subject:"Re\: \[WikiEN\-l\] Annoying hatnotes"

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 7:47 PM, Tony Sidawaytonysida...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:52 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:

 2009/8/21 Tony Sidaway tonysida...@gmail.com:
  On 8/19/09, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:

  Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?

  I don't see the problem here.  Be bold and remove crap, whether
  pointless hatnotes or anything else.


 It's an editorial issue. The two-item disambig is one workaround,
 though more than two items is nice.

 I don't know whether this is related, but the other day I found that the
 article Vienne contained two separate hatnotes, one disambiguating the
 French town of Vienne from the canton, and the other pointing to the article
 on Vienna.  I changed it to a two-item disambiguation relevant to the
 context. I don't think this is a huge problem at all.

But you've used a two-item disambiguation *hatnote*, whereas what
others (including me) would do is create a three-item disambiguation
page and link that from the top of the two items in question (but not,
obviously, for Vienna). Plus look for other things called Vienne.

i.e

Vienne can refer to:

*a département of France
*a French river
*a French city
*the French name for Vienna

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread WJhonson

In a message dated 8/22/2009 12:42:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 *a département of France
 *a French river
 *a French city
 *the French name for Vienna

-

The Council of Vienne.
Also apparently Vienne is a surname, I'm sure we can find SOME obscure 
person named Vienne

Will Johnson


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread Tony Sidaway

On 8/22/09, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 7:47 PM, Tony 
 But you've used a two-item disambiguation *hatnote*, whereas what
 others (including me) would do is create a three-item disambiguation
 page and link that from the top of the two items in question (but not,
 obviously, for Vienna).

Ah, in part that's a question about when to go for primary topic
disambiguation.  I happen to favor such disambiguation strongly, but
again this is something that gets worked out in the course of editing.
 I would say that primary topic disambiguation is probably correct in
the case of Vienne (if they wanted the river they'd go for River
Vienne, if they wanted Vienna they'd go for Vienna).  The multiple
hatnotes are one way of handling the disambiguation but at some point
you may want to create a Vienne (disambiguation) page and have a
single-item hatnote.

Far worse than hatnotes, I'd say, are the ever-more-garish templates
we now use for matters such as tagging for NPOV, cleanup, and so on.
In my opinion we were better off when such templates produced a single
line of italics akin to a hatnote.  These pastel-colored boxes we've
been struggling with for the past four or five years are horrible.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread Ray Saintonge

wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:
   
 *a département of France
 *a French river
 *a French city
 *the French name for Vienna
 
 -

 The Council of Vienne.
 Also apparently Vienne is a surname, I'm sure we can find SOME obscure 
 person named Vienne

   
I have a vague recollection of someone with that name associated with 
organ music. :-\

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread pbeaudette

You are, I believe, thinking of Vierne.

Philippe
--Original Message--
From: Ray Saintonge
Sender: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
To: English Wikipedia
ReplyTo: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes
Sent: Aug 22, 2009 4:48 PM

wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:
   
 *a département of France
 *a French river
 *a French city
 *the French name for Vienna
 
 -

 The Council of Vienne.
 Also apparently Vienne is a surname, I'm sure we can find SOME obscure 
 person named Vienne

   
I have a vague recollection of someone with that name associated with 
organ music. :-\

Ec

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Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread Ray Saintonge

pbeaude...@wikimedia.org wrote:
 You are, I believe, thinking of Vierne.
   

Thanks.  I figured it out afterwards, but too late.

Ec
   
 The Council of Vienne.
 Also apparently Vienne is a surname, I'm sure we can find SOME obscure 
 person named Vienne
 
 I have a vague recollection of someone with that name associated with 
 organ music. :-\

 Ec

   


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 10:37 PM, Tony Sidawaytonysida...@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/22/09, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 7:47 PM, Tony
But you've used a two-item disambiguation *hatnote*, whereas what
others (including me) would do is create a three-item disambiguation
page and link that from the top of the two items in question (but not,
obviously, for Vienna).

Ah, in part that's a question about when to go for primary topic
disambiguation. I happen to favor such disambiguation strongly, but
again this is something that gets worked out in the course of editing.

Yes. And this should probably go on-wiki when we get down to nuts and
bolts like this.

I would say that primary topic disambiguation is probably correct in
the case of Vienne (if they wanted the river they'd go for River
Vienne, if they wanted Vienna they'd go for Vienna).

It's more a case of people linking Vienne from other articles or
projects. There are several reasons why they might end up here looking
for a Vienne mentioned in English sources, and be gratified to be
pointed to Vienne (disambiguation) to learn they needed to go to
Vienna, or to the river. People *searching* will type in either
Vienne or river Vienne, but those linking might only link to
Vienne. The best way to confirm this is to look at what currently
links to Vienne.

