Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation

Templates with disambiguation links and modules making a mess of it

I was alerted to the fact that the Templates with disambiguation links tool was showing a bunch of templates for tennis players. We recently built a module that inputs a list of names and outputs navboxes. One of the things we do is use Module:Disambiguation to check if the page is a dab, and if so attempt to modify it to get to the right location. As such, the output of the module is a list of non-dab links, but apparently the tool is still counting these as "links to dab pages". Is this an issue with the toolforge check itself, or is there a way to "avoid" these dab links in the module somehow? Thanks! I have no idea if this is the right location to post this to, but I'm going to cross-post to a half-dozen other possible locations so hopefully this can get sorted out. No need to ping me on replies, I'll be subscribed to this thread. Primefac (talk) 09:30, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@Primefac: If I understand correctly, the module is calling getContent() on a dab, which (I think) causes a link to be registered in the pagelinks table, from the page where the module is called to the dab. The logic is that if the page gets updated, for example if the tennis player is deemed a PT and moved to the base name, the page using the module needs to be rendered again to pick up the change. It's a similar situation to #ifexist:. Per mw:Extension:Scribunto/Lua_reference_manual: getContent(): Returns the (unparsed) content of the page, or nil if there is no page. The page will be recorded as a transclusion. I'm not sure what we do about this. Could be bot be tweaked to exclude transclusions? Please feel free to move this paragraph to your preferred forum for replies. Certes (talk) 12:36, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The bot could be tweaked to exclude transclusions, but I think that would be overkill. It would mean we would miss all links to disambiguation pages appearing on templates, not just the ones resulting from this particular module. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:17, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Ironically, I think "transclusions" is ambiguous here. I meant the links which show up in WhatLinksHere as transclusions, many of which come from using the {{:Some other page}} syntax but which can also be generated by getContent() within a module. I didn't mean the normal wikilinks within templates where the template is transcluded by the page; those show up in WhatlinksHere and elsewhere as normal links rather than transclusions. Certes (talk) 15:24, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

There has been a related issue for some years now regarding articles using {{cite xxx}} templates - these articles show in WhatLinksHere as transcluding themselves. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:28, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

The fundamental problem may be that pagelinks is used in two ways. Within MediaWiki, it lists the pages which must be purged when a link target is edited. Externally, it informs WhatLinksHere and other tools of what wikilinks exist. The two lists are similar but not identical, because certain templates and modules can record pairings – I'm not sure whether to count them as "links" – which are invisible to the reader. Certes (talk) 19:40, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Any solution in sight? The Banner talk 20:45, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

The TDL report is empty today. I hope this means the problem has been fixed. Certes (talk) 12:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The report has been empty for three days now. Either we've suddenly become dramatically better at getting the links right first time or something is wrong with the report. Certes (talk) 19:11, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd put my money on the latter, although I don't yet know what ishave a sneaking suspicion I may have found what's wrong with it. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:33, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked – the report is back, complete with tennis players. Certes (talk) 11:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

So I have a dumb question: there are ~80 templates that call this module; why are only a dozen showing up in the report? The module checks the dab status for every page that exists, so wouldn't that mean that every template shows up? Primefac (talk) 12:49, 5 September 2023 (UTC)Never mind, figured that out; it's only if the page actually is a dab. Primefac (talk) 06:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

So if we can't fix the tool (which is my preference because I cannot believe this module is the only one to trigger the tool) what is the best solution? The Banner wants to simply remove the module entirely, which is a bit of overkill since this is an external tool of minimal consequence. My thought for modifying the module involves checking all ...(tennis) appended links before doing a dab search, but that seems like brute forcing the issue and still doesn't actually solve the underlying issue with the tool itself, never mind the fact that the whole point of the dab check is to allow for exceptions to be populated as necessary, but not forced for every player with a (tennis) disambiguator. Primefac (talk) 06:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

The logic for Template:Top male singles tennis players by country, as coded in Module:ATP rankings (function formatName), seems to be:

1. Grab a name from Module:ATP rankings/data/singles.json, e.g. "Racquet, Ivor"
2. Check whether Ivor Racquet is a dab
3. If so then link to Ivor Racquet (tennis); if not then link to Ivor Racquet

Could we replace this by

1. Grab a name from Module:ATP rankings/data/singles.json, e.g. "Racquet, Ivor"
2. Check whether Ivor Racquet (tennis) exists
3. If so then link to Ivor Racquet (tennis); otherwise link to Ivor Racquet.

