Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation/Archive 48

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Archive 45 Archive 46 Archive 47 Archive 48 Archive 49 Archive 50 → Archive 54

Haram (حرم) & Haram (حرام)

The above terms have complete different meanings and are also pronounced and spelled differently in Arabic but the English term is written (and probably) spoken the same by non Arabic speakers. For the disambiguation page and the pages of both terms I propose to insert proper phonetics. I'm not much into phonetics but I know the right Arabic pronunciation. Ping me if I can help you with that. Alireza1357 (talk) 06:56, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

It's probably a fine change, but it doesn't seem like it would help very many people. Since the meanings on the disambiguation page are quite distinct and the terms have the same appearance in English, then it would seem to me like only an Arabic speaker who knew the difference in pronunciation but didn't already know the meaning of these terms and was for some reason looking them up in the English wiki would find this helpful for disambiguation. Or am I thinking about this wrong? -- Fyrael (talk) 14:24, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
@Alireza1357: I think the disambiguation page is OK as it is (but then I would say that: I cleaned it up in Apr 19 and deliberately structured the first three lines to reflect the different Arabic roots). I think the place for phonetics is at the relevant article: I note that Haram does, but Haram (site) doesn't include pronunciation. Perhaps you should ask at the article Talk page. سلام Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I agree with both of you that the phonetics should be added to the individual pages and one of them has it already. Thanks and have a nice day Alireza1357 (talk) 05:27, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

No Deal

More opinions are sought at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/No Deal. Widefox; talk 21:21, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Like all AfDs of dab pages, this is both listed in the delsort and will appear in the next article alerts report. Everyone who's interested in dab-related AfDs will already be notified, so there's probably no need to post here as well. – Uanfala (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Sure. Except third opinions are welcome on top of the usual (per edits and discussion there). My request stands, thank you. Widefox; talk 23:22, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
I have improved the disambiguation page, and propose that the AfD be withdrawn accordingly. bd2412 T 02:46, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Yes, withdrawn as it has valid entries now. Widefox; talk 09:25, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Moved, fixed. I omitted to mention that the edit warring was over the redirect No-deal Brexit targeting the dab. It may be stable now. Widefox; talk 10:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Great, thanks! bd2412 T 10:49, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Latifa Al Maktoum

Disambiguation page Latifa Al Maktoum could use a third opinion, please. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 07:37, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

  • I have moved the page to Draft:Latifa Al Maktoum and removed the tags for now. Clearly a page that requires MOS:DAB violations to exist is not ready for mainspace. bd2412 T 15:56, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Note that this has been resolved. Cheers! bd2412 T 10:51, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Requested move notice

A requested move of interest to this project is being discussed at Talk:XHHIT-FM#Requested move 16 July 2019. Raymie (t • c) 02:43, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Common consent disambiguation page

I'd appreciate some help at Talk:Common consent#Problems with this page. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 09:42, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Decriminalization of marijuana, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 15 July 2019 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

  • One immediate improvement is to recategorize it as an article rather than a disambiguation page. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 09:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

CBT DAB primary topic ?

I've opened a discussion on Talk:CBT to make make it redirect to primary topic Cognitive behavior therapy. In order to do this we would need to delete an CBT (disambiguation) which has no inbound links. A comparison on NGram suggests that it is the the primary topic by far, especially when you add up the english + US spellings and alternate spellings. After cognitive behaviour therapy, core body temperature also CBT is about 10 times less frequent. The others are tiny by comparison. So I suggest that we by default redirect CBT DAB page to Cognitive behavior therapy Notgain (talk) 09:10, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation uncertainty among those named Steve Smith, Steven Smith and Stephen Smith at the Steven Smith dab page

A discussion aimed at finding the most intuitive parenthetical qualifiers for the seven or eight entries listed at Talk:Stephen Smith (cricketer, born 1822)#Requested move 18 July 2019 may be of interest. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:33, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Article with many dabs

I found Euphoria (Indian band) has around a dozen dabs and didn't want to mix them myself. I put a tag on the article with {{More specific links}} and the associated categories are redlinks. Anyone familiar with this? MB 03:00, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

I have requested that I Got Your Number be moved (over a redirect) to I've Got Your Number. If there are any objections, please comment at Talk:I Got Your Number. Cnilep (talk) 07:37, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

VR primary topic

Opinions are requested at Talk:VR. Nick Number (talk) 20:17, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation uncertainty for three uniquely-named entries — Steve Clifford, Steven Clifford and Stephen Clifford at the Steven Clifford dab page

