Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts

Disambiguation pages ("dab pages") are, like redirects, non-article pages in the article namespace. Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles, usually when a user searches for an ambiguous term.

This style guideline is intended to make this process more efficient by giving disambiguation pages a consistent look and avoiding distracting information, such as extraneous links (internal or external). It applies to pages containing only disambiguation content, whether or not the page title contains the word "(disambiguation)". This guide does not apply to articles which are about a primary topic but contain a "see also" notice or the like.

Page naming conventions

Covered at Wikipedia:Disambiguation.

Linking to Wiktionary

Rather than including a dictionary definition of a word, create a cross-link to our sister project, Wiktionary. To do this, use one of the "Wiktionary parameter templates" on the first line. The multiple-option templates are useful if you want to link to dictionary entries with alternate capitalizations (star, Star, and STAR, for example).

{{Wiktionarypar}} - {{wiktionarypar|WORD}}
{{Wiktionarypar}} - {{wiktionarypar|WORD|WORD2|...|WORD5}} (up to five optional parameters)

Note: {{wiktionary}}, the basic template, is deprecated. It uses the page name, which starts with an uppercase letter, and Wiktionary is now case sensitive on the first letter. For more information on linking see Wikipedia:Sister projects#Wiktionary.

Linking to a primary topic

When a page has "(disambiguation)" in the title, users are unlikely to stumble on it by accident. They will arrive there by clicking on a link from the primary topic article, by searching, or by directly typing its URL.

The link on the main article should be similar to:

For other uses, see School (disambiguation).

The {{otheruses}} template series can be used.

Since it is unlikely that this well-known meaning is what they are looking for, it should not be mixed in with the other links. It is recommended to place the link back to the primary topic at the top, like this:

A school is an institution for learning.

School may also refer to:

School (discipline), a group of people with common characteristics in what they do, e.g. a school of painting, or a school of thought
"School" (song), by the grunge music group Nirvana
School (band), a band from Konami's Pop'n Music series
A swarm of fish

Introductory line

Like a standard article, the title of the page should be in bold (not italic). It should begin a sentence fragment ending with a colon, introducing a bulleted list:

Interval may refer to:

John Smith is the name of:

ABC may stand for:

It is not necessary to repeat all the possible variations of capitalization or punctuation: "AU may refer to" is preferable over "AU, au, Au or A-U may refer to".

Individual entries

Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the information they want quickly and easily. These pages are not for exploration, but only to help the user navigate to a specific article.

Preface each entry with a bullet (an asterisk in wiki markup). Only entries that link, not leading lines, should have bullet points.

Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link. Including more than one link can confuse the reader; including no links at all makes the entry useless for further navigation. (See "redlinks" below for cases where no article yet exists.)

The link should be the first word or phrase in each entry. For example:
- Neapolitan chord, in music theory, a major chord built on the lowered second scale degree
- not: In music theory, a Neapolitan chord is a major chord built on the lowered second scale degree
- but: see Redlinks and URL anchor notation below when the entry's subject does not have an article of its own.

Start with a capital letter. In the rare event that the target article is marked with {{lowercase}}, it may be more appropriate to use a lowercase letter.

There is no need to emphasize the link with bolding or italics, although titles (such as for books and movies) may need to be italicized, in conformance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). If the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the title (see below).

Unlike a regular article page, do not wikilink any other words in the line, unless they may be essential to help the reader determine where they might find the information. For example:
- "Dark Star" (song), a song by the Grateful Dead
- not: "Dark Star" (song), a song by the psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead

Never link days or dates.

Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments. Even when the entry forms a complete sentence, do not include commas or periods at the end of the line.

The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link.

External links should rarely, if ever, be given entries in disambiguation pages. Including them as comments or on a talk page is a way to mention URLs that might be helpful in the future.

Entries should not be pipe linked — refer to the article name in full. See below for several exceptions to this rule.

Example:

Interval may refer to:

Interval (mathematics), a certain subset of an ordered set
Interval (music), the relationship between two notes

Examples of individual entries that should not be created

On a page called Title, do not create entries merely because Title is part of the name (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Lists).

