Wikidata talk:WikiProject Disambiguation pages/guidelines

March 2013

I've seen there are also items for disambiguation pages. My question is, on what base do we create these items, i. e., how can we tell which pages deal with the same item? For example we have Q241775, which is a compilation of disambiguation pages with titles meaning "beast" ("Bête", "Bestia") etc., except for de:Beast, a disambiguation page for things being called "Beast", not "Bestie", which would be the German equivalent.

I think there won't be a proper system if we link such pseudo-equivalent disambiguation pages like "beast"—"Bestia" etc. In my opinion, the only reasonable solution would be to link disambiguation pages having exactly the same title (apart from the "(disambiguation)" part, of course). --Kronf (talk) 07:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

IMO all articles on a one item have to be the same title. E.g. English disambiguation site "Yellow" should be Yellow in other wikis too, not translated name. Of course here may be some exceptions. As you wrote, "beast"—"Bestia" is not linked correctly. --Stryn (talk) 07:55, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Why? :-O Thus you expect something from disambiguation pages that we don't expect from all other articles. This excludes majority of disambiguation pages from linking and forces to keep a dual system as disambig. pages must have old-style interwikis. What is the reason? Bináris (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what is the reason to link Beast and Bestia/Bèstia or Bête to the same item, because they don't contain the same things. Some wikis could contains both, "bestia" and "beast". --Stryn (talk) 08:39, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I reflected to yellow. How many languages have this word without translation? Bináris (talk) 08:40, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

12: Q298597. E.g. this link was wrong so I moved it to this item: Q1497670. --Stryn (talk) 08:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

(Edit confl.) Why "old-style"? I don't oppose Wikidata entries being created for disambiguation pages. But of course they will be different from other items, as disambig. pages are different from articles. They don't deal with an item/concept, but a name. So the only property they share among language versions can be there exact name.

Let me give another example: Q1698752 in its current state is complete nonsense. Have a look at de:Ahlen (Begriffsklärung), featuring places and persons called "Ahlen". It is linked to en:Alain, which may list some of the same places the German page does, but of course the featured persons are completely different ones. --Kronf (talk) 08:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Logically, you are right: what you say is clear according to data view. On the other side, currently disambiguation pages are crosslinked wikiwide, and if we don't incorporate them into Wikidata, a dual system will remain with interwiki links in these pages, and we have to maintain both classical and Wikidata-aware interwiki bots for a long time. How could we dissolve this problem? Bináris (talk) 08:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I still don't see what you mean by not incorporating them, that's not what I think of. There will be no proper, reasonable interwiki system between them as long as we link "yellow (disambig.)" to "gelb (Begriffskl.)", no matter if we do this via Wikidata or direct interwiki links. --Kronf (talk) 09:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I absolutely agree this interwikis between translations should be removed. The question is do we create an Item for each disambiguated word like gelb or Bestie to prevent mislinkings although they are unlikely to have ever disambiguations in other languages?--Saehrimnir (talk) 09:47, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

We had a discussion about this in the german forum a few weeks ago [1]. The salient points were: (I am totally biased btw)

• translations should not be allowed
• transcriptions (creating the same pronunciation with a different script) should be allowed
• how to handle differences in single letters (e.g. "c" for "k") and lower case vs. upper case was not decided
• we need global rules

--Sixsi6ma (talk) 11:35, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

+1. This sounds reasonable. --Kolja21 (talk) 18:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll read that. --Kronf (talk) 11:39, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree those things. About lower case vs. upper case, I think that we can't do any rules for it. One example is ANN and Ann. En-wiki has both versions, so we need two different items. --Stryn (talk) 11:42, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The question in the Ann <-> ANN case is, would we seperate them also if every language had only one of those disamb.pages?

• If not, what happens when one language gets the additional page? Would we seperate the old item then? And who is going to do that, especially if it had much more interwikilinks.
• If yes, would we also create an item for ann, aNn,... right after such a page gets created (in this case not so likely)?

--Sixsi6ma (talk) 13:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree with Kronfː ambiguity is about names, I mean letters in a row, no matter what the meaning is. Now that wData is running, we do need international rules. Just another exampleː if you have "Red (disambiguation)", in this disamb page you will list words maybe related with the color, but also items with NO relation with the color (sayː the meaning). For instance, "Red (famous dog)", "Red (enterprise)", ... Againː in Italian mare means sea. Will you interlink "itːMare (disambigua)" with "enːSea (disambiguation)"?? It would be an absurd choice. And what to do with "enːMare (disambiguation)"? Will you interlink with "itːVacca (disambigua)"??? (the english word mare means vacca in Italian). That's why we should run to the way illustrated by Kronf. Any other sub-issue is just a sub-issue compared to this main issue. --Pequod76 (talk) 13:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem with only allowing pages with the same spelling is that we will end up with a lot of orphan pages with no (or few) sitelinks. Having said that I agree that only allowing the transliterations and banning translations is the most logical and rational system for arranging these sitelinks. Filceolaire (talk) 17:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