In order to create a dab page listing all three men, one of them would have to be designated as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (as of this writing, it is the two-sentence stub for Steven Clifford) or, alternatively, one of them would have to receive a parenthetical qualifier (there was no consensus, however, at Talk:Steven Clifford#Requested move 25 June 2019 for moving Steven Clifford to Steven Clifford (alpine skier) and for moving Steven Clifford (disambiguation) to Steven Clifford. The third option is to delete the Steven Clifford (disambiguation) page (Stephen Clifford (disambiguation) and Steve Clifford (disambiguation) already redirect to it) and redirect all three "(disambiguation)" pages to their base names with a hatnote atop each of the three base names, pointing to the other two names, per currently active nomination at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Steven Clifford (disambiguation). Additional input is appreciated. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 20:29, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Links to disambiguation pages that I fail to solve

  1. 911 (in template) on 10th century
  2. Pathfinders (in template) on 1938 United States Senate elections
  3. Gloria Bistrița (in hatnote) on 1. FC Gloria Bistrița

The Banner talk 13:38, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

911 needs complex template changes including {{Drep}}; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years#Year template. I've fixed the other two. Certes (talk) 13:43, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. The Banner talk 15:52, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
911 is now fixed by this edit. That should also sort out most but not all references to 999 and to any other dabs which may appear in the range 101–1000. (1000 has an open RM. Moving 420 has also been suggested, but editors haven't got around to that one for some reason...) Certes (talk) 15:32, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Busts

Following an RM discussion at Talk:Bust of Benjamin Harrison, a decision has been made to move what was formerly known as Benjamin Harrison (bust) to that new title, and all others likewise. Under the old title it would have been included naturally in any dab page at the base name Benjamin Harrison, or a hatnote made from the article. Would the new title be treated the same, or excluded as a mere PTM? It seems unfortunate if an unintended consequence of the decision were to lead to articles being less accessible. PamD 14:49, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I note that it's currently included in the "other" section of Benjamin Harrison (disambiguation), along with Benjamin Harrison (Niehaus) ( a statue - nice inconsistency!) PamD 14:53, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

co-location of alternate spellings

My new focus has been on improving the coverage of names of my Uber riders. I get a wide assortment of names as a full-time Uber driver and have begun keeping track of those that are not represented on WP. I have been creating articles when needed. I am not certain how to draw the line on when to split a name from alternate spellings. What I have been doing is if there are three or more of an alternate spelling and one or none of those are included in the main spelling article I have been splitting them out. E.g. I split Denice (given name) from Denise ([1]) and I created Anastacia (given name), Annastasia, Anastasiya, Anastassia, and Anastassiya as well as Anastasia (surname) although Anastasia ([2]), Anastasiia ([3]), and Anastasija ([4]) already existed. At User_talk:Nick_Number#What_is_correct, I noted that "Today, I noticed Attia, Attias and Atia existed, but Atias did not exist so I created it. I also tried to cross link with hatnotes Attea, Atea and Ateas. Then I stumbled on the unified Atiyah page." I am still not sure I understand why it should remain unified. Now I am looking at some more complicated issues. E.g., Danaë (disambiguation) has 2 people plus a mythological figure, but at least 6 people have articles on WP belong on a Danea (given name) page. Then Aiden (given name) has so many subjects that it seems to deserve to be separate from Aidan (name). I need some advice.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:52, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

  • I suggest that splitting is not useful. The various spellings of, for example, Anastasia are not different names, just different spellings. So
  1. If there is anything to say about the etymology etc of the name, any saints of the name, any statistics on popularity etc, it will usually be relevant to all versions, and
  2. The reader who is looking for someone half-remembered called "Annastasia" is quite likely not to know the precise spelling (and some variations may be due to varying transliterations anyway), so the reader will be better served by a joint article, whether the list(s) within that article are unified or separated. And helping the reader is our aim. PamD 14:30, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
See Frida (given name) for a nice example with a separated list in a single article. PamD 14:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
PamD, In all my experience on WP, one of the things that I have been taught was that we assume the reader comes here knowing how to spell what he wants to search for. In the above examples, I saw that they were already split (3 spellings existed of Anastasia), so I created 5 others. I think the separate presentation has value. E.g., Anastassiya shows that there is a specific Kazakhi spelling of the name. Denise and Denyse existed so I co-located Denice and Denyce as a separate article since Denyce did not have enough for its own. Many of my creations are just filling out sets of split articles. I was looking at Nicholas today because it seems to me that Nicklas and Nicklaus should exist and I thought that they might be related to Nicholas, which enumerates articles for oodles of variants. There are far more split names than joint names as I have bounced around. Frida (given name) is a good joint one because it splits the various spellings well.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:52, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm not into etymology, so if I see a name that isn't already a redirect to another name, I am likely to create a new list, and figure someone more knowledgeable can simply merge later if they are in fact variants e.g Jed (given name) and Jedd. My other conservative rationale is that if they weren't already combined, maybe there's a good reason.—Bagumba (talk) 16:15, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Sortkey for names with diacritics

If a disambiguation page title has diacritics, like Mikuláš, is it necessary to include a sort key to a version with no diacritics? {{DEFAULTSORT:Mikulas}} in this case. Leschnei (talk) 12:33, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

