Category talk:Disambiguation Pages

Disambiguation versus Other

Based on several months of house-keeping I decided to "up" the threshold for when we should use disambiguation pages. The reason is a try to avoid erratic links, pages that link to the disambiguation page rather than the intended page which has a specifier. Even if it is possible to click oneself out of the disambig-page a visitor should never end up there by an editor's mistake. Remember, this is a proven problem -- while house-keeping I find such erratic links at a daily basis (intentional plural) -- it is not imagined ;)

The less disambig-pages we have the smaller the risk will become, and it will also become easier to regularly walk over those pages and verify correctness by using the what-links-here on each of them. Thus...

• Use disambiguation pages only when more than 3 same-name pages exist.

Exception may occur if the resulting sentences become horribly hard to read whatever tricks we use to shorten or clarify them.

• Use as dense text as possible in the Other-template.

Remember that page names in themselves are informative enough, plus that the other-links in themselves carry across information on location, level, etc. However, duplicated texts carry negligible value but they just make the sentences much harder to read.

Zimoon 06:36, 12 November 2012 (EST)

Suggestion

May I dare come with a suggestion:

• Do not use plain disambiguation pages for items.

There is a big risk that somebody links to the disambiguation page rather than the real (and probably level-specified) item, but is failing to check up on the link. There is too much evidence confirming that we are all sloppy from time to time -- if anybody is not, raise his/her hand now ;) -- so we do not need to pretend.

I am not sure whether it would be better to name all disambiguation page such as "Pagename (Disambiguation)" to make it more or less impossible to go wrong. That would defeat the purpose of easy search since type for example "White Hand Warrior" would rather take the visitor to the common search page, which IMHO WikiMedia could give a big usability makeover. (Off topic: If there is a real result it is indeed spelled out, but only the mom of the designer would defend it and say it stands out over the "Did you mean: White_Hand_Warrior which just takes you back again, and again, ....)

That roundabout aside, for items I think we really need to find a way to not having the plain item name for the disambiguation page but something that is impossible to link to by mistake. I do not know if it is possible to make either disambiguation page links to be coloured in some way they would alert the editor? Anybody knows? Otherwise my suggestions are:

1. Name such pages "Item:Itemname (Disambiguation)" and for those we have to live with limited search-friendliness. Or, ...
2. We simply do not have any disambiguation pages at all for items.

-- Zimoon 09:13, 9 November 2012 (EST)

Maintenance Request

A few times a year senior editors could walk over all disambiguation pages and verify that only expected pages are linking to the disambiguation pages themselves. Currently there are quite a few erratic links to many disambig-pages.

What is "expected pages?

That means, only the pages that a disambiguation page links to, and those pages link back. No other pages is expected to link to the disambiguation page.

Exceptions: Some pages link to a disambiguation from a "generic context", sometimes that is OK but very often such links could be delinkified or re-wired to a category page. A link from a somewhere to a disambig-page seldom (but not never) adds any value because there are only a bunch of links leading elsewhere.

How to do it?

With some order of choice (A to Z maybe?), click a link, press Shift-Alt-J (or Toolbox → "What links here" in the left column), and then verify that there are the same amount of links "out" and "in", or less or none.

Example 1: Click at Half-orc Leader, that page has 4 links "out", and the what-links-hree has 4 links "in". Perfect!!!

Example 2: Click at [[Healer]], that page has 3 links "out", but the what-links-here has 10 links "in" (09:31, 9 November 2012 (EST)). Ignore the "User:x" links and 5 links remain. Of those probably none should go "in". I now inspect these four (waiting...). Result: 1) Talk:Lore-master should have linked to Healer (Trait) (99.9% likelihood); 2) Harwick should at two places have linked to NPC Healer; 3) Langhold should have linked to NPC Healer; 4) Quest:The Mead Hall: Inhabitants II should have linked to NPC Healer; and 5) Mansig's Encampment should have linked to NPC Healer. Finally: Since I have now corrected the pages the "what-links-here" will not show the errors any longer, but you may want to look at the history of the mentioned pages that linked "in".

