[WikiEN-l] Unneeded disambiguation

[Steve Bennett]

On 2/14/07, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> Then why do we have them?

It's a good question. I used to think they were redundant, and indeed,
generally "non-ambiguous pages" like this don't have them. But now I'm
not so sure. Some reasons for having them:

- it may be useful or just interesting to know what the name is ambiguous with
- somewhat related, it helps the reader understand why there is a
slightly bizzarre name: Why "Jerry Seinfeld (character)"? Why not just
"Jerry Seinfeld"?
- it's much easier to maintain ambiguous sets when there are links
back to the disambig page
- sometimes people link to the wrong page. If there are two "Fred
Smith"s who are scientists, people may hastily link to "Fred Smith
(scientist)" and get it wrong.
- consistency

These may not be compelling reasons, but there is *some* benefit in
having the links.

Steve