Wikipedia talk:Hatnote

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Chris the speller (talk | contribs) at 20:53, 9 August 2007 (→‎[[WP:NAMB]]: see above discussion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

I agree with limiting the stuff on top to disambiguations, but disagree with "which should be limited to a simplest possible link —preferably to a standard Article (disambiguation) page." --SPUI (talk) 20:34, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Examples

In most cases a disambiguation page is the most apropriate location, but not always. A little bit of explanation is useful, e.g. at Union of South Africa:

Union of South Africa is also the name of a LNER Class A4 steam locomotive, preserved on the Severn Valley Railway.

This will tell many people what the other article is about without needing to read it if they aren't interested. It also might draw the interest to one of the linked articles more than For the steam locomotive see LNER Class A4 4488 Union of South Africa. Thryduulf 20:49, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, it is a bit verbose. We know the Union of South Africa part already (both above and below on the page). Speaking as a person that has long been involved with steam locomotive preservation, I think the same interest would occur with:

For historic preservation of a steam locomotive, see LNER Class A4 4488

We need some stronger positive examples. William Allen Simpson 16:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. "most often" would be a better phrasing than "almost always". WP:D specifically bans separate dab pages if there are only two homonymous topics; rather, the "hatnote" should refer directly to the other page. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary messages

On the main page, I think that while Hurricane Katrina is an ongoing event that the link is absolutely apropriate. It directs people to a central location designed for the purpose, rather than attract potential edits to the article and/or talk page like "Does anyone know if Kevin Smith from Gulfport is safe?", which will get reverted from the article and lost on the talk page. In six months time it would be a different matter, but this is one of the advantages of being a wiki. Thryduulf 20:49, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I think all the articles should be editted as final, for they get preserved on CD-ROMs and archives. However, I also disagree with the action taken here. A short header pointing to the "External links" would have been better (and timeless). William Allen Simpson 16:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The concept of using these notes for reasons other than disambiguating should at least be mentioned somewhere, even if we state they should be restricted to "extraordinary circumstances". William, there are no "final" versions of any WP articles. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Quibbling; rather than "final", I could have said "for the ages", I did mention "timeless". This isn't a continuing news desk. And I disagree, on CD/DVD, it's carved in stone, as it were; as final as anything electronic. William Allen Simpson 20:27, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Still, this doesn't seem any more intrusive on a permanent medium than the plethora of NPOV tags, policy proposal tags, needs-improvement tags, and the like, which are intended to be equally temporary. —Wahoofive (talk) 00:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good point! --William Allen Simpson 00:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Name

Is hatnote a protologism?—jiy (talk) 12:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If this were a legal opinion, it would be a "headnote". Perhaps they invented a new word to distinguish? William Allen Simpson 14:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On WP:D they're called "disambiguation links". I presume it's your intent to condense the content on that page and refer people directly to this page as a subtopic of disambiguation. In that case keeping the word "disambiguation" here might be less, well, ambiguous. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not convinced that "hatnotes" a sufficiently self-explanatory term – but cannot at present think of any alternative other than "headers", which I grant may be too vague and has other (computing-related) uses. Will wander by again if inspiration strikes. Regards, David Kernow 19:23, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like the word hatnote — it has character. It's also short and sweet, and easy to remember.
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 22:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

using technical terms, such as "lede", "headnote"

Not all of you are professional editors (nor expected to be), but it would be helpful to check information when editing somebody else's work, especially where the term is clearly defined in the edit summary.

define:lede
--William Allen Simpson 14:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Also, contrary to Jiy's comment on the article page summary, a search for "lead paragraph" does not find any uses in (Main). "Lede" is used in many places, see List of commonly confused homonyms.

--William Allen Simpson 14:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, not everyone is a professional editor. So we shouldn't use jargon only understood by professional editors and not found in standard dictionaries. Even News style has lead emblazoned in bold, with lede only as a side note. Of course you won't find "lead paragraph" in the main namespace, when I said used throughout Wikipedia I meant used widely by Wikipedians. Search in the areas outside the main namespace and you will find the phrase is used commonly [1] . "Lede paragraph", on the other hand, generates zero results [2].—jiy (talk) 22:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The latter result would likely be because "lede" means "lead paragraph", and people are (hopefully) unlikely to want to write "lead paragraph paragraph"; given that they still want to write "PIN number", however, this might be more because they don't know about "lede" than because they know how to use it correctly . HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consolidate some Otheruses[N]

I've been trying to update WP:D with good examples, as the old ones have often migrated considerably since originally written. One thing that I did today was use the actual Otheruses templates in place, as the old subst were often obsolete.

But it took hours to find even a few good examples of Otheruses[N], as these are wildly applied. I must have looked at a dozen possibilities (when they exist) for each of the Otheruses templates.

There are too many nearly identical variants, and editors seem confused.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The major problem IMHO is that they are all labelled with numbers instead of being descriptive. Other templates with more or less the same purpose but different specifics have more mnemonic labels - see for example the various speedy delete templates. Hairy Dude 02:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses0}}

1 instance.

The only use could be easily replaced.

A modesty useful idea, that is a duplicate of/redirect to {{dablink}}. Seems to me that Dablink is improperly used, where standard templates apply, and should be replaced.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses1}}, {{Otherusesabout}}

165 instances.

On a page with title "Michigan" it says, "This article is about the U.S. State;" — gosh and golly gee, the very next sentence (the "lede") says, "Michigan is a state in the United States."

On a page with title "Abracadabra" it says, "This article is about an incantational word;" — the next sentence begins, "Abracadabra is a word used as an incantation ...."

Pursuant to WP:STYLE, the lede of every article is expected to have the title as the subject of the first sentence. I have not yet found an example where Otheruses1 is most appropriate.

All instances should be replaced with Otheruses.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses2}}, {{Otherusespar}}

many instances. Useful. Harmless.