For the Ann <-> ANN case, you can read fr:Wikipédia:Sondage/Fusion des pages d'homonymies. After this poll, I (with fr:Projet:Fusion des pages d'homonymie) had merge on wp:fr hundred (may be less) pages. --Nouill (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Dear Filceolaire, I can understand your remarks. I've voted but maybe it's early for voting. Maybe what we need is to comment a list of cases and grab some guidelines out of it. In my opinion, a single different letter is a remarkable difference. --Pequod76 (talk) 13:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I think we should add a guideline which says "Keep the count of different items as high as necessary, as low as possible". I also want to inform you that my bot is adding descriptions to items about disambiguationpages and therefore check every link if it is a disambiguationpages and add conflicts where not all pages are disambiguationpages on User:Sk!dbot/disambiguation page conflict. There are many links where in one language the page is about only a name and in another it is "real" disambiguation with the name and other links. This is also a problem we should discuss. --Sk!d (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I still do not know what to do with disambig pages which are split by spelling in some wikipedias (en:Ann vs en:ANN, en:Arc vs en:ARC) but not split in others (fr:ANN, es:Arc). Are we going to impose the same split decisions in all wikipedias? I think not. Are there going to be three different wikidata items: (1) pages about "ARC" as all-uppercase initialism, (2) pages about "Arc" as word (not necessarily the English one, there are two Arc rivers in France), and (3) pages that contain both? --Jmk (talk) 07:56, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

No there should be only two items not three ARC Q296474 and Arc Q398045 with es:Arc being under the latter and de:ARC under the former (although there is a rule in place in Germany which would make the title Arc because it exist as both Word and Acronym). The links from es:Arc to the Languages in Q296474 which are not in Q398045 are then done via local interwikilinks which is not elegant but much less ambiguous than it was before. The Question that remains is do we keep it one item if only one Spelling exists in any Language meaning that someone has to shuffle up to number of wikipedias/2 around once it exists in the two variants within one language? Do we set a certain Threshold say 50 were it is separated automatically per rule? --Saehrimnir (talk) 12:37, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Two items, you say. What then is the exact distinction? Is it based on the spelling of the page title (uppercase titles to Q296474, lowercase titles to Q398045)? Or is it based on the contents? Where do we link a disambig page whose contents include both acronyms and words, such as place names and surnames? es:Arc contains both, so does de:ARC. By contents they are clearly about the same thing ("various things spelt Arc or ARC"), yet they are not linked together if title case is the thing that matters. --Jmk (talk) 09:12, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

We have two new properties "surname" (Property:P153) and "given name" (Property:P152), that allow a lot of funny combinations. --Kolja21 (talk) 23:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Survey for generating rules regarding items with disambiguation pages

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Approved ones

1. Special characters can be added/removed (e.g. Circumflex, Grave,...)
2. Transcriptions (creating the same pronunciation with a different script)

Rejected ones

1. Different letters with the same pronunciation (e.g. "c" for "k")
2. Translations

No consensus

1. There should not be any rules (60% of support)

— ΛΧΣ²¹ 22:29, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

---

Items with disambiguation pages should only contain links with the exact same title as the label of the item (the phrase "disambiguation page" or an equivalent is allowed).

Which of the following exceptions should be allowed as well? (as long as a page with the exact same titel does not exist):

1. Different letters with the same pronunciation (e.g. "c" for "k")

 Oppose --Sixsi6ma (talk) 16:37, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support Filceolaire (talk) 17:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --Saehrimnir (talk) 03:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --Pequod76 (talk) 13:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose except disambiguation pages about people name. --Stryn (talk) 14:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support as long as there are not two pages in one language see my proposed guideline above: "Keep the count of different items as high as necessary, as low as possible" --Sk!d (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --β₁₆ - (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose, per above mainly. IMO they should be on separate articles, as they are often different. Per case basis I suppose. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose per above. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:40, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

2. Special characters can be added/removed (e.g. Circumflex, Grave,...)

 Support --Sixsi6ma (talk) 16:37, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support Filceolaire (talk) 17:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support --Saehrimnir (talk) 03:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support --Pequod76 (talk) 13:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support --Stryn (talk) 14:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support as long as there are not two pages in one language see my proposed guideline above: "Keep the count of different items as high as necessary, as low as possible" --Sk!d (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

 SupportMojirian (talk) 13:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support --β₁₆ - (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:17, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:40, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

3. Transcriptions (creating the same pronunciation with a different script)

 Oppose --Sixsi6ma (talk) 16:37, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support Filceolaire (talk) 17:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support --Saehrimnir (talk) 03:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support --Pequod76 (talk) 13:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support, if I understand what this means --Stryn (talk) 14:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support as long as there are not two pages in one language see my proposed guideline above: "Keep the count of different items as high as necessary, as low as possible" --Sk!d (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support (but I'm not sure if I understand) --β₁₆ - (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Assuming this would mean, e.g., that en:Shalom (disambiguation) can be linked to he:שלום (פירושונים), then yes,  Support. Obviously there will be some differences between the item in the native language and the transcribed item, but, in the spirit of Stryn's line of reasoning, I don't think they're substantive enough to warrant separate items. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 03:31, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

4. Translations

 Oppose --Sixsi6ma (talk) 16:37, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose Filceolaire (talk) 17:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --Saehrimnir (talk) 03:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --Pequod76 (talk) 13:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose, I hate them. --Stryn (talk) 14:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support as long as there are not two pages in one language see my proposed guideline above: "Keep the count of different items as high as necessary, as low as possible" --Sk!d (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --β₁₆ - (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose, because some translations have different articles than the local language version or a different purpose. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose It'd be nice if we could have some sort of "see also" field on items for cases like this, but these create a LOT of interwiki conflicts, and it seems to me the best solution is to create new items for new names. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 03:39, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:41, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

