At 01:49 AM 6/29/02 -0700, you wrote:
We can reasonably assume a person of average or greater intelligence making a link intended for the two word term, will make a link to the two word term and not the one word term because this is an encyclopedia and we should assume that person has enough sense to naturally disambiguate the link.
But with a disambiguation page, we don't have to impose upon the editor's intelligence even _this_ much. Disambiguation pages make linking easier.
Besides, I thought the idea of using [[planet Mercury]] had already been rejected. :)
For example: It would be equally dumb to turn [[worm]] into a non-article disambiguation page just because there is also such things as computer worms and candy worms.
Candy worms, sure, but I can easily imagine writing an article about something computery and referring simply to "worms" within it because the "computer" context is already clear to the reader of the article. Why make the editor check every link to be sure that it doesn't lead to some completely irrelevant article that just happens to have a name in common with what you really wanted?
I also proposse to make it a policy that whoever makes these pages should have to fix each and every misdirected link so that they point directly to where they intend.
This is already mentioned on the disambiguation page: "A code of honor for creating disambiguation pages is to fix the mis-directed links that will be created when the disambiguation page is made." What's the difference between a policy and a code of honor on Wikipedia?
-- "Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"