Most could be replaced with {{Otheruses}}, as they simply repeat the title in the parameter.

Understandably, somebody created Otherusespar, as "2" is incongruous where there is only 1 parameter. Wouldn't {{Other1d}} (one parameter, "disambiguation" added) be a better name?

Replace and delete the duplicate.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses3}}

300+ instances. Seemingly useful.

However, there is a longstanding WP:D requirement (since 2002) that links to "Generic" disambiguation pages from other pages are supposed to go through a redirect from "(disambiguation)" so that WP:DPL won't list them. My guess is that many/most of these should be replaced by Otheruses2.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses4}}, {{This}}, {{This article is about}}, {{About}}

many instances. A mess.

Otheruses4 might be easier to remember as {{Othertopic}}. The primary use is for disambiguation of only two articles, to point at each other.

Most of the instances of {{This}} and {{This article is about}} are nearly identical to Otheruses4.

Template:This barely survived TfD (3 delete:2 keep) Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/May 2005#Template:This.

Template:This article is about barely survived TfD (1 delete:1 keep) Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/September 2005#Template:This article is about.

Like Otheruses1, should always check to see whether the "This" is already replicated in the lede.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh. {{About}} has hundreds of uses too, a lot of them probably identical to {{Otheruses4}}. It has the marginal advantage of flexibility in that you can add extra links or non-links and other wording than "{{{2}}}" or "other uses" after the "For". But other templates do that just as well. Plus, this template runs the risk of allowing nonstandard wording and formatting, which kind of defeats its own purpose.
How about a bot to replace usage of these, once consensus has been reached here? Hairy Dude 04:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User:Ed_g2s just edited a number of these templates to remove the "redundant information". I can see no basis in consensus for his changes, although I agree with his opinion of those templates. Hairy Dude 17:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, please see the talk page for {{otheruses4}}. It seems wrong to me to have all these remote discussions (and undiscussed actions) going on where a lot of editors who watch the WP:D page get no notice until their templates break. Is a disambig-fixing editor expected to watch otheruses, otheruses2, otheruses3, otherpeople, and every other template that might be useful? Chris the speller 18:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses5}}

2 instances.

Essentially same as {{redirect}}. Replace and delete.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Has been speedy deleted repeatedly.

--William Allen Simpson 02:39, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses6}}

5 instances.

Essentially same as {{redirect}}. Replace and delete.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses7}}

4 instances.

Paired with {{Otheruses5}} minus "(disambiguation)". Requires thought.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses8}}

1 instance.

Paired with {{Otheruses4}} plus "(disambiguation)".

Like Otheruses1, should always check to see whether the "This" is already replicated in the lede. Really not that hard to type the qualifier.

Replace and delete.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Otheruses9}}, {{dablinktop}}

no instances, should be deleted soon. Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 27#Template:Dablinktop

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
{{Otheruses9}} now redirects to {{This}}. Hairy Dude 00:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All gone. --William Allen Simpson 06:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consolidate some Distinguish[N]

{{Distinguish}}

61 instances.

This is for pairs of articles with confusingly similar names. Very useful IMHO.

Hairy Dude 20:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Distinguish2}}

6 uses in article namespace.

I think this is potentially useful where a brief explanation of the other word seems useful... but this sets a precedent of inserting potentially large amounts of text that are irrelevant to the article. It also needs documenting on its talk page.

Hairy Dude 20:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, this one is a waste of time. The only difference is that it doesn't link. Well, this is wikipedia, and links are our sine qua non. I'll look at the now 23 uses, but looks like they should all be replaced with {{distinguish}} or something similar.
--William Allen Simpson 06:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, useful only in very few cases, mainly to add the similar link AND a snippet of distinguishing information (or, quite wrongly and annoyingly, a second or third link). For those very few cases, {{dablink}} could do pretty well. When just seeing the other spelling instantly gives the other meaning to most people, such as Salon and Saloon, this form is not needed, but when there are two similarly named people in similar occupations, it is a kindness to add a few words so the reader does not have to flip back and forth. Chris the speller 15:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Now I'm starting to lean the other way — instead of trying to suppress or control all editors by deleting or chopping up templates, we should send a polite message to an editor who shows a tendency to use a template inappropriately. A golf club can be used as a weapon, but misuse by one or two people does not result in all golf clubs being melted down. I see some use for distinguish2, and so far I think it has often been used in an acceptable fashion. If there is an example of atrocious misuse, let's fix that case. And clear guidelines (with stellar examples) might help, too. Chris the speller 14:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I created {{distinguish2}} rather than use a {{dablink}} as its wording follows {{distinguish}} but the parameter isn't required to be a link and only a link. For the sake of this flexibility (without being as flexible/undefined as {{dablink}}) perhaps {{distinguish2}} should replace {{distinguish}} rather than vice versa...?  Regards, David Kernow 16:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Eh? Nothing needs to replace {{distinguish}}. And flexibility isn't always a good reason to promote a template, as I think is the case here - usually you want to be using that one, not this one. Hairy Dude 00:07, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree that {{distinguish}} doesn't have to be replaced; but rather than foregoing {{distinguish2}} in favor of the (very generic/flexible) {{dablink}} or the like, {{distinguish2}}'s name is a reminder that it shares the same wording as {{distinguish}}. {{Distinguish}}, however, requires the whole of its parameter to be a link, something that isn't always workable (so far as I've seen). Thanks for your input, David Kernow 01:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of proper use

The aforementioned section was empty, so in keeping with the be bold directive, I went ahead and added some examples. I also added my interpretation of how these examples apply to hatnotes. However, I may be getting ahead of myself on this. Since there is no definitive standard, I'm not exactly sure which of these examples I should be advocating as proposed policy and which I should leave out entirely. I really need some comments on this.
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 17:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous

I don't know about this one. If I'm trying to learn about a Scottish clergyman named John Brown, and I don't know if he was an abolitionist or not, I might look up John Brown on Google. One of the top Google links takes me to John Brown (abolitionist), but that's not who I meant. Shouldn't there be a hatnote to take me to John Brown? And it's not just names. I might be brand new to Wikipedia, looking at the Magpie River (Ontario) article. And I think "Hey, does that mean there are other Magpie Rivers?" But to get to that, I can't just click. Sarah crane 13:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • But why can't the user simply type "John Brown" (or "Magpie River") in the Wikipedia search box? The problem is that adding hatnotes to disambiguated articles only adds unnecessary clutter. Since we should presume that readers are looking for specific things and people, it might cause confusion to include superfluous links.
    ,-~R'lyehRising~-, 21:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The user can retype the name, but that's more work than clicking a link. I don't think a one-line hatnote is too distracting for people who don't care about other John Browns, but it would be very helpful for people who do. The article name Magpie River (Ontario) indicates that there are others, and it's natural to be curious. Shouldn't we link? Sarah crane 12:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agreed - make it easy. And don't presume that readers are looking for specific things or people - one of the joys of web-based encyclopaedias is the ability to wander to wherever your attention is distracted. Bazza 14:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • One should note, however, that the proposed guideline for hatnotes says that they are intended for disambiguation (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation). Thus, hatnotes are essentially condensed versions of disambiguation pages, which means that they should be used for navigation and not exploration. Just as Wikipedia discourages the use of disambiguation pages for exploratory purposes — such as games of free association — I think that a similar rule should apply to hatnotes. In fact, hatnotes should rarely be used, except when absolutely necessary.
          ,-~R'lyehRising~-, 22:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • You are confusing how authors should write with how readers might read. I'm not on about what authors might use disambiguation for - I'm talking about how readers might use it. I know that Wikipedia:Disambiguation says authors should not use disambiguation to provide games of free association, but where does it discourage readers from using disambiguation for random exploratory purposes? I say again, web-based encyclopaedias are great for reading about things you never set out to read - whether to do so or not is up to the reader. Bazza 10:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure that there's such a clear distinction between navigation and exploration. In so far as there is, though, navigation means nothing on its own; we need to ask: who needs to navigate, and to where? Explorers need navigation as much as (if not more than) anyone else, surely. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I definitely agree that these "non-ambiguous" articles should have dab links at the top that go back to the main page. Some people will end up on the "unambiguous" page without having gone through the disambiguation page, and some of those people will realize that they are in the wrong place. Also, the backlink is the only way you can find out that there are other people or concepts with similar names. That's interesting information which should not be destroyed by adherence to overly harsh style recommendations. -- Beland 16:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I previously would have disagreed with adding hatnotes to even the pages with disambiguation clarifiers in parenthesis, but there are some good arguments for including them. However, I worry that if they are included on all pages that are disambiguated, the pages will become quite cluttered.
A discussion regarding hatnotes has been going on at Wikipedia:Disambiguation in the latter part of Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Is_anybody_doing_it_right, which brings up a few interesting points. -- Natalya 16:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Referenced discussion is now here. Hairy Dude 23:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I appear to have missed this discussion first time 'round. Several previous discussions have found against these hatnotes for several reasons. I don't buy any of the above arguments in favour of them:
  • Sharing a name with something is not a good argument for a link to an otherwise unrelated article, and it's an especially bad excuse for a privaledged link above the article. If it's relevant, by all means make a note of it in the text. If we're playing random association links for the purpose of allowing users to read for the sake of reading, why should items sharing a name get the privaledged position of being the only things we do that for? Why are they more entitled to being included in that game than items established in the same year, people born in the same town, buildings with the same purpose, organisations with the same patron?
  • Regarding google: disambiguation is and has always been for those using Wikipedia's search box, and nothing else. For some reason people seem to think page names with a suffix are more ambiguous than page names with multiple words. They are not. If we accept the google argument, why stop at pages with suffixes? Type "Bush" into google. The number one result is George W. Bush. Should the GWB article link back to Bush? Indeed, the number 10 google result for "George", number six result for "Dubya" and number one google result for "GWB" are all to George W. Bush, so by now the hatnote for that page is ganna be getting pretty big! Should New York City have hatnotes for New, York, and City? Should History of England have them for History and England? Joe D (t) 23:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Use of horizontal line

Why should there not be a line dividing material that is not part of the article from the article? indentation doesn't do this (parts of an article are often indented, such as long quotations), nor does the use of italics. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I agree the italicized indentation does not look very nice. A line might be in order. Though that would involve changing a lot of articles. (Which could be automated by bot.) -- Beland 16:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. Having a dividing line after a hatnote breaks up the article in an unneeded fashion, and really distracts from the article. With an indentation, the hatnote is separate enough while still allowing a reader who does not need to read it to easily move to the article. Adding a horizontal line between the hatnote and the article makes the distinction too noticable. -- Natalya 16:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But this misstates the point; the line can't break up the article, because it's separating the article from non-article. And why shouldn't the distinction be noticeable? It's a genuine distinction (and a horizontal line is thus often used in this way in print works). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's likely just personal preference between us, but I feel that hatnotes should not stick out of a page. The whole point of having them be italicized and intented is so that they don't wake away from the nature of the article. The article is there for the article, that is the main point. The hatnote is only there for people who mistakenly come to the article; as dismabiguation practices are improving, the number of people mistakenly coming to an article becomes less and less. For people coming to the article and finding they are at the wrong place, they will soon relize this, see the hatnote, and go to the correct place. For everyone else, they will gloss over the indented and italicized hatnote, and continue on reading the article they were originally looking for.
Here is an example of an old version of a page using a horizontal line with a hatnote. There are so many horizontal lines and other boxes near the top of the page that it is unneedingly cluttered. There is no way that with indentation and italitization, a person at the wrong page will miss the hatnote. But with the horizontal line, many people who are where they are supposed to be will be distracted by the hatnote. It seems to be a question of aesthetics.-- Natalya 22:21, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have thought that a note insufficently distinguished from the article was more likely to distract than one clearly set off and separate. In either case, though, the effect is surely minimal. (The example that you give seems fine to me; this is clearly simply a matter of taste.) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe use preference settings along the lines of...
  • Hatnotes/headers:
  • Refer to these as "hatnotes" / "headers"
  • Always show / never show / use last setting  [as with TOCs etc]
  • Show only on article page / only on talk page / on either ...?  Regards, David Kernow 16:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you mean this to apply to the whole note, or only to the line? If the latter, and if it's feasible, then it seems like a good approach. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Either, I suppose. A drawback, however, is that this would demand further work from the seemingly already hard-pressed software developers, so I guess it would take some time to appear. Best wishes, David Kernow 18:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be two issues. The first concerns aesthetics, and that's clearly a matter of taste (discussions at other Talk pages, such as Wikipedia talk:Guide to layout#Horizontal line, bear that out), and there's not much more to be said. The second concerns usefulness. My position is that the horizontal line (used in this way by many print encyclopædias) serves to mark off material that isn't part of the article, and that merely indenting or italicising text is insufficent for that purpose (as other text in articles is also indented and italicised). Natalya holds that it makes the hatnote stick out, and is therefore undesirable (my reponse is that the hatnote is supposed to stick out, so that a reader who has misnavigated sees as soon as possible that that's what she's done).

