Forum:Temporary forums/Universalising the "(disambiguation)" dab term

Opening post
Here's a straightforward little issue that's been nagging at me for years and which I think will straightforwardly improve the Wiki.

This Wiki is no stronger to universal dabbing. It's fairly unlikely that "Four to Doomsday" would be an in-universe thing, but "Castrovalva" and"Castrovalva (TV story)" are easily confused, so we cut the Gordian knot and dab all story pages, so that as soon as they see something pop in the search bar or the autolinking suggestions, a user knows where they stand with a given page.

However, there is one area where we haven't applied that wisdom: disambiguation pages. Consider: Mary, Abby, Amy, John, Alice. Who at first glance could tell that "Abby" and "Alice" are pages about characters who are primary topics and thus undabbed, while the rest are disambiguation pages listing everyone by that name on the Wiki, in- and out-of-universe? No one, that's who, and we're constantly having to clean up inaccurate linking.

I contend that the obvious solution is to universalise the "(disambiguation)" dab term for all dab paes; thus Mary would become Mary (disambiguation), even if there's no primary-topic "Mary" character to occupy the undabbed namespace. In the absence of such a primary topic, Mary will redirect to Mary (disambiguation), but in case one emerges, editors should strive to always link to the dabbed version.

Given that we have a constantly-updated list of disambiguation pages at our disposal, I expect the change to be fairly easily done by bot. But as it affects a great number of pages, I thought it best to quickly put this up to community discussion before any action is taken.

Thoughts? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 16:25, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion
This makes total sense to me, and in fact I find it somewhat mind-boggling that this wasn't already the case. Time God Eon ☎  16:57, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * This has to be one of the most straightforward and uncontroversial proposals so far. I agree with the proposal, and I must admit to myself creating disambiguation pages at "(disambiguation)" even when there there wasn't a page at the undabbed title. It just makes sense. 17:28, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Absolutely, totally support this. Cousin Ettolrhc ☎  17:30, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree with this proposal, however, I have a concern: what would we do about pages like Nardole and Vastra, for example? Danniesen ☎  18:03, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Those pages should remain at their undabbed titles as obvious primary topics, with Nardole (disambiguation) and Vastra (disambiguation) created if necessary. bwburke94 (talk) 16:07, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Pluto2 ☎ 18:10, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't understand your question, @Danniesen. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:26, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * What would we make Rose redirect to? Rose (disambiguation) or Rose Tyler? Same for other major characters. I propose that, after fixing all the links, we make the currently undabbed names link to a major character with that first name (or last, if that's more commonly used for them) instead of the disambiguation page, but I'm happy to go the other way as long as there is consenus. Cousin Ettolrhc ☎  19:43, 26 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I understand this line of discussion either. But I support the proposal. Najawin ☎  23:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I not only support this proposal, I think that (disambiguation) and (in-universe) should both always be used when any confusion might exist.

Let's say I want to link to the Shada prison. I write "" then type Shada. When [[Shada automatically pops up as a suggestion, it's fair for me to assume that I've linked to the right page. If, instead, Shada (disambiguation) were to appear, I'd think "Damn. That's not what I wanted!" (This is the fastest example I can think of, but really there's no reason that Shada doesn't link automatically to Shada (prison) since Shada (in-universe book) would not qualify for the redirect in the first place)

The same is true for something like Doctor Who: The Novelisation of the Hit TV Movie. Sure, it isn't really named after The Novel of the Film. But linking to it by mistake would be understandable if it didn't have the (in-universe) DAB in-place (which it does now).

99.99% of wrong-links are done on accident. This is just a situation of trying to make editing on the website more universally practical for those still working on articles. OS25🤙☎️ 00:19, 27 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I completely support this proposal. Susan's another good example where (until I fixed it and redirected the page) tons of pages were linking to Susan (disambiguation). Just to answer Ettolrhc, in cases like those I think best practice would be for us to not have a page. Like, we should move Kevin to Kevin (disambiguation), and then leave Kevin as a redlink. – n8 (☎) 13:29, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

That's a fair decision, n8. Cousin Ettolrahc ☎  16:51, 27 March 2023 (UTC)


 * If anyone's unsure and is looking for more examples, Yeti gets wrong-linked VERY often. OS25🤙☎️ 02:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I support this change. It'll bring some consistency to the disambiged pages. --Tangerineduel / talk 13:12, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Wholehearted support from me, I've had a fair amount of experience with disambiguation pages ironically causing more ambiguity. Disambiguation page should probably also prioritize the page for the primary topic, if it exists— for example, Susan (disambiguation) should emphasize Susan Foreman since Susan redirects there. (Susan Foreman should, in my opinion, also have a note saying "Susan" redirects here [etc] but that can probably wait until the proposed hatnote discussion by User:Epsilon the Eternal.) Chubby Potato ☎  09:48, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Given the unanimous support above, I'm a little surprised to see that this debate extended for another 3 weeks. What's going on? – n8 (☎) 19:58, 16 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Eep! Just an editing error. Changed the date on the wrong row of the table. I mean, as the OP it wouldn't be my place to extend it in any case. (I believe User:OncomingStorm12th intends to close it imminently.) (EDIT: fixed.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 20:01, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Conclusion
This was a very straightforward discussion, with basically unanimous support to the proposal. I don't think there's really much that needs saying in this closing post that hasn't been addressed in User:Scrooge MacDuck's opening post.

For the sake of uniformity, "(disambiguation)" will now be applied to all disambiguation pages, with the current, dabless titles being kept as redirects until a primary topic under that name emerges. OncomingStorm12th ☎  21:34, 16 April 2023 (UTC)