Well, that would be the normal way to disambiguate, but the
infuriating thing is that this page is linked from seven templates,
several of which are massive geographical lists, so when you are
looking down the list of links to Vienne, it is difficult to know
which are links from transcluded navbox templates, and which are links
from article text.

Templates are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHeretarget=Viennenamespace=10

Full list of links here here (somewhere between 500 and 1000):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Viennenamespace=0limit=500

If you were trying to find out which of those links were pointing to
Vienne the department, Vienne the city, Vienne (Vienna) or Vienne the
river, where would you start? This is an example of where massive
template over-proliferation is making it almost impossible to
disambiguate links. I'm really rather annoyed here, and hope there is
a technical fix somewhere for this.

The multiple
hatnotes are one way of handling the disambiguation but at some point
you may want to create a Vienne (disambiguation) page and have a
single-item hatnote.

Which is what I was talking about all along at the start of the thread.

Far worse than hatnotes, I'd say, are the ever-more-garish templates
we now use for matters such as tagging for NPOV, cleanup, and so on.
In my opinion we were better off when such templates produced a single
line of italics akin to a hatnote. These pastel-colored boxes we've
been struggling with for the past four or five years are horrible.

Didn't the colours get standardised recently after some massive
discussion and several polls?

No jokes about arguments over the colour of the bike shed.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 9:19 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 In a message dated 8/22/2009 12:42:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 *a département of France
 *a French river
 *a French city
 *the French name for Vienna

 -

 The Council of Vienne.
 Also apparently Vienne is a surname, I'm sure we can find SOME obscure
 person named Vienne

There is, as you say, a Council of Vienne:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Vienne

That's not strictly disambiguation, as those linking that should link
to the whole thing.

The organist someone was thinking of is Vierne:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Vierne

But there are various other references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avitus_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_of_Vienne

And more to the point, there is this person:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Vienne

He is not even that obscure either.

Because people are often quoted in books and other sources only by
their surname, or initials and surname, it is essential to
disambiguate surnames or have a surnames page, so that clinches it.

There is also another river called Vienne:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienne_(Normandy)

All the above found by using the Wikipedia search function.

More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girart_de_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Constantine_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ado_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cruiser_Jean_de_Vienne

Note that that last link is something named after the first link.

Still more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysius_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamertus_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary,_Bishop_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II,_Dauphin_of_Vienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_de_Vienne

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafe_Vienne

That last one is an interesting example of the French term for Vienna
ending up in common usage in the USA!

I suspect people could spend a lifetime disambiguating Wikipedia pages
and links.

That is if they don't get overwhelmed by the number of French commumes
named XYZ, Vienne... (I had to scroll through literally hundreds of
these, and Christiane Vienne, the admittedly obscure Belgian
politician, was on the fifth or sixth page of results). There may even
be some French places called Vienne-something, sometimes called
Vienne, but that really needs some French person to sort that out.

A good tip when disambiguating terms from other languages is to see if
the other language encyclopedia has done it already.

Et voila:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienne

Interesting seeing how they've tackled this.

Now I'm off to dump all this on Vienne (disambiguation) and then
I'll go and moan at WikiProject Disambiguation about how one can't be
expected go through all the 500+ links pointing at Vienne to see if
any should be pointing to the rivers or people or city or the other
stuff. Hopefully someone there will give tips on how to filter out the
links from templates, otherwise I may just have to link Vienne from
the templates using some hacked-together redirect, wait for what
links here to update, and then sort out what is left.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 2:02 AM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:

sniiip

 Now I'm off to dump all this on Vienne (disambiguation) and then
 I'll go and moan at WikiProject Disambiguation about how one can't be
 expected go through all the 500+ links pointing at Vienne to see if
 any should be pointing to the rivers or people or city or the other
 stuff. Hopefully someone there will give tips on how to filter out the
 links from templates, otherwise I may just have to link Vienne from
 the templates using some hacked-together redirect, wait for what
 links here to update, and then sort out what is left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienne_(disambiguation)

Not sure whether to include all the of Vienne or de Vienne or not.

Need to add the small towns and cities from the French disambiguation page.

Hmm. My SUL (global account) didn't work on the French Wikipedia,
because someone there already had my name. I haven't got round to
creating an account there. Could someone add an interwiki link from
there to the page I just created? Thanks.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread Steve Bennett

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 2:02 AM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com 
 wrote:

 Not sure whether to include all the of Vienne or de Vienne or not.

Perhaps on a separate page? Or altogether is probably fine.

 Hmm. My SUL (global account) didn't work on the French Wikipedia,
 because someone there already had my name. I haven't got round to
 creating an account there. Could someone add an interwiki link from
 there to the page I just created? Thanks.

Done.