Are there any other arguments on either side? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well my view is that the hatnote is indeed part of the article. And if indenting or italicising isn't sufficient, neither is a horizontal line (horizontal lines are also used elsewhere in articles). Also, as a personal point, I find the current formatting of hatnotes to be ideal for my own personal use; I realize that's anecdotal but it's still a data point. Powers 20:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really see how a link that explains that there are other, usually unrelated, articles with the same or similar names can be seen as part of the article. "See also" sections, yes. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest posting a link to this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), since many people who deal with disambiguation pages every day frequent that discussion, and may not know about the discussion going on here. -- Natalya 21:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mel just removed the restriction on the horizontal line from the Wikipedia:Guide to layout with the edit summary rm line lacking consensus, and I reverted. Clearly, there was no consensus anywhere to remove the restriction. This has been the standard since 2004-05-16. As noted in the edit comment, the existing text was merged there from the long-standing Wikipedia:Section (edit | [[Talk:Wikipedia:Section|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

--William Allen Simpson 04:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It does appear that Mel is the only one here who thinks a line should be in there. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 09:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I agree with Mel. But I'm not about to start another style war over it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from User:Beland's apparent agreement with my point too, the discussion is fragmented across different Talk pages, and others have agreed with me elsewhere. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template gutting

Is it just me, or have most of the hatnote templates dropped the very useful "This article is about..." clause? Surely I'm not the only one who made use of that. I've been bouncing around among various talk pages (here, WP:D, and the talk pages for the templates) and never once found any consensus to remove that clause. What the heck is going on? Powers 13:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at the talk page for {{otheruses4}}. There is an editor (an admin, no less) who thinks there was consensus 8 months ago for it, but I see it quite differently. Chris the speller 15:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Otheruses4

Template:Otheruses4 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

followup The template has survived TFD with consensus of 'keep'. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The nomination is in fact at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 April 18#Template:Otheruses4. Hairy Dude 02:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why templates?

I don't see the reason for "In most cases, a standard Wikipedia:Disambiguation template should be used" at the start of the Format section. Using a template has the disadvantage that it makes the wikitext more complicated and less readable. I have no idea what Template:Otheruses3 says, and I certainly do not feel like looking up the correct template when I want to write a disamb notice.

I don't think we should try to keep the wording of the notice uniform across articles. I do agree that the format should be kept uniform, but that can easily be achieved without a template. It can even be changed without using a template, though that is admittedly more complicated. Finally, if the format is the only reason for using a template, then there should only be one template, Template:Dablink. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The main reason for using templates is that they can be more easily hidden (e.g. in print) using code more complex than that used to make simple wikitext notes. Circeus 17:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, I hadn't realized that there is a class hidden in the templates. I still don't templates like Template:Otheruses3 and the proposal seems to be written to make us use those templates. On the other hand, I'm happy with {{dablink|For other meanings of "foo", see [[foo (disambiguation)]].}} and that's allowed. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What needs to happen is the disambig templates need to be condensed for comprehensibility. That would make them much easier to understand. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:About

Template:About has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you.

--William Allen Simpson 04:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consolidate some Otheruses again

Again, we have the problem of proliferation of variants. Analysis shows that there could be just {{Otheruses}}, {{Otherterms}}, and {{Othertopics}} with up to 2 optional parameters.

Consolidate into Otheruses

  • {{Otheruses}}:
    For other uses, see Wikipedia talk:Hatnote (disambiguation).
  • {{Otheruses|PAGE1}}:
    For other uses, see PAGE1 (disambiguation).

That could replace:

Is there support for the simpler and easier to remember syntax?

--William Allen Simpson 04:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just found {{Otheruse}}, currently used on 36 pages, which uses named parameters. I prefer your proposal. Hairy Dude 02:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Consolidate into Otherterms

That could replace:

Consolidate into Othertopics

That could replace:

Is there support for the simpler and easier to remember syntax?

