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)

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)