(Aside: I recently came across the river Vienne for the first time
when working on [[Loire Valley]]. It's one of a number of tributaries
of the Loire, including the Loir. I'm finally unconfused about
Loire/Loir.)

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread Bod Notbod

On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 10:37 PM, Tony Sidawaytonysida...@gmail.com wrote:

 Far worse than hatnotes, I'd say, are the ever-more-garish templates
 we now use for matters such as tagging for NPOV, cleanup, and so on.
 In my opinion we were better off when such templates produced a single
 line of italics akin to a hatnote.  These pastel-colored boxes we've
 been struggling with for the past four or five years are horrible.

I have some sympathy with that. On the other hand, as both an editor
and Wikipedia user/reader, I find the garish boxes a spur to action. I
feel compelled to resolve the issue so I can get rid of the ugly box
and put in the edit summary now resolved or somesuch. I think if the
garishness was not there perhaps I wouldn't feel so motivated.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-22 Thread Bod Notbod

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 2:02 AM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Now I'm off to dump all this on Vienne (disambiguation) and then
 I'll go and moan at WikiProject Disambiguation about how one can't be
 expected go through all the 500+ links pointing at Vienne

Do we not have a tool that would make this process faster? I'm a user
of Huggle which doesn't have any related functionality. I've heard
about Twinkle and I think we also have something called QuickCat
that makes categorisation easier.

Do we have something with a fast and clean interface that could
address disambiguation issues?

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread quiddity

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Some disambiguation pages have see also sections for things that
 aren't strictly disambiguation. But yes, it can be difficult to draw
 the line between classic disambiguation and a topic overview of
 loosely related terms, annotated in a way that is more informative
 than search results would be (at this point, someone will probably
 mention the 'overview' articles).

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_overviews

 It seems that non-standard disambiguation pages, lists, overviews,
 categories, topic navboxes, and true topic articles, all lie on a
 spectrum trying to do similar but different things, in different ways.

 Carcharoth


I think you mean Outlines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Contents/Outline_of_knowledge
But yes, I agree with the spectrum comparison.

For example, we have these pages, that are variously explicating,
disambiguation, and listing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Water
which in the main article, [[Water]], even manages to bring us back to
the original topic, of yes, excessive or inappropriate hatnotes could
be considered harmful!

Quiddity

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread Tony Sidaway

On 8/19/09, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?

I don't see the problem here.  Be bold and remove crap, whether
pointless hatnotes or anything else.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread David Gerard

2009/8/21 Tony Sidaway tonysida...@gmail.com:
 On 8/19/09, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?

 I don't see the problem here.  Be bold and remove crap, whether
 pointless hatnotes or anything else.


It's an editorial issue. The two-item disambig is one workaround,
though more than two items is nice.


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread Carcharoth

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 3:40 AM, Tony Sidawaytonysida...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 8/19/09, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?

 I don't see the problem here.  Be bold and remove crap, whether
 pointless hatnotes or anything else.

They are not pointless. Usually some form of disambiguation and
hatnote is needed, but the question is how to do it. Refer neutrally
to a disambiguation page (of whatever size) or take something from a
wildly unrelated topic and plaster it across the top of an article
just because there are only two things of that name (as far as we
know).

On the wider point, one person's crap is another person's informative
link. There are currently debates going on about overlinking and it is
actually very difficult to get people to agree on what the right level
of linking in any particular article is. Different people will link
different things for different reasons.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

David Gerard wrote:
 2009/8/21 Tony Sidaway tonysida...@gmail.com:
   
 On 8/19/09, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 

   
 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?
   

   
 I don't see the problem here.  Be bold and remove crap, whether
 pointless hatnotes or anything else.
 


 It's an editorial issue. The two-item disambig is one workaround,
 though more than two items is nice.


   

To be perfectly frank, many English Wikipedia articles
look way too busy. Not just with front matter but with
end matter and many other kinds of ancillary tables
and charts, which are genuinely useful all, in their
intended circumstances, but do have a visual effect --
regrettably -- not a million miles away from those caused
by advertisements.

If I were a cartoonist, and had to draw a caricature of a
wikipedia article, it wouldn't look anything like wikipetan,
but would be reminiscent of something like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Onemanband.jpg

There is absolutely no chance of a silver bullet to fix this.
The best we can do is to be aware of the issue, and keep
reminding ourselves that it is going to ever be a trade-off;
and a huge problem is that people want cookie-cutter
solutions, but also regrettably wish to mold the cookie-
cutters around the most monstrous cases, not the cases
where applying the rigid framework is way too draconian.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote in message 
news:206791b10908190851j6e4a8680jbc9a61bd0bd7e...@mail.gmail.com...
(snip)
 I am impressed, though, that we have this article:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_the_plankton
(...)