--William Allen Simpson 06:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This can be merged with your otheruses section above as well, into the equivalent of the current {{Otheruses4}}. (You may notice I've already basically done that to the extent I can.) I think dropping the first parameter is easier to remember than the difference between uses and topics when both use the word uses. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be concentrating on the output text, I was grouping by the parameter usage that would allow a redirect (or bot) to replace existing instances cleanly. I agree that the text could be changed here to something more like "for other topics". I just used existing language for the examples.
Also, we have these templates like {{otheruses4}} that don't point to a "(disambiguation)" link/page, they point directly to another page, and are used as the example in Wikipedia:Disambiguation. So, we cannot be like {{Otheruses}} or {{Otheruses2}}.
Moreover, unlike the proposed {{Otherterms}}, the PAGE parameter moves over one, instead of having two pages (I don't know why we need two pages for {{Otheruses}}, but somebody has been doing that lately). It's computer science and ease of conversion, not esthetics, driving my proposal here.
Finally, noting that your various recent transclusions work by leaving out parameters ("||" empty pipes), that's really not documentable, and extremely hard to read. Different template names are preferable.
--William Allen Simpson 01:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"I was grouping by the parameter usage that would allow a redirect (or bot) to replace existing instances cleanly": Well, there's a one-to-one mapping between parameters here, so just editing everything to use a meta-template to something like {{otheruses4}} would work to clean up existing templates. (Ideally a bot would replace them in wikitext too, but this would also be easy.)

"Also, we have these templates like {{otheruses4}} that don't point to a "(disambiguation)" link/page, they point directly to another page": Yes, why is that relevant? All of your proposed templates also drop that bit.

"Moreover, unlike the proposed {{Otherterms}}, the PAGE parameter moves over one, instead of having two pages": That's a silly change people have been making recently. What should be is just that the new templates shouldn't autoadd wikilinks; this gives far greater flexibility to end-users. If you want a link, put a link; if you want two links, put two links; if you want and, put and; if you want or, put or. This would make conversion more complex, but in the long run I feel it's the only sensible course of action, in the absence of StringFunctions.

"Different template names is preferable": Could be. We should have a straw poll once we get some more of the details worked out, I suppose. But if they do have different names, I would suggest {{for}} (which starts with "For other uses") and {{about}} (which starts with "This article is about"); your current division is extremely confusing. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot fathom your scrunched comments with HTML p paragraphs, so I'll just note that you are wrong. The division is about "Uses", "Topics", and "Terms".
Using "For" because it is the first word in the OUTPUT TEXT (as I mentioned before) is silly! Using "About" because it is the 4th word in the OUTPUT TEXT is even sillier! The output text can change at any time. The parameters and usage should make sense, be consistent, and easy to document.
The (mostly Netaholic) hack that includes bracketed links inside template parameters is non-intuitive, and contrary to just about every other template in the *pedia! (The only ones I know of were all revisions by Netaholic.)
I'm not at all interested in designing arbitrary junk. I'm proposing this as a clean and clear consolidation, easy to implement.
--William Allen Simpson 00:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The only difference between the template you peg as "uses" and the one you call "topics" is that the first doesn't contain a sentence explaining the content of the current page, and the second does. That is in no way parallel to the difference between the words "use" and "topic"; therefore, the distinction between those two is likely to be lost on many. That output text can change is irrelevant—first of all it's not going to change too much in the foreseeable future, but even if one does, we can just redirect the template. The output is what people remember.

The "hack" that includes bracketed links inside template parameters is not non-intuitive if you aren't already used to the vast majority of templates that unfortunately don't use it. As a matter of fact, most unfortunately don't, but that's not a reason to say that it's better that way. The ones that use the present system are bad and should be changed, because they're much less flexible and so force the use of {{dablink}} more than is necessary. But if you're focused on easier implementation, the extra parameter can be added to my templates as well as yours.

I use the <p> syntax, by the way, because any line breaks kill the current table. That looks acceptable on these tables, which are pretty hacky anyway, but I've gotten used to using it from * and # tables. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest using the name {{Otherusesabout}} for the variant with a summary à la {{Otheruses4}}. Currently {{Otherusesabout}} is a redirect to {{Otheruses1}} and is used by a small enough number of articles that we could simply convert those by hand. I don't see any problem with the fact that "is about" might be changed to (e.g.) "discusses", since the name will still be reasonably mnemonic.
For "other uses of TERM", I suggest {{Otherusesof}}. In this case we can actually keep the old template and just extend it with extra parameters to allow more articles to be linked to. Hairy Dude 03:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Argh! I've found yet another template: {{This article}}. Allegedly it is "useful for those articles where the "is about" could be replaced with better words", but most uses use "is about" anyway. Created on 4 October 2006. I think we really need to standardise on some templates and strongly discourage creation of any more. Hairy Dude 02:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Now nominated for deletion. Hairy Dude 03:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on formatting of references to other articles

I've started a discussion on how to format explicit references to other articles ("see Article") in Wikipedia. Your comments at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Formatting of referrals to other articles is appreciated. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That discussion is now archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 55#Formatting of referrals to other articles. Hairy Dude 03:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Village Pump thread on this proposal

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Hatnotes inactive? (continued). Carcharoth 13:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion was archived, so it is being copied by me here below. —AySz88\^-^ 04:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Old discussion copied out of archives for further discussion. Carcharoth 13:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC) [reply]

Radient placed inactive tags at Wikipedia:Hatnotes, and his comment on my user talk page reveals that he feels the page is an inactive proposal. I disagree (I thought it was an active guideline), but the page hasn't been updated in a while; should this page be rejuvinated and/or perhaps integrated into the MoS? —AySz88\^-^ 15:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note that the page was never marked "guideline". I would have no objection to it becoming part of the MOS, but must point out that the last serious discussion was in July. (Radiant) 15:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

End of first copied (by Carcharoth) section.

