Disambiguation pages ("dab pages") are, like redirects, non-article pages in the article namespace. Disambiguation pages are solely intended to allow users to choose among several Wikipedia articles, usually when a user searches for an ambiguous term.
This style guideline is intended to make this process more efficient by giving disambiguation pages a consistent look and avoiding distracting information, such as extraneous links (internal or external). It applies to pages containing only disambiguation content, whether or not the page title contains the word "(disambiguation)". This guide does not apply to articles which are about a primary topic, even if they contain a "see also" notice or the like.
| Style and formatting |
| Manual of Style and its subpages |
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| Related policies and guidelines |
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| Related help, tutorials and proposals |
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| Related to specific cultures |
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Page naming conventions
- Covered at Wikipedia:Disambiguation.
Linking to Wiktionary
Rather than including a dictionary definition of a word, create a cross-link to our sister project, Wiktionary. To do this, use one of the Wiktionary link templates on the first line. The multiple-option templates are useful if you want to link to dictionary entries with alternate capitalizations (star, Star, and STAR, for example).
- {{Wiktionarypar}} – {{wiktionarypar|WORD}}
- {{Wiktionarypar}} – {{wiktionarypar|WORD|WORD2|...|WORD5}} (up to five optional parameters)
- {{Wiktionary}} – {{wiktionary|WORD|optional display name}}
- Without parameters, {{wiktionary}} defaults to using the current page's name. Important: Check the link when using this method, as Wiktionary uses proper capitalization for its entries, unlike Wikipedia's uppercased first letter or page name.
Note: Wiktionary is case-sensitive on the first letter. For more information on linking see Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects#Wiktionary.
Linking to a primary topic
When a page has "(disambiguation)" in the title, users are unlikely to stumble on it by accident. They will arrive there by clicking on a link from the primary topic article, by searching, or by directly typing its URL.
The link on the main article should be similar to:
- For other uses, see School (disambiguation).
The {{otheruses}} template series can be used.
Since it is unlikely that this well-known meaning is what they are looking for if they have visited the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links. It is recommended to place the link back to the primary topic at the top, like this:
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A school is an institution for learning.
School may also refer to:
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Introductory line
Like a standard article, the title of the page should be in bold (not italics). It should begin a sentence fragment ending with a colon, introducing a bulleted list:
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Interval may refer to:
John Smith may refer to:
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John Smith is the name of:
ABC may refer to:
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ABC may stand for:
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It is not necessary to repeat all variations of capitalization, punctuation or spelling: "AU may refer to" is preferable to "AU, au, Au or A-U may refer to"; and "Saiyuki may refer to" is preferable to "Saiyuki, Saiyūki, Saiyûki, or Saiyuuki may refer to". Where both singular and plural are disambiguated on the same page, formats like these are acceptable:
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Bang or bangs may refer to:
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Bang(s) may refer to:
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Individual entries
Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the information they want quickly and easily. These pages are not for exploration, but only to help the user navigate to a specific article.
- Preface each entry with a bullet (an asterisk in wiki markup). Only entries that link, not leading lines, should have bullet points.
- Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link. To avoid confusing the reader, do not wikilink any other words in the line. For example:
- Including no links at all makes the entry useless for further navigation. (See "red links" below for cases where no article yet exists.) Never link days or dates.
- The link should be the first word or phrase in each entry. For example:
- Start with a capital letter unless the target article is marked with {{lowercase}}.
- The link should not be emphasized with bolding or italics, although titles (such as for books and movies) may need to be italicized, in conformance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). If the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the part requiring such treatment, as opposed to the entire link (see below).
- Entries should nearly always be sentence fragments. Even when the entry forms a complete sentence, do not include commas or periods at the end of the line.
- The description associated with a link should be kept to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link.
- Never include external links, either as entries or in descriptions. Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web. To note URLs that might be helpful in the future, include them as <!-- comments --> or on a talk page.
- Entries should not be pipe-linked—refer to the article name in full. See below for several exceptions to this rule.
Example:
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Examples of individual entries that should not be created
On a page called Title, do not create entries merely because Title is part of the name (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Lists).
Common examples:
- Title County
- Title City
- Title Hospital
- Title University
These may require their own disambiguation pages. For example, Jefferson County (disambiguation) should list the counties in all the states, but Jefferson (disambiguation) ideally would not. Instead, it should link to the Jefferson County disambiguation page.
The above does not apply if the subject is commonly referred to simply by Title. For instance, Oxford (disambiguation) should link Oxford University, and Catalina might include Santa Catalina Island, California. If there is disagreement about whether this exception applies, it is often best to assume that it does.
You may want to create entries on the same page for:
- TITLE and Title
- Title town and Title township
- An example is Willow Valley, which lists a town of that name as well as "Willow Valley Township" in another state.
