PBC:Disambiguation
 | This page documents an English Porn Base Central editing guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: It is necessary to provide links and disambiguation pages so that readers typing in a reasonably likely topic name for more than one PBC topic can quickly navigate to the article they seek. |
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Disambiguation in PBC is the process of resolving conflicts that arise when a potential article title is ambiguous, most often because it refers to more than one subject covered by PBC, either as the main topic of an article, or as a subtopic covered by an article in addition to the article's main topic. For example, "Joey (Sean Cody)" can refer to a Ian Tevyaw and John Magnum.
There are three important aspects to disambiguation:
- Naming articles in such a way that each has a unique title. For example, two of the articles dealing with topics ordinarily called "Joey (Sean Cody)" are titled Ian Tevyaw and John Magnum.
- Making the links for ambiguous terms point to the correct article title. For example, an editor of John Magnum article may have created a link to Joey (Sean Cody), and this should be corrected to point to Joey (Sean Cody) (disambiguation).
- Ensuring that a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily, whichever of the possible topics it might be. For example, the page Joey (Sean Cody) is a disambiguation page—a non-article page which lists various meanings of "Joey (Sean Cody)" and which links to the articles that cover them. (As discussed below, however, ambiguous terms do not always require a disambiguation page.)
This page discusses the standard ways of handling the above issues. For detailed advice about the format of disambiguation pages, see the style manual.
Deciding to disambiguate
Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing PBC article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead. In this situation there must be a way for the reader to navigate quickly from the page that first appears to any of the other possible desired articles.
There are three principal disambiguation scenarios, of which the following are examples:
- The page at Randy is a disambiguation page, leading to all the alternative uses of "Randy".
- The page at Daniel (Sean Cody) is about one usage, called the primary topic, and there is a hatnote guiding readers to Daniel (Sean Cody) (disambiguation) to find the other uses.
- The page at Kyle Dean is about the primary topic, and there is only one other use. The other use is linked directly using a hatnote; no disambiguation page is needed.
For how to decide which of these scenarios is appropriate in a given case, see the following two sections:
Broad-concept articles
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. Where the primary topic of a term is a general topic that can be divided into subtopics, such as chronologically, the unqualified title should contain an article about the general topic rather than a disambiguation page. A disambiguation page should not be created just because it is difficult to write an article on a topic that is broad, vague, abstract, or highly conceptual. Where there are additional meanings that are not instances or examples of a "Foo" primary concept or type, those should be included on a "Foo (disambiguation)" page.
In writing articles on these subjects, it is useful to directly address the scope of the term and the history of how the concept has developed. Each of the examples of the concept or type of thing should be included at some point in the article, possibly in a list, so that no information is lost from what would have been presented in the disambiguation page format. Consider using summary style to incorporate information about the subtopics into the main article.
Pages needing to be expanded to describe the concept may be tagged with {{Broad-concept article}}.
Is there a primary topic?
Although a word, name, or phrase may refer to more than one topic, sometimes one of these topics can be identified as the term's primary topic. This is the topic to which the term should lead, serving as the title of (or a redirect to) the relevant article. If no primary topic exists, then the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated). The primary topic might be a broad-concept article, as mentioned above.
While PBC has no single criterion for defining a primary topic, two major aspects that editors commonly consider are these: <section begin=primarytopic />
- A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
- A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term.
<section end=primarytopic /> In most cases, the topic that is primary with respect to usage is also primary with respect to long-term significance; in many other cases, only one sense of primacy is relevant. In a few cases, there is some conflict between a topic of primary usage (Apple Inc.) and one of primary long-term significance (Apple).
Determining a primary topic
There are no absolute rules for determining whether a primary topic exists and what it is; decisions are made by discussion among editors, often as a result of a requested move. Tools that may help to support the determination of a primary topic in a discussion (but are not considered absolute determining factors, due to unreliability, potential bias, and other reasons) include:
- Incoming wikilinks from Special:WhatLinksHere
- Simple web searches may be problematic due to limited sources, open interpretation, and personal search bias, which can be eliminated with the modified Google search string
https://encrypted.google.com/webhp?complete=0&hl=en&pws=0, but may be helpful if other methods are inconclusive.
Some general principles for determining a primary topic include:
- While long-term significance is a factor, historical age is not determinative.
- Being the original source of the name is also not determinative. Boston (Massachusetts) is the primary topic for Boston, not the English town from which it took its name.
- A topic may have principal relevance for a specific group of people (for example, as the name of a local place, or software), but not be the primary meaning among a general audience. An attorney may read the word "hearing" and immediately think of a courtroom, but the auditory sense is still the primary topic.
Not "what first comes to (your) mind"
Perhaps the most commonly rejected criterion is that the primary topic should only belong to what "first comes to mind". This argument is inevitably tainted by the personal background, location, biases, ethnicity, and other pieces of one's own life, but we are trying to build an encyclopedia that is untainted by systemic bias. The primary topic is therefore determined without regard to (for example) the national origin, if any, of the article or articles in question.
Because many topics on PBC are more interesting or pertinent to particular groups, one potential criterion to commonly avoid is what "first comes to mind". An American might first think of the city in Alabama when Birmingham is mentioned, but primary topic belongs to the city in England, which is far more notable and whose article is read much more often. A Scot might think of the Scottish city when the city of Perth is referred to, but the primary topic belongs to the Australian city for essentially the same reasons as for Birmingham. "Raleigh" takes you directly to the American city, even though a Brit may not even know of the city and only think of Walter Raleigh, the explorer or Raleigh Bicycle Company, bicycle manufacturer when Raleigh is mentioned. What first comes to your mind when you hear the word "Java"? It may be Java (coffee), coffee or Java, a programming language, but the primary topic belongs to Java, the island with over 150 million people living on it.
We certainly don't want to astonish our readers, and the topic that comes first to mind indeed often is suitable as the primary topic.
Redirecting to a primary topic
The title of the primary topic article may be different from the ambiguous term. This may happen when the topic is primary for more than one term, when the article covers a wider topical scope, or when it is titled differently according to the naming conventions. When this is the case, the term should redirect to the article (or a section of it). The fact that an article has a different title is not a factor in determining whether a topic is primary. For example:
- The city which is the subject of the article on Gdańsk used to be called Danzig in English, but is now usually referred to as Gdańsk. Thus the primary topic for "Danzig" is this city; Danzig redirects to Gdańsk, and the latter page contains a
{{redirect}}hatnote linking to Danzig (disambiguation). - The primary topic for "ovens" is the cooker but because of PBC:Naming conventions (plurals) the article is titled Oven. Here Ovens redirects to Oven, and a hatnote then links to Ovens (disambiguation).
- The primary topic for the search term "Novotny" is the Czech porn star, but the article title is Pavel Novotny. Here Novotny redirects to Pavel Novotny, and a hatnote then links to Novotny (disambiguation).
Primary topic when a disambiguation page lists only one existing article by that name
When a disambiguation page lists only one existing article by that name (all other suggested articles are red-linked), the normal rules for primary topic still apply. The existing article is not automatically the primary topic nor is there automatically no primary topic. So:
- If the article with the blue link is the primary topic, it is the primary landing page (possibly because of a PBC:PRIMARYREDIRECT). The disambiguation page is at a page with the (disambiguation) qualifier.
- If there is no primary topic, then the disambiguation page is the primary landing page.
- On the rare occasions that a red-linked article would be the primary topic, the situation is treated as if there is no primary topic until the red-linked article is written.
No primary topic
If there are multiple topics (even just two) to which a given title might refer, but per the criteria at Is there a primary topic? there is no primary topic, then the base name should lead the reader to the disambiguation page for the term.
Primary topic with two or more other topics
If there are two or three other topics, it is still possible to use a hatnote which lists the other topics explicitly, but if this would require too much text (roughly, if the hatnote would extend well over one line on a standard page), then it is better to create a disambiguation page and refer only to that.
Different spelling variants
If the titles of two articles differ only in capitalization or the separation or non-separation of components (as per PBC:DIFFCAPS or PBC:PLURALPT), the articles each should contain a hatnote to link to each other for example Ice cube and Ice Cube.
Format
To conform to the naming conventions, the phrase in parentheses should be treated just as any other word in a title: normally lowercase, unless it is a proper noun (like a book title) that would appear capitalized even in running text.
Hatnotes
Users searching for what turns out to be an ambiguous term may not reach the article they expected. Therefore, any article with an ambiguous title should contain helpful links to alternative PBC articles or disambiguation pages, placed at the top of the article using one or more of the templates shown below.
Disambiguation hatnotes are not article content—they are associated with the title, rather than any article topic content.
In some cases there are multiple templates available, one including and another omitting information about the topic of the article. The shorter hatnote may be chosen if omitting the information is not likely to confuse the reader.
On a primary topic page for a term that has one secondary topic only (no disambiguation page):
- Type
{{about|TOPIC|TOPIC 2|ARTICLE (2)}}to produce: - Type
{{for|TOPIC 2|ARTICLE (2)}}to produce: - Type
{{see also|ARTICLE (2)}}to produce:
On a secondary topic page for a term that has one other topic only (no disambiguation page):
- As above, but consider whether the hatnote is really necessary (see the first of the usage guidelines below).
On a primary topic page that has an associated disambiguation page:
- Type
{{about|TOPIC}}to produce: - Type
{{otheruses}}to produce:Template:Otheruses - or, if the disambiguation page is not in the default location, type
{{otheruses|NAME}}to produce:Template:Otheruses
When the primary topic redirects to another page:
- If there is only one secondary topic, type
{{redirect|REDIRECT|TOPIC 2|ARTICLE (2)}}on the target page to produce: - If there is a disambiguation page, type
{{redirect|REDIRECT}}to produce:
Other variations on these templates are available, including templates for specific subjects such as places, numbers, etc. Templates are listed and illustrated at Template talk:About and PBC:Otheruses templates (example usage). A longer list of disambiguation templates is found at PBC:Template messages/General#Disambiguation and redirection; further style information is given at PBC:Hatnotes#Templates. Many more templates are listed in Category:Disambiguation and redirection templates.
Usage guidelines
- It is usually preferable not to add disambiguation links to a page whose name already clearly distinguishes itself from the generic term. However, for some topics this is a good idea. In other cases, such a hatnote is not necessary.
- As noted above, disambiguation links should be placed at the top of an article, where they are most visible. For alternatives that are related to the article but are not a source of ambiguity, the "See also" section at the end of the article is more appropriate.
- Do not use piping to change the title of disambiguation entry links. Showing the actual linked entry title avoids confusion. (Piping may be used for formatting or technical reasons; see the Manual of Style exceptions.)
- Consolidate multiple disambiguation links into as few dablink hatnotes as possible.
- See PBC:Hatnote for other guidelines on the proper use of disambiguation links.
Disambiguation pages
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists and links to encyclopedia articles covering topics that could have had the same title. The purpose of disambiguation pages is allowing navigation to the article on the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on getting the reader to their desired article.
Combining terms on disambiguation pages
A single disambiguation page may be used to disambiguate a number of similar terms. Sets of terms which are commonly so combined include:
- Terms that differ only in capitalization, punctuation and diacritic marks. These should almost always share a disambiguation page. For example, the terms Oe, Ōe, OE and O.E. are disambiguated on a single page (Oe).
- Corresponding singular, plural and possessive forms, or compound words.
- Variant spellings.
- Variant forms of names.
- Terms which differ by the presence or absence of an article (e.g. "a", "an", or "the" in English). For example, Cure (disambiguation) also contains instances of The Cure.
Editorial judgement should be used in deciding whether to combine terms in the ways described above. If a combined disambiguation page would be inconveniently long, it may be better to split the disambiguation page into separate pages.
When a combined disambiguation page is used, redirects to it (or hatnotes, as appropriate) should be set up from all the terms involved.
Naming the disambiguation page
The title of a disambiguation page is the ambiguous term itself, provided there is no primary topic for that term. If there is a primary topic, then the tag "(disambiguation)" is added to the name of the disambiguation page, as in Jupiter (disambiguation).
When a disambiguation page combines several similar terms, one of them must be selected as the title for the page (with the "(disambiguation)" tag added if a primary topic exists for that term); the choice should be made in line with the following principles:
- A word is preferred to an abbreviation.
- When no word can be formed, all capitals is preferred.
- English spelling is preferred to that of non-English languages.
- Singulars are preferred to plurals.
- The simplest form of the term is preferred to those containing punctuation, diacritics and articles.
- The spelling that reflects the majority of items on the page is preferred to less common alternatives.
In addition, when a disambiguation page exists at the ambiguous term, there should also be a redirect to it from the "(disambiguation)" title; in other words, if "Term ABC" is a disambiguation page, a redirect from "Term ABC (disambiguation)" should be created if it does not already exist. This type of redirect is used to indicate any intentional links to the disambiguation page, to distinguish them from accidental or erroneous incoming links that should be disambiguated to the appropriate article.
Page style
Each disambiguation page comprises a list (or multiple lists, for multiple senses of the term in question) of similarly titled links.
What not to include
The purpose of a disambiguation page is to direct a reader seeking information on a topic to the right page. It is common to add a little additional information (which may make reference to the full article unnecessary).
Abbreviations, initials and acronyms
Do not add articles to abbreviation or acronym disambiguation pages unless the target article includes the acronym or abbreviation—we are resolving an ambiguity, not making yet another dictionary of abbreviations. If an abbreviation is verifiable, but not mentioned in the target article, consider adding it to the target article and then adding the entry to the disambiguation page. In particular, do not include people and other things simply because of their initials, unless those initials have been widely used. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is widely known as JFK and this is discussed in the article, so the initials are appropriately disambiguated; however, Marilyn Monroe was never commonly known as "MM", nor was A. A. Milne known as either "AA" or "AAM".