5. There should not be any rules

 Oppose --Sixsi6ma (talk) 16:37, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support There shouldn't be rules but there should be guidelines. This is too complicated an issue to have hard rules to be applied everywhere. Filceolaire (talk) 17:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --Saehrimnir (talk) 03:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose, if not rules, then at least guidelines. --Stryn (talk) 14:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support. Usually I hate when the people say “rules are crap, ignore them”. But now it is not yet the time to create a set of strict rules. There should be only best practices for now. A year passed, most mistaken links were cleansed, and then we’ll establish rules for dab pages. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support see my proposed guideline above: "Keep the count of different items as high as necessary, as low as possible" --Sk!d (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support - there should be rough guidelines only. Disambiguation pages on the Wikipedias started linking to each other the way they did for valid reasons. Who are we to reinvent that? There's no harm in it; in cases where there is a problem, move the sitelinks. A random example of why hard rules will create problems: I just visited the Japanese disambiguation page for the word "Love" in English, and it is highly relevant to English disambiguation, as many of the entries use the English character set, even if the page title doesn't. Espeso (talk) 04:59, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

 Oppose --β₁₆ - (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support. There should be guidelines, not rules. Seven years of running an iw bot tells me so. - Soulkeeper (talk) 15:25, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

 Support - because common sense should always be the main determinant with anything on Wikidata. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:19, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Extra Question

Should Disambiguation Items have any properties

•  Oppose --Saehrimnir (talk) 12:59, 6 March 2013 (UTC) Per definition they can not have any properties, because the do not correspond to a single thing. If we make such a rule we could have a bot which looks through them periodically and deletes the properties.
•  Neutral - some disambiguations have only geographical localities (Q407718), some only names (Q729388), but in another language it might be different JAn Dudík (talk) 08:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
•  Oppose --Stryn (talk) 08:55, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
•  Neutral they should only have Property:P107 (Q4167410). --Sixsi6ma (talk) 11:29, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Surname pages

I'm not happy with the new statement in the guidelines. This is not a new "problem" as interwiki bots had the same problem concerning which pages should be linked together. The solution for interwiki bots was the MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage page of every wikipedia. For example for the english wikipedia w:en:MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage. For interwiki bots all pages containing one of the mentioned templates were treated as disambiguation pages (althoug they are not, e.g. the surname pages) and were allowed to be linked to disambigutation pages in other languages. So why should we now restrict this rule although it worked well since years? A second problem is should probably be made into Disambiguation pages by adding them to the appropriate category. In german wikipedia we already have the problem that users (from other languages) change articles against our rules into disambiguation pages because it fits better to wikidata and changes disambiguations into surname articles because it's easier to link it that way in wikidata. I think it's really important to mention that such changes should be first discussed on the talk page of the corresponding article or at the corresponding wiki project (e.g. w:de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Begriffsklärungsseiten/Fließband for german wikipedia). Perhaps we should list these projects on Wikidata:Disambiguation pages task force. --Knopfkind (talk) 01:27, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion for the section surname pages:

Many wikipedias have pages which list people with the same surname. As long as these pages contain a template mentioned at the MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage page of the corresponding wikipedia, they can be linked to other disambiguation pages. Sometimes pages should probably be made into disambiguation pages or dismabiguation pages should be turned into surname articles. If you feel the label/template/category on the wikipedia page is incorrect then take this to the wikipedia talk page and discuss it there or ask for help if there is an active wikipedia project (cf list at Wikidata:Disambiguation pages task force#Useful links).

--Knopfkind (talk) 02:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I think this wording is better than mine and should be put on the main page Filceolaire (talk) 11:21, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok, Thank you! --Knopfkind (talk) 13:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Description

Where can I find the discussion for that? --Knopfkind (talk) 01:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm just asking because in case there was a proper discussion MediaWiki:Gadget-autoEdit.js should be updated. At the moment it's a mix of every possible description. --Knopfkind (talk) 02:41, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Different alphabets

• This proposal would prohibit inter-wiki links between disambiguation pages in wikipedias using various alphabets (e.g. Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, etc). This has to be taken into account.
• In addition, I do not believe there is a concensus amoung editors against inter-wiki links by translation. For example, en:Star Wars (disambiguation) links to ru:Звёздные войны (значения). ru:Star Wars is a redirect to ru:Звёздные войны and does not have inter-wiki links. This is the most common situation that I have observed. Basically, translated terms can result in two separate disambiguation lists (sometimes overlapping, but not necessarily). en:Life (disambiguation) links to ru:Жизнь (значения). There is also ru:Life disambiguation page, but it does not have inter-wiki links. It would be useful to distinguish the two types of inter-wiki connection between disambiguation pages in different languages, but presently there is no mechanism for it. --Wiking (talk) 20:37, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Topic Disambiguation pages

This follows from 'Wikidata_talk:Disambiguation_pages_task_force#Variation_of_Bonnie_and_Clyde_problem'. Here is my draft paragraph to be added to the Main Page:

Most Disambiguation pages link to other pages whose only thing in common is that they have the same spelling.

Some Disambiguation pages however link to other pages which are about closely related topics - that's why they have the same name. We call these Topic Disambiguation pages. Often you will find that some of the related pages in other languages deal with these related topics on one page rather than having a disambiguation page.

Topic Disambiguation pages can be sitelinked to items which also sitelink to articles in other languages which deal with the same group of topics, even if some of the other articles are not disambiguation pages, even if some of the other articles have a slightly different list of related topics.