Ahem, I think this also proves that we do this kind of mistakes over and over again. And again. So, we really need to walk over those links every now and then :) -- Zimoon 09:45, 9 November 2012 (EST)

Today I fixed 80+ faulty links pointing to the disambig page, whereof none should have been Healer (Trait), 2 should have been Healer (Role), and the rest should have been NPC Healer. I believe it is hereby proven beyond doubt that disambigue pages should be avoided at all costs. Only when there are no alternatives they may be a last resort, though it is beyond my brain to figure out such a use case. — Zimoon 12:43, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion 2

I guess the Example 2 of previous section also proves something else: The less disambiguation pages we have the better.

Actually, do we really need them?

Since our search feature is really good, the quick search will list all hits as long as we do not type too badly they kind of fill no real purpose. And if people type too badly they won't find the disambig-page either. Let me list pros and cons and you fill in your thoughts:

Pros

• Disambiguation pages may list more than just the disambiguated page names, but also extra information such as mob level and locations, etc.
• Disambiguation pages replaces long and hard to read lines from the Other-template.

Cons

• See Example 2 in the above section (and it was not too many months ago I walked over that very page).
• Simply put, they "help" sloppy editors to do wrong (and I do not exclude myself from the sloppy group).

Neutral

• Ending up at the main Search page and click from there is no more clicks than ending up at a disambig-page. And the other way around.

Thought: We could perhaps create a OtherList template which rather displays a comma separated list. 98% of the times the page name in itself is informative enough; there is no point in reading "For mobs in Ered Luin, see Mobname (Ered Luin)" and having several such ducks lined up.

The intention is of this is to 1) reduce the number of mistakes; 2) reduce needed patrolling and maintenance; 3) whatever you come to think of, I am tired ;)
-- Zimoon 10:05, 9 November 2012 (EST)

Purpose of these pages

I think there is a disagreement on how to treat these pages at the moment. I get that people might link to these instead of to the real pages but i'm not really sure that is an issue. After all the user will get where they want and that is what is important. These pages serves for that purpose and also helps the user get there easier by using search. The search suggestions are not perfect as pointed out many times already. The disambiguation pages could help with that, for example in case of Healer if you search for 'Healer' only the page Healer is in suggestion - rest is 'Item:Healer's...' even tho there are pages like 'Healer (place)'. Even after using the search, the items are first suggestions. I think we should reconsider using these pages, and maybe loosen up the rules a bit. --Drono (talk) 20:56, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I think there are a few thought to keep in mind at the same time when talking about disambig pages.

Forcing users to go via a disambig page and having to think is not very user friendly, we should be able to do better.

We should first of all use the {{Other}} template. Which we almost always do. But more then 4 links using Other may start to look too much I think. Not always of course.

If all editors really checked where there links end up this would not be a bother. So why are there hundreds of links going the wrong way. "Healer" is not a huge problem because in that particular case users know where to go (hopefully) but I have seen way worse examples, where it was very hard to figure out which link was correct. E.g. "item drops from X". But which X out of many? And alike.

Because of the sad historical record we have at the wiki I think the rules should stay. We had this discussion many years back and since then (edited) not a word was posted on this topic until now. — Zimoon 21:23, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

'We had this discussion many years back and not a word was posted on this topic' this seems like a contradiction to me. Would like other editors post their opinion here too. --Drono (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure in what way the rules on Category:Disambiguation Pages could be loosened up more. Do you mean encouraging the use of disambig pages instead of the {{Other}} template. I like the fact that these two options exist: one for when there are 'a lot' of pages with similar names and one for when there are only two or three.

On a related note, when there are pages with identical names but only one of them has a specifier, I believe adding specifiers to both pages would make things a lot clearer. Depending on the amount of pages with this name, a disambig page can be added or the {{Other}} template can be used. —RoyalKnight5 (talk) 07:20, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Drono is correct about the search feature. One has to continue to type " (" to see more "interesting" results. But if search has a problem that is what to focus on, right? So how can we improve the search feature? Maybe by sorting " " before "'"? I remember Lotroadmin suggested that in a similar discussion not long ago.

Thanks Royal! That (about specifiers) was one of the changes (improvements?) I actually made to Help:Names back in early February, see this (diff). — Zimoon 10:51, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree the problem i mentioned could be solved by improving search engine. However doing these changes first is doing it backwards. So far the pages have purpose. Once the search engine is improved and they are not needed anymore, only than we can remove them. --Drono (talk) 16:33, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. Who is in a hurry? ;-) — Zimoon 21:22, 10 April 2022 (UTC)