I'm not sure how that deals with Ivor Racquet (Ruritanian tennis player, born 1987) but it seems no worse than the existing logic and will avoid calling getContent() on the dab. It also works better when the tennis player shares a name with a more famous namesake who is the primary topic. Certes (talk) 17:19, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Having re-read the comment I replied to more carefully: I don't think checking for (tennis) would constitute brute force. It's no more expensive than checking for a dab. I don't think there's a problem with the tool itself: it's correctly reporting links as recorded in the database. Why would we not want to force a link to every player with a (tennis) disambiguator named in the json file? The base name must hold either a non-tennis primary topic or a dab, and we wouldn't want to link to either. The only minor problem I see is if Ivor Racquet (tennis) is a {{R from unnecessary disambiguation}} to Ivor Racquet, when the proposed change would produce a tortuous link via the redirect, but it would still reach the right page, and we can check for and ignore redirects if felt worthwhile. Certes (talk) 17:36, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, this seems to have dropped off my notifications for some reason. I'll see about swapping the order of the checks. Just as a note for the "Ruritanian tennis player" example, we do have an "override" file that the module checks first, so someone like that would be in that file and never get checked anyway. Primefac (talk) 10:07, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

A few links currently lead to non-tennis players. A couple of examples:

• politician Alejandro Mendoza in {{Top Bolivian male singles tennis players}} should change to Alejandro Mendoza (tennis)
• entrepreneur Andrew Paulson in {{Top Czech male singles tennis players}} should change to Andrew Paulson (tennis)

These should be fixed by the new algorithm, though it won't help where the tennis player has no article. Certes (talk) 11:40, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

I mean... if the tennis player has no article, then it won't link to them anyway, so it's not a huge loss. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Done, checked the new redirects that popped up and only Laslo Djere (tennis), Novak Djokovic (tennis), J.J. Wolf (tennis), and Andy Murray (tennis) fell into the "unnecessary redirect" category. Not sure if it's worth putting them on the exception list, or spending the time coding in some sort of isRedirect check. Primefac (talk) 12:11, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Tidying up would be nice to prevent self-links within the template in that player's article, but I'd leave them. They lead to the right article and, if a different Laslo Djere grabs the primary topic by becoming the next president of Ruritania, they will still go to the right place. Certes (talk) 12:26, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

True. I'm thinking of people like Attila Boros from {{Top Hungarian male singles tennis players}} and Daniel Salazar from {{Top Colombian male singles tennis players}}, where we have no article on the tennis player but do have an article on a different person with a similar name. Certes (talk) 12:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Fuller list of linked non-players:

• Attila Boros from {{Top Hungarian male singles tennis players}}
• Ben Weintraub from {{Top Israeli male singles tennis players}} (RfD in progress)
• Daniel Salazar from {{Top Colombian male singles tennis players}}
• Karan Singh from {{Top Indian male singles tennis players}}
• Petar Jovanović from {{Top Montenegrin male singles tennis players}}
• Samuel Sánchez from {{Top Mexican male singles tennis players}}
• Sandro Kopp from {{Top Austrian male singles tennis players}}

There may be other redirects which go astray, but I think that's all the direct links. Certes (talk) 12:49, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorted, thanks. Primefac (talk) 12:59, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

The templates have left the daily report. Thanks, everyone. Certes (talk) 17:02, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

The tennis templates have now been replaced following a TfD. Certes (talk) 21:14, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Getting started helping disambiguation

Hi, I got here because I found a page that needed a disambiguation page (noted below) and then thought maybe I could create it. I have edited sporadically for years but never created a page but feel moderately confident that I could. But got daunted / ran out of available time. So, my first request is whether (as someone how edits roughly 2 hr / month) it is worth learning.

Second, having given up on creating a page, I wanted at least to notify wikipedia that it was needed. I found my way here. This page says "Please join the discussions on our project's talk page. Suggested changes and additions to the WikiProject are always welcome there."

