Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

Ambox style for dab templates

I came across the new look of {{disambig-cleanup}}, and I don't really like it. I would like to go back to the old style and explained my reasons at Template talk:Disambig-cleanup#Ambox style. More comments? (Reply there.) – sgeureka ^t•c 09:00, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Reversion of rewording in the opening

First of all, "hence" is a word that few people use every day. Also, removing "the process of" leaves us with "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is resolving conflicts in article titles", which can be taken as the answer to "what is dismabiguation currently doing?" as well as "what is disambiguation?". This is removing clarity, not adding it. The deeper question here is what the editor finds unclear in the opening; let's discuss and jointly decide if a change is warranted. Chris the speller (talk) 17:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting case at AFD

Here is an interesting case at AFD involving a disambiguation page that disambiguates foreign language (non-latin) characters. I've voiced my opinion there, so I won't repeat it here, but I think it raises interesting questions for disambiguation on WP:EN. older ≠ wiser 15:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

CJKV disambiguation pages

There's a major pitfall, and the need now for "CJKV disambiguation pages" is very real. We have long had redirects (Wikipedia-wide) for non-Latin script names, redirecting to their corresponding English Wikipedia article, such as 中国 and 東京. We believed that this worked within the guidelines of WP:ENGLISH. However, there was a large pitfall in this reasoning, because not all Chinese characters map to a unique English Wikipedia article name. And in such cases, disambiguation becomes necessary. We are now faced with a rude awakening that, short of banning all redirects from foreign scripts, we must now disambiguate between foreign scripts names, outside the frameworks of WP:ENGLISH.

Previous discussions never led in the direction of eliminating dab for CJKV scripts:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mon (currency) (Discussed Sept. 4 thru 11)
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/archive7#Creation of a CJK Taskforce to handle Chinese characters (Discussed Sept. 5 thru 13)
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#What's the policy on non-Latin characters for article titles? (Discussed Nov. 18 thru 19)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/東北大學 (Ongoing discussion, since Nov. 23)

I believe the consensus so far is that we cannot ban or eliminate such dab pages. Hence we find it necessary for WP:WPDAB to cover (and regulate) dab's using foreign scripts.

At this point, Chinese characters (CJKV characters) are the only ones I know of, which urgently needs some DAB guidelines. We propose a joint DAB task force as discussed here, in Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals‎#CJKV disambiguation pages. WP:WPDAB will be the main parent, and we will need to create a subpage under WP:WPDAB. Please discuss the feasibilities there.--Endroit (talk) 19:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguating acronyms that are also words.

A discussion recently came up concerning this edit, and how it relates to Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page naming conventions which specifies that "there should be just one disambiguation page for all cases (upper- or lower-case) and variant punctuation". I thought the guideline was just talking about situations like mm/Mm/mM/MM, (milli/mega metre/mole or people's initials or other things listed at MM,) but not where the acronym is also a word, like SAP/sap or RAID/raid. My basic logic was that the do disambiguation page was already so long as to make it hard to find what you're looking for, and someone looking for the acronym would be more likely to type it in uppercase letters. But perhaps wiser minds than mine have already considered this idea and rejected it. Is that part of the guideline strictly followed? Is it a good idea?--Yannick (talk) 01:47, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

In your quotation of the guideline, you left off the preceding "Usually". That leaves room for editors to use good judgment. So does WP:IGNORE. Finding one case where the guideline does not seem to lead to the best solution does not invalidate the guideline. If what you are doing improves Wikipedia, go for it. Chris the speller (talk) 04:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Borderline case. I'd be fine with having all acronyms on Do, or have a separate acronym page at DO. Chris said it all. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Please remember that not everyone who uses Wikipedia is going to be reading it on a monitor. How is someone using a speech reader, for example, supposed to distinguish between DO and Do? I would think that there needs to be an extremely compelling reason for having different content at these two titles; not just "the page would be too long otherwise." --Russ (talk) 11:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point, although I think a better solution to that would be to move DO to D.O., and do the same for all acronyms, regardless of whether they also disambiguate to words or not. (I'm guessing that a speech reader would spell out D.O., although I have no experience with those things.)--Yannick (talk) 02:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Examples: From just a quick poke around: Most of the short ones don't split (NOD, MY); a few of the middle length ones don't split (AGE, AMI, WASP); but many of the long ones do seem to split (ACE/Ace (disambiguation), ABS/Abs (surname), ABE/Abe, ART/Art (disambiguation), SET/Set (disambiguation) (and 1 that needs fixing: AWE/Awe)). The long Gap doesn't.

