From Wikitravel

I moved the disambig stuff back to the article naming conventions page. These are such an important part of article naming, I think they need to be part of the page. --Evan 14:14, 28 Dec 2003 (PST)

[edit] Disambig pages vs links

Moved from Wikitravel:Travellers' pub - by Huttite 21:45, 2 Oct 2004 (EDT).

Can I ask for the rationale behind using disambiguation pages instead of links? Often, eg. St. Petersburg, one of the places being disambiguated is much better known and it feels stupid to have to write St.Petersburg every time I want to link to the bigger of the two. I'd prefer the Wikipedia style, where the main page is usually the Big One and has a link up top with "This page is about X, see also Y for the Z in Q". Jpatokal 04:18, 29 Jul 2004 (EDT)

Which city has more English-speaking tourists, the one in Russia or the beach resort in Florida? ;-) Personally, since this is a travel guide I prefer the disambig to make sure we're displaying the page the user wants when they do a search (cause they might skip the see also clause at the top and skim down). Conversely, in an Encylopedia, Moscow (Idaho) is pretty much never what the user wants when they ask for Moscow. (I'm gonna regret this when the other five Fremonts in the US are added) -- Colin 04:43, 29 Jul 2004 (EDT)

The mos does allow the first approach "if one place is so famous that the disambiguation is a hindrance rather than a help", giving examples of Paris and Los Angeles. I think you could probably make a case for St Petersburg under that exemption; although having three different names in the last 100 years certainly doesn't help that cities case.

But that is almost incidental. The vast majority of ambiguously named places are not like that; there is genuine cause for confusion. I live in Reading in England, but I know there is a Reading in Pennsylvania although I know no more than that about it. I guess most of the english speaking world have only vaguely heard of either, if at all. Which is the more important in a Wikitravel context?. I think the only sensible answer is 'it depends on the readers context', in which case disambiguation is the right approach. -- Chris j wood 07:38, 29 Jul 2004 (EDT)

See Talk:St. Petersburg --145.99.202.92 05:12, 13 April 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Disambig pages for famous cities

A policy question/suggestion for the 'famous' cities:

Given that there's famous cities that get the main article, such as London, what should we do about disambiguating other Londons? At the moment there seems to be three approaches:

1. The famous city article doesn't mention the other city: Sydney doesn't mention Sydney (Nova Scotia). This is probably the most common.
2. The famous city article links to the other city: London links to London (Ontario)
3. The famous city article links to [[Famous City (disambiguation)]]: Atlanta links to Atlanta (disambiguation).

At the moment, I suspect #1 best reflects policy, because the full set of famous cities is meant to be on Wikitravel:Disambiguation page index (which is terribly out of date). I suspect #3 is borrowed from Wikipedia. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem like a terrible idea, especially since the link at the top would only need to read: This article is about London, United Kingdom, see London (disambiguation) for other places called London.

The major risks of adopting such a policy seem to be:

1. People will see the major articles and think this is normal procedure, and start treating the default article as "first in, first served", so we start having [[Nowheresville]] and [[Nowheresville (disambiguation)]].
2. It means the 99% of people seeking information about London UK have to read a bunch of text that doesn't contain that information at the top of the article.

Thoughts?

Hypatia 05:41, 1 Nov 2004 (EST)

[edit] In-page disambiguation

I'd like to suggest that we do a MediaWiki template for the in-page disambiguation at the top of pages. This usually happens for pages like London or Paris or Ontario where we've exercised the by-far-the-most-famous naming rule. For example:

This article concerns London, capital of England and the UK. Several places exist by the same name, including London (Ontario) in Canada and East London in South Africa

Although this is useful for the Web site, it's unnecessary and confusing accounting work for print versions. If it was in a template, it could be safely ignored by printing software.

