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School Article Disambiguation

A user has asked that I refrain from adding disambiguation links to an article page: this one in particular. His argument is that Franklin High School (New Hampshire) is not an ambiguous title and doesn't require a disambig link. I have to disagree. The base name "Franklin High School" refers to well over a dozen schools in the United States alone. And the disambiguation link at the top of the article allows a person to return to the main disambiguation page, regardless of where you came from. When I Google "Franklin High School," the first page from Wikipedia is for the Franklin High School in New Orleans, not the disambiguation. It's been my practice to add disambiguation links to every school article linking from a disambiguation page. Is that incorrect? I have cross-posted this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools --Jh12 (talk) 22:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that links back to disambiguation pages are potentially very useful, and am pleased you've found an example of a Google search result which illustrates this. But I can remember (though not find!) a previous discussion in which our view was in the minority. It's not just schools: if someone googles Joe Bloggs and the first hit is "Joe Bloggs (footballer)", a link from that page to "Joe Bloggs (disambiguation)" would help them to find the "Joe Bloggs (violinist)" who they are looking for. At the least, I suggest that such hatnotes should be allowed and not deleted. PamD (talk) 23:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I do think that links back to the disambiguation page can be useful in this sense. We usually think about the unlikelyhood of someone typing "Franklin High School (New Hampshire)" into the search bar, and really meaning a different Frankline High School, as an argument against links back to the disambiguation page. However, the point of Google (and other search engine) searches is a good one. I don't think there's any particular harm in having the links there, and it appears as though it will aid people in navigation if they are searching from venues other than Wikipedia. -- Natalya 23:58, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Hatnotes#Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous is against the use of such hatnotes in general, and your friend is right in that it's not an ambiguous title. But exceptions are listed there, and the scenario you describe seems like a good additional exception. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is the statement there: "the problem is that the reader would not have ended up at tree (set theory) if they were interested in other types of trees, as tree does not redirect there." That isn't so - the Franklin High School example illustrates. It assumes that people only reach WP pages from within WP, and ignores the fact that Google points many searchers to WP pages, though not necessarily to the page which answers their question. There has been lengthy discussion at Wikipedia talk:Hatnote over a period of years (I knew I'd discussed it somewhere, forgot where till JHJ's reminder that WP:NAMB was the policy concerned). PamD (talk) 07:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Just in case we appear to be disagreeing: I agree -- the scenario here involving a Google search is a good reason to place such hatnotes on this kind of article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Do we need to consider changing those guidelines, then? Conceptually, anyone could reach a disambiguated article via a search engine. -- Natalya 11:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

At the very least, a note somewhere about school articles here or at the project-level would be greatly appreciated. There doesn't seem to be any documentation concerning the use of disambiguation for education institutions and there are over a thousand of them listed here. Many thanks for all the input, --Jh12 (talk) 19:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not specific to schools, but applies to all disambiguated pages, surely? PamD (talk) 20:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's please beware of solving every conceivable scenario, at the expense of usability. Consider how many people will come to a page by search engine vs. by other messages. Do we really want to clutter pages to cover edge cases? I would argue that very few people would be served by such a hatnote, but every reader will be at least slightly distracted by it. Not to go all slippery slope here, but what if they typed "Franklin" by accident instead of some other high school name -- should we include a link to a list of all high schools? If not, why not?

There's a great line in WP:MOSDAB: "Disambiguation pages disambiguate Wikipedia articles, not the World-Wide Web." I think the same principle should be applied to hatnotes as well.--NapoliRoma (talk) 21:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The same principle does apply to hatnotes, in that we don't use hatnotes to direct Wikipedia readers from Wikipedia to sites off Wikipedia: "This article is about pursuing animals. For the engineering company, see http://www.hunter.com". It does not apply in the sense that you imply, that the path from the World Wide Web to Wikipedia should be ignored at the expense of reader utility.

I agree though that not every such page indexed by Google needs a hatnote; I would suggest a guideline that mentions something like "appearing near the top of a Google search on the base name" or something similar. Or even just mentioning the possibility and allowing the consensus at the Talk page of the page in question have sway. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right, of course that the principle as it stands does apply to hatnotes. I guess what I'm looking for is a reflexive guideline along the lines of "Wikipedia can't anticipate every entry point from the WWW." On reflection, though, I do agree that it makes sense to anticipate reasonable entry points from outside of WP. I just don't think we need to be prepared to direct someone who came in to Franklin High of New Hampshire (the New Hampshireness of which would be very clear in the hit summary of any decent search engine) to Franklin High of not-New Hampshire.--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

OTOH, I think WP:NAMB has at times been simplistically interpreted to justify removal of hatnotes that fail to meet some mechanistic criteria regarding the structure of the title and that oftentimes it is helpful to give readers easy access to exit routes if they happen to get to a page that could reasonably be confused with others of a similar title. But OTOH, I would not want to see carte blanche given to use hatnotes in any case where a user might possibly land on an incorrect page. For example, I routinely remove hatnotes on articles such as Athens, Michigan, which linked back to Athens (disambiguation). The likelihood of a user reaching that page intending some other Athens is minimal, and in such a case, IMO, the clutter factor overwhelms the vanishingly small benefit to the hopelessly confused. However, for cases where there are multiple places within a state sharing the same or similar names, I think it is entirely reasonable to have a hatnote -- for someone not from the state (and even for many in-state), it is not always immediately obvious from the title alone which place name in a state is which. Similarly I think personal names can be easily confused and parenthetical descriptors may not be mutually exclusive. For example, here is one I just found: John Reid (politician) should almost certainly have a link back to John Reid as there are several other persons with that name (excluding the use of the middle name/initial as disambiguation) who are also politicians. So in sum, I think judiciously applied, intelligent hatnoting is in general a good thing, but shouldn't be overdone. older ≠ wiser 14:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

So, hatnotes on pages that, even when disambiguated, have other articles of similar names and similar subjects, presuming that someone might pick that article but have meant the other [politician, town in the same state by the same name, etc]? That seems like not a bad way to allow for some more helpful hatnotes, but not adding unnecessary clutter to all pages. I do agree - it wouldn't be good to see hatnotes on every page that was ever disambiguated, but perhaps we can find a way to add some helpful ones. -- Natalya 16:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

+1. There's another very good example of this already in WP:NAMB: "a hatnote may still be appropriate when even a more specific name is still ambiguous. For example, Matt Smith (comics) might still be confused for the comics illustrator Matt Smith (illustrator)." So I'd be totally in favor of a dablink for Franklin High (New Hampshire) if there were a second Franklin High in New Hampshire.--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I suppose part of the problem is I still believe the benefit outweighs the cost. Previously, school names lacked a location in parentheses (many still do). And although that problem is being corrected, it also occurs because high schools with the same name haven't had a Wikipedia page made yet. In the case of Benjamin Franklin High School (New Orleans, Louisiana), there are two Franklin high schools in Louisiana. Franklin High in Franklin, Louisiana (which Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans may be confused for if you don't say "Ben Franklin High" in Louisiana), doesn't have a Wikipedia page yet. The Dab helps confirm that there isn't a page for the other Franklin High since there's only one Franklin High in Louisiana on Wikipedia and when a page is created, you will definitely want the hatnote.

