Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links/Archive 9

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Billboard

I didn't want to add it to the page since it's a redirect, but it needs some help. For awhile it redirected to Billboard (magazine). It was (properly) redirected to Billboard (advertising) about a month ago, and now most of what links there is meant to Billboard (magazine) instead. If someone could help out with this, it'd be a huge help. ShadowHalo 00:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Why not just change Billboard back to point to Billboard (magazine)? It makes sense to have article names follow the most common use of a term. -- Hongooi 16:45, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it seems like a person searching for "Billboard" would want the Billboard (advertising) article. But that's a good point. I'll request a move from Billboard (advertising) to Billboard to see what consensus there is as to where to put the articles and redirects. ShadowHalo 19:11, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Dicdefs and wiktionary

In some cases of linking to dab pages, the most relevant content is not any of the articles listed in the dab page, but the definition in the dab page and/or the linked dictionary definition on Wiktionary. What is considered best practice these days for these sort of words, at least for those that are not basic-vocabulary words?

• Replace the link to the dab page with a link to the definition on Wiktionary.
• Remove the link.
• Retain the link to the dab page.
• Reword the article.

For example, I'm currently working on dabbing Terrestrial. A fair few of the pages are simply using the word terrestrial in the adjective sense of being earth-based or land-based (in contrast to water-based or air-based, depending on context). In these cases, linking to Earth isn't really the answer, and Land is itself a dab page. If I was disambiguating a common word like "land" then the answer would be easy - remove the link, on the basis that anyone reading WP:en should know what "land" means. But "terrestrial" is not a basic-vocabulary word - I know what it means without looking it up, but I could imagine high-schoolers or people who have English as a second language not knowing.

To pick an example, here is a sentence from Handoff:

In terrestrial networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

What would be the best replacement?

• Replace the link to the dab page with a link to the definition on Wiktionary (using [[wikt:terrestrial|]] ).

In terrestrial networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

(or, using {{Wdy|terrestrial}} ).

In terrestrial networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

• Remove the link.

In terrestrial networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

• Retain the link to the dab page.

In terrestrial networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

• Reword the article.

In terrestrial (land-based) networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

(or)

In land-based ("terrestrial") networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

(or)

In land-based networks the source and the target cells may be served from two different cell sites ...

I've deliberately left out other options like creating a page containing the dicdef, since WP is not a dictionary so we don't need a whole lot of stub pages like Terrestrial network (radio), To make things clear:

• Simple words should be de-linked.
• Words with a relevant WP article (that is not a dab page) should be linked to that article.
• The question I'm posing is only about words that are not simple, and do not (and are not ever likely to) have any suitable WP article other than the dab page we're trying to remove links to.
• I am not seeking specific advice about handling "terrestrial" but looking for general principles that could apply equally to other words such as "eclectic" or "sage" (per User:extraordinary's comments on the May 27 dump).

Opinions? -- Paddles ^T_C 07:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Your caution and concern are commendable. But I get the creeps from a doctoral candidate dumbing down an article for am imagined undergraduate reader, or a 15-year-old editor dumbing it down for an imagined audience of 10-year-olds. If you really think a word will be unknown to the general reader, then rewording to "In land-based networks" might be best; no need to use the more obscure synonym (if it can be called obscure). I doubt that many people reading about cell phones will be flummoxed by "terrestrial". "Eclectic" and "sage" shouldn't be much of a problem, either. Even if there are a few readers who fail to understand these, any reader who can access WP can also access one of the numerous online dictionaries. The WP:CONTEXT guideline about "Plain English words" doesn't say "English words known to most 10-year-olds". What level of education should be assumed? Chris the speller 18:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. I can see arguments for and against all of those options. Unlinking is the obvious solution, but is the most vulnerable to other people coming back and adding links back in (the tension between WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW). (Aside: Are automatic translation tools smart enough to know when to translate "sage" as a wise person, and when to translate it as a plant?) In any case, I thought it worth seeking out some opinions other than my own - plus it could help new people joining the project. Paddles ^T_C 15:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I interpret "Plain English words" to mean words that are not jargon (technical terms or terms of art). So, in general, my approach would be to delink, and a reader can use a dictionary. In specific, however, I think your "terrestrial" example is actually a term of art-- "terrestrial radio" meaning radio where the broadcast node(s) originate on the surface of the planet earth, as opposed to an orbital satellite. I.e., it's an earth vs. space dichotomy, not an earth vs. sea dichotomy as the word terrestrial would normally imply. Unfortunately, this usage isn't made entirely clear anywhere on Wikipedia or Wiktionary currently... Terrestrial radio was a stub that would have been nice to link to in this case, but is now a redirect to radio. So what to do for jargon that does not have a wikipedia entry? Add a DAB entry for "Terrestrial radio, radio that is broadcast from the surface of the earth (as opposed to from a satellite)"? Hardly seems like that is actually ambiguous with "terrestrial". "See also" fodder at best. Re-expand the stub for terrestrial radio? This seems like the best course to me, but is beyond the scope of DAB. Add a wiktionary entry for "terrestrial radio"? Maybe, but I feel like it is still jargon, and not really plain english. print server, radial arm saw, and valsalva maneuver are all more or less terms of art that have wikipedia pages and (more or less) don't have wiktionary pages. Is this intentional, or is wiktionary just not there yet? AdamMorton 05:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that may be it, Wiktionary is just not there yet (and I have my doubts about whether it will get there anytime soon). And I like your interpretation of "Plain English words" being words other than jargon. Chris the speller 21:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

When to change DABs to redirects

Is there a rule of thumb about what percentage of links for a given term need to go to one particular page before we should consider making the DAB parenthetical and turning the main word into a redirect to the most popular usage? If not, should there be a rule about this in the docs somewhere? I have done a couple DABs where 90% were targeted to a specific page and I wondered if I should have just made it a redirect, but I have not yet had the chutzpah to just do the redirect (although i proposed one or two on talk pages to no subsequent comment). I am a little concerned that link prevalence may not be a totally reliable way of determining an overwhelming preference for a single page-- since dabs are also hit by searching, and you would need search records and a way to determine what specific page was viewed after hitting the dab via search to know for sure. AdamMorton 05:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The important fact is where users should expect to end when typing the term and hitting go. Link prevalence should only be seen as an indication, so a rule "like if 85% of incoming links is meant for a specific page then create a redirect", would not be helpful. Also note that when you fix dab links, it's your judgement on where the links should go, and not necessarily the original author's. Taemyr 08:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Besides, despite our best care and efforts a more knowledgeable editor may change disambiguations we've made to a better target. If it was 99% and it was quite clear that the disambiguations were correct (or another dabber or two agreed) then maybe a redirect would be the right way - as long as the 1% were still fixed to point to the right place. Paddles ^T_C 11:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Taemyr and Paddles are right, the number of links is only one indication, and at best can only be used to back up sound judgment by an editor who is fixing links. Suppose one entry is the obvious choice for 90% of the incoming links being fixed, but one of the other entries is the right one for one link from one article that accounts for 90 percent of the total traffic to the dab page? There is no tool to measure such traffic, but if there were, you would not want to send 90% of the readers to the wrong article. Yes, this is a stretch, but it points out that what is good for readers might not make the load lighter for the editors, and vice versa. BTW, I think what you suggest in a very lopsided case is moving Title to Title (disambiguation) and moving Title (film) (for example) to Title with an otheruses at the top. We call this creating a primary article, and it gets discussed again and again, for the obvious reason that the balance between reader and editor can not be clearly predicted or prescribed. Chris the speller 22:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that link count should never be used to determine whether or not a dab page should be moved to (disambiguation) and original location changed to a redirect for the article with the most intended links. The main reason for this is that the number of articles pointing to a disambiguation is often:

1. a function of the number of new articles created related to a link on the dab page. The newer the article, the more likely it is to have less people watching it and the more likely it is to have links to dab pages.
2. a result of the experience of the editors that create the links to the page. Articles that attract more experienced editors (science articles as an example) tend to have links that are either disambiguated upon creation or are quickly disambiguated if not initially done so, while articles that attract more inexperienced editors (pop culture as an example) tend to link to be linked to disambiguation pages rather than the disambiguated article.

The best example that I can provide is Rock, I periodically go through and clean up the links to that page and it's rare that I link to an article other than Rock (music). It's hard to argue that Rock (music) is the primary use of the word, but if you look at the source of the links most have been added due to new articles or inexperienced editors on existing articles. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 01:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, I would take the opposite view. If you're talking about a rock as in a hard piece of mineral, then it's just a generic, commonplace noun. Geologists and mineralogists have their own sophisticated vocabulary to describe types of rocks, etc. Noone is going to link to rock just to describe, well, a rock: if it's a non-geologically related article, then it isn't relevant, and if it is geology-related, then it'll be using more precise terminology. Conversely, rock music and rock 'n roll are specific genres of music, and it's likely that linking to rock (music) will improve the content of such an article. Sure, you could say that people who read articles aren't the same as those who write them, but we don't have any information that says otherwise either.

Ultimately, I guess my point is that while article count isn't the full picture, it should be a big part of how we decide what to do with dab pages. This is for a couple of reasons:

• Having people continually link to dab pages when they make new articles (or wikify old ones) creates an ongoing maintenance problem. Even if we're happy to fix these links, there may be other ways we could contribute more productively to Wikipedia.
• I would argue the "primary use" for a word, in this context, is the use that people are likely to have when either looking it up or clicking on a link from WP. In everyday use, people may use "rock" to refer to mineral things far more often than to rock music, but that doesn't necessarily remain the same when it comes to looking things up here. The latter is the criterion we should use.

-- Hongooi 13:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

CorHomo back up

For anyone who's been missing CorHomo, Jjvaca from the Spanish Wikipedia has written a fix to get around the problems originating from the changes to Whatlinkshere. The .exe file can be found on his user page at [1]. Happiness! Dekimasuよ! 10:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Happiness, indeed, and it seems to have better interlocking to prevent pasting the contents of one article into another by mistake. The status messages have not changed, though, so there is always the possibility of amusement, as when it offered "The Man Who Came to Dinner loaded". Chris the speller 19:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Stumbling into brawls

One thing about this project: you sure find out where the fights on Wikipedia are taking place. -- Hongooi 03:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for verification

Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for verification

A proposal designed as a process similar to {{prod}} to delete articles without sources if no sources are provided in 30 days.

It reads:

Some editors see this as necessary to improve Wikipedia as a whole and assert that this idea is supported by policy, and others see this as a negative thing for the project with the potential of loss of articles that could be easily sourced.

I would encourage your comments in that page's talk or Mailing list thread on this proposal WikiEN-l: Proposed "prod" for articles with no sources

Signed Jeepday (talk) 14:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

New dump ready for transclusion

A new database dump is up and running at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/2007-07-16 dump. In the past I was against transcluding early, but getting the list up as soon as possible worked so well this time that I think we should go ahead and start it. I emphasize so well because we'll be starting the new dump with 60,000 fewer links than we had in the May dump. The only reason we haven't hit our 80% threshhold this time is that the total number of links was abnormally large. There's a bigger pool of pages with 200 or even 500 links to work on for the new dump, and we seem to be more effective at fixing those than at fixing the pages with around 100 links. What do you think? Dekimasuよ! 13:48, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I just came back, and there are nearly 300 on the list I haven't even looked at yet, so I would rather you delayed for a week or two. OTOH, I do not really care. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 06:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Those pages would still be on the new list as well, but I won't do anything without support here. Dekimasuよ! 01:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Nooo!!! My sense of achievement will be destroyed!!!11! Actually, I don't have a problem either way. Will be interesting to see how many pages reappear. -- Hongooi 07:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

To my surprise, the PTB started a new dump today (3 August); if it doesn't crash or get corrupted, which is always a risky proposition, we could have an updated DPL list early next week. At this point, I think it would make sense to wait. --Russ (talk) 23:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

That's frustrating after my first time putting the new one together (from your data). On the plus side, there was barely a bump in the DPM numbers this time. If there's any chance of a new categories/portals list.... Dekimasuよ! 10:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the necessary part of the dump went through successfully. I've stopped updating the page for the July 16 dump. Dekimasuよ! 23:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, you asked for it:

• User:RussBot/DPL
• User:RussBot/DPL/Templates
• User:RussBot/DPL/from categories
• User:RussBot/DPL/from portals

Russ (talk) 11:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've started putting the new page for the main dump in order again. Dekimasuよ! 13:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

When you have it ready, just do it to it. We got to 75%, that's pretty good. It's really just an arbitrary thing; many of those fixes were just removing {{disambig}}, while much work over at the other pages is uncounted. It's just an arbitrary feel good mechanism. I'm an egotist, and I like putting my name on the "Done" list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barticus88 (talk • contribs)

You got it. Dekimasuよ! 08:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm number one! I'm number one! I'm number one! — Randall Bart ^(talk) 10:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Right-of-way

Dabbing [[right-of-way]] ought to be the simple process of distinguishing the instant sense from the enduring sense. But actually, people use "right-of-way" in the nearly circular sense of "the route of a road". Legally "right-of-way" means the easement (a right), and I've been directing a lot of them there. This is okay when the easement sense is still close, but as the meaning drifts this link becomes more and more surprising. A most egregious case is found in Triborough Bridge: "The Triborough Bridge is a complex of three bridges connecting the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens, using what were two islands, Ward's Island and Randall's Island as intermediate rights-of-way between the water crossings." Here "rights-of-way" has lost the easement sense entirely. A more typical case is something like "the right-of-way was relocated west". Here, the local authorities will purchase property to provide an easement for the roadway, but the easement sense is quite distant, and linking to "easement" is more surprising than it should be.

So what should we do with these? The article at [[Right-of-way (railroad)]] could be renamed and slightly recast as [[Right-of-way (roadway)]]. Perhaps a separate article? — Randall Bart ^(talk) 19:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we could modify problematic sentences to use "route" instead of "right of way": "... as intermediate routes between the water crossings"/"the route was relocated west". Might also make the intended meaning clearer. -- Hongooi 07:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

And--- why do we care?

I've been assuming that the PROBLEM with excessive links into (certain) dab pages is that this somehow screws up wikipedia software or makes it opperate poorly. Is that true or not? Or is the only reason we're trying to redirect links away from dab pages is simply to direct them properly the first time, and thus save users of wikipedia one (less) click? SBHarris 00:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The idea is to save someone a click, and more importantly save someone from staring blankly at a dab page trying to figure out what to click. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 16:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, but perhaps it may do a person good to see a dab page, if they previously thought that there was one and only one possible use of the term they're pursing. You know, like some people don't know about the Primate of England, and think (hilariously) that this might mean Darwin was right? But who then get an education about where the word primate comes from and find out (as usual) that there are very few true good puns. SBHarris 23:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Particularly for readers who aren't native English speakers and readers who aren't very experienced with computers, reaching disambiguation pages can be frustrating and can cause them to give up on the information they were searching for. It isn't a big problem for experienced Wikipedia users, but it's enjoyable/entertaining/educational/relaxing for me to fix links. Dekimasuよ! 04:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes a disambiguation page is quite baffling. When I do a dab page, I take a few minutes (and occasionally hours) studying those options and learning what they cover. Often I add items to the dab page; sometimes I reorg it. Even in the simplest case, we're not saving the reader a click, we're saving the reader look and figure out which of these they want.— Randall Bart ^(talk) 09:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Primate

I am shocked -- shocked I tell you -- by the mislinks which should go to primate (religion) but actually go to an article on chimps. I just stumbled on one while doing Salvador, then searched and fixed 26 more. It is really embarrassing when Wikipedia calls the Archbishop of Canterbury the gorilla of all England. The obvious fix is to make primate a disambiguation page. Primates has a big project and there are 1457 links to fix, so I've started a discussion at Talk:Primate#Disambiguating Primate. I invite all the disambiguators to join in. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 21:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't see any obvious references to the religious meaning in the 1,000+ links to primate. Unless you've fixed them all already...? -- Hongooi 04:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

We've fixed 52. See Talk:Primate#Disambiguating Primate. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 20:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Consciousness discussion, moved from collaborations section

This disambiguation project is planned, not yet begun. I'm asking for fellow Wikipedians to comment on this project. It would be a huge disambiguation project, but a very necessary one. Consciousness currently pertains to a neurological perspective, thus slighting the spiritual (cf. higher consciousness). A hundred spiritual pages link to consciousness, but are really aiming at something else altogether. The same is true for articles dealing with aspects of [[political consciousness]]--many link to consciousness only to find a neurological explanation. Other topics include artificial consciousness, Black Consciousness Movement, double consciousness, consciousness raising, stream of consciousness, self-consciousness, collective consciousness, global consciousness, social consciousness, subjective consciousness, and many more.

Can people comment on and help begin this process? I see this disambiguation as one of the largest and most important to come. --Dylanfly 16:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little confused. This seems to be an actual article, albeit one with potentially a significant number of inappropriate articles linking in, but not a dab page. Are you proposing to turn Consciousness into a dab page, after moving the existing article to, say, Consciousness (psychology)? If so, do we know the other articles that may be appropriate targets linked from a (hypothetical) dab page?

OTOH, if we don't turn this into a dab page, then how do we tell when we've finished? With a dab page, you can tell when the job is finished - the number of mainspace pages that should link to a dab page is usually in the single digits. But with an article like this, somewhere between 30 and 80% of the roughly 1000 articles linking to the page are linking correctly - and, the only way to really know we've finished is for, at some point, a single individual to review all the remaining links (or allocate portions to various individuals, e.g. A-E, F-K, etc.) to determine that they're all appropriate.

There's also a fair bit of crossover between the psychological, philosophical, spiritual and neurobiological aspects of consciousness, so some "disambiguations" could be tricky/controversial - not that tricky is necessarily a barrier for people who participate in a project like DPL. :) But it makes me updating the article to cover all of these aspects might be appropriate - then the inbound links that need to be removed or redirected are the ones like First aid. Paddles ^T_C 12:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Bright Eyes

I need some help from someone who is clever with AWB or Twinkle or whatever to disambiguate this (destinations are mainly Bright Eyes (band) or Bright Eyes (song) - is this the right place to beg for help? Neil ╦ 13:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the better places to beg for help. First you can put a cleanup tag on the page with {{disambig-cleanup}} since the formatting doesn't really fit WP:MOS-DAB. Next, Bright Eyes (song) redirects back to the dab, because there's more than one song with that name. Is one a much more prominent song? Dekimasuよ! 09:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned it up and now I'm working on it. It seems that most of the links should go to Bright Eyes (band) and a few to Bright Eyes (film), and so far I haven't encountered any instances where it should go to Bright Eyes (song). Thaurisil^t_c 07:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Commonwealth

This doesn't appear on the generated lists because it's not marked as a disambig page, but it has around 370 links into it, most of which should go to Commonwealth of Nations. I sorted out the vast majority last year, but the numbers have built up again. Colonies Chris 14:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Delinking and respect (and rant)

There have been a number of words recently where I have made heavy use of "remove this link". If it's a common word and there is no obvious article, it goes. Sometimes I spend a whole hour researching something, but more likely it's gone in a second.

I've decided it's a matter of respect. I respect science, history, geography, politics, religion (in about that order). I don't respect art, fiction, music, movies, television. And the two things I hold in lowest regard are comic books and badly written articles.

<rant>So I was doing [[convention]] and ran into an article about a comic book. I found an imparsable sentence where I simply could not tell whether it meant [[fan convention]] or [[convention (norm)]]. I was about to leave a {{dn}} and a note on the talk page explaining my conundrum, but then I said "NO! You are comic book. Your link deserves nothing but oblivion." </rant>

And when I say I don't respect fiction, I mean I have a little bit of respect for classics, but not much. If Hamlet sends someone to [[Fooburg]], and I am wondering whether it's [[Fooburg, Norway]] or [[Fooburg, Scotland]], I will surely delink it. I don't care if he was William Shakespeare (or if he wasn't), whoever thought this was worthy of a link, should have linked it correctly.

I strongly support the convention (norm) in Popups that changes are minor but delinks are not. In theory, a change only improves someone else's link. If you think it might be in the least controversial, you should uncheck the minor edit box. But delinks should never be marked minor. When you delink you are saying the prior editor was wrong to link it; anyone watching the article should take a look.

Should I have redlinked thirty articles to [[transmutation (fiction)]]? If I had, would some comic book fan write the article? I just don't care enough about comic books. Let them write the article and put the link on the disambiguation page, then I'll fix their links.

In most cases, the first time I encounter a puzzling link, I just pass (close that page of my browser) and move on. After I've gone down the entire list of links, I reload the page, and look at the ones that remain. Often, I have learned something from looking at the prior hundred articles (they play tennis in the other Halle). Sometimes I realize I have several links that there should be an article for and I hunt it down. Well, I didn't exactly hunt for medical specialist, it was at the first name I tried, but I added it to the dab page and directed 20 links there.

Place names I don't delink. If some obscure little town is mentioned twice, I add it to the disambiguation page. Sometimes I do it when the town is mentioned only once. In fact I added Córdoba, Phillipines when it had no links at all. (Okay, that was a brain fart.)

People I try to redlink, though when someone in a Goth band is named some common noun (I think "Meridian" and "Royal" were names) and hasn't already gotten on the dab page, I delink. I have no respect for Goth bands.

I'm not saying everyone should freely delink; if you are not comfortable making a change, don't make it. And as I said, it's good to pass and come back later (after seeing a hundred articles) before you delink or use {{dn}}. However, many people link words without much thought; I am almost always putting more thoguht into the delink. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 23:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Resident = Migration?

I am mystified. I discovered that [[Resident (animal)]] (6 links), [[Resident (species)]] (2 links), and [[Resident (biology)]] (2 links) are all redirects to [[migration]]. It's only 8 links, but what are these redirects? — Randall Bart ^(talk) 20:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Clearly left over from when [[migration]] redirected to [[bird migration]] (I killed an obsolete dab note to that effect). [[Resident]] said "Resident (animal), a bird or animal that does not migrate", but I changed that to "Resident bird, a bird that does not migrate", because nonmigratory isn't a topic except for birds. It's barely a topic even for birds. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 20:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

(EC)When referring to fauna, resident means an animal that does not migrate. All in all, the redirects are pointed to the wrong location since no one in their right mind would expect to go to an article on Bird migration when they are actually looking for Resident bird. They should probably point to Resident, with the proper links to that variety of animals resident article.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 20:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Those links were disambiguations from [[resident]]. I just sent most to [[resident bird]]. I delinked an insect. In ornithology, one of the first attributes you list about it is whether it's migratory or resident. The word is used in other fields, but it's not well defined jargon. It frequently means nonmigratory, but it's often used more loosely. I see no evidence of the need for an article on resident animals other than birds. It's not a clear enough concept. There isn't even an article on non-bird animal migration. There should be, but there isn't. [[Animal Migration]] and [[Migration of animals]] redirect to [[Migration]] and [[Animal migration]] redirects to [[Migration#Animal migration]]. Where do we send those? — Randall Bart ^(talk) 21:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Delink 'em, I'd say. Obviously there should be an article for mammalian migration, but there isn't one that I can find either.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ridings

I got about 50 links into [[Ridings]] and realized I was not disambiguating, I was ambiguating. There was one case of [[Ridings]] that was vague, but all the rest meant a political district, nearly all being electoral districts in Canada.

OTOH, [[Riding]], the place I was sending those links to (at first) is ambiguous, and ought to be a dab page. There are 1567 links to [[riding]] and I think at least 200 of them mean [[horseriding]] (such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Diana, Princess of Wales, and Modern pentathlon). So in anticipation that [[riding]] will soon be a dab page, I directed most of the links to [[riding (division)]]. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 21:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Horseriding is a redirect to equestrianism (doesn't that fail WP:NC (CN)?), but other than that, seems right. I always say horseback riding myself, but that redirects to the same place. Dekimasuよ! 04:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

AIUI, the majority of Brits say "horseriding", which Americans think sounds wrong, while Americans say "horseback riding", which Brits find barbarous. They compromise on [[equestrianism]], which everyone finds stuck up. There are 16 redirects (horse-back riding, horse back riding, equestrianship...).:

[[Riding]] is a clear must move. I'll take this to Talk:riding. I see a collaboration coming.— Randall Bart ^(talk) 07:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I just did [[strike]], which wasn't hard, but along the way I noticed [[striker]]. Oh what a mess. Wikipedia has an article on every footie player who ever lived, and most of them include the word "striker". There are 8000 links to it, and I'm sure they are mostly right. A few are field hockey or other sports, which is close but still way wrong. The problem is the several dozen which ought to link to [[strike action]]. I'm not proposing that something be done about it, because I don't see a good solution. Sumbuddy could do some searching, but I don't see a way to catch many of them.— Randall Bart ^(talk) 03:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Riding is done and thanx to all who helped out. I am mystified by these stats. After moving the page and creating the dab page, the stats were: Riding 1198 — Riding (division) 375 — Equestrianism 1233. After reducing Riding to 1 the others are Riding (division) 1048 — Equestrianism 1254. There are only 21 new links to [[Equestrianism]]. How can this be? Looking at the first page of links, I saw Goethe, Diana, and Pentathalon in the first 13 links. It turned out Uppsala University and road (originally a place for riding) were also mislinked in the first 13 of those 1198. It was only natural for me to think a large number of these were wrong.

But then if only 21 of the 1198 were equestrian, what happened to the other 1177? I expected the 375 already at riding (division) to disappear, because nearly every one of those was also a match at riding, so 375 + 1177 should equal 1177. But we ended up with only 1048. That leaves 129 unaccounted for. A few of these were cruft and other things, but not near that many. I can conclude that the bulk of those 129 were linked to equestrianism but the article already had a link to equestrianism. Except I'm sure that isn't the case. Anyone knwo what happened to about 129 links?

I counted, and I linked 13 pages to equestrianism. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 07:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Templates

Yesterday I looked at templates for all the words on the list. There were a few I didn't fix (Ford Falcon, Warhammer Fantasy and something else) but mostly it's clean. In a few cases this caused the current link count to fall under 100. Disambiguators should still check template space, but it should make the task less baffling to the newbies.— Randall Bart ^(talk) 07:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Vague

I just found out about {{vague}}, a useful inline template for cases of mushy writing. Or am I the only one who encounters mushy writing? — Randall Bart ^(talk) 22:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

You can use it, but just like {{fact}} it's better just to fix it yourself. Those tend to inflame heated editors as if they were insults. ALTON .ıl 20:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Arrested Development

I came across Arrested Development recently, which has a lot of links pointing at it. I wondered why it was not on the list here? Is there a way to add it to the list? Carcharoth 16:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't on the list because it didn't have enough links in the (main) namespace to be included. (I believe the cut-off is 100.) But they've all been taken care of now. -- SteinbDJ · talk · contributions 19:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, of course. That count is only for the main namespace. In this case though, have a look at the Wikipedia namespace links. A lot of those need fixing as well. What happened is that the TV series article went through peer review and featured article candidates and became a featured article, and as such was linked from a lot of places. Only much later was the article moved to the "(TV series)" title, and then, presumably, the redirect was turned into a disambiguation page, but the links were not repaired. I think the Wikipedia namespace at least needs tidying up in this case (I know we normally only care about the main namespace, but this is a good example of an exception). What do you think? (Some of the links are in protected subpages of the TFA (today's featured article) archives). Carcharoth 01:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't change archives. Let people be confused. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 05:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Some of these so-called "archive" pages are still in use. The TFA archive subpages are reused at Portal:Featured content. Carcharoth 09:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes pages in the Wikipedia space and archives are better off fixed, but it's important to be selective about it. Dekimasuよ! 04:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Introducing indirections

Suppose there is a disambiguation page with the title "Foo", and also a redirect page to "Foo" with the title "Foo (disambiguation)". Does it make sense to replace a wikilink to page "Foo" by a link to the redirect page "Foo (disambiguation)" in the name of of WikiProject Disambiguation? I don't get it; what is gained by introducing this indirection?  --Lambiam 21:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The advantage to linking to "Foo (disambiguation)" is that it shows that the link is purposefully being pointed to the disambiguation page because it is a disambiguation page. All in all it makes it easier for the scrubbers that come along the next time the disambiguation page comes up on the list in need of a cleaning. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This needs to go into a FAQ section; it comes up reliably every month or so. The answer is at WP:D#Links to disambiguation pages, and I'll quote it here for convenience (emphasis added):

To link to a disambiguation page (instead of a specific meaning), link to the redirect to the disambiguation page that includes the text "(disambiguation)" in the title (such as, America (disambiguation) rather than America). This helps distinguish accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones. See Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages.

Russ (talk) 21:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I know they appear paradoxical, but they assist in disambiguation. As explained at Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages, this explicitly marks a link as a link not to be further disambiguated. An example is List of Greek words with English derivatives where the [[chorus]] appears. The article is about the origin of the word, not a specific use of it, so it can't be further disambiguated. By linking it to [[chorus (disambiguation)]], we disambiguation gnomes know that it has been done. (Just to choose a random example.) — Randall Bart ^(talk) 21:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That works. My preference with cases like that is to link to the appropriate wiktionary page. I think either is a reasonable solution. -- SteinbDJ · talk · contributions 13:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages has nearly 2000 pages. That is quite a lot more than I would have guessed. — Randall Bart ^(talk) 20:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Fallacy rule

There are times when someone has made a dab page which slices things too fine. For many of these I have observed a successful rule of disambiguation: When there exists an article whose lede says everything that the dab page says, you can probably turn that dab into a redirect. For example, just today Dekimasu redirected [[logical fallacy]] to [[fallacy]]. A few months ago I did this to [[carotid artery]]. [[Forward (basketball)]] and [[Guard (basketball)]] were similarly redirected to an article section where the terms are discussed and further disambiguated. There are situations where a dab page is not the answer.— Randall Bart ^(talk) 21:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Thought I'd drop in to say great work with the edit summaries. I love the way the participants in this project are adding a little color to what would otherwise be a very boring edit summary. I've really been enjoying them. Keep it up. SchuminWeb (Talk) 23:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Phoenix

Copied from Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/2007-08-02 dump'--Bobblehead ^(rants) 02:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

User:devildevildevil made Phoenix a redirect to Phoenix (mythology) with an otheruses link to Phoenix (disambigation) (sic). Seems confusing to me, unless there's evidence that the mythological use is substantially more common than all others. Anybody care to comment before I try to formulate a plan? --AndrewHowse 22:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to clean the link for Phoenix and use the number of links that are meant for the mythological creature vs. the number of links meant for other uses to determine if the mythical creature is the primary usage or not. Worse comes to worse, you'll end up with a clean redirect to the mythical creature. But then, I just noticed that Bkonrad moved the disambiguation back to Phoenix.[2]--Bobblehead ^(rants) 02:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It should be a dab, but I don't know that it's worth fighting over.— Randall Bart ^(talk) 06:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Fun with disambiguation -- Answered

Here's a little quiz for everyone. What was I disambiguating when I came across:

1. The world's tallest building
2. A supermarket in Beverly Hills
3. A shoe store
4. A movie named February One
5. Barbara Hutton
6. Franklin Winfield

—  Randall Bart   Talk  05:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I finally got it, but had to cheat a little by reading one of the mentioned articles to get a hint. I will put the answer on Barticus's talk page, so don't go there if you are keen on solving it for yourself. Good fun! Chris the speller 20:12, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Very good. Let's keep the answer off this page for a couple days.—  Randall Bart   Talk  22:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

More useless clues:

1. It's not the tallest in the world anymore
2. Beverly Hills is in New South Wales
3. They still sell shoes
4. February 1, 1960
5. She has money
6. Winfield is was his middle name—  Randall Bart   Talk  03:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The answer is [[Woolworth's]].

