The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There has been an odd feud going on in the past year, around a conflict between this policy and disambiguation practice. Background information can be read through these starting points: Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 58#Recent correction to Simple Lists, this torturous RfC, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles Lott. It has been suggested that another discussion be opened, and the issue has not been resolved in the slightest – so here we are.

[Wikipedia articles are not:] Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the notable ones.

[Wikipedia articles are not:] Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the ones well-discussed on Wikipedia.

Is this dispute still happening? I'm sure I've commented on this somewhere else a few months ago, and I thought consensus had been reached that disambiguation pages should not be restricted to only those people with individual articles but anyone who had enough coverage somewhere to meet WP:DABMENTION. This seems to be the intent of J947's suggestion, which I therefore endorse. Thryduulf (talk) 10:16, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I could support a change that set a middle line between WP:DABMENTION (which requires far too little coverage and permits the creation of pages like Terry Pearce where the individuals are only "discussed" as part of a list) and the current standard of "notable", which could exclude more extensive entries that a link would be beneficial for.

However, based on replies like this one where "well-discussed" is interpreted as being an entry in a list, I believe the proposal made by J947 would need to be edited to be made more specific. BilledMammal (talk) 07:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Attempting to correct behavioral issues with minor wording changes is an interesting tactic, though unlikely to result in the changes you seem to imagine it will. --Jayron32 13:19, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support that change as that would bring that sentence in line with current practice, while still maintaining that disambiguation pages should not be used to list people that are not noteworthy. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that "well-discussed" should be the minimum requirement here (iff "notable" is removed or is not enforced). I do not think it makes any sense to have different thresholds for "discussed-ness" that depend on size of DAB page -- a passing mention in an article should not get its own blurb on a DAB page just because there are only two other names there. JoelleJay (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Oppose - I don’t understand why we should be DABing eg non-notable players on football teams, non-notable actors on TV serieses etc. Notability is not about whether people DO have a page, it’s about whether they COULD have a page. This proposal just seems to serve to greatly inflate the number of names mentioned on DAB pages without making them more useful - “well discussed” is not a clear definition whilst “notable” is something Wiki edits deal with a lot. FOARP (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

• Having been pinged to this discussion, I will note that in all of these discussions, I have seen virtually no mention of what is actually most helpful to the reader. I will readily grant that for a lengthy disambiguation page (like John Smith or Robert Jones), it would be excessive to cram in a lot of mere mentions, but for a relatively short page (like the above-mentioned Charles Lott), it may well be useful to the reader to list some of those subjects currently omitted from the page. BD2412 T 14:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

  For pages that would not exist if they didn't include mere mentions the user is better served by having no page, as such pages are rarely maintained and thus rarely produce up to date results, unlike the search function. We shouldn't change policy to support the creation of these pages.

  For pages that would otherwise exist due to multiple notable people having the name, I can see the use of including them, but I would argue we would be better served by adding a button that allows users to search for the name, preferably excluding from the results the articles in the dab page. The reason for this is I doubt the passing mentions will be better updated in a dab-page that includes notable people than one that doesn't include notable people, and thus readers are more likely to find the person they are looking for if they are directed to up to date search results - and are unlikely to think of searching themselves if they just see the list, as they are likely to assume it is complete.

  For pages where exactly one notable person has that name, I am not certain of the best approach. BilledMammal (talk) 20:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Part of the problem may be that John Smith is not a typical name dab. The huge number of people bearing one of the most common names in the English-speaking world makes WP:NOTABLE a reasonable threshold for that page. However, the bar should be set much lower for a more typical name dab which lists only a few or even a few dozen people. There, it is far more likely that a reader will be seeking someone with a mere WP:DABMENTION and no article, so we should include them. Certes (talk) 18:13, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

How on earth is it more likely that someone would be seeking a DABMENTION for a less common name than for a "John Smith" name? More people will be searching for non-notable John Smiths than non-notable [rare names] simply because more people exist with that name. If anything, the more common the name the more useful a DAB is for non-notable items! And how would we decide to include a namedrop without knowing how many people will ever be at a DAB page, considering the near-impossibility of removing DAB entries (I have been told that, barring deletion of the info in an article, there is never a good reason to remove a name)? No, the bar for inclusion should be equal for all DABMENTIONS. JoelleJay (talk) 00:21, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

• "Well-discussed" should be clarified to mean that entries in set-index articles are allowed, and entries like (using the example above) the non-notable character Charles "Chuck" Lott in Between (TV series) are not. Otherwise, no change. Readers will only hear about Charles "Chuck" Lott if they know about the TV series; if they do, searching will be redundant, and if they don't, they won't want to search for him in the first place. Avilich (talk) 00:38, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  While that may seem intuitively obvious, I'm not sure it's as absolute as you just stated. While rare, someone may come to Wikipedia trying to remember which TV show that Chuck Lott character showed up in. Of course, Google will likely be more useful than us, but people might just occasionally ask that question. Jclemens (talk) 02:05, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not hot on popular culture, especially American popular culture, so I often have to look up names etc to learn who is being referred to - I don't always even know if it is a person (e.g. actor) or a character. Dabmentions are often helpful for this as they either give sufficient context themselves or give enough information that I know where to look for further context. Thryduulf (talk) 08:34, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

That may be true, but Google itself probably takes care of that on its own. Avilich (talk) 00:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Assuming everyone uses Google. I tend to search Wikipedia first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Often the top google hits don't provide the necessary context for someone who doesn't already know the basics. Long-running TV shows are probably the most common example, with the top results being fan pages and articles in magazines and similar written by and for people who have been following from (near) the beginning. Wikipedia can be relied upon to have an introduction that either requires no prior specialist knowledge or clear links to where that knowledge can be gained (at least in all the subject areas relevant to this discussion) so it is typically a more useful starting point. Thryduulf (talk) 08:53, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I have a proposal I think will be helpful to readers that I will post to this thread in a few minutes when I get some time. Huggums537 (talk) 00:28, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• While I agree with the idea of the proposal in spirit, I think it would still have the problem of my original complaint about having two different sets of guidance in two different places, so I am going to suggest a slight variation to the proposal in a new subsection to this thread that I think will resolve the problem, and be more useful to both readers and editors alike because it will be less confusing, and less contradictory to each other. Plus, I wholeheartedly agree with the OP that the dispute should be settled at the appropropriate DAB guidance pages, and my new proposal listed in the next subsection will direct editors there. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 01:01, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Also, it has been nearly a month without any more participation on this, and we need to resolve it after months of debate, so I think it is time to invite the broader community on a request for comment with this proposal since the last RfC from the broader community about this was opened to avoid a "local consensus", and so an RfC is due again since we actually can't find any consensus this time for real. Huggums537 (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Proposed variation to WP:NOTDIRECTORY (revisiting simple lists)

Should WP:NOTDIRECTORY be changed to the following?:

[Wikipedia articles are not:] Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the ones as defined at MOS:DABMENTION, or within the scope of disambiguation or style guidance.

03:32, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The current text reads like this:

[Wikipedia articles are not:] Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the notable ones.

For clarification: This proposal is a variation of changes that were discussed in the main section above. This context was intended to be conveyed to participants in my original opening statement, but that meaning was lost due to refactoring done to my opening statement by BilledMammal that changed this meaning in a significant way by removing that context, so I am now clarifying this here since the refactoring did not preserve my original intent. This may be the source to some of the confusion causing the proposal to not be easily understood and putting it at an unfair disadvantage. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 16:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The original opening statement included an argument for the proposal; I moved that argument out to comply with WP:RFCNEUTRAL. BilledMammal (talk) 14:10, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Notice of small correction: I've just noticed that another possible source of confusion is the fact that my proposal causes the duplication of two links to the same DAB guidance to appear, and the added duplicate link is not relevant to the proposed text so I've replaced it with a more accurate one that is. This is from me scrutinizing it some more due to some constructive feedback from several editors saying it was confusing. Huggums537 (talk) 02:52, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Survey (NOTDIRECTORY and Simple listings)

• Support as nominator because it just plain makes sense. Huggums537 (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2023 (UTC) Context for the reader: The link to DABMENTION sums up what is being said in the above proposal, and leads the reader/editor more specific guidance, where the details of what should happen with those pages (such as what "well discussed" means) can be hashed out there (where the debate has no effect on this decision here), but it also lets readers/editors know that there is some kind of specific rules that prevent you from making a "complete listing" on DABs without incorrectly saying it is based on the more "generalized" notability guidance. I'd also like to point out that the closing of the previous RfC indicated that there was a common thread on both sides of the debate that the wording could be better tuned to cover commonly accepted additions to DABs, and I think this absolutely is that change. A solution far better than IAR, (because IAR could be argued for any side of the debate). I can't ping everyone that was involved in the previous RfC because I think it limits the pings so just pinging to users who participated in the original discussion. Those who were involved in the previous RfC will probably see it again.

Tavix, BilledMammal, Masem, Blue Square Thing, Certes, PamD, Uanfala, Jsharpminor, Avilich and Firefangledfeathers Huggums537 (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2023 (UTC) 03:32, 30 May 2023 (UTC) Moved unauthorized/undiscussed comment refactoring on 04:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Functionally, this appears identical to the previous RfC on this topic, just with the addition of more words. As such, I will quote my previous !vote on this topic, which still applies:

The current wording prevents the mass creation of hundreds of thousands of dab pages between non-notable individuals, such as Terry Pearce and Arthur Harley. These dab pages present a number of issues; first, only one link should be included per WP:DABSTYLE, but in many circumstances non-notable people, particularly sportspeople, are mentioned in multiple contexts, all of them equally valid as targets, and thus readers looking for a context different from the one we choose to link to will be left confused and in the wrong location.

Second, these dab pages are unmaintainable and unmaintained; with hundreds of thousands of them they will only rarely be updated after their initial creation, and thus readers looking for a mention of a different Arthur Harley after the dab page is created will struggle to find the mention, as rather than being taken to a list of search results that includes the article they are looking for they will be taken to a dab page that doesn't.

Third, we often don't have enough information to determine whether mentions are of the same people or of different, but using a dab page requires us to make a statement on this and thus has WP:V and WP:OR issues. For example, at Terry Pearce it is not unlikely that the Australian futsal coach and the Australian masters athlete are the same person, but we make the statement that they are different people without any evidence to support this.

These problems are all avoided by maintaining the status quo and instead directing readers to use the search function; it provides a better result for the reader, and it creates far less work for editors.

))

BilledMammal (talk) 03:36, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose in strongest possible terms per my previous comment and the discussion there, which revealed that at least some of the people supporting these proposals believe it would allow (and possibly even require) anything mentioned on any article anywhere in Wikipedia to be included on every possible disambig page - an obviously ridiculous outcome that can only be prevented by adhering to our common understandings of notability. Any removal of "notable" from the text here is a complete nonstarter and I'm genuinely shocked that someone would restart the same conversation without addressing that or seeking any meaningful compromise on it. Notability (or, more properly, WP:DUE, which is what we technically mean when discussing article content, but the implications are the same) ought to be the primary criteria for inclusion (and often, the only one), as well as a red-line where things that completely fail it cannot be included regardless of other policies. The idea that we could disregard notability entirely here makes no sense. The threshold for inclusion in a DAB page may be different, of course, but it is not nonexistent; and "it was mentioned in passing somewhere in some other article" is obviously insufficient. And by my reading, DABMENTION provides no meaningful guidance in that case, so I would generally oppose linking it here even as a suggestion. --Aquillion (talk) 04:08, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  As the proposal suggests, that is more appropriate addressed where the problem actually resides at the DAB guidance, not by fudging up policy. Huggums537 (talk) 04:40, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Aquillion: anything mentioned on any article anywhere in Wikipedia to be included on every possible disambig page is not at all what WP:DABMENTION prescribes. Perhaps the confusion is with the common shortcut, but that section has been strengthened from "mentioned" to "discussed" in the last few years specifically so a simple "name drop" doesn't lead to the name being added to a disambiguation. Additionally, it has the clause if it would provide value to the reader. This means that it should only be added to the disambiguation if it is something that someone would reasonably search for—trivial discussions should not be added because it would not be useful on a disambiguation. I'm hopeful that perhaps you're simply unaware of this level of guidance, because it is far from nonexistent as you claim. Thanks, -- Tavix ^(talk) 15:02, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  The interpretation of WP:DABMENTION that you present here doesn't match how you and others have interpreted the guidance elsewhere. For example, see this AfD, where you !voted Keep per WP:DABMENTION, and another editor argued Where in WP:DABMENTION does it require more than inclusion in a list to consider the term discussed in the article?. BilledMammal (talk) 09:19, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  For a little peek behind the political curtains, I actually agreed with Uanfala at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles Lott. However, I also recognized that a delete result may create a dangerous precedent by legitimizing this bastard clause in WP:NOT. If your nomination had appealed to WP:DABMENTION instead of WP:NOT, I likely would have !voted "delete per Uanfala". -- Tavix ^(talk) 12:01, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support per common sense. If a reader bothers to search for "Terry Pearce", having a page that provides what information we have on persons sharing that name (and also suggests some possible spelling variations like Terry Peirce and Terry Pierce) is useful to the reader. It might not answer their question, but it tells them what we have. The suggestion that these pages are unmaintainable and unmaintained is factually inaccurate. It would be more accurate to say that these pages are reasonably well-maintained, but that those doing the maintaining are constantly being treated disrespectfully by those who are not doing the work. Obviously, the set of disambiguation pages complained of here represents a tiny fraction of all disambiguation pages, most of which disambiguate terms that unquestionably have multiple articles as their targets. It is also unfortunately demonstrably inaccurate to say that the search function provides better results for the reader. If that was the case, we would not need any disambiguation pages at all, but I see no clamor to delete the lot. In fact, a search for "Terry Pearce" will give the reader no indication that "Terry Peirce" and "Terry Pierce" (which they might actually be looking for) even exist. There is also something to be said for the benefits of putting these pages together. If Terry Pearce, the Australian futsal coach, and Terry Pearce, the Australian masters athlete were in fact the same person, the editor creating the disambiguation page would have an incentive to find that out, and create an article on the subject, given that they would have found two points of notability from which to work. However, I know of no affinity between coaching futsal and running a 2000 meter race that makes it likely for them to be the same person. BD2412 T 04:14, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  The suggestion that these pages are unmaintainable and unmaintained is factually inaccurate. It would be more accurate to say that these pages are reasonably well-maintained, but that those doing the maintaining are constantly being treated disrespectfully by those who are not doing the work.

