Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Disambiguation and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

WikiProject Disambiguation was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 5 December 2011.

For discussion related to disambiguation on Wikipedia but not to the project, please see Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation (for general disambiguation) or the Manual of Style (for specific style questions).

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50
51, 52, 53, 54

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Child protection (disambiguation)

This seems to me to be a particularly bad example of something not being an actual disambiguation page, but I am at a loss for a solution. BD2412 T 22:06, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's functioning as an index to articles relevant to the topic of child protection that in most cases someone using the search term "child protection" might be looking for (putting aside for now any quibbles about specific inclusions/exclusions). That's definitely a valuable page to have even if it doesn't strictly fit the arbitrary rules about what can be called a "disambiguation page". Unless anyone can explain what actual (not theoretical) harm it's doing then leaving it as is seems like the best solution. Thryduulf (talk) 00:31, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it is functioning as an index, and should therefore be at a title like Index of articles on governmental child protection efforts, or the like. These are not ambiguous topics sharing a name. BD2412 T 02:18, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That title wouldn't be navigationally helpful. Web-julio (talk) 01:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For navigability, we could just merge this list of national child protection agencies into Child protection, then. BD2412 T 13:13, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Wild Wing (disambiguation)#Requested move 26 September 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Wild Wing (disambiguation)#Requested move 26 September 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 15:27, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Public Service Announcement (disambiguation)#Requested move 27 September 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Public Service Announcement (disambiguation)#Requested move 27 September 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 18:32, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:LGBT history in Georgia#Proposed merge of LGBT rights in Georgia into LGBT history in Georgia

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:LGBT history in Georgia#Proposed merge of LGBT rights in Georgia into LGBT history in Georgia that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. --MikutoH ^talk! 01:54, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All caps

Regi vs REGI. Is having two separate dabs be justified in this case? Web-julio (talk) 19:33, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given there are just 7 entries and three see also (excluding those to each other) between the two pages, I would be in favour of merging. Probably to Regi as that's the longer of the two. Thryduulf (talk) 21:59, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does this need a merging discussion in the talk pages? Web-julio (talk) 00:04, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you think it will be controversial, yes start a formal merge discussion. If you think it will be uncontroversial, no - just be bold and do it. A middle ground would be to just leave pointers on the talk page to this discussion and wait a few days to see what the response (if any) is. Personally, I'd wait until circa 24 hours after you asked the question here and then just do if there have been no objections as I'd be surprised if it was controversial at all. Thryduulf (talk) 01:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I personally thought there was a policy on such cases. Because I don't know a another similar case alike. Web-julio (talk) 01:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We have WP:DABCOMBINE which is a guideline that deals with capitalisation differences in the first bullet. It's worded more strongly than I remembered, but it basically says to combine topics that differ only in capitalisation unless the combined page would be "unreasonably long", giving Oe as an example of a combined dab page (that covers Oe, OE and various ligatures and variants with diacritics). "Unreasonably long" isn't defined, but a combined REGI/Regi dab will definitely not be. Thryduulf (talk) 01:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would think of it this way - how likely is it that the average reader distinguishes these two, can we see a separate pattern of traffic for each group?

If we merge, will this improve navigation for both groups or make it worse?

With 2+5=7 items total, it probably doesn't matter, but if a list grows, it becomes a concern. We recently mentioned something like this at WT:D#Capitalization of a disambiguation page title with both all-caps and lowercase senses where there were examples with 28 and 46 items. --Joy (talk) 07:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:EP#Requested move 22 October 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:EP#Requested move 22 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RachelTensions (talk) 13:40, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Train simulator (disambiguation)#Requested move 14 October 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Train simulator (disambiguation)#Requested move 14 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Raladic (talk) 03:20, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Primary topic?

I've just created NLMA as a DAB because it was redirecting to a rather obscure organisation, and its main use is clearly the National Live Music Awards. Just wondering if the latter should be a primary topic in this case, being an initialism? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 00:37, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

page views don't support that. If anything, views indicate the 'obscure' organization might just be the primary topic. older ≠ wiser 00:50, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But that's because NMLA was redirecting to that page. The Australian music awards are nearly always referred to as the NLMAs, so many people would be searching on that term. (And if you search on the abbreviation or full name, you will see how many mentions there are on Wikipedia.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 06:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but the total views for the awards are nowhere near that of the group. The initialism gets very little traffic. It is possible that the recent move has somehow totally screwed the results. We can see in another month or two if there is any change. older ≠ wiser 10:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that's weird. Google doesn't turn up much about that organisation, and their website seems rather out of date. Okay, thanks. I'll make a note to check out the stats again in a few weeks' time. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 11:30, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Previously NLMA led to National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz, and if the Australian awards were "clearly" the main use I'd expect to find a lot of readers navigating onwards from there to the National Live Music Awards. But the Wikinav data for September don't support this: there's no sign of any readers leaving the Movement page to go to the Awards. Nor to the Medical Association. It looks to me as if the Movement is probably the primary topic, so the redirect should continue to go there and the dab page be amended accordingly. Or just leave the dab page as is.