Given names or surnames
- See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy
- Title Smith
- Title Lee
- John Title
- Jane Title
Persons who happen to have the same surname or given name should not be mixed in with the other links unless they are very frequently referred to simply by the single name (e.g. Elvis, Shakespeare). For short lists of such persons, new sections of Persons with the surname Title and Persons with the given name Title can be added below the main disambiguation list. For longer lists, create a new Title (name), Title (surname) and/or Title (given name) page.
Pages only listing persons with certain given names or surnames who are not widely known by these parts of their name otherwise are not disambiguation pages, and this Manual of Style does not apply on them. In such cases, do not use {{disambig}} or {{hndis}}, but {{given name}} or {{surname}} instead.
Misspellings
Common misspellings should only be listed if there is a genuine risk of confusion or misspelling. These cross-links should be placed in a separate section entitled "Common misspellings" or "See also". For example, in a page called Kington (disambiguation), a link to Kingston (disambiguation) would appropriately be included in the "See also" section.
Piping and redirects
"Piping" means concealing the actual title of a linked article by replacing it with other text, typically to suppress parenthetical expressions.
A "redirect" is a special page used to "jump" readers from one page title to page with another title where the targeted article is located. For example, a redirect is used at the title 9/11 to send users who navigate there to the article at September 11, 2001 attacks.
In general, it is best not to use piping or redirects in disambiguation pages so that it is clear to the reader which article is being suggested, and so that they remain in control of the choice of article. However, there are circumstances where a redirect or piping is useful to the reader.
- Where piping should not be used:
- Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed. For example, in the entry for Moment (physics), the word "physics" should be visible to the reader. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need to be able to find the intended article (but see italics and quotation marks, below)
- Where piping can be helpful:
- Piping may be used for linking to a specific section of an article using anchor points. Piping is preferred to creating a redirect in cases where the section title is easily distinguishable from the disambiguated term, and the term is simply mentioned or described within the text of the section. This indicates a low possibility that the term will eventually have its own dedicated article. This technique is used commonly for piping to the track listing section of an album; a further example, from E (disambiguation), is that the piped ESRB is preferred to simply linking to the top of the target page ESRB.
- When piping is used on a disambiguation page to link to an article section, the link should be in the description and not used to begin that line on the disambiguation page.
- Use piping if the article title differs from what it should be due to technical limitations per {{wrongtitle}}; for instance, The Singles 81>85 or Softimage|XSI.
- Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance, Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "School" (song), Saturnalia (dinosaur), "Hush" (Buffy episode), Neo (The Matrix).
- Where redirects should not be used:
- When the disambiguated term is an initialism, links should not use redirects to conceal the expanded version of that initialism. For example, on the disambiguation page BNL, linking to the full article title Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is preferable to linking to a redirect at BNL (bank) (although the existence of such a redirect may be useful for other purposes).
- This does not apply to the primary topic (see Linking to a primary topic above) on a disambiguation page for an initialism.
- Where redirects can be helpful:
- A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article only if the title of that section is more or less synonymous with the disambiguated topic. This indicates a higher possibility that the topic may eventually have its own article." For example, in Delta (disambiguation), a link to the redirect term Delta Quadrant would be preferred over its target, Galactic quadrant. Use this technique when the link is the subject of the line, not when it is in the description.
- Linking to a redirect is also helpful when the redirect contains the disambiguated term and the target article uses an alternative title; for example, linking to cell phone (instead of mobile phone) on the disambiguation page for cell.
- In either of the above cases, the link to the redirect should begin the line on the disambiguation page, as when linking directly to an article title.
Specific entry types
Foreign languages
For foreign-language terms, be sure an article exists or could be written for the word or phrase in question. Usually this means that the term has been at least partially adopted into English or is used by specialists.
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Avoid adding lines for words or phrases that are simply spelled the same as an English term. For example:
- not: Tambo, a Japanese word (田んぼ) for rice paddy
People
For people, include their birth and death years (when known), and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Keep in mind the conventions for birth and death dates—see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death. Do not include a, an or the before the description of the person's occupation or role.
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Places
For places, it may only be necessary to write the name of the article.
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| Jacksonville may refer to:
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It might be appropriate to add the country after the link. Leave the country unlinked.
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| Kimberley is the name of:
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Red links
A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link. There is no need to brainstorm all occurrences of the page title and create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics. To find out if another article uses the red link, click on it, and then click "What links here" on the toolbox on the left side of the page to see if any other articles use the red link. See Help:What links here for more information.
A disambiguation shouldn't be made up completely of red links or even have only one blue link in it because the purpose of disambiguation is solely to refer users to other Wikipedia pages. If the only article that uses the red link is the disambiguation page, unlink the "entry word" but still keep a blue link in the description.