According to Help:Category#Sorting category pages: "English Wikipedia groups accented characters together with their unaccented version, so pages starting with À, Á, Ä, will be listed under heading A." Station1 (talk) 16:52, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
I took that to mean that further sorting wasn't necessary but when I saw the template on Mikuláš, I wanted to find out if I had it wrong. Leschnei (talk) 22:44, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
It was added by User:Yobot in this automated edit in 2013. It appears that prior to 2016, sorting worked differently. Diacritics were not ignored, and appeared after letters without diacritics. See Wikipedia_talk:Categorization/Archive_16#OK_to_switch_English_Wikipedia's_category_collation_to_uca-default?. Even back then, I don't think it would have made a difference in this particular case. Now it can probably be safely removed, but I doubt it hurts anything. Station1 (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
@Station1: thanks for the explanation. It's good to know that I don't have to remember to add sorting instructions for every DAB page with diacritics! Leschnei (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Yonas

The page at Yonas includes a hatnote reference to the runner Yonas Kifle. However, there are a bunch of other Yonases: Yonas (hip hop artist), Yonas Beyene, Yonas Fissahaye, Yonas Kinde, Yonas Malede, Yonas Mekuria (redirect to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961), Yonas Monteyunas (an alternate name of Jonas Motiejūnas (rower)), and Yonas Ramanauckas (one variant of the birth name of Johnny Ramensky). Clearly, there is a need for a dab page of some sort.

As I understand it, the name "Yonas" is a variant of the name "Jonas". Should Jonas (name) be updated to cover "Yonas" as well (it already has three entries with "Yunus", and one "Jhonas"), or should there be a separate Yonas (disambiguation) or Yonas (name)? TJRC (talk) 23:07, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Faris

Faris (given name) was created in 2010. Then, in 2017, Faris (name) was created with both surnames and given names. I have never seen this type of duplication in names. What should we do?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:54, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: I'd merge Faris (given name) into Faris (name)#Given name, since that section exists already, and update the dab page accordingly. However, Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy might give another advice. – sgeureka t•c 11:39, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
Sgeureka, shouldn't we merge into the article that existed first?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:48, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger, I agree with Sgeureka. Faris (name) isn't long enough to need splitting into given name and surname. I dislike this kind of duplication because editors don't realize that they need to put new entries on two different pages, and that leads to confusion for the reader. I don't think that it should matter that Faris (given name) came first if it's an improvement. Leschnei (talk) 12:20, 28 August 2019 (UTC)
@Sgeureka and Leschnei: merged.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:24, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Black Monday

  • Is Black Monday an article or a dab page? It seems to me that it should be a dab page, but it doesn't look like one. If it's not correctly formatted, could some knowledgeable editor fix it? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 04:12, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
    • It's more of a set index. It lists specific Mondays known as "Black Monday" for one reason or another, with more information than we would have on a disambiguation page. I don't think that it should necessarily be a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 04:21, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
    • It should be a dab page as links made to "Black Monday" are likely to refer to a specific event (e.g. I've just fixed 2 such links). Making it a dab page would bring inlinks to the attention of DPLbot and dabfixers. There might be an argument for also having a list article (SIA) e.g. at "List of events known as Black Monday". DexDor (talk) 08:31, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Disambig Page Review

Hi all. I recently converted Back (American football) from a redirect to a disambig page. The term "back" was used in early football to describe a number of positions that now have very specific names (i.e. halfback, fullback, quarterback, etc). Even though I have been here a while, I have to admit I'm not great on disambig page guidelines/policies. I was wondering if someone here with more experience would take a look at it and make any necessary improvements or provide some suggestions. Thanks for any help. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:31, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

That page could be classified as a broad-concept article rather than a disambiguation page. A BCA may be exactly what we need here: the list entries are subtopics of one broad concept rather than unrelated topics which happen to share a spelling. Certes (talk) 18:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
The page also has more incoming wikilinks than any other dab on Wikipedia. Unless most of them can be resolved to some particular subspecies of back, that may be a good indication that a BCA is in order. Certes (talk) 19:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
I've done so. It didn't take much more than swapping the {{disambig}} template for Category:Broad concept articles and adding another appropriate category. Sure, a good BCA might have more explanatory text and sources, but I think we often let that delay us from handling clear-cut dab-to-BCA cases. These are issues that can be treated afterwards. —swpbT • go beyond • bad idea 19:25, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Radha Krishna

Can somebody please create a Radha Krishna (disambiguation) page to include:

 Done. Feel free to improve. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:59, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. I have made some small edits and added a "See also". 185.198.242.162 (talk) 10:50, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of 8chan (disambiguation) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article 8chan (disambiguation) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/8chan (disambiguation) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Geolodus (talk) 19:18, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Greater Johannesburg

If anyone wants to take a look at this. Much seems to be OR which should be removed. It's not currently a dab page but possibly it could be turned into one with what remains, or maybe just deleted. It only has three incoming links. MB 21:23, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Michael Howard (disambiguation)

Could I ask for some views, please, on the WP:PRIMARY question I've asked at Talk:Michael Howard#Primary topic?. Thank you. Carcharoth (talk) 11:31, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Should "Episode 100" be a disambiguation page?