I think this is more a case of a proposal being written to reflect practice at the time, and to help prevent diverging practices. It seems that either people started following it, or they always did follow it (from what I can tell, the hatnote templates are widely used). I suspect the proposal just never got tidied up and pushed forward to being a guideline or merged into the Manual of Style. The absence of anything on hatnotes in the MoS is rather a glaring omission. I would support this loose end being tidied up and accepted, rather than just tagged "inactive" - which struck me at the time as very strange - people add hatnotes all the time - the practice of using hatnotes is not inactive, which is what some people might have thought when they saw the page tagged as inactive (I realise that Radiant was probably tagging the proposal, not the activity, but not everyone clearly understands this difference). Ditto for the recent tagging of the Wikipedia:Death threats proposal as inactive (by me, not Radiant) - some people might interpret this to mean that they can get away with death threats! I think we need to be careful with these "inactive" tags. Carcharoth 13:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • The obvious solution against death threats would be redirecting it to NPA, which already has a clause on it. I have, of course, no objection to a MOS page about hatnotes, but I have not had sufficient experience with hatnotes to write it myself. Hence, until someone can be found to write it, we don't actually have such a MOS page, and this proposal is presently inactive. (Radiant) 15:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, the rewritten tag I had there was my initial attempt to avoid this, but the redirect you did for 'Wikipedia:Death threats' looks good. I've moved the tag to the talk page to prevent people adding discussion to that talk page, but still leaving the talk there for people to read, plus a link directing people to the talk page of WP:NPA. I've also updated the archives box at the top of WT:NPA to link to the talk page when a subpage has been turned into a redirect. Hopefully people following old links to Wikipedia:Death threats will work out what has happened here! As for the hatnotes, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else wants to volunteer, and then I'll see about setting up something in the MoS. I'll add a note over there. Carcharoth 15:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agree that Hatnotes does summarize current practices and is a useful guideline. older ≠ wiser 16:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

End of copied (by AySz88) section.

This page

I personally have no objection to adding this page to the manual of style, but I note the lack of recent activity here and the lack of response to a recent thread on the village pump. Therefore I am in doubt as to whether this is consensual, or if people simply are not particularly interested about the subject. (Radiant) 12:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why a page has to have recent activity in order to be considered worthwhile. AFAICT, it describes current practices pretty well. older ≠ wiser 13:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't have to be; I was simply wondering if the lack of response to this page implies assent or disinterest. (Radiant) 13:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's working, and it's not controversial. That's why my lack of response, up to now, impied Assent. Chris the speller 19:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Should this page not now be at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (hatnotes)? It should also be linked from Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Hairy Dude 03:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous"

Hi. I'd like to open a discussion on one of the "improper uses" of disambig hatnotes listed here, specifically "Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous". The reason given for this being inappropriate is that "the user would not have ended up at tree (set theory) if they were interested in other types of trees, as tree does not redirect there". At first glance this seems like a sound piece of reasoning but I'm not sure that it is. If a user types "tree" into the search box and hits "Go", they are taken to tree which may be what they wanted, but if it isn't, they're directed at "tree (disambiguation)" where (hopefully) they can find what they were after (e.g. tree, tree or tree). No problems so far, but that's only one way in which a user might end up at a page. How about, however, if they arrive at an article by following a link. If it's a poorly-crafted link, i.e. it points to tree (disambiguation) or it points at tree when tree was intended, then they can (hopefully) find what they're after, and if they're an experienced user, perhaps even fix the links). For well-crafted links, on the other hand, i.e. links that point to unambiguously named pages, what if a user followed a link to tree expecting to find information relating to tree? They wouldn't find the right information. For an experienced user, this wouldn't be a big deal, as they'd probably spot that the page has a qualifier and deduce that there was a corresponding disambiguation page, would visit that and (hopefully) find what they're after. A novice or casual user, however, probably wouldn't realise that a qualified title indicated that a disambiguation page existed (if they even knew what disambiguation pages were) and would be even less likely to know what the disambiguation page would be called. In terms of the user experience for novice/casual users, I see little if any difference between the appropriateness of placing a disambig hatnote on a qualified vs an unqualified page. On the basis that we're writing this encyclopaedia primarily for the vast bulk of the human population, and not primarily for the very small subset of it which has lots of Wikipedia editing experience, something seems not quite right here. The reasoning given for this usage of a hatnote seems to me incorrect or at least over-simplified. Do others agree? I don't have an opinion at this stage as to whether a hatnote or some other device is the most appropriate way of solving this problem, but if we can agree that there is a problem, I'm happy to give the solution some thought. SP-KP 21:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is a problem with the guideline, simply with the way it has been implemented in your example. Since "tree structure" could refer to "tree (data structure)", it is ambiguous, and so tree structure should have a hatnote directing users to tree (data structure). In contrast, there is no need to have a hatnote linking the other way round. As long as noone assumes that only one of the pages associated with a disambiguation page is ambiguous, there shouldn't be a problem. JPD (talk) 17:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In this particular case, I don't think that a hatnote is necessary on tree structure since tree (data structure) is listed as a related term within the article. But in general, the advice by JPD is sound. older ≠ wiser 17:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The case for hatnotes

I think that the section of the draft guidance on "Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous" is far too wide-reaching and woukd damage wikipedia if adopted. There are many cases where hatnotes are useful and important even on article names which may appear not to be ambiguous'. (My editing primarily involves biographical articles, so my comments may not be so relevant elsewhere, but they arise from long experience in this biographical area).

Some reasons for having hatnotes:

  • A concise hatnote (using, for example the {{otherpersons}} template should take only about ten words in all, and fit on one line. It creates minimal page clutter, and is visually distinct from the body text. (I deplore most uses of templates such as {{otheruses1}}, which create absurdly verbose hatnotes: if the article has a proper lead section there is no need for a hatnote which says "this article is about ...").
  • The advice against using hatnotes is based on the assumption that when things are working properly, the reader will always arrive at the right page. I think that this assumption is wrong for lots of reasons (see below), and that without a hatnote a reader who arrives at the wrong page will have no easy way of finding the correct article, if it exists; they will either have to search or try eiting the URL. It's much easier for the reader to have a hatnote providing direct, one-click access to the disambiguation page.

