[WikiEN-l] Dab page notice

[Charlotte Webb]

On 10/4/08, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> The second is more serious. Per WP:MOSDAB, a guideline, it now says "one
> bluelink per line". OK, I agree with the principle of light wikification in
> this context. But not as a rule set in stone - guidelines are not to be
> treated that way.

I think this is for the benefit of bots and other automated tools for
retargeting incoming links (changing [[Boll]] to [[Franz Christian
Boll|Boll]] "using AWB" or whatever), with the logic that a shorter
multiple-choice list makes the operation more efficient.

This is also part of the reason people remove topics for which no
article exists, even those which are discussed at length in a broader
article, saying "nobody would ever link to this meaning that".

Let's say "Bubba Jackbob Boll" is verifiably the name of a minor
character appearing in one episode of some offbeat TV show (My Name Is
Earl perhaps). Even being more inclusionist than the average pokémon
trader I'd concede that not enough info will exist for an article
about this grit, but I would still list him on the disambig page, and
from there the name would probably redirect to the episode.

More rabidly, some people will remove red links from disambiguation
pages or delete disambiguation pages consisting only of red links,
even when the German version lists half a dozen actual articles.

To avoid this sort of nimrodry I would advocate changing the word
"articles" to "topics" in the {{disambig}} template.

Beyond that, there are those who would replace Bubba and Franz with a
link to something like [[Boll (surname)]] and list their full names
one step further away, again saying "nobody would ever link to
[[Boll]] in reference to a specific person". But this isn't really
relevant. It may be sensible to do this in cases where the main
disambig page is too crowded, but that would be a wholly unrelated
concern.

In all cases we should think first of the readers. Maybe in the
not-too-distant future it will be feasible for (what currently we know
as) disambiguation pages to be generated and updated automatically by
the software. Something like Special:Search, only a lot smarter and
friendlier, who knows...

—C.W.