Red links should not be the only link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information. A (made-up) example:
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In this example, the architectural motif is judged to be appropriate for a future article, but the noodle is not.
Synonyms
If the link is to a synonym, simply use it as it is named:
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| Serving spoon may also refer to:
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URL anchor notation
If the item described appears as part of another page, link to the relevant section of that page instead (using the #anchor notation) and conceal that by making it a piped link, as shown with "coin", below. In this case, the link may not start the line, but it should still be the only wikilink.
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Tail may also refer to:
- The reverse side of a coin
- Part of an airplane fuselage
- Part of a bird's anatomy
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Only use this feature if the item being described actually appears on the page you are linking to, so avoid:
if the television article does not mention it.
Order of entries
In most cases, place the items in order of usage, with the most-used meanings appearing at the top and less common meanings below. A recommended order is:
- Articles with a clarifier in parentheses (Anticipation (music))
- Articles with the item as part of the name (Computer keyboard as part of a Keyboard dab page)
- Synonyms
- Larger subject articles which treat this item in a section (Medieval art from a Fresco dab page)
Unless the list is quite short, separate the articles in categories (1) and (2) from those in (3) and (4), with the "may also be" line shown below:
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| Thingymabob may refer to:
Thingymabob may also be:
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Longer lists
The list may be broken up by subject area:
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Thingamajig may refer to:
In science:
In world music:
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Subject areas should be chosen to best aid navigation. Choose divisions that are well-defined, and that break the entries up into similarly-sized chunks. Very small divisions may impede navigation, and should usually be avoided. Disambiguation pages will frequently have an "Other uses" section for entries that don't fit neatly into another section. Keep in mind that a particular division scheme may not work equally well on all disambiguation pages.
Section headings may be used on longer lists instead of, or in addition to, bold subject area headings, but using more than a single level, as on Aurora (disambiguation), is rarely necessary. Section headings should not include links. See Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Headings for more.
On longer lists, {{TOCright}} may be used to move the table of contents to the right hand side of the page. This reduces the amount of white space and may improve the readability of the page. (For more information, see Help:Section#Floating the TOC.)
Images
Including images is discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles. Examples of this are the images at Congo and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation).
"See also" section
There may be a "See also" section which can include:
When appropriate, easily confused terms can be placed in a hatnote.
The disambig notice
Depending on the type of disambiguation page, there are different templates to use, including {{disambig}} for general use, {{geodis}} for locations, {{hndis}} for human names, {{numberdis}} for number-related pages, and {{mathdab}} for mathematics pages. However, if the page encompasses multiple topics, {{disambig}} should be used to avoid confusion.
Place the appropriate template after all of the content sections (disambiguation entries and See also entries) and before any Categories (see below) or interlanguage links. {{disambig}} produces the following message (as of December 2006), and also assigns the Category:Disambiguation to the page.
If a disambiguation page needs cleaning up to bring it into conformance with this style manual, use {{disambig-cleanup}}. This replaces both {{disambig}} and {{cleanup-date}}.
Do not use {{subst:disambig}} or {{subst:disambig-cleanup}}, as the contents of this notice may change in the future (see Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits). Also, the Wikipedia software relies on links to the templates to determine which pages are disambiguation pages (see MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage), and subst'ing breaks this feature.
If topical categorization of the disambiguation page seems to be needed, please bring this need up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Experience has shown that ad hoc and un-discussed category creation is controversial and prone to create agitation among the many editors working in the area of disambiguation. Be bold, but as that exhortation warns, don't be reckless.
Categories
Categories aid navigation between articles. However, disambiguation pages are non-articles and do not require categorization other than for maintenance purposes; they already get auto-categorized by using {{disambig}}, {{hndis}} and {{geodis}}. No other categories should be added, except Category:Surnames, Category:Given names or their subcategories (if the disambiguation page includes sections of name information or lists of people), or disambiguation subcategories that might apply.
Exceptions
Set index articles
Set index articles are list articles about a set of items that have similar or identical names. Set index articles are disambiguation-like pages that do not obey the style outlined on this page. Note that the set index article exception was designed to be narrow: for pages that contains links to articles about different topics, please follow this style guide for disambiguation pages. One example of a set index article is a list of ships with the same name. For more information about such ship lists, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines#Index pages.
Disambiguation pages with only two entries
- See also: Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation links
Some disambiguation pages with "(disambiguation)" in the title list only two meanings, one of them being the primary meaning. In such cases, the disambiguation page is not strictly necessary, but is harmless. The recommended practice is to use a hatnote on the article for the primary meaning to link directly to the secondary meaning.
Break rules
For every style suggestion above, there is some page which has a good reason to do something else. These guidelines are intended for consistency, but usefulness to the reader is the principal goal. So ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason.
See also
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