Some reasons why readers may end up on the wrong page:

Readers don't all start from wikipedia
  • I think that maybe some editors take too wiki-centric a view of how Wikipedia is used.
    It seems to me that many users will not start on wikipedia, they'll start with a search engine such as Google; and chances are these days that a wikipedia entry will appear at or near the top of the list of search results. They may find in the article title a clue about which particular person the page in question describes, or they may not. If the page is entitled "John Q. Smith", that probably won't tell them whether it's the right John Smith. and a term such as "baron" may be more helpful to some, but not to others such as me who may not know the UK peerage system, and only know from reading the very clear introductory sentence that it's about a politician.
    The problem is that the introductory sentence may not be one that Google displays in the excerpt, so it may not be available when deciding whether to view the page — and the dab page will rarely anywhere the top of a set of Google results.
An editor may create a link to the wrong person
  • Consider the case of John Gilbert, a dab page which currently lists 11 people. Not all of the names explain the career of the subject, so an editor needs to check carefully when disambiguating a link. Sometimes they will get it wrong, as with John Gilbert (actor).
    There is one wikipedia article on a Jihn Gilbert who'd an actor, but an IMDB search for John Gilbert lists 19 of them ... and it would be easy for an editor to link to the wong one.

As more articles get created for John Gilberts or John Smiths, the more likely it is that a reader will end up with the wrong one. Not many names will be as widely used as John Smith, but a name gets to the stage of having more than one John Gilbert in a particular profession, the more important it becomes to have an easy way or fnding the others. Dabs such as John Gilbert (actor) are not necessarily unique.

So the way I see it is that far from it being dificult, it's actually quite easy for a user can to end up on the wrong page when the article name is even a bit ambiguous. And once they get there, they may not even know that there ought to be a dab page. The {{otherpersons}} hatlink takes little enough screenspace and mental bandwidth for the reader that it's no impediment to a user who doesn't need it — but it will be very useful to anyone who does. Some pages may needs the hatlink more than others, but even where it isn't essential, it may be interesting to have a direct link to a list of other people of the same name. It may be useful to some and interesting to others, which is why I added it to all the John Gilberts.