In the case of "Franklin High", we have a large number of secondary institutions in the United States with almost identical names. They serve the same purpose, same age levels, are publicly funded, use an American curriculum/testing, American extracurriculars, and all fall under the United States Department of Education. When searching LexisNexis and JSTOR, it becomes clear that even published, reliable sources have difficulty pointing out which specific "Franklin High School" they're referring to. It was mentioned before that "the problem is that the reader would not have ended up at tree (set theory) if they were interested in other types of trees, as tree does not redirect there." But these aren't even different types of trees; they're all the same thing and the likelihood of winding up at the wrong city is not improbable to me. I would say confusion from being at one of thousands of US high schools with the same name outweighs clutter. --Jh12 (talk) 19:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

That sort of logic treads awfully close Wikipedia is not a directory. High school articles, once created, have tended to survive WP:AfD discussions recently. However, disambiguation pages are not primarily intended to be a complete index of all possible articles--but rather a guide to help locate existing articles. Red links are generally discouraged on disambiguation pages, although some wikiprojects have created Set Index pages for topics with a narrowly defined scope and for which the project can define style guidance that may be somewhat less stringent that WP:MOSDAB.

Of course, even if school disambiguation pages are considered as set index pages rather than disambiguation pages, that doesn't really address the appropriateness of using hatnotes on otherwise uniquely named school articles. While I don't find the argument based on Google searches as a reason for including hatnotes to be very compelling, I also don't really care all that much about school articles in particular. That is, the vast majority of school articles are crappy, under-referenced permastubs and the presence of a hatnote really has very little impact on the relative quality of such articles. older ≠ wiser 20:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

A slight digression: last Friday there was a story about how privacy advocates have been beating up Google for not having a link to their privacy policy on their front page (it was one level down off another menu). The Google folk agreed they needed it there, and Page and Brin agreed it should be added -- but only if another word was removed from the front page. So they finally found a word they could remove (it turned out to be "Google", oddly enough), and the front page now has a privacy link, but still remains at 28 words.

This is a company that understands the principle of avoiding "death by a thousand cuts."

If you have three minutes to spare, and you haven't seen it already, watch the "What if Microsoft designed the iPod package?" video.

Again, I'm all for dablinks where they make sense. Automatically disambiguating every already-disambiguated high school or person without considering whether it's really necessary is not necessarily sensible. For the rare occasion where someone lands in New Hampshire when they really meant to be in Louisiana, there's always the search box.--NapoliRoma (talk) 20:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) PS Aside from perhaps unfairly denigrating school articles, it might be worth considering whether such a hatnote would survive the scrutiny a school article would receive if it were to become a featured article. There have not been many featured school articles to my knowledge. One such fairly recent one was Plano Senior High School, which has no hatnote despite other schools that might easily be confused Plano High School. Should there be a hatnote on Plano Senior High School linking back to the dab page? In that case, probably so since the article titles convey no information about the state. But if there is only one school in a state with a specific name (or any easily confused variant thereof) and the state is included in the article title, I really don't see the benefit in having a hatnote link back to the general disambiguation page. To reach such a page, a user would essentially have to be in a clueless mode clicking randomly on links from a Google search hoping to get lucky. older ≠ wiser 21:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Google toolbars offer an "I'm feeling lucky" option. So no clueless randomness required. Granted, I'm feeling lucky searches only hit the problem when you reach:

Franklin High School
"Franklin High School"
wikipedia "Franklin High School"
site:wikipedia.org "Franklin High School"

the final search on this list, so maybe the hatnote isn't as useful there. But if I had hit it with the first or second, I'd be in favor of the hatnote, and I wouldn't object strenuously if I hit it with the third. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Just so I'm completely clear on this: in order to provide full support for users who A) like to click on "I'm Feeling Lucky" and B) are somehow unable to retype their search into the WP search box when it turns out that no, they were not lucky, we should add otherwise superfluous hatnotes to thousands of WP pages?--NapoliRoma (talk) 00:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Except for the "superfluous" and "thousands of", and the entire "somehow unable to" predicate. I don't think "thousands of" Wikipedia articles that have parenthetical dab phrases in the title will be landed on by I'm feeling lucky searches on the non-parenthetical part. If they were, that'd be one item in favor of making that article the primary topic. In the cases where such an article is the target, the hatnote wouldn't be "superfluous". Casting users' non-optimal behavior as unworthy isn't part of the guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, then, except for those :-)...

Actually, the "thousands" came from below, where it was mentioned that there are "well over a thousand existing school articles," presumably all of which were candidates to have dablinks added, plus various person and other articles that had been proposed as candidates as well. "Otherwise superfluous" was based on my interpretation of your statement, which seemed to say that the potential for a visitor arriving via "I'm feeling lucky" was in itself sufficient justification to add a dablink that would not otherwise be necessary.

And... yes, at some point we do have to consider a visitor arriving via non-optimal behavior as outside of the scope of our efforts. If someone is looking for information on Cheez Whiz brand processed cheese food spread and caulking, and decides that Googling for "trout" and clicking on "I'm feeling lucky" is the way to do it, we have provided for their non-optimal behavior by having a search box readily available on the page. Additionally providing a dablink to "Cheez Whiz" on the trout page, although helpful to this one benighted soul, is a disservice to all other readers of the trout page who are not at all interested in this fascinating nearly foodlike substance.

So yeah, that's a bit of a stretch, but it does establish that there needs to be some limit to our helpfulness. The question is now where to draw the line, and the guidelines (well, at least one guideline) have drawn a reasonable one: if the page has a clearly unambiguous title, don't add a disambiguating hatnote. It further mitigates by saying that if there's reasonable opportunity for confusion, a hatnote may be necessary. I don't believe that in the case at hand there is any confusion about whether Franklin High School in New Hampshire is actually in Louisiana, and to say that it should have a dablink because there are other cases, but not this one, where there are two Franklin Highs in a state, is not correct.--NapoliRoma (talk) 15:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

That's more than a bit of a stretch. No, I agree that "This article is about the fish. For the processed cheese food, see Cheez Whiz" would be ridiculous, in a way that the hatnote proposed earlier is not. :-) Feeling lucky on a google search of the base name is infinitely more reasonable than searching for cheeze whiz with "trout". After checking my google searches, I think that (a) Franklin High doesn't need the hatnote (although the idea isn't ridiculous) and that (b) a WP article that can be hit by "feeling lucky" on a Google search of the article's base name would be a reasonable opportunity for confusion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll buy that. We can call it the "'feeling lucky' rule of thumb." And I think we agree the article in question does not pass this test.

Now that I see it in print, I really want the hatnote on trout, though.--NapoliRoma (talk) 22:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that a "rule" covering this would be appropriate. For one, the page rankings of Google (and many other search engines) are dynamic--often very dynamic. At best, I think if it can be shown that a particular WP article with a fully disambiguated title appears as a top hit for a base name search with some consistency over time, then there may be a rationale for a hatnote linking back to the dab page. But I suspect such cases would be rather rare. older ≠ wiser 12:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the "rule" should be as it is now, that the hatnote should be added if there's a reasonable opportunity for confusion. I'd be in favor of adding another example of such an opportunity to the guideline, and leaving the decision, as ever, up to the consensus of the Talk: page of the article in question. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Editors do seem to be able to talk things out; I think it would be okay to leave it up to discretion when a hatnote in such cases would be useful, especially since there doesn't appear to be a clear way to determine if it should be used or not. -- Natalya 14:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I think a hatnote should be added to Plano Senior High School and the article also needs to be moved to Plano Senior High School (Plano, Texas). I'm not sure what the importance of a school article would have to do with school disambiguation. As long as we have school articles, there should be a way of navigating between them. I can understand reluctance on clutter, but we still have well over a thousand existing school articles with the same basic name and in many ways are related to the same subject. There haven't been any objections on this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools and I am amazed there is so much resistance here. If there is consensus for such hatnotes among the people working on these articles, will Disambiguation move in and remove them? --Jh12 (talk) 00:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The resistance here is fairly moot, IMO. The guideline against them is over at Wikipedia:Hatnotes, not here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Why resistance here and not there? Because "there" is where people think about schools, and "here" is where people think about disambiguation.

I for one will not move in and remove them, although I've already imagined a great logo we could put on our Disambiguation Squad brassards if we were to do so... . But if in the course of editing an article I happened to find a superfluous dablink, I would give serious consideration to removing it.--NapoliRoma (talk) 00:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

But the "I'm feeling lucky" doesn't fit what the average person uses. Try typing "french military victories". Even the Franklin example takes you to the webpage of the Franklin in Seattle. When searching for Franklin High School on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask the problem remains. And how can the purpose of disambiguation be to think about names without regard for the content of the articles? There has to be a middle ground. --Jh12 (talk) 00:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

So, this is totally unrelated to the actual discussion, but for a little bit of humor in the midst of this long discussion, NapoliRoma's comment about Disambiguation Squad brassards (which cracked me up), reminded me of a comment that User:Yamara made once: "This results in troublesome efforts to achieve pleasant syntax, and it looks ugly, but it is what's done, and the rest of WikiProject Disambiguation will enforce this with a certain mercilessness. This I know from grim experience." I feel like we should have pitchforks and torches! /off-topic-ness. Back to the real discussion. :) -- Natalya 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's never good to take Wikipedia too seriously. After all, it's a volunteer project. And if you do make WP:WPSCH medals to place on your uniforms, make sure you link to the project; we can always use the free publicity. --Jh12 (talk) 20:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Seeing stars

See Talk:Star (classification)#Related articles and redirects for a current issue and Talk:Star (classification)#Disambiguations for a proposed solution. Comments and other help welcome. Andrewa (talk) 00:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Weeds

The DAB and hatnotes are sprouting like, ha, weeds. There's a variety of quite confusing DAB, potential DAB and redirects growing around weed and weeds. Right now:

• Weeds is a partially-complete disambiguation page; I would argue that it's of more service to redirect to Weeds (TV series) directly as that's the most relevant result. Failing that, weed (disambiguation) might be a good redirect.
• There's a lot of mention of 'widow weeds' - an old English term for mourning clothes. Widow Weeds currently redirects to Widow's weeds, which is a disambiguation page between the clothes (which has no actual entry, it's mentioned once in the mourning page, section on the UK) and the album.
• Weeds (TV series) currently has an inaccurate hatnote saying weeds redirects here (it did yesterday) and to refer to weed for the plant, which has Weed (disambiguation) at the top.

I don't know who would type in "weeds" and expect to find mourning garments. I would guess anyone typing in "widow weeds" or a variant thereof would be looking for the album or the clothing. But overall I'm just not sure what the best idea might be. I don't think it's standard practice to include in DAB pages links that could concievably be related in some way. There was an AFD debate a while back here that seemed to center on this idea. Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Lists was cited then, and it seems to apply here. Any guidance would be welcome. WLU (talk) 14:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Simple. Weeds should be targeting Weed (disambiguation) and the hatlink on Weeds (TV series) would be taken off. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It would be great if we could get an article (even a stub) for the mourning sense of the term "Widow's weeds". I'm going to see if I can find anything. Even if not, it seems okay to link to the section of the mourning page from Widow's weeds. Perhaps we could put a link to that disambiguation page in the see also section of Weed (disambiguation), since it doesn't totally belong in the regular section. I think Weeds redirecting to Weeds (TV series) is fine (as long as we don't think we're furthering Wikipedia's systemic bias). If it does that, however, shouldn't the article be located at the title "Weeds", not redirect to "Weeds (TV series)"? For the hatnote at Weeds (TV series), if it ends up being located at "Weeds", we could have the hatnote link to both Weed (as it does now) and to Weed (disambiguation), since Weeds (disambiguation) redirects there. -- Natalya 00:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Since there is also a Weeds (film) it would be best if "Weeds" is a redirect for the dab page. Concur? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Depends on if we think there is a primary topic for "Weeds" or not. I'm not familiar with the film, so I don't know if I can give a neutral opinion on if there's a primary topic or not, but the TV show article is definitly very in-depth (if that speaks at all to the primary topic-ness). -- Natalya 01:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you want to do then? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully, see what other editors think on the primary topic subject. -- Natalya 02:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I expanded the dab and moved (for now) the TV show to the base name, although the primary topic discussion (if it happens) might move it back. -- JHunterJ (talk) 04:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we take the plants as the primary usage for Weed and the TV series for Weeds, with each of them having a hatnote pointing to one dab page at Weed (disambiguation) which includes both single and plural forms (with redirect from Weeds (disambiguation)). Hatnote at Weeds could usefully continue also to point to the Weed primary usage. There's a similar single/plural mix at Saint (disambiguation) - though until a moment ago there wasn't actually a redirect from Saints (disambiguation), and it's a different scenario in that there's just the one primary usage. PamD (talk) 08:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

(Undent) So it looks like we're getting there. Right now we have Weeds (disambiguation) as its own disambiguation page. I haven't thought enough about if it's more useful to have it as its own page or combine that with Weed (disambiguation), but either way, I'm going to add a link to Weed (disambiguation) at Weeds (disambiguation). -- Natalya 10:58, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Given I thought there were only 2 pages that would qualify for weeds (dab), I was unsure. Thanks to some great detective work revealing that there are many potential pages, I'm heartily in favour of Weeds (TV series) being a separate article, weeds redirecting to the DAB page, and weeds (disambiguation) having a lead of "Weeds is the plural of the plant weed. Weeds may also refer to:" Putting weed (disambiguation) and weeds (disambiguation) in the respective plural and singular pages seems a good idea. WLU (talk) 16:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Your suggested lead there indicates that weed is (your choice for the) primary topic of "weeds", so (with that lead) Weeds would be a {{R from plural}} to weed, not to the dab page. But the discussion of what, if anything, is the primary topic should take place at Talk:Weeds. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Village pump

Thread at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#ALL disambiguation pages to end "(disambiguation)".

I'm sure people here will want to contribute to that discussion. --NSH001 (talk) 17:54, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Mystical 7

Discussion pointer: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Secret Societies#Mystical 7. --Geniac (talk) 14:07, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

What's the cutoff for primary usage?

Hi, Loodog and I are having a discussion at Talk:New York#Hi there I have a proposition about what proportion of Google hits would conclusively demonstrate that one title clearly was the "primary usage", and therefore should be the target of the main article. For example, "New York City" gets double the Google hits that "New York State" does, for a 2:1 ratio. Loodog is claiming that this is not enough, but that the proper ratio would be closer to 10:1. I think this discussion needs the input of some specialists in disambiguation. Thank you.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 23:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

You will likely get differing personal opinions on this topic, but overall, there is no guideline for how many Google Hits (or any similar ranking) determines a primary topic. Frankly, I am glad for that. I think that our current guideline from Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Primary_topic stating that "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)"." is clear enough. If it's obvious what the primary topic is, then it should be the primary topic. If there is enough legitimate disagreement over what the primary topic is, enough so that general comments about the topics in question cannot decide a primary topic (and thus, that one must resort to Google rankings), then there isn't a primary topic, and for the overall benefit to all Wikipedia users, the disambiguation page for the term should be located at "Term". -- Natalya 00:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Google hits do not define usage. They reflect what is written about on the internet, so are biased towards the recent and what interests internet users (predominantly the young, the technological, and the affluent). If you look at Google hits, it might be "obvious" that "Madonna" is a singer. I see that Wikipedia editors have decided there's no primary usage. Speaking as a Brit, I'd have expected to find the city at "New York", and the state disambiguated - but another peril of google hits is that you can't expect to find "city" or "state" (or any other pair of disambiguators" neatly attached to articles using "New York" in either sense, so you'd have to manually check and count all the ghits before you could analyse them anyway. I think consensus is all: as is written somewhere, if there's substantial disagreement about the primary usage, then put a dab page there and let everything disambiguate. PamD (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Which is, eventually, what happened. Consensus does work, after all.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 14:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Though I think you got it wrong there! From outside the USA, "New York" means the city, no question about it, so I'd have expected it to be the primary usage. I wonder if it would be useful to add bold links to the city and the state at the top of the dab page, as those two are co-primary usages, to coin a phrase, and it might save a lot of people having to look any further down the page? PamD (talk) 15:01, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Navibot again

Hi—I'm working on a bot to add entries to disambiguation pages (see previous discussion on this page). After lots of development and testing, I'm ready to ask for a bot flag at WP:RFBOT, but first I wouldn't mind some feedback on the edits the bot has already made, under my supervision. If anyone wants to look at its contribs and comment on its talk page, I'd appreciate it. Thanks! —johndburger 02:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggesting Google searches

This is sort of related to the above discussion, but I don't agree with the addition of the suggestion of using Google as a possible tool to help determine the primary topic (first addition, as it currently stands). I'm afraid that if we mention those in the guidelines, it will open a whole can of worms of people using Google search results to push primary topics that should not be primary (due to prominence of the issue on the internet), thus increasing Wikipedia's systemic bias. I know that people may use the search statistics to do so, but I'm not in favor of suggesting them in the guidelines. -- Natalya 11:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd be just as happy without them as well. I did like the addition of the Wikipedia stats link though, since it is not as widely known. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the current version, as it now emphasizes that these are only tools which may help. I do think that they are all useful in determining primary usage, so I would like to keep them in.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 14:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Moving help

Hi, we just moved New York to New York State as a result of discussion. Problem is, there are now a couple thousand broken links now. Is there a bot that can take care of this?--Loodog (talk) 14:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I've been told the bots do this automatically.--Loodog (talk) 14:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

You were told wrong! --Russ (talk) 15:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering about that. It would be next to impossible for a bot to decide which links were supposed to be pointing to New York State and which were supposed to be pointing somewhere else. Guess we'll have to do 'em all by hand. *sigh* --Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:37, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This was a major move undertaken with no formal proposal, with the support of only a handful of editors, and significant opposition from others. I strongly suspect that the move will be undone. My suggestion is that no one invest time in changing links unless and until it is clear that the move will stay. JamesMLane t c 20:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Propose change in guidelines for primary usage

I've been in a number of move discussions where guideline ambiguity has made decisions more difficult:

1. Would it be out of line to claim that a simple majority of hits/google returns/incoming links is insufficient to determine primary usage? That an overwhelming majority is really needed?
2. Would it be wrong to write that lack of a primary usage supercedes all other naming guidelines? That an article is only located at a word or phrase with no qualifier if the article in question is the primary topic for the word or phrase?

