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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7

Rewording?

I suggest rewording the second sentence in this template and all its relatives. I sort of understand why the word "may" is there—users have the option to change it or not—but wish? There's a very obvious and often implied ending to this sentence: "If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article...but you can just keep wishing, because we're not letting you!"

Simply removing the word "wish" would do wonders: "If an internal link led you here, you may to change the link to point directly to the intended article." This implies that the reader has permission to change the link, whereas the current version implies that the reader has permission to wish that they could change it!

Whether "may" or "can" should actually be used is debatable. May implies the reader has been granted permission, and can implies that they have the ability. All readers both can (unless they are banned or blocked and don't know other methods around it) and may (this includes blocked users, as it is not a retaliatory measure) edit disambiguation pages regardless of their registration status. If I'm wrong about that—perhaps protected or semi-protected dabs exist—just let me know. It doesn't negate my original request.

So, to emphasise this one more time, I'm proposing the following change:

"If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article." →
"If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article." →
"If an internal link led you here, you may change the link to point directly to the intended article."

Please discuss! Oh, and note that this is 100% compatible with the above-mentioned change. —Skittleys (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

"You may change" sounds like a grant of permission. I dislike "you may wish to" but it may be the best wording available. However, here are some other possibilities to consider or spark ideas:
  • You can change the link...
  • To help, you may change the link...
  • ?
Also keep in mind that the wording should preserve the possibility that changing the link may not be warranted, and that the message is supposed to be as brief as possible. —Centrx→talk • 20:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree it could be improved. Another thing it lacks is the explicit statement that something probably needs fixing. How about:
  • If an internal link led you here, that link may need improving. You can help by checking it, and, if appropriate, pointing it directly to the intended article.
PL290 (talk) 17:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
How about this -- shorter than the current text, and more direct and accurate: This disambiguation page lists articles with similar titles. If a Wiki page linked here, consider changing the link to point directly to the appropriate article. Dovid (talk) 06:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Or even: This page lists articles with similar titles. If a Wikipedia page linked here, consider changing it to point directly to the appropriate article. PL290 (talk) 08:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I actually think “...you may wish to change...” is completely fine. I personally think its totally fine and should be left alone. Just putting in my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.21.180 (talk) 00:29, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Improve wording and organization

Recently edited the Template:Disambig/doc and was wondering if the formatting of the sections and the wording from that page could be copied and/or edited and added to this main template, which definitely needs some improvement. Funandtrvl (talk) 16:20, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Please update

{{editprotected}}

Please replace the text of this template with that of {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}}, as discussed at WT:MOSDAB#Update disambig template?. The only effect of the change will be to enable the inclusion of parameters to place the dab page into additional categories (as defined at {{dabcat}}). At the same time, please protect the subtemplate {{dabcat}}.--Kotniski (talk) 13:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