  I checked five random pages consisting solely of WP:DABMENTION links:

  1. Adam Boyle - not updated since creation, missing Adam Boyle's at Transformers (2004 video game), Daysend, and a partial match at Francis Peabody Sharp
  2. Arthur Woodley - not updated since creation, missing Arthur Woodley's at Angie (album), Terence Blanchard, Dick Hallorann, Kaisow (clipper), 1929 New Year Honours, List of Nelson Cricket Club professionals, Harmonie Ensemble/New York, Steven Richman, and 2020 in classical music.
  3. Ciara Dunne - updated once since creation, missing Ciara Dunne's at Piltown GAA, All Ireland Colleges Camogie Championship, 2021 Archery Final Olympic Qualification Tournament.
  4. Mary Connor - not updated since creation, missing Mary Connor's at Panic on the Air, Florence Rice, Brian Connor (pastor), Edward Badham, Paul Zamecnik.
  5. William Osbourne - not updated since creation, missing William Osbourne's at List of mayors of Kingston upon Hull, Sir John Werden, 1st Baronet, Baltimore County, Maryland, Charlotte Grace O'Brien, List of ship launches in 1804, Rother-class lifeboat.

  These pages aren't reasonably well-maintained; they're not maintained at all, and the reader would be better served by the search results.

  However, I know of no affinity between coaching futsal and running a 2000 meter race that makes it likely for them to be the same person. Same name, same age, same country, involved in top level sport. BilledMammal (talk) 08:53, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Same name, same age, same country, involved in top level sport. that's not a guarantee, c.f. Jamie Allen (footballer, born January 1995) and Jamie Allen (footballer, born May 1995) who have the same name, were born within 5 months of each other in the same region of the same country (North West England) and both are professionals in the upper levels of the same sport - a much closer connection and yet they are different people, so you need more than you have before assuming that a middle distance runner and the coach of a completely different sport are the same person. Thryduulf (talk) 09:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  But you also need more than that to assume that they are different people...if we can't even be sure that two DABMENTIONs aren't the same person, doesn't that indicate they aren't discussed sufficiently in their target articles to be DABMENTIONs in the first place? And I think the fact that we already have DABs distinguishing notable people not only by their profession, birth year, and birth month (91 title hits for "(footballer, born May"!), but multiple by their birth day ("(footballer, born [1-31]" returns 97 hits) indicates allowing any non-notable mention a place in a DAB would necessitate increasingly lengthy and specific designations. JoelleJay (talk) 01:08, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  We're not "allowing any non-notable mention" a place, that's unhelpful hyerbole. What we're allowing is those people who (a) readers are likely to be searching for, and (b) who we have some encyclopaedic content about. Sometimes that means dab pages will be very long, that is a feature of a comprehensive encyclopaedia not a bug. Thryduulf (talk) 01:40, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  A sizable minority of editors in this and previous discussions have been under the impression that DABMENTION currently licenses any mention because being mentioned can constitute "discussion" and any link would "provide value to the reader".

  In response to my questions here

  1. Apparently there are 10,029,641 "humans" in Wikidata; are each of these valid DAB candidates?
  2. If "discussed" doesn't mean "given nontrivial treatment", what stops the addition of, e.g., private non-notable minor grandchildren of a deposed nobleperson to DABs?

  I received the answer

  1: No, only those which are mentioned in en.wiki articles
  2: Nothing, if they are listed on the page

  which certainly implies any name appearing in an article is eligible for DAB. JoelleJay (talk) 00:44, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

  If persons, such as a private non-notable minor grandchildren of a deposed nobleperson have an ambiguous name and the detail in the relevant article is accurate and verifiable, then why wouldn't we want to include it on a disambiguation page? Why presume that no one would be searching for precisely that detail? I will grant that some common sense is needed as well, and that a name mentioned in passing in some other article does not necessarily need to be disambiguated. But that sort of common sense is nearly impossible to formulate into a policy or guideline, which often get misinterpreted as black and white binaries rather than shades of gray. older ≠ wiser 11:03, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

  You think being listed in the "Marriage and Children" section of some ancestor of defunct royalty, sourced to that ancestor's webpage or a comprehensive genealogy directory, is sufficient to warrant a DAB? JoelleJay (talk) 19:51, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

  Not necessarily. Something like that would need to be considered on case-by-case basis. I would not go out of my way to include such tangential mentions, but if someone did add it to a disambiguation page, I likely would not object. older ≠ wiser 19:59, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

  WP:SOFIXIT. These pages are the best we can do, given that there are over 1,000 dabs for each participant in WP:WikiProject Disambiguation, many of whom have other things to do with their lives. Sadly, search doesn't do half as well in most cases, but it's still available for when it does. Certes (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  These pages are the best we can do - that is my point. Dab pages of non-notable individuals are unmaintainable, resulting in search being better. BilledMammal (talk) 11:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  Except search doesn't help find non-notable topics unless you know how to use advanced features. Searching for a term through the magnifying glass typically produces a list of the most relevant disambiguated results with the disambiguation page being the first option offered since it is one of the most relevant and easier places to begin a search to find more information on a specific topic whether it is notable or not. Huggums537 (talk) 00:57, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

  The devs have put much thought into this, and it functions that way for a reason. For the benefit of the readers. Huggums537 (talk) 01:00, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

  Also, the search function will not provide results for a variety of useful interpolations, such as subjects with double-barreled middle names between the search terms, or subtle variations in spelling. BD2412 T 19:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  As I said in discussion with you earlier, why provide this feature only to people who have shared names? What about people with double-barreled middle names etc. who don't share a first-last name? They have the exact same issues. Rather than a handful of editors manually and unevenly maintaining an indexing function workaround for only a small share of subjects, a better option would be to implement a fuzzy proximity search option wherein terms in quotation marks must be within some small number of words n of another term. This could be as simple as adding a checkbox next to the search bar that automatically changes the user's entry from, e.g., '"Charles Church"' to '"Charles Church"~2' (or some other number) to include all the results with ≤2 words between "Charles" and "Church". JoelleJay (talk) 19:55, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  I hope you manage to get that implemented. However, I don't hold out much hope: we've been begging for years for much simpler enhancements to Wikipedia's search facility, with no success. Certes (talk) 22:45, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose MOS:DABMENTION is, as the name indicates, a manual of style, not of inclusion of content, so it should not be linked at all (not to mention that "if it would provide value to the reader" is so vague that it should absolutely not be in a policy). I also agree with all of BilledMammal's concerns, especially that it would create problems with non-notable topics linked in multiple articles, and that dab pages would be difficult to maintain and redundant with a regular search (which were discussed in the previous RfC already). Avilich (talk) 04:23, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  So, it is your contention that guidance for DABS should link to the notability guideline, and not the guidance for DABS? I have to say that is absolutely startling. Huggums537 (talk) 04:36, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Avilich, in saying that policies should not link to guidelines, do you disagree with the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines policy, which says that "Policies and guidelines may contain links to any type of page, including essays and articles"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:19, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand the arguments of either of you. Huggums appears to confuse MOS:DAB with WP:DAB, and I said nothing about the latter. I also didn't say that policies should not link to guidelines or essays; I said that MOS:DAB should not be linked because of its scope, not because it's a guideline, and that the wording being referenced is too vague for a fixed rule like a policy. Avilich (talk) 15:02, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

You gave the mere fact that it is a style guideline as your first reason for excluding the link. I'm sure you can imagine why that led me to assume that status was relevant to your objection.

Also, policies are allowed to be vague. They are not fixed rules. This policy says that they're not fixed rules (see WP:NOTLAW). The policy on policies says "Wikipedia generally does not employ hard-and-fast rules". It also says that the goal of all our written advice pages is to provide clarity about "the spirit of the rule" rather than exact specifics, which suggests that some level of vagueness is acceptable.

I wonder whether you might be interested in reading about Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I said style and formatting guidelines should not be linked because the policy being discussed here is not about style and formatting. I can't imagine what led you to think that I said something different. Also, policies are only to be ignored in very rare cases (WP:IAR); in every other case they should be enforced, and vague wording makes this impossible. What you said about "clarity about the spirit of the rule" only applies to guidelines: see WP:PG. Avilich (talk) 02:09, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Avilich, that's not true. Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines says:

Policy and guideline pages should: [...]

• Emphasize the spirit of the rule. Expect editors to use common sense. If the spirit of the rule is clear, say no more.

and also

Use common sense in interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; rules have occasional exceptions. However, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded or sanctioned even if they do not technically break the rule.

The policy directly says that emphasizing the spirit of the rule over the exact wording applies to policies, not just guidelines.

Policies, guidelines, and every other kind of "rule" or advice are to be ignored when they prevent you from improving Wikipedia. Whether that is "very rare" or not depends on what you're doing and how well the relevant policies and guidelines are written. There isn't anything in IAR that says invoking it should be a rare event, though I understand that during the four years that you've been editing, we've been in a bit of a mindless-rule-following phase, so that may be your personal experience. It's not an actual rule, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:50, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

A policy may be found to be poorly worded if its literal application is thought to harm Wikipedia, and in that case may be revised or ignored. But no one participating in a policy RfC will propose one wording and at the same time a different interpretation "in spirit", or propose a wording with the deliberate intent of harming Wikipedia. We're discussing the rules, not the exceptions. Avilich (talk) 14:34, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose - I still don't entirely understand the RFC, and I fully expect that I will be scolded for not supporting it. I opposed the previous RFC, which appeared to open the door to cruft and crud, and proponents of that RFC bludgeoned me and others, but, as the closer noted, they didn't persuade. I expect that the proponents of this RFC will now argue with me, and with other editors. They will be wasting their time on me. An RFC should be self-explanatory, and this one is not. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon, I added a comparison to help remedy this and make it more self explanatory. I don't think this will change your mind, but does it explain any better? Huggums537 (talk) 04:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Weakening to DABMENTION is too weak. We don't want or need inclusion on dabs for anyone namechecked in any article. Strengthening to only articles with their own standalone bluelinks would be too strong. The current text sets a reasonable balance, allowing dabs to include notable-enough topics that do not have their own articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't make it clear before, but I've fixed it now, and the current text says, "just the notable ones", which many (incorrectly) interpret as Wikipedia articles only. Huggums537 (talk) 04:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Why is that an "incorrect" interpretation? It's what follows from a plain reading of Wikipedia:Notability, which treats "notability" as synonymous with article-worthiness. If that is not what is meant, then yes, we need to change the text, but the proposal is so jargon-filled as to be completely opaque. XOR'easter (talk) 14:08, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  @XOR'easter, a subject can be notable even if the article hasn't been written yet, right? There are 6,662,794 existing articles at the moment, but there are more than 6,662,794 notable subjects. We see this confusion with red links in lists regularly. The Wikipedia:Common selection criteria says Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable, and yet we see editors removing red links all the time because they incorrectly believe that notable means "already a blue link". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, exactly what WAID is saying. There is a clearly distinct difference between "article-worthiness", and "has an article with a link turned blue". Huggums537 (talk) 21:13, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  DABMENTION is a lower hurdle than article-worthiness. Ambridge has an entry for Ambridge (The Archers); Full house has an entry for Full house (poker); Ray has an entry for Ray (geometry). These are all encyclopedic topics which the reader visiting the dab may well be seeking, and their presence is clearly helpful. Removing them because their targets are sections rather than entire articles would be little short of vandalism. Certes (talk) 22:06, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  Ray (geometry) and Full house (poker) are certainly notable, and Ambridge (The Archers) probably is. Just because it was decided that per WP:PAGEDECIDE it was better to include the content in a broader article doesn't change that - this part of WP:NOT does not prevent their inclusion in dab pages. BilledMammal (talk) 11:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  PAGEDECIDE also allows the entire contents of one notable article to be merged into another "broader article", but that doesn't mean that the newly created subsection in the parent "broader article" or any resulting anchored redirects to that newly created subsection are under any jurisdiction of notability guidance just because they previously enjoyed article status. This is per WP:NNC. Every one of those redirects are anchors to subsections, which means they are content within articles, and notability doesn't apply to them so it is irrelevant whether the current part of NOT would prevent their inclusion because it isn't supposed to apply anyway. Huggums537 (talk) 01:41, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

  The problem is that the addition to NOT does require such entries to be "notable", which some interpret as article-level WP:NOTABLE. Although there is no consensus to remove such entries, the more enthusiastic deletionists may start removing them on the grounds that this obscure line, quietly misplaced in an article content policy, overrides the considered and accepted consensus in dab guidelines. Certes (talk) 17:10, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

  Even more of a problem is the fact that the undiscussed reference to Notability that was added to NOT gives the false impression to readers that simple listings are defacto notable only or "Wikipedia aticles only" lists, but this is not the case per WP:LSC, which allows for non-notable lists, and complete lists with entries that have only been simply verified members of the group. Huggums537 (talk) 10:06, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support (edit conflict). I've said my bit. Whether or not you agree that mention-only dab pages should exist, any guideline should clearly not be delineated at this page. The pros and cons should be discussed at a better page; meanwhile, the status quo should be kept (even if it isn't beautifully explained at MOS:DAB or WP:DAB, it has a long-standing editorial consensus behind it amongst those who work in navigation). J947 † ^edits 04:44, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Dislike the exact proposed change though. J947 † ^edits 04:46, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I guess there's some history here that I haven't had the pleasure of participating in and am not especially interested in learning about. But history aside, on its face this proposal seems self-explanatory. WP:NOT (in theory) defines hard outer boundaries on what Wikipedia includes, and should therefore only include criteria that are backed by rock-solid community consensus. Yet WP:DABMENTION, which is a very prominent guideline that has not exactly lacked for scrutiny over the years, reflects a consensus that a mentioned topic or name should be included in dab pages "if it would provide value to the reader". The very existence of DABMENTION indicates that this provision of NOT lacks the broad community consensus required for legitimacy. -- Visviva (talk) 05:10, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The fact that a substantial proportion of the supporters at the last RfC were and continue to be convinced that "provide value to the reader" == "mentioned at all" indicates that our guidance should not be weakened. If editors want some sort of indexing function to make it easier for readers to find subjects they misspelled in the search bar or who only appear with first+middle+last name (and the reader is searching "first+last name"), then that would be better accomplished with some sort of fuzzy REGEXP search option rather than a handful of editors manually curating only those subjects with shared/diminutive/homophonic names. JoelleJay (talk) 05:40, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Wouldn't that be better served in more detailed guidance elsewhere, rather than some editor trying squeezing what they've disagreed with into a 4 word bit part of policy? Huggums537 (talk) 06:16, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Undecided. I was going to "Oppose" but I find the proposed language so confusing and unclear that I can neither support nor oppose. Can't the language be revised to make crystal clear the implications of supporting or opposing? If Robert McClenon and I are both having trouble understanding this, then it needs to be completely rewritten. Neither of us are ignorant knuckleheads, and both of us have extensive experience wrestling with dubious content. lCullen328 (talk) 07:24, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Cullen328, there was a lot of refactoring done to the original proposal that changed the meaning, and I also created The proposal in some haste, but I've added some clarification to the end of The proposal at the top so I hope this will be enough to make some sense out of it to enable you to come to a decision. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 18:26, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Neutral I agree with the substance of this change, to clarify the wording of the sentence about "John Smith", but agree with PamD below, that WP:NOT should not be linking to guidelines about disambiguation. I would actually prefer the original proposal that J947 suggested above. Natg 19 (talk) 07:35, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Natg 19, the current text already links to two guidelines and an essay about the MOS, and the original proposal would not prevent that. Huggums537 (talk) 19:49, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Having read the MOS entry this appears to be nothing more than the last RFC but in language that's meant to hide it's true purpose. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 08:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  The last RfC was by a different editor who opposed the change, and about a complete removal of the contentious material rather than wording it in a more acceptable way like this one does. Huggums537 (talk) 18:45, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Also, there have now been votes on here expressing that same sentiment for the complete removal of the contentious material, which is not the same sentiment I shared or expressed in my proposal so I have to admit I am somewhat resentful that you are continuing to propagate this insulting insinuation that was originally made by BilledMammal in it previous comment. If it were my intention to seek the removal of the offending material as in the previous RFC, then I would have added that as an option. Huggums537 (talk) 19:38, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I never said anything about the RFCs being by the same editors, I never even checked who it was by. I'm sorry if you took offence but I never meant to direct my words towards any particular editor. All I meant was that this change would be in effect the same as the last suggested change, all this wording does is obscure that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:48, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  Fair enough. Huggums537 (talk) 19:53, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support per BD2412 and my comments in the last RFC. This proposed change is one that will allow dab pages to be crafted to best serve the reader in all cases, not just those that will make life easier for some maintainers. Thryduulf (talk) 09:14, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Remove NOTDIRECTORY is supposed to deter content from resembling Yellow Pages – commercial directories with addresses, phone numbers and such. But it is constantly misunderstood and confused with our navigational pages such as disambiguation, list and index pages. Wikipedia is huge now and so clearly needs navigational pages. WP:NOT is not the right place to get into the details of how this is best done. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:14, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Andrew Davidson, would you be willing to clarify how your vote would go in the event a removal does not occur? Huggums537 (talk) 18:25, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support delegating the details to places such as WP:DABMENTION which can deal with them better. Simply removing the text also works. Certes (talk) 11:20, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  To clarify: I would prefer complete removal, which wasn't a popular option when I !voted but has since gained traction. Supporting the proposal as written is my second choice; either is better than doing nothing. Certes (talk) 11:18, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Per WP:CREEP, and fitting a square peg in a round hole. MOS guidance is not appropriate to link here. --Jayron32 11:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Jayron32, MOS guidance is already being linked to earlier in the paragraph, this proposal only seeks to further clarify that with more accuracy. Huggums537 (talk) 19:58, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support Much better. I quite like this one. Its seems to be an attempt to narrow the defintion of what can be included, which is certainly needed. I can see exactly what it means right away and its not subjective or as subjective as the previous Rfc, which left space for all sorts of interpretations. There probably will be some confusion with new editors but that would give the ability define exactly what it means through the help system, telling them its a much narrower defintion of what can go in, now. In the last decade the DAB pages have been a real problem and this is a good attempt to address it. They're been a dumping ground, stuff so wide of the mark. Hopefully this will clean them up. Lastly, the WP:MOS is an active document, its not just a mechanical set of rules that must be followed. Its use here is perfectly valid. scope_creep^Talk 12:38, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  ? @Scope creep The proposed wording defers to DABMENTION, which only has the definition of "provides value to the reader". That's much more vague and broad than "entries must be notable" (the current wording), and from the last RfC it's apparent that some editors interpret the DABMENTION guidance to mean "any and all mentions"...leading to the "dumping ground" at DABs you have observed. JoelleJay (talk) 00:06, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  DABMENTION also has the definition of "discussed within another article", which is a much higher bar than "any and all mentions". Rather than being a "dumping ground", it allows for useful and convenient navigation to topics in which Wikipedia has significant coverage—whether or not there is an article. -- Tavix ^(talk) 00:38, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  And many of the supporting editors at the last RfC believe "mentioned" == "discussed". I would support a "discussed" threshold if it was made clear that that means "significant coverage on WP", but the preferred interpretation by many of those who want to get rid of the "notability" language at NOT is that appearing in a genealogy tree or being listed as a winner of a non-notable local hall of fame award or being referenced as the defense attorney for a minor celebrity's DUI case would all be valid DABMENTIONs. So until that's settled I am going to oppose all attempts at weakening our criteria for DABs. JoelleJay (talk) 02:31, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  If you disagree with WP:DABMENTION, please start a discussion about changing WP:DABMENTION. Whatever rules we agree on, that is the place to put them, rather than displaying one set of guidance there and overriding it with contradictory rules hidden away in a page where no one would think to look for advice on writing dabs. Certes (talk) 11:13, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support, this is probably the best way to resolve the "conflict" between MOS and NOT. However, reading a few comments (especially the WP:CREEP ones), I'm now more in favor of removing the entire sentence about disambiguations. It's always struck me as odd that there is a sentence about disambiguation pages squeezed into guidance about white/yellow pages; it's too much of a non sequitur. -- Tavix ^(talk) 15:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I would also support removal of the sentence about disambiguations. Thryduulf (talk) 15:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose because it is incomprehensible. Seriously: spend a couple weeks not speaking in all-caps shortcuts, and see how it sounds. In principle, I'm open to revisions of this because, as I said last time, I can imagine cases where the threshold for listing is lower than the threshold for having a stand-alone page. Let's say, for example, that among the books of a notable author is one with a generic title, a book about which there isn't much to say, so we cover it (no pun intended) in the author's biography. It might be reasonable to list the book in a dab page, because it's somewhat "notable" in the everyday sense of the word even if it isn't so in the narrower, Wikipedia-jargon meaning. But the current proposal is a wall that only people who spend too goddamn much time on this website could penetrate. XOR'easter (talk) 14:01, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support but... I would prefer if WP search simply did all this automagically - list first the ones with X in a title, then those with X in a subtitle, then articles mentioning X. (It’s one of those areas Google or DuckDuckGo are better.) But lacking that, and despite my reluctance to change guidances casually, I prefer the guidance phrasing here both as pointing to a guidance specific for DAB and not N, and because it is explicitly saying a guidance title instead of a misleading English rewording. If one wanted to say “where X is an article or sub-article title” would be a clear English phrasing. I do not feel there needs to be a hard separation between title vs subtitle, because articles do get merged into other articles and become subtitles, and some articles are smaller than some sub-article sections - there simply is not a magnitude difference between them and impact of refactoring should be minimized. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:26, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Per reasons given by others and in general to not lower the bar. There's also a structural problem with incorporating guidelines / MOS as structural part of the statements in a core policy. SincerelyNorth8000 (talk) 14:21, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  The notability guideline was implemented without discussion, and isn't accurate enough to cover DABs. Huggums537 (talk) 20:07, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• I'm not sure whether to support or oppose as both the proposed revision and the original text are bad. On the one hand, I fully support the current guidance at WP:DABMENTION. If there really is some need to update this page, that case is tortuously confusing in the vast amount of text here. Several editors I respect have voted to support (such as BD2412, Thryduulf, Certes, Tavix) and I largely agree with what they say. But I also agree with PamD's suggestion in discussion below and would also be OK with removing the mention of disambiguation pages from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not on basis that disambiguation are not articles but are navigational aids intended to assist readers in locating relevant information within Wikipedia. That information does not have to be a standalone article. older ≠ wiser 21:00, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  I'd prefer simply to remove the text, leaving the matter to DABMENTION, but that option wasn't on the table when I !voted, and the revised version seems better than the existing text. Certes (talk) 21:04, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Bkonrad, do you have any thoughts on this discussion: Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Suggestions_for_rewording? Huggums537 (talk) 20:15, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - Disambiguation pages are needed. There's too many situations where there's shared names. These pages also prevent people from having to leave disclaimers on tens of thousdands of pages about how this John Smith refers to the footballer and not the chiropractor or whatever.KatoKungLee (talk) 16:11, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

  The proposed change would allow more entries on disambiguation pages. Just to be clear: do you oppose that relaxation? Certes (talk) 18:09, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

  @KatoKungLee, this proposal is not trying to prevent DAB pages. Huggums537 (talk) 10:29, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

  I would like the closer of this discussion to consider not counting this vote since it appears to be a misunderstanding of the concept behind the proposal, and the editor has not responded to the ping that explains this. Huggums537 (talk) 20:24, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support. An improvement from the current text, which - without additional clarification - is contrary to how DABs have worked for most of Wikipedia history, since entries have never required notability as it is commonly understood. While technically WP:NOPAGE is compatible with MOS:DABMENTION, since for practical reasons, those entries are could but are not created as permanent stubs, notability is widely used as shorthand for "should have an article". This sentence was added in 2014 without that clarification in an effort to avoid people turning DAB pages into phone books of truly non-notable people,[1][2], then was clumsily converted into a general rule on how DABs should work in 2022. [3][4] Neither of those changes appear to have been discussed. However, this is all too detailed for a general policy page like this and I would also support removal in favour of one sentence somewhere, perhaps in the paragraph at the top of NOTDIRECTORY, explicitly saying that this doesn't apply to DABs/DABs have their own rules (i.e. WP:DAB, MOS:DAB). ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 05:46, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose This needlessly complicates the rule and potentially also the disambiguation pages. Plus, where someone is mentioned on a page but does not have their own page, they may not be cited properly or edited out in the future, but they would stick on the DAB page. Readers are not served in situations like these - articles are supposed to disambiguate other articles, whereas terms can be searched for, and I think that's what the intent behind this change would do. SportingFlyer T·C 18:17, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  Articles are not supposed to disambiguate other articles, otherwise we wouldn't even have a need for DABs. The fact that you don't like the reality of always having to update articles is not an argument. Plus, this doesn't account for the fact that we have DAB entries that are redirects to entire sections of articles within other articles. So, if you thought that was the intent, then please rethink it. Huggums537 (talk) 20:47, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  I don't understand your first sentence at all. It's also a citation and verification issue. If I link to an article from a disambiguation page and there's no reference to what's being disambiguated at that page since it's been removed, and there's no citation on the disambiguation page, that's a problem. Also, if I'm updating the page and I don't know there's a disambiguation link to that page for say a person I just removed because they were uncited, that creates another problem. Dabs to sectional redirects are different - the link should break if the section breaks. SportingFlyer T·C 22:30, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  If information is removed from a page, rendering a dab entry useless, and no one updates the dab, then that's a problem: the reader is sent on a fool's errand. However, it's a far less serious problem than leaving the reader with no way of finding the information in the vast majority of cases where the information remains in the target article. Search sometimes works but often doesn't, especially when the topic is referred to by a different term. Certes (talk) 22:59, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  You said that "articles are supposed to disambiguate other articles" but that only sort of applies in cases where the article title does that or when providing a hatnote is workable. In all other cases, it is disambiguation pages that disambiguate article topics outside of search. Citations have never been required on DABs, but article content changing is simply a fact of life on Wikipedia, and absent technical solutions or draconian policies forcing editors to check for DABs/redirects, there's not much we can do about it. In any case, the scope of DABMENTION isn't really suitable to discuss in NOT. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 23:09, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  Longstanding consensus is that dabs do not contain citations or References sections, but that's hardly relevant. We're discussing how to guide the reader, armed only with a name for the topic they seek, to the correct article. Anyone wanting to read about the planet need only type in Venus. If they wanted the deity, a hatnote refers them to Venus (mythology). If they wanted a more obscure topic such as Venus (1929 film), it's on Venus (disambiguation), also accessible via hatnote. That also applies to the Gillette Venus razor, even though that is a redirect to section rather than a whole article, and to Venus, a yellow fluorescent protein derivative, even though that entry does not use a redirect. It makes no sense to conceal this information just in case it might be removed at some point in the future. Certes (talk) 23:45, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, Patar and I are getting bogged down in technicalities while the crux of the matter is that removing the information from the DABS is FAR less helpful than keeping it there, and needing to fix it should it ever become needed at some unknown point... Huggums537 (talk) 00:12, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  Would we limit the purge to dabs? For example, Atomic mass has a hatnote: For the band Atomic Mass, see Def Leppard § History. Must this be deleted now, just in case someone removes details of that band one day? Certes (talk) 08:12, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

  I think I get your point, but it is unlikely that a mention of the band Atomic Mass would be permanently removed from the history section of Def Leppard. But there are certainly unnotable subjects that are mentioned in passing that could easily be deleted without significant loss to the article. For another example that highlights similar area of notability vs passing mention—should there be a hatnote on Paul Hampshire (Scottish footballer) referencing the bassist Paul Hampshire who briefly played in the Atomic Mass band? I don't think so, but I think part of what some folks have been grousing about is a perception that DABMENTION somehow mandates such listing of unnotable persons. older ≠ wiser 11:53, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• Narrowly oppose. First, I'm not a huge fan of the "see other guidelines" approach (and, small note: there probably shouldn't be a comma before "or"). It'd be one thing if MOS:DABMENTION were a long or hard to summarize guideline, but it's ... very much not. It seems like it provides ... one sentence about when a link should be included? So why not summarize it here? "just the ones that are of value to the reader"?. If the goal is to get rid of WP:DAB, it seems like it'd be more appropriate to have an RFC on that.
  Second, I also wonder if this proposal will change anything. Bear with me: How do we define "of value to the reader"? Presumably, not every reader counts—if even one person would find the information useful, would there be any limit on inclusion? At the same time, it's not like "the average reader" is an appropriate stand-in either. So there's some inherent ambiguity here. And, from what I understand, the current debates on this site are essentially already geared towards whether or not it's "of value to the reader" to, for example, have disambiguation pages with no wikilinks to titles that contain the name of the disambiguation page (like, as User:BilledMammal noted, Adam Boyle). And to be clear, on that issue, I'm not sure! Perhaps turning disambiguation pages into, essentially, fancy search engine results is the way to go. But, again, I think there should be an RFC on that rather than using the change suggested here.
  I do want to note that I initially agreed that the use of "notable" is a bit confusing and should probably be changed or at least clarified. I understand that the policy is using the term in the colloquial sense—in the same way that Boyle says "Notable people with the surname include:" before listing, among others, Adam Boyle (none of whom are notable enough for a Wikipedia article). I get it. But notable has a Wikipedia-specific sense ... and it seemed strange to me to invoke the term on a policy page when not referencing the Wikipedia-specific sense. That said, this isn't the only policy or guideline that uses notable in the colloquial sense—not even close. And the insistence on replacing it seems like a solution searching for a problem. How often has the use of the word notable actually resulted in, say, deletion decisions actually premised on "fails notability guidelines"?--Jerome Frank Disciple 22:32, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Re your final paragraph: thrice, I believe, of which one was actually deleted. But there is concern that this could be precedent for thousands more deletions (for that is the intention), all based one stray phrasing. You raise a very good point about the notable phrasing in that it's very commonplace on disambiguation pages not necessarily referring to capital N notable, as is the case in this guideline. If the passage isn't simply deleted (at this point my preference), and even if it is, then sweeping around the various policies and guidelines to replace small n notables with noteworthies would be a good idea. J947 † ^edits 07:28, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

    Yeah I might be in favor of that! I actually think, contrary to the redirect WP:NOTEWORTHY, we probably should distinguish between "notable" and "noteworthy" for Wikipedia purposes. (Noteworthy is, I think, a fair term used to capture WP:SUMMARY, WP:MINORASPECT, WP:NOTEVERYTHING, etc.)--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

    Oh also—and I don't want to get into any prolonged disagreement on this, particularly because I imagine you and I mostly agree—I'm not sure I would say AfDs fit what I meant.

    If a disambiguation page has no wikilinks that share the disambiguation page's title (like Adam Boyle), there's at least an argument that the name itself is not notable, and therefore not deserving of a mainspace page. (To be clear: I'm not at all saying I agree with that interpretation.) That's not necessarily the same as saying "disambiguation pages should only include links to pages that share their article title". In other words, someone could consistently think both (1) we shouldn't have a disambiguation page unless we have at least 1 (or perhaps 2) articles with the same name as the disambiguation page title and (2) disambiguation pages that we do have should also contain noteworthy (not notable) names that don't have wikilinks but are mentioned in WP articles.--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:21, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

    That's a tempting idea. I wonder whether it is practicable. Certes (talk) 17:13, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Jerome Frank Disciple, I fail to understand how you think the policy "is using the term in the colloquial sense" when it links directly to the notability guideline? Also, there are huge problems with making references to notability using stray phrasing in any kind of colloquial sense in any of our policies or guidance considering the fact that none of our policies or guidance is based on notability in any kind of colloquial sense so there isn't anything to reference. In other words, nothing in any of our guidance is governed by notability in any kind of a "colloquial sense" so using that as any kind of measuring guideline is nothing more than a slick play on words to use notability where it should not be used in my opinion. Huggums537 (talk) 10:31, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  I guess I'm less concerned with huge potential misunderstandings than I am with the frequency of actual misunderstandings. Also, MOS:GENDERID uses the term notable in a sort of interesting way. Now, it's ambiguous: You could read that policy as saying that, for living persons who were not deserving of their own article prior to discarding their last name, their former name should not be included. But, and I only know of this because I often work in crime-related areas, when someone who falls under WP:PERPETRATOR transitions after incarceration, we usually include their former name. (Maybe that's IAR, but the net effect is that we're really using "noteworthy" as the standard.) MOS:VG also captures the concept of notability a few times, although usually they use different language: Noteworthy awards and nominations that contribute to the overall reception should be documented in prose in this section.--Jerome Frank Disciple 14:18, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah. Well, I guess I'm less concerned with whatever controversies they have going on over at the gender identity issues area, and even less concerned about the nonsense they have going on over at the video game fanboy area, but I consider both of these areas to be the exceptions to the rule as well as literal and figurative minorities when it comes to what the norm should be on Wikipedia. I have not followed GENDERID closely, but "the fanboys" over at MOS:VG have some pretty radical notions including a belief that notability applies just fine to contents within articles in spite of WP:NNC. The problem with the way MOS:VG are using "Noteworthy" as you just quoted, is that they will also tell you it is not related to notability, but that it means "noteworthy" in the "colloquial sense". However, "noteworthy" does not exist in any "colloquial sense" outside of Wikipedia, and it isn't defined in any meaningful way within Wikipedia either, so it is essentially just circular logic nomenclature used within Wikipedia as a placeholder for "notability" when "notability" would otherwise be considered inappropriate. In other words, if you look up the definition of "noteworthy" in any dictionary you always get the dictionary definition without any expansion on what the possible colloquial meaning of it might be because there isn't one. The only time we refer to "noteworthy" in the "colloquial sense", we are talking about it only from within Wikipedia, but Wikipedia itself also fails to define what "noteworthy" in the "colloquial sense" actually is in any of our guidance or policies so it is really just this abstract nonsensical meaningless jargon. Most especially when people refer to it as being used in the "colloquial sense". I personally am against any options with regards to notability standards applied to content within articles since I believe the notability standard is supposed to be reserved for determining whether a topic warrants an article, not what contents belong in articles per WP:NNC and the whole notability guideline itself. Huggums537 (talk) 04:10, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

  "noteworthy" does not exist in any "colloquial sense" outside of Wikipedia ... wait, what? I mean I think when the colloquial sense is invoked they're invoking the normal dictionary definition and not the Wikipedia policy definition.--Jerome Frank Disciple 13:14, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah. It's just like I said. A bunch of wordplay with circular logic and abstract nonsense that doesn't really mean anything. I've heard this before. They will say, "colloquial", but then when you point out there is no "colloquial", they suddenly really meant "normal dictionary definition", so we go right back to square one because there is no policy or guidance on Wikipedia for the "normal dictionary definition" any more than there was for the non-existent "colloquial" definition. Why should we even be talking about why stuff is "noteworthy" enough to be in articles? Shouldn't we be talking about whether it is something else actually policy related, such as whether it is DUE, NOT, etc. We have no business whatsoever discussing if something in an article is "noteworthy". There is no policy for it. Discussing something being "noteworthy" might as well be the same as discussing how popular something is, or how many sales it did as a basis for inclusion. Huggums537 (talk) 10:45, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not sure what "colloquial" means to you, but I'm not seeing the inconsistency there. Having looked into the issue more, I also think you're sort-of plainly wrong in suggesting that noteworthiness (or a related concept) doesn't play a role in content decisions. For example, MOS:TIMELINE says, "Ensure that list items have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the item to be included in the text of the article." What is "importance to the subject" but a synonym for noteworthiness? As I said above, I think a noteworthy criterium captures or is reflected in several policies or guidelines related to content, including WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:SUMMARY. And, regardless of the philosophical framing, it will always be the case that noteworthiness is considered on some level. If you accept that an article shouldn't include some things, then you're going to have to make noteworthiness decisions—either explicitly or via a proxy measure (e.g., "oh if this aspect is only covered by this % of sources, we'll pretend that proportion is 0 and won't include it per WP:DUE").---Jerome Frank Disciple 13:43, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  Well, I'm not suggesting noteworthiness (or a related concept) doesn't play a role in content decisions. I'm saying it shouldn't. What is plainly wrong is you quoting MOS:TIMELINE out of context as a complete sentence, but the full quote contains a comma and goes on to say, Ensure that list items have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the item to be included in the text of the article, according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (including WP:Trivia sections). The problem here is just like I have been talking about. They seem to be referencing policies or guidelines that have nothing to do with anything, and trying to use this noteworthiness concept as a proxy for notability. If there is truly a a synonym for noteworthiness as you suggest there is, then the right link to the proper guidance would be to INDISCRIMINATE or SUMMARY just as you have suggested, not MOS:TRIVIA, which has absolutely nothing at all to do with lists. That guidance isn't just wrong, it is plain stupid. Huggums537 (talk) 12:23, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  In other words, these expressions of "related concepts" or guidance that is "synonymous" to noteworthiness is simply just more abstract nonsense that isn't actually solidified anywhere in guidance, or if it is, then it is not in line with guidance or policy itself. Also, I think the dictionary definition of noteworthy is very much a debatable difference from "importance to the subject". That is why we should not be using it as a measuring stick without it being a solid guideline because you will have people doing exactly what you are doing now, which is switching back and forth between saying it means the dictionary definition or it actually a synonym/proxy for something else whether it be NOT/DUE/Notability or whatever. I think it is probably more true that it is being used as a proxy, and if that is the case it would be better/less confusing to just use the real thing instead... Huggums537 (talk) 15:23, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  The second part of the MOS:TIMELINE sentence doesn't negate the first. You can't read out "importance to the subject".

  And, again, the noteworthiness decisions are inherent. You can try to use a proxy for them, but you have to make them essentially once you concede that Wikipedia articles shouldn't contain every verifiable fact. (How do you decide which details should go in a main article and which details should go in a fork re: WP:SUMMARY?). Idk, this seems a bit like a philosophical campaign that isn't related to on-the-ground editing. Regardless, we've probably discussed this enough. I remain opposed to the proposed change, but I could be open to another change.--Jerome Frank Disciple 15:51, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  Well, that's very perceptive of you because it kind of is a philosophical thing, but I would say it does have a whole lot to do with on-the-ground editing though. But, yeah I would agree with you we are about done here. I've already made the point that we already have policies to cover why articles shouldn't contain every verifiable fact without having to introduce "abstract synonyms" for them so there's no reason to continue to beat that drum like a dead horse. Have a great day. Huggums537 (talk) 16:31, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  Thus, in my view, the micromanaging of how awards are written in video game articles might as well be written as, The most popular awards and nominations that contribute to the overall reception should be documented in prose in this section. or The highest grossing awards and nominations that contribute to the overall reception should be documented in prose in this section. because in terms of how policy compliant that bit of guidance is they all look just about equal to me in that regard even if they don't all make the most sense. Huggums537 (talk) 11:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (NOTDIRECTORY and Simple listings)

@ScottishFinnishRadish, Natg 19, Huggums537, BilledMammal, Uanfala, Guarapiranga, JoelleJay, Certes, PamD, Thryduulf, Scope creep, Cullen328, Tavix, David Eppstein, Blue Square Thing, XOR'easter, Enos733, Avilich, J947, BD2412, Jayron32, Butwhatdoiknow, The Banner, David Fuchs, R'n'B, Robert McClenon, Patar knight, North8000, GretLomborg, Markbassett, Aquillion, Jontesta, ActivelyDisinterested, Indy beetle, NadVolum, WhatamIdoing, Johnpacklambert, Blue Pumpkin Pie, Coolcaesar, Boca Jóvenes, Ortizesp, R. S. Shaw, Masem, Jclemens, and Mellohi!: Ping all contributors in the previous RfC; while unusual, it seems requisite since you have already pinged a subset (for future reference, the limit to the number of editors you can ping in a single message is 50). BilledMammal (talk) 03:47, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

This pinging is fine. I would have done so if I knew what the limitation was. I once heard an admin say it was 20 users so I've always assumed it was that. Thanks for the info. Huggums537 (talk) 05:08, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Neither wording above is ideal: how about " ... just the ones on whom Wikipedia provides information"? Or even "Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith but are a list of links to help readers find the information the encyclopedia contains on people of that name."

This page is not the place for detailed guidance on the content of disambiguation pages. PamD 07:05, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• @Huggums537: If you believe you can fix DABMENTION (whose flaws were a major point of contention the last time this was attempted, and which is a page that has far less traffic than this one and therefore likely reflects a weaker consensus), then your time would have been better-spent trying to do that first rather than trying to shackle this page to WP:DABMENTION as it stands; as it is, I can only evaluate your proposal based on the effect it would have today. And as I said last time, my opposition is so strident because of my perception that many of the people supporting this proposal then, and presumably now, are doing so specifically with the intent that any mention of anything anywhere in Wikipedia would be sufficient for an incoming DAB link, which I definitely oppose. Personally I feel that notability (and, more properly, WP:DUE) are the only appropriate ways to determine what goes into a DAB and the only things that really matter; DABMENTION, a mere MOS whose serious flaws show the limited attention it has received, isn't really that important and should probably be trimmed down and made more cautious in its wording rather than having policies defer to it - rewording it to remove the discussed within another article bit, in particular. Obviously any DAB must be at an absolute bare minimum discussed in its target, but that's necessary, not sufficient, and is not worth mentioning here or there. The wording should make it completely clear that a mere mention in the target article is insufficient reason for a DAB link and does not justify one on its own - notability and WP:DUE are the criteria. And more importantly, please stop bludgeoning the discussion - you've replied to almost every oppose so far (including one that complained about how opposition was bludgeoned the last time this discussion occurred!) You know that this proposal failed once already, and your new version of it doesn't seem to have addressed any of the reasons why it failed. It's fine to test the waters on a previously-failed proposal in a WP:CCC way, but it doesn't make any sense that you're acting so surprised that people are opposed to a suggestion that you know failed once already. Knowing that this was a controversial suggestion, if you felt you had an actual answer or compromise that would address the opposition, you really ought to have brought it up before creating the RFC. --Aquillion (talk) 11:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think I can fix DABMENTION, but I do think DABMENTION is the place where this needs to be fixed, and I think it is better to "shackle" this policy to more accurate guidance than to "shackle" it to a notability guideline that offers very little information about DABs. Also, this idea about a mere MOS is confusing since every MOS is in the category of "guideline" just as the notability guidance is. That would be like me saying, "notability is merely a guideline". Huggums537 (talk) 18:19, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@PamD, would you agree that either wording is better than the current disastrous wording of "just the notable ones"? Huggums537 (talk) 19:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Is DABMENTION in the Manual of Style exist in harmony with the Disambiguation editing guideline? To me, it seems that the two pages are similar, but provide distinct guidance. Perhaps we should align the two pages before changing language here. --Enos733 (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Enos733, if we're putting a self-imposed ban on linking to the proper guidance with the rationale that our guidance is not in harmony, then we'd never be able to link to any guidance because it has been pointed out over and over again about the vast amounts of contradictions that are preventing our guidance from being in harmony. Huggums537 (talk) 19:54, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I would say it helps the community when we link to multiple guidance pages and those pages are in alignment. As is, I prefer PamD's language above or if we do want to link to the MOS and editing guideline, we should say something like "..are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith as further explained in the MOS and editing guidelines." - Enos733 (talk) 20:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I guess I'm just confused as to why you would suggest to say something about a MOS, but not link to any certain one. I don't see how that would be any more helpful to an editor needing more information about disambiguation than linking to the notability guideline would be. Huggums537 (talk) 20:28, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  I would add the direct links - Enos733 (talk) 20:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Ok, then you are saying something similar to what @XOR'easter was saying in their vote about wording it without all caps wiki links? Huggums537 (talk) 21:10, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think so. I think it is better to not point to DABMENTION, but instead to the MOS page about disambiguation (and/or the editing guideline). But, I am not sure what problem that you are trying to solve. - Enos733 (talk) 21:39, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think my only goal is to simply have the policy point to more accurate guidance than the generalized notability guideline that really has very little to do with DABs. It seems like the most logical and productive benefit to editors. Huggums537 (talk) 18:07, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• I think DAB should use the guidance *for* being in a DAB list, not direct folks to a lot about for whether or not something should have a WP article. If folks prefer that DAB be limited to articles, then *say* that, and do not use an English word with other meanings that redirects to the whether or not to make an article. Cutting to the chase or using a DAB guidance would also eliminate a guidance conflict because N is pointing to only things of title X and DABMENTION is including things of subtitle X. (I personally prefer that, but if consensus is title-only, then the adjustment should be at DAB MENTION and that link get used here.) Having two guidances just always opens things to disconnects. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:05, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly. We are running into this problem because of ignorant people wanting the application of notability to content within articles and lists when it should just apply to when a page can exist or not. Huggums537 (talk) 10:39, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

• Are DAB pages "Wikipedia articles"? I have them as not normal content pages and thus abide by different rules from policies like V, NOR, NPOV, and particularly NOT. To that end, I don't see the need to mention DAB here...a better example in the context of NOT would be school alumni lists, where each person listed should be a standalone notable article. --Masem (t) 15:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  Disambiguation pages are not articles. WP:NOTDIRECTORY says that Wikipedia articles are not: [list of bad things], so its prohibitions do not apply to dabs (although some of its advice is also useful in dabs). The root of this problem may be that a sentence about disambiguation pages sneaked into a section which applies only to articles and, after being universally and rightly ignored for nine years because no one noticed it, was misread as evidence of consensus that dabs must only contain entries sufficiently notable (in the WP:N sense) to have an entire article of their own. Certes (talk) 20:50, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  I would agree that by separating the NOTDUR issue from dab pages, as a new and different iterate, would be much smarter that trying to account for both here. Masem (t) 23:01, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Changing the RFC question

BilledMammal, I'd like to direct your attention to the FAQ at the top of Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment:

The RFC question is non-neutral! We need to stop this RFC now!

Your side is losing, isn't it?

The RFC question is not brief. Can I fix it?

The "question" is the part that shows up on the RFC listing pages (example of listing page). If the RFC question itself is substantially longer than all the others and you are not appearing in the role of the loyal opposition, then you can copy a small part the original question plus the original timestamp (not usually the name) to the top or write a simplified question. If, however, the person who started the RFC discussion might consider you to be part of the dispute, you should ask someone else to adjust it (e.g., by asking the person who started the RFC to shorten it or by posting a note on the RFC talk page).

I repeat this in plain language: If you personally are voting to oppose a proposal, then you personally should not be touching the RFC question, no matter how bad it seems to you. You need to ask someone else to handle it instead of boldly re-writing other people's signed comments/questions to say something different from what they posted. I believe this point has been mentioned to you in the past. Please do better in the future. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:28, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

It’s never been mentioned to me, and I’ve never had reason to read that talk page; it’s a bizarre location to try to include supplemental instructions. It also appears that those instructions haven’t been vetted by the community; you wrote them last year without any apparent discussion.

If you want them to be followed, please get consensus to add them to the main page. Further, unless you believe the original opening statement was neutral I don’t see any issue with my edit.

If you want to discuss this further please take it to my talk page; this is not the appropriate location for this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 14:42, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Since you are changing this RFC's question, here is the appropriate place to discuss whether you have any business doing that.

I also point out Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing others' comments: Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page.

There is no "unless it's an RFC question" exception to this long-standing rule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, thank you so much for bringing this up because I think it is very important to understand those rules for a fair and impartial RFC process to occur, but just to play devil's advocate, I can't honestly say @BilledMammal had any kind of nefarious intent because the original refactoring has the appearance that he was possibly trying to be helpful since he assisted in correctly formatting the RFC with the addition of a survey and discussion section that I forgot to add when I somewhat hastily created this RFC. If it was exclusively refactoring without any helpful edits, then maybe the thought of taking him to Ani for breaking the rules might have crossed my mind, but my excuse for not going to the drama boards (other than the fact that I loathe taking anyone to Ani) is the fact that helpful edits were also made. However, I do remember having a very similar concern about the previous RFC being fair and impartial, so it is still very good that you mentioned this here since this is even more concerning than that was. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 21:04, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

The TPG says that changing other's comments can be "irritating", but in the case of an RFC, if you disagree with the person who started the RFC, then appearances begin to matter, too. Merely looking like you're re-writing the question leads people to wonder if you've twisted it, which leads them to wonder about the integrity of the RFC process. It's a line of suspicion that is destructive to community, to collegial discussion, and to successful dispute resolution. No matter how bad it is, fixing someone else's question to say The Right™ Thing is a temptation that really needs to be resisted.

Put another way: On contentious RFCs, you usually need to decide whether you want to clerk or vote, because doing both upsets people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

The question remained unchanged; the statement changed - the meaning remained intact. This is in line with standard practice where we don’t consider the opening statement of an RFC to be “owned” by an individual to the same extent we consider other talk page contributions, which is why we permit statements to be signed with just a date and why your own FAQ permits other editors to modify the statement - you only disagree on which editors are allowed to do it.

However, this is not the appropriate location, both of you are making comments about conduct, not content, so I will not continue discussing this here. As I said, if you want to discuss it further please bring it to my talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 21:51, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Just a technical note: the question and the meaning of it was changed. I think this is why @WhatamIdoing, posted the information about the rules here to begin with, because the loyal opposition have such difficultly to objectively make an assessment on their own bias about whether what they are doing is actually fair or impartial. Huggums537 (talk) 18:04, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

If by "opening statement", you mean "signed comment posted by the person starting the RFC, but because it is not 'the question' itself, is not shown on centralized pages such as Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology", then (a) the FAQ says nothing like that, and (b) neither does any other page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree with the decision that WAID made to bring this up here. If it were exclusively a conduct issue, then maybe I might have said, sure take it to a talk page or a drama board, but this also involves the alteration of content that other editors should be made aware of. Taking to a private talk page, and depriving participants of knowledge about the content issue is inappropriate. I don't think sending people to a personal talk page for a conduct issue is appropriate unless someone actually intended to pursue a conduct issue with warnings or Ani notices, and nobody here appears to have any interest in doing that. Huggums537 (talk) 12:53, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

With the close of the previous discussion voided, the next step would be to see if there is explicit consensus to remove the sentence about DAB pages.

[Wikipedia articles are not:] Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the notable ones.

Enos733 (talk) 16:04, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Survey re Alteration to NOTDIRECTORY

• Support as proposer. I think the previous discussion was clear about the remedy and that the mention of what to include on a disambiguation page belongs with the MOS, instead of specific guidance on the policy page. --Enos733 (talk) 16:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Functionally, this appears identical to the previous RfC's on this topic (one, two). As such, I will quote my previous !vote on this topic, which still applies:

The current wording prevents the mass creation of hundreds of thousands of dab pages between non-notable individuals, such as Terry Pearce and Arthur Harley. These dab pages present a number of issues; first, only one link should be included per WP:DABSTYLE, but in many circumstances non-notable people, particularly sportspeople, are mentioned in multiple contexts, all of them equally valid as targets, and thus readers looking for a context different from the one we choose to link to will be left confused and in the wrong location.

Second, these dab pages are unmaintainable and unmaintained; with hundreds of thousands of them they will only rarely be updated after their initial creation, and thus readers looking for a mention of a different Arthur Harley after the dab page is created will struggle to find the mention, as rather than being taken to a list of search results that includes the article they are looking for they will be taken to a dab page that doesn't.

Third, we often don't have enough information to determine whether mentions are of the same people or of different, but using a dab page requires us to make a statement on this and thus has WP:V and WP:OR issues. For example, at Terry Pearce it is not unlikely that the Australian futsal coach and the Australian masters athlete are the same person, but we make the statement that they are different people without any evidence to support this.

These problems are all avoided by maintaining the status quo and instead directing readers to use the search function; it provides a better result for the reader, and it creates far less work for editors.

))

For evidence that they are unmaintainable and unmaintained, during the second RfC I checked five random pages consisting solely of WP:DABMENTION links:

1. Adam Boyle - not updated since creation, missing Adam Boyle's at Transformers (2004 video game), Daysend, and a partial match at Francis Peabody Sharp
2. Arthur Woodley - not updated since creation, missing Arthur Woodley's at Angie (album), Terence Blanchard, Dick Hallorann, Kaisow (clipper), 1929 New Year Honours, List of Nelson Cricket Club professionals, Harmonie Ensemble/New York, Steven Richman, and 2020 in classical music.
3. Ciara Dunne - updated once since creation, missing Ciara Dunne's at Piltown GAA, All Ireland Colleges Camogie Championship, 2021 Archery Final Olympic Qualification Tournament.
4. Mary Connor - not updated since creation, missing Mary Connor's at Panic on the Air, Florence Rice, Brian Connor (pastor), Edward Badham, Paul Zamecnik.
5. William Osbourne - not updated since creation, missing William Osbourne's at List of mayors of Kingston upon Hull, Sir John Werden, 1st Baronet, Baltimore County, Maryland, Charlotte Grace O'Brien, List of ship launches in 1804, Rother-class lifeboat.

I don't expect the other dab-mention pages to be any better.

BilledMammal (talk) 16:35, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support. With respect, I think the comments from BilledMammal are thoroughly confused and misleading. It appears they are objecting to the lack of some extremely unnotably individuals from the mentioned dab pages. Or even that some individuals that are unambiguous partial title matches are not included (and to be clear they should not be). How is this a problem? If BilledMammal feels something is missing from these pages, they are welcome to update them. But unless someone feels there a need to disambiguate these relatively unknowns, what is the problem? As for persons mentioned in various articles, for example the singer listed on Arthur Woodley -- it is very likely the same person mentioned in the several articles -- and unless one particular article has some further detail than the others, there is really no reason to list more than one. In the event an article is ever written for the person, the entry would need to be updated in any case. So what is the actual problem? older ≠ wiser 17:05, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  The problem is that search is more useful for the reader than these unmaintained dab pages, and having these dab pages makes it much harder for the reader to use the search function for these names.

  For example, you say the singer listed on Arthur Woodley is likely the same person mentioned in several of the articles. I agree that is likely (although see the third issue I raised for the problems with this^[a]), but this leads to the first issue I raised.^[b]

  It appears they are objecting to the lack of some extremely unnotably individuals from the mentioned dab pages. You misunderstand. I'm demonstrating that these pages are unmaintainable. It is true that I can update these five, but I can't update all of them, and the fact that none of the randomly selected pages I checked have been maintained demonstrates that we collectively cannot either. As for the issue with only including a subset of "extremely unnotably individuals" on these pages, see my second point.^[c] BilledMammal (talk) 17:21, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  If you are pointing out that Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress, that is just the way it is. Disambiguation pages will never be perfect, but I think they are vastly superior to throwing inexperienced readers to the vagaries of the general search function. While the search function is vastly improved since the early days, it can still be very confusing to find a particular sense. I think a curated disambiguation page, even if incomplete or imperfect is far more helpful for most readers. And many dab pages will also include links to additional tools such ((in title)), ((look from)), ((srt)), or ((Canned search)). To say these dab pages are unmaintainable is much the same as saying that Wikipedia itself is unmaintainable. You say in many circumstances non-notable people, particularly sportspeople, are mentioned in multiple contexts, all of them equally valid as targets -- that is really not applicable. I most cases such persons are merely mentioned in passing in the article. There is no reason to prefer any one over the others; it is editorial discretion which article to link to. Essentially, the dab is confirming there is no article at present, but there is 'something' available that might be relevant. And while MOS:DAB does say to only include one link, this is a point where the 'rule' is sometimes ignored, especially in cases where an individual might have been mentioned in articles for widely disparate activities, such as perhaps a former athlete is also an elected official. Regarding your point about someone looking for a different Arthur Harley -- response is as with the first -- disambiguation pages, as with the rest of Wikipedia is a work in progress and will never ever be perfectly complete. If you find something is missing from a dab page, then fix it. If what is missing is a completely unnotable passing mention in some article or another, then who the heck really cares if the entry is missing from the disambiguation? older ≠ wiser 18:25, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  Would adding something to DAB guidelines that all DABs or at least dabs that are only DABMENTION entries, must include some combination of ((in title)), ((ook from)), ((srt)), or ((Canned search)), and other templates (maybe a new template or inclusion in the ((Disambiguation)) template itself) resolve this concern about search sometimes being preferable? -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 18:41, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  Disambiguation pages will never be perfect, but I think they are vastly superior to throwing inexperienced readers to the vagaries of the general search function. That depends. Dab pages that are curated are, while dab pages that are merely manually collected search results are not.

  For example, John Smith is helpful, because it is limited to just the notable John Smiths; it is curated. Readers looking for the John Smith who was president of Union College will be greatly aided by that.

  Adam Boyle is not useful because it is nothing more than manually collected search results - and worse, incomplete manually collected search results, meaning that someone who is searching for a different Adam Boyle who worked on Transformers (2004 video game) will struggle to find them. For Adam Boyle, search results are far more useful. BilledMammal (talk) 19:33, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  Sorry, I don't agree that not having the Adam Boyle disambiguation page is more helpful. If someone is looking for some other Adam Boyle and does find something relevant, they should be encouraged to add that to the disambiguation page. Search within text is always available as an option in the search function (and can be added to disambiguation pages with ((canned search))). John Smith is an extreme example. Most human name disambiguation pages cover a range of persons, both those with standalone articles and those mentioned in another article. In any case, whether a person has a standalone article is often somewhat arbitrary. Is John Smith (Kent MPP) (who has an article and is thus included in the dab) significantly more notable than John Smith (Manchester politician) who does not and is not? older ≠ wiser 21:14, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  DAB pages are rarely "curated" in any meaningful way. It is usually people who come to add a link to something they've just worked on and maybe doing some odd maintenance as well. This is regardless of if it is a DABMENTION-only DAB page. Would your concerns be alleviated if helpful search templates had to be included on all DABMENTION-only DAB pages (or maybe even all DAB pages)? -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 21:23, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support WP:NOT covers mainspace articles. Dab pages are not mainspace articles. Ergo, the advice is misplaced. --Masem (t) 17:09, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  That isn't accurate. See WP:NOTWEBHOST, WP:NOTFORUM, WP:SOAPBOX, and probably several other WP:NOT policies that deal with pages that are not mainspace articles. BilledMammal (talk) 19:36, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  Still the spirit here is that the purpose of DAB pages is far different from the purposes of lists in mainspace, and trying to conflate the advice for DAB pages here confuses things. I agree guidance is necessary for DAB pages but let MOS:DAB cover that (Which can link back to WP:NOT as why we don't include every possible John Smith on that DAB page). Masem (t) 19:59, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - WP:NOT covers all pages, not just mainspace articles. Work that is not directly related to improvement of the encyclopedia should not be included at all. This is why we have a user page policy and a talk page policy. As for disambiguation pages, yes, we should only be covering WP:NOTABLE topics. WP:NOTDIRECTORY is fine as it is, we are not a dictionary either and we should not be providing every possible definition for every possible term. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 17:37, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  WP:MOSDAB describe the purpose of a disambiguation page and the format of a disambiguation page. The guidance of what should or should not be included on a disambiguation page is found in MOS:DABNOENTRY and WP:DABNOT. Support of this proposal should not be seen as affecting a change to those guidelines. - Enos733 (talk) 17:50, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  If I am not mistaken, guidelines describe applications of policies within specific context. Here, WP:DABNOT clarifies what can and cannot be included on a disambiguation page to satisfy WP:NOTDIRECTORY. In this case, I would say it is redundant, but I would clarify this to make it less redundant. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 18:02, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  No one is suggesting that disambiguation pages should include every possible mention of any person with a name. What is at issue is there are some editors who would prefer to delete disambiguation pages that list only what they deem as being unnotable entries and use the line being proposed for removal here as justification for such deletions. The guideline at WP:DABMENTION is If a topic does not have an article of its own, but is discussed within another article, then a link to that article may be included if it would provide value to the reader. Some incorrectly interpret the line in WP:NOTDIRECTORY as meaning that if a subject does not have an article of its own, it should not be included in a disambiguation page -- and by extension, others suggest that disambiguation pages that consist only of entries that do not have their own articles should be deleted. There is no suggestion that disambiguation pages must include every mention of a subject regardless of how fleeting the mention in an article -- only that entries are allowed for subjects that might not have a stand-alone article. older ≠ wiser 18:40, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Details of how DAB pages should be left to the DAB guideline and MOS. The guidance it gives is also wrong, at least in the commonly-used definition of "notable" to mean "has an article", and explaining the nuances of that distinction is not what NOT should be used for. If there are disagreements about how DABs work, it should be discussed there, not via trying to keep vague pronouncements in NOT that do not reflect actual practice at all. DABMENTION is how DAB pages have worked since basically the first guidelines were approved by the community in 2005.[12] The addition of this disputed guidance in 2017 to NOT, initially in the context of DABs of people's names.[13][14] and the 2022 revision to have it apply to all DABs, [15][16] both of which were undiscussed, did not result in any significant shift to how DAB pages actually work. It is simply wrong to argue that reverting to the 2016 version would suddenly result in DAB chaos. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 18:48, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  I would also support the List of Harvard Law School alumni example used by @Masem in the discussion above as an example of a page that does not include everyone who technically is a member of the class in the title, but just the encyclopedically relevant ones. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 18:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• Strong support as it became clear from the previous discussion that the sentence in question is very confusing and out of place. This bullet point discusses "Simple listings" (from context, meaning yellow and white pages), which disambiguation pages are not. The guidance should be left to the disambiguation guidelines & MOS. -- Tavix ^(talk) 19:01, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. Per my statements in the just closed RFC, and the RFC about this exact suggestion just eight months ago. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  This is the first time the removal of the entire sentence has been formally proposed. -- Tavix ^(talk) 19:19, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  It's the third time that "just the notable ones", which is the important part of the sentence, has been suggested for removal in the last eight months. If the next RFC is to only remove the second half of the sentence it will still be the same question. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:26, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  This is the first RfC that actually addresses the root of the problem—that disambiguation guidance does not belong in a clause about white pages. Only removing "just the notable ones" still maintains out of place disambiguation guidance. -- Tavix ^(talk) 19:36, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes but this RFC still attempts to remove what has been suggested for removal twice before, maybe for different reason and under different guises but it still removes the same thing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:30, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  I would add that the current wording does reflect practice, non-notable entries are removed from disambiguation pages. This change wants to change that practice, as did the previous RFCs. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:47, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  This is not true in the context of notable topics, and especially not true if we're using notability to mean "should have a standalone article", which is how most people use it. To use an example from a page you've edited a lot, Sound Man is the name of Glyn Johns's autobiography, and I just added it to the Sound man disambiguation page, since it meets the criteria at MOS:DABMENTION because it is discussed in a way that provides value to readers. I think this is helpful, since people who search "Sound Man" should be able to see that this is the title of Johns's autobiography.

  I haven't actually researched how much the book was covered, but let's assume that it did not receive enough in-depth coverage by RSs to meet WP:GNG. Then it wouldn't be a notable topic and under the current version of NOTDIRECTORY, it should be removed from the page. However, even if it did receive enough RS coverage to pass GNG, per WP:NOPAGE, we can still make the editorial decision that it's better to just cover the book on Johns's page instead of having a standalone article. Then, if we're using "notable" in the more popular sense, it would also be removed under the current guidance.