If we use Template:Samename, it would be formatted correctly, and be ignorable. --Evan 08:08, 8 Jul 2005 (EDT)

I'll give a thumbs up for this. Jpatokal 00:19, 17 Jul 2005 (EDT)

Template:Samename has been replaced by Template:otheruses. -- Ryan 18:21, 24 March 2006 (EST)

[edit] Similar pages

So, actually, it's not that difficult to determine automatically if there are other pages with a name similar to the one under discussion. Like, say, for Burlington (Vermont), it's relatively easy technically to trim everything in parentheses and surrounding whitespace and then search for other articles titled exactly "Burlington" or "Burlington (something)". I wonder if there'd be any value in showing links to these out-of-page, maybe near where the other sites/languages links are. --Evan 16:24, 9 Jul 2005 (EDT)

[edit] Provinces/prefectures and cities

(moved in from Wikitravel talk:Disambiguation page index)

About the differences between province and city in Spain, I think that there shouldn't be this kind of page. An example: Sevilla city and Sevilla Province. Every important city in Spain has a province with the same name (Frm Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Granada, Salamanca.....), so this can be really confusing. I think that is much better to put Sevilla as the page for Sevilla city and then make a page named Sevilla Province. This page can be linked from the page of the region ie Andalucía, and froma the page of the city (maybe on the top of the page). What do you think about it? 09:47 pstng

Most all of Japan's prefectures are named after their largest cities, and if you say "I'm going to X" this will be by default assumed to mean the city, not the prefecture. For these cases, I thus think it makes sense to redirect X to X (city) and uplinking X (city) to X (prefecture), instead of creating explicit disambig pages. Opinions? Note that this is already the de facto state of affairs, I'm just trying to make it formal.

This also applies to Thai prefectures, so I think we've got the beginnings of a rule here. Now to decide which model to follow:

# X redirects to X (city), X (city) uplinks to X (prefecture)

# X is the city, and uplinks to X (prefecture)

Opinions? Jpatokal 00:18, 17 Jul 2005 (EDT)

My opinion is that I think this case is pretty well covered by the disambiguation rules we have so far. However, I think that it may be useful to have some sort of explanation for this common case.

I think the current rules are as follows: use "X (city)" and "X (province)" (or region, or state, or prefecture, or whatever) to disambiguate places with the same name, and make "X" a disambiguation page. As an exception, if one is significantly better known, don't bother with a disambiguator for that one. For example, if the city is much much better known, use "X" for the city and "X (prefecture)"; if the state is much much better known, use the opposite "X (city)" and "X" for the province. I don't think there's been a case where the state is sufficiently more famous than the city that we could leave out the disambiguator (the best I can come up with is Chihuahua), but I don't think we can rule it out as a possibility.

Is there a good place we should put this? Maybe a section on Wikitravel:article naming conventions? --Evan 15:11, 17 Jul 2005 (EDT)

See, the problem with the current rule is that it requires that "much much" in there before the disambig page can be dispensed with. This makes perfect sense for the Paris (France) vs Paris (Texas) type of situations, but less so for Toyama Prefecture vs Toyama City cases where it's be a stretch to call either "famous".

My stab at a rule:

If a city X and its surrounding province/prefecture/voivodship/... share the same name, and the city is the better known of the two, then the city gets "X" and the province goes in "X (province)". Always uplink the city to the province.

So how? Jpatokal 04:10, 28 Jul 2005 (EDT)

I'm plunging forward and converting Japanese prefectures to use this convention (which most of them already implement anyway), but I'd like a few more comments before I go edit the policy. Jpatokal 23:42, 11 Aug 2005 (EDT)

The Rt. Hon. User:202.47.247.130 has gone ahead and disambigged a bazillion Thai provinces into X (city) and X (province). As Thai provinces are nearly always named after the largest city, I hereby will make the text above policy, and proceed with the mass renaming in a few days if there is no mass uproar. Jpatokal 21:41, 6 Dec 2005 (EST)

In the absence of uproar, how will the policy be applied for Thai provinces/cities (other than Bangkok & Phuket)?

Will the "Ayutthaya and Ayutthaya (province)" example apply to all Thai cities/provinces other than Bangkok & Phuket?