I'm a mergist, so I agree with Russ that they should generally (always?) be on one page. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

External links

Am I correct in saying that external links (other than interwikis, of course) are forbidden on disambiguation pages? If this is not the policy, we should make it so and state it in the strongest terms. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

External links and citations are unneeded on disambiguation pages, yes. WP:MOSDAB#Individual entries says so, although without the strongest terms: "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." I would favor making that stronger too. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the wording is too weak. There is never a case for an external link. If anyone can come up with an external link that would make WP better, they can put it in a stub, at least. Chris the speller (talk) 19:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Exactly - I've cleaned up more than my share of DAB spam links that could never be articles, and would like to have a policy to point to that expressly forbids their inclusion. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

It's now "never". :-) -- JHunterJ 21:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Good - now, could someone generate a list of dismbig pages that contain external links (excluding other wikimedia projects), so I can pick 'em off? Cheers! bd2412 T 00:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary links

A problem I come across a lot of the time is people linking to articles that have names which have one similar word or maybe a similar root but really don't need to be disambiguated. Bohemia (disambiguation) does not need a link to Bohemian Rhapsody because no one calls Bohemian Rhapsody "Bohemia". I think the guideline should address this. Recury 18:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The intro of WP:D says In other words, disambiguations are paths leading to the different article pages that could use essentially the same term as their title.. The intro of MOS:DAB says Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles, usually when a user searches for an ambiguous term. It's clear: Bohemian Rhapsody has no place on Bohemia (disambiguation) and can thus be deleted then. :-) – sgeureka ^t•c 19:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the guideline is especially clear about this issue at WP:D#Lists: "Lists of articles of which the disambiguated term forms only a part of the article title don't belong here... Do not add links that merely contain part of the page title." --Paul Erik 19:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was looking for I guess, but I didn't see that when I scanned it. I don't see how "Lists" as a heading make any sense there. How about "Links that only contain part of the title" or something catchier? Recury 19:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer leaving the header alone, if only for the reason that I have quite often (and at least once today) used that anchor to point other editors there (to WP:D#Lists). My descriptions and notes on user talk pages would lose their effectiveness. Chris the speller 02:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Writing ===<span id="Lists" />Links that only contain part of the title=== would solve the linking problem. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Good info. Thanks. Chris the speller 04:44, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Alexander the Great disambiguation

There are several pages with Alexander the Great in their title [1], and the disambiguation link at the top of the page only links to the 1956 film. Would there be any objections to creating Alexander the Great (disambiguation)? (of course this would change the example given in this article) --George100 (talk) 14:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

My rule of thumb: if there is one other article besides the primary meaning, use hatnotes. If there are two other articles associated with the primary meaning, a new disambiguation page can be created instead of using hatnotes. If there are three or more articles, a new disambiguation should definately be created. In this case, you have ATG (primary meaning), a film, a board game, and a song. – sgeureka ^t•c 18:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I moved Alexander the Great (1956 film) to Alexander the Great (film). I would have created the dab too, but I wasn't sure if you (George100) would prefer to do it yourself. Yes, the dab is definitely warranted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've created the DAB page, and changed link at the top of Alexander the Great to {{otheruses}} --George100 (talk) 13:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Links to fix

I'm not exactly sure where to put this but there's a lot of links to Environmental Protection Agency that should be moved since that page was turned into a disambig (see Talk:Environmental Protection Agency). I think most links should point to United States Environmental Protection Agency. On a related note, it would nice if the direct external links to WikiMapia were replaced with a template. I don't think we should promote one mapping service over others. (Check Special:Whatlinkshere/WikiMapia--many of the links also link to the WikiMapia article)

(It would also be nice if the links to pdf were also changed, seeing that "PDF" is an acronym) Jason McHuff (talk) 11:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

And I forgot about Southwest (and probably articles on other directions) Jason McHuff (talk) 11:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks like Environmental Protection Agency should be moved to Environmental Protection Agency (disambiguation) and the redirect from the base name to the primary topic United States Environmental Protection Agency restored. I've commented on the Talk page, but the earlier note by Dekimasu seems to have gone nowhere. I'll see if anyone responds to the new comment, and then perhaps execute the moves. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Scenario on 'Appropriate' use of WP:D