  DABMENTION has existed in some form since MOS:DAB was first approved back in 2005.[17] This guidance was initially added without discussion in 2017 in the context of DAB pages of people's names should not resemble phone books (i.e. WP:NOTYELLOWPAGES).[18][19] Then in 2022, it was moved, again without discussion, to another bullet point in NOTDIRECTORY to become a rule that applied to all DABs.[20][21]. This guidance is out of line with actual practice, not the other way around. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:10, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes I help with technical errors while Glyn Johns was going through GAR, that doesn't mean I have any knowledge of the article. This just clarifies what NOTYELLOWPAGES already said. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:06, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  The factual matrix here depends on clear hypotheticals and is not particularly complicated or technical. If the Glyn Johns autobiography does not meet WP:GNG do you think it should be removed from the DAB page? NOTDIRECTORY as currently worded would bar its inclusion.

  One of the issues is that last year, this sentence was moved from a bullet point specifically about how Wikipedia is not the Yellow Pages for names to a bullet point of general application. Even if we removed this, "Nor should listings such as the white or yellow pages be replicated." would remain in the policy and MOS:DABMENTION would prohibit the addition of people with no encyclopedic relevance. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 19:24, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  I think Masem suggestion below is much better idea, and would clear up any confusion. NOTYELLOWPAGES isn't just about people's names. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:09, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• Strong support for the reasons explained by myself and others the previous times this has been suggested (formally and informally). In short this will allow dab pages to be created and maintained based on what best serves the reader in each case. Thryduulf (talk) 20:32, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support, duh. This is not the place to codify disambiguation guidelines, and definitely not where they should be changed. It's misplaced in another manner too: disambiguation pages that list non-notable persons always include contextual information showing encyclopaedic merit. J947 † ^edits 01:46, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support this removal of guidance per WP:POLCON because it is in conflict with other DAB guidance, but disagree with the idea that was brought up in past discussions that links to essays or MOS should not be in policy. Huggums537 (talk) 02:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose the current wording is simple, easy to find, and easy to understand. Wikipedia has lots of new user accounts, and it is useful to be able to point them at simple guidance that there is a chance that they will read and understand. It is not helpful to claim that somewhere over the rainbow there is better more detailed guidance. People need to be able to find that guidance, and there needs to some kind of short summary of it in various accessible places that we can point new user accounts at when they start adding non-notable people/organisations to lists. -- Toddy1 (talk) 08:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  Except this guidance does not reflect actual practice and is misleading. older ≠ wiser 10:42, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  (1) Anything short and understandable is unlikely to have all the ifs and buts required in real life. But it can still be useful.

  (2) If there is a problem with the current wording, propose an amendment.-- Toddy1 (talk) 12:33, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  re (2) - that is exactly what this discussion is about: an amendment to the current wording has been proposed to resolve a problem with it. Thryduulf (talk) 14:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per my rationale above. We need a clear-cut guideline here for lists in order to prevent them from turning into arbitrary directories; that is, clearly, part of the point of WP:NOTDIRECTORY, as can be seen in the guidelines it sets for all our other parts of the wiki that might similarly turn into directories. There's no particular reason why disambiguation pages would be different in that regard, so the argument people are making that it is out-of-place here makes no sense. And ultimately, notability is a reasonable established standard to use as a rough guideline for when we include or exclude things in a disambiguation list; there's no real evidence that it has led to confusion or problems, aside from the subjective "people are using it to argue for the deletion of things that I would rather we not delete" arguments above. And those arguments seem to be essentially pushing for us to allow disambiguation pages to be used as directories, which is specifically what the entry in NOTDIRECTORY is meant to prevent - their purpose is not to be a directory but to disambiguate between potential articles that the title could plausibly refer to, which plainly requires some degree of notability. It also makes no sense to argue that this should be deleted because of conflict with other policies; this page is more established, policy-wise, and the sentence here is longer-standing, so if there is a conflict it ought to hold priority, especially since its guidance is simple, straightforward, and generally the most useful way to ensure that disambiguation pages serve the purpose they're intended to serve rather than turning into directories or dumping grounds for indiscriminate information. --Aquillion (talk) 15:50, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Procedural Support per my comments at AN, I think the discussion has showed there is not consensus for any specific policy regarding what is to be listed on disambiguation pages, and we should not leave the wrong policy ensconced because of a lack of consensus for a specific replacement.
  As far as a specific change: I would prefer to leave Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith in the text, and only remove the phrase just the notable ones. Walt Yoder (talk) 21:15, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support complete removal, because the section is explicitly about articles only, and disambiguation pages are not articles. Second choice, as a compromise, is to remove just the final part as I suggested below. Certes (talk) 21:46, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
• Procedural Oppose there was no consensus to remove this last time. I don't think we should have exhaustive directory-style databases of names anywhere on Wikipedia, but the phrasing should be discussed based on what would help the encyclopedia. Trying to split hairs between what is or isn't an article would void the spirit of the policy and feels like a WP:BUREAUCRATIC procedure to achieve what couldn't be done via WP:CONSENSUS in the last RFC. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
• support with note I'd rather have what Walt Yoder is suggesting, but if that isn't on the table, I'd prefer to remove the whole thing. "Notable" is a term-of-art here but I think the intent (and goal) should be just to list those topics that we could reasonably expect people to be searching for, rather than just those that meet the GNG. The GNG is too high of a bar, IMO, for inclusion in a dab page. Hobit (talk) 18:22, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Patar knight. The long-standing 2005 wording was not really problematic and reflected editors' practice. The undiscussed addition just added unnecessary confusion and ambiguity. --Cavarrone 07:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Disambig pages are to disambig to navigate to articles, not to be lists of everything/everybody with that name. North8000 (talk) 14:03, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  This is a misunderstanding of what is at issue here. NO ONE is proposing that disambiguation pages should be a comprehensive listing of anyone and everyone with a name. Disambiguation pages have ALWAYS included entries for subjects that do not have standalone articles. What is at issue here is that some editors are using this line in WP:NOT that had been added without consensus to justify removal of entries from disambiguation pages that do not have stand-alone articles -- or in some cases to delete the disambiguation pages entirely. older ≠ wiser 15:01, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, at issue is if the bar for inclusion on a dab page is "meets GNG", the same as the bar for having an article. That bar seems too high to me. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages#Specific_instances does a fairly good job setting what I think is a reasonable bar ("Do not include entries for topics which are not mentioned in any article, even if there is an article on a related topic, since linking to it would not help readers find information about the sought topic.") Hobit (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support or oppose - the line isn't wrong, but apparently some interpretations of it are wrong. What's important is for whoever closes this to be clear that if you're interpreting this sentence in a way that conflicts with WP:DAB, you're interpreting it wrong. If it's somehow too confusing, it should be removed, but meh. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:39, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  The line is a brief and necessarily imprecise summary of a long, nuanced and carefully written guideline. It's a useful introduction to the subject but should never have found its way onto a policy page where it technically overrides the main guideline page. Certes (talk) 16:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support WP:NOT should stick to a broad statement about what Wikipedia isn't, rather getting into the weeds about the details of what we do in well-established types of pages such as disambiguation and lists. Best practice for such pages should be covered in the specific, positive guidance for them such as WP:DAB and WP:LIST. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Strong oppose This clearly provides guidance on what is and what is not okay on a disambiguation page by interpreting WP:DAB, and prevents disambiguation pages from turning into directories of non-notable things. (I support those who are de-cluttering these pages, and I would support a re-write to better match WP:DAB, but not full removal.) SportingFlyer T·C 10:23, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  I would actually change "just the notable ones." to "just those discussed on Wikipedia." SportingFlyer T·C 10:25, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  • I actually like this quite a bit. I think "discussed" is a smidge too broad, and the proposal below is perhaps a bit too narrow. But yes, that's really close. Hobit (talk) 14:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support, the current guideline is confusing as it conflicts with MOS:DAB, specifically MOS:DABMENTION. We shouldn't keep policy that doesn't reflect the way editors actually do things. The alternate proposal or something similar is probably the best option. —siroχo 10:45, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The disambiguation pages are for disambiguation of topics that are notable. They are not an alternative to a search engine. And it is pretty evident they cannot reasonably be used as an alternative to a search engine and it would be foolish to even try to make them do that. WP:DABMENTION does not conflict with what is here as topics that do not have their own article may still be notable - especialy ones where there is a likely advantage to users in putting them in a DAB page. They should not be in a DAB page if they are obviously not notable. NadVolum (talk) 11:56, 31 July 2023 (UTC) Changed my mind to just underneath.
• Support Disambiguation pages should not be under this policy. They are 'simple lists' which are quite rightly forbidden as articles. WP:DAB should be what describes them. NadVolum (talk) 22:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support with the understanding that this means the policy says nothing about dab pages and does not contain a secret, unwritten meaning that overrides WP:DABMENTION's restrictions. I'd also be satisfied with a "See MOS:DAB for other rules" kind of line. I want editors following the best practices that are already documented on the other pages. I prefer removing this rule (whether it's replaced with a link to the more detailed guidelines) because it is unnecessary for this page to add its own rule, and it bad for the pages to be perceived (by anyone, even just a few highly active editors) as being in conflict. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:36, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  • Support the wording mentioned here (i.e., to not delete outright but replace with a line directing people to WP:DABNOT). I think this is the best way to ensure that guidance is consistent across the various pages, rather than trying to rewrite and running the risk of introducing new inconsistencies, while still directing people to whatever the single source of truth is. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:38, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support The mention of dab pages here confuses the issue. Dab pages are not "Wikipedia articles", they are part of the infrastructure which underlies the articles and helps readers to find them. PamD 15:36, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I would have rather replaced the sentence with a clarification that the rule applies only to articles, not other mainspace pages. Just deleting the confusing line about dab pages is a poor alternative, but better than the status quo, which clearly creates confusion and argument. --Srleffler (talk) 08:36, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: This is relevent to WP:NOTDIRECTORY – if WP:DABNOT didn't exist, DAB pages would be reduced to meandering directories. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 17:09, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per BilledMammal. Avilich (talk) 19:53, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Out of principle, it's better for pages to avoid either being in conflict, or appearing to be in conflict, and it's better for specific issues (here, how to write DAB pages) to be addressed in one specific place. Overlapping P&Gs create needless complexity. DFlhb (talk) 09:24, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support removing hard rules generally makes this site better, and this is an example where that is the case. Jack4576 (talk) 13:33, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support. DAB pages are not articles. The advice is misplaced, and belongs in WP:DAB or MOS:DAB.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:15, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support. There's some kernel of truth in this sentence (DAB pages shouldn't be indiscriminate databases), but invoking notability conflicts with longstanding practice and leads to suboptimal outcomes for readers in some cases. In an ideal world I'd support a rewrite, but the perfect is the enemy of the good, as the last few months of discussions show. (As an aside, letting a poorly thought-out BOLD addition made without apparent consensus overrule guidelines, AfDs, etc. just because no one noticed it back in 2014 troubles me. While everything here was above board procedurally, policy-making by adverse possession is just not a good idea.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:48, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I concur with User:DFlhb and User:Extraordinary Writ in particular. --Coolcaesar (talk) 14:23, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (NOTDIR Alteration)

• What if the language was changed from Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the notable ones. to something like For example, lists of persons, including standalone lists, embedded lists, and disambiguation pages, are not intended to be complete listings of every person associated with that topic - just the notable ones. --Masem (t) 17:07, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support That is a good wording.-- Toddy1 (talk) 20:48, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• That still has the problematic "just the notable ones" language, made even worse by applying it to all lists of people. I'd support it if that part were removed, the guidance still holds without bringing notability into it. -- Tavix ^(talk) 21:43, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• I suggest Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith—just the notable ones. This isn't the right page to specify the exact criteria for inclusion, but I think we have consensus that the threshold is lower than WP:notable, i.e. warrants its own article, as linked in the current version. Certes (talk) 22:30, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:N does not say that every notable topic warrants its own article. "This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page." NadVolum (talk) 15:18, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Technically true, in that notable topics are still notable without standalone articles, but how most people use notability on Wikipedia is for if an article should exist or not. The first sentence of the guideline is literally: "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article." Neither the guidance here nor in the proposals clarify which notability definition is being used. Regardless, they impose a stricter bar than the DAB guideline (WP:DABRELATED) and the DAB manual of style (MOS:DABMENTION). -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 15:29, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

We have a lot of editors who believe that "notable" means "someone already wrote the article". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

We don't need a duplicate of WP:N just for disambiguation pages just because people won't actually read the policy and notice the lead or the section on 'Whether to create standalone pages'. NadVolum (talk) 16:01, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

It's worse than a duplicate – it's a variant which, being on a policy page, risks overriding the more established guideline. Certes (talk) 19:53, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Anyway I've now changed my !vote for the original proposal - I now support removing all mention of disambiguation pages here. They should not be considered as articles even though they are in article space. NadVolum (talk) 23:05, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• "Just the notable ones" is problematic since it doesn't match actual DAB practice. It also goes against the guidance at WP:CSC for lists, which explicitly allows non-notable entries in some cases. Removing the phrase would still convey that DAB entries should show encyclopedic merit. If we do want to include something more detailed, we could point people to the relevant pages - like we already do for lists - by changing everything after the opening sentence to something like "Stand-alone list articles should have clear selection criteria. For example, List of Harvard University alumni is limited to those notable enough to have their own articles. Similarly, disambiguation page entries should only be added according to the manual of style".---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 22:38, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