Items for Topic Disambiguation pages relate to a group of different topics so they are effectively class items. Items for each of the related topics can be linked to these pages using the instance of (P31) property. These items can be linked to more general classes using the subclass of (P279) property.

Discussion

Draft above by Filceolaire (talk) 20:25, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

• Full  Support. I've been waiting for it for several years! This rule can solve many interwiki-conflicts or legalize useful connections. Infovarius (talk) 18:36, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
• I don't know what is a "topic disambiguation page"; I know "articles" and "disambiguation pages", and I know what is the difference of these pages. So yes, I'm gonna  Oppose. I don't like a idea to merge articles and disambiguation pages just if they have the same spelling, even if pages are "much-talked" topic disambiguation pages (which does not exist in my brain). --Stryn (talk) 21:07, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

  Compare ru:Теория относительности with its previous version. Both are about the same topic - theory of relativity (which consists of special and general relativity). Now it is article, once it was what? I call it "topic disambiguation". Infovarius (talk) 13:39, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

 Comment: There is very similar set index articles in en-wiki. --Infovarius (talk) 09:26, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Your Теория относительности isn’t anything close to a set index. It might be similar to what en.wikipedia calls w:WP:CONCEPTDAB. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:25, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Rigidness and item splitting

On the administrators noticeboard some discussion has risen on the splitting of items with disambiguation pages in cases where not all items had the exact same spelling. The discussion was brought forward on the splitting of Q654302 handling about disambiguation pages such as Group (en)/Gruppe (de)/Grupa (pl). The three examples I give do have different spellings but are for the time being still collected in the item. These three examples are however close linguistic relatives, they stem from the same origin. This holds for, for instance, Groep (nl) and Qrup (az) as well, but they seem to be split off definitively. IMHO there is not the slightest benefit for splitting items this way, and there is encyclopedic loss and loss of service to wikis of languages that spell a bit different. I think there is reason to relax a bit on the very strict rules that are given. My suggestion is that as long as there is no "language link conflict" items can be kept together when the language links included are:

• linguisticly related: like the example above with group, but more urgently so if the language links are differing only or mainly in affix or suffix spelling, such as in the de/nl/fr/pt-links on Q382618;
• quite clearly deal with the same subject, like in Q662524.

Please, some input. Kind regards, Lymantria (talk) 06:38, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I do think that disambiguation links are not an "encyclopedic" topic in terms of "encyclopedic". Disambiguation pages exist just to connect pages with the same spelling in every wiki, right? That's why you'll find Species/Specie or Carl/Karl separated even if the words are very similar: we deal on the basis of the spelling, not of the meaning. This happens in all the wikis, and, more important, when connecting different languages we have to deal with different meanings of the same spelling:

1. Once: in english it's a temporal adverb, in french it's a measure unit, in spanish means "eleven"... so, how can we connect them on the basis of their "linguistic relateness"? We can't.
2. Re: in italian means (mainly) either the note "D" and "King"... what can we connect it to?
3. Cotton: in it.wiki we have disambiguation pages "Cotton" and "Cotone" (which is the italian translation of cotton)... should we connect both of them? Of course the software doesn't allows so (N.B.: Sorry for this example, I thought about it yesterday and I think it's appropriate to underline my position, even if you clearly stated "as long as there is no language link conflict")

For all these reasons I think we cannot make exceptions in terms of "closeness" of the spelling (case 1 of your post). In the second case, I can say that it's not a "disambiguation between different meanings of the same word" but it's a sort of "disambiguation between more specific meanings of the same topic", right? That can be a good exception, and in that case I could agree. --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 08:45, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, I was talking about disconnecting items where there is no language conflict according to strict spelling. I don't want to put the spelling away as the leading concept. I am aware that disambiguation pages "tor" nl (most used as "beetle") and "Tor" de (most used as "goal") are in the same item, and I agree with that. But as long as there is no disambiguation page on nl "group" or "gruppe" or something alike, I don't see why "groep" has to be disconnected. Who benefits? Surely not the nl-wiki readers who see their disambiguation page disconnected, and cannot verify easily if for instance the English "group" has the same or similar set of different meanings as Dutch "groep". That is my point in the first case. So in my opinion it "cotton" and "cotone" give a language conflict and yield a different case.

I agree on your phrasing of the second case. Kind regards, Lymantria (talk) 10:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

(confl.) ok, but if there are separated disambiguation pages "Group" and "Gruppe", where do you link "Groep"? :-) --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 11:48, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Either one, but I would prefer "Group" as that is in spelling as well as in pronunciation the closest to "groep". Lymantria (talk) 12:50, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

this is quite arbitrary in my opinion, that's why following the "spelling rule" should be preferred. --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 13:20, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