See ongoing discussion at Talk:Episode 100. I should note, the "Episode 100" episode of American Horror Story has not yet aired, but every episode of the series has a Wikipedia article, and we should expect one will be created at very soon. ---Another Believer (Talk) 04:28, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

"Congregational Church" listed at RfD

The name Congregational Church redirects to Congregational church, which is about a Christian denomination. Another user recently changed the redirect to Congregational church (disambiguation), which is not an unreasonable target. If you have opinions about where this redirect should point, you may want to comment at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 October 10#Congregational Church. Cnilep (talk) 02:49, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Nokia 105

The disambiguation page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_105 is being linked to from a lot of other pages, according to the template. But I can't find where the page is linked. All the navboxes that were linking to this page have already been fixed.

Initramfs (talk) 13:12, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

  • A page can link to another page either directly from its text, or by a template it uses. If you remove a direct link, then the list at "What links here" gets updated pretty much instantly. If you remove a link from a template, then that template is again instantly removed from the list, but any pages that use this template will take some time to update. This can sometimes take hours. – Uanfala (talk) 13:18, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
@Initramfs: I think your edit to {{HMD Global}} has cleared up all the remaining links, and the "What links here" list should empty in a few hours. Thanks for fixing this. Certes (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
@Certes: It's still not away. The hatnote template has been removed from the page by another editor, but the links are still there: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Nokia_105&namespace=0 Initramfs (talk) 20:08, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
The hatnote has been removed because it is no longer a disambiguation page, per WP:DABCONBRAND, which states that products from a manufacturer having "the same combination of name and number", are not ambiguous. Lists of products made by the same company and sharing a product number are material for an index list, not a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 20:54, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

RfC notice

There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Democrat Party that concerns this project. Please comment there. Thank you. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Please help create a disambiguation page for Trap for Cinderella

Currently 'Trap for Cinderella' redirects to the 2013 film. Please help create a disambiguation page that would include: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_for_Cinderella_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_for_Cinderella_(1965_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_for_Cinderella_(2013_film)

Thanks in advance. Philburmc (talk) 02:14, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done—ShelfSkewed Talk 02:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Much appreciated,ShelfSkewed! Philburmc (talk) 03:00, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there a tool for quickly adding date ranges to disambiguation pages?

I seem to recall seeing a tool for quickly adding date ranges (years of birth and death for ambiguously named people) to disambiguation pages, but I can't find it now. bd2412 T 01:08, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@BD2412: Dabfix can do that but may not be fully working. Certes (talk) 01:19, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
This seems to work perfectly for what I need - thanks! bd2412 T 01:28, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Disambig Page with Japanese Characters in Title

This is a little outside my knowledge zone because I know more about mainspace articles than disambig pages, but perhaps the title of this page: 中島由貴 needs to be altered per Wikipedia rules on article titles. See WP:TRANSLITERATE. Thanks. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 14:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I have proposed thec page for deletion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 14:51, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Vascular tumor

Seems that this is an unnecessary disambiguation page - a useful link would be vascular tumor - as it is, it is a disambiguation page with what is really just an adjectival term that is used (without needing a link) on many pages just referring to the degree of blood supply.--Iztwoz (talk) 07:09, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@Iztwoz: It seems to me not to be a disambiguation page at all, but a short article about the subject. I've removed the disambiguation tags but would appreciate your help in adding an appropriate category. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Bert Hunter

Currently Bert Hunter is a disambiguation page containing only the red link Bert Hunter (baseball), plus some See also titles, including Bertrum Hunter. I added a hatnote at Bertrum Hunter and proposed Bert Hunter for deletion. Feel free to remove the PROD tag if you see a better solution. Cnilep (talk) 02:52, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

FYI: The hatnote at Bertrum Hunter was removed by another user. Cnilep (talk) 08:16, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
I see no indication that anyone other than the baseball player born 1967 was known as "Bert Hunter", nor as "Bertie Hunter" which redirects there. In particular, Bertrum Hunter was known as "Nate". There are no incoming links. I would delete the dab and its redirect. If anyone writes an article about the baseball player, that should probably be called Bert Hunter, with a redirect from Bert Hunter (baseball) which has incoming links. There is a brief bio here. Certes (talk) 12:02, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move: Sacred Heart Preparatory (Atherton, California) to Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton

A request for comments has been posted on the Sacred Heart Preparatory talk page. Please add your thoughts, if you can. Ottoump (talk) 04:59, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Fire making, Fire-raising, Firing and Fire starting