If we could include these points in the primary usage guideline, this would shorten a lot of discussions for the better.--Loodog (talk) 15:20, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

What has the consensus been in the other discussions you've had/seen? I know that the most recent discussion, which involved a 2/3 majority of Google hits, still resulted in a consensus of "no primary usage". (Disclaimer:both Loodog and I were part of that discussion.) As I argued there, I think that one title having a 2/3 majority of Ghits is enough to determine primary usage. However, I'm not sure what the appropriate cutoff would be. Certainly, if it was a 51-49 majority, I would say that there was no primary usage.

As for your second point, could you explain in more detail how this guideline would override the other naming guidelines? Thanks,--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Most of the discussions I've been in have resulted in following the two points above. Notable exception: Worcester, which will address your second question.

There's been a great deal of discussion there, moving has been raised many many times, never with any agreement. Right now "Worcester" is the location of the city in England, while Worcester, Massachusetts actually gets more hits. The reasoning of the editors wishing to preserve how it is argue that Worcester, MA is where US city guidelines say it should be, and Worcester, UK can be at "Worcester" because then there are no conflicts. Essentially, not agreeing with #2 above. I realized if #2 is or isn't followed, we should establish consistency on it, and so I've invited the Worcester editors over here to help establish a general principle.

My personal belief on #2, I've already said. I think it's more true to: "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors."--Loodog (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

For No. 2, if "Worcester, MA" was the primary topic (regardless of whether it is or not), you could have "Worcester" redirect to "Worcester, MA", so that it is still the primary topic, but also follows the already created naming guidelines.

As for Google hit percentages, I've already expressed it above (and hope that other long-time disambiguators add their input too, because perhaps I am in the minority), but making any sort of firm decision about the ratio of Google hits to determine a primary topic makes me very uncomfortable. I think that people need to use common sense when determining a primary topic. If it comes down to using Google hits to decide which is the primary topic or not, then, to me, it seems pretty clear that it is so unclear what the primary topic is, that it's best left with no primary topic. This isn't even deciding that one thing is the primary topic over the other, it's a compromise.

As I mentioned above, I also think that relying on Google hits makes it far easier to increase Wikipedia's systemic bias towards both technology-related articles and articles about things and places from areas with more internet access. Just a simple example, but take the term "Apple". As makes common sense to everyone in the world, Apple, the primary topic, is about the fruit. However, if I do a Google search for the term "Apple", besides the one Wikipedia article, it is not until the 4th page of results that I even get a link about the fruit - the rest are about the well known company Apple Inc. (with one about Fiona Apple). I'm sure we can all see that this is an obvious case where the Google hits certainly give a skewed viewpoint on what should be the primary topic, but I worry about all the times when it is not that obvious.

I know that many people will be smart enough to use common sense even if consulting Google hits to determine a primary topic. However, there will also be people who do not do that, and making any sort of firm judgement about what proportion of Google hits determines a primary topic will only make it easier for primary topics to become biased. -- Natalya 16:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Natalya. Hits, links, and other measurements can suggest a possible primary topic, but they can never be determinative (even if the numerical majority is overwhelming) because of the potential of bias. --Russ (talk) 17:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, I agree with that. I never meant suggest that google returns/page hits/number of links should be binding. With regard to #1, I'm just trying to get a clearer definition on "primary usage".--Loodog (talk) 17:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh! Sorry if I was a bit to hasty responding to your query, then. As you can see, I definitly don't think that Google hits is enough to determine a primary topic.  :) As for actually determining the primary topic, my first response would be to use common sense. A lot of times it's just there or it's not. When it's not quite as clear (*hint* perhaps there is no primary topic!), I don't know if there's one thing that can decide a primary topic (I'm definitly interested to see what other people think of). Something important is to have neutral opinions, though, which can help a lot with the bias. For example, someone from the state (or city) of New York probably would have a skewed version of which "New York" should be the primary topic, whereas someone from neither of those places might have a better idea (although, everyone may have their own biases). We can at least do our best. A close to home example comes with Antagonist, which, until recently, was a disambiguation page. Sesshomaru asked me what I thought about moving Antagonist (literature) to make it the primary topic. I was sort of torn - the literary form definitly seemed prominent, but I personally was very familiar with the form Receptor antagonist, so I didn't think I could unbiasedly tell what the primary topic was. JHunterJ came along, and, assuminly taking a look at it with clearer eyes than mine, did the move to make the literary form of the term the primary topic. Which seems like the right thing. Not knowing if I was actually being unbiased though, it was good to get other points of view as well.

That may have been sort of longwinded, but I hope (at least some small part of it!) was helpful. -- Natalya 19:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) I think that we are not going to be able to build a consensus on a numeric threshold of any sort for determining exactly how much constitutes primary usage. I also sympathize with Natalya and R'n'B (Russ) in that the use of primary thresholds should always take a backseat to what can be established from a clear quantitative assessment of the issue. Maybe the wording can be strengthened to require there to be a "significant" likelyhood of one topic being primary. However, this does not help us determine what to do about situations like Worcester where it is very clear that there is no consensus to determine whether Worcester, MA or Worchester, England is more notable, although there seems to be a consensus that they are approximantly equivalent in notability. I would argue that that is exactly the situation described in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:

If there is extended legitimate discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)".

Therefore I would agree with Loodog that the situation there is very similar to the recently resolution at New York, which created a disambiguation page because there was no consensus on New York City or New York State being primary.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 19:24, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

There was no consensus to the resolution nor is the matter resolved; rather a unilateral application of guideline which ... by current consensus ... is being called to be reversed. See Talk:New York State#This move needs to be undone. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Consensus to undo the New York move had not been established. And regardless of what happens at New York, we do need a consistent principle regarding #2. Until we do, we'll keep getting these fleeting moves and lengthy discussions. Maybe a strawpoll is in order.--Loodog (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I definitely agree with #2 -- if the primary topic for "X" is better named "Y", "X" should be a redirect to "Y", and not become home to the second-best topic for "X". As for #1, not even an overwhelming majority of GHits or other metrics is enough; there needs to be consensus that one article is the primary topic. There might not be consensus with 99% of GHits going one way, and there might be consensus if 55% of the GHits go one way. There might even be consensus for the topic that gets a minority of the GHits for a phrase. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad that someone else is raising this point. We really need to make a strong stand on primary topic in lieu of a dab page. I think the guideline needs to make it clear that if there is no primary topic then the dab page must be located at the main name. It is really that simple and the policy needs to make this clear.

