you're concerned that a reader might type in "Radar (song)" in the search box and arrive at the Spears page when seeking the Anderson page, that might be a reason to have the hatnote there anyway; again, a good topic for Talk:Radar (song), or perhaps WP:SONG (hey, which does say that multiple articles on songs that share a title should disambiguate by including the artist name -- so if the Anderson song article gets created, you can quote that). Wikipedia does not say Spears' song came before Anderson's -- it says (song), not (song that came out before Laurie Anderson's song). -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)Surely this is moot in the absence of a an article about the Laurie Anderson song? If one is created, then we could discuss the relative merits, and if we reached a consensus to rename pages, then we have processes to do so. But you're attaching too much importance to the disambiguators (the parts of titles in parens). They're just technical aids to reduce confusion; the content of the article is much more important. --AndrewHowse (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

PS Please don't use </br> tags in your posts. Most browsers can format the text sensibly. Thanks! --AndrewHowse (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so I'm new here. I see a list of an articles being considered for deletion. I notice the article---because I know of Laurie Anderson's song. I don't have a problem with Britney having an article, but I want Anderson's recognized,and I have problems with the name of the article; and I say as much, including a D.A.B. page issue. I'm enlightened: partially thanks to you. This will be my last post here. "not (song that came out before Laurie Anderson's song)." Huh? (I don't see "the change in musical tastes as a personal affront." I like lots of new music, just not (virtually all of) Britney's.) As for the </br>, I find it make it easier to read, but as you, and others, have commented on it, I'll refrain, and let my some of my sentences look like fragments.;-D:Yartett (talk) 17:53, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I look forward to reading your article. Seriously. Happy editing. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Sabrina

Re Sabrina

I think I'm having a bit of trouble here with two other editors. Either they're taking WP:IAR too seriously, or have no idea what they're doing. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Inclusively, what about this? Thought it was ok to list these types of entries so long as the individual or character is called "Sabrina". Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 07:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

This edit is wrong -- the entry is known as Sabrina, so it should be included. Stop shortening other editor's descriptions as in this edit. The guideline on keeping things brief does not prohibit keeping things grammatical. Characters with two name get listed on the name-holder list unless they are commonly known by a single name. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:54, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Blue Mountains

What do folks here think of User:Sardaka's edits to Blue Mountains? --Tesscass (talk) 19:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion going on at Talk:Blue Mountains. Chimed in there. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with JHJ's view on the talk page but would also ask "does it really matter where the list goes, top or bottom?" Abtract (talk) 19:22, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec):Seems a tad pushy of the List of ... page, given that dab pages are supposed to help readers find an article, rather than a range of potential results. A list ought not to be a primary destination from a dab page. S/he wouldn't have a stake in that list, by any chance? Oh. --AndrewHowse (talk) 19:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

If it goes at the top, that's one more line for everyone who's not looking for the first line to have to scan past. Minor, yes, but the dab page is a navigational aid, and speed bumps are not navigational aids. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

what is wp:NRHP doing wrong RE disambiguation?

I mainly like to work on articles about sites listed on the U.S. NRHP, and to make lists of them. There are numerous disambiguation pages necessary to distinguish between the numerous places listed, however, and frequently there are editors attracted -- i don't know why -- to attacking them. For example, the Lewis House disambiguation article has been attacked twice recently. It costs tons of time and edits to dissuade each one of the new attackers. What, in general, can i or other wp:NRHP members do to reduce the likelihood of attack, or to reduce the damage done in any one program of attack? doncram (talk) 20:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Lists of sites listed on the U.S. NRHP are not disambiguation pages. Lists of Wikipedia articles that might have been titled the same thing are disambiguation pages. There are, however, frequently editors attracted to disambiguation pages who try -- I don't know why -- to use disambiguation pages for things other than listing ambiguous Wikipedia articles. Then disambiguation project members have to come in and use tons of their own time and edits to clean up these mistakes. To reduce the "damage" done in these "attacks", you can:

1. Assume good faith and use less confrontational language. The "attacks" aren't attacks, for instance.
2. Follow the disambiguation guidelines when editing disambiguation pages.
3. Use list articles (or user pages, or NRHP project pages) instead of disambiguation pages for your lists that aren't disambiguation pages.

These are the suggestions I made before. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay your sarcasm made me laugh. I deserved some of that. However, seriously i am asking how to avoid campaigns by new and/or experienced editors who take a different view than has previously been taken on what is proper for a disambiguation page, and apply their view to 150 articles in a few hours time. The latest campaign is costing at least one AFD-type discussion (with result KEEP), and three Requested Moves, and lots of edits to undo the effects of the editor, costing many more hours than the campaigning editor put in. It is very confusing to figure out what to do. Will just putting "SIA" on a disambiguation page work? But what if it is disambiguating between bands and other things that are not NRHP sites, it seems the disambiguation is real but it is false to assert it is a set index, there is no way that there should be a normal article mixing up bands and historic places. Specifically, is Lewis House okay, or is there some way to improve it to lessen the likelihood of a campaign. I do believe it complies fully with all disambiguation guidelines, but I am afraid for it, i am up nights worrying. doncram (talk) 01:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not directly involved with the disambiguation project, but I do try to follow WP:MOSDAB when I edit disambiguation pages. To that end, I don't see what benefit the header "United States" gives the reader — anyone who sees that the locations are in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, etc., will recognize that these are locations in the United States. WP:MOSDAB suggests headings only for longer lists, which Lewis House isn't. I also don't think that the subhead "(by state)" is necessary.

Personally I'd expand "NRHP" to National Register of Historic Places in its first usage. I think it would be OK for the first line to read:

Lewis House may refer to any of these houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places:

Incidentally, if you have concerns about the actions of one editor, it's often more useful to contact that editor and discuss those concerns directly, rather than complain about their actions in different fora.

And it's not good to be staying up nights worrying about Wikipedia pages. Try to relax and keep cool! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, laughter is a good sign. I'd say, no, you wouldn't want to just replace {{disambig}} with {{SIA}} in general, although I'm sure there are other pages that have done so in an attempt to escape the dab guidelines (and the dab project members). Certainly on any page that is titled "blah (disambiguation)" couldn't just be called a set index article without being moved, and base-name lists would possibly run in to different problems, especially if they are at a base name that could house one of the articles (or be a redirect to an article) as the primary topic for that name. But as long as it's not misnamed or nominated for deletion (on whatever basis lists use for notability), that'd be an option.

As for the example of Lewis House, currently:

Lewis House can refer to:

==United States==

(by state)

• Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado), listed on the U.S. NRHP
• Lewis House (Tallahassee, Florida), NRHP
• Lewis House (Ruston, Louisiana), NRHP
• Lewis House (Shreveport, Louisiana), NRHP
• Lewis House (Reading, Massachusetts), NRHP
• Lewis House (Lewistown, Montana), NRHP
• Lewis House (Fargo, North Dakota), NRHP
• Lewis House (Cape Vincent, New York), NRHP

No, it's not properly formatted for a dab page. There's no need for the section header or the "(by state)" notation (which could be kept in a comment), and the NRHP article does not serve as the blue link for the red link entries, since that WP article does not describe any of these Lewis Houses, so the red links should be commented out, moved to the Talk page, or moved to a List of historic places named Lewis House list article. Even if it is copied to a list somewhere else, the Lewis House base name article should remain a disambiguation with (currently) two entries, the Florida and North Carolina blue-linked articles, and the a "See also" section pointing to the new list article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Josiah and JHunterJ for your comments.

About spelling out NRHP, I am fine with that, i was just trying to be succinct. It is not a generally known acronym though, so I guess i agree the first instance should be spelled out.

About including the "United States" section header, that is more helpful in disambig pages that have places from more countries, such as Gilbert House which is similar but has one place in the Falkland Islands. I guess i think that having "United States" in is still helpful for Lewis House, given that probably there are other Lewis Houses in other countries. It seems U.S.-centric to omit the United States, especially if the places are sorted by state. In the Gilbert House case, it would be improper to insert the Falkland Islands one amidst the U.S. ones, that would not be a natural organization that would serve readers. It seems natural to organize it by country and then sort the U.S. ones by U.S. state. It seems unfriendly to the arriving other wikipedian who wants to add a Lewis House in another country, to have a structure that doesn't accomodate its addition. So, perhaps could you consider further about Lewis House, and comment about the same issue for Gilbert House?

About NRHP serving as a bluelink for some purpose, JHunterJ, I don't understand what you are driving at. There are currently two blue-links in the list, meaning two articles about Lewis Houses. A link to NRHP is unrelated and does not count in the total of articles disambiguated, no one is asserting that.

If you are counting how many blue-links there are, as if that is a criteria for whether a disambiguation page is allowable, I understand that having one bluelink is enough to justify having the disambiguation page. I believe this is the consensus of discussions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Red links on disambiguation pages and at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Disambiguation pages with all red links but one. Do you think otherwise? If so, this is important to discuss again.