Fire starting has been nominated for discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 November 24#Fire starting. As part of that discussion I've discovered that there are overlapping disambiguation pages at Firing (disambiguation), Fire-raising (disambiguation), and Firestarter and redirects from related terms go to a variety of places, sometimes with hatnotes and see-alsos, sometimes without. It might be a good idea to review the organisation of these pages to see if there are any that should be merged, and ensure that any which aren't are all linked correctly to each other. Thryduulf (talk) 14:14, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Removal of entries with valid abbrevs missing in the articles

This edit [5] created a factual error due to overzealous trimming. Per the discussion at Talk:RTP, it seems hundreds of dabs may have been overly trimmed of entries by User:Pol098 by not considering WP:DABABBREV "...consider adding it to the target article...". I fully agree with that consensus - it doesn't serve readers to blindly remove dab entries without checking if the topics are known by their abbreviations when it's already clear that someone considers it a valid abbreviation by including it in the dab(s). From my experience, there's many valid abbreviations missing from articles, and a valid listing in a dab is a useful tool to fix the articles. Widefox; talk 12:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I welcome a discussion of this issue. Disambiguation pages, particularly of initials, tend to be hard to read and use properly, as they are often full of links to articles that don't mention the term disambiguated, typically the initials of someone or something not normally known by their initials, and with verbose summaries, sometimes almost mini-articles. I very often edit, with summary typically -articles that don't include the initials (WP:DABABBREV). Trim summaries to disambiguate only (WP:DABNOT). If I know that the initials (or term) are used, although omitted in the article, I sometimes find a source and amend the linked article appropriately; most times I don't know if the subject is routinely known by the initials. "A valid listing in a dab is a useful tool to fix the articles". The purpose of a disambiguation page is to, er, disambiguate, not as a "tool to fix the articles". In addition to this fact, which is the fundamental reason not to include articles that don't contain the term, a disambiguation page entry is absolutely not going to spur anyone to correct the article. And it's not "a valid listing in a dab" if the article doesn't support the term. This is just using a disambiguation page to add information not included in the article.
Coming back to "...consider adding it to the target article...", I do so consider and, as I said, do so if I have the knowledge. In most cases I don't. It's up to those editing articles that they know about to include relevant information.
See Talk:RTP for previous discussion of this; the page and linked articles were much cleaned up after my intervention, with many links reinstated, now properly documented in articles, which of course I approve of (although often the new material was unsourced, not ideal). I have also disagreed with User:Widefox about inclusion of "See also RTMP" in the RTP article (I think it doesn't belong). I participated in a discussion about this years ago, I think in Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation (now archived), and the consensus was that disambiguation pages should only include abbreviations documented in the linked article (as the guideline clearly says)
I'd add that the RTP disambiguation page plus linked articles have benefitted a lot from my edits and the response to them; many linked articles now include the use of the initials RTP (though sadly without verifiable sources, which |I've not bothered to flag with [citation needed]) and have been reinstated in the disambiguation page, where they clearly (now) belong. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 14:01, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
This appears to be WP:IDHT about one unrepentant editor ignoring consensus of ...consider adding it to the target article.., edit consensus, and other editor's concerns (there's two of us in agreement at Talk:RTP), which is why I've flagged this as an ongoing issue, and potentially hundreds of dabs that may have already had valid entries removed en mass. Widefox; talk 14:17, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I generally avoid dealing with abbreviations because it's a tricky business, with very low returns on time invested. The trouble is that articles don't always bother to mention common abbreviations, and it takes quite a bit of effort to do your homework online to find out whether a cetain abbreviation is used commonly enough and in broad enough contexts to be worth including on a dab. And it's especially laborious to gather enough data to convince yourself that the abbreviation is not in fact so used (you know, negative evidence is more difficult to obtain). The benefits are low – having dab entries that shouldn't be there usually only adds a bit of clutter and inconvenience, and that only if there's many of them – especially when compared with the costs of false negatives (removing an entry that ought to be there), as that outrights blocks some readers from finding the article they need. – Uanfala (talk) 14:31, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes Uanfala, it's low reward (a minority of invalid entries cluttering dabs) and high risk (removing valid entries).
  • User:Pol098 This attempt to edit the guideline on 14th Nov [6] adding A disambiguation page should never introduce information not included in the relevant article. to Wikipedia:Disambiguation during ongoing discussion about your edits about it (12th Nov - 15th Nov) (your removal of abbreviation entries from dabs that are valid but merely missing in the articles) is procedurally suspect (as well as the other issues with it, as detailed in my revert). It still does not invalidate the long existing MOSDAB ...consider adding it to the target article.... Widefox; talk 14:54, 15 November 2019

(UTC)