Issues with something being the primary topic can be addressed on that policy page but I will point out that oldest or largest or most Ghits or anything else that does not establish an article as the primary topic don't matter. Not having a primary topic is not a bad thing. Also, conflicting naming conventions do not grant an article rights to the name space. These conventions simply allow that article to exist there at the begining. If there are other candidates for the name space, then the primary use gets the name space or if there is none or there is no consensus for a primary use, then the dab page goes there.

As to the first point. Any measure of searches or hits or accesses is flawed as tool to determine primary use. They all have some kind of built in bias. While they may help illustrate a point, they should not be relied on as the basis for a decision. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

• Side note: discussion here would likely have consequences for Washington, Worcester, New York, possibly Birmingham, Wakefield, possibly Brighton, Limerick, possibly Chihuahua, to name a few.--Loodog (talk) 01:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  Worcester and New York have current discussions on consensus for the page positions, so wouldn't be affected by the outcome of discussions here, even if they result in changes to the guidelines, unless consensus on those pages changes. I didn't look at the discussions for the others. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  Au contraire, any consensus those pages have is based on the current wording of guidelines. Change/clarify the guidelines, and you've got a whole new discussion to make.--Loodog (talk) 01:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  Yes and no, Loodog. The guidelines are meant to serve as a guide to what the current consensus is, and therefore will influence ongoing discussions, but if the consensus changes, then the guidelines should change, too. If the ultimate decisions at New York and Worcester should be contrary to this guideline, then it will be the guideline which changes.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  Only if the consensus is that pages in general should follow the pattern set by New York and Worcester. Otherwise consensus at those pages can certainly ignore this guideline in its current or new form without dictating a change in the guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  Please note my careful use of the word "likely".--Loodog (talk) 14:30, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  If you think the current discussion for New York represents consensus we are not looking at the same page. This discussion seems to be mostly ignoring the WP:PRIMARYUSAGE policy. It is in my view more about the most important or the largest or the some form of state is more important then city. Maybe that discussion is another example of why this policy should clearly state 'no primary usage and you go with a dab page'. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. If no one has any objections I'm going to include in the guidelines, "If a word or phrase has no primary usage, it must direct to a dab page, regardless of other naming guidelines."--Loodog (talk) 01:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of other naming guidelines? It is quite possibly just me missing this, but what part of this previous discussion does that refer to? I agree with the need to direct to a disambiguation page if there is no primary topic (that seems to be pretty clear), but is there a specific example of that not happening, or the disambiguation page trying to be named something else? I thought most of the discussion here was if there was a primary topic that followed different naming conventions. Thanks for the help in clarifying, -- Natalya 03:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Worcester and New York. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:23, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

We don't use "must" here too much, unless we're talking about the limitations of Wikipedia (each article must have a different title) or practical issues (there must be a way to navigate the encyclopedia). "If a word or phrase has no primary topic, the page at that word or phrase should be a disambiguation page or a redirect to a disambiguation page." I understand the problem with New York and Worcester, but I do not think that "regardless of other naming guidelines" will be useful here. It sets up a little hierarchy of guidelines which we can't enforce. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

"Must" or "should", either way. But regardless of other naming guidlines is already implied in WP:PRIMARYUSAGE anyway, and #2 above, which we seem in agreement on, is stating this.--Loodog (talk) 12:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

For an interesting discussion take a look at Talk:Nice#Requested move for some interesting logic. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The discussion on "Nice" linked above shows that we need to define primary topic more exactly. Does it mean something different from "primary usage"? We have the wording "When there is a well known primary topic for a term or phrase, much more used than any other (significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings)", but that doesn't make it clear whether it's the primary usage outside in the world, or the primary topic as a word or phrase likely to be looked for in WP. In this case the most common usage of the four letter word NICE is an adjective, and unlikely to be looked for in WP (it's not a dictionary). So is that the "Primary topic" or not? If not, then it probably leaves the city as the primary topic, by far the most commonly searched in WP. I suggest that we need to clarify the wording, as I genuinely don't know what's intended at present. PamD (talk) 11:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Editors have expressed this at the discussion about Nice, and I agree - Nice is the primary topic; even though the word "Nice" is more well known that the city, we all know that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Since there is no article about the adjective "Nice", there's no need to disambiguate a non-existant article. If we want to clarify the guidelines further, we could say something like "the primary usage among all Wikipedia articles by the same name". -- Natalya 20:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Formal proposal

An article is only located at a word or phrase with no qualifier (main name space) if the article in question is the primary topic for the word or phrase. This guideline should be used to resolve conflicts between other guidelines for articles being at the main name space. Failure to establish a consensus for primary usage establishes the disambiguation page as the article at the main name space.

I think this is about where the consensus is. It probably needs some word smithing so lets try to modify this to clean it up and then see if we have a consensus. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's clear how you just wrote it.--Loodog (talk) 13:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm not sure it reflects consensus. I would wait until the debate at New York#Requested move is resolved before adding this into the guideline. If New York doesn't end up as a disambig page, then I think it will be clear that what you want to add doesn't have consensus.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 03:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The New York request is likely to end up as no consensus. I don't see how there is any consensus there. This is not a fair discussion to base a decision on here. There are what, 5 different surveys, in there and something like 4 or 5 renames. That debate is a complete disaster. If you look at discussions that have reached consensus, this guideline proposal is supported by the majority of those. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but adding this to the guideline implies that there is a general consensus in favor of it. You can't only look at the discussions that reached consensus. The fact that they didn't is a significant sign that there isn't a general consensus. Another significant sign is that even in the ones which did achieve consensus, the results haven't been universal. The guideline is supposed to reflect general practice, not impose it. The general practice and consensus hasn't yet gotten to the point of agreement with this proposal, no matter the worth of the proposal.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 07:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly the idea. Across the board, there have been inconsistencies in this standard, with each case being treated piecemeal, without the realization that a unifying principle could create better consistency with less discussion. Suppose that at every city we had the discussion of how to name it instead of choosing guidelines and only arguing the exceptions. Anyway, the editors at New York are welcome to offer opinions here, but beyond that there's no reason for one specific case to inform a standard far more general and abstract. We wouldn't forego the city, state convention just because New York is an exception.--Loodog (talk) 21:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you that there are inconsistencies, and that things would be easier with a unifying priniciple, but I think that the inconsistencies are a reflection of the lack of consensus on this issue, and therefore a unifying principle hasn't been agreed upon yet. Cheers,Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 03:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this proposal may be excessive. We like simple names, and parenthetical disambiguation is a cost. If we can disambiguate without parentheses, so much the better. (I don't particularly care how New York comes out; but any one of New York, New York City, and New York, New York is preferable to New York (city), which some will read Vegaswikian's proposal as requiring.)