About red-links for sites being disambiguated, that seems to be another crucial point to discuss here. I understand that having red-links is okay. The proposal to ban red-links in disambiguation pages, in the MOS discussion linked above, was dropped in the face of what I thought were convincing arguments. In particular, red-links to all the Lewis House articles that will eventually be created serves wikipedia readers and it serves wikipedia editors. It serves readers looking for a specific Lewis House, who are not misdirected to a different one, and who get to see whether there is an article for their one already or if an article is needed. It also serves readers indirectly by serving editors, who know what names work well in creating other Lewis House articles, rather than creating them in some incompatible style. And there are further reasons, well detailed in the previous discussions about how it serves readers and editors. Also, there is no wikipedia policy or guideline suggesting that red-links should be deleted or hidden in comments (which is pretty much equivalent in my view). AFAIK, it is and continues to be proper style to include red-links in disambiguation pages. I stated that in talk about red-links at Talk:Gilbert House, which i have just noticed and rejoined. I notice that JHunterJ responded there with a further comment which I didn't understand, but which generally seemed to be against meaningful red-links. JHunterJ, sorry to be making this discussion in two places, but could you respond here as well as there, to clarify what you mean? Or, reading the previous discussions, can you now agree that red-links to disambiguated places are justified? doncram (talk) 04:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, there does seem to be one more point of confusion: dab pages vs. dab page entries. It isn't that dab pages must have relevant blue links; each entry on a dab page needs to have exactly one relevant (i.e., linking to an article descriptive of the entry) blue link. There are eight entries on Lewis House, only two of which have appropriate blue links. There is no proposal to ban red links one disambiguation pages. There is also no proposal to allow red links on disambiguation pages without an appropriate blue link in each of the red-linked entries.-- JHunterJ (talk) 11:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe there is a simple answer that we have all missed ... include only entries with articles (bluelinks) and put NRHP in the "See also" section. This way the manual of style is satisfied and the reader is given the opportunity to find a list of items that do not have an article yet. Oh and the headers are really not helpful in such a short list imho. Abtract (talk) 05:26, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't get whether Abtract is making a joke or is serious. It is obvious to me that just putting a see also to the general NRHP article or to the nationwide list of NRHP sites is not helpful to the reader. Obviously, a reader looking for a local place named Lewis House or whatever is looking for an article on Lewis House, and deserves to be given a list of the places named Lewis House, hopefully showing a bluelink or at least showing a red-link for the one that they are specifically interested in. That is what disambiguation pages are for. I could understand you being mistaken but not persisting in an anti-reader view that the reader should not be allowed to learn of the known-to-be-wikipedia-notable places named Lewis House. Perhaps you are not familiar with NRHP sites: they are notable in wikipedia because a) there is documentation available about each of them (secondary sources for verifiability) and b) they have been deemed notable by the U.S. government (and in the process, by state and sometimes local governments) on a national scale of importance, according to various criteria regarding significance of architecture, important persons associated with a site, and so on. Please see NRHP for an intro to the topic. doncram (talk) 05:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I was making a serious suggestion. Trying to shoehorn non-articles onto a dab page is not helpful to readers who are looking for an article whereas limiting the list to actual articles is helpful ... that's why the manual of style "prohibits" redlinks unless there is a link on the same line to another article containing (at the very least) a section on the topic. What you are trying to do is to make these dab pages into lists of sites ... I am not saying that list are not useful but a dab page is not the place; dab pages are not lists of articles that may one day exist, they are pages to help readers find the article they seek. My suggestion is to retain the value of the dab page by including only articles and to show NRHP (or whatever site listing is more suitable) in "See also". This will have the effect of being helpful to readers who seek an article that exists because the page will be uncluttered with redlinked lines that go nowhere useful, and may also be helpful to disappointed readers (the article they seek does not exist yet) because it will point them to a list of places similarly named. Abtract (talk) 05:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I want to acknowledge that you have a point about dab pages involving NRHPs that some editors (although not me) are trying to make into lists of sites. For example, someone else put the NRHP redlink "McGilbert House" onto the "Gilbert House" disambiguation list. I would be fine with such implausible alternatives being removed; I went as far already to move that one down to a see-also section. And there are some editors who have tried to make disambiguations about some types of sites into lists, even adding a message "This is a list and a disambiguation article" into the text, which is not correct according to wikipedia style.

However, you are incorrect about what is explicit wikipedia style for red-links. Explicitly, red-links are allowed, and there is no requirement for a bluelink on the same line that links to an article that has the same redlink. I see that having a bluelink like "List of Registered Historic Places in Georgia|a registered historic place in Georgia" on the same line serves a purpose in making it easy for the dab editor to see that there is a context in which the red-link is important enough to be linked from. But the explicit MOS:DABRL guideline says that is not necessary, it is only necessary that the red-link be important in some wikipedia context, i.e. to be linked from it. There is a procedure described for you to look that up, and presumably find the list-article of registered historic places in some state which has the same red-link. It is a courtesy to dab-editors, going beyond what is necessary, for me to add ", NRHP" after a red-link, to suggest to you that there probably is a state or county NRHP list-article already linking there. However, I have to admit that in many cases, the state or county NRHP list-article still links to the disambiguation page, and not to the red-link.

So, bottom-line, I request that you refrain from deleting (or commenting out) red-links that meet any one of the following criteria:

1. Do not delete a red-link to a NRHP site if there is a county-, state-, or other NRHP list-article with the same red-link. (This is explicitly per MOS:DABRL.)
2. Do not delete a red-link to a NRHP site if there is link from a county-, state-, or other NRHP article to the disambiguation page, which should be replaced by a specific red-link to the specific NRHP site. (This is a request, to you to be courteous to the wp:NRHP editors like myself who are busy fixing up the county and state list articles to find such occurences and replace them with correct, specific red-links. Note, it helps us to have the disambiguation pages in place to find these properly. I myself have been working through all the List of Registered Historic Places in New York to find such cases, and others are working in other states. If you identify a red-link of this sort, it would be appreciated if you would fix it (by fixing the entry in the relevant county- or state list-article) or note it in a list of fixes to be implemented at wp:NRHP.

Note, since there is or should be a link to every NRHP site from one or another NRHP list-article, I am asking you in effect not to delete any NRHP redlinks. If there is any circumstance not covered, I would appreciate your notifying me and/or the wp:NRHP, so we can address anything missed by my reasoning here. Also, I would like to ask you (and other dab-editors), not to delete mention of ", NRHP" following a NRHP redlink, because that serves to identify to editors that there is a context in which the article is important (saving them from going through the lookup procedure). This is important because experience has shown that editors are often arriving and embarking on red-link deletion. Also, it serves readers by giving some suggestion of what the place is, like saying this is "The Cedars" which is an NRHP, rather than "The Cedars" which is a band or a person, and it is extremely brief so it does not clutter up the article. doncram (talk) 06:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

back to the Lewis House example

The discussion has wandered away from the original example, Lewis House, but there are still a few MOS items that I'm not sure Doncram understands the rationale behind. If a disambiguation page has a long list, it's appropriate to divide it into logical sections. For a geographically based dab page, it makes sense for that division to be geographical. For example, the division at Gilbert House seems appropriate. But that doesn't mean that every geographical disambiguation page needs to have those divisions. In the case of Lewis House, it really doesn't make sense to have a header under which all the entries fall. It's not US-centric if no Lewis House outside the US has been identified as potentially worthy of having a Wikipedia article. I think the appropriate course of action is to delete "United States" and "(by state)". If an editor subsequently wants to add another Lewis House in the UK, or Australia, or South Africa or somewhere, then the page can have bolded divisions, like Gilbert House does. But there's no need to establish that structure preemptively.

Doncram, you seem to have a slightly proprietary attitude towards this page. Would you mind if I made the small edits which I think would bring the page into closer keeping with WP:MOSDAB? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, and I am sorry if i have given the wrong impression here by being too argumentative (really, i was thinking that, that i have been too argumentative here). I don't feel proprietary about that one disambiguation page in particular; my interest in asking for feedback here is really to try to cut short the numerous, conflicting edit campaigns by both wp:NRHP editors and dab editors and others, which change stuff back and forth, often losing reader-useful and editor-useful info in the process. If we could hash it all out in just one or two pages, and agree that those are the models, then I am hopeful a lot of low-grade edit warring could be stopped. Please do make changes to the Lewis House page to illustrate whatever points you would like to make. doncram (talk) 04:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the more cooperative tone, Doncram. We are all working towards the same goal here, after all. :)

I've made a few structural changes to Lewis House (removing the "United States" header, putting the link to National Register of Historic Places into the lead, turning the "by state" into a hidden comment). The only matter that needs to be resolved is the lines which lack blue links. The reason that WP:MOSDAB recommends that each line contain one blue link (which need not be the main entry, mind you!) is that we want to be able to point editors towards some article which contains information related to each entry. (See MOS:DABRL.) In this case, this is a bit of a challenge. Options could include linking to the relevant list of NRHP places, or the city in which each Lewis House is found. Neither of these is ideal, though. We should talk this part out a bit more. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Have just had a look at Lewis House and it seems a very strange dab page. When another building (or even person) not on the US NRHP and called "Lewis House" needs to be added it will need to be totally rejigged. I would think that the introductory line of a dab page should be much more neutral, just the usual "... may refer to:", and the individual items should have a blue link, on the lines of:

*Lewis House (Ruston, Louisiana), Registered Historic Place in Louisiana, USA

The first item on the list has no incoming links, so should not be listed. I've not checked others.

One value of including redlinks in dab pages, where these are already established in other articles, is that it shows what the established form of name for this potential article is, to help any future editors create an article which will match existing redlinks rather than inventing a subtly different new article title, avoiding future confusion. This doesn't seem to have been mentioned much in the above discussions.

Well, that's my thoughts anyway, from the other side of the big pond. PamD (talk) 07:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks PamD. The reason why the first one on the list, Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado) doesn't have another incoming red-link is because the geographically organized NRHP list that should show it, List of Registered Historic Places in Colorado, currently links to the Lewis House disambiguation page instead. Instances like that will be fixed when wp:NRHP editors work through the Colorado list, table-izing it, adding photos, and checking all the links, at which time the Lewis House disambiguation page will serve a useful purpose. I have very actively been doing this for List of Registered Historic Places in New York, which covers 5,000 of the 85,000 NRHPs. Other editors, such as prolific User:Sanfranman59 are working on other state lists. Obviously i could fix the Lafayette one to avoid the issue for this one, but I want to ask dab editors to refrain from deleting NRHP red-links like this one. To ask you to either let it be, or to fix it (by finding it in the Colorado NRHP list and changing "Lewis House" to "Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado)|Lewis House". I am pretty sure that wp:NRHP will get through almost all of these in about 6 months time, if that helps anyone see their way to agreeing to let these be. (If 6 months went by and not every single one was fixed, I would still want you to let these be, or fix them yourself, rather than deleting them, though).

I strongly agree with PamD's observation that the entire page would have to be "rejigged" when one non-US or other non-NRHP Lewis House gets added to the page, so I don't think the general introductory sentence saying that all the following are NRHPs is the way to go. That assertion is only temporarily true. When the first non-NRHP gets added, perhaps a bogus non-notable place added by a Mr. Lewis, or perhaps a legitimate addition by someone aware of another wikipedia-notable Lewis House, it is very likely that it would be added in without changing the first sentence and without identifying which is the non-NRHP one. I prefer this version of the Lewis House page, which is neutral in its intro, has one blue-link to National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), and which identifies on each NRHP line ", NRHP". This is robust to newbies or others adding in other types of sites.

For example, Gilbert House is mostly NRHPs and may once have been all NRHPs, but it now includes one non-US place and a couple non-NRHP places, such as a Gilbert House which is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument but not NRHP listed. I don't think Gilbert House is an ideal example in its current form, now showing as a Set Index Article, but it shows the complications that one or two additions make.