☒N Not done for now. This needs further discussion, and some technical fixes.
I have the following concerns:
1: Your {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} template doesn't use the {{main other}} code which means that your code causes any page that only shows/demonstrates these templates to be categorised as disambig pages. Such as talk pages, WikiProject pages and Wikipedia:Template messages/General. The {{main other}} code makes it so only article pages get categorised.
2: Your code uses the {{dabcat}} template that currently is not protected. It first needs to be protected, otherwise these widely used high-risk disambig templates can be easily vandalised.
3: Your code uses the {{dabcat}} template which currently is undocumented. Thus making it unclear what functionality these disambig templates get.
4: Are you aware of that there is also a wiki-technical difference between disambig and set index templates? When a disambig template is placed on a page and you then edit that page the javascript here at the English Wikipedia places an editnotice on top of your edit preview telling you it is a disambig page and some instructions how to edit such pages. When you only place a set index template on a page that editnotice is not shown. It seems to me from your discussions over at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and your code at {{dabcat}} that you want to use these disambig templates also as set index templates. Which will cause that editnotice to be shown on set index pages. (Although it is not clear to me how you intend to use all this.)
5: I am not sure that your way of adding extra categories is the best way. It would probably be better to have an extra parameter where one can feed any category name. Although I would have to think more about different usage cases and you should explain how you intend to use it before I/we can know what is the best aproach.
Sorry to be negativistic. And sorry that I probably won't have time to discuss this with you and investigate it, since I am really on a wikivacation. (Busy in real life.) You'll have to ask some of the other editors who understands the technical things around disambig and set index templates for help. And sorry that I right now don't remember who those editors are, you'll have to look around in the page histories and the talk page discussions.
--David Göthberg (talk) 23:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
1: Fixed.
2: Fixed in the amended request.
3: Have made basic documentation. Will update it (and the disambig documentation) when the change gets done.
4: No, set index pages will not carry these templates. Disambig will continue to be used on exactly the same pages it is used on now; the extra parameters will simply cause those pages to be placed in extra categories.
5: This is explained in the discussion (I think). Of course, if someone wants to add another category that isn't handled by the template, or prefers not to use the template, there's nothing to stop them. The updated template simply makes it easier to add some of the more common specific dab categories, that's all. It doesn't really change anything except to make adding categories a bit easier and more intuitive for dab page editors.
I hope I've answered all your concerns, so I'm renewing the request.
--Kotniski (talk) 10:44, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
6: Okay, I have now spent some time working with your code and adding my own improvements. I hope you like those additions. Among other things I added an error reporting feature that we have used to good effect on among others the mbox templates. I explain a little about that in the doc of {{dabcat}}. The category that the error reporting uses should then have an explanation similar to the one we use in Category:Wikipedia message box parameter needs fixing. I will add that explanation later.
5: I think I am starting to like your approach. But I still have two concerns. First one is that this needs to be properly documented. And for the second concern see the next paragraph. But as you said, you can add the documentation later. But of course, the lack of documentation was one of the reasons your approach was unclear to me, and I expect others to react the same. And thus I could not fulfil your editprotected request.
4: The reason I asked if you know the difference between disambig pages and set index templates is that one of the categories that you have in the {{dabcat}} is for pages that usually instead are set index pages, that is "mountains". Since {{mountainindex}} is a set index box and the pages I have seen it used on are clearly set index pages. Although I have seen mountain disambig pages too. So perhaps we need both for mountains? If so then we should make that clear in the documentation where we will list the "mountains" parameter, that is we should point out that there is also the set index template {{mountainindex}} which has a slightly different meaning.
7: Since we have now added so much code we need to do some testing of the {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} template before we deploy that code in the {{disambig}} template, since that one is used on more than 100,000 pages. And I recommend you complete the documentation over at {{dabcat}} before we deploy. This will also give others some time to take a look and react. Perhaps also announce this planned extension at some of the related pages. So I think we should wait a day or two (well, this weekend since I will be away most of it), before we deploy it.
--David Göthberg (talk) 23:50, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
OK< thanks for your work. I'll try and update the documentation and do some testing over the weekend.--Kotniski (talk) 09:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Please update (2)