It may be simpler to put in the rule of thumb that primary usage should be 80% or 90% of all English usage. (It's somewhere; was it once here?) This will accomplish much of the good, without producing a mandate. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Everytime I ask to put a number to define "primary", people get very anxious, worrying a percentage would override common sense. Maybe if we wrote it as a non-binding suggestion, something like:

"If there is a topic associated with that phrase much more used than other topics (80-90% of usage as a rough rule-of-thumb), that topic is the primary use. If there is no primary meaning, the phrase should be disambiguated unless there is consensus to do otherwise."

--Loodog (talk) 17:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely nowhere here or anywhere else did anyone propose anything that would result in moving New York City to New York (city). Read the proposal again. If anything, this proposal would have consequences for "New York". I don't think you'll ever get a WP consensus to agree that "New York City" could ever be thought to be ambiguous.

Also, don't think that discussion here overwrites discussion anywhere else. The purpose of this proposal is to streamline ambiguous situations when no other guidelines apply. This very proposal can, of course, be ignored in specific cases where consensus is to do so.--Loodog (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

So this discussion pretty much dead. I'm going to go ahead and stick it in unless anyone objects.--Loodog (talk) 19:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the discussion over Nice shows that the definition of primary topic needs to be clarified. It says "much more used than any other (significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings),",and we need to clarify that this may not be the most common usage of the word in every day life, but is the most common sense in which it would be sought in an encyclopedia. (ie adjectives and verbs will tend to carry less weight). The decision there was that the city Nice was the primary topic, even though the adjective "nice" is the more common usage in general vocabulary. PamD (talk) 21:27, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, how about: "If there is a topic associated with that phrase which is searched for significantly more than other topics in an encyclopedia (80-90% of usage as a rough rule-of-thumb), that topic is the primary use. If there is no primary meaning, the phrase should be disambiguated barring compelling reasons to do otherwise."

--Loodog (talk) 22:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with this proposal. There is clearly very little consensus, so we should leave things alone until there is consensus. We've only scratched the tip of the iceberg as far as discontent goes. For example, there's the issue of NPOV not merely from a current world view but from a historical world view; Worcester, Worcs. is historically massively significant being the site of a decisive Royalist vs. Republican battle in the English Civil War; Worcester, Mass. played only a passing role in the American War of Independence. Then there's visitor numbers to consider rather than just population; Worcester, Mass. is hardly top of anyone's must-see list, whereas Worcester, Worcs. is one of the main cathedral cities of Europe. If you consider the primary reason behind any article - notability - then Worcester, Worcs. wins hands down over Worcester, Mass. Yet this proposal would force the less notable city into the more notable article name. The consensus just isn't there, so this proposal should be dropped until there is consensus. Doing nothing is the best option in this situation. Let the articles argue it out on a case by case basis, on their own talk pages. If this proposal goes ahead it will bring nothing but trouble. Andrew Oakley (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, this guideline does NOT override consensus elsewhere just as "city, state" guideline doesn't override cases like New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Therefore this guideline should not be argued against on the basis of individual cases (since they may prove to be exceptions), but rather on the best general principle to follow the MAJORITY of the time.

The entire Worcester-Worcester debate doesn't belong here; you're welcome to raise that issue on that talk page. And also, were this proposal to be chosen, and consensus at the Worcester page were to follow it, it would NOT put either city at the base case, and so would NOT "force the less notable city into the more notable article name".--Loodog (talk) 19:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you are misreading the proposals. There is no attempt to force a less notable city into the lime light. In fact your logic is why we need to more clearly state the guideline. Determining if an article belongs in the primary name space is based on primary use. It is not a notability issue. The proposal simply attempts to refocus on the fact that disambiguation pages are not bad and that it may be common for no primary use to exist. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, great. I'll change it.--Loodog (talk) 14:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Dab pages with hatnotes

In the course of discussion over at Wikipedia_talk:Hatnote, Eugène van der Pijll has produced a list of 244 dab pages which include a templated hatnote. They make for interesting reading. Two themes show up: complicated relationships between Foo, Foo (disambiguation), Foo (surname), Foo (given name), and between Foo and FOO, as well as a lot of more individual nonstandard dab page! Should a dab page ever have a hatnote? Scope for some sort of a clear-up project? PamD (talk) 06:47, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I could see {{distinguish}} as a hatnote on a base-name dab, if the dab for the term being distinguished isn't merged into the "this" dab. But otherwise things in a hatnote would be better off in the dab list or in a see also section (or on the base name article if the dab is not at the base name). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

{{selfref}} would also be acceptable on a base-name dab page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) All these pages should probably be reviewed. However, two dab pages that I cleaned up but that don't appear in Eugène's list are Ill and III (see the difference? ;-)). I can't imagine how not to solve this via hatnotes. Still, hatnotes should be discouraged on dab pages and only be reserved for very special cases. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, special cases. Like JHunterJ said, most of the information in those hatnotes should belong in a see also section. There have been a few cases I've run across where a hatnote to reduce confusion is a good idea (such as Sgeureka's example above, wow!), but otherwise, they don't need to be there.

Now that we have this lovely list of pages that need changes... if we go about and fix the hatnotes, will it mess up the discussion? -- Natalya 11:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Mmm. I just fixed ABE/Abe. I'll wait before cleaning up others. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:47, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

About the list: feel free to move it, for example to some subpage of a disambiguation cleanup project. Also, I'm not really planning on doing anything with it, so if you want to remove the pages that you've cleaned up, that's fine with me. I am willing to make a more comprehensive list in the future, if that would be helpful. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 12:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Disambiguation pages with hatnotes‎. Thanks for creating the list, Eugene. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I echo JHunterJ's thanks - it will certainly help us to clean up some confusion. -- Natalya 15:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

A follow-up now that we're actually looking to clean these pages up - a number of the hatnotes (or, at least some of the first ones) refer to alternative capitalization disambiguation pages. Per Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page_naming_conventions, all capitalizations should be on the same disambiguation page. Is this our opportunity to correct any that have been separated? It should be pretty straightfoward; I ask only because I think there was some hullabaloo about Ada and ADA in the past. Combining those would make a long disambiguation page, but per the guidelines, they really should be together. -- Natalya 23:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the cleanup effort following the guideline as causing a problem. Consistency in the encyclopedic is important. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Should surname and/or given name pages have "(disambiguation)" in the title?