When a person with horror movies on their mind types in "giant monsters" in Wikipedia, would they be expecting to find the page of a television host? It may be amusing for a moment, but would not help someone who was looking for the name of a specific giant monster. It turns out that Giant Monsters is actually the title of a television show, and the article for the television show was already voted to be merged with the page of the television host of that show. What is the general consensus here (and I am looking for more than 1 persons opinion) on trying to apply disambiguation to the page? Overall, is it better to ignore the general meaning large creatures (such as dinosaurs and movie monsters) in favor of the show title? Also, does a vote on articles for deletion override the need for disambiguation? What standards should apply here, and what should be appropriate? Userafw (talk) 03:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

See [2] for what this user attempted to do as a "disambiguation" of Giant Monsters. I reverted, twice, as not being an appropriate application of a disambiguation. Giant Monsters is the name of a TV show, not an article discussion what giant monsters. If disambiguation had been needed or appropriate, it would have come up during the AfD. Collectonian (talk) 04:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

This is precisely why I am asking for some clarification from more than one person, especially experienced users, and preferably some admins, on this policy. Is it automatically considered "inappropriate" to attempt to disambiguate a page after the AfD discussion has finished? I do recall (from viewing the discussion page after one of the attempts to branch the page out rather than use only an automatic redirect) some discussion on dinosaurs during the AfD and perhaps even some question on why dinosaurs were in the article(?) but I also recall general consensus was that the article as it had been in its original state (which I never did see) was primarily on the topic of the television show. I find it also interesting that a redirect (which I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't been browbeaten about using this convention that I didn't even know about at the time) is used to point to monsters rather than giant monsters in the post above. This suggests to me that there could be some disambiguation distinguishing giant monsters when it is intended to mean gigantic monsters, from giant monsters when it is intended to mean the television show, or even giant monsters when it is used to refer to dinosaurs. If the policy of AfD automatically overrides the policy of WP:D, then I will gladly refrain from attempting further edits to similar pages that appear to be disambiguous. Otherwise, it is one point of view vs. another on whether a given subject should be branched based on possible user conclusions, or redirected to one page (that may result in some possible confusion) since wikipedia is not a directory. Userafw (talk) 07:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Dinosaurs were mentioned in the article because that is what the special was about...as is noted at Jeff_Corwin#Giant_Monsters, which is where the article now redirects to. That isn't a redirect, BTW, just a renamed link to note that there is already a monster article which also includes "giant" monsters (i.e. giant-sized monsters). Collectonian (talk) 08:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The renamed link is exactly what I was referring to. The new pointer to the specific show is useful though. Here's a little skit I thought up(animal planet can use this if they see this and give wikipedia all the credit) that I think illustrates my point about disambiguation being necessary in this case.

(you see a lady at computer(Jeff's wife?)- "Hey Jeff honey, did you know that when I looked up giant monsters on wikipedia a page with your name came up?" (Jeff as heard from the other room) "Just a minute, honey" You hear a door creak open. Then you see shocked look on her face. Camera cuts to Jeff the Animal Planet Giant Monsters host, who appears in giant monster (Godzilla or King Kong) costume, smiling mischievously, and says "Watch Giant Monsters Tuesday at 8/9 Central!" Stranger things (in terms of skits) have been done to promote television series. Besides, with the WGA strike, reruns are probably going to be inevitable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Userafw (talk • contribs) 09:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC) Userafw (talk) 09:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I see where both of you are coming from, but I'd go with a redirect to the person. Yes, Giant Monsters redirecting to a person is a little funny, but on the other hand, how likely is it that someone types in "giant monsters" into the search box and is not looking for the info in Jeff Corwin. To be on the safe side, I recommend a WP:HATNOTE at the top of Jeff Corwin. {{redirect3|Giant Monsters|For the legendary creatures, see Monster}} renders into

"Giant Monsters" redirects here. For For the legendary creatures, see Monster, see Giant Monsters (disambiguation).

– sgeureka ^t•c 10:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

How does that work when the redirect goes to the section. Taemyr (talk) 10:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Where to put the hatnote is up to the editor at the moment I guess. Internet Explorer redirects you directly to the subsection, whereas Mozilla Firefox ignores ancors and redirects you to the top of the new article. I use Firefox, so I always put hatnotes at the top of an article. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:18, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to try to remember that format. A hatnote (if that is what those boxes are called) would definitely satisfy my concern in this area, while displaying more prominently information about connected/redirected pages. This can become an issue if a page (we'll call it page one) is redirected first to one page(lets say page one redirects to page two), then to another page (page three)that was in itself relevant to page two, but not to page one. Userafw (talk) 11:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I use Firefox as well, and it takes me to subsections automatically when they are specified in a redirect. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Strange. I have been using FF for all of my wiki existence, always the newest version (now v.2.0 German), and ancors in redirects never worked for me. But I just checked FF v.1.5 German on another computer, and the ancors worked there. Must be some kind of checkmark in the options maybe. I'll see. – sgeureka ^t•c 12:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Per the suggestion, I put a hat note on the page. I put it in the section where the redirect goes, since IE and FF have always followed anchors for me :) Collectonian (talk) 15:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Just checked the link with Firefox 3 beta 1 - FF 3 first goes to the top of the page, then automatically goes to the section. Userafw (talk) 03:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation sections

Are there any guidelines relating to an article having a section of disambiguation links? Should there be? Case in point: Criticism of Microsoft#Product criticism - Josh (talk | contribs) 20:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

That's not a section of disambiguation links, it's an article directory. It's probably not very good style, but I don't think it falls under the disambiguation umbrella. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree it is not disambiguation material. My guess is that it might be best to have a summary paragraph of each subject and have these links be there via the {{main|Criticism of Microsoft Vista}} type template - or just have them listed in a "see also" section. (John User:Jwy talk) 23:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Place disambiguation pages

In many discussion on WP:RM opinions to move articles to the primary name, even when there are scores of uses for a name, often assert that being the first or largest is justification to be declared the primary use. This seems contrary to the wording in this guideline. Is my interpretation incorrect or do we need to make this point in the guideline.

Along the same lines, sometimes I wonder if we could avoid a lot of problems by strongly stating that if there are differences of opinion, the default should be to use the dab page at the primary name. I know the guideline hints at this but it does not defer to using the dab page by default. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Making a dab page a default puts a lot of extra work on WP:DPWL, so it should only happen when a primary meaning is not clear. All of this is a case by case decision and can only be solved by discussion. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

But that is the point. In just about every case, there is no primary use that is clear. In the case of place names, it would also remove a semantic bias towards the place names from certain countries resulting from their naming convention. Are you suggesting that it is acceptable to favor the largest or oldest as the primary use even when that is not the case? Are you also suggesting that pointing to the wrong article for a significant number of users is acceptable? That is a point ignored in the rename discussions in favor of using the link count to say that the current page is primary based on the number of links. Which is meaningless in fact since this is the result of editors disambiguating the existing links. This is happening today. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I did not participate in any RM discussions recently, and I usually find what I am looking for at a primary meaning page (i.e. not a dab page). Therefore, I am biased to say that I don't agree with "In just about every case, there is no primary use that is clear." Primary use for me is about 80% per common use, not specialized use (e.g. Firefly should always be the insect, not a dab page, and certainly not the short-run TV show as that association is declining). Also, good use of hatnotes usually works quite well for me. Maybe someone else will comment here. – sgeureka ^t•c 18:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with Vegaswikian that the default should be weighted towards disambiguation and that there should be a relatively high bar set for primary topic. Was there actually discussion about moving Firefly? I think that is a pretty clear case of a primary topic. But I *think* Vegaswikian is referring to more marginal cases (of which there are legion). older ≠ wiser 17:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Without examples, it's hard to comment. Surely, there are dab pages that I think should/could be replaced by a primary meaning, and there are also not-so-clear cases (usually when popular fiction is involved) where hatnotes work for me because I know that noone want to go the go the TV show in 2 years. That's also why I named Firefly: it's the only article where my specialized primary use is not directed at the insect, although generalized primary use probably is. I guess it all comes down to preference and the required "extra-click". Don't let me speak for anyone else. :-) – sgeureka ^t•c 17:47, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any active place name discussions, so I can't point to one. However, this discussion is kind of interesting. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Here is a current discussion that seems to be favoring not using a dab page when there is no primary use. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

New guidelines for CJKV disambiguation pages

As previously mentioned above (at #CJKV disambiguation pages), we are in need of a guideline which covers Chinese characters. Here are my 2 proposals,

Option 1, "DAB of CJKV character names"

• Common CJKV character (Chinese character) names should redirect to their corresponding acceptable article name per WP:ENGLISH as much as possible. However, if a CJKV name maps to multiple Wikipedia articles, disambiguation is required, and all the normal rules for WP:DAB apply.

...or...

Option 2, "DAB of foreign script names"

• Common foreign script names which do not pass the criteria of WP:ENGLISH should redirect to their corresponding acceptable article name per WP:ENGLISH as much as possible. However, if a foreign script name maps to multiple Wikipedia articles, disambiguation is required, and all the normal rules for WP:DAB apply.

If there are no objections, I would like to add Option 1 (above) into the WP:DAB guidelines page. Please discuss.--Endroit (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed new text

Hello, I frequently work on theWP:DPL project. Occasionally, I encounter editors who are slightly to very recalcitrant about having links disambiguated in articles they are involved in. I would like to propose that some version of the following text be included in the guideline here:

With very few exceptions, creating wikilinks to dab pages is erroneous. Wikilinks are not supposed to take the user to a dab page. They're supposed to take the user to a relevant article. The purpose of a dab page is to give a user who has typed an ambiguous term into the search box a list of articles that are likely to be what he's looking for. The exceptions to this are:

• Dab links in the top of an article — E.g. Watergate redirects to Watergate scandal which carries a dab link at the top to Watergate (disambiguation) for other uses.
• Redirects from misspellings — E.g. Britian redirects to Britain (a dab page).
• Links from one dab page to another for further disambiguation — E.g. Britten (a dab page) has a link to Britain for further disambiguation.
• Certain pages that contain lists of words — E.g. List of Greek place names contains the linked word Britain as a translation of the Greek word "Βρεττανία."

There is currently a major project underway to repair links to disambiguation pages. You can find out about it here. Creating links to disambiguation pages only results in the page on which they're created showing up on a list of pages that are in need of repair, bringing an editor to the page to repair it.

Please don't deliberately create links to disambiguation pages.

I've mentioned this at the projects talk page and have received only favorable comments, although not many. Your comments, please?

--Steven J. Anderson (talk) 10:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Any article that links to a disambiguation page intentionally should use the (disambiguation) page or redirect title (the editor may need to create the redirect if the disambiguation page is at the base name). I just updated List of Greek place names to do so, with a pipe link so that the displayed text wouldn't change. Redirects cannot use a (disambiguation) redirect, because that would make a double redirect. I'd rephrase "Dab links at the top of an article" as "Disambiguation links in hatnotes" (and spell out "disambiguation" instead of using "dab" throughout). Britten (disambiguation) (not Britten, BTW) turned out to be a list of surname holders instead of a dab page; I moved it. A different set you could use is Mali (disambiguation), Molly, and Mallee. I think it's a worthy topic for inclusion here, though -- thanks for drafting it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:57, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your thanks, I drafted it in a fit of irritation. I actually drafted the text months ago when Britten was a dab page. Also, you didn't pipe the link in List of Greek place names to the redirect, you piped it to Great Britain, an article about the island, not the country. This seems wrong to me since the link refers to the word Britain, not the island or the country. However, I consider this so rare as to be probably not worth mentioning. I've disambiguated thousands of links and only encountered this once. Your thoughts?--Steven J. Anderson (talk) 10:39, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I did what I said, but another editor did what you said. I undid it. I'm often reverted when I use a link to a (disambiguation) redirect instead of a direct link by editors who are under the mistaken impression that the only good redirect is a Search Box redirect, so I still think the note would be useful. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I made the discussed edit (some time ago now - forgot to post here when I did it). Other editors please have a look. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 23:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Prime example

Lift is quoted as a prime example of a dab page but its current version has a link to a non-article. This made me think that, since it isn't possible to keep tabs on all all examples all the time, perhaps a quoted example like this should be somehow cast in stone to retain it in its exemplary form. I'm not even sure if this is possible but it seems a good idea to me. Abtract (talk) 09:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Better, I think, if it's watchlisted by a bunch of editors who are active in the project (I'll add it to mine now). Many eyes will keep it from being assaulted. bd2412 T 09:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages without the term "(disambiguation)" in their title

Should they ever exist? The article doesn't currently say anything about the usage of "(disambiguation)" in titles.