To amplify, it is also for consistency grounds that I favor the simple ", NRHP" following each NRHP entry following the first one, whether the entry is a blue-link or a red-link, because that is also robust to new editors making changes, and all the NRHPs in a dab page can be treated consistently. It seems wrong to me to add an explanation for each of the NRHP red-links, but then to drop the explanation for those ones which become blue-links. It would appear inconsistent, and many editors would be attracted to adding back the NRHP mention or geographical NRHP list blue-link on lines for existing articles, or they would be attracted to deleting the NRHP mention or geographical NRHP list blue-link on lines without articles. doncram (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

For the robustness reason, i prefer putting in the United States label already, even though Lewis House currently has only U.S. entries, because the formatting for adding in other countries is then clear to others who come in. Also, showing United States already makes it clear you don't need to say USA on each of the U.S. entries. Notice the adding and subtracting of ", USA" to the individual entries within Gilbert House's edit history, nearly an edit war. However, I don't care as much about this, i mostly really want the NRHP red-link entries kept in and with some identification that they are NRHP sites to deter those who are likely to come in and delete them. But, why not make the dab page more functional and robust for future additions, at the negligible cost of showing the reader a "United States" label (which is an accurate label, anyhow)? doncram (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

There is (or should be) no need to change the description of a dab entry between the time it is a red link and the time it is a blue link except to remove the blue link in the description -- the exception is if entry link (once it becomes blue) is sufficient to navigate the reader without any description. The "some identification that they are NRHP sites" should be a blue link in the description that links to an NRHP article (possibly a list), not just a cryptic ", NRHP" tag -- the appropriate blue link is the deterrent against deletion of the entry. One's "negligible cost" is another's "speed bump"; omitting the grouping text from dab pages with only a single group does not inhibit future functionality of robustness. The question from the other side becomes "Why clutter the dab page for the negligible benefit of pre-constructing groups for hypothetical future additions?" -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Because it serves readers who are looking for a specific place, and they get to see that there is a red-link for that specific place, therefore they need not look any further. And, it happens to inform reader-editors that they would be allowed to create an article for that specific place, and that it is an NRHP-listed place. And, it happens to help wp:NRHP editors who are working through lists like List of Registered Historic Places in Colorado, and it will take about 6 months i am guessing for them to complete that, or somewhat longer if they can only add each separate Trinity Episcopal Church one by one to the Trinity Episcopal Church dab page, etc. doncram (talk) 21:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's another good dab example, Trinity Episcopal Church. That includes many U.S. churches, most but not all being NRHPs, including at least two which would have the very same blue-link under what JHJ and others are recommending. You would have:

• Trinity Episcopal Church (Morley, New York), listed on the National Register of Historic Places in St. Lawrence County, New York
• Trinity Episcopal Church (Potsdam, New York, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in St. Lawrence County, New York

Can you concede that, at least in this case, it is not correct to insist on the 2nd bluelink, which would violate other wikipedia principles. I don't know exactly which MOS guideline to point to, but I know that other editors would de-wikilink the second bluelink. Honestly, would you edit war back and forth with other editors about that?

I also don't want to agree to laboriously putting in phrases like listed on the National Register of Historic Places in St. Lawrence County, New York, if the phrase won't stay in after the dab entry converts from a red-link to a blue-link. After the dab entry becomes a blue-link, I myself would want to edit that down to ", NRHP", rather than convert it to "listed on the National Register of Historic Places in St. Lawrence County, New York". A reader interested in NRHP sites like this would click on the NRHP site itself, which will have a nice NRHP infobox and other info about NRHPs, etc. It serves no good purpose to have the long phrase in, for the blue-link, or anything more than "NRHP", so I don't want to have to put it in for the red-links, either.

Note, in Trinity Episcopal Church, a list of about 60 churches, there would be 55 or so long phrases introduced to comply with the way some seem to be arguing for. Isn't it better with just the succinct ", NRHP"? doncram (talk) 21:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

(copied from my previous response on one of the other splinters): Yes, it would be redundant to repeat the blue link, but in a usefully redundant way. Not all redundancy is bad. If it's possible to combine the entries so that they are all listed on one bullet with one blue link, great, but if that's cumbersome, then navigation would be best served by listing the entries and providing a blue link on each entry, even if the target article is the same. The reader looking for Gilbert House and meaning Jeremiah S. Gilbert House is unlikely to read the description for Elisha Gilbert House to follow its link. There is a Wikipedia guidelines to avoid repeated links to the same Wikipedia article from within a single Wikipedia article paragraph (IIRC), but dab pages aren't articles and each entry could be seen as a different "paragraph" anyway. If you want to argue against that, then we can agree to collapse all of those entries into a single entry on the dab page just to avoid the repeated wikilink. ", NRHP" is a poor description for any dab entry and should not be used by itself anywhere. The less labor-intensive approach would be to avoid putting the entry in the dab page at all until the article was created. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you misunderstood me, I want to define the term first, so on the first NRHP entry i say ", listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Thereafter, using ", NRHP" on each entry that is an NRHP is meaningful and helpful to the average reader. I hear what you are saying now that some redundancy is okay, but i still don't like the length of the longer phrases and the work that would be involved in putting them in, when I would choose to delete them, myself, later. Would you be okay with putting ", NRHP" on each NRHP entry after the first one? Or would you be okay with that as long as "NRHP pipelinks to List of National Register of Historic Places entries, the current name for the nation-wide list of them all? I don't think it adds a lot of value to add in a longer phrase that links to the more specific state or county or city list of NRHPs. doncram (talk) 21:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

", listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)" is not an appropriate blue link, since National Register of Historic Places does not mention, say, and of the Lewis Houses. The blue link needs to be to an article about the entry, not about the registry. Similarly ", NHRP" provides no navigational assistance to the reader. And List of National Register of Historic Places entries doesn't mention Lewis House either. The link would need to be to the eventual page within that hierarchy that actually mentions Lewis House. It could be piped, as long as it isn't surprising to the reader. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Okay, how about this new version of Lewis House dab]. Note:

1. It achieves having exactly one blue-link in each entry. For the first red-link NRHP, it has ", a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)". For subsequent red-link NRHPs, it has the blue-link phrase a property listed on the NRHP, with all these pipelinking to the main article about the National Register of Historic Places. For blue-link NRHPs, it has the same phrase, but not wikilinked.
2. It pretty much accomplishes the MOSDAB guideline that "A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link," because there are (or should be) NRHP list-articles pointing to each one. (It fails that for Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado) whose NRHP list-article entry points to Lewis House instead. That failure should be fixed by editing the relevant NRHP list-article, not by deleting the red-link in the dab page.)
3. It meets the MOSDAB dictum "A disambiguation shouldn't be made up completely of red links or have only one blue link in it", because there are two entry blue-links. (Some other dab pages for NRHPs have only one blue-link entry; there are wp:NRHP members ready to fix all those they can find by adding at least one more stub article.)
4. It meets the MOSDAB dictum "Red links should not be the only link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information." Note that MOSDAB does not specify that for red-link Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado) that the link given be the List of Registered Historic Places in Colorado which would have the same red-link. Instead, it is okay and I choose to link to National Register of Historic Places.
5. It might seem preferable to introduce each entry as "a registered historic place" or as "a Registered Historic Place" but there are strong opinions against such phrases because it would appear to be inventing a phrase that is not in common enough usage. The latter one, with capitalization, would pretty clearly violate wp:neologism, according to lengthy discussions recently at wt:NRHP.
6. It has "In the United States:" as a section title, although the only entries are currently US ones. That sets up formatting for others to add entries for other countries. This could perhaps be put into a comment, instead? About this, I think it is helpful but i don't care if this dropped.
7. It has "(by state)" only in a comment, trying to clarify for editors adding new ones but it is obvious enough for most readers. I think this is helpful but don't care if the comment is dropped.
8. It is a disambiguation page not a SIA.
9. It will pretty easily accomodate addition of new Lewis Houses in the U.S. or elsewhere, whether they be places, houses, buildings, bands, or persons, without requiring wholesale changes.
10. This would introduce some length into many dab pages such as Trinity Episcopal Church, likely inducing some editors to come in and start deleting the long phrases. To address that likelihood, I would further want a clarifying note be put somewhere in the WikiProject Disambiguation page, and/or in MOSDAB, about this being the consensus determination for how to handle NRHP pages. If it is not possible to add such a note, then i would be okay with just having this discussion archive to point to.

Would this do? I would have prefered less words in the article, but this would do for me. It would be simple and clear to implement for the dabs involving NRHPs. Please comment. doncram (talk) 23:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

• Why not provide blue links to List of Registered Historic Places in Louisiana etc where available, as these are the articles which already link to the red links?
• And the black text "a property listed on the NRHP" isn't necessary - it's descriptive, rather than distinguishing, and "The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link." (from WP:MOSDAB. Unless there's another Lewis House in Tallahassee, Florida, you don't need to describe this one. PamD (talk) 07:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Response to PamD's comments: Thanks. About the more specific phrase, I'd be fine with anyone choosing to add more specific links, like to List of Registered Historic Places in Louisiana, if they want to, and if it works well in a given disambiguation page, and if the longer phrase would be retained, in black, after the NRHP article is created. However, given the second part of your comment, I anticipate you would want to delete the phrase ", a property listed on the NRHP in Louisiana" once the NRHP article was created. So then I don't want to invest energy in putting in stuff that will just be deleted, when lower investment suffices in complying with MOSDAB. If anyone else wants to put in more specific links that will later be deleted, that would be fine by me. But, for longer disambiguation pages such as Trinity Episcopal Church, I don't believe that the more specific link would work well for readers (and it would be a pain for editors to put in). So I would want the more specific phrase to be optional, not required. And I personally want to devote my energy to creating NRHP pages, and proper lists of them, to bring towards FA and FL status; for disambiguation pages I want an easy-to-implement solution for the temporary problem of NRHP red-links attracting attention and edit warring. (By the way, wp:NRHP now has about 15000 articles, including all 3000 NRHPs in the state of Massachusetts which someone recently finished stubbing.) About the particular phrase "a property listed on the NRHP" that I propose, which you would delete once the red-link turned blue: I would prefer a shorter phrase, just ", NRHP" which still serves readers by conveying, yes, this is a historic site / historic house in Tallahassee, it is not some modern house or other kind of place or person or band in Tallahassee. I am trying to propose a phrase which is the same for blue-link and red-link entries, and another editor objected to just ", NRHP". I agree that "a property listed on the NRHP" is a bit long. Would just ", NRHP" suffice for you (meaning ", NRHP" for red-link entries and ", NRHP" for blue-link entries? doncram (talk) 16:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, NRHP is not an appropriate blue link for these entries, as NRHP does not mention these entries, so it doesn't comply; the more specific link is required. Putting your energy into creating the pages is a fine idea. It could be that other editors putting their energies into cleaning up dab pages will remove ", NRHP", ", NRHP", or bare red links from any given dab page, though. There's nothing wrong with that; as the pages are created, they can be added back to the disambiguation pages as needed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:25, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I am asking as nicely as I can, how can i get editors in general who put energy into cleaning up dab pages, not to delete NRHP red-links. To get them not to delete red-links, it seems to be helpful to assert importance of the sites by mentioning NRHPness in some way, and it also seems to me to be helpful to readers, to mention NRHPness. And in particular I want to ask experienced, interested dab editors such as you how I can get your support in stopping, efficiently, any new campaigns by uninformed new editors in this area. But you seem to be very clear: a) it is okay by you if others delete the NRHP mention, thereby baring the red-link, and b) it is okay by you for others to delete the bare red-link. That is a problem for me, because i and others are working at developing the wikipedia to cover NRHP sites and developing disambiguation for them is part of that work. Having disambiguation of those places is both part of the end product and also helps during the overall process of developing the NRHP system. Tearing out the NRHP entries in disambiguation pages causes confusion and more work elsewhere, along lines suggested by PamD above. Putting all the NRHP entries into disambiguation pages at once is something that can be done efficiently and comprehensively. It is depressing and discouraging to me and others to face repeated campaigns to delete NRHP red-links. There will be new editors arriving who will rip out a few, of course. On the other hand, it would encourage me if we could work out some pact, in which you and other regular dab editors would agree to support retention of the NRHP red-links in dealing with those new editors. Bottom-line: is there some way of creating these pages so that you would support advising new editors not to delete the NRHP mention, and not to delete the NRHP red-links? Perhaps it will suffice if you would agree to say the new editor is "not wrong" in some sense, but you would support the new editor working on creating the NRHP articles or doing something else, rather than deleting the NRHP mention and red-links? doncram (talk) 17:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

And I'm answering as patiently as I can that the best way to do so is to make the pages conform to the guidelines. That's the way of creating these pages so that we would support advising new editors not to delete the entries that serve the reader. This is harder than just blindly tacking on ", NRHP" to all the entries. That's OK; nobody's demanding that you put in the effort. However, that does not mean there must exist an lower-effort solution. It is okay (and I'd encourage) the deletion of a navigationally-empty NRHP link. It would not be OK to delete an appropriate blue link on the dab entry. As for the pact, I can offer you that I won't delete your NRHP redlinks, but I'd oppose any changes to the guidelines that would indicate they are proper or permitted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that even if all the regular readers of this talk page agreed on something, as you hope, the pages would still be edited as you don't want, by random editors who fall over them while looking for other things and who stop briefly to improve the page, by their reading of WP:MOSDAB etc, and perhaps move on to improve similar pages in the same way. If there's a blue link, beside the redlink, which leads to a page which has that redlink, then the redlink is unlikely to be deleted. If there's a redlink which no other page links to, then it's likely to be deleted. I guess one solution is for you to work on creating all the state lists, so that every NRHP redlink can have a bluelink to the list which includes it (even though these links will then be deleted once the redlink turns blue). I wonder whether you could then use AWB in some way to semi-automate the process of going from the state list to the pages which have redlinks to pages also redlinked from that state list, to add appropriate bluelinks to those dab pages? PamD (talk) 22:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of editing Lewis House so that each redlinked entry has a bluelink to the list which contains (or should contain) that redlink. I understand why Doncram would rather spend his energy making pages for actual NRHP properties, instead of fixing up disambiguation pages. But the desire to accommodate one editor's preferences shouldn't preclude the possibility of disambiguation pages being brought up to standard as well. I understand that Remember the dot's attempts were traumatic for Doncram and his NRHP colleagues, but I think that the way forward is for editors who work on disambiguation and NRHP pages to work together to bring the NRHP-related disambiguation pages up to snuff, not to amend the disambiguation rules.

As a pointer towards constructive cooperation, I'll point out this list that another NRHP project member has made of NRHP sites with duplicate names. If WP:DAB members would try to whittle away at a few of these each day, it wouldn't take long before they were all "safe", in the way that Doncram wants NRHP disambiguation pages to be. If Doncram agrees with the current state of Lewis House, I'll start tidying the other entries on Elkman's list. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Funny you should find that list of NRHP disambiguation pages needed for all cases of 5 or more NRHPs having exactly the same name. Of course there are also many more with 4 or less, and there are other cases of the form "St. Blix Church", "Saint Blix Church", "St. Blix Church Complex", "St. Blix Church and Cemetery", "St. Blix Church and Rectory" which add up to requiring a 5+ NRHPs disambiguation page for "Blix Church" with redirects from the variations. I came across that list a while back and finished it off in terms of creating all the disambiguation pages needed. Now, there are a few red-links on the same list (Bailey House and Longfellow School), because those disambiguation pages were taken to AfD apparently, and have to be recreated now. I'll get right on that.  :)

But, yes, I see that the Josiah Rowe-revised Lewis House page works and I would be supportive on working on just what you suggest. The more specific blue-links require more work to make the pages more satisfactory to dab editors, work that may eventually be discarded after the NRHP articles are created, but the effort required is not too very much. And it is worth it if that satisfies most regular dab editors and helps deter or shorten some new editor red-link deletion campaigns. It would be nice to hear who else this satisfies (although Abtract is not yet on board, clearly). doncram (talk) 16:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Check out new {{tl:NRHP dab cleanup}} tag in new Bailey House dab page, partway adhering to the current Lewis House standard. doncram (talk) 17:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

With respect, this really is a nonsense. I looked at Lewis House and the first entry is a redlink to Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado) so I click on the bluelink to listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in Colorado which takes me to a page arranged by county; since I have no idea which county Lafayette is in I start at the top and move down the page and after seven clicks I reach Lafayette where I see a bluelink to Lewis House ... far from taking me to my desired article, it takes me back to the dab page. I suggest that any reader taking that journey would be frustrated, not assisted. We simply must get back to basics here - dab pages exist to help readers find articles, or sections within articles, about the term being disambiguated; they are not to impart information about which places exist. This argument must have taken place a while ago when the SIAs for ships with the same name were started. If it is thought that readers will benefit from seeing a list of places called Lewis House regardless of whether or not there is an article for such a building, then the way to display that information is through a SIA (which are not bound by the sme rules as dab pages). In the case of Lewis House the SIA should still be called Lewis House because there are no entries other than places - if, in the future, a notable person called "Lewis House" appears on the scene, then Lewis House would need to revert to being a normal dab page and the places info would need to be transferred to a new page called Places called Lewis House (or similar). Entries on the new dab page would be limited to LH the man and any of the LH places with actual articles (these places would also be on the list). Since this solves all the problems that have taken attention here for some time, I don't quite understand the reluctance to adopt it. Abtract (talk) 05:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The current Lewis House article works as it is intended to. Within the Colorado link you would have found Lewis House within Lafayette quickly by searching for "Lewis" or "Lafayette". Then, yup, it is currently just a link back to the Lewis House disambiguaton page, while that should be changed to show the red-link Lewis House (Lafayette, Colorado) instead, perhaps not much better in your view. But what did you expect, an article on the Lafayette Lewis House? You already knew it was a red-link. By the way, if you had searched on the Lewis House in New York state you might have been more satisfied, as the NY list is already "table-ized" and shows the street address and its location coordinates in clickable form. I do happen agree with you that the bluelink phrases do not provide a whole lot of value for the NRHP redlinks. But i am coming to accept a MOSDAB policy that a bluelink is needed, and this suffices and meets other dab editors' strict requirements. About what are the basics here, I don't see how you can argue that it doesn't serve the need of a Colorado wikipedia who hears about a local Lewis House and looks it up, to find that it is a red-link. That tells the reader that no more searching is necessary, don't bother trying "Louis House", and confirms it is located in Lafayette or wherever, and the reader can now go out and take a picture and start the article. Note, the reader in NY can directly upload a pic into the table already. New contributors seem to like the tables and are showing up all the time now, by the way. I respond more about your call to make these SIAs in the SIA talk subsection below. doncram (talk) 16:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

SIAs vs. dab pages

Surely these are all SIAs not dab pages? Abtract (talk) 19:35, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

No, I think many of them are disambiguation pages (I don't know about all). For instance, there are two Wikipedia articles that could have been titled "Lewis House", and neither is the primary topic, so a Lewis House disambiguation is needed. To handle the red links, if they need handling, we can also either add a description to each one with a blue link to another article describing them or move them to their own set index article and add that as a "See also". If neither of those can be done, then the other option would be to delete the red links. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I set this off into a separate section, to discuss separately without stopping discussion above. The SIA vs. dab page issue comes up in Gilbert House, for example, which Abtract switched to SIA and which someone else switched back to dab. My sense is that these are all dab pages, but I admit i don't grok any subtle distinction between disambiguation pages self-identifying themselves as disambiguation vs. disambiguation pages self-identifying themselves as SIAs. Perhaps if you label a disambiguation page as a SIA, then you are exempt from dab editors coming in? If so, I would be happy to label all of these as SIAs for editors, but for readers I also want to put the nice disambiguation logo on these and allow readers to understand that these are disambiguation pages. I don't think that will fly though. I myself do not want to make these disambiguation pages into articles, I don't want to add categories, I don't want to clutter them with long explanations of what each entry is, I just want them to work as disambiguation. I want to allow short explanations which helps a reader and which helps to stave off red-link-deleters, e.g. the single word "NRHP" in the "NRHP" entries. doncram (talk) 21:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Responding to Abtract's comment in section above: I don't see that calling the disambiguation page a SIA solves anything that would not better be solved by dab editors agreeing to let these be. There are nuances i don't understand, but I believe that calling them SIAs makes the disambiguation pages fragile, requiring wholesale changes upon the addition of a single person or company or anything that is not the same type of thing as the rest. And mixing SIAs and regular dabs would require a lot of people to understand about both dab pages and SIA pages, which they often won't, so there'd be more changes back and forth. I don't think the effort to create and maintain a distinction would be worth it. Wouldn't you have to defend SIA pages as SIAs, to defend dabs as dabs and to defend "appropriate" switches back and forth as entries on the disambiguation pages changed? doncram (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a pity you think like that because the way you are trying to get these pages to look is going to bring you into conflict with pretty well all dab page editors ... my way would have freed you to do more or less what you liked with these specific pages. If someone could find an example of a ships sia that may be helpful. Abtract (talk) 17:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Here is a good example HMS Enterprise ... if a guy called Harry Matthew Stephen Enterprise had an article written about him we would then need a dab page with him and all the ship articles that actually exist but meanwhile this SIA does the job you want and the job of a dab page ... problem solved. Abtract (talk) 17:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't think the NRHP pages would be coherent on their own, the way that a ship name page is, since NRHPness is by definition a secondary characteristic of a property, site, object, structure or district. First a place is a ship or a house, and then there is some randomness in which ones eventually become NRHP-listed. A list of ships or churches is more natural than a list of NRHP-listed ships or churches. Would there be a SIA for "First Presbyterian Church" and also a SIA for "First Presbyterian Churches listed on the NRHP", or how would the sets be defined? Separate SIAs for NRHP ones only would be easier to maintain, but would would serve readers poorly for disambiguation, as many searchers would not know if their one is NRHP-listed or not. And I don't want to get into fights with others about their wish for a non-NRHP to be listed in a unified First Presbyterian Church SIA. For example, [this version of St. Anne's Episcopal Church] shows 4 NRHPs and now one probably non-notable church. If it were a SIA, wouldn't I have to develop the article more, and defend it from non-notable additions? I was bogged down for a long time in some List of churches article, which was impossible to keep free from such, and it was very unpleasant. doncram (talk) 18:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Why on earth would you have to defend it? You are in danger of showing ownership tendencies methinks. "Ships called ... " seems pretty similar to "Places called ... " or "Buildings called ... " to me; just don't hold out for "NRHP buildings coloured blue and located in America sorted by state ... " is my advice. Look I don't have any more time to spend on this, I just know that what you are asking is not possible in the guise of a dab page; like it or not you will need to change your ideas a tad. Whatever your hangup is about a SIA page I don't know but it's your best option imho. Abtract (talk) 20:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, an argument could be made that an SIA need not maintain the same notability standards as a disambiguation page. Every entry in a disambiguation page should have the potential to have a Wikipedia entry, or at least a section of an article, about it. But that's not necessarily true for the members of a list. There could well be churches called "First Presbyterian Church" which aren't notable enough to merit their own entry, but which could sit happily on a SIA listing churches with that name.

If a decision were made that pages like Lewis House and St. Anne's Episcopal Church were to be treated as SIAs instead of disambiguation pages, then the list wouldn't have to meet the "one blue link per entry" rule or the other requirements of WP:MOSDAB. It would only have to meet the less stringent requirements of Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists (presumably, with the exception of the naming convention — I've dropped a note asking about that, because I don't see any benefit in moving Lewis House to List of buildings named Lewis House unless, say, Gregory House gets a long-lost brother who becomes a major character on House).

Also, if such a decision in favor of treating these as SIAs were made, it might be worthwhile to create a template similar to {{shipindex}}. That would be another discussion, I suppose. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

A set index article is not simply a dab page with fewer rules. If there are Wikipedia articles to be disambiguated (e.g., the two blue-link Lewis House articles), then a dab page is necessary, regardless of whether there is also a set index article (which could be listed as a "see also"). True, entries on set index articles don't need to meet any particular criteria outside of whatever the set index article itself imposes, but the set index article itself would be subject to the notability and other guidelines of lists in the regular article space. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:44, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Although earlier i was not able to understand several of JHJ's postings, eventually i come to appreciate that JHJ is being very consistent. Thank you for your patience. JHJ's position on this, which i would not expect to be able to change, is such that creating a SIA for Lewis House is useless for purposes of NRHP site disambiguation. A reader reading about a local Lewis House museum or other historic site in the news, would search on Lewis House and would get to the disambiguation page first. It would not serve readers to split the disambiguation across a first dab page and a SIA named something like "List of places named Lewis House" that the dab is allowed to reference by "see also". I want the readers to find articles about NRHP places named Lewis House in the disambiguation page. Also, I myself would not expect that such a list article would survive AfD's that would be launched by many editors, because I myself would not believe that anyone is really interested in all places named Lewis House. The fact is that a number of places, by mere coincidence, were named Lewis House. It is not like a SIA for HMS Enterprise, where there was one original ship of that name, and others after were named after that one. Editors would swarm in saying wp:wikipedia is not a directory, etc., and the SIA would get deleted. Also, the SIA, as it appears to be a proper list-article, would attract many more additions of non-notable Lewis Houses. It would be easier to defend/maintain a page self-described as a dab page, from such additions which obscure disambiguation to real articles about notable places (and to red-links about places that legitimately deserve wikipedia articles). My purpose is to create NRHP pages and, relatedly, to ensure associated disambiguation, and I don't want to get involved in list-articles with little coherence that are headed toward AfD. Basically, I do want to provide disambiguation for NRHP sites, and I don't want to contribute stuff that will most likely get deleted. doncram (talk) 21:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

What you want is pretty immaterial in this context ... you just need to understand that dab pages cannot be used for your purpose. Abtract (talk) 23:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation of NRHP sites that have articles or are individually covered in a list article is possible in disambiguation pages -- just blue link to the appropriate article. Other lists of NRHP sites that are disambiguating Wikipedia articles will have issues if they appear in disambiguation pages, yes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

current version of Lewis House and ordering

So, is the current version of Lewis House acceptable to all parties? If so, I'll start editing some of the other NRHP disambiguation pages, to bring them up to snuff. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I moved the blue links up and, to address Doncram's observation about multiple blue links to the same article, added section links to the two links to the Louisiana list. It now looks good to me. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

(inserting subsection title) I'm sorry, i thought that there was a near-consensus here, too. But JHJ's changes of order of the entries in this version of Lewis House seems unhelpful to me and to go against what has been discussed and developed. If the ordering is not part of MOSDAB, then is it just any editor's view, and we can go into changing it back and forth continually? I would prefer to have a consensus on this unexpected point too, and I personally think the useful order for US entries is by state and then city alphabetically. In general I don't think that it helps readers or editors to reorder U.S. entries out of state order, just so the blue-links show up first, because it makes more work for experienced dab and NRHP editors, it makes it confusing for new editors adding one more Lewis House, and it makes it more likely that readers at first glance will misunderstand the ordering. This is more of a problem the longer the dab page is. Readers will be more likely to fail to find a blue-link or red-link that is the one of interest to them, or it will take them longer to find it. Also, the blue-links-first order seems "wikicentric" to me, meaning that it brings wikipedia into the content. There's a policy about not writing about wikipedia in the content of articles, with few exceptions (sorry can't find it in MOS main table of contents). doncram (talk) 14:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, for NRHP entries, it is easiest to put them in state order, because the National Register database extract tools that I and other wp:NRHP editors use provides them in that order (deliberately, because that is what wp:NRHP editor-programmers believe is the most useful order). Otherwise, putting entries into state and city order is a non-trivial exercise for many people. It is striking to me how often there are mistakes in such lists that are hand-ordered. So, it seems useful to start with the perfectly ordered NRHP lists, and keep them that way, absorbing additions as necessary and fixing mistakes in the ordering, rather than bringing them out of intended-to-be-final order and causing unnecessary work and confusion. doncram (talk) 14:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:MOSDAB#Order of entries, entries with their own articles go before entries that are in sections (or lists) in other articles. No, we can't edit war over it. Dab pages are absolutely wiki-centric: they are navigational pages (not articles) and they disambiguate Wikipedia articles rather than disambiguating ambiguous WP and non-WP topics. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

My reading of WP:MOSDAB#Order of entries does not support that bluelink entries come before redlink entries. The specific example at MOS:DABRL for including red-links shows a red-link before a blue-link. MOSDAB does suggest "In most cases, place the items in order of usage", and then I am afraid you're interpreting that bluelink entries are more primary than redlink entries, and applying that usage order reasoning. The fallacy of that has been discussed repeatedly in dab editors' editing of dab pages having just one bluelink, where they reasoned that the one bluelink was the primary usage, but several NRHP editors point out that the NRHP sites are equal and it is random which one a local editor has created. In every AfD or requested move so far, I believe, the view that bluelinks are not primary has been upheld. Putting bluelinks first and then by geo location does not put in order of usage in the sense suggested by MOSDAB as one alternative for organizing. At best it is a mix of orders even if the bluelinked ones are in fact primary, because neither red nor blue subsection is in usage order. I do hope we can all agree the final intended order is by state and then by city. A mix of blue-links first then that order is not helpful, in my view. I wish we did not have to debate this. About the order, I don't mean to be impolite, but do you really care? I assume you believe the bluelink order first would serve readers. But in my view, and I think this is a legitimate position, the effect would be to serve readers less well immediately. And it would cause confusion and more work for editors, and it would not improve the final product. I do appreciate your consistent views and your patience in expressing them. I do appreciate your response to the "pact" request above. To resolve this, could we extend the pact to agree to disagree about what's best for readers temporarily (while the NRHP links are redlinks), and not try to make any change to MOSDAB specific to NRHP, but agree not to change the order of NRHP entries (keep them in geo order)? doncram (talk) 17:37, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I've put in a query at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Should bluelinks always go first?, to see what the interpretation there is. I don't much care, myself, but I won't work on these disambiguation pages until there's a clear consensus on how they should end up. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

My take is that ordering of blue links first only really makes sense in lists containing dissimilar types of subjects. It seems that lists (or sub-lists) that contain only items of the same general type (i.e., a property listed on the NRHP), the list should use an internally consistent sorting method. I think it would be confusing to decipher a list that is ostensibly sorted by geography, but is also somewhat unintuitively sorted by existence of the article. For comparison, in the case of lists of placenames, these are typically sorted by country and state/province regardless of redness or blueness. Sometimes it makes sense to not get tied up in rules and just do what makes sense. older ≠ wiser 21:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ordering by likelihood makes a lot of sense, and topics that have had articles written about them are "more likely to be likely" than others. Place names are often grouped by country or state/province, yes, and then ordered within the group. That's not the case on Lewis House. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It used to be. True, the "groups" were not separated, but they were indeed ordered alphabetically by state, and then within the state they were ordered alphabetically by town. Of course, as it happened, there was only one entry per state in every case except Louisiana.

I'd also question the assumption that the bluelinked locations are "more likely to be likely" in this case. All locations on the National Register of Historic Places meet a basic threshold of notability, and thus any one could be considered a plausible search target. I think that the "more likely to be likely" rule applies more easily to disambiguation pages in which the terms fall into different categories, like at Beard (disambiguation). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with doncram and Bkonrad. Like doncram, I do not see the MOS as indicating that blue links must precede redlinks on DAB pages. Further, there is seldom going to be a single most common usage for names like Lewis House, Gilbert House, or Old Jail, making a geography-based organization eminently sensible. When one or two specific articles on a particular list have been written, but others have not, the selection of articles has little or no correlation with the significance of the topics, but a strong correlation with the topic's location in the home town of a productive article writer. --Orlady (talk) 04:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Josiah Rowe, it didn't use to be. They were not grouped by state/province (and then correctly ordered within each group. They were "grouped" into one group by country and incorrectly ordered within that group. The "basic threshold for notability" is useful for creating articles, not for creating dab page entries. The "more likely to be likely" is a simple observation that at least one editor took the time to create an article for the blue link, whereas none have taken the time to create an article for the red links. It's a "natural" check-and-balance. For those who don't read "blue links before red links", note that WP:MOSDAB#Order of entries orders three article types (which would yield blue links) before "Larger subject articles which treat this item in a section" (such as the NRHP list articles linked in the description of red link entries). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

JHunterJ, I read that section of WP:MOSDAB as being about types of entries, and silent on the issue of blue vs. red. As I see it, the question of whether the article yet exists is orthogonal to the question of which of the four "types" of entry it is. It appears that you are alone in your interpretation of the "order of entries" as speaking to the order of blue and red links. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

There are many lists of placenames that do not first "group" by country or state and also do not sort blue links ahead of redlinks. Overlaying two inconsistent sorting criteria on a simple list of similar items is confusing. As has already been explained repeatedly, being first out of the gate is not necessarily an indication of the likelihood a reader may be looking for that particular item. Without some other external basis (such as an overwhelming majority of google hits for one or a couple of senses over others) there is little basis for rearranging lists according to something as subjective and transient a phenomena as "likelihood". older ≠ wiser 12:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I hope this discussion can fairly be summarized as at consensus of all-but-one, that a dab page of all "Lewis House" entries that are all U.S. NRHP places can be ordered by state and city. More complexity in next section. doncram (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a vote (and no calls for votes have been made), but as I've already said, I'm flexible with your edits to the pages. The guidelines show a preference for ordering links to articles on the entries (i.e., blue links) before links to other articles that mention the entry (i.e., red link or no link with a blue link in the description). It could easily be that another dab member might come along and clean up the NRHP pages and reorder them, leading to another complaint here. I just want to make sure the guidelines are clear:

1. Articles with a clarifier in parentheses (Anticipation (music)) -- this will result in a blue link entry with no link in the description
2. Articles with the item as part of the name (Computer keyboard as part of a Keyboard dab page) -- blue link entry with no link in the description
3. Synonyms -- blue link entry with no link in the description
4. Larger subject articles which treat this item in a section (Medieval art from a Fresco dab page) -- red link entry or unlinked entry with blue link in the description

If you are claiming that "articles" includes anything that is the target of a wikilink, whether it exists or not, then we're at an impasse. An article is "a page that has encyclopedic information on it", not "a link to nothing that might some day be something, and that something would be a page with encyclopedic information on it". -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

expanded version of Lewis House

I am truly sorry to add more complexity to the discussion now, but the reality is that there is more complexity in many NRHP dabs that hasn't been addressed. This can be illustrated in the Lewis House article, which I have just expanded to this Lewis House version having 42 entries. To the eight NRHP sites referred to primarily as "Lewis House" alone, I added 34 NRHP sites that are of form Firstname Lewis House, Firstname Lewis Cottage, Firstname Lewis Farmhouse, and Firstname Lewis Home. It happens there are none of the form Firstname Lewis Residence. Please understand, I was not avoiding this complexity, i just hadn't thought of it before, or didn't previously perceive that it as a more complex case that could serve as the basis of much more extended discussion. :) I understand, based on principles discussed, I would reorder the 2nd group into state and local order, and add the appropriate bluelinks to corresponding NRHP geo list articles that do (or should) link to the redlinks in the second group. I wonder, then would that be the best way, or an acceptable way, to present and order the 42 entry version? doncram (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, then to get it all out on the table, i just added a 3rd group of 23 places of various other forms that are "likely" to be thought by some readers to be named "Lewis House", including places named Lewis-Williams House and Morey-Lewis House. In my NRHP editing work/hobby, I personally do not always feel compelled to add places like these to dabs like Lewis House dab, because they are not as crucial in helping editors to get the names of new articles right, but others do add places like these for reader service purposes, and I guess they are okay and they need to be discussed. Also, I found and added four more places to the second group, adding Lewis Bungalow for example. Sparing us from 20 or 30 more, I made the executive judgment that places of the form "Lewis Lastname House" should not be included at all. Now, should there be three groups with introductory phrases as given, each sorted by state and then city? Or should they all be merged into one or two lists sorted by state and then city? Oh, and, by the way, several associated dab pages now need to be created: Isaac Lewis House, John Lewis House, Samuel Lewis House, and William Lewis House, because there are several of each. doncram (talk) 16:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I would: (a) expand the names of the U.S. states on this list, (b) group all the entries by state instead of whatever grouping is there now, and of course (c) move the blue links for each group before the red links for each group. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I expanded from AL -> Alabama, etc., everywhere. I reordered by state and city within each of the groupings in the dab. Consensus, except for JHJ, seems to be that blue links do not have to be first within a grouping, and I don't think that would help here. I know for a fact here that which links are blue here has nothing to do with likelihood of reader searching for a given site. (Instead, I created a high proportion of the current blue link articles for the entirely unrelated reason that I had to ensure that there would be two bluelinks in Isaac Lewis House and other smaller disambig articles that i created.) I revised the intros to the three groupings on the current Lewis House dab, and similarly for three groupings in this current version of Old Jail dab. Compare, also this current version of Gilbert House dab. I'd appreciate feedback/suggestions on intro wording to each of the groups. I'm not sure about the usefulness of the 3rd group in the Lewis House case. For Old Jail, i happen to think the whole 3rd group should possibly be deleted, in favor of creating a separate list-article on jails and prisons listed on the NRHP, to be linked only by a "See also". doncram (talk) 18:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you explain the groupings you chose? I can't see how they help a reader who is seeking "Lewis House", since someone looking for something they think is called "Lewis House" won't be able to use the sections to narrow their scan. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Group 1, introduced now by "Lewis House may refer to any of the following places known primarily as "Lewis House":", is a list of places that are exact matches to "Lewis House" in the NRHP database. Group 2, introduced now by "Lewis House may also refer to places that secondarily may be known as "Lewis House":", includes other close matches, such as Lewis Farmhouse and Firstname Lewis House. Group 3, introduced now by "Less often, Lewis House may be thought to be the name of:", includes other, less closely related places having "Lewis" in their name. The order of the three groups is according what I perceive to be likelihood that a reader searching on Lewis House would be searching for these; they are sorted, within, by state and city. I am unsure whether they should be kept as separate groups, or introduced differently. I am unsure whether all of the Group 3 ones should be kept: perhaps "Lewis-Williams House" and "Morey-Lewis House" should be kept, but not "Lewis Apartment Building" and "Lewis Inn" which don't have the word "House". Until I'm more comfortable with the group 3 membership, I don't want to merge the groups, and even then i am not sure if they should be merged. doncram (talk) 19:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Order within a group is by likelihood. Grouping is used for longer lists so that a reader doesn't have to read the whole list. A reader looking for something they only know as "Lewis House" will not be helped by distinctions of primary name, secondary name, and related places. The reader is much more likely to know that they are looking for a Lewis House in Illinois (for example), and benefit from having all the primary, secondary, and related places in Illinois grouped. (And then the blue links on top within the Illinois group...)

The "group 3" entries that are not referred to by the dab phrase should be removed or at least moved to a "See also" section, but that's true whether or not the groups are redone. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, i guess you're right about how readers would come to the page. So I dropped the dubious Group 3 entries, and then merged away the separate groups, so Lewis House is now just one list, sorted by state and city. For Old Jail i removed the entire dubious group 3, and merged the rest. So Gilbert House, Lewis House, and Old Jail should be okay by everyone now i hope. doncram (talk) 21:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think there needs to be a mention of "USA", either in each entry or as a section header to a one-section listing, to avoid the USA-centric implication that American states are of the same status as countries of the rest of the world. PamD (talk) 22:47, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

On dabs that dab places both in U.S. states and in non-U.S. countries, possibly. But still, disambiguation pages are navigational aids, not encyclopedia articles, so if someone's looking for a Bleak House in North Dakota, they probably know that North Dakota is in the U.S., and if they aren't looking for the one in North Dakota, then it won't matter what nation North Dakota is a state of. The inference of equal status isn't an implication. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

But if they're wikipedia readers in England or Australia they would be more likely to be looking for a Lewis House in that country, and they're probably unfamiliar with the NRHP language, and also they may not see the naturalness of sorting by state which appears at the end of most entries. It is a bit rude to make them search for a while through this list, only to eventually discover that NRHP is about the U.S. and all these entries are U.S. in some non-obvious-to-them order. As a matter of politeness to readers, I would like to add back both "In the United States" and "(ordered by state and then city)" for such articles. doncram (talk) 01:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there a Lewis House in England or Australia? -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:42, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Requested moves

• Eagles Building (disambiguation) → Eagles Building
• Douglas County Courthouse → Douglas County Courthouse (Omaha, Nebraska)
• Douglas County Courthouse (disambiguation) → Douglas County Courthouse

There are two sets of requested moves at wp:requested moves which relate to disambiguation pages. These relate to the above NRHP discussion. Please consider contributing to the discussions at the corresponding talk pages. As i noted in my move request of the first listed one just now, I am cross-posting this at wp:NRHP and at wp:WikiProject Disambiguation. doncram (talk) 03:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Wonder Man (disambiguation)

This looks more like a regular dab rather than a SIA. For instance, it appears that the page is missing a primary meaning. Would tagging it with {{disambig-cleanup}} help? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 05:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I have fixed it for you, along the line you suggested. Abtract (talk) 05:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

And you followed with a useful edit ... excellent. Thanks. Abtract (talk) 05:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

AIG

Something is going wrong with the AIG page. It is sending it straight to an AIG for a Wu-Tang Clan group. Can someone fix this. My username should be here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dj2099 (talk • contribs) 12:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism was reverted and vandal was blocked. WP:EAR might be a better place for other notes of this nature, please, but thanks for noticing. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:24, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Statistical proof

What should this be? A redirect to mathematical proof, a dicdef, or just delete it? Not sure what to do. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:24, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Mathematical_proof#.22Statistical_proof.22_Section relates to this content. PamD (talk) 21:26, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Acronyms

There are a multitude of disambiguation pages categorized here. The MoS doesn't support that, so isn't the purpose of this category a bad idea? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The category needs to categorize articles about acronyms (and we need to remove the category from disambiguation pages), or there needs to be consensus for change to the dab guidelines for including the category. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Manually removing them would be time-consuming. Think we can get a bot to run the job? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

NAPPA

I've never dealt with a page like this before. Should any useful links be moved to Nappa? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I have cleaned it and the associated pages for you but I am unable to do the last bit which is to swap Napa (disambiguation) and Napa. Abtract (talk) 09:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Incoming wikilinks look like Napa, California may be the primary topic for Napa. If there's consensus for the base name dab, anyone can list it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages‎. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Just out of interest how do you know that the majority of links are for napa, cal and not napa county? And are wikilinks a good measure of primary topic status? Abtract (talk) 14:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

They are one of the three good measures listed at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, yes. So there may be a primary topic, and your suggested move away from that primary topic should be discussed at Talk:Napa (with a pointer from Talk:Napa, California) before the move is done. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

1800s

Got a DAB question. Solid consensus has been gained after discussion and notification in many forums to move 1800s (which meant 1800 to 1809) to 1800–1809. We also got consensus to change 1800s to a page with the following text:

{{seealso|19th century}}

1800s may refer to:

• The period from 1800 to 1899
• 1800–1809, rarely

The implication of the discussions was that this page should retain the name of 1800s, but you guys are the experts on this subject; should it keep that name, or be called 1800s (disambiguation), with a redirect from 1800s? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 01:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if consensus is that the term is primarily a reference to the entire century, I'd suggest making 1800s redirect to 19th century and then place something like the following hatnote at the top of 19th century: {{redirect|1800s|the first decade of the century|1800-1809}}, which produces "1800s" redirects here. For the first decade of the century, see 1800-1809..older ≠ wiser 01:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I've got no problem with that, I'll copy this at Talk:1800–1809. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happier if somewhere on the page it made explicit that 19th century is 1 Jan 1801 - 31 Dec 1900, to show how it differs from "1800s". Either annotate the "see also" line, or put it in a lead to the page. It may not exactly fit the rules, but I see a case here for WP:IAR, to make sense of the page for newcomers. PamD (talk) 07:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

But in response to your actual question... as there isn't a "primary usage" for "1800s", the dab page should be at that title (with a redirect from 1800s (disambiguation) to be used if any links to the page are needed). PamD (talk) 07:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think these pages are ever going to quite fit the standard dab page format. For a start, we don't even have an article on the 1800s; we have one on the 19th century, which isn't quite the same thing. I've put a {{disambiguation}} tag on 1800s, but perhaps they shouldn't be treated as dab pages (to protect them from attacks by dab fundamentalists). Perhaps 1800s should be considered to be a short article, explaining the meaning(s?) of the term, explaining how it differs from 19th century, and containing a navigation template similar to {{centurybox}} for people to get to the relevant decades.--Kotniski (talk) 09:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding User:Hndis's recent dab edits

This editor is ruining a myriad of dab-related pages. I happened to catch these three here. See activities. I will ask him/her to comment in this discussion. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Go easy on Hndis. All the edits are good-faith. The guidelines for categories and tags related to name pages are tricky, and many experienced editors (like myself) still have trouble with them, so let's just work them out one at a time. "Ruining" is a bit strong for a slightly mistaken tag. SlackerMom (talk) 17:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that, couldn't think of a better word. So, how should we go about this? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 17:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

If you've got the energy to run through the contributions and correct bad tags, go ahead. Otherwise, I suggest we wait on Hndis to reply and we can make sure that we all understand when to use which tag. Hndis is a pretty active editor of name pages, and very easy to work with from my experience, so I'm sure we can easily repair any "damage". SlackerMom (talk) 17:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for alerting me to your concerns. I have looked over the information on WP:MOSDAB but found it scant on the issue of when to use hndis, when to use given name or surname and when to use more than one. I will re-examine the edits I've done in the last day or so where I have made such changes.

Could I just add that an incorrect category in no way ruins a dab (certainly from a reader's point of view)? Also, receiving a message asking me not to edit dabs until I had explained myself on a thread about how I was ruining pages made me feel humiliated and like giving up. I do feel it could have been handled better; a clear explanation of your concerns on my Talk page - rather than a message telling me you'd started a thread about them on a page for many people - would have made things clear without causing me offence or embarrassment. A quick look at my edit history - I have half the hndis pages on my watchlists and have edited most of those - would show that I am trying to improve pages, even if I don't always get it right. Regards, Hndis (talk) 19:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that the way to differentiate between those is that the first might be used on a dabpage for a full name, containing both a surname and a given name, such as George Smith, the second for a dabpage about a given name only, such as George (given name) and the third for a dabpage about a surname only, such as People with the surname Smith. I don't think more than one of those is ever appropriate on one page. Merenta (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

That was pretty much my interpretation, Merenta, the articles I moved to given name or surname were pages which were a list of those with the same first name or the same surname, but none with both; the article titles were (to my memory) all one word. I was however (or at least tried to be) careful if the person was known only by the first name, for example people who lived before our current naming conventions. Hndis (talk) 20:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The more I re-read W:MOSDAB, the more convinced I am that your edits were, in fact, correct. Merenta (talk) 20:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

This appears to hinge on whether the individuals listed are widely known by the portion of their name in the article title, in which case the page is a true disambiguation page, and your edits are incorrect, or not, in which case the page is a list (not a disambiguation page at all, regardless of title) and your edits are correct. I suspect that the latter is true in at least some of the pages you've modified - I'm no expert on these folks, but I'd be surprised if everybody listed at Satoshi is commonly referred to by that name only, etc. Perhaps Sesshomaru does really know this, and that's what he's saying. Merenta (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

They look like good edits to me too, and I've made similar edits in the past. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

J. Śniadecki and L. Ball

I have nominated J. Śniadecki for deletion at mfd, and am considering doing the same for L. Ball, since it seems a similar situation. The creator of these pages has presented arguments against deletion on the talk pages. Opinions are requested. SlackerMom (talk) 15:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I prodded H. Broadhurst (deleted) and took J. Drummond to AfD where it was deleted. The creators have gone to a lot of trouble to explain their reasons for J. Śniadecki and L. Ball but I agree with the responses on the J. Śniadecki Talk page; unless more than one of them was known primarily or commonly as this, there shouldn't be a dab. If they don't know someone's first name, a search engine should help them rather than Wikipedia. The only other hndis like this (I looked through them all, but I may have missed one) is E. Laguerre. This is due to be deleted in two days. Its creator indicated they were unhappy I'd PRODded it, but hasn't yet challenged its deletion. If these pages were set up for every combination of initials and surnames, the amount of pages we'd need to create and edit would be overwhelming. Hndis (talk) 12:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Based on the suggestions on L. Ball, I've moved E. Laguerre to Laguerre (surname). Let me know if you think this is the best solution or if people have other ideas. Hndis (talk) 12:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you're on the right track. Surname pages can surely handle this. SlackerMom (talk) 13:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambig editintro - working

It's Alive! Months later, but {{Disambig editintro}} is finally working. Do a hard refresh or cache clear, and try editing any disambig page (e.g. A Wonderful Life or Aboncourt) to see that edit message at the top of the page.

(Just fyi, the request to add the code was at MediaWiki talk:Common.js#Disambig editintro, so ask there if you encounter any code-implementation problems)

The template message itself can still be improved too. See the template's talkpage for the older discussion.

Thanks to all that helped. (notice cross-posted to the 3 main disambig talkpages) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but it doesn't seem to work for me. Abtract (talk) 05:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

No need to apologize, bug reports are good! Have you done a hard refresh (ctrl+F5)? What browser/OS combination are you using? Do you see it if you sign out, and then try editing a disambig page? Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 07:38, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambig editintro vs set index articles

How can we get this 'feature' turned off for WP:SHIPS set index pages? (They are marked with {{shipindex}}, by the way.) While the suggestions are great for dab pages, most go counter to the established ship set index guidelines. Related discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships#Ship_index.2FDisambiguation and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Editnotices_for_set-index_pages. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Quiddity asked me to take a look at this.

Bellhalla: No worries. I know several easy ways to fix that. I just have to think and test a little which way is the best. I have put all my other work aside since this seems urgent. I think we can have this fully fixed within some hours. :))

Could you guys point me and everyone else to one single talk page where we can discuss this and where I can publish the solution I recommend (once I have figured out which one is best)? (I think this page might be that place, but I'll leave it to you guys to decide on which page.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

This place will work as a central location just fine. — Bellhalla (talk) 23:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

After some investigation I came to the conclusion that the best thing for the time being is to change or remove the id="disambig" in those templates that really are "set index article boxes". Since it is the "disambig" ID that the javascript in MediaWiki:Common.js uses to determine if a page is a disambiguation page or not. Changing the code in Common.js would not work as well since that code is cached for some time in the web browsers. And marking "set index article boxes" as disambigs is wrong anyway.

So I started with {{shipindex}} by changing to id="setindexbox" and hard-coded the needed styles to keep the same "disambig" look as before. This solves the problem immediately, no delay due to CSS or javascript caching.

But I need help to figure out which of the templates listed in MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage are true disambig boxes and which really are set index boxes. I made a new section there named "Set index article templates" and moved some of the templates there. But there might be others that I don't know about in the disambig list there or perhaps not even listed there. I will fix the ones you put in that set index section.

I have also come up with a better long term solution. I will report back here when I have coded up that one so you can have a look and a say before we deploy that one.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding which templates cover set index pages, I think Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation#Templates is meant to list that – so all the templates except the first four, from {SIA} down to {Numberdis}. Most of them follow the standard disambiguation styling (currently). Can anyone confirm?

Also, we non-admins can't edit the MediaWiki page. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't seem right. I checked some of the templates that are indented under {{SIA}} under Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation#Templates. Sure, they are "Topic-specific templates", but most of them are not "set index templates" as far as I can see. Most of them seem to be used on very normal disambig pages. So most of them can probably have the {{disambig editintro}} displayed. So the question remains, which templates should and which should not have the {{disambig editintro}} displayed? (You could use the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation#Templates and sort them properly.)

And oops, sorry. I forgot that most of you can not edit the MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage page. (When editing in MediaWiki space I don't get the usual red notice "only admins can edit this page", so I forgot and just copied and pasted the page name.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 06:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

What is the difference between a "Topic-specific disambig" and a "set index article"? The only clue I can find in a very quick search, are the 1st two threads at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Archive 29. Presummably Template talk:SIA holds more clues, but I don't have time to read that at the moment. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I did try to edit the old template list last night, in an attempt to partially clarify the listing, but I'm unsure of the history behind all those templates. Possibly the indentation is now incorrect? -- Quiddity (talk) 17:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now I just have to tease you a little:

You guys work with disambiguation, while I am just a template programmer who was asked (by Quiddity) to come here to fix a technical problem. But I end up having to help you "disambiguate" between what is a disambiguation message box and what is a set index message box?

So, I have now updated your template list on this project page so it keeps the two kinds of message boxes apart.

Anyway, Quiddity: Go read Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Set index articles and take a look at some of the articles/lists that use the {{shipindex}} and {{mountainindex}} templates. Then you might figure out what is what. (But I admit, the difference is sometimes hair thin.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh fully expected, but partial clarity appreciated :)

- Should Victoria University be labeled as an SIA, or a schooldis?

- Should Thebes and Ozyorny be SIA or geodis?

Believe me, I've read that "set index" section numerous times, and never quite understood what separates them. I've jumped to the conclusion that they're almost all potentially set-indexes, but are temporarily styled as disambig pages, until the members of their respective projects come and upgrade them.

Eg. Eventually, WikiProject Highways will come and turn the disambig-styled List of highways numbered 11 and Riverside Drive into set indexes

and, Eventually, WikiProject Medicine will turn up to style Mercy Hospital into a more detailed list.

etc.