It seems well-accepted that pages that only list persons with the same given name, or the same surname, are not disambiguation pages. However, I have found a fair number of these that contain the parenthetical "(disambiguation)" in their titles; for example, Codazzi (disambiguation) (a surname), Lemar (disambiguation) (a given name). Should pages like this be moved to Codazzi (surname), Lemar (given name), or, for pages that include both, Whatever (name)? --Russ (talk) 15:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I think so. I believe those pages fall more under the umbrella of Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy. And it would certainly make sense (as long, of course, that the pages don't contain any non-name links). We might want to double check with the Anthroponymy folks on the naming conventions, but it seems like the qualifiers used are just what you said, Russ - either (given name), (surname), or simply (name). -- Natalya 16:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a page that is only a name-holder list (given name, surname, or both), and not a list of articles that might have had the single name, should never be titled with (disambiguation). If it's not the primary topic, it should be moved to one of the options you listed and the newly created (disambiguation) redirect should be deleted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) This is from the hip, but I believe that if a dab page lists only persons, then we use the {{hndis}} tag, and if there are entries besides persons, we use the {{disambig}} and add a name category. Also, specific to this question, Codazzi as a primary topic is actually a city, which sadly, is not currently listed on the dab page. In this case, the (disambiguation) clarifier needs to stay, and the primary topic needs to be added. SlackerMom (talk) 16:15, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... that is a good point. Looking over some of the name articles from Wikiproject Anthroponymy, they seem to either use {{surname}} or {{given name}} (or both! :o ) on the name articles. You make a good point about {{hndis}}. Are we having some unnecessary overlap? Or are the surname and given name tags only used on name articles that actually have encyclopedic content, not just a list of names? -- Natalya 16:40, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Check out the instructions at Template:Hndis. I think that's what I've been using as a basis for my template usage. SlackerMom (talk) 16:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: Codazzi, we should move Codazzi (disambiguation) to Codazzi (surname) and replace the hatnote with {{for|people with the surname|Codazzi (surname)}}. Whether the surname list article needs to mention the city would be up to the anthroponymy guidelines. :-) -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds good. I'll do it later if nobody beats me to it. SlackerMom (talk) 18:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, if anyone's inclined to dive into this mess, there's a list at User:RussBot/Name disambig report that may be useful. This should list all the pages with "(disambiguation)" in their titles and either {{surname}} or {{given name}} in their text (excluding any pages that also contain a legitimate disambiguation template). It's generated from the latest XML dump, which is about five days old at this point, so some of the pages may have been edited since then. --Russ (talk) 18:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that list, Russ. I've been mulling over the whole topic for a bit this afternoon, because I thought I was missing something, and I figured it out. Everyone else may have already had this, but oh well. :) {{hndis}} should be used on actual disambiguation pages that only list people, for example, Michael Jackson (disambiguation). All those people can legitimately be confused with the name "Michael Jackson". {{surname}} and {{given name}} should be used on pages that are lists of people with the same given name or surname (not disambiguation pages). Those pages that aren't actually disambiguation pages, and are just lists of people with the same surname or given name, shouldn't be located at "Name (disambiguation)", but rather "Name (given name)" or "Name (surname)"

Yes? Hopefully? -- Natalya 20:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, that's a lovely summary. I get so confused sometimes! Thank you Natalya! SlackerMom (talk) 21:17, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The only thing I'd add is that sometimes, for short name lists, the name list is included on the disambiguation page instead of splitting it out to a given name or surname article. In some of those cases, the {{surname}} or {{given name}} also appears -- I used to add it just under the section heading, but I've since stopped, because some editors indicated it made the page seem cluttered. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy#Background reading if you want more. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:40, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point to add. I think I've removed a few of those additional tags in the past, with the reason of clutter (and also possibly redundancy to the disambiguation tag), but I guess it technically is valid. Do we want to have any sort of standardized thing for including them/not including them, or just leave it as it goes?

I'm glad it makes sense to you too, SlackerMom! It definitly confused me for a while, and writing it down seemed to help. -- Natalya 21:47, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

New example needed at Wikipedia:D#Disambiguation_links

The example of use of a hatnote is no longer valid, as Alexander the Great now has a link to a dab page! Can someone provide a good current example? PamD (talk) 07:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I used Atlas Shrugged. Afghanistan, Aegean Sea, Amateur, and iSight are among those also available if we don't like Atlas Shrugged. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Wildwood High School

I thought I'd consult the experts again. We have Wildwood High School, Wild Wood High School, and Wildwood School. Two of them, Wild Wood High School and Wildwood School, are both located in Los Angeles. I was thinking of doing the following:
move Wildwood High School -> Wildwood High School (New Jersey) without hatnote
move Wild Wood High School -> Wild Wood High School (Los Angeles, California) with hatnote to other LA school
move Wildwood School -> Wildwood School (Los Angeles, California) with hatnote to other LA school
All three original names lead to Wildwood School, a disambig.
Does this make any sense? Many thanks, --Jh12 (talk) 20:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with having all three original names redirect to a disambiguation page. I'm not sure if they each need locational qualifiers, since they technically have different names, but I do see the reasoning behind it. If you want to have similar qualifiers, why not have the two in Los Angeles just be qualified with "(California)"? It makes the titles a bit shorter, and is in line with the first be qualified by a state. -- Natalya 01:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 03:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Kahuna

We have lots of people putting kahuna trivia that is useful to have somewhere but not on the kahuna page, so created a kahuna (disambiguation) page. Is this okay? Thanks. Makana Chai (talk) 23:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

That looks like a good choice. The disambiguation page definitly needs a lot of cleanup (to be in line with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)), but a disambiguation page like the one you made is a place for all articles (or potential articles) by the same name of another article. -- Natalya 00:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

No, while some of these entries are good disambiguation tagets, fisambiguation pages are no more a place for triva than the main article space. Taemyr (talk) 02:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

True, but it seems like most/all of the entries on Kahuna (disambiguation) aren't so much trivia as about things named "Kahuna". Granted, I imagine a large number of them will be removed upon cleanup, but other things named "Kahuna" do belong there. -- Natalya 02:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed the entries that I felt positive was bad. The page still needs cleanup.Taemyr (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I've actually just been having a bit more look at it too. There don't appear to be any actual articles for any of the terms (using the special pages link to all articles with prefix "Kahuna"), so next will be to check if any of the entries are listed in the other blue linked articles related to them. If not, it may turn out that there's nothing worthwile to be on the disambiguation page. :) -- Natalya 02:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's the film and the SOCOM character. Also Jon Miller and Windows Live Mail, although in the latter two cases the target does not mention the term so it tastes a bit of OR.