1. The Woolworth Building was the world's tallest 1913 to 1929
2. Beverly Hills, New South Wales is where Woolworths Limited opened their first Woolworths Supermarkets
3. The F. W. Woolworth Company acquired Foot Locker in 1974. This is all that is left of the original company
4. The Greensboro sit-ins began February 1, 1960 at a Woolworth's lunch counter. The full name of the film is February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four
5. Barbara Hutton was Woolworth's daughter and is often refered to as "Woolworth's heiress"
6. Franklin Winfield Woolworth

—  Randall Bart   Talk  23:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I went through and figured it out too, just in case you thought no one else was looking. Dekimasuよ! 11:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

It was SO big

I was working on [[mission]] and I caught one that I was going to change to [[Mission, Texas]], but before I changed that, I noticed [[Alamo, Texas]], so I changed that and then I noticed [[Alice, Texas]], and I realized I had stumbled on a Texas sized pile of disambiguations. —  Randall Bart   Talk  03:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that the four edits before that were also disambiguations, the first being mine. I should have caught it then. I am so ashamed. —  Randall Bart   Talk  03:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

(The) Woman in Red

I find myself sufficiently confused that I'm a bit afraid of making something worse. There are three base articles for The Woman in Red, The Woman in Red (film) for the 1984 Gene Wilder film, The Woman in Red (1935 film) for the 1935 Barbara Stanwyck film and Woman in Red (Nedor) for the 1940's comic book character.

On top of this there is a page The Woman In Red that pointed to the two films and to which I added the comic book character before I discovered that there is also a page The Woman in Red (disambiguation) which points to one of the films, the comic book character, and a section of the article on the movie The Matirx, which mentions List of programs and machines in the Matrix series#The Woman in the Red Dress, (which I didn't pipe here for the sake of clarity).

Finally, at least in terms of the Woman in Red, there is a page, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Woman_in_Red&redirect=no which redirects to the 1984 film article and which itself is linked to some 500 times.

If you want to make this at all worse, the The Lady in Red page contains links to the 1984 Wilder film and the Matrix character's sub article, but not the 1935 Stanwyck film or the comic book character, as well as the woman often known as "The Lady in Red" who turned in John Dillinger, the 1979 film and a Merry Melodies cartoon The Lady in Red (1935 film) that came out the same year as the Barbara Stanwyk film.

For my money, if a user goes for either "The Woman in Red" or "The Lady in Red", they should get to either a consolidated Lady in Red/Woman in Red disambiguation page OR a page that disambiguates the phrase they typed in which also points to the other phrase's disambiguation page. It is way too easy to remember Dillinger's betrayer as "the woman in red" or the comic book character was "the Lady in Red" or to confuse the names of the two 1935 movies or the 1979 and 1984 movies. Additionally, the Wilder film probably should have the year in its title like the other three, the comic book should be "The Woman in Red (comics)", with an article and without the name of the (first) publisher, since the second is covered as prominently in the article, and who remembers Nedor anyway?

Having expressed that opinion, I might have been tempted to act on it, except that this is only the second time I've dipped into the whole issue of disambiguation, and is a bit more complex than I feel entirely qualified for. I'm happy to help, with a bit of direction or advice, or to point out the problem and flee, as appropriate. --Brons 19:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry that you're new, you just have to be bold. Check out what I did: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] --Bobblehead ^(rants) 20:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Macro

I'm surprised Macro is not here. AWB tells me there is 1084 218 mainspace links to this dab right now. -- Kl4m ^{Talk Contrib} 06:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

That would be because prior to September 11 Macro (computer science) was located there.[8] --Bobblehead ^(rants) 06:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Junior, senior, sophomore, freshman

I just did [[Junior]]. I was troubled how to deal with some. I realized as I looked at them that [[senior]], and [[sophomore]] had been dealt with differently, and [[freshman]] is a redirect to first year.

So I punted and created 26 red links to [[Junior (university)]]. There are article for the years of high school, but nothing for college. Sumbuddy else can figure where to go from here. —  Randall Bart   Talk  23:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

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