There are even cases where both "X" and "X (disambiguation)" are disambiguation pages with the same (manual!) content. -Lwc4life (talk) 20:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they should exist. See WP:D#Page naming conventions for when to use them (no primary topic) and when not to (when a primary topic exists). Often, when the dab does not have (disambiguation), a redirect with (disambiguation) is created for intentional wP:D#Links to disambiguation pages. There is no need for both "X" and "X (disambiguation) with the same content. The (disambiguation) page should be made into a redirect in that case. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:59, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

That's really short term thinking. What if a year later you'd have a primary topic? Why have the need to do moves and redirects and manual changing of possibly endless links when you can prevent it? -Lwc4life (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not short-term thinking, it's expeditious thinking. Page moves will continue to be needed in the disambiguation space and in the main article space in general, with all that that entails. If the manual changing of "possibly endless" links is a problem, note that it will not be avoided by placing the disambiguation page at (disambiguation) -- people will still link to the base name, which will be wrong if there's no primary topic, and possibly wrong if one of the other articles later becomes the primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Requesting input on Wal-Mart

A user keeps being very adamant about inserting a disambiguation page for Wal-Mart, which is not a true disambiguation page. Disambiguation, IMHO, is not needed, as there is only one company named 'Wal-Mart', and it's not likely to be confused with anything else. The articles listed on List of Wal-Mart articles are really just a collection of 'see also' list items; subjects that are related to Wal-Mart but unlikely to actually be confused by someone searching for the company. The links under 'operations' are actually already in the main Wal-Mart article anyway, so that's redundant.

There was an AfD about a month ago, but unfortunately was closed prematurely by an admin that claimed 'no consensus'. 7 users were in favor of deletion, and four wanting to rename it (from 'Wal-Mart (disambiguation)' to 'List of Wal-Mart articles'); only 3 named users (and two anon IPs with less than 10 edits each) wanted to keep it. In the end, it was ultimately renamed to 'List of Wal-Mart articles'; although that's not good enough for Shaliya waya, who seems determined to engage in a long-term revert war over making sure that the disambiguation page sticks (though no WP:3RR violations have occurred, as for as I know; although she does revert with no edit summary, and no comments on the talk page).

At present, I still don't think that this is a disambiguation page, and I think it would best fit if merged into the 'see also' section of the main Wal-Mart article, since the items listed do seem to be related. I'd like to know what others feel about this. Thanks! Dr. Cash (talk) 02:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the redirects. (disambiguation) pages should not redirect to pages that aren't disambiguation pages, agreed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 06:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Requesting input on Spencer's

I am new to Wikipedia, but I'm pretty sure that some sort of disambiguation page should be created to make more clear the following entities: Spencer's (a defunct retailer) and Spencer Gifts (an existing retailer that many customers call "Spencer's"). It seems a bit odd that "David Spencer Limited" went out of business in 1948 but commands the direct article link for Spencer's. I'll be happy to help execute a disambiguation, but I thought it would be best to ask first. - Where I chillax (talk) 13:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This is usually asked at the talkpage of the relevant article, in this case Spencer's. You can also make a Move request which gets more input, or just be bold (if you are really sure) by moving the current Spencer's to David Spencer Limited, and then turning the resulting redirect at new Spencer's into a normal disambiguation page. I have heard of neither Spencer's, so I cannot tell you if there is a primary meaning etc. – sgeureka ^t•c 14:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't ignore the fact that a dab page already exists at Spencer, which includes both the "Spencer's" businesses. I'm not sure if a new dab page just for these two articles is needed. I think that Spencer's should probably redirect to Spencer Gifts, with a hatnote back to David Spencer Limited as well as to Spencer for further disambiguation. SlackerMom (talk) 21:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

"For example, there is some topic XXXX..."

Does the fact that the title being used as a placeholder is an actual page bother anyone? --DocumentN (talk) 18:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, it does. Surely we should be able to come up with an example that will stay red. SlackerMom (talk) 21:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)