{{editprotected}}

Please replace the text of this template with that of {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}}, as discussed above. The documentation is now in place, and I have tested the template at Test page1 (the page will have been deleted, since I had to test it in main space, but I assume admins can access the deleted history). At the same time, please fully protect the subtemplate {{dabcat}}.--Kotniski (talk) 13:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey, wait a little. I have not tested the error reporting feature I added to {{dabcat}} yet. (I know that method works, I just have to test this specific code version of it.) And if there already are pages that feed some invalid parameter to {{disambig}} then those pages will get that error category and people will come there wondering what is going on. So I first have to create that category and add the explanations there, or we will be flooded with questions from editors who wonder what is going on. (I know from experience...) I'll deploy your {{DAB}} {{disambig/sandbox}} code to {{disambig}} when I have fixed that.
--David Göthberg (talk) 02:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
checkY Done - Phew, that was a lot of work:
  • I have moved your {{DAB}} test template to {{disambig/sandbox}}, to avoid confusion with {{dab}}. I fixed all pages that linked to {{DAB}}, and then deleted {{DAB}} which at that time was only a redirect to {{disambig/sandbox}}. Using /sandbox and /testcases pages are the standard way to test and develop templates. For instance the green /doc boxes automatically link to such pages if they exist.
  • I did some more fixes to {{disambig/sandbox}} and {{dabcat}}, mostly related to the error reporting and to be able to test the categorisation better.
  • I created Template:Disambig/testcases and tested everything over there. The error reporting and categorisation works fine.
  • I created the Category:Wikipedia disambiguation box parameter needs fixing and added the necessary explanations there.
  • I protected {{dabcat}}.
  • I deployed it all to {{disambig}} and {{disambig-cleanup}}. So they are still parameter compatible, making it simple for editors to change between the two.
  • I updated the documentations of {{disambig}} and {{disambig-cleanup}} accordingly.
So, almost finished. I hope I didn't miss anything...
Next thing is to wait about a week to see if any pages turn up in the error reporting category and fix those cases. Pages only get reported when they are rerendered, and pages are only rerendered when someone visits them. Thus it takes time before most cases are reported. Then after about a week I will make it so that the template also prints a visible error message. I usually wait with adding the visible error message, to see what kind of errors are out there so I can add a better explanation at the error category page. And so we can fix the worst cases (usually cases caused by another template). Experience has taught me that saves us a lot of questions from worried users.
--David Göthberg (talk) 06:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Great, thanks for taking the time to do all that:) I'll leave notes about the new functionality at WP:MOSDAB and the other dab guidelines.--Kotniski (talk) 08:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, it can be a good thing to "advertise" new functionality. If nothing else to get some feedback from people.
So far two pages have been reported to the error category. People were feeding the page name as parameter. At for instance The Hanged Man as {{disambig|Hanged Man, The}}. I guess they thought the parameter sets a disambig category sort order. I fixed the two cases by simply removing the parameter.
And I noticed you added "plant: for Category:Plant common names" to the /doc. Although not strictly a disambig category it is used on disambig pages so seems to be useful here. So I added the code for that to {{dabcat}}.
--David Göthberg (talk) 08:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. There was some dispute over including the plants category - I was meaning to bring it up with the user who objected. Anyway, I guess it can stay for now.--Kotniski (talk) 09:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
I noticed that dispute in the edit comments. But {{disambig-plants}} uses that category and I took a quick look at that and it seems okay. So I think we have to supply the category through your parameter system or it would be inconsistent.
--David Göthberg (talk) 12:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Today I found a handful of {{disambig}} cases in the error reporting category. Most of them again where cases where people were feeding the page names like this {{disambig|Big One, The}}. But there were also one case of {{disambig|cleanup}} which I of course fixed to be {{disambig-cleanup}}.
--David Göthberg (talk) 04:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Shared error reporting with ((SIA))

I have renamed the error reporting category to Category:Wikipedia disambig or set index box parameter needs fixing, since I will apply similar error reporting for the generic set index article template {{SIA}}. My experience is that it is best to share an error reporting category between all similar templates. Since that keeps the number of error reporting categories low, thus making it much easier when I/we every now and then take a look if any of the error categories have reports.

{{SIA}} also has a feature to categorise, but it works slightly different from the system Kotniski applied to {{disambig}} (see previous two sections). It seems there are currently only 7 set index article categories, and only one is used at a time in {{SIA}}. But I will first deploy a hardcoded error reporting in {{SIA}} to find out if there are more categories than the 7 I am aware of. Then we should perhaps change {{SIA}} to use a more strict system like the one Kotniski made for {{disambig}}. Or I'll just make it error report if people feed a parameter to it that points to a non-existing category. Both systems has their pros and cons so I'll think about it for a while. We anyway have to wait a week for {{SIA}} to report which categories are used with it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. In principle, I suppose, we would only expect a set-index article to be in one category, since by definition it lists only items of a specific type. So I wouldn't see a need to support more than one parameter at a time (though maybe there are some exceptional cases).--Kotniski (talk) 12:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. And since we don't have a {{SIA-cleanup}} or similar there are only one SIA template that needs that code. Thus I think we don't need to use a sub template for that. Instead I will put that code directly into {{SIA}}. And by the way: I'll make the error category a hidden category while I do the first run of error reporting from SIA, since there might be more valid categories used with SIA than we currently know about. So that people don't think something is wrong when it perhaps isn't. I have found 11 such categories so far, and I have marked those that missed it with Category:Set indices. (One is already a subcategory of Category:Set indices on Russia so not visible directly in Category:Set indices.)
--David Göthberg (talk) 13:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Just noting that I added full error reporting to {{SIA}} on 11 February. And I have not seen any {{SIA}} reports in the error report category yet.
--David Göthberg (talk) 04:37, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Yet another branch

I just came across Category:Tropical cyclone disambiguation, which had been removed from the disambiguation hierarchy back in May 2008. Many of these look like straight forward disambiguation pages, although I suppose a claim could be made for being set indexes. In any case, the instructions at the categories are to use {{disambig}} with the category. Seems this could perhaps be accommodated with a few new parameters here. Note: Apparently this usage replaces the deprecated {{hurricane disambig}}, which perhaps should be deleted. older ≠ wiser 14:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