Common examples:

Title County
Title City
Title Hospital
Title University

These may require their own disambiguation pages. For example, "Jefferson County" should list the counties in all the states, but the "Jefferson" disambiguation page ideally would not. A reader looking for Jefferson County would be expected to type both words and hit the Go button, not just type "Jefferson".

The above does not apply if the subject is commonly referred to simply by Title. Eg. Oxford (disambiguation) should link Oxford University and Catalina might include Santa Catalina Island, California. If there is disagreement about whether this exception applies, it is often best to assume that it does.

You may want to create entries on the same page for:

TITLE and Title
Title town and Title township

An example is "Willow Valley", which lists a town of that name as well as "Willow Valley Township" in another state.

Given names or surnames

Title Smith
Title Lee
John Title
Jane Title

Persons who happen to have the same surname or given name should not be mixed in with the other links unless they are very frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g., Elvis, Shakespeare). For short lists of such persons, new sections of Persons with the surname Title and Persons with the given name Title can be added below the main disambiguation list. For longer lists, create a new Title (name), Title (surname) and/or Title (given name) page.

Pages only listing persons with certain given names or surnames who are not widely known by these parts of their name otherwise are not disambiguation pages, and this Manual of Style does not apply. In such cases, do not use {{disambig}} or {{hndis}}, but {{given name}} or {{surname}} instead.

Misspellings

Common misspellings should only be listed if there is a genuine risk of confusion or misspelling. These cross-links should be placed in a separate section entitled "Common misspellings" or "See also". For example, in a page called Kington (disambiguation), a link to Kingston (disambiguation) would appropriately be included in the See also section.

Piping

Piping means concealing the actual title of a linked article by replacing it with other text, typically to suppress parenthetical expressions.

Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed. For example, in the entry for Moment (physics), the word "physics" should be visible to the reader. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need to be able to find the intended article.

Exceptions:

Use piping if you are linking to an anchor point on the target page.
Use piping if the article title differs from what it should be due to technical limitations per {{Wrongtitle}}; for instance The Singles 81>85 or Softimage|XSI.
Use piping to format or quote a portion of an article whose name consists of both a title and a clarifier, or a genus or species and a clarifier; for instance Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "School" (song), or Saturnalia (dinosaur).

If a word in the description is linked (an unusual occurrence), you may use piping in that link.

This guidance to avoid piping means that a link to a redirect term will sometimes be preferred to a direct link, if the redirect term contains the disambiguation title and the redirect target does not. For example, in Delta (disambiguation), a link to the redirect term Delta Quadrant would be preferred over its target, Galactic quadrants (Star Trek).

Specific entry types

Foreign languages

For foreign-language terms, be sure an article exists or could be written for the word or phrase in question. Usually this means that the term has been at least partially adopted into English or is used by specialists.

Tambo may refer to:

Tambo (weapon), a very short staff used in martial arts

Avoid adding lines for words or phrases that are simply spelled the same as an English term. For example:

not: Tambo, a Japanese word (田んぼ) for rice paddy

People

For people, include their birth and death years (when known), and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Keep in mind the conventions for birth and death dates, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death. Do not include a, an or the before the description of the person's occupation or role.

John Smith is the name of:

John Smith (filmmaker) (born 1952), London-based avant-garde filmmaker
John Smith (mathematician) (18th century), mathematician at the University of Oxford, 1766–1797
John Smith (Ohio Senator) (1735–1824)

Places

For places, it may only be necessary to write the name of the article.

Jacksonville may refer to:

It might be appropriate to add the country after the link. Leave the country unlinked.

Kimberley is the name of:

Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, England
Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada

Redlinks

Links to non-existent articles ("redlinks") may be included only when an editor is confident that an encyclopedia article could be written on the subject.

Adding links to articles not yet written should be done with care. There is no need to brainstorm all occurrences of the page title and create redlinks to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics.

Do include a redlink when another article links to the ambiguous article with none of the disambiguation options in mind. (A list of links to an article can be obtained using Special:What links here.)

