Bryan Derksen wrote:
To play devil's advocate, I think a case can be
made that disambiguation
pages make spontaneous linking much easier. For example, a contributor
working on an article about Klez or Ebola could link to [[virus]] without
having to even realize that there _are_ two alternate uses for the term,
let alone knowing what specific names they're under; the "virus" link will
show up as valid, and anyone following it will presumably be able to figure
out which type of virus was being referred to and move on to the full-scale
article from there.
Here's a cute idea.
Suppose the virus page is a pure disambiguation page. It links to
[[biological virus]] and [[computer virus]]. Suppose further that
there is a true/false flag in the database which can be turned on to
indicate that this is a disambiguation page.
Whenever someone saves a page with a link to [[virus]], the system
notices that [[virus]] is a pure disambiguation page, because someone
set that flag. Then the author is given a chance to select which of
the pages that is really intended: [[virus]], [[biological virus]],
[[computer virus]].
If someone really wants to link to the disamb. page, then they can. Else,
they are given alternatives.
The text of the article would not be changed, just the link. [[virus|biological virus]]
for example.
--Jimbo