But the spelling rule is arbitrary as well, be it easy to check and always conclusive. You haven't answered why it would be the best solution to disconnect from other languages. What is half a job worse than doing no job at all? As a small language Dutch speakers will always be interested in other languages, but this is cut off. Lymantria (talk) 14:06, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

the difference is that the spelling rule is arbitrarily stated as a guideline by the community itself :-) answering to your question, why would it be useful, if (as you say) there is more or less the same meaning, to navigate among different disambiguation pages on different wikis (different spelling, same meaning)? I mean, if I want to look for different linguistic meanings of "light", I will use the enyclopedic pages (licht, luce etc.), while I'll use interwikis among disambiguation pages just to check words with the same spelling. --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 16:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, I do use disambiguation pages to see if homonomy is somewhat the same in for instance Dutch, English and German. I'll need an annoying detour now for "groep" as the disambiguation page has become a dead link internationally. Unnecessarily so, IMHO, there is no other need for splitting than the "arbitrary rules, but agreed on as guideline". I think you shouldn't split items when the result is worse than what you started with. Kind regards, Lymantria (talk) 18:06, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I see your point, let's hear what other users think about this topic. --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 08:47, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't know if this is an option for every case, but a few months ago I found [2] and the additional "in other languages" in the title, see "Light" in other languages (Q13431243). It's not perfect, but this might be a good intermediate solution for some cases. I think of cases where we have at least in one language different disambiguations for different words/spellings that generally can mean the same. For example in German and in English we have a disambig Licht (Q2756433) (German word for "light) and a disambig for Light (Q347415) (English word "light"). Notice that both words in both languages have also meanings not only referring to "light" in its main usage as sunlight/electrical light, but also usages as surnames, album titles, company names etc. Now for example see

• disambiguations "french":
  • same spelling: Français (Q8102134), French (Q8962800) …
  • the rest: "French" in other languages (Q15304278)
• disambiguations "dutch": (meaning "of/from Holland", hollandish/hollandic/"hollands" – little problem because in English there is no adjective to differenciate between "from the Netherlands" and "from Holland", Dutch is used for both)
  • same spelling: Hollands (Q1221246), Dutch (Q1267799) …
  • the rest: Hollandish (Q1624961)

I think this kind of "half splitting" can help. We only need to keep an eye on these "in other languages" mixed-spelling items in the future, because they might need further splitting once new disambiguations are added (if they are spelled the same as one of the linked pages). – The only alternative, following the rigid rule of exact same spellings, would be to split up these mixed "in other languages" items into several items with only one link each. Holger1959 (talk) 11:44, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a compelling idea. I wasn't aware of these items. Kind regards, Lymantria (talk) 12:54, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not pretty convinced about that, since there are words which are totally dissimilar from "Light" (e.g. Světlo, Gaisma); this is even broader than "language links differing only or mainly in affix or suffix spelling" as proposed by Lymantria. Furthermore, for example, "Pesca" in italian means either fishing or peach; supposing that there aren't other disambiguation pages named "Pesca", basing on your approach would you link it in Q407512 or Q5454995? --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 13:20, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Pesca? to none of them, because that is a different case.

i did not wrote that this sort of "half splitting" is good for every case. it is only an idea how we maybe can handle some of your "group" or similar cases. Holger1959 (talk) 14:08, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

My opinion is that we should keep such things as close to each other as possible. The second point that if somebody make such big changes like this, he should restore local interwikis at all sites. Because it looks destructive: 1) bots moved interwikis to Wikidata; 2) items at Wikidata are splitted and linking is lost. Infovarius (talk) 19:14, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

(haven't read all the text) i think it's still a good idea to be strict in single word disambigs. redirects from different spellings and the possibility to add links to redirects on wikidata could help out. where i see a problem is with disambiguations that consists of multiple words, like work titles (Q231805). (although they could be solved by redirects too)--Akkakk 14:52, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

The concept of strict spelling only works in a language like English. In Latin there are different spellings depending on how a word is used. See la:Sinister which uses the spellings Sinister, Sinistra, and Sinistrum. In English about the only thing we do is add an s, but in other languages there are other variations. I do not see that we can control what someone puts on their disambiguation page. See the discussion at Wikidata:Project_chat#Left (Q3556716) where someone has just made spaghetti out of what had been a perfectly good page for items about left as either a political term or left as a direction. 76.24.193.7 09:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

• Korea (Q1119063) is an obvious example of an item for a disambiguation page where it is important to include translations. There are two Korea's, North and South, as well as the peninsula, and the former country of Korea. Whatever Korea is called in any language, it is likely there is a disambiguation page, and all of those need to be linked to a single item. Germany would be another example. 76.24.193.7 06:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Is necessary to split the item: Korea ǂ Corea. In Italian Corea can be a type of barrack, a type of diseas, an old popular dance or a Asian region, in english, the diseas and the dance are called Chorea --ValterVB (talk) 08:06, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Done. There is no question. There was a perfectly matching item yet. --Diwas (talk) 10:19, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Is there a tool or bot to fill up the (now) missing links in the local wikipedias? (e.g. from es:Corea to fi:Korea) --Diwas (talk) 11:43, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Some opinion

I have splitted Sino-Japanese War (Q162313) because are all disambiguation item, but @Zerabat: have reverted because he think that is wrong. I follow the guideline so I think that my edit is correct, but before revert edit of Zeraabt I prefer to have some other opinion. --ValterVB (talk) 17:30, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I add other 2 example of item that is necessary to split: St. Bartholomew's Churches (Q183500): all disambiguation except de.wiki that is a list, and Cancer (Q188218): all disambiguation. --ValterVB (talk) 18:14, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I haven't checked pages of these disambiguations but if all pages distinct e.g. two or more same named battles, wars, buildings etc., they could stay connected... Matěj Suchánek (talk) 19:56, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