Yes, I think so. Common sense should be used, but I can't think of any other exceptions in Thailand at the moment. The same policy has already been adopted for Japan. Jpatokal 21:26, 7 Dec 2005 (EST)

Although this policy may be applied to Japan and Thailand, it has not been appied to the policy page first. Perhaps we should say the following:

If the main or gateway city of a region and its surrounding area share the same name then the main city need not be disambiguated, though the surrounding area should be. For example: Many Japanese prefectures take their names from their capital cities. This is also common in Spain and Thailand. In these cases the region should always be refered to in the first line of the article by saying the city is the capital/main city of the region. In other words: If you get to the place with the ambiguous name you also find yourself the middle of the region of the same name, then you do not need a disambiguation page for the destination name. In these cases, a disambiguation page is only needed where the ambiguous name also refers to other places that are geographically separate from the city/region pair.

-- Huttite 21:53, 9 Dec 2005 (EST)

[edit] Disambiguation lists

Can someone explain to me which of Wikitravel:Links to disambiguating pages or Wikitravel:Disambiguation page index we should update when we create a disambiguation page? Both? The latter seems really out of date. I know it's there so that there's extra data about disambiguated names without a disambiguation page, and about the "famous" locations without disambiguators, but having the second list of disambiguation pages as well just seems like a maintainence problem. -- Hypatia 03:57, 25 Oct 2004 (EDT)

This sounds like a good use of categories for me... just add Category:Disambiguation to each page and you have a self-maintaining list. Same goes for the list of itineraries. Jpatokal 04:27, 25 Oct 2004 (EDT)

When I first created the Wikitravel:Disambiguation page index article I had not discovered the Wikitravel:Links to disambiguating pages article. At that time there were about 30 disambiguation pages. The problem I had was that disambiguation pages were not listed anywhere. I created a list for disambiguation pages that had a manually created disambiguation message on them. Later, mediawiki messages were introduced and the disambiguation maintenance fuction came along. I have been trying to keep Wikitravel:Disambiguation page index up to date. I suggest you add pages to Wikitravel:Links to disambiguating pages first and then add them to Wikitravel:Disambiguation page index if you feel like it. -- Huttite 15:18, 9 Apr 2005 (EDT)

[edit] Disambiguation page standard

Would anyone be opposed to adding a standard format for disambiguation pages to this policy? Currently they're pretty scattered, with formats like Barrow, Albany, Ontario. My thought is that the Barrow format looks the nicest and is the most organized, with the format being:

__NOTOC__

There is more than one place called Name of place:

===Region===

* Name of place (with region) - A town in Region.

===Region===

* Name of place (with region) - A town in Region.

* Name of place (with region) - A town in Region.

{{disamb}}

Any suggestions? If not, would anyone object to adding this example to the policy page? -- Ryan 16:03, 19 March 2006 (EST)

Done. -- Ryan 04:59, 23 March 2006 (EST)

Suggestion: how about taking out the __NOTOC__ ? On shorter pages (ie few regions) the TOC doesn't appear regardless, on longer pages it's very useful ~ 125.24.4.216 13:56, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

I wouldn't be opposed although I like it as-is. If Evan's new TOC-on-the-right-side change is ever implemented then I think removing the NOTOC makes sense. The reason for putting it there initially was that it just didn't seem very useful to have half a screen taken up by a TOC when the full article length was unlikely to exceed one or two screenfuls of text. -- Ryan 15:13, 14 July 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Template:otheruses

I just created Template:otheruses to add a link to the disambiguation page for articles meeting the "most famous" rule, ie adding a link from Paris to Paris (disambiguation). We didn't implement this consistently, and I figured it would be a non-controversial thing to do. I should have known better, and having just read some comments about disambiguating Paris I'm adding this discussion - any user searching for "Paris, Texas" will probably start out by typing "Paris" into the search box, in which case they are taken directly to the Paris, France article. It seems useful and inobtrusive to me to add a link to the dismbiguation page to the top of that article, thus the "other uses" template was created. I've added that template to a few articles already, but will hold off on doing any more until people have had a chance to comment. -- Ryan 05:43, 23 March 2006 (EST)

I'm taking the lack of comment as a hopeful sign -- if no one is opposed I'll go ahead and update the remaining "most famous" destinations. Any reason not to do so? -- Ryan 13:59, 23 March 2006 (EST)