I do ...consider adding it to the target article..., and actually do it, in addition to considering it, when I can. I said before that I inserted initials into articles if I had information about them. Here is an example to support this. About a week ago, while editing JRT, I corrected the Web site of a journal. I saw that the journal used its initials on its site, so I added them to the article, and did not remove the article link from the disambiguation page. I do add information to articles if (and only if, I don't use my imagination) I have it. Best wishes Pol098 (talk) 14:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
OK, then how do you explain your edit [7] which removed four valid entries RacingThePlanet, Rally of the Togolese People (the ruling party of a country for 40 years!), Radiation treatment planning, Ragam Thanam Pallavi which I restored [8] , as well as the other issues, as explicitly detailed at Talk:RTP? Widefox; talk 15:14, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
(ec) According to Pol098, Have you trimmed other dabs like this?" Hundreds. There have been only a few objections [9] .
A quick check, and their last dab edit TTG was [10] which removed (arguably) valid entries (Tea Tree Gully, South Australia, and two borderline Teen Titans Go! (TV series) , TiVoToGo). Widefox; talk 16:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
[Comment inserted later] Re the comment on specific articles: the link was [[City of Tea Tree Gully|Tea Tree Gully]]; "City of Tea Tree Gully" did not contain the initials. I clarify (in case anyone checks the links and finds the initials there) that the other articles cited didn't contain the initials when I edited the disambiguation page; the initials have since been added (but without source) by Widefox. (It's absolutely good practice to add initials—with verified source—to an article, then add them to the disambiguation, nothing wrong about that). Pol098 (talk) 18:06, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, the question is why you didn't do it? The dab awaits the entries being restored after valid entries were removed. Widefox; talk 10:39, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Key word here is consider. No reason for disambiguation pages to be treated differently than other content where it is incumbent on persons wanting to add or retain challenged information to clearly establish the basis for keeping the details. If an article mentions the usage, that usually is sufficient for including on dab page. There may be cases where the claimed usage is spuriously added, and that can be challenged, but in general it's not worth getting into conflict over. older ≠ wiser 16:15, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Sure. This isn't just removal of entries, but also cutting down descriptions until they are factually incorrect or ambiguous. Individual edits are one thing, but this is also mass editing against consensus. Widefox; talk 17:18, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Disambiguation pages don't need descriptions at all, unless they're essential to disambiguate. Wikipedia is full of disambiguation entries which are a link followed by no text; this is quite OK, nobody complains, and they're not usually edited. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 18:12, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

By the way, I explained my motives in Talk:RTP; I'll quote here:

I started [trimming dabs like this] after trying to find some articles [via disambiguation links] and having to wade through lots of irrelevant links, and verbose, often multi-line, summaries, sometimes almost mini-articles; a favourite was to add any person or thing that happened to have those initials, though not normally known by them, like ABdPJ. A slimmed-down minimal list is much easier and faster to use, without loss of functionality (beyond omitting summaries). Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 14:19, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

My criterion, unless I knew that the term was indeed used (in which case I edited the article), was simply "does the linked article contain the term?", following guidelines. Pol098 (talk) 18:21, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we should also consider something like "user friendliness" when building DABs. The Banner talk 19:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
In what sense has usability not been considered? It's literally the driving force behind DABs. -- Fyrael (talk) 19:21, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
That's the issue: does the linked article contain the term? is short of WP:DABABBREV ...consider adding it to the target article.. Widefox; talk 11:36, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Edits like [11] have two problems:

  1. insertion of factual error(s): which has yet to be acknowledged by the editor
  2. Removal of valid abbreviations: that have already been considered by editors to be worthwhile: with no indication that due diligence has been done

We should be assured WP:COMPETENCE in future given the mass editing
Both 1. and 2. do not serve readers who previously could navigate using the valid abbreviations, are able to navigate less well after. Wikilawyering indicates WP:IDHT. Widefox; talk 10:26, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