Just for interest, Googling "NLMA" from here in the UK I get hits for the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association coming top, with a few other organisations, he Aussie awards are on the third page, and I haven't yet found the Movement by the end of the 5th page.

Probably best leave the dab page as it now is. PamD 13:42, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Based solely on my google results for "NLMA" -Wikipedia (I'm also in the UK), the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association would be the clear primary topic. Down to page 8 I've not seen any results for the other two topics that were listed on the dab. I did see a couple of results for the Taiwanese National Land Management Agency that I've added to the dab page though.

I repeated the same search on Duck Duck Go on tor (the exit node geolocated to the Netherlands) and got similar results - the only one of the topics on the first four pages (longer than Google's pages) was the medical association, although the Northeast Late Model Alliance (about which we have only a single passing mention at Mike Goudie; I haven't investigated its notability) also got lots of results. Thryduulf (talk) 22:00, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting - thanks, PamD and Thryduulf. I wouldn't expect the Australian awards to pop up in UK searches really - such a small population here that the hits would be relatively small on Google. I'm not sure exactly how that wikinav tool works, but if I searched for NMLA in the search box on the app and it showed the liberation movement, as it does for redirects, I wouldn't go there, but would try another search on the long name. Anyhow, if everyone is happy to leave as is for a month or so, I will return to it and have another look. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Population isn't the only factor (Australia: 27.5 million, Newfoundland and Labrador: 510,000) and Australia does come up in search results in the UK for other matters, e.g. the primary topic for "APRA" in my UK-based google searches is Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. Thryduulf (talk) 03:43, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

DOJ

The US DOJ should be primary for both DOJ and DoJ. Thoughts? Music Air BB (talk) 20:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just googling DOJ -Wikipedia did bring up the US department first, but more entries on the first page related to the Northern Ireland department, the second page also brought entries for the Indian and South African departments and page 3 introduced the California, Ontario and Western Australian departments so I'm not seeing evidence of a primary topic. Thryduulf (talk) 21:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Over 85% of traffic to DOJ goes on to the US DOJ. older ≠ wiser 22:01, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

DoJ gets almost no hits,[1], but should probably point to the same place as DOJ for consistency and to enable deletion of the unnecessary hatnote on ministry of justice. - Station1 (talk) 04:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

individual ambiguity-related RMs vs. big picture

Compare and contrast :)

Talk:Fallout (disambiguation)#Requested move 1 June 2024
- a notorious science topic is voted primary topic redirect target for a simpler word, despite popular entertainment topics (+ huge spike of interest with the latter) and different general English meanings
Talk:Deadlock (computer science)#Requested move 13 August 2024 + Talk:Deadlock#post-move
- a science topic of some significance is voted to be removed as primary topic because of different general English meanings (+ huge spike of interest in entertainment topics not discussed at the time of RM)
Talk:Suga#Requested move 21 October 2024
- a popular entertainment topic is voted primary topic for a simple word, despite a history of significant non-entertainment topics and a different general English meaning

Our processes don't seem to result in a general consistency, despite that being one of the article title criteria. --Joy (talk) 09:18, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The article title consistency criterium applies to pattern of similar article's with specific reference to topic-specific naming conventions on article titles. Seeking any sort of more general consistency on Wikipedia is a fool's errand. older ≠ wiser 10:13, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That last part may well be true, but at least we have to try, because we are still maintaining a single global article namespace and readers are going to notice if it's messy. --Joy (talk) 11:59, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

e and readers are going to notice if it's messy -- ROFL. older ≠ wiser 14:39, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I gather you think this is all inconsequential to readers? So, in turn, the editors who engage in these sorts of discussions do not represent the readers? Do you see where I'm going with this? :) --Joy (talk) 20:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are other things far more impactful for readers that have even less consistency. Talk away, but be realistic about coming to any sort of definitive conclusion. All of the examples you mention are of different types and making any sort of comparison between them will be very difficult to establish any sort of consensus around. older ≠ wiser 21:50, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further consideration?

I'd forgotten about this until someone closed my proposal to merge. I think it merits some discussion at least, if someone here wants to have a look. Waterhole and Watering hole (disambiguation), and the watering hole description as "or waterhole is a geological depression...". It all looks a bit messy to me and I thought that perhaps one DAB would cover both. And there's the matter of the two links, to Depression (geology) and Ephemerality on the Waterhole page. Can anyone suggest a more elegant and useful solution? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:40, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]