  To be clear, I oppose this proposal because it doesn't fix the underlying issue of being at odds with actual DAB guidance/practice. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:07, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  If we included an example, then I think that List of minor characters in the Alice series (or any list that is not using a "blue links only" rule; List of Naruto characters is a Wikipedia:Featured list, and the List of Pokémon characters is the canonical example) would be more instructive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  Also, and more importantly, it would be good to write this as "Editors working on List of Harvard University alumni chose by consensus to limit it to blue links only" (the LSC for that list is actually blue links ["having an article"] rather than notability ["qualifying for an article"]) so that nobody thinks that WP:NOT is declaring that this is the correct answer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you Patar knight; that's a huge improvement. Let's point editors at the established criteria for both lists and dabs, rather than attempting either to alter them or to reduce them to abrupt summaries. Certes (talk) 20:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I oppose this suggestion per Tavix, it retains the problematic portions of the present wording while expanding the scope to be more problematic. Disambiguation pages and list articles are different things, serving different purposes, and different inclusion criteria apply. We should be reducing, not increasing (as this proposal would do), the confusion between them. Thryduulf (talk) 22:40, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support and comment This is an improved phrasing overall because it strengthens our directory policy across the entire encyclopedia. It's possible that "just the notable ones" is overly prescriptive. If we can form a consensus on everything else, then it's fair to remove that detail in the interest of consensus-building and compromise. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:20, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose because this is just essentially the same problematic sentence reworded in a different way presenting the same conflict with DAB guidance that was present before. Huggums537 (talk) 14:03, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I get what you're trying to do, but I think the problem in the original is "notable" and this has the same problem. Hobit (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as it lumps disambiguation pages, which have a purely navigational function, with lists whether standalone or embedded, which are intended to be informational in themselves. PamD 15:38, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Some lists absolutely are intended to be complete, and I am unconvinced that e.g. List of winners of the Boston Marathon would be improved by removing the two redlinked runners from the list of men's open division winners. Of course some lists are sufficiently broad or their inclusion criteria are sufficiently ambiguous that we should be strict about only including notable examples (e.g. list of poets from the United States would not be improved by adding anyone who might ever have been a poet from the US, regardless of notability) but where a list is of a reasonably small and unambiguous set we should often list every constitutent. Making this change would lead to what seems to me the absurd situation where for instance the inclusion rules for Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor would have to change but Hugo Award for Best Short Story could stay the same, leading to what was previously a single set of lists having two different rules for inclusion based on whether the award went to the person or to the work. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:45, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose The list selection criteria guideline says that some lists should be complete and that non-notable entries are allowed in some cases. This proposal would make it impossible to merge some biography stubs into lists, and we need to be able to do such mergers. James500 (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Caeciliusinhorto -- this wording seems to have rather sweeping ramifications for all lists, not just disambig pages, that I assume were unintended. Either way, they certainly are out of scope of the proposal. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:43, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

Based on J947's previous proposal, I propose changing the line to:

[Wikipedia articles are not:] Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) are not intended to be complete listings of every person named John Smith — just the ones who are notable or well-discussed on Wikipedia.

Survey regarding alternative proposal to "Alteration to NOTDIRECTORY"

• Support. Above, I've expressed why I believe removing all restrictions is a bad idea, but I believe this is a reasonable compromise. "Well-discussed" will exclude entries in lists like Arthur Harley (gymnast), while permitting individuals who have more extensive coverage but fall short of notable to still be listed. Further, it will address concerns that some editors have about "notable" limiting the inclusion to individuals who have standalone articles; while this concern is incorrect, per WP:PAGEDECIDE, addressing it is a positive.

Finally, this proposal is modified from J947's to continue to permit the inclusion of notable individuals; if someone is notable but not yet "well-discussed" on Wikipedia we should still be able to include a link to them, per WP:WIP. BilledMammal (talk) 09:42, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose because the section is explicitly and exclusively about articles. Disambiguation pages are not articles and should not be discussed there. Adding the sentence was an unnoticed technical error which we should now rectify. MOS:DAB and associated guidelines have been crafted carefully over many years, and it is wrong to override them with a glib one-line summary in a policy page about a different topic. Improvements to the guideline should be made at MOS:DAB, preferably after discussion on its talk page. I have notified WT:MOSDAB. Certes (talk) 10:05, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Certes and all my other comments on this page. Thryduulf (talk) 10:14, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• This should be what is defaulted to if no consensus is found on the proposal to remove. J947 † ^edits 10:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  Why? Thryduulf (talk) 16:45, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  Even if the proposal to completely remove doesn't pass, there's probably going to be a consensus that the current text is inadequate. There never was any consensus to add this phrase in the first place, so it would make sense for it not to be set as 'completely inalterable except for an affirmative consensus'. Among the opposers who disagree with this alternative proposal there are few who don't regard it as an improvement over the current text. J947 † ^edits 02:44, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support I would remove the notable bit, but support in principle. SportingFlyer T·C 10:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support. This is a good clarifying option, because the existing wording doesn't actually agree with MOS:DABMENTION —siroχo 10:40, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support as close 2nd choice My big issues is that well-discussed is poorly defined. But as long as, say, a paragraph or two of coverage counts as "well discussed" I'm fine with this. I do think the part about WP:WIP isn't at all clear from the wording, but I guess we can always point back to this proposal as needed. I think this is a good compromise. And while I prefer the original proposal above (because "well-discussed" is poorly defined and that could lead to some problems), I think this notionally is closer to where I think we should be. I'm not sure I buy objections about DAB pages being discussed in WP:NOT as this policy isn't just for articles... Hobit (talk) 13:04, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Neither 'notable" or "well-discussed" is in line with longstanding practice at MOS:DABMENTION. There are many cases where something may not be well-discussed within an article, but would still be useful and valuable to readers to have on a DAB page. For example, if a book's author is only briefly mentioned in an article on the book or if a topic could be discussed in detail but editors haven't gotten around to it yet. Also, if this does go through, we would need to change "articles" at the top paragraph of the section to "pages". ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:10, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per the fact that the conflict with the DAB guidance is still there. Complete removal is the best option. Go fix the DAB guidance if you disagree with it. Stop mucking up policy by creating conflicts. Also, this section of policy is intended to be about simple lists, but DAB pages function more like navigational aids, and can get quite extensively long at times even with notable entries. So, having a "notability" criteria for keeping lists or DAB pages "simple" is really a stupid and senseless excuse for notability fanatics forcing notability criteria onto article or list content in violation of WP:NNC. Huggums537 (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2023 (UTC) Updated on 15:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose: I would accept something like "just those on whom Wikipedia has information". The criterion for inclusion in a dab page should be no more demanding than the criterion for having a redirect from their name: if there is one name-holder, they have a redirect, while if there are more than one, they have dab page entries. Leaving a reader to find what they want by searching is not helpful - especially as on some versions of mobile interface the reader cannot choose to search on a term if there is already a "hit" for that term but is forced to the one article which matches. PamD 15:38, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:NOT should stick to a broad statement about what Wikipedia isn't, rather getting into the weeds about the details of what we do in well-established types of pages such as disambiguation and lists. Best practice for such pages should be covered in the specific, positive guidance for them such as WP:DAB and WP:LIST. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:05, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Not an improvement. Say less about dab pages here, not more. This rule should not apply to dab pages (which are not articles) at all.--Srleffler (talk) 08:39, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
• Comment What about removing mentions of "Disambiguation pages" altogether, since I think that's the main point of contention? What about: A page titled List of people with surname Smith, for example, is not intended to be a complete listing of every person with the surname Smith. Some1 (talk) 13:32, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose for the same reason I support removing similar language in the proposal above this one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:16, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion of alternative proposal to "Alteration to NOTDIRECTORY"

Notifying editors who are involved in this or previous discussions both of this new proposal and of the discussion generally:

@ActivelyDisinterested, Alan Liefting, Andrew Davidson, Aquillion, Avilich, BD2412, BilledMammal, Bkonrad, Blue Pumpkin Pie, Blue Square Thing, Boca Jóvenes, Butwhatdoiknow, Certes, Coolcaesar, Cullen328, David Eppstein, David Fuchs, Enos733, FOARP, Firefangledfeathers, GretLomborg, Guarapiranga, Hobit, Huggums537, Indy beetle, J947, Jayron32, Jclemens, JoelleJay, Johnpacklambert, Jontesta, Jsharpminor, KatoKungLee, Markbassett, Masem, Mellohi!, NadVolum, Natg 19, North8000, Ortizesp, PamD, Patar knight, R'n'B, R. S. Shaw, Robert McClenon, ScottishFinnishRadish, Shooterwalker, SportingFlyer, Tavix, and The Banner: BilledMammal (talk) 09:50, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, Toddy1, Uanfala, Visviva, Walt Yoder, WhatamIdoing, XOR'easter, and Scope creep: BilledMammal (talk) 09:50, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

My alternative if the original discussion does not gain consensus. What I intend to do here is copy some of the wording from WP:DAB into WP:NOT and turn the disambguation section into a footnote:

• Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Listings such as the white or yellow pages may not be replicated. See WP:LISTCRITERIA for more information. (Footnote: Disambiguation pages (such as John Smith) ensure that that a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily, whichever of the possible topics it might be. MOS:DABMENTION applies: any red-linked entry must still have a blue link to an article that covers the redlinked topic.)

--Enos733 (talk) 15:43, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I would oppose that as well. The point is that this policy about the content of articles should be completely silent regarding disambiguation pages because they are (a) not articles and (b) already have their own policy on inclusion (WP:DAB). Copying text from one to the other brings no benefits over a link but does risk the two getting out-of-sync. Thryduulf (talk) 16:45, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this phrasing is perfect either. It might work if the footnote explicitly noted the difference (i.e. Footnote: While disambiguation pages are outwardly similar to lists, they are navigational aids, not articles. Entries should follow the inclusion rules at the guideline and associated manual of style.) -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:58, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, I don't think it's fair to say that NOT restricts itself to "the content of articles". The entire Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Community half of the policy is about non-content issues, and dab pages do contain content. That said, I agree with you about silence about dab pages being a reasonable, appropriate and practical option for this policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I see value in your proposal Patar knight. I do agree with North8000's comment that our community should first determine 'Whether or not to have anything here in that paragraph regarding DAB pages." My first preference is no (and not because I want to see more redlinked entries), but because I am of the belief that the disambiguation sentence should be best described at WP:DAB or MOS:DAB rather than squished between "simple listings" and "white or yellow pages." Disambiguation are very distinct from those other types of directories. - Enos733 (talk) 18:52, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• User:Enos733 - I like that line with the revised User:Patar knight footnote.

Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Listings such as the white or yellow pages may not be replicated. See WP:LISTCRITERIA for more information. (Footnote: While disambiguation pages are outwardly similar to lists, they are navigational aids, not articles. Entries should follow the inclusion rules at the guideline and associated manual of style.)

User:Thryduulf Is correct that this line has been mixing two different things. WP:NOTDIRECTORY is clearly article guidance shown by it starts "Wikipedia articles are not:", and MOS:DAB is clear that DABs "are non-article pages designed to help a reader find the right Wikipedia article when different topics could be referred to by the same search term". It would be going the wrong way to copy any material from WP:DAB into WP:NOT, and good to include afootnote that distinguishes simple lists from DABs and leads DAB usage to a DAB-specific guideline. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:22, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I think that this is headed towards dying under it's own weight. I think that one underlying issue is that it is dealing with two questions simultaneously: #1. Whether or not to have anything here in that paragraph regarding DAB pages. and #2. If so, what wording?. Another issue is that this has gotten so gigantic and the wording (and lack of explicitness and explanation) for each new proposal requires someone to read both gigantic RFC's in order to participate which I think will substantially limit participation. A methodical approach which eventually leads to a resolution is still faster than "never" which will happen if this dies under it's own weight. May I suggest dealing with question #1 separately and then, if the answer is "yes", then question #2? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Your question 1 is in effect the same as the single question asked by the main proposal, it is only the "suggestion" and "alternative proposal" that are muddying the waters. Thryduulf (talk) 19:41, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

IMO there are two ways to read the main proposal/ the main proposal has been read. 1. Remove it and then who knows what is next.....possibly another version, leading the discussions which have occurred. 2. An explicit decision to have nothing about DAB's in that paragraph. North8000 (talk) 21:56, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

My reading of all this seems to be based on the fact we are wanting to cover both article based lists and disamb pages in the same breath, and while the ideas of how we limit both apply with a high degree of overlap, there is just enough difference that they aren't treated perfectly the same. A way to simplify that is through footnotes. A main statement could be "Lists of people (such as those named John Smith) should not include every John Smith, but only those that meet appropriate sourcing guidelines.<efn>" with the efn stating "for lists within articles including standalone lists, see inclusion sourcing guidance at LISTN. For disambiguation oages see MOS:DAB" --Masem (t) 22:50, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Let's all remember that MOS pages are neither policy nor guidelines, and anything in them used as if it were such has no more normative power than an essay. MOS pages describe how information is to be presented, not what information is to be presented. And if you want another comment? Since NOT is policy, it should not rephrase, paraphrase, or incorporate any guideline or essay, including any aspect of N. Jclemens (talk) 02:06, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Notes