But I am not seeing other suggestions for new disambiguation pages here so I figure I am not in the right place to post a suggested disamb.. page.

Since I've written this much, I will post the request here, as well as on the two pages talk pages, but am curious what I should do the next time I am in this situation (and, perhaps, the help pages could be edited to make that clearer to others).

Anna Gomez could use disambiguation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_M._Gomez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Gomez

Thanks Jreiss17 (talk) 17:17, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello and welcome, Jreiss17. We always welcome more help with disambiguation, whether it's creating new pages or sorting out the incoming wikilinks which should lead to one of the listed articles instead. In this case, because there's only one other person with the name, we can get away with a hatnote, so I've added one to Anna Gomez. If we think that she's not the primary topic for the term, or that we also need a link to Anna Nieto-Gómez, then we can adjust further, but if not then that should be enough for now. Thank you for pointing this problem out. I hope you'll enjoy continuing to improve Wikipedia, and you're very welcome to ask here again if we can help with anything else. Certes (talk) 17:54, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Certes: Thanks a lot for that. I think Anna M. Gomez is usually referred to simply as Anna Gomez so disambiguation may be better but hatnote is definitely a big help.

Is there anywhere else to post requests of disambiguation/hatnotes? Jreiss17 (talk) 21:45, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Geoff/Geoffrey/Jeff/etc. McDonald/Macdonald

Hi all. We have two DABs, at Geoff McDonald and Jeff MacDonald, and there is a Geoff Macdonald (with a redirect from Geoffrey Macdonald) who looks rather insignificant to me. I'd probably opt for a single Geoffrey McDonald, give the article name a qualifier, and make the rest redirects, but as there are quite a few Jeffs thought I'd better canvass the experts. Opinions anyone? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:43, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

• Tricky situation, and I've made a couple of bold edits to try to sort it out. Jeffrey (name) and Geoffrey (name) are distinct, so I would not recommend combining dabpages for the two. However, my instinct would be to perhaps delete the disambiguation pages altogether; only Jeffrey R. MacDonald, Geoff Macdonald, and Jeff McDonald have articles (and I'd argue that the latter should be merged to Redd Kross per WP:BANDMEMBER.) 162 etc. (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, thank you - it is tricky. I've never met a Jeffrey, and have always thought it was a North American form of Geoffrey. But I think that users who have heard and not read the name could be helped by landing on a DAB page with all the variants, surely (including the Mc/Mac variation, which are combined on the relevant surname pages)? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

  In this case, with only three articles involved, I'd stick with my earlier recommendation of hatnotes, rather than a dabpage. 162 etc. (talk) 17:18, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Tommy/Tom/Thomas

Tom and Thomas are combined on Thomas Rogers, but there is a separate DAB for Tommy Rogers. Shouldn't Tommy be a redirect to the Thomas page? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 01:16, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea to me. 162 etc. (talk) 17:17, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Done. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:00, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Teenager - two primary topics?

I'm not sure about this change on the Teenager DAB - whether or how to change it. Hoping someone here knows. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:15, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

@Laterthanyouthink No, it wasn't good. I've moved the new page from Teenager (neologism) to Teenager (word) and rejigged the dab page, possibly not ideal but clearer. Someone else may have a better idea. PamD 06:03, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

How about making Teenager (word) the primary topic and moving it to Teenager (which is currently a redirect to Adolescence, a closely related but different concept)? Rosbif73 (talk) 06:24, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Bleh, that is a little more than an elaborated dictionary definition. I doubt it is the primary topic people would expect when looking for "teenager". older ≠ wiser 10:00, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Groom (disambiguation)