1: I see no reason why {{hurricane disambig}} should be deprecated. I have brought that up for discussion over at Template talk:Hurricane disambig#Reasons for removal of this template.
2: Bkonrad: I assume you mean we should add a "cyclone/hurricane/typhoon" parameter to {{disambig}}, so that we can use for instance {{disambig|cyclone|airport|road}} when a disambig page lists several other things under the same name. And the parameter "cyclone" should make {{disambig}} categorise the page into Category:Tropical cyclone disambiguation. Right? And yes, I think it is probably a good thing to add that parameter.
--David Göthberg (talk) 09:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Re 2, yes. Although on looking at several more of the pages, there is a lot of inconsistency -- many pages include a lot of information and extra links that would not be appropriate on a typical dab page. These (at least the better examples) look more like a set index similar to ships or mountains. If that is the case, then I'd suggest some renaming may be in order, such as {{hurricane disambig}} to something like {{hurricane index}} and Category:Tropical cyclone disambiguation (and subcategories) to something like Category:Set indices on tropical cyclones. older ≠ wiser 12:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Discussion continues at Template talk:Hurricane disambig.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 04:24, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:All disambiguation pages

There is now a discussion about how this template and other disambig, set index and name boxes should categorise pages. See the discussion over at Template talk:Dmbox#Category:All disambiguation pages.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:11, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki

Would you add this interwiki, please [[arz:قالب:توضيح]]. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 21:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Please add it to the documentation page. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
checkY Done - Only some Wikipedias use the /doc system, so editors from other Wikipedias often don't understand that they should add the interwikis to the unprotected /doc pages. So I added that Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia interwiki for Mahmudmasri.
--David Göthberg (talk) 16:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Player Manager

Please, somebody in the know, stop by there, and fix that. My intention is obvious. It takes me half an hour to read all that shyte in the help files. Thanks, Oalexander-En (talk) 07:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Could we add a brief line advising people to check MoS before editing, and in particular not to indiscriminately wikilink? Such as:

PL290 (talk) 17:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Such instruction already appears above the edit box when editing a page with the disambig tag. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
So it does. Most comprehensive too, once pointed out. I've never noticed it in that location. When starting an edit, the eye is drawn to the text about to be edited, so I think it may be being overlooked, rather than ignored per your edit summary. Thoughts on placing it at the foot of the page itself, as part of the disambig text already there? PL290 (talk) 18:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Variant template/parameter wording is confusing

Excerpted from the template doc:

Variant templates

For disambiguation pages requiring cleanup, use {{disambig-cleanup}}.

More specific, alternative templates exist, for disambiguation pages or set index articles whose entries are limited exclusively to items of a particular type.

[List of alternative templates for various classes]

Parameters
If a general dab page includes more than one item in any of the above classes, then {{disambig}} should still be used, but parameters can be added in order to place the page additionally into the above categories.

I spent quite awhile trying to figure out what this wording was trying to say. My confusion was: if I have a disambiguation page where all the entries belong to one of the listed classes, then obviously the page must include more than one item in that class. So am I supposed to use the variant template for that class, or the disambig template with the parameter for that class?

Finally, as I was getting ready to post this, I noticed that the Parameter instructions referred to a "general" dab page. I take it that's supposed to tell me that it's only talking about pages with multiple types of items, and not pages where all the entries are in a single class. But can't we make that a lot clearer instead of assuming that a) the user knows what a "general" dab page means and b) the user will see that one subtle word and recognize that it's the key to understanding which method you're supposed to be using?

Suggested rephrase of the Parameters section intro: "If a disambiguation page includes multiple items in one of the above classes in addition to other items not of that class, then..." Propaniac (talk) 15:08, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I believe that's the intended meaning, and it would be good to change the wording to make it clearer, as you suggest.--Kotniski (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree, the old wording was wrong. Propaniac's versions were good but didn't cover it completely. So I took a shot at it.
--David Göthberg (talk) 15:59, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Placement

Why is {{disambig}} placed at the bottom of a page? Shouldn't a reader be notified of a disambiguation page as a first priority, as in at the top of the page? Pyxzer (talk) 13:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The drawback would be the link to the page the reader was looking for would be moved farther down. What would be the benefit to the reader's navigation? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
The wording of the first line and the page content makes it obvious as to what the page is for. If it was placed at the top the appearance would suffer. It would make the page a little cluttered. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
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