Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Wikipedia's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Wikipedia policies of Wikipedia's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

Template:Archive box collapsible

WP:MoSDab#Red links says (emphasis added)

Red links should not be the only link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information.

That implies to me that if i found at Jim Jeffords (disambiguation) the following entry

* Jim Jeffords (boxer), fighter in bare-knuckle boxing

(i didn't, but only in the sense that i've kept the same targets and cleaned up some irrelevant details), i should not be satisfied to observe that bare-knuckle boxing doesn't mention him, while list of bare-knuckle boxers does, and thus redo the entry as

* Jim Jeffords (boxer), bare-knuckle boxer

(* [[Jim Jeffords (boxer)]], [[list of bare-knuckle boxers#J|bare-knuckle boxer]])

I say i should do more, bcz the only information on him (in WP, beyond what's on the rendered Dab page) amounts to "Yeah, that's 'Jeffords' with a 'J'. It seems to me i should instead either

1. make the entry read (even if it violates the guideline)

   * Jim Jeffords (boxer), bare-knuckle boxer

   (since this provides the same information, without requiring the readers to lk to the page and read down the J column to his name in order to find out they've completely wasted that effort), or

2. kill the entry, definitively leaving it to biographical dicts to provide dict-defs of such people, or
3. convert the entry to a comment (or move it to the Dab's talk page), so that, without an entry that pointlessly burdens readers, editors can consider expanding the coverage beyond dict-def level, within the b-k boxer list or in a bio-stub or article.

I'm in fact doing 3, as i've usually done in the past, but i'd like to have a better reason than IAR for doing it, since such cases are common enuf to be provided for, and since the existing guideline may well be encouraging the contribution of entries such as the one i found.
--Jerzy•t 06:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Part of what made me choose this example is that i end up with a single-entry Dab, presumably harmful (as opposed to the harmless form of two-entry Dab) even tho it serves the editing task of helping other editors consider working on the boxer and then expanding the Dab; i fear the Dab will be deleted, especially since i have seen editors remove commented-out entries.
  --Jerzy•t 07:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  

I think the option with the blue link to the list is perfectly OK. It at least gives the reader a place to go to find more context, and isn't that likely to be annoying, because by clicking a link called "bare-knuckled boxer" you don't expect to find information on any particular boxer. Hmm, though other dab entries are formatted on the assumption that readers will have such expectations... Not sure if there's a great solution to this.--Kotniski (talk) 08:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another part of the calculus is whether there are any links to Jim Jeffords (boxer) (or in perhaps in some WP-space lists of subjects that are included in other reputable reference works, implying that there is reason to think the subject is notable). If there are no links to Jim Jeffords (boxer) and the only thing known about him is that he was a bare-knuckled boxer, that entry, IMO, should be removed from the disambiguation page and the redlink removed from the list article as well. It is a little tricky though. If the only link to a subject is from a list article indicating a subject of some notability (say a list of presidents of some small country), there may be reason to retain the entry on the dab page, not least to help remedy WP:systemic bias. older ≠ wiser 14:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a couple of entries in Orion which are red links, which are again entries in a list page. User:Bkonrad says these will probably be removed soon by the disambiguation project guys. See the discussion here. Combining some of the reasons that came up there with this discussion:

• Only include related subject articles if the term in question is actually described on the target article. - But this is not valid for list pages as they are not supposed to have descriptions. And this is clarified in User:Kotniski's comment above.
• Disambiguation pages are not directories... - I would definitely like to look into what this really means. Where can I get more information on this?
• Removal of a red link in a list page can ensure it is removed from the dab page as well. - But what is policy regarding removing a red link from a list page? Wikipedia:Lists#Development says if a list is primarily made of red links, it should be moved out of article space. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Red_links says red links do not have an expiration date. So probably we should deal with a red link on its own and not put the onus of its removal on a disambiguation page.

Jay (talk) 08:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List articles that list a thing without explaining it should be sufficient for including that thing on the appropriate disambiguation page. If there's a problem with listing things without description, that's a topic for WP:WPLIST to take up. Disambiguation pages are not directories, however. WP:D and WP:MOSDAB limit them to disambiguating Wikipedia articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We're getting this statement again! Where does it say that, and where can I get more info on this - Disambiguation pages are not directories. Jay (talk) 07:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's here -- the paragraph that starts "Never include external links", just before the next heading. The total paragraph reads, "Never include external links, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web. To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them as <!-- comments --> or on a talk page." --Auntof6 (talk) 05:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems unlikely...as the discussion was never about external links. I checked Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory, but could not figure out what is the relation to disambiguation pages. (As a side note, the section WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not talk about external links either.) Jay (talk) 15:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this up here. I disagree that mere inclusion of a redlink in a list article is sufficient reason to include on a disambiguation page. IMO, it partly depends on the nature of the list -- hard to define precisely, but I think most of us can recognize that there are some lists which are mostly items that would be difficult to develop into encyclopedic articles. There is considerable leeway for including redlinks on disambiguation pages that have potential to become articles (or which genuinely require disambiguation because people keep creating mistaken links) -- and I have been an advocate for such inclusion in the past. But so far as disambiguation pages are primarily meant to disambiguate articles and not to disambiguate the world-wide web or serve as a directory, a name appearing on a list page is not necessarily sufficient reason to include on a disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 12:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the target appears in a list article, and an editor wants to include it in the appropriately-titled disambiguation page (or reverts its removal), I think the default would have to be to include it (unless discussion on that disambiguation page's Talk page formed consensus among multiple editors against its inclusion, but this parenthetical can be taken for granted, since it's true in the application or ignoring of any guideline). -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:52, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I know I (and others) will often remove redlink entries with poor supporting information when cleaning up a dab page. And I've probably become more inclined to remove such cruft than I was previously. But in general you make a reasonable point -- if someone cares enough about about a borderline case to re-add it, it may not be worth arguing about. But, by the same token, if they do care enough about the subject, they could just as easily create a stub for the topic. Sometimes adding an entry to such lists is little more than self-promotion -- and definitely not worth promulgating to a dab page. I think that at the very least, the contents of the list page would need to have a reliable, verifiable source -- if the inclusion in the list can't be verified from the list article, there is no basis for inclusion on a dab page. older ≠ wiser 13:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about adding a stub part. I was going to create only the Orion Application Server article, but not the other red link, which is why I wanted to get clear on policy in general. By the way another policy question on undeletion hinders me in getting the article created. Jay (talk) 07:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• My whole point is that applying "context" to this situation is an abuse of the word context. The bare-knuckle list is a list of names, some but IIRC not even most lk'd to bios, and none with more than the boxer's name. Jeffords may be (we don't know, bcz we don't have dates or nationality for him) next to boxers who were never on the same continent nor alive in the same century as he. By that criterion, every soldier or smith is given sufficient "context" to justify Dab'n by their being on a list of those who share the trade.
  --Jerzy•t 07:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  

Possible new approach

Thinking about the above problem some more, maybe this indicates a possible solution to the redirect vs. piped link debate we had before. Generally speaking there are two forms for an entry which doesn't have its own article (i.e. the topic Y is dealt with within another article: X, say):

1. Y1, ...... [where Y1 - possibly Y with a tag - redirects to X or a section of X]
2. Y, ...X... [where the link to X may be piped and may contain a specific section]

Perhaps the most helpful (to readers) criterion for deciding which style to use should be: if the target article contains a significant amount of information specifically about Y, use a redirect (method 1); if not, use method 2. That way the reader has some intuitive idea whether it's worth clicking on the link to find out more about Y specifically.--Kotniski (talk) 11:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, some editorial discretion is required. I do not want to see language in this guideline that implies there are black-and-white litmus tests which give impetus to mindless rule-bound editing. older ≠ wiser 14:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Litmus is red and blue, surely? ;) But yes, I certainly agree with that sentiment.--Kotniski (talk) 14:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I enjoy mixing my metaphoric clichés. older ≠ wiser 13:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, yeah, red and blue: i never got it why they talk abt litmus tests for the Supreme Court. [wink]
  --Jerzy•t 07:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  

• Sorry, i missed the purpose for which we would provide lks not "worth clicking on" in the first place.
  --Jerzy•t 07:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  
• I put much more stock in whether the need for minimum astonishment is adequately served by the Rdr, since we've no assurance that the user is familiar with the target subject; piping provides the opportunity to give the article and section titles some context, to prevent the "Oh, god, another broken link" reaction just bcz the target article was not designed around anticipation of the term being Dab'd (as opposed, of course, to all articles being designed around the Rdrs that point to them [wink]).
  --Jerzy•t 07:35, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  

I've been working with place name dab pages. It seems to me that the following types of places should qualify an article for Template:Geodis (assuming sufficient notability):

• Bodies of water (creeks, lakes, streams, rivers, bays, seas, oceans, etc.)
• Cities, towns, communes (as used in France), counties, countries, barangays, states, etc. -- any type of settlement or official geopolitical subdivision
• Neighborhoods
• Mountain peaks and ranges
• Craters (whether on Earth or elsewhere)
• Islands
• Continents

But what about these, all of which I've seen in lists of places?

• Schools (anything from elementary through university)
• Constituencies
• Parishes (are there multiple kinds of parishes?)
• Asteroids, planets, and other celestial bodies
• Parks (neighborhood, national, amusement)
• Shopping centers
• Resorts
• Buildings (churches, mansions, office buildings, etc.)
• Power generating stations
• Proposed geopolitical entities (such as Cascade County, Washington)
• Towns, cities, etc. that were formerly named as the article topic (such as the last entry on Centerville, Pennsylvania)

There are more, but that's a good start. Comments (on either list)? --Auntof6 (talk) 08:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a disagreement over the placement of the ((geodis)) tag somewhere? But I'd say no on schools, celestial bodies (not geo-), parks, shopping centers, resorts, buildings, and power generating stations. They would not by themselves make a geodis, but are certainly worth disambiguating. If a list includes both geographic entries and non-geographic entries, it should get a ((disambig)) tag and just the Category:Ambiguous place names -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with JHunterJ above, but where it gets trickier are School Districts (are they the government entity or the geographic area over which that entity has some authority?) Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dab pages should only have one link per entry, but when it comes to short letter sequences, I've found that entries for airports, train stations, etc. very frequently link to IATA code or an analogous page, in addition to the article about the airport/station in question. In cleaning up dab pages, should these links be removed like any other extraneous link, or do they fall into a special category? » šᾦῥъ^{τ • ¢} 19:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removed. If a reader is looking for something by intentionally entering an airport's IATA code into the search box, they're looking for the airport, not for the code page. If they're looking for neither, then they're looking for another entry. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the guidance on TOCRight placement needs to be here. Disambiguation pages don't have lead sections, just introductory lines. If there's no primary topic, I don't think the TOC should be between "... may refer to:" and the first entry/group/section. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So where do you think it should be? Or should there not be one?--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The guidance on accessibility is pretty clear. If a template is not used, the toc appears immediately above the first section heading. Placing the toc somewhere other than that can cause problems for screen readers. I'd be OK with relying on simply linking to that guidance which can be found at both Help:Section#Floating_the_TOC (which pre-existed my recent edit) and at Wikipedia:Accessibility#Article_structure (which was in what I recently added). However, the interpretation on placement is that if used, the toc template should go immediately above the first section only. older ≠ wiser 12:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be right before the "may [also] refer to:" line. After the recap of the primary topic, if any. But I'm unfamiliar with the problems of screen-reading software, so if there's a technical reason for placing it after a paragraph, it's not going to look bad or anything. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The toc is is based on section headings. As I understand the problem, any text between the template and the first section heading can become more difficult to access, in that you can jump from the toc to a section and back to the toc, but there is no indication (nor any expectation) to the screen reader that there might be some other text between the toc and the first section. Placing the toc above the intro line simply results in less intelligibility for the screen reader (as in the toc is presented before there is any indication about the subject). older ≠ wiser 12:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Currently documentation at ((surname)) and ((given name)) says

Place ((surname))/((given name)) at the bottom of given name pages or within sections of disambiguation pages that list people by given names.

However, if followed rigorously, that results is pages such as this. I don't see that the extra templates are helpful in this case. Should we try to refine guidance regarding the placement of these templates on disambiguation pages? older ≠ wiser 12:58, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's precisely that sort of problem I had in mind when I initiated this, which is the refined version of what I employed to fix Rhys. -- Fullstop (talk) 13:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree we only want one dab template per page. If we already have a template explaining that it's a dab page, we don't need additional ones saying that it includes places, human names or whatever (unless that information could be combined on a single template).--Kotniski (talk) 13:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For example, we could add parameters to ((dab)) that cause the page to be placed, additionally, into categories like Surnames, Given names, Place name disambiguation pages, etc., and possibly change the wording of the message displayed by the template.--Kotniski (talk) 13:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree re the redundancy of the tags. I actually feel that all these surname and given names should be dumped in the trash. Ostensibly, the tag is there to fix articles in which only the first name of last name of the person is given. This never happens. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 14:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say it never happens -- at least not for surnames. I see little disambiguation value to lists of people with the same given name -- with the relatively rare exception where a person becomes widely known by simply the given name. However, it is not unusual to find references to persons by only their last name, or last name and initials. I think there is some disambiguation value to lists of people by last name. A somewhat tangential issue -- often, when such lists of names becomes very lengthy, they are shunted off to a "(name)"/"(surname)"/"(given name)" page, however the resulting page is often not really about the name per se, but rather is just a list of people that share an arbitrary characteristic. Should there be better guidelines about when such lists get split and at what point do such list pages become the bailiwick of WikiProject Anthroponymy rather than WikiProject Disambiguation and does WP:Anthroponymy really want to adopt such lists that are ejected from WP:Disambiguation? older ≠ wiser 15:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a member of WP Anthroponymy - "Yes" to the last question. If there is not already an article about the name (its origin etc), this will be a prompt to start one. By all means post a note on the WikiProject page that it has been started and needs more work.

I don't think the Name templates should ever appear on disambiguation pages. People who are known by a given name or surname alone should appear on disam pages; see MOS:DABNAME. However, if a disam page includes more than a couple of people who simply have that page title as one of their names, then that disam page needs to be split. When doing so, it may be of some value to leave a hidden comment on the disam page "Do not add people to this list unless they are known simply by the name X", although in practice this is frequently ignored by anon editors.

If the list is an unjustifiable selection from a large number of people that share the name, then we may end up deleting it from the Name article, unless a consensus can be reached on selecting the most notable instances. Anyway, WP Disambiguation is welcome to wash its hands of the problem by moving the lists from Disam pages to Anthroponymy pages. - Fayenatic (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It also happens for given names -- monarchs, saints, people who lived before surnames were common, etc. A good example of this is at John. However, I could do without these two templates because there's still a way to add the categories. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

new template functionality

To show you what I mean, I've created the template ((DAB)) ((disambig/sandbox)) as an alternative to (extension of) ((Disambig)). You can add parameters to it (as defined in the ((Dabcat)) subtemplate) which place the page into specialized dab categories. As an example, I've placed it on Dexter. If it seems useful, we can update ((Disambig)) with the new code.--Kotniski (talk) 15:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC) [reply]