[Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

[Daniel Mayer]

On Tuesday 02 July 2002 02:10 am, Toby Bartels wrote:
> What's important to me is that Bryan Derksen is right,
> and we should make sure that he continues to be right:

Just a clarification -- I have not been arguing for the abolition, or even 
serious curtailing of the disambiguation process or even of disambiguation 
pages themselves as they currently are. My concern has been over the increase 
in the creation of disambiguation pages in cases where there has 
been_any_ambiguity over what is meant by a given term -- even when there is 
an obvious most common use of the term (at least in the form presented -- 
[[worm]] for example). The reasoning behind my view, is that I wish to 
preserve spontaneous linking to articles whenever possible, so that we can 
avoid parenthetical disambiguation like [[worm (biology)]] (because, unlike 
computer worms, the animals are only known as "worms" in English -- which 
included several phyla of animals).     

> "''This article is about worms, the animals. There is also a Wikipedia
> article about [[computer worm]]s.'' "

I love it! Short, to the point and quickly directs people to where they need 
to go. This way the page titled [[worm]] can be both a disambiguation page 
(in block format) AND an article about the most common usage of the simple 
term "worm" (use of the word "worm" by itself in a computer article is just 
jargon, "computer worm" is what is used when context must be established by 
the term itself -- such as in a hypertext encyclopedia or in news reporting). 

> Currently, the computer bit is at the bottom, which I too don't like.

I've never been very comfortable with using "see also" for disambiguation 
either -- I just couldn't think of a way to make it work at the top of the 
page (and my early attempts were ugly and quickly reverted by others).  

> But I think that it's important to keep the top stuff *short* --
> get people to the right page, and then start the article.

I agree. 

--maveric149