Groom (disambiguation) is currently broken into two sections - Groom (disambiguation) and Groom_(disambiguation)#Grooming, which didn't seem right to me - should they be combined into one disambiguation page or two or?? After reading all the disambiguation guidelines and and MOS pages I could find, I determined, based on WP:BROAD, that we need a broad-based article to over the subject. "If the primary meaning of a term proposed for disambiguation is a broad concept or type of thing that is capable of being described in an article, and a substantial portion of the links asserted to be ambiguous are instances or examples of that concept or type, then the page located at that title should be an article describing it, and not a disambiguation page." So, I started one [[1]], following the guideline "scope of the term, and the history of how the concept has developed." One other user objects, saying "Wikipedia isn't a dictionary" - so I'm looking for additional feedback from experienced editors on how to improve these pages. I also think "Groom (wedding)" makes more sense then "Bridegroom". Does anyone actually use... 'Bridegroom'? Maybe it's used that way outside the USA? Users agree Groomer as a slur should exist, but is it best as a sub article of OK Boomer? What about localised grooming - should it be it's own article, and if so what name should it be under? Denaar (talk) 01:21, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

RfD: redirects from incomplete disambiguation

Readers may be interested in Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 14#INTDABLINK of redirects from incomplete disambiguation, in which about 350 redirects of the form "Title (partial qualifier) (disambiguation)", such as 138th Street (New York City Subway station) (disambiguation), are nominated for possible deletion. Certes (talk) 13:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Detagging redirects

Should all the pages in Category:Redirects tagged as disambiguation pages have {{WikiProject Disambiguation}} removed from them? They are all redirects so can't be disambiguation pages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:14, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

If they are redirects to a disambiguation page, I'd leave them be. If I'm not mistaken, Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/Article alerts uses the project tags to determine what to include. If these are redirects to disambiguation, seems a discussion about the redirect might be of interest. older ≠ wiser 15:41, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Okay you've just given me a coding challenge there. I will see if I can detect which ones target a dab page — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:39, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

D J Dean

Perhaps this should go straight to RfD, but what do we do with D.J. Dean, D. J. Dean and D J Dean? They currently target Donald John Dean, but might attract traffic for D. J. Dean (soccer) (who has a hatnote on Donald) or DJ Dean (who doesn't). Certes (talk) 11:50, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Surname transclusions

Piotrowski had an "incoming links" tag, despite being a surname list rather than a dab. It was transcluding individual name dabs with syntax such as {{:Oskar Piotrowski}}. This, of course, transcludes the whole name dab (unless it uses onlyinclude correctly: see replies) including templates such as {{hndis}}, thus marking Piotrowski itself as a dab. I've edited Piotrowski to use the experimental {{Transclude list|Oskar Piotrowski}} instead of direct transclusion, which seems to work. There are 37 other cases needing attention, though these aren't tagged because they don't have many incoming links. Should we apply similar changes to those, and keep a lookout for new cases appearing, or can the team find a better solution? Certes (talk) 10:26, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Not that it matters, but I always thought transclusion was too unstable for use. In this case, the issue was caused by an edit to Tadeusz Piotrowski that removed the onlyinclude markup -- and this is what cause the problem with the transclusion. older ≠ wiser 11:06, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

@Certes I think the ability to include both the "Tom Piotrowski"s in the main flow of the Piotrowski list is a huge benefit to readers. The reader looking for a "Piotrowski", referred to somewhere offwiki, who is an American basketball player or an Australian economist should be able to run their eye down the list of Piotrowskis to find their man, and not be expected to click on umpteen "several people" disambiguation links. So I thoroughly support any work which can make it possible, and easy, to transclude those lists from disambiguation pages into surname pages. I suppose we need to talk to the Anthroponymy Wikiproject, as surname lists are their territory, but if we keep remembering that the encyclopedia is here for the benefit of readers it should be obvious that transcluding these lists is a benefit. Keep up the good work, and thanks. PamD 11:14, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it is beneficial for readers be able to easily scan a complete list. I'm not familiar with the Transclude list template, but if it works more reliably than basic tranclusion, then that's great. My concern with basic tranclusion is that edits to the source page can go undetected and have strange effects where it is transcluded. older ≠ wiser 11:20, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

There's not much to the template though, of necessity, it does resemble line noise or perhaps Perl golf. Certes (talk) 11:42, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Aita (disambiguation)#undefined

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Aita (disambiguation)#undefined that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – robertsky (talk) 15:11, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles

A discussion has been opened at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/〇 (disambiguation) pertaining to Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles (384). Folly Mox (talk) 23:31, 26 October 2023 (UTC)