If the above is indeed the case, and the whole conceit is originally just to get some wiggleroom for expansion past the wikilawyers (fie!), then we should comprehend that before the guidelines get changed again.

According to Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:SIA, it seems to be used on ~90% comics-topics or Russian locations. Might it be clearer to just split that into two topic-specific templates? {{Comicdisambig}} and {{Russiangeodis}} or something? (Which your dmbox would help with!). -- Quiddity (talk) 23:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

As you know I am not an expert on this, but perhaps no one is, so this is of course just my personal conclusions and views:

Yes, your analysis seems to be spot on. And as I understand the guidelines then Victoria University, Thebes and Ozyorny are set indexes since they have additional information that disambig pages may not have.

And here are my personal views (my rant) on this:

What never ceases to amaze me is that many/most people see the world in black and white. I am a software engineer but I know very well that we have more than just binary 0 and 1. We can use whole bytes for starters! (That's 0 to 255.) So for me the differences between disambiguation pages, set index pages and articles are not binary. Rather it is an analogue scale. There is no clear boundary between them as I see it.

The purpose of Wikipedia is not to provide neat blue link lists formatted according to some style guideline. Rather, we are here to serve interesting and/or useful information to all of humanity. And for instance the list of towns named Ozyorny can be very useful information, even though most links there are red. And it can be internally useful too, since the day someone decides to write an article about one of those towns then that list will help that user to use the right syntax for the name for the town and make that user aware that there are more towns with that name. Of course, we should perhaps have the recommendation that such lists should only make links to notable items red. So we don't encourage the creation of a lot of stub articles. (We probably have such a recommendation in some guideline about lists somewhere.)

So yes, you could say that the idea of "set index articles" is a concept to give some wiggle room for expansion past the wikilawyers. But I see it as steps on a scale, perhaps named something like disambiguation pages, set index pages and articles. And to me such defined steps are just a simplification to make the world manageable. In this case it allows us to have guidelines that describe the typical design of each kind of page. But to me that doesn't mean that there should not be pages that are in-between two of the defined steps. Instead those guidelines simply describe the ideal state of a page in the middle of such a step. But a page that are in-between should of course also look something in between the two styles, and not like something totally else, since then it would truly break the guidelines.

And seeing it as just one scale is of course a simplification, but I'll spare you from my rant about that...

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

{{surname}} and {{given name}} Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy articles are not disambiguation pages and should not get the new instruction template. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

JHunterJ: Ah yes, they seem to be put on typical set index article pages. I will add them to MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage#Set index article templates and to the list of set index templates under Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation#Templates. And I'll fix so pages that use those two templates don't display the {{disambig editintro}} when edited. Thanks for the report.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:16, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Err, I'm not so sure about that -- both of those templates may sometimes be placed within sections of a disambiguation page. I don't particularly agree with such usage, but so it goes. Such pages are still disambiguation pages, they only happen to contain a section listing given names or surnames. older ≠ wiser 14:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

older ≠ wiser: My findings and your findings agree, but there is more to this than you seem to understand. Yes, as you point out those templates are sometimes used on plain old disambiguation pages. But they are also often used on set index articles. And that means they may not trigger the {{disambig editintro}}, since that one should not be used on set index articles. Thus we now have to classify them as set index article boxes. When they are placed on a disambig page there also is a {{disambig}} box or similar, so that other box will take care of triggering the {{disambig editintro}}.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, that is well then. It wasn't clear before the editmessage would appear with sectional uses of the other templates on a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 18:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambig and setindex meta-template

While I was checking all the different disambig and set index templates I noticed they all use the same code and the same looks. But now we need to differentiate between the two kinds so only the true disambig pages get the {{disambig editintro}} displayed when people edit such pages. It's a CSS id in those templates that trigger the javascript that makes that editnotice show when editing a disambig page. But that id is currently also used to control the looks of the templates. So removing the id currently means some hand-coding.

So I am planning to code up a meta-template that supplies the full disambig look. And that template will have a "type=disambig/setindex" setting that decides which CSS id gets set and thus decides if the {{disambig editintro}} gets displayed or not. And it will of course take an "image" and a "text" parameter. Thus it will be very simple to make disambig and setindex templates and set them to the right type.

--David Göthberg (talk) 06:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I have coded up the meta-template. Take a look at {{dmbox}}. And take a look at the test cases in Template:Dmbox/testcases.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks great. I'm glad I asked you (the fellow who understands our mboxes well) to come look at this problem! Strongly endorse. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Glad that you like it! So I will do as I usually do: Wait a day and then look at my code and documentation again, since one almost always discovers something more to fix. And then I'll deploy it to the disambig and set index boxes.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Royalty on name disambiguation pages

I happened across the page List of rulers named Leopold, and I note that this page was originally created in order to split out all the names of royalty from the Leopold disambiguation page by an editor trying to improve the page. I can't see any part of the disambig guidelines that suggests this. Originally I thought that this should be covered by MOS:DABSUR and the entries should go on a {{given name}} page. However Title III of Thingamyjig doesn't fit the given name, surname pattern very well, so I'm now thinking it shouldn't apply and such links on disambiguation pages should be treated as an "Articles with the item as part of the name". Is this something on which there is consensus? I'm reluctant to undo something a member of this project did in the name of improving disambiguation without clarifying this. --Rogerb67 (talk) 22:41, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. People who are known by a single name should go on the dab page for that name. But I'd bring it up on Talk:Leopold first. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I was the one who split off the page, which was in my newbie time. I don't remember my reasons for doing that, but I guess it had something to do with different dab rules at the time (the approach for dabs and surname/given names didn't really get formalised until summer/autum 2007). I am completely neutral now to what happens to these pages. – sgeureka ^t•c 22:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments requested

See Talk:Francis, Dauphin of France#Request for Comment. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

original language names in dab pages

I'd like to know if it's allowable to have the original language names as part of the description sentence for dab entries on dab pages. I've been reverted for it at Feitian 70.51.8.75 (talk) 06:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there are any particular rules about it, but in the case of Feitian I don't see much need for the Chinese names (they don't help to disambiguate the terms).--Kotniski (talk) 11:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

(after ec) If the disambiguation phrase does not match the original language, then the guidelines for keeping the entries as brief as is needed to get the reader to the sought page would be against including the original language. If the original language matches the disambiguation phrase and the entry otherwise does not, then yes, it is appropriate to include it. In Feitian, they would be opted against, while on 文 (for instance), they would be included. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Gonzo (disambiguation)

This one needs some attention. Despite a few cleanup attempts, it still doesn't have an entry or primary usage for Gonzo because the term redirects back there. And should GONZO become a potential primary topic or does that go against WP:MOSCAPS? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Not all disambigs will have a primary usage... We could move the disambig page to Gonzo leaving a redirect, but would it really improve things? –xeno (talk) 18:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Moved as an examples of Wikipedia:Malplaced disambiguation pages. Yes, it really improves things. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Sterling College

Please check out Talk:Sterling College, a user replaced one page for "Sterling College" in Kansas with "Sterling College" in Vermont. Personally, I don't care which one is called which, but there are about 100+ pages in Wikipedia going to the "old way" of linking... and I think this is a new artcile about the college in VT. I don't know who really to notify or ask for help, but I'm guessing that your project is close enough to the solution to get it to the right team.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Nystagmus - truly disambig page?

Just had a look at Nystagmus and I don't think that it should be classified as a disambiguation page. Sure there is further specification, however, IMNSHO it is like further calling blood pressure a disambig page, and then separating to diastolic and histolic. Maybe it would be at MedicoWiki. Anyone else care to have a look and an opinion? -- billinghurst (talk) 13:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not a dab page. I removed the tags from the article stub and its talk page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Vedic added to the project list and ugly

Just went and visited Vedic and it is an ugly looking page and not one that I would want to touch to disambig. For an uncommon topic matter, it has a lot of links, and one wonders there should be a different base article. billinghurst (talk) 13:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Author has done work and reorganised to specific Disambig. Consider done. -- billinghurst (talk) 07:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

"Indo-European people" similarly

Must be me, I must be in pick pick pick mode. Indo-European_people has the label and it does not meet WP:MOSDAB, and then there is specifically linked from the top Indo-European (disambiguation) which would seem to be appropriate. -- billinghurst (talk) 13:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Someone has modified the text and it now complies. :-) -- billinghurst (talk) 07:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

More problems with SIAs

See Talk:Wizard#Cleanup. Some set index articles (such as Wizard (comics)) have been created as incomplete disambiguations, and their entries removed from the full disambiguation page. This is the wrong approach. A disambiguation page for "X" needs to include entries for all the articles that are ambiguous with "X", and not delete some of them just because they have been copied to a set index article. Having the user read a disambiguation page and then a set index article before getting to the sought article is contrary to the purpose of a disambiguation page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Guess I can go back and fix a few dabs when I get the chance. However, the only page I can remember ATM (which has the problems you're addressing) is Storm (disambiguation). Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Pages listing stub-like entries on same name

See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy#Pages listing stub-like entries on same name

Is there a tag to apply to pages like Abundantius and Aglaophon and Alexander (artists)? These pages are invariably dealing with disambiguation of ancient historical names, but the information is so scanty (typically Roman or Greek or medieval saints or other sources from antiquity) that there are unlikely to be individual pages about the people concerned. Some are incorrectly in Category:Multiple people (or a subcategory of that category). The current "name" and "disambig" tags all presume that people coming to the page will want to correct the link to point somewhere else, but in many cases this page contains the needed information. These are more names lists than name disambiguation pages. I am asking here and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy what is the best thing to do. Apologies for cross-posting again, but many issues like this do seem to affect both projects. Carcharoth (talk) 14:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

They look like set index articles to me. Abtract (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

They are like the ship name, ones, aren't they? Well, if that's the answer, great. Trouble is, I want to tag them and put them in a little box to make it easier for people to find the genuine "multiple people" pages (such as Abundius and Abundantius) and hence keep the "single biography" pages in their own box. But there doesn't seem to be a "biographical set-index" tag. Do the ships have one and should one be designed for people - at the risk of confusing some people horribly? Carcharoth (talk) 15:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

P.S. While I'm here, Abundantius is technically functioning as a dab page as well, as it points to Abundius and Abundantius. There may be people linking to Abundantius who want the other page. Abundius (disambiguation) does a better job at the moment, IMO. But that is mainly because there are separate pages for each entry. Carcharoth (talk) 15:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

To me these look like examples of old-style "multi-stub" pages, which used to be covered in Wikipedia:Disambiguation but were recently removed after discussion here. The new standard (which was not very well articulated) seems to be to break them out into little stubs of their own, but I can see the argument for treating these as set index pages as well. It might be useful to mention this case in that discussion, which is still on the WT:D page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've commented over there. Carcharoth (talk) 14:55, 12 October 2008 (UTC)