  • Conversely, if blindly removing all dab entries that are missing defs in the articles is a good thing, a bot would do a better job. I take it that nobody is seriously proposing that, are they?! Widefox; talk 11:36, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
    It might be useful to list automatically the wikilinks from initialism dabs to articles titled with those letters in which the abbreviation does not occur. (Example: CWS links to Consolidated Widget Solutions, an article which doesn't mention CWS.) A human could then either add the initials to the article or remove the entry from the dab as appropriate, but I don't think a bot could choose reliably between those two potential edits. Certes (talk) 12:25, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
    That would be useful, yes. Widefox; talk 14:54, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Wait, let me get this straight, you're saying the cleanup of the dab page was bad even though at that time the linked articles made no mention of the inialisms? (setting aside the inaccurate editing of England and Wales to just England--which yes while technically less accurate is not likely to mislead anyone coming to the dab page looking for the teacher programme). No, I don't agree. If the articles don't support the usage, there is absolutely nothing wrong with removing the entries from the dab page. If other editors feel the initialism should be included, it is incumbent on them to make sure that the linked article supports the usage. The advise to consider doing something while performing cleanup is just that -- advisory, not compulsory -- and I would strongly oppose making it mandatory. older ≠ wiser 15:06, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
  • "England" is very different from "England and Wales": ask a Welsh person. To use the wrong term is offensive to the population of Wales. PamD 17:34, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
As I made this change, I answer: true, but totally irrelevant to the general issue. Arguably I got that particular bit wrong. But we're discussing disambiguation, anyway, not provision of information, Pol098 (talk) 17:57, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
User:Bkonrad not quite, and one dab is neither here nor there and everyone makes errors, but this goes beyond removing useful (or grey area) acronyms to blanking due to the lack of due diligence en mass. If it was a bot it would be disabled, agree? e.g. removing Rally of the Togolese People (the ruling party of a country for 40 years) from RTP. Has anyone checked other dabs? Overzealous trimming isn't to be mandated against, merely moderated IMHO. I see no indication of an evaluation of risk / benefit (per above). Widefox; talk 11:03, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
@Widefox:, actually, if the article for Rally of the Togolese People did not mention the initialism at the time, I might well have removed it from the dab. A quick perusal of the page shows no strong indications that the party is commonly known by the initialism of the English name (whereas it is, as might be expected, known by the initialism of it's French name, RPT). I see nothing wrong with that edit. In fact, if I were feeling ornery, I might challenge this edit as being unsourced. older ≠ wiser 12:21, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
However, I should add that I have on occasion taken issue with overzealous removals and trimming of descriptions by @Pol098:.
Yes. Feel free to challenge - there's many sources for it, I check for sources for every initialism I add that's missing in articles but indicated as useful by being included in a dab (sometimes I add a citation, generally not). It is your right to challenge unsourced content, then I or someone else just has to add one of citations. I presume you wouldn't just remove the initialism from the article without checking, just because it wasn't sourced? In which case none of that hinders navigation, unlike removing them from dabs when sources can be quickly found. The tedious buildup of never valid initialisms is not as bad as removing valid ones that are just missing in the article. Someone already thought it useful. Widefox; talk 20:26, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Extraneous entries are less of a problem than missing entries, and there's no deadline. If @Pol098: feels certain initialism entries don't belong, they can certainly spend a little time checking on each one on the wider web, and summarizing their findings in edit summaries, addressing each entry individually. Pol098 should feel obligated to do this, not by policy, but out of the desire to not screw up, and the recognition that this is a community that only works through communication. I wish it were practical to force Pol098 to work with greater care and respect for their fellow editors under threat of curtailed editing privileges, but that too-high bar isn't met here, so we're forced to rely on Pol098's decency. —swpbT • go beyond • bad idea 20:57, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
I've given this a reasonable period of time, and I see the guideline remains unchanged. This isn't a discussion of a particular article but a general policy, so guidelines are what matter. I see that some people have taken the arrogant view here "ignore guidelines, you must do what I think you should". Anyone who thinks a guideline is wrong can change it (subject to people disagreeing and reverting). There was a long discussion (archived years ago) in Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation about initials; the clear consensus was not to include initials in disambiguation pages unless their use was verifiably sourced in the linked article (as the guideline says). I'll continue to wait for a while, but anyone who disagrees with the guideline should change it. Before making any further edits I will check the current text of the guideline, and be guided by it. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 15:48, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
User:Pol098 There seems to be consensus above that the guideline should be followed by all of us...which includes the current, unchanged DABABBREV If an abbreviation is verifiable, but not mentioned in the target article, consider adding it to the target article and then adding the entry to the disambiguation page. I follow that. Do you commit to not removing them without at least considering in future please.
User:Bkonrad after considering your wisdom above, I think the issue of proliferation of valid initialisms added to dabs but not added to the articles is understandable from editor's perspective: quite reasonably, editors add valid initialisms to the place they navigated to and see it's missing, and then they can then complete their navigation to the topic of interest, and may consider the job done. Most editors aren't aware of the fine points of MOSDAB, a training issue. Readers and editors will not add it to the article first as they will have navigated to the dab first using the term. DABABBREV does not account for that most likely case. The problem arises if those valid navigation paths valid initialism navigation paths are then removed, risking a repeat of the add-remove cycle: rinse-and-repeat. The mechanism is that editors are doing write-back instead of the necessary write-through. It is in neither editors or readers interests for valid navigation to cycle being added then removed just because our requirements ironically haven't 1. considered the editor's navigation and 2. are overly strict requiring atomic write-through. Is it more practical to a) train editors in this or b) dab editors en mass to complete the write-back (a cache flush). DABABBREV could be tweaked to consider navigation, or just common sense should inhibit blindly following the letter of DABABBREV whilst ignoring the spirit of it so it never happens en mass as it throws away valid dirty cache. Valid initialisms will likely just be reinserted after removal again without the article ever getting edited. Our editor expectation of an atomic write-through is understandably too high for most editors.
If we only have one editor removing valid initialisms en mass from dabs, then there's no need to WP:CREEP MOSDAB, so I try a last time Pol098 do you commit to not remove them en mass without checking for validity in future, or do I creep the guideline for this? Widefox; talk 12:46, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
What determines a valid navigation path? Unless the use of the initialism is supported by the linked article (or the dab editor has knowledge or intuition that it is commonly used), how is the dab editor supposed to know? Cleaning up a disambiguation page should not require research into the specifics of each specific entry. The standard is simple--the linked article needs to support the claimed usage. Of course a responsible dab editor should not remove candidates that are likely to be known by the initialism, but that is a highly subjective call. And to be clear, initialisms are quite commonly added with no basis whatsoever in common usage. There are a handful of anonymous editors who seem to feel disambiguation pages should list every conceivable initialism regardless of any evidence that the entity is ever referred to by such initialisms. I would strongly oppose any revision of DABABBREV that would endorse adding entries with usages that are not supported by the linked articles. older ≠ wiser 13:18, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
OK, if you insist I define terms:
valid initialism = one that satisfies WP:V
valid navigation paths valid initialism navigation paths (fixed above).
I agree, I would strongly oppose that too - it's a straw man
I take it you agree with the fact that DABABBREV doesn't consider the most likely navigation path for initialisms (as the titles are more commonly full rather than initialisms), and so is written back-to-front. Cleaning up a disambiguation page should not require research into the specifics of each specific entry. - well, actually DABABBREV already says "consider", so it is either considered or not - more precise WP:COMPETENT. Nobody is proposing putting initialisms in dabs first, then articles as we're all aware dabs are a "cache" of the articles, not vice-versa, and it's much easier to maintain them by comparing to articles, sure. ...But we shouldn't discard valid dirty cache, as it's wasteful and hinders navigation, wouldn't you agree? The argument that there's a lot of invalid initialisms is "bathwater", let's not WP:BATHWATER. (Conversely, if an aim is to have all valid initialisms added to articles with a source first per the letter of DABABBREV, readers and writers need to navigate to them first to edit them! so removing the navigation of the initialism via a dab doesn't help that aim.) Widefox; talk 13:32, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
So you've changed terminology, but the same fundamental question remains: how does an editor performing a routine cleanup of a disambiguation page recognize what is a "valid initialism" if the supporting article makes no mention of the usage? I agree editors should consider (as a suggestion rather than mandate) adding easily verifiable entries to the article, but some of the examples that you've mentioned I would not consider easily verifiable and likely might well have removed them myself. older ≠ wiser 18:12, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Discarding all dirty caches irrespective of validity is a baby/bathwater issue. I'd say that's additional summing up terminology, rather than "changed terminology", to anchor it in what we have as an essay.
That's a fair, practical question for us dab editors. My aim was to establish that readers trump editors, and DABACRO ironically doesn't consider the most likely navigation path hence the first point for reasonable edits of editors improving WP by putting the initialism in the dab first. If dab editors don't validate and finish the job but merely discard the improvements along with the bad edits, then who will? Disambiguation is about navigation, not removing navigation for valid initialisms. Switching to editors, and dab editors, couldn't agree more that having to (say google them) to distinguish between invalid and valid initialisms is effort compared to just removing all of them if not in the articles. Dunno, it is WP:VOLUNTARY and as others have commented, there's no deadline. DABACRO should be for readers, then editors, then dab editors benefit, not the other way around. Widefox; talk 22:20, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