Redlinks should usually 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. A (contrived) example:

Flibbygibby may refer to:

Flibbygibby (architecture), a flamingo motif used on cornices
Flibbygibby, a type of noodle

In this example, the architectural motif is judged to be appropriate for a future article, but the noodle is not.

Synonyms

If the link is to a synonym, simply use it as it is named:

Serving spoon may also refer to:

Tablespoon

URL anchor notation

If the item described appears as part of another page, link to the relevant section of that page instead (using the #anchor notation) and conceal that by making it a piped link, as shown with "coin", below. In this case the link may not start the line, but it should still be the only wikilink.

Tail may also refer to:

The reverse side of a coin
Part of an airplane fuselage
Part of a bird's anatomy

Only use this feature if the item being described actually appears on the page you are linking to, so avoid:

On-off switch is what turns on a television set

if the television article does not mention it.

Order of entries

In most cases, place the items in order of usage, with the most-used meanings appearing at the top and less common meanings below. A recommended order is:

Articles with a clarifier in parentheses (Anticipation (music))
Articles with the item as part of the name (Computer keyboard as part of a Keyboard dab page)
Synonyms
Larger subject articles which treat this item in a section (Medieval art from a Fresco dab page)

Unless the list is quite short, separate the articles in categories (1) and (2) from those in (3) and (4), with the "may also be" line shown below:

Thingymabob may refer to:

Thingymabob (mathematics), the square root of minus-pi
Thingymabob (music), a note slightly higher than Q-sharp
House thingymabob, a phallic door-knocker
Computer thingymabob, carving-knife device for cutting off mouse's tail

Thingymabob may also be:

Longer lists

The list may be broken up by subject area:

Thingamajig may refer to:

In science:

Thingamajig (chemistry), an isotope of chlorine
Thingamajig (physics), a kind of pulsar
Thingamajig (biology), an invasive plant used as ground cover

In world music:

Thingamajig (Qatar), a seven-stringed musical instrument
Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos

Section headers may be used on longer lists instead of, or in addition to, bold subject area headings, but using more than a single level, as on Aurora (disambiguation), is rarely necessary.

{{TOCright}} can be used to place the table of contents on the right hand side of the page to eliminate excess white space.

Images

Including images is discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles. Examples of this are the images at Congo (disambiguation) and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation).

The "See also" section

There may be a "See also" section which can include:

Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket
Likely misspellings of Title, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont

The disambig notice

Depending on the type of disambiguation page, there are different templates to use, including {{disambig}} which is for general use, {{Geodis}} for locations, {{Hndis}} for human names and {{Numberdis}} for number related pages. However, if the page encompasses multiple topics, {{disambig}} should be used to avoid confusion.

Place the appropriate template at the bottom of the page. {{disambig}} produces the following message (as of December 2006), and also assigns the Category:Disambiguation to the page.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

If a disambiguation page needs cleaning up to bring it into conformance with this style manual, use {{disambig-cleanup}}. This replaces both {{disambig}} and {{cleanup-date}}.

Don't use {{subst:disambig}} or {{subst:disambig-cleanup}}, as the contents of this notice may change in the future (see Information on Transclusion).

If topical categorization of the disambiguation page seems to be needed, please bring this need up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Experience has shown that ad hoc and un-discussed category creation is controversial and prone to create agitation among the many editors working in the area of disambiguation. Be bold, but as that exhortation warns, don't be reckless.

Exceptions

Set index articles

Set index articles are list articles about a set of items that have similar or identical names. Set index articles are disambiguation-like pages that do not obey the style outlined on this page. Note that the set index article exception was designed to be narrow: for pages that contains links to articles about different topics, please follow this style guide for disambiguation pages. One example of a set index article is a list of ships with the same name. For more information about such ship lists, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines#Index pages.

Disambiguation pages with only two entries

Some disambiguation pages with "(disambiguation)" in the title list only two meanings, one of them being the primary meaning. In such cases, the disambiguation page is not strictly necessary, but is harmless. The recommended practice is to use a hatnote on the article for the primary meaning to link directly to the secondary meaning.

Break rules

For every style suggestion above, there's some page which has a good reason to do something else. These guidelines are intended for consistency, but usefulness to the reader is the principal goal. So ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason.