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Bonds - 107 links, over 300 edits

I started on the project with the idea of producing quantity. I went down the DPL list and tried many of them. If a word was easy, I might knock it down in two hours. If it was hard I moved on to the next one. I eventually made 5000 edits for DPL.

Then I did [[Gothic]] and I discovered that [[Goth]] redirected to [[Goth subculture]]. I had to fix that. It wasn't actually hard, but it was a lot. Then I was poking around and got to bonds, a word I had skipped twice before because it was so broad. This time I dug into it. I spent three days searching WikiPedia for bond and bonds, and combining the [[bonds]], [[bonded]], [[bonding]], into [[bond]], producing a single dab page that is absolutely huge. I left [[bondage]] it's own page because it tends to be distinct, though bonded labor=debt bondage. Then I went back to dabbing links and I still couldn't fix some links. I eventually added adhesive and welding and solder, but when rubber is bonded to steel, what is that? If the rubber is melted without any added adhesives, is that welding?

I started out to list everyone named Bond or Bonds, but I realized there are hundreds. I didn't include a whole lot of stubs and short articles. Sometimes I checked whatlinkshere, and included the article if there were a bunch of links. I also tended to include people from prior centuries (figuring the older the less likely it's VANITY). Then I decided to include years of birth and death for dead people, because names of famous old people tend to collide with more recent people. I ended up with too many people, but I hat to delete anyone once added. Maybe we should have a separate page to list people named Bond and Bonds.

It's a huge dab page, and I struggled about some of the organizational elements. Anybody else is free to rederange it. — Randall Bart 05:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as the people go, can't you just link into List of people by name? --Smack (talk) 06:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't link to a page until I know it exists. B^) Why didn't sumbuddy tell me sooner? Now I have to merge these lists into that. Actually I'll direct people to List_of_people_by_name:_Bon#Bond and List_of_people_by_name:_Bon#Bonds. Whoever did that page is pretty meticulous about years, so I guess I'll need to dig up that data. — Randall Bart 19:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Before you do a lot of this, please read [1] in the section "Lk from Dabs into LoPbN?". I tried what you are talking about, then after reading that WP:MOSDAB archive, went back and created a Title (surname) page instead. Chris the speller 20:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Should collaborations be easy?

(Background: I made the collaboration project Text on January 14. It has not yet been finished but it is no longer the problem it was at the time. I am moving the comment on it here to stimulate discussion. Dekimasuよ! 09:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC))

Not a good collaboration. I've hit that one twice and done very few links. The dab page itself needs a rewrite. It needs places to pipe the link [[text]]. Right now, [[textbook]] is the only common one, and it may be under 10% already. [[Character (computing)]] is not a good target for character data. Of course, as always, half the links could just be removed without harm. — Randall Bart 01:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I have been having a run of bad luck here (problems with Plague and Production), so feel free to go ahead and choose the next collaboration topic.
Reflecting philosophically on this, I'm not sure why we've been having conversations over the past few months about collaborations being difficult. Difficult dabs seem to me like good candidates for multiple sets of eyes. If the page needs a rewrite, can't we rewrite it in collaboration with one another? The main criterion I have been using when choosing the collaboration is simply whether it requires specialized knowledge. Spring was good. Vedic religion or Islamic law... those would be killer collaborations. Text seems reasonable to me. I mean this as an open-ended question, not an objection to your comment. Dekimasuよ! 09:45, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
A good collaboration is something with a lot of work (hundreds of links and many choices to redirect), but where each choice is straight forward. [[Goth]] would have been a good choice for that, except that I was the one who switched [[Goth]] from [[Goth subculture]] to [[Gothic]], so I felt obliged to fix that myself.
Some dab pages require the editor to spend some time familiarizing himself with the choices. Sometimes there are some subtle choices to be made. Sometimes the editor needs to hunt down a few links to ad to the dab page to make dabbing possible. Those cases are not good for collaboration.
When you want to propose a word for collaboration, select five random links and fix them. If you haven't fixed all five in 15 minutes, it's not a good collaboration. — Randall Bart 01:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

February 6, 2007 dump

I have created Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links/2007-02-06 dump based upon the most recent available dump file. I haven't yet linked it to the main page (anyone can do that, by the way), because I'm still trying to get my mind around it. In November, there were about 335 dab pages with over 100 links; in February, there were over 2,000! This dump should keep us busy for a loooong time. --Russ (talk) 16:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... *trails off from all the pages* Thanks for updating it. -- Natalya 01:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
It looks like the dam has finally burst. I'm not sure what to say. Optimistically, if this becomes a big enough problem that it starts to bother the average editor, more participants will be drawn to the dab project. I'd like to know what's changed over the last few months. Dekimasuよ! 04:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
We're doomed! Obvious need for some better software support. If the ambiguous link came up red, the original editor would know to fix it. — Randall Bart 00:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Or would just be totally confused that a red link pointed to an article... Soo 17:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Maybe not doomed. I knew something didn't smell right, but until today I couldn't figure out what it was. Turns out my dump script overcounted the links. I've now corrected the list to a more reasonable and more accurate reflection of the database dump. My sincere apologies to anyone who panicked as a result of my error! (Note that even with the more accurate count, we still did have an increase in the size of the list from 335 in November to about 585 now.) --Russ (talk) 02:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Hopefully disambiguation pages don't cause too much panic. Good to hear that it is much less than originally thought, though! Thanks for fixing it. -- Natalya 03:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

WhatLinksHere.js

A few months ago, I started adding features to the dpl.js script. I eventually decided the script's focus was enhancing the What links here pages. Therefore the script User:Barticus88/dpl.js is now Class B in favor of User:Barticus88/WhatLinksHere.js. To use it put this in your Special:Mypage/monobook.js (or <skin>.js) file 

importScript('User:Barticus88/WhatLinksHere.js');

It adds a bunch of tabs to the tab bar. (If you're using <skin>.js, for "tab" read "whatever your skin does with the p-cactions portlet".) The rightmost tab loads up to 5000 links and then selects the redirects. That's right, a single click to get all the redirects for a page (unless there's more than 5000 links, like [[2007]] or [[Germany]] or something). Let me know what features enhancements you want. — Randall Bart 01:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation "ad" by User:Qxz

At my request, User:Qxz has created and added a DPL "ad" to his "ad" banner. It can be seen on my user talk, and an example of the banner's implementation can be seen at User:Misza13. I think it could provide a boost to the maintenance drive here; please use it if you see fit. Dekimasuよ! 13:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the specific image he's on about, so you don't have to wait for it to come round in the box – Qxz 16:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Posthumous collaboration

Rather than gripe about collaboration, I thought I would do something about it. In accordance with a policy directive from me, we now can have multiple collaborations, and this time I made sure there are places to disambiguate to. — Randall Bart 20:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Would someone mind looking at Obituary for me to make sure that I changed it to a wiktionary link properly? I think I did, but it was my first time!--Xnuala (talk) 21:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[[wiktionary:posthumous|]] will give you posthumous, a much "nicer-looking" link that is interwiki instead of external (the colon (:) can be used for all interwiki or inter-namespace links (e.g., User: meta:)). I have changed it in the obituary article, by the way. =) →EdGl 22:01, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! That is exactly what I was looking for!--Xnuala (talk) 22:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks like posthumous is complete!--Xnuala (talk) 19:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem with Media

I have encountered a bit of a problem whilst disambiguating Media. I have found that Template:Infobox Comedian contains "medium" as a category, and "medium" links to "media". As I am not at all versed in editing and maintaining templates, I wonder if someone could help me out with this? Right now, every page that uses this template links to the disambiguation page. Thanks!--Xnuala (talk) 01:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Ben fixed it for me, with some excellent template wizardry!--Xnuala (talk) 02:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Cases where a disambiguation page is the article

There are cases where a disambiguation page is the best solution. There are words that are so broad (and meant to be understood as broad) such as media, that they have become umbrella terms. If disambiguation pages only listed terms that were mutually exclusive, then the ideal of no links to disambiguation pages could be upheld. However, umbrella terms help people see the full scope of a term in ways that a dictionary may not. The wiktionary article for media isn't nearly as convenient as the disambiguation page in presenting the scope of the term, the context, the umbrella terms, and the links to articles. In this case the disambiguation page is the article, and should stay that way until someone else writes an article covering the full scope of that particular umbrella term. Oicumayberight 21:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree: no disambiguation page is an article {please see WP:WIAA), and we struggle every day against inexperienced editors who think that a disambiguation page is a nice place to put adspam, external links, trivia, fancruft, and even useful information that should be in actual articles. "Media" is not in itself an umbrella term (as an umbrella term, it does not cover Media, Pennsylvania, for example). What you need is an article such as Media (publishing term) and/or Media (printing term) so the full scope of the term can be presented. Feel free to create such articles, or start with a stub. Disambiguation pages are not for presenting, and they are not temporary parking places for information that is waiting for an article to be written, they are "paths leading to different topic pages". Chris the speller 23:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Media, defined as anything used to communicate, is an umbrella term for everything listed as a communication tool. Just because the mere label "Media", Pennsylvania does not fall under that umbrella, doesn't mean the umbrella doesn't exist. It's beside the point.
Also beside the point is the maintenance problems associated with disambiguation pages. Those same maintenance problems exist with every article.
If disambiguation pages are not allowed to serve as temporary articles for umbrella terms, the result will be articles under unnecessary levels of scrutiny. Observe the image development (visual arts) article. Here is a case were the article preceded the disambiguation. I spent a ridiculous amount of time defending that article. In hind site, had the disambiguation page preceded the article, there wouldn't have been so much scrutiny over the article. Good luck to whoever tries to write an article defining the scope of media. Oicumayberight 02:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
If an article is linking to a disambiguation page as an umbrella term, that is probably a link that doesn't need to be in the article. Delinking is usually best. Can there be a useful article about "anything used to communicate"? Even as a direct search term, it's not a topic of the correct scope for an encyclopedia article. That's why links to things like meaning or process, etc. usually end up delinked during DPL runs. Users who don't already understand the word "media" in its English language sense as an umbrella term are unlikely to be helped by an encyclopedia article that explains it. Dekimasuよ! 02:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that users who don't already understand the word "media" as an umbrella term are unlikely to be helped by an encyclopedia article that explains it. Here in the United States, the word media is so often overused and oversimplified to mean news media, a reasonable teenager is likely to misunderstand usage in other contexts. Having a link that points to the various other contexts in which the word is used can only help to clear the ambiguity. Otherwise, there would be no reason for a disambiguation page.
I agree that an article discussing the full scope and history of the word media would be better than a disambiguation page. It's unlikely that such an article will initiate or evolve without prior acceptance as a disambiguation page. Most users will not recognize the need for disambiguation until they see how many different ways the term is used. Disambiguation is a key early stage of important articles regarding ambiguous terms. It's a great way to confront the conflicts and build consensus over proper usage of terms. Disambiguation pages are the glue that holds wikipedia together. Oicumayberight 03:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I think your hypothetical teenager might be better served by a link to Wiktionary. That's the place where the meanings of words are explained. And I disagree with your statement about the reason for a dab page. The reason for a dab page, as I understand it, is so that if a user types a word or phrase in the search box that might be related to more than one article, he's directed to a dab page that helps him find what he's looking for. By contrast, a user who clicks on a blue word in an article is supposed to be directed to a Wikipedia article about the thing the word refers to, not an explanation of what the word might mean. Wikipedia articles are about things, like specific countries, people, baseball stadiums, etc. Wiktionary is where you go for word usages. If you think a user might need to have the meaning of a word explained to him, link to Wiktionary. --Steven J. Anderson 14:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Enhancements to Whatlinkshere

Users of this page will likely have noticed that some software enhancements seem to have been added within the past 24 hours, one of which allows the ability to filter Special:Whatlinkshere pages by namespace. Let's all thank the MediaWiki developers! Now, wouldn't it also be nice if the lists were numbered instead of bulleted? If you agree, vote for this bug on the MediaWiki Bugzilla system. --Russ (talk) 16:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes

Where can I find information on how to edit infoboxes? Sometimes the links are in them and are very hard to fix in the namespace. I had a particular issue with links to "vertical" in the cvg infobox. --Steven J. Anderson 19:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I figured it out. --Steven J. Anderson 02:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Personality

Oh boy, is this one ever tough! I'd appreciate some input here--I'm not sure that there is a better link for many instances than the disambig page itself! The dab page has a brief description of personality that seems sufficient for most purposes, and the other links point to very specific facets of personality psychology etc. I'm wondering if the approach should be to write a new, short and concise article on personality and move the existing page to Personality (disambiguation). Anyone have thoughts on this? Thanks, --Xnuala (talk) 21:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It's possible that the best thing to do with most of them is to delink them entirely or link them to the dictionary definition of personality. I did that with a lot of links under conquest. There's no wikipedia article on the general notion of conquest, which is really just a dictionary word, so I delinked. --Steven J. Anderson 19:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
WP:CONTEXT says that in general we should not create links to "Plain English words". "Personality" is just that. While it probably would be useful to link to "personality disorder", for example, it would probably not often help to link to "personality". Steven has it right. Chris the speller 04:46, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! This is very helpful to me! I think many of the ambiguous links can be delinked altogether in this case.--Xnuala (talk) 19:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

User Talk Pages

I have been working on the disambiguation page for "Gothic" and the majority of the links are to user talk pages. Is it bad form to correct a link in a user page or a user talk page when it is clear by the context that they mean for the link to be to an article, not the disamb page? There is same situation with discussion archives. What about those? Thanks Bissinger 19:06, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You should leave talk as is - talk doesn't matter, and it's definitely not a good idea to edit archives. When you use Special:Whatlinkshere, you should sort links so that only mainspace links show up. Nihiltres(t.c.s) 19:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Vertex

Sort of the same problem as above, but with a twist. A lot of the incoming links is to verex within the contents of mathematics. I thought about creating Vertex_(mathematics) and copying relevant content from the disamb page, but this page would simply be a dictionary entry and I am unsure about how much more there really is to say. Taemyr 11:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you have it right, Taemyr. I looked at Vertex (curve). That page looks more like a dicdef to me. Apex (geometry) is close to the same. I think the common use of the term is a dicdef, but I've seen Wikipedia articles that look just as dicdef as that to me. Funny thing about that dab page is, it doesn't show many possible alternative links like most of them do (Britain is an example). You might want to look at the history or discussion of the page to see if it's ever been anything but a dab page and why. Probably best to delink. --Steven J. Anderson 02:19, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it seems to have started out as a dicdef. Problem with delinking is that vertex is jargon, and so the meaning might not be readily apparent to casual readers. Taemyr 03:42, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Is there a mathematics related article that covers the importance of vertices that these instances can be linked to?--Xnuala (talk) 04:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
No, the relevant information is in the dab, as a dicdef. Taemyr 05:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
You might want to link it to Wiktionary, then. Here's how, in case you don't know (I see you're new): [[wikt:vertex|vertex]]. Looks like this on the page: vertex. If you're thinking of leaving the links to the dab page as they are because it gives a definition of the word, it's better to link to Wiktionary. That's where we send readers for dictionary definitions. --Steven J. Anderson 13:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC) Revised this comment a little for clarity. --Steven J. Anderson 09:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. Will do that. In preparation I have moved content from vertex to wictionary. Could someone head over to vertex to give a thumbs up or down on the hatchet job I have done on this article? Also, is the cleanup tag still appropriate? Taemyr 19:18, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The most obvious deficiency is the presence of too many links. Generally, one blue link per entry is what we're aiming for. For example, try
Nothing else is needed. A vertex is a cardinal point, and the reader can see that it involves optics.
Get rid of "is", "was", periods at the end of each entry. Note that "Vertex" gets italics, but not "(album)". Keep trying, you're getting there. Chris the speller 22:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikification and disambiguation

I was just disambiguating "Britain" and found that this page had recently been wikified and a link to "Britain" created. I left a note on the editor's talk page and the wikification project talk page. Could this be an important contributing factor to the fact that the dab pile just keeps growing the way it does? Should there be notations on the relevant WP project and MOS pages telling folks not to create links to dab pages? Just thought I'd ask. --Steven J. Anderson 04:09, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Statistics available?

Are there statistics available for the total number of links and articles? The WikiProject subpage Database dump analysis has some previous data, can anyone run a current dump analysis?

So far there is (for the Main namespace):

articles links links/article
2005-11-13 32,166 410,987 12.78
2005-12-13 34,126 425,120 12.46
2006-03-03 38,238 463,507 12.12
2007-05-27 101,552 808,238 7.96

I think the above data was obtained by Bo Lindbergh, but Russ may have the current dump. And speaking of Russ I would like to say how much I admire his dedication to the project - automating the maintenance page, automating the progress count for the main page, updating the list when new database dumps are released, no doubt fixing numerous links, and more. Thank you so much Russ :-)--Commander Keane 08:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I guess I could do this without too much trouble. The statistics at the bottom of WP:DPM are not comparable, because they ignore all articles with fewer than 20 links. I'm expecting a new dump within a week or two, so I'll post then. --Russ (talk) 10:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Go here and here for those numbers. --Steven J. Anderson 20:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
  • See User:RussBot/dump statistics for the results of the May 27 2007 dump, which I've inserted in the table above. I'm really not sure if I'm counting the same way Bo did, so I can't say whether my results reflect some huge increase in disambig pages or simply a different methodology. If someone wants to, they could run Bo's original Perl script and see what it comes up with. --Russ (talk) 13:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

University of Illinois

I just changed University of Illinois from the quasi-disambig redirect to University of Illinois system to a real disambig page. Unfortunately, this added 667 links to a disambiguation page. Obviously I could use some help fixing them. -- KelleyCook 14:42, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

February dump? April dump? May/June dump?

Someone transcluded the dump from early April here, but I think we should continue with the current one for a little longer, since there will be a brand new dump in 1-2 weeks and a large number of the April pages are already done. I've reverted the change for the time being. Any other opinions? Dekimasuよ! 00:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I concur with the reversion, it was kind of disheartening to see those links that we've already fixed come back! Although, I know that the numbers were out of date and the links weren't actually that high! Actually, I'm kind of curious about the mechanisms and timing of the dumps--are they the same ones that show up on the current list?--Xnuala (talk)(Review) 00:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
(I uploaded the new April one.) I don't mind either way, as long as the next data dump is available before we hit 100%. Do you have a reliable source for the claim that the next one is coming soon?—greenrd 01:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I can't state it as a fact, no, and one week was probably ambitious. The new dump is not in progress yet, according to [2]. They've been done at fairly regular two-month intervals for the last year, though: March 26, May 18, July 17, September 6, November 30, February 6, April 2. Unless we hit a particularly soft spot, I think the current dump will hold up. Dekimasuよ! 03:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. There's still plenty of work to do on the February dump and the April dump was already grossly out of date. Better to wait until we have a more current dataset.-- SteinbDJ · talk · contributions 12:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, is there any reason why users who feel overly constrained by what's left in February can't start in on the April dump even if it's not transcluded?-- SteinbDJ · talk · contributions 12:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Of course they can. Maybe we should just provide a prominent link to the April dump instead of transcluding the whole thing... though if I was one of those people, I'd prefer to be directed to WP:DPM. Dekimasuよ! 12:35, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The new dump started yesterday. It will take a while for it to finish, but we shouldn't run out before the next list is ready. Dekimasuよ! 06:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Creek Done

I basically finished Creek, but the instructions on moving the information between the lists are not clear enough for me. Specifically, what do you mean when you say without revision? Zab 06:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

It just means not to change the reference to the number of links to zero, even if there are zero now, or change what comes at the beginning of the line in any other way. You can still change any comments you've made, if you'd like. I've moved this one to the bottom for you. Dekimasuよ! 10:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll claim another one when my days off roll around again. Zab 03:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Cleaner

Hi,

I am currently writing a tool to help fixing links to disambiguation pages. If you are interested in testing it, it can be installed directly from here. It's a Java program (Java 1.5+ required) that will be automatically installed through Java Web Start. It's under development but it's functional.

For the moment, the idea is to analyze a given page to find all the links to disambiguation pages and to provide help for fixing them. In the future, I will also probably add the same feature as in CorHomo: from a given disambiguation pages, find all the pages that are linking to it.

Comments, suggestions, ... are welcome on the talk page of the tool. It's on the French wikipedia, but you can write in English ;)

--NicoV 16:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: My tool needs a list of templates that are used to indicate that a page is a disambiguation page. Are you using other templates than Template:Disambig ?

Yes. See MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage. --Russ (talk) 20:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, it will be included in the next version of my tool (0.06) --NicoV 21:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I have written a quick documentation in French about my tool with screen captures also. You can see here. --NicoV 16:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

English documentation available here. --NicoV 12:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

need a little advice

Anyone who can offer me a couple of tips in regards to my efforts on Pioneer, can they please leave a message on my talk page? Spudzonatron 13:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks team! Useful tips, and ill get back to you who replied soon! Spudzonatron 02:34, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Editor

Here's where this gets a little sticky. A lot of these are bios that mention in the opening paragraph that the subject was the editor of a publication. I interpret the phrase "the editor" as highly suggestive that the subject was the editor-in-chief, also known as an executive editor. Both of these redirect to editing. Interestingly managing editor, which, in print journalism, is a subordinate position to editor-in-chief, has its own page. I'm thinking of creating a page for "Editor-in-chief" with text mostly borrowed from the section in "Editing," and redirecting "Executive editor" to it.

Thoughts?

--Steven J. Anderson 00:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Is managing editor robust enough to have an article on its own? It seems to be a stub without much room to grow. Is it a possibility to create a hybrid page delineating both managing editor and executive editor (as different from editing or editor in general) as these positions both have a significant impact on the publication they are invovled with?--Xnuala (talk)(Review) 00:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I did some work on cleaning up the dab page and fixed some links. I noticed several cases where a where a specific type of editor was used, but most just referred to a persons occupation and as an editor (these I just piped to editing). I created a couple of redirects to editing that someone more ambitious may want to turn into subs; (Book editor, Journal editor, Magazine editor. -- Ryan Roos 17:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Uh, Ryan, thanks very much, but I wasn't really asking for anyone to do the disambiguating for me, just wanted a little guidance on how and whether to restructure the pages that exist before I went seriously to work on it. If anyone can offer any advice on that, I'd be grateful. --Steven J. Anderson 05:30, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Oops, looks like I just got a little ahead of myself. I see you disambiguated those before I decided to volunteer to do "Editor." Sorry if I sounded cranky, Ryan. In any event, I'm actually reambiguating most of those so I can find them if we end up creating a new page for "Editor" or "Editor-in-chief." --Steven J. Anderson 06:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I've believed for a while that "Editor" should be an article with subsections describing different positions. It seems inadequate to me that so many links to "editor" end up being pointed to Editing. I would support "Editor" if it was nominated at WP:ARCAID, for example... that's how we finally went about turning Psychedelic music from a dab page into a (still inadequate) article. Dekimasuよ! 05:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

disputes

Since I'm relatively new at working at this project, I just thought I'd ask; how does one resolve a dispute on the changes that he or she is making. I encounter a lot of resistance in removing links to mystery from a particular user who is heavli invested into links to this DAB page and the DAB page itself. I would like to 'enforce' guidelines but don't know how to go about this. Any help is appreciated. -Catneven 16:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Point out the guideline: WP:CONTEXT in section "What generally should not be linked" says not to link "Plain English words". It is one thing to link the word "mystery" to "mystery fiction" in "Agatha Christie wrote mystery novels", but it's unnecessary and distracting to link the word in "How Fred Schulmklopfer got his own talk show is a mystery". Chris the speller 21:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
The user in question mainly answered with: "it's only a guideline"[3] and reverted me, calling me a punk [4]. Since he is apparantly subject to a RfC I already got help from other users. Thanks for you input anyway!-Catneven 21:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Hee hee, I made it to the second-to-last link before getting disputed in creek. I felt lucky. Zab 00:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Advanced level

I got rid of all the links - when should the entry 'poof' from this page? I'm afraid I don't know much about how this page works, I only use it to find something to fix... --Milton 03:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that was a big one. Do you mean the listing at WP:DPM? The entry will be hidden the next time the bot is run, probably around next Sunday. You don't have to do anything else to make it go away. Dekimasuよ! 03:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Alrighty, thanks much. That's all I was wondering. --Milton 03:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Hispanic American

I've finished this one, too. --Milton 16:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirects

What's the call on redirects linking to a disambig page? Should I change the redirect to the article with more links, or just leave it? Or do I change it to the article with more links, then add a link to the disambig page in the article itself? (Hope that makes some sense) --Milton 22:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Depends on the redirect. "Britain" has three redirects that link to it Britian, Britland and Britan. These are all redirects from misspellings and still link to the dab page. Of course pages that link to the redirect have to be disambiguated. It works like this:
  • User types "Britian" into the search box, gets redirected to "Britain" where he finds the disambiguation information he needs to get to the article he's interested in. Correct outcome.
or
  • User is reading reading an article with the linked word "Britian" in it. He clicks on it and is redirected to "Britain," a dab page. That's not supposed to happen. The article containing the misspelled link should be disambiguated.
Does that answer your question? --Steven J. Anderson 01:51, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
So should I mainly just leave redirects alone, to avoid messing someone up who is using the search box? --Milton 02:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Unless you can tell for sure that there's a better target, it's better to just leave them. That'll be true in most cases where the dab is at the main title, although there might be a better target if the dab is relegated to "Foo (disambiguation)". It's not necessary to change them to reduce the number of mainspace links to the dab. Dekimasuよ! 04:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

More advice (sorry, folks, I'm new)

I'm working on German. For some reason, the disambig page links to both Germany and German. When an article is talking about someone who is German, should I link to the country, or the ethnic group? --Milton 04:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

When I am working on an ethnic group, I usually try to consider whether the reference is public/political or simply descriptive. If someone says "Angela Merkel, a German politician", I would link that to Germany - she is a public figure acting on the behalf of the nation. In the case of something like "Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philospher", I would probably link that to Germans. If it refers to a group - e.g. "Rammstein, a German band", I would always link that to Germany because the organization in question doesn't belong to an ethnic group. For a while that particular dab in particular has been more complicated because there is also Ethnic German, which relates to Germans outside of Germany, and Germans attempts to exclude those people outside of Germany, whereas most articles describe both (e.g. Koreans and Japanese people are appropriate links for articles on Korean Americans and Japanese Americans, even though there are articles on the Korean diaspora and Japanese diaspora). Hope this helps a little... Dekimasuよ! 04:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah it does, thanks much. --Milton 05:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
It's an excellent question - one that anyone who repairs these types of links runs into. I totally agree with Dekimasu's answer. I would just add my general observation/opinion that the majority of these adjectives are more appropriately linked to the ethnic group. Probably most people who create the wikilink aren't aware that we usually have separate articles for the nation and the ethnic group(s).--Kubigula (talk) 20:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, folks. The more I did, the better idea I got of what exactly to do. Now when I go on to more of those, hopefully it'll move faster. Thanks again. --Milton 21:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Central Standard Time

The Central Standard Time dab was moved to Central Standard Time (disambiguation) to make way for a primary topic redirect, and it's been moved to the done section on the DPL list. This move has subsequently been challenged by a move request which can be seen at Talk:Central Standard Time (disambiguation). The number of links in question is no longer 2500, but more like 300. Anyway, feel free to lend your opinion there. Dekimasuよ! 02:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I was WP:BOLD and fixed this in the way it should have done the first time if it wasn't for the I-hate-everything-America Aussie. Although he was correct in theory, the real problem is that there is no such thing as the "North American Central Time Zone" or for that matter "North American Eastern Time Zone". With an WP:AWB run, I'll get all the links redirected for the various Eastern Time Zones and then make the main pages for that one into disambig pages too. -- KelleyCook 13:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The incoming links indicated that there was a primary topic. An AWB run is a temporary fix, but all of the links that will accumulate in the future will still be meant for the time zone in the Western hemisphere, and thus I still must object to changing the base page to redirect to the dab. The result of the move request was "do not move", indicating that there wasn't consensus for the base title to be the dab. If you think the consensus has changed, can you initiate another move request? Dekimasuよ! 14:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I don't dispute that result, so added a couple of {{redir}}s to the targeted page and a comment for others on the redirect page. I also won't be changing Eastern Standard Time. I will still be performing an AWB run will be to correct dl2000's prior AWB run after the pair of poor choice of a rename. There was no such thing as North American Eastern/Central Time Zone. -- KelleyCook 15:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Aerodrome

The page Aerodrome looks like it's trying to be both an article and a dab page. Should I just move the "may also refer to" links to their own dab page, or just remove the dab tag or what? - Zvar 00:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good. Move the extra references that appear notable to Aerodrome (disambiguation) and reference it on the main Aerodrome page. It looks like it should be an article. Dekimasuよ! 01:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Las Vegas