But disambiguation it isn't about the meaning, if in Italy we have a musical group called "Guerra sino-giapponese" how I must manage this situation? Why italian disambiguation must be linked to "Japanisch-Chinesischer Krieg" or to "Perang Tiongkok-Jepang"? We lost the sense of disambiguation. --ValterVB (talk) 21:39, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

hi ValterVB, unfortunately there is a shadow-zone in the disambiguation rule that states that those pages only deal with the same spelling and not with the same meaning. I do agree with you and I was making edits like yours, but I stopped when I was told they were wrong, and I won't start again until the situation will be clearer. By now, this is a disputed issue, not resolved yet. --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 12:20, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Cavalcade (Q1051705) vs. Kavalkade (Q450188)? Matěj Suchánek (talk) 17:02, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

German is causing a language conflict there. I would bring over the french and english links and leave the rest. Just my opinion (see above). Kind regards, Lymantria (talk) 17:22, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

More on the "exact same spelling" rule

Following on from some of the discussions above, and also a recent discussion on project chat at Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2017/07#Disambiguation_items, where it applies to the statement in the current guideline: "The item should only contain links to Wikipedia disambiguation pages with the exact same spelling (disregarding the affix to identify the page as a disambiguation page e.g. (disambiguation))..." It seems to me that this statement doesn't have a consensus on Wikidata. I think this is because its rigid application harms the purpose of having disambiguation items in Wikidata, which is to provide interwiki links. A page like Maximilian II (Q227885) generates usable interwiki links, which would be mostly destroyed if the page was reorganised as required by the guideline, by splitting it into various separate items that differ in spelling. Attempting to do that would probably lead to somebody sooner or later remerging the items, and possibly an edit war. Can anything be done about it, like adding another exception, or should the guideline just be deleted as unworkable, leaving pages to be formed on an ad-hoc basis? Or perhaps the guideline should be applied rigidly, and damage to interwiki links accepted as collateral damage? Is there consensus for anything? Ghouston (talk) 11:47, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

• How about giving up on specifying how the disambiguation items should be used? Replace the text with "The purpose of these items is only to provide interwiki links between projects. They can be used to link disambiguation pages that are similar in some way. E.g., pages linked to Cat (Q1022892) list different meanings for the word "Cat", while pages linked to Maximilian II (Q227885) list usages of the name "Maximilian II" or its equivalent in other languages." Ghouston (talk) 09:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Flawed rules

After coming in an unfortunate contact with a rigid Wikidata rule enforcer and having tens of my surname page links reverted, I have to point out a flaw to these rules. In Latvian you transcribe all the foreign names even though it uses the same script as English (i.e. Latin), so in Latvian most of the foreign surnames would be spelled differently than in English (here's one example) and for most foreign surnames (especially the really exotic ones) there's a very slim chance that enough noteworthy Latvians would somehow end up with them for the surname page with the Latvian spelling to be created in other Wikipedias. So at the moment they are juat tossed separately from all the pages in other Wikipedias about the same surname indefinitely, not allowing Wikidata of serving even it's basic function. –Turaids (talk) 21:22, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I've changed the guidelines to give a bit more flexibility, since there's obviously no consensus that items like Maximilian II (Q227885) should be split up. Ghouston (talk) 00:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

There are 2 problem: n° 1 you add disambiguation pages to not disambiguation items. You can't do it in Wikidata but you can change your pages from disambiguation to not disambiguation like, for example, in en.wikipedia or it.wikipedia and it is all OK. 2° problem, for change the guideline for name and surname we must write in dedicate project that is Wikidata:WikiProject Names --ValterVB (talk) 07:16, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

There's no consensus for the current policy. That's why I changed it. Just read any of the discussions above. Ghouston (talk) 09:27, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

If nobody else supports my change, and the guideline is going to stay as it is, then somebody should split up items like Maximilian II (Q227885), Sino-Japanese War (Q162313) and Star Wars (Q1163494). I don't see how this would improve interlanguage links though, which is the only reason to have disambiguation items. Ghouston (talk) 01:37, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I normally do it, but it's a long long task.

C-K substitution

The current linking rules require "the exact same spelling" but allow for "the same pronunciation with a different script". This means that the fundamentally different spellings Club, 클럽 and Клуб can be linked but the much closer Club and Klub can't. Separating them requires a decision on whether to link the non-Latin spellings either to Club or to Klub, all of which have the same relation. This creates inconsistency and unnecessarily separates closely related pages.
In most cases, the pronunciation of C and K is exactly the same. Often one is redirected to the other and spellings are mixed on one disambiguation page. Therefore, I'm moving to allow C-K substitution. Opinions? --Oreg (talk) 15:05, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

@Oreg: It makes sense. But how to merge if there are both Club and Klub in one language? --Infovarius (talk) 10:19, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Moved from the page section "Editions pages"

"Many Wikisources have editions pages, which list all editions and translations of a work. They use a template calling the __DISAMBIG__ magic word and look like disambig pages but should be considered as work and linked to Wikipedia articles about the same work."

I moved this phrase from the guideline page because wasn't discussed. I am totally against this change. If wikisource have problem with Wikidata, can use the old style of interlink. We can't risk to have disambiguation items used like value in properties that can't use disambiguation. Disambiguation item are the only item where the meaning is totally insignificant, but the only important thing is the spelling. --ValterVB (talk) 20:24, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

@ValterVB: ooups sorry, we talked a bit about it on the main talk page Wikidata talk:WikiProject Disambiguation pages and I've been bold. Wikisources don't have a problem with Wikidata, they just have pages who can seems to be disambig pages but are not, they are work pages (see Wikidata:WikiProject Books too who agree with this). Bots and scripts can have trouble with that and that is why I wrote it here, to make the obivous clearer that this is not disambig pages (like for surnames). Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 21:23, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Just make sure they don't have the magic word. --- Jura 21:26, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jura1: That's up to Wikisource to decide, and we have already decided to preserve the magic word on these pages. If that causes issues for Wikidata and WD:DAB, it's up to Wikidata and WD:DAB to accommodate. Please see Wikidata talk:WikiProject Disambiguation pages for more information. Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jura1: but they should because a work is kind of a disambig, as in fine a work is nothing but a collection of editions. Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 21:45, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Is not a problem to have disambiguation pages at Wikisource on separate items. Swedish Wikipedia generally has themed ones as well. --- Jura 23:30, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jura1: that is correct. For example, Wikisource has separate disambiguation pages for works and for authors. However, Versions pages and Translations pages are not disambiguation pages within the definition used by WD:DAB (they do not disambiguate between articles with the same title), and they are not exemplars of Wikimedia disambiguation page (Q4167410). Beleg Tâl (talk) 04:20, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@ValterVB: you said "Disambiguation item are the only item where the meaning is totally insignificant, but the only important thing is the spelling." As you know, on Versions pages and Translations pages the spelling is totally insignificant, and the only important thing is the meaning. This is why WD:DAB should be notified that Versions pages and Translations pages are not disambiguation items within the scope of WD:DAB. Beleg Tâl (talk) 04:15, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Like said by Jura, If Wikisource say "they aren't disambiguation page but we want use magic word used for detect disambiguation page" the problem isn't in Wikidata but in Wikiquote and they must solve the problem: to use old interlink style. --ValterVB (talk) 18:46, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@ValterVB: If you want to begin to treat Wikisource links that way, you must first obtain consensus from the broader Wikidata community by creating a proposal at Wikidata talk:Wikisource or Wikidata:Project chat. As you know, the current consensus requires Versions and Translations pages on Wikisource to be linked to the Wikidata item for the work per se regardless of the presence of the Magic Word on those pages. You will need to follow the proper channels if you want to change this. Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:03, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@ValterVB: Wikidata simply refuses to understand that Wikisource is fundamentally different from Wikipedia. Wikidata must first accept that Wikipedia is only one model for a wiki, and not the standard by which every other project is to be judged. Wikisource pages for "works" are fundamentally going to be disambiguative because Wikisource projects carry editions of works instead of articles about works. In fact, the Wikipedia article about Hamlet should not be linked at all from Hamlet (Q41567), because the Wikipedia article is a page about Hamlet, and not the play itself. To be fully consistent, an article on the topic of Hamlet should be on a different data item from the data item for the play. Yet, we link the Wikipedia article out of deference to Wikipedias. Wikisources will have a Versions page for Hamlet, and this page must necessarily be dismabiguative because there is not just one edition of Hamlet in existence, and any bWikiwource has the possibility of hosting more than one edition of Hamlet.

What your argument boils down to is that you feel the need to dictate practices to other projects instead of being flexible to accommodate fundamental differences between wikis that are not Wikipedias. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: Consensus for what? We already have consensus: "Disambiguation pages in other projects should be linked only to disambiguation items, and disambiguation items should contain only site links to disambiguation pages.": It is in the first sentence of the guideline. --ValterVB (talk) 20:47, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: I didn't "dictate practices" I highlight the wikidata rules. If you aren't agree, you aren't obliged to use Wikidata. --ValterVB (talk) 20:47, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@ValterVB: We already have consensus: "Version pages that lists the different versions of the same work in Wikisource. They should be linked to the work items in Wikidata as they list some/all editions of the given work". Versions pages on Wikisource are not the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous: it is in the first sentence of the WD:DAB. Because Versions pages are not in the scope of WD:DAB, you need to propose this change on the relevant project. Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:03, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

But we don't have consensus. We have Wikipedia-consensus. The change has been proposed, and it has been rejected. Wikidata can either accept that rejection and work to move forward, or can sit in denial and pretend that there is still consensus for the arbitrary decision that does not consider how non-Wikipedias differ fundamentally from Wikipedias. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:08, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: If you are relplying to my last comment, then you misunderstand me. There is consensus that Versions pages are to link to Work items. The change to remove the magic word from Versions pages has been rejected, but the change to link Versions pages to Wikimedia-disambiguation-page items instead of work items has not even been proposed at all. Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:13, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Bit of a cross conversation. I hit an edit conflict with my reply, and didn't see the second reply from you in its final form. My comment referred to consensus here, whereas your comment refers to consensus there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:20, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey, Beleg Tâl, ValterVB: This discussion seems to go nowhere, could we focus on finding a practical solution. Here are some suggestion of possibilities :

• one item: put together the work on wikisource and the work on other Wikimedia projects (in that case, we should re-add the warning on this page)
• two items: split them appart, the work for all wikimedia project on one item and the work on Wikisource on an other page
• other solution? (any ideas)

In the second case, as Wikisource consider the work to be the same, we want all the informations and the sitelink of the work on Wikisource we should find a way to link the two items together and get the data (for the record, some wikisourcerors are even thinking on generating automatically these pages with Wikidata data). How could we do that as this is a sine qo none condition for Wikisource? Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 08:01, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@VIGNERON: Thank you for looking for a compromise. As I said to @ValterVB: you are welcome to propose changes to the current practice (of linking Versions pages to the item of the work per se) at Wikidata talk:Wikisource or Wikidata:Project chat for the broader Wikidata community to discuss. Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:22, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@VIGNERON: Sorry for my poor english but it'sn clear for me your propose. Can you explain, with Q:The Mother like example, how to manage the connection in Wikidata? --ValterVB (talk) 20:15, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

• Do we have some Wikidata description that suggests to add disambiguating lists of editions to works when on English Wikisource? It's frequent that on some wikis, Wikidata items aren't easily understood and users just want to add as many interwikis as possible on an item. This even if they could simply use LUA to load additional interwikis from Bonnie and Clyde items. --- Jura 13:51, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

  I do not know whether there is one specific place where this decision has been formalized. But the practice grew out of two necessities directly caused by the inception of Wikidata: (1) previous links between Wikisource projects were being broken. For example, a copy ofHamlet on en.WS could no longer be linked to a copy of a French translation or a Polish translation, since each one was not a "work", but an edition. Each edition had different publication data, and since each was now mandated to be a separate data item, there was no longer any means to cross-connect between Wikisources to find translations of a work. (2) The only possible point of cross-contact between Wikisources was the Versions pages that identified the "work" and disambiguated between editions. (3) This was also the only possible point of connection to Wikipedia items about the work, and thus to the data item for the work. All this has happened because of the need to maintain connections that were were being lost through the implementation of Wikidata.

  Is it not logical therefore to connect the Wikisource Versions page for the work to the data item for that work? If not, then why not? --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:03, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

  • @Jura1: User:EncycloPetey gives a good overview of the history and rationale. The formal description you asked for is at Wikidata:Wikisource, with an explicit outline of this very subject at Wikidata:Wikisource/How to help#Works Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:29, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
    • As has been said before, a Versions page (or Translations page), despite containing the __DISAMBIG__ magic word for structural purposes, nonetheless is the Wikisource page instance for the work per se. This is not a Bonnie-and-Clyde issue; we are familiar with Wikidata data structures, and we have worked very hard to align English Wikisource to comply with them. Treating Versions pages as wikimedia disambiguation pages instead of works would break this alignment and go against the data model for works already entrenched on both Wikisource and Wikidata. Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
      • "edition" isn't the same as work. I agree it's suboptimal that this hasn't been noticed before. Sorry for that. --- Jura 17:19, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
        • Indeed (obviously) but list of editions is the same as work (by definition, a work is but the combination all the editions). This is a long rule of Wikidata decribe for years on Wikidata:WikiProject Books or Wikidata:Wikisource (and many others places) and used by librarians for centuries. This consensus hasn't been opposed until this week, you have the burden of proof now. Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 20:47, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
          • A work can have many editions. It is impossible to decide whether e. g. the Wikipedia article on the work Hamlet should be linked to the Wikisource page containing this or this edition or some other. The Wikipedia article also does not talk only about one particular edition, it talks about various versions of the work and so it needs to be linked to a Wikisource page dealing with all the editions of the work, which is the version page Hamlet (Shakespeare). The presence or absence of some "magic word" is just technical matter and so I believe it should be possible to solve. --Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 23:59, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Exception for translation of disambiguation?

See Wikidata talk:WikiProject Disambiguation pages#Exception for translation of disambiguation?.

Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 16:58, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I think a new type of disambiguation item is needed, as was discussed previously here, for the likes of Maximilian II (Q227885), Sino-Japanese War (Q162313) and St. Bartholomew's Churches (Q183500). I see these still haven't been split up, as required by the current guideline. Splitting them up into separate items wouldn't give any benefit, it would only break the interlanguage links, which is the only reason that disambiguation pages are created on Wikidata. Ghouston (talk) 22:05, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ghouston: interresting, could you answer on the main discussion so everybody sees it? Cheers, VIGNERON (talk) 13:37, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, moved to the other location. Ghouston (talk) 20:32, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Overlapping disambiguations & group articles

The special cases section compares family name articles and family name disambiguation pages and says: "As long as these pages contain a template containing __DISAMBIG__, they can be linked to other disambiguation pages." So does this mean that it is technically 'legal' and possible to inter-link disambiguations and group articles to each other, as long as a __DISAMBIG__ is inserted in the respective group article? The question is motivated by en:Irish Republican Army and the perfectly redundant disambiguation page en:Irish Republican Army (disambiguation). Here deleting the disambiguation and unifying the respective interlanguage links would seem like the proper way to remove the redundancy. Allowed or not? --KnightMove (talk) 16:56, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

If en:Irish Republican Army is essentially a list of things called "Irish Republican Army", then it would be appropriate to use the __DISAMBIG__ tag and link it to a Wikidata object representing a Wikimedia disambiguation page. And I would support merging it with the current disambiguation page, though that is a discussion for Wikipedia rather than here. I don't know much about the subject, but wouldn't en:Irish Republican Army serve a better purpose as a proper encyclopedia article about the Irish republican armies as a general concept, rather than as primarily a list of individual armies by that name? Beleg Tâl (talk) 02:10, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Capitalization of labels

Does "The label should be identically equal to the Wikipedia page" mean that labels of disambiguation pages begin with an uppercase letter? I think it should be clarified, because some people replace an uppercase letter with a lowercase one (e.g. here in Q4064252).--Russian Rocky (talk) 17:37, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

In the opposite, personally I usually keep uppercase first letter in order to distinguish disambigs from usual items. --Infovarius (talk) 22:35, 28 June 2020 (UTC)