There are lots of ways in which these hatnotes can help, and they take so little space that they do no harm if not needed. Rather than deprecating them, the guidelines should encourage them. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely. About a year ago I made the same argument (much less eloquently), explaining how Google search can easily lead to the wrong person's article. Good going, BHG. Editors who haven't done much disambiguating of bios can't appreciate how much we need special guidelines for articles about people. Chris the speller 19:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree strongly with BrownHairedGirl. There are lots of ways to end up at the wrong article. And even if it is the right one having a quick way to get to the dab page is a very useful navigation tool for some people (e.g. me). If a page is parenthetically disambiguated that indicates that there are other pages that would share its title but without a hatnote there is no obvious way to find them. (As an established editor I know how use the search box or address bar to find a dab page but we can't expect that knowledge of new users.) I would have the guideline say Pages with titles which are not ambiguous should generally not have hatnotes. However, if the title would be ambiguous except for parenthetical disambiguation a link back to the disambiguation page may be warranted to aid in navigation. Eluchil404 13:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. (Sorry, not much to add!) Carcharoth 04:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Disagreed, per the previous discussions. None of these points are new. Joe D (t) 12:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with BHG. I have never understood what harm the opponents of this idea think will be done by including a short dablink on these pages; I was dismayed when people started removing them from the many John Taylor articles I worked on. Is the mild annoyance of this notice to the person who is in the right place and knows it more important than the serious frustration of a person who is not able to find what they are looking for? Not everyone uses the encyclopedia the same way -- why make information harder to find when it's so easy for us to provide it? — Catherine\talk 18:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are not just many ways to end up at the wrong page, there may be faulty assumptions underpinning underlying what happens when people arrive at an unambiguous page:
  • People will remove the disambiguating element which assumes:
    • People are familiar with the way Wikipedia works - people may be new to Wikipedia and not understand the naming protocols we use, especially as this isn't a standard way URLs would be done elsewhere on the Net (general link guidelines tend to suggest not using non-alphanumeric characters in URLs as encoding can make them messy and confusing).
    • People know about URL manipulation - I have taught introductory computer classes to bring everyone entering University up to the same standard and even amongst people starting a degree web fu can be highly variable. One of the things I make sure I include is URL manipulation and this is almost always new to users with medium to poor computer/web skills. Once learned it is very useful but we can't assume people have this skill by default (especially given the previous point)
  • People will just type the name into the search box - leaving aside possible typos leading people astray (or to dead ends) this breaks the flow which is important for usability. Remember Wikipedia is just another site, albeit an important one jam packed with important information. If someone is Googling for something we will be one of many results presented and if someone clicks the Wikipedia link and ends up on a page that is not about the thing they are looking for and there is no obvious navigation above the "fold" then they could just as easily hit the back button and go on looking through the lists of there results little knowing that the answer to their question is just a click or two away. This kind of thing is why link ladders are often put across the tops of pages on a lot of sites (I've found the IMDB one useful just today) and while Wikipedia doesn't lend itself to such obvious structures, as it stands you can often move up the disambiguation ladder but you can't often move down it and we can't assume the entry point to the structure is the ground floor. I have actually used hatnotes to create just such a ladder and you can start here.
  • People will be prepare to go in a big circuitous route to get somewhere - even if we assume people are prepared to do URL manipulation or dig/search you can end up going all around the house. I want to find Merlyn (Marvel Comics) but bad Googling (and experience shows people often need to be taught good search engine use too) leads me to Merlyn (DC Comics). This disambiguates to Merlin the Magician (comics), so I remove the ambigutation and get a redirect to Merlin from where I can click the link to the disambiguation page. I scroll down and spot Merlin (Marvel Comics) which is will eventually take me to the right entry (if I'd scrolled down the long Merlin page I'd have actually found the direct link tagged on the end). So basically we are relying on people knowing about URL manipulation and being prepared to keep digging away to find the right page, they often aren't going to be prepared to jump through so many hoops, they'll just hit the back button and leave.
Most editors on Wikipedia making policy decision can (I'd presume) be classed as medium to expert level in their general web knowledge and the way Wikipedia works but we can't assume everyone is (in fact we should assume they aren't).
There are other reasons for using hatnotes on unambiguous entries:
  • The URL may not lend itself to simple manipulation as in the Merlyn example above. The solution to that would in fact bringing all the comics mentions of Merlin/Merlyn together at "Merlin (comics)" and then add a hatnote up to that from all the relevant pages.
  • Such sub-disambiguation pages have worked well to help resolve confusion - there was a vast amount of confusion over the fact that there were 3 War of the Worlds films released in 2005, it took quite a bit of work to sort the mess out and one of the main things that helped was the creation of The War of the Worlds (film) (with another hatnote up to the main WotW entry) which the 4 WotW films are linked to via hatnotes. I have suggested some further disambiguation might be needed but that itself would require people to know the director or the production company (and could bring in extra confusion) and it looks like sub-disambiguation and hatnotes (the simplest fix) has ironed out the majority of issues.
So to summarise: there may be faulty assumptions about how people navigate the web and the use of hatnotes can help reduce confusion, help people find the right entry and increase usability. The arguement against seems to be that they clutter up the page. Now I have seen messy disambiguation but most of the time, when used properly, they can be unobtrusive and I find my eye is actually drawn to the bold introduction to the lead rather than the disambiguation (which rapidly disappears into the background - more part of the frame of the page rather than body. So a lot of pros and fairly weak cons. If it is largely a visual issue then working on making the links simpler, smaller or moving it further right (the ones I consider messy tend to have a lot of links and the further left they are the more they catch the eye when you want to read the entry) or make some other minor changes. (Emperor 12:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]
This has all been discussed before by people who have a very good idea of how people browse the web, and why Wikipedia can't go doing everything for the benefit of Google. Yes, people will end up at the wrong place, but those arguing for hatnotes for these people are asuming, without any evidence, that people ending up at X (Australian band) will only have been looking for something listed on X (disambiguation). What X (Australian band) needs is a hatnote for every term that people who accidently find themselves there are looking for. It needs a hatnote for band (disambiguation) and Australia for a start, and probably several other terms. How do we deal with Google bombs? If somebody did a googlebomb with the phrase congenital moron pointing at somebody's Wikipedia biography, we should put a hatnote on that biography to help those people who found themselves there by accident? Joe D (t) 18:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See also, my previous discussion of Google a few months ago. Joe D (t) 18:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying we should try and second guess things and anyway link to Australia and punk rock are above the fold on that entry. X (Australian band) is a good example as it does have an X (band) hatnote which would be helpful for people who might have ended up at that entry but were instead looking for something like X (U.S. band) - one click and they are taken to the right place to find the other X bands. That is what I'm talking about. I wouldn't recommend everything should be hatnoted but proper use like that can help people find the right page. (Emperor 18:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]
Joe, there are zillions of ways in which people can each a web page that isn't the one they are looking, and you are right that in many cases we should expect users to search again.
However, it's a big leap from saying "we can't cover all circumstances" to saying that we should never use the simple tools at our disposal to assist readers who encounter a genuinely ambiguous article title. The Dictionary of National Biography helps its readers in this way by providing above each article a few small and unobtrusive links to similarly-named people. Why shouldn't we do the same? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:34, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. While we can't possibly try and second guess all the ways people end up at a page it is no big leap to suggest that someone looking for the band X might end up at the wrong one and a quick link sorts it out. I have had real problems with the comic artist Matt Smith. Everyone was dumping information into Matt Smith (comics) but people could easily be turning up at Matthew Smith (artist) or Matt Smith (illustrator) (and looking at those disambig pages there are 4 journalists of the same name). The application of hatnotes has helped sort things out. The bottom line is we assume people will change the URL or search for the terms but we really can't assume that. Editors should be given the flexibility to use hatnotes where it seems they can be useful and the payoffs, in just the small number of examples I have worked on, outweigh the very small bit of extra text: one man's clutter might be someone else's invaluable aid. (Emperor 01:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]
Also it is worth noting that if the concern is about clutter then hatnotes can help reduce this. The War of the Worlds (film) didn't just help reduce confusion (although it did as part of a well thought out plan to fix the disambiguation problems with WotW), the use of a sub-disambiguation helped declutter the entry which needed some kind of hatnote but to do the job right it would rapidly have got large and unwieldy. While disambigutaing to a very general disambiguation page may not be that helpful (it'd involve nearly as much digging as URL manipulation or using the search box - although it has some pluses as it just relies on clicking) sub-disambiguation pages and the appropriate hatnotes can help people (a bit like hatnoting to a full name disambiguation compared to just a surname). For example, the link on this entry Nemesis (Transformers) goes to the main disambiguation and isn't really a useful link compared to the one at Nemesis (DC Comics).
WP:NAMB is a guideline and "Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception". So I'd suggest that the exceptions to this guideline are when linking to sub-disambiguation pages (that includes full name ones, like Matt Smith) as these types of articles are tightly focused and of more use than more general disambiguation page. So no need to actually change the hatnotes guidelines just make it clearer what the acceptable exceptions to WP:NAMB are, which wouldn't need more than a sentence of explanation (and a general consensus, of course). (Emperor 02:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Errors on this page

Section "Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous"

The example featuring "Tree (set theory)" contains a heading that erroneously ends up in Hatnotes' Contents (and breaks it). --AlastairIrvine 11:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed by using an html tag instead of wiki markup. heqs ·:. 10:43, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NAMB

  • Doesn't this section sort of contradict the use of {{otheruses}} templates? I understand the example, but I have seen plenty of articles that follow that example without being challenged. Anthony Rupert 18:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please see the section above, ""Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous" for a very recent discussion of this. Some editors (myself included) have argued that hatnotes are sometimes useful to readers, especially when two similarly named people are in similar fields, but such hatnotes are obviously not as useful with Tree (set theory) and Shoe tree. Chris the speller 20:53, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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