This is a huge number of links to a diambig page. There was discussion on Talk:Las Vegas, with the decision to go against common usage of the term, which has created this mess. I'm not sure the best way to fix this, but quickly have tired of visiting pages with a link to Las Vegas to make it link to Las Vegas, Nevada. Not to be blunt, but its pretty obivous that the vast majority of these links are looking for Sin City. Any thoughts? —Gaff ταλκ 17:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your assesment of the situation. And Las vegas should simply be a redirect. The issue discussed at that page, however dealt with the difference between users looking for sin city (the strip) or the city (as a living place). I think it should redirect to the strip, especially because international users would probably want to know more about the gambling area than the ins en outs of the city itself.-Catneven 20:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I also agree. Perhaps a "see also" could be added to the top to counter any arguments. --Milton 21:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
If changed to a redirect again, the see also is a given. Vegaswikian 22:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Here we go again. Most uses of Las Vegas are actually about the strip or the metropolitan area. This was also discussed in various naming convention discussions with consensus that Vegas is different then most cities in what it means as a link. Las Vegas locally is a very generic term covering the whole of the Las Vegas Valley including the cities of Henderson and North Las Vegas, Nevada. Even the zip codes don't follow any type of political subdivisions. The Las Vegas metropolitan area is the most generic article that covers an area that includes just about any possible use of Las Vegas for Nevada (there is a Las Vegas, New Mexico). Vegaswikian 22:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely disagree with the results of the requested move discussion that took place at Las Vegas (you can see my vote there), but it was a consensus decision and it was very recent. We're going to have to live with this setup. There are 90K other links left to fix, so anyone who doesn't want to worry about this particular page doesn't really need to. Dekimasuよ! 00:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Dekimasu, this sounds good to me...I brought the problem up not in order to be difficult and argue agaisnt consensus. I brought it up because it seemed a negative effect of the decision that may have not been foreseen. Anyway, I will just leave it be and work on other things. —Gaff ταλκ 17:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Primary

I'm new to this and thought I'd try my hand at primary. What I've found so far is that many links are simply looking for a definition. I've been deleting those links with a note that no appropriate article exists (see here and here for examples), but before I keep going I thought I should check to make sure that's what I should be doing. Please let me know. Thanks, Skinny McGee 15:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:CONTEXT says not to link "Plain English words". WP is not a dictionary. In plain English words, "You done good!" Chris the speller 16:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! - Skinny McGee 16:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Trimethoxyphenethylamine

The dump says it has 135 links, but only 5 are listed and none of them are "real". It's hard to imagine how it would have 135 links... What's the deal?

Most likely, it was listed in a template, and when the template was fixed, all the links went away. Or, someone else just fixed it and forgot to move it to the "Done" section. Either way, it can be moved now. --Russ (talk) 10:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

inner, outer, et cetera and Eep

Dear colleagues, Ever since I did the mystery DAB page, I have been in discussion/edit war with user Eep. He has got fundamentally different views about what DAB pages should be than most of the other people working on this project. The major problem with this, is that he keeps on reverting our edits even though consensus indicates otherwise. He also is incivil. this behavior continues, despite, an RfC on him. He even started the creation or changing of several dab pages to suit his ideas on what wikipedia should be. Examples of this are out, in, outer, inner and more is indicated on his user page. he seemed to have gathered support from Gaff in these efforts, which I believe are not the right way to go. I hope for your help in:

  1. Stopping this user in reverting my/our dab edits at the mystery page.
  2. Help in or a discussion on the possible deletion of or major edits on 'Eep-like' Dab Pages that will ultimately make our job more difficult.

Thanks for your time, I hope it will save me some :-) -Catneven 13:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Eep has a long history of conflict and manipulating WP:IAR. I'll be more then happy to look into this in the morning (though it is 4AM here). --Milton 08:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Eve

This page popped up on the list of problem dabs at WP:DPM this week, and it appears that the issue is with something contained in templates being transcluded to years on the Hebrew calendar (e.g. 5769 (Hebrew year)). I spent about fifteen minutes trying to figure out where the link was, and I was completely unsuccessful. Can anyone else find it? Dekimasuよ! 00:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

That happened to me a while back, I'll give it the ol' highschool try. --Milton 00:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Found them. I'm not sure how to edit it, but the links lie within the template sections for the months of Tishrei, Nisan, Sivan, and Elul. Feel free to look at my sandbox for a copy of the page that DOESN'T link to Eve (I've removed those months). Anyway, I'll try to fix them. --Milton 01:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
NO CLUE whatsoever how to fix them, but take a look at the year 5769 pointed out previously. You'll notice that if you hover your mouse over Tishrei 9, on the red line, a bubble pops up reading "Eve of Yom Kippur". Clicking it goes to the disambig page. Same thing in the other places. I've no idea how to fix it, but there are your links. --Milton 01:50, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Still not sure how to fix it, but the template causing the problem is Template:Month_Hebrew_calendar. The help section describes what all the parameters mean. I'll look into it some more. I apologize for my spammy comments here. --Milton 01:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It appears to be something going on within parameter 7 that causes a generic link to "Eve" whenever a "2" day ("tooltip") comes before a "5" day (holiday). I'll keep trying to figure it out, too. Dekimasuよ! 03:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Got the location! It was Template:LinkHebHoliday1-14 and Template:LinkHebHoliday15-30. I'll try to figure out what to link them to now. Dekimasuよ! 03:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, the best solution would be to alter those two templates I've linked above such that entering something after the equals sign doesn't automatically result in a link, and then relinking the names of the actual holidays, resulting in the delinking of "Eve". There are only two templates in question, so someone with a greater understanding of the parser functions than me could probably do this without too much trouble. Dekimasuよ! 03:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I left a message on the apparent creator of the templates pointing out teh problem, so hopefully he'll take care of it soonish. --Milton 03:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I altered the links to Evening as you suggested on his talk page, although I'm not sure I agree that it's the best solution. I've linked the template's author to this thread, and if he's unhappy with links to Evening, I hope he'll consider altering the templates as I suggested above. Thanks a lot for your help! Dekimasuよ! 03:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, I agree, and more precisely the link should be to Evening#Biblical Definition of "Evening". User page Talk 12:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Modification proposal for {{dn}}

Hi,

can we add optional parameters to the {{dn}} as it has been done on the French Wikipedia for the {{lh}} template ?

