Template talk:Disambiguation page short description

Template-protected edit request on 11 February 2019

Please remove [[Category:Disambiguation and redirection templates]] from this template

I have added it to the documentation page, which is where categories are usually included (see WP:TDOC).

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:46, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

 Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 08:46, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Suggested edits for description

The current description:

Disambiguation page providing links to topics that could be referred to by the same search term

...has several drawbacks, the most obvious of which is: it's way too long. The guidelines suggest 40 characters as a target, and this is well over double that.

Second, it leads with one of WP's most notoriously inside terms, and short descriptions—especially this one—are arguably of the most use to people the least familiar with WP jargon.

Third, in a large number of cases it will repeat a word already in the page name, "disambiguation", which is counter to short description guidelines.

Finally, "search term" feels off the mark, as does "topic".

I suggest two changes. First, add code to omit the term "disambiguation page" if the page name already includes "(disambiguation)".

Second, reword to:

Links to articles that could have this name

or, in the case where the suffix "(disambiguation)" is not present:

Disambiguation page: links to articles that could have this name

--NapoliRoma (talk) 16:13, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Or "Navigation page for multiple topics that could have this title"? -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:51, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Short?

The current short description is 95 characters long. Disambiguation page providing links to topics that could be referred to by the same search term This is about twice as long as it should be. Any thoughts on what we change it to? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 20:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion that created the current SD was here: [1]. I agree that it should be shortened; my own choice would be Wikipedia disambiguation page. — Goszei (talk) 07:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The term "disambiguation" is almost unknown outside the wiki world, so a brief explanation may be in order for readers unfamiliar with our arcane ways. The bits about being on Wikipedia and being a page are technically redundant, as the searching reader will soon guess that this option and all others are Wikipedia pages. However, having unfairly roasted the previous suggestions, I am struggling to produce a better one. Certes (talk) 11:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure how true that is and could imagine disambiguation being a decently known term. My attempt to try figuring this out was to use Goggle ngram viewer and compare it to a bunch of random decently rare animals (you have no idea how difficult it is to come up with a word about as rare as disambiguation without restricting it). The result was this. Disambiguation is used about as frequently in books published in the past three decades as gecko, flamingo or iguana. These are words I feel most people should know which at least supports the idea that it's not entirely obscure. Also worth noting that Wikipedia isn't included in this sample since Wikipedia isn't a book. My feeling is that "Disambiguation page" would be the best short description proposed. --Trialpears (talk) 13:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Better to avoid the term Disambiguation – a simpler term would be more friendly to those who do not have English as their first language. How about: Possible alternative articles — Possible alternatives — Alternative articles — Articles matching the search term — Alternative articles for the search term (40 characters, so just OK) — Possible articles for the search term (37 so better) — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 13:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Hm, I guess that's the other alternative. I'm not really a fan of the search term options since when searching while the most common place to see them isn't the only place they're used. The short ones feels a bit ambigous and the meaning of it not being immedietly obvious (but I guess that's the same problem as with "disambiguation page") Articles referred to by the same term (37 characters) or similar could be an option. --Trialpears (talk) 14:25, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

If we agree to not use "disambiguation" in the SD, I am amenable to Articles referred to by the same term. "Alternative" or "Possible articles" is too vague, and "search term" is not always the case when accessing a dab page. Maybe Subjects referred to by the same term. — Goszei (talk) 22:07, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Articles referenced by the same term? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 10:11, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I suggest Article index page - which is short, avoids the uncommon term "disambiguation" and is reasonably accurate (see index (publishing)). MB 01:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

It's short and sweet but I feel it might be slightly misleading since there are definitely other types of pages on Wikipedia which could also class as an index page e.g. portals, categories, lists. Thus, I slightly prefer Articles referred to by the same term //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 04:56, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how it is misleading - the SD is a description of the page on which it appears on and nothing else. MB 05:08, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

"Index" implies to me that there is more organization/connectivity between the articles listed than there really is. We have a whole class of articles on Wikipedia that are exactly that: topic-related indices (see Category:Wikipedia indexes) — Goszei (talk) 05:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Note: we also have WP:SETINDEX pages. — Goszei (talk) 01:05, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Is there Should there be a distinction between pages with (disambiguation) suffix (e.g. Venus (disambiguation) and those without (e.g. Mercury)? It's blatantly obvious from the title that the former is a disambiguation page (even to someone with no clue as to what "disambiguation" means) so there's less need to repeat that information in the SD. Certes (talk) 22:45, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

There isn't any difference in the short description currently, but it could certainly be implemented. --Trialpears (talk) 22:58, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Poll

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

What should the short description be for disambiguation pages? --Trialpears (talk) 10:10, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I feel like it's poll time now. I've listed what I felt like are the most relevant choices, but I may have missed some feel free to add. Please explain your preferences a bit and don't just comment which one is your favorite otherwise I don't feel like we will reach a consensus. --Trialpears (talk) 17:48, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Option A (status quo) "Disambiguation page providing links to topics that could be referred to by the same search term"
• Option B "Disambiguation page" (19 characters)
• Option C "Articles referred to by the same term" (37 characters)
• Option D "Subjects referred to by the same term" (37 characters)
• Option E "Articles referenced by the same term" (36 characters)
• Option F "Article index page" (18 characters)
• Option G "Topics referred to by the same term" (35 characters)

• My preference is one of C, D or E or G. I slightly prefer Articles over subjects since it's very clear what the content is but both are fine. I feel like there are more ways to misunderstand referenced by than referred to, but again that preference is very slight. Option B has quite some appeal because it's the terminology we already use but I agree with the concerns about it not being known by the general public. F is fine but as we have dedicated index pages not great. Option A is way too long and my last choice due to description truncation. --Trialpears (talk) 17:48, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  G is on par with C. I don't think any reader cares about the article/section distinction though. --Trialpears (talk) 10:12, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

• E or C. A is waaaay toooo loooong. B is jargon. Not D, as this is for articles. Not F, the page is not an index (it is nearer to a list) — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 18:42, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  C upon further pondering. Not G, as a dab page should link to actual articles — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 16:07, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  It's a little more subtle: many dab entries link to subtopics of articles, e.g. 11 lists song The Eleven which redirects to its album. Certes (talk) 16:19, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• C (or G — Goszei (talk) 03:28, 4 April 2021 (UTC)) is my pick. D is okay, but "subjects" is slightly less-clear than "articles". E is also okay, but "referenced by" is also somewhat less-clear. Not A, B, or F for the reasons stated by Trialpears. — Goszei (talk) 18:46, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
• C, with an additional feature: if the page name does not include "(Disambiguation)", add "Disambiguation page:" to the beginning of the short description. A is right out, B by itself is unhelpful, D and F are inaccurate, E would be OK-ish but not as clear as C.--NapoliRoma (talk) 19:09, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• (added) G feels a bit obtuse: what's a topic? What's a term? Does this make sense to the casual WP reader?

How about: "List of articles with this name" if the page is named "Foo (disambiguation)" or "Disambiguation page for articles with this name" if the page is just named "Foo"? That'd be 32 or 47 characters.--NapoliRoma (talk) 15:38, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

• "F" first because that is exactly what it is, B second MB 19:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  Ironic, since that's exactly what it isn't. This is an index. -- Fyrael (talk) 14:22, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

That is a Wikipedia internal technical difference that would be meaningless to the average reader. A plumber can recognize a supply pipe and a drain pipe immediately, but to the average homeowner they are all just pipes. If you can imagine a WP index of every article, every dab page is a tiny subset of that index. The primary audience of the SD is the general reader! MB 14:37, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• D as the scope of disambiguation pages is not limited to standalone articles. older ≠ wiser 21:03, 3 April 2021 (UTC) Updated, G is also OK, although D remains first choice. FWIW, I'm perfectly fine with A. B and F are so brief as to be useless. Either C or E would be tolerable as a distant third. older ≠ wiser 16:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

  Bkonrad, If you're refering to something like WP:CU that can be solved with automatic namespace detection. --Trialpears (talk) 21:15, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  Trialpears No, that is not at all what I meant. WP:disambiguation is about when a potential article title is ambiguous, most often because it refers to more than one subject covered by Wikipedia. Many entries on disambiguation pages are for subjects that do not have standalone articles. older ≠ wiser 21:52, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  I considered this as well, but I concluded that the scope of non-article DAB entries in mainspace was small enough that its not worth using the more-ambiguous "subjects". — Goszei (talk) 21:16, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  Dab entries linking to subjects occupying only part of an article are common, e.g. Set lists Strategic Energy Technologies → Energy policy of the European Union#SET Plan and several other subtopics. Certes (talk) 21:24, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  Hmm, that's a good point that I didn't consider. "Subjects" still doesn't seem quite right; what about "Topics referred to by the same term", which hasn't been brought up before. Hope it's not too late in this poll, but I support that on par with C. — Goszei (talk) 21:37, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  "Topics" sounds good, as in "primary topic" (though, of course, topics relegated to a dab aren't primary). Certes (talk) 22:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  A short description doesn't have to nail down every possible nuance; it's sufficient for it to be close enough (brevity over comprehensiveness). Consider there to be an implicit "or something like that" at the end :-). The essence of a dab page is "article switchboard"—if some of the "articles" aren't exactly articles, I think that's OK for this purpose.--NapoliRoma (talk) 16:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

→ Pinging User:Trialpears, User:GhostInTheMachine, User:NapoliRoma, User:MB, User:Bkonrad. I have added a new option "G". Please review, and discuss/edit your comment if it changes your opinion so we can find consensus. — Goszei (talk) 03:28, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