I'll take the lack of comment as tacit approval and go ahead and make the changes - I really think adding a link to the disambiguation page for "most famous" articles should make the site a bit more user friendly. -- Ryan 03:24, 24 March 2006 (EST)

Sorry for the short reply. Have you seen Template:Samename? Why have two templates for the same purpose? --Evan 10:14, 24 March 2006 (EST)

See Template talk:Otheruses. Short answer is that I didn't see Template:Samename until after I had created Template:Otheruses, but I agree one should be deleted since we now have two. Since Samename merely prints the message passed to it, and thus requires more user work and more maintenance to keep things consistent, while Otheruses can be used by simply entering "{{otheruses}} and is also consistent with the naming used on Wikipedia I'd lean towards keeping that one, although if Samename was modified to be easier to use then I'd be OK with keeping that instead.

Somewhat related, but Wikitravel:Using Mediawiki templates seems quite out of date and is definitely missing a LOT of templates that are currently available. Would there be any objection to updating that to include all currently available templates? Otherwise, is there a list somewhere else of what's available? -- Ryan 11:45, 24 March 2006 (EST)

No objection from me. I think otheruses is better than samename, so lets replace the places that samename is used with otheruses and VFD samename. Also, I wonder if we shouldn't move the list of templates to a different place than the template policy page. --Evan 11:49, 24 March 2006 (EST)

Continued at Wikitravel talk:Using Mediawiki templates#Template:otheruses.

I've gotten through Memphis on the most famous list. Anyone else who wants to jump in and do a few feel free, I'm heading off for a bit. -- Ryan 07:05, 24 March 2006 (EST)

[edit] Spanish provinces

Moved from User talk:Wrh2:

Ryan, I saw that you recently changed Cadiz into the city page, making a disambig and province page. This seemed to make a lot of sense as a lot more people want to link to the city than province. I think there is scope to do this to some other spanish city/province pages. Do you fancy having a go at: Malaga, Valladolid,Salamanca & Granada(?). Cheers, DanielC 16:43, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Just to confirm before making any changes, are each of these cities "much more famous" than the surrounding province, as desribed in Wikitravel:Article naming conventions#Disambiguation? I would assume so since you're bringing this issue up, but I'm not familiar enough with these areas to be certain. -- Ryan 16:48, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

To the general traveller, the "regions" of Spain are of much more use and more well known than the provinces. To them the cities are much more often used than the provinces. However, for residents of Spain I do think that they refer to the provinces a reasonable amount, but they do always still refer to them as XXX province. -- DanielC 17:03, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

Malaga, Alicante and Salamanca are done. Granada and Valladolid are also the names of a places outside of Spain, so I've left those pages as a disambiguation and moved the city articles to Valladolid (Spain) and Granada (Spain). -- Ryan 17:37, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

[edit] How to create a new Disambiguation page

Swept in from the Pub:

Sorry for the newbie questions, I'm probably missing something here but in the articles on the subject I cannot find how to create a new disambiguation page for two existing locations, namely Rabat in Morocco and Rabat in Malta. PeterW 06:30, 14 Feb 2006 (EST)

It's just an ordinary page with a link of places to go. However, for this particular case I think the one in Morocco (capital of the country, pop 1.2m) is much more famous than the Maltese one (pop. what, a couple of hundred?), so they should go in Rabat and Rabat (Malta) respectively. Jpatokal 08:24, 14 Feb 2006 (EST)

[edit] Links to related Wikipedia disambiguation

I added information to the main article policy about adding a link to the related Wikipedia disambiguation page. I have been doing this for some time and think it is useful. I have also notice others doing this as well. I plunged forward on this, so if there are any disagreements, lets talk about it here. I am not against changing this if there are valid concerns or arguments. -- Tom Holland (xltel) 12:41, 17 September 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Disambiguation pages considered useful

Archived from the Pub:

This tragi-comic story [1] (tragic for the person concerned, comic for everyone else) serves as an object lesson in the usefulness of diambiguation pages. — Ravikiran 05:56, 31 December 2006 (EST)

Wow! That is really interesting! Thank you for posting it. We do need to be very careful. -- Tom Holland (xltel) 08:46, 31 December 2006 (EST)