TLDR propose fix: currently unrealistic requiring editors to either:

  1. add it in the article first (when using the initialism, they're likely to navigate via the dab missing the term first and seeing it missing add there, and then continue on to the article)
  2. adding to the dab and article at the same time "atomic write-through"

which generally works fine until editors don't consider retaining verifiable abbreviations in dabs that aren't included in the articles
Empirically, many articles don't include their valid initialism (or is not bold), but are included in dabs:

  • WP:DABABBREV If an abbreviation is verifiable, but not mentioned in the target article, consider adding it to the target article and then adding the entry to the disambiguation page. (emphasis own)
  • MOS:DABACRO and therefore is unlikely to be searched for by that letter combination (emphasis own)

are missing this common third situation of:

  • verifiable abbreviations so likely to be searched that they've already been included in a dab, but persist in failing to be included in the article (understandably per above) indicate a likelihood for using the term (irrespective of whether valid or invalid), so:

Proposal added to DABACRO

  • Added to WP:DABACRO the missing situation of included in the dab, but not the article, based on what we all agree on:

If an abbreviation is verifiable, but not mentioned in the target article, consider adding it to the target article.  Done

  • I've changed the example in DABACRO [12] as, ironically, our example suffers from the same issue - The British Soap Awards is also known by the initialism "BSA" in sources including the BBC.  Done Widefox; talk 14:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • To make this consistent with MOS:DABNOENTRY If there is disagreement about whether this exception applies, it is often best to assume that it does., I've added

Similar to MOS:DABNOENTRY, if there is disagreement about whether this applies, it is often best to assume that it does.  Done Widefox; talk 14:51, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

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