• A or G. A = G + the information that this is a dab, which is redundant for Venus (disambiguation) but useful for Mercury. 95 characters is a bit long, but the 40-character truncation "Disambiguation page providing links to t..." isn't a disaster, at least for regulars who know what disambiguation means. Certes (talk) 10:46, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
• I feel there's very little to choose between C, D, E and G, and I would support any of them, with a slight preference for G. Definitely not F, as a dab page is not an index. Not B, due to jargon that won't be understood by most readers, contrary to WP:JARGON. And most definitely not A, as it is far, far too long. MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:36, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• Option B - short descriptions are supposed to be disambiguation - and the disambiguation we use on disambiguation pages is "(disambiguation)", so calling it a disambiguation page here is consistent. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• IIRC "Disambiguation page providing links to articles with similar titles" was the consensus version but was changed to the status quo by JHunterJ. Galobtter (pingó mió) 20:37, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
  • If you're implying I edited it contrary to consensus, then no, you don't remember correctly. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:59, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
• Use the same as Wikidata. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  Mike Peel I believe that would be "Wikimedia disambiguation page" in most cases. Wikimedia isn't a great thing to have in a short description as it contains no information (people know what website they are on) and has potential to cause confusion by people who aren't aware of Wikimedia and only recognize Wikipedia. I see no reason to require it to be the same, especially since it never has been before. --Trialpears (talk) 11:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  That sounds about right. It's better if we keep in sync with Wikidata wherever possible, which is why that is my preference. You could always suggest a change on Wikidata as well. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:39, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  We have literally millions of descriptions that differ from Wikidata. There is a reason why our descriptions are not connected to Wikidata and that is that our projects have differing priorities and purposes for our descriptions. I don't feel like "Wikimedia disambiguation page" would serve our readers and thus feel that is a bad description. --Trialpears (talk) 12:47, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, I know, that's a problem caused by the forking off from using Wikidata. I hope it can be resolved, but it's now become a big task... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:59, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

  @Mike Peel, the reason we forked from Wikidata is that the information over there is far more susceptible to vandalism that goes unnoticed for far too long. — HTGS (talk) 00:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  @HTGS: I'm not sure whether to laugh at that because the solution is more eyes on the data to catch vandalism quicker, not less, or because I've been finding long-term vandalism here with similar things, or because that means you're fine with such vandalism appearing e.g., on Commons, or for some other reason. But anyway, lol. Mike Peel (talk) 07:59, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  Look dude, I don’t disagree; there are lots of things that need to be improved. But I don’t personally have the power to put enough more eyes on Wikidata to fix this in the short or long term. I put my time into Wikipedia, and I don’t have more time to put into projects that I don’t really care about half as much.

  You aren’t proposing real solutions, you’re just suggesting blue sky wishes, and then implying I or other people don’t care about vandalism on other projects. There’s problems on a lot of open sourced projects, but I don’t blame you for not fixing them. If you want us—those of us working to improve Wikipedia—to rely on Wikidata, then maybe you need to make it better. Otherwise we will continue to solve the problems as they present on the project we spend our time on. — HTGS (talk) 09:52, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  @HTGS: I *do* try to improve things. I have bot tasks operating between Wikipedia and Wikidata, including copying new short descriptions from here to Wikidata where Wikidata doesn't have one. I have 3 million infoboxes displaying descriptions from Wikidata on Commons (and also some infoboxes here display them - could easily be more but this stopped with the forking). I helped write User:ShortDescBot here. If there are more practical things I can do, then please let me know, but things like 'vandalism' are laughable excuses when enwp is as guilty as wikidata for that. Mike Peel (talk) 10:05, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• G. I don't think most readers know, or care, what "disambiguation" means. If the article is already Foo (disambiguation), the short description doesn't need to repeat that, unless we just like saying the word "disambiguation" a lot (it's a fun word to say: disambiguation disambiguation disambiguation). Frankly, I think that F might be more helpful to readers, but there ought to be some consideration of this contradicting our own policies on what index pages are. G works well as far as I'm concerned (since some links from disambiguation pages may be section redirects). Failing that, C would also be better than the status quo. jp×g 20:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

• I know we're well into this straw poll now, but I think something from a different tack would work better:

"This term refers to multiple topics" (or subjects, or articles).

It's more natural, and the self-referential phrasing differentiates it from regular short descriptions. This will also help it work well in contexts outside of Wikipedia (this is becoming increasingly common) where the other descriptions could be confusing. For instance, "Topics referred to …" with a plural, or plural sounding DAB title would sound like it's referring to a sole subject (consider Abbas, or Cabanes).

Failing this, I'm ok with G, or its equivalents (D, C, E). — HTGS (talk) 00:55, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Attempted summary

A comment from an uninvolved editor (attracted here by this template edit request) with some experience in the world of short description politics: After reading the above, it appears that G would win if this were some sort of preference voting or instant runoff voting system, followed closely by C. There is clear consensus to reject the far-too-long status quo (option A).

I am persuaded by the argument that "topics" (from G) is preferable to "articles" (from C), since not everything linked from a dab page is an "article", a word that has a specific meaning on Wikipedia. I know this isn't an RFC, but if participants here are willing, I'm happy to hat this discussion and change the template text to option G. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:59, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Go ahead and make the change if you so judge – there actually was an RfC tag here for a month, but it has expired! — Goszei (talk) 06:15, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes please! I think there's a clear consensus that G is preferable to the status quo and it should be replaced. I could have sworn it was listed at WP:CR as well but apparently that was only the other messy short description discussion from the same time. Trialpears (talk) 06:27, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Make it so — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 07:44, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, please do. MichaelMaggs (talk) 07:50, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.