  • the page name where the link is pointing
  • the displayed text

So, we could replace [[xx|yy]] by {{dn|xx|yy}} instead of [[xx|yy]]{{dn}}.

I ask this because my own tool for cleaning links to disambiguation pages, Wikipedia Cleaner, could then use it (I still need to develop this part). --NicoV 04:40, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ottoman

I've done several dozen links for this dab page, and every one of them has been to Ottoman Empire. Do I suggest here that the dab page be changed to a redirect, and a see also link to Ottoman (disambiguation), or what? What's the best course of action? Regards, --Milton 07:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Bueller? Bueller? If that's a bad idea, I'll just go back to changing every one of those 177 links to Ottoman Empire. --Milton 17:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Per WP:BOLD and WP:IMPATIENCE, I'll go ahead and do it. --Milton 18:48, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Quick question

If I fix a dab page that is listed in the special attention section, but not in the main dump section, so I put it in the "Done" section, or just add a note after it in the "Special Attention" section? Example would be Jonathan Kent. --Milton 21:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

DIFFERENT QUESTION: For links referring to an "Afghan singer", for example, should I link to Demographics of Afghanistan or simply Afghanistan? Milton 04:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I've always linked to the country itself when cleaning up links for a country's people, but the demographics article is an intriguing link and may be more informative than just a link to the country. Ultimately both are acceptable and standard practice is to link to the country article, but I rather like the demographics article. --Bobblehead (rants) 05:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Well gee, thanks for answering my question by reasserting my internal debate :) Seems like your head is bouncing back and forth between the two also (sorry, couldn't resist). Anyway, I think that the demographics page is indeed a better link, since it discusses the controversy surrounding the naming convention. Thanks. --Milton 05:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Since Afghan people and Afghans redirect to the demography page, I would link to that one in any case where I thought the intention was to indicate ethnicity. In any case where I thought the intention was to indicate national or political affiliation, I would link the country... much as with the previous comments on other countries. Dekimasuよ! 06:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Dekimasu, I think at this point I should just start posting all my questions on your talkpage (to save us both time) seeing as you've responded to EVERY QUESTION I've had. --Milton 06:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Fooians Vs. Fooian People

Does anyone know why someone nationalities use the format "Fooians", such as Russians and Germans, whereas others us the format "Fooian people", such as Hungarian people or Romanian people? It seems to me that there should be a standard, and that usage should be restricted to one or the other. I understand that neither of those formats lend themselves to some groups, like Portuguese people, but it would make more sense to me to do one or the other. If anyone can explain this, please let me know. Thanks. Milton 22:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

We've been unable to decide upon a convention. Although most pages used to be at "Fooian people", some editors support the most common name per WP:NC (CN) over standardization. For example, "Koreans" is a more common term than "Korean people"; I think the most intensive discussion may have taken place on that page's talk. As you noted, when the plural form is less common than the singular (no one says "Portugueses", "Chineses", or "Japaneses"), the plain title is required for disambiguation, and that's why "people" is added to the end. I suspect that a move request from Hungarian people to Hungarians would be successful, as moves in that direction have been the trend lately. Dekimasuよ! 23:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Makes sense. Thanks Milton 23:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Surely the plural of Chinese is Chineese. -- 221.133.199.187 08:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Revision wars and how to stop them

I'm trying to disambiguation the page pioneer. I've actually unlinked about 1/2 of the ones I've done that are simply linked as a definition. One such unlinking is being reverted over at Amelia Earhart. The User:Bzuk also edited Pioneer to add the dictionary definition of the work so it would be a valid link. I removed that as per the wikipwdia is not a dictionary rule. First of all, who is correct? Second of all, if I'm correct in the unlinking how do I stop him from reverting?

P.S. Should we not archive most of the talk page as it's starting to get long again. - Zvar 00:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Try pointing out WP:CONTEXT and its exhortation "do not create links to:
  • Plain English words."
Then point out WP:NOT#DICT Chris the speller 02:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
What's the next step when the user ignores the pointers? - Zvar 19:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
You haven't contacted them on their talk page yet. I'd go there. Could also try linking the word to wiktionary. that's the least preferred option. --Bobblehead (rants) 19:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
And when he ignors that, and posts on my talk page stating he thinks of it as vandalism? - Zvar 19:39, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Then I'd hit up the article's talk page and get the other editors on the article involved. Worse comes to worse, move on to the next article. One link to the disambiguation page is not going to kill anyone.--Bobblehead (rants) 20:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
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