When you hav a body of water as big as the ocean, and it is fed by rivers, 
lakes along the way, and glaciers, then the [paradox] is more aptly called 
an equilibrium. There are also different temperatures and depths for the 
plankton, plus they already vary in length of life by genetics that give 
other varieties of plankton more hardiness -- ability to survive in 
different extremes -- much more complicated than a paradox, and that is a 
term in literature, so I go figure. I should look for a scope lens for my 
camera. I do not see any way to remove my current zoom lens, so I probably 
want an SLR for a microscope. I seeded my tank with 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnia ], and other things are bound to be in 
there.
___
[http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/Moss_Filter.HTM HowTo Control Phytoplankton] 




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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote in message 
news:fbad4e140908191119i5ad73bd4sd5cbac1abaf78...@mail.gmail.com...
 2009/8/19 stevertigo stv...@gmail.com:
 Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote:

 It boggles the mind to imagine what Pol Pot would have done
with a nuclear facility; he could have outdone his relative, Stew Pot.

 Ah. Cambodian genocide jokes. Just before lunchtime, too.


 Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
 A. HITLER!!


As long as we are crossing into non-sequitur.

Why did the blonde cross the road? To get her clothing. 




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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread Andrew Gray

2009/8/21 quiddity pandiculat...@gmail.com:

 For example, we have these pages, that are variously explicating,
 disambiguation, and listing:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(disambiguation)
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_water
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Water
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Water
 which in the main article, [[Water]], even manages to bring us back to
 the original topic, of yes, excessive or inappropriate hatnotes could
 be considered harmful!

I see the outlines of X pages are spreading. Last I saw, they were
being added in see also sections - when did they leap to the
forefront of the article?

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

List-class articles are lowest on the scale of quality.
Going up in rank, it is list, stub, start, b-class, good article, feature 
candidate, and once featured.
They are still useful for maintenance if you are, for instance, cribbing 
notability from lists of award-winners.
And even for users who are looking up something obscure, if their first hit 
is a disambig, then it is two clicks to a section. So, I am inclusionistic 
on this subject. It is all trivia. Wikipedia excels in trivia. Even the 
printed articles do not fit in twenty volumes, anymore; a few thousand, last 
time I read about it. I could just about go against notability in this 
thread, and I won't, because it is an important criterion for judging what 
should be easy to find and what should be be clear.

Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote in message 
news:206791b10908200235y1a600386s14a383839e25e...@mail.gmail.com...
OK. I'll break it down:

1) Do you accept that trivial disambiguations can be unencyclopedic?

Carcharoth

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:59 AM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 I have no idea what you just ask. That's a lot of jargon for one
 question.


 -Original Message-
 From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 1:06 pm
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes










 Will, simple question: do you accept that trivial disambiguations can
 be unencyclopedic and give the wrong impression, and if so, is having
 a neutral dab hatlink better than a jarring note being sounded at the
 top of a page, the first thing the reader will read after the title?

 OK, that was a long simple question...

 Carcharoth

 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:47 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 This is how I do it. If in Plankton we have only one other thing
 named
 planton, then we shouldn't have a disamg page just for two items.
 That seems
 overkill. So in that case SB_Plankton makes sense. If however in
 Bob
 Jones we have 15 people, 3 things, and 2 places named Bob Jones
 then it
 makes sense to have a disamg page.

 I.E. there's a trade-off in having too many clicks, where it is? two
 items? or three?

 W.J



 In a message dated 8/19/2009 7:37:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 If there really is a chance that
 people will search for plankton in an attempt to find out about the


 SB character, then the hatnote should be neutral and direct people to
 a disambiguation page (for other things named plankton, see here).
 And I don't care if that disambiguation page only has two entries.
 That is an acceptable trade-off to having a spongebob squarepants
 character name jarring people's reading experience by being placed at
 the top of an unrelated article.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread Carcharoth

Lists are something different from articles.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_lists

Carcharoth

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Jay
Litwynbrewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:
 List-class articles are lowest on the scale of quality.
 Going up in rank, it is list, stub, start, b-class, good article, feature
 candidate, and once featured.
 They are still useful for maintenance if you are, for instance, cribbing
 notability from lists of award-winners.
 And even for users who are looking up something obscure, if their first hit
 is a disambig, then it is two clicks to a section. So, I am inclusionistic
 on this subject. It is all trivia. Wikipedia excels in trivia. Even the
 printed articles do not fit in twenty volumes, anymore; a few thousand, last
 time I read about it. I could just about go against notability in this
 thread, and I won't, because it is an important criterion for judging what
 should be easy to find and what should be be clear.

 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote in message
 news:206791b10908200235y1a600386s14a383839e25e...@mail.gmail.com...
 OK. I'll break it down:

 1) Do you accept that trivial disambiguations can be unencyclopedic?

 Carcharoth

 