UniWiki:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages: Difference between revisions

This style guideline is intended to make the search more efficient, by giving disambiguation pages a consistent look and by avoiding distracting information. In brief, the pages should contain only disambiguation content, whether or not the page title contains the parenthetical ''(disambiguation)''. (This guideline does not apply to articles that are [[Wikipedia:WP:PRIMARYTOPIC|primary topics]], even if the articles are prefaced by a "See also" hatnote or the like at the top of the page.)

In general, the title of a disambiguation page is the ambiguous term itself, provided there is no primary topic for that term. If there is already a primary topic, then "(disambiguation)" is added to the title of the disambiguation page, as in [[Wikipedia:Jupiter (disambiguation)|Jupiter (disambiguation)]]. For more on how to title a disambiguation page, see [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming the disambiguation page|Wikipedia:Naming the disambiguation page]].

The first line of a disambiguation page should be the '''introductory line''' ([[#Introductory line|see below]]). If there is a link to the '''primary topic''' ([[#Linking to a primary topic|see below]]), that line should appear before the introductory line. Both of these should begin its own line.

When a page has "(disambiguation)" in its title – i.e., it is the disambiguation page for a term for which a primary topic has been identified – users are most likely to arrive there by clicking on a top link from the primary topic article.

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:''See also: [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Template messages/General#In introductory lines|Wikipedia:Template messages#In introductory lines]]''

However, it is not necessary to mention minor variations of capitalization, punctuation or diacritics. For example, {{xt|'''AU''' may refer to:}} is preferable to "'''AU''', '''au''', '''Au''' or '''A-U''' may refer to"; and {{xt|'''Saiyuki''' may refer to:}} is preferable to "'''Saiyuki''', '''Saiyūki''' or '''Saiyûki''' may refer to".

After the introductory line comes a list of individual entries – lines which direct the readers to Wikipedia articles on the various topics which might be referenced by the term being disambiguated. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the specific article they want quickly and easily.

Apply the following rules when constructing entries:

* Include '''exactly one''' navigable (blue) link to efficiently guide readers to the most relevant article for that use of the ambiguous term. '''Do not wikilink any other words in the line'''. For example:  

|

* [[Wikipedia:Dark Star (song)|"Dark Star" (song)]], by the Grateful Dead

* <s>[[Wikipedia:Dark Star (song)|"Dark Star" (song)]], a [[Wikipedia:Song|song]] by the [[Wikipedia:Psychedelic|psychedelic]] [[Wikipedia:Rock band|rock band]] [[Wikipedia:The Grateful Dead|The Grateful Dead]]</s>

and avoid redundancies like:

*The article title should appear exactly as it is on the target page; the link should not be [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Piped link|piped]] except to apply formatting (see {{section link||Where piping may be appropriate}}).

Note also the following points when constructing lists of entries:  

* [[Wikipedia:WP:REF|References]] should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles.

:''See also: [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Disambiguation#What not to include|Wikipedia:Disambiguation#What not to include]]''

* ''Title'' University

You may want to create entries on the same page for:

** An example is [[Wikipedia:Willow Valley|Willow Valley]], which lists a town of that name as well as "Willow Valley Township" in another state.

Common misspellings should be listed only if there is a genuine risk of confusion or misspelling. These cross-links should be placed in a separate section entitled "Common misspellings" or "See also". For example, in a page called [[Wikipedia:Kington (disambiguation)|Kington (disambiguation)]], a link to [[Wikipedia:Kingston (disambiguation)|Kingston (disambiguation)]] would appropriately be included in the "See also" section.

Piping and redirects are two different mechanisms which allow the displayed text of a link to differ from the title of the page that the link points to.

Though piping and redirects should generally not be used in disambiguation pages, there are certain cases in which they may be useful to the reader:

*A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article if the title of that section is more or less synonymous with the disambiguated topic. This indicates a higher possibility that the topic may eventually have its own article.  For example:

: The above technique is used when the link is the subject of the line. For description sections, redirects or piped links may be used; follow the normal [[Wikipedia:Redirect]] and [[Wikipedia:Piped link]] guidelines.

* Linking to a redirect can  also be helpful when both:

:#the redirect could serve as an alternative name for the target article, meaning an alternative term that is already in the article's lead section.

:For example:

: The above example of a redirect is only appropriate because '''James Carrey''' is indicated as a name in the lead section of the [[Wikipedia:Jim Carrey|Jim Carrey]] article.  If it were not, then the second example could have been used instead.

* Redirecting may be appropriate where the ''primary topic'' is a redirect; see {{section link||Linking to a primary topic}}.

* Redirecting may be appropriate when linking to [[Wikipedia:WP:INTDABLINK|another disambiguation page]].

* Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance, [[Wikipedia:Harvey (film)|''Harvey'' (film)]], [[Wikipedia:USS Adder (SS-3)|USS ''Adder'' (SS-3)]], [[Wikipedia:Route 66 (song)|"Route 66" (song)]], [[Wikipedia:Saturnalia (dinosaur)|''Saturnalia'' (dinosaur)]], [[Wikipedia:Hush (Buffy episode)|"Hush" (''Buffy'' episode)]], [[Wikipedia:Neo (The Matrix)|Neo (''The Matrix'')]].

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External links do not belong on disambiguation pages; they should not be used.

For '''places''', it may only be necessary to write the name of the article.

:{| style="border: 1px solid black" width=80%

|-

'''Jacksonville''' may also refer to:

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If the only pages that use the red link are disambiguation pages, do one of the following:

* Start a new article for the red link, using the description on the disambiguation page.

* Make a redirect to a page where the item is described (see {{section link||Piping and redirects}} above).

If the link is to a '''synonym''', simply use it as it is named:

|-

|'''Serving spoon''' may also refer to:

|}

If a topic does not have an article of its own, but ''is mentioned'' within another article, then a link to that article should be included. In this case, the link does not start the line, but it should still be the only blue wikilink. For example:

|-

|'''Maggie Anderson''' may also refer to:

|}

If the topic is not mentioned on the other article, that article should not be linked to in the disambiguation page, since linking to it would not help readers find information about the sought topic.

Many pages serve primarily to disambiguate short letter combinations that can represent various acronyms and initialisms. When considering articles to include in the list, it is important that each individual entry is referred to its respective abbreviation within its article. For example:

|-

|'''BSA''' may refer to:

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The following guidelines describe the appropriate order of entries on disambiguation pages:

#  Long disambiguation pages should be grouped into subject sections, and even subsections as necessary, as [[#Organizing long lists by subject sections|described below]]. These sections (and any subsections) should typically be in alphabetical order, e.g.: Arts and entertainment; Business; Government and politics; Places; Science and technology.

<ol start="4"><li>Some entries may belong in a "See also" section at the bottom of the page:

In the "See also" section of a disambiguation page, an intentional link to another disambiguation page that does not contain "(disambiguation)" in the title should be written as '''<nowiki>[[Foo (disambiguation)]]</nowiki>'''.

When appropriate, place easily confused terms in a hatnote.

:{| style="border: 1px solid black" width=80%

|-

'''Moss''' may also refer to:

<big><big>See also</big></big>

----

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Application of these guidelines will generally produce useful disambiguation pages which are consistent with each other and therefore easily usable by most readers. Usefulness to the reader is their principal goal. However, for every style recommendation above, there may be pages in which a good reason exists to use another way; so ignore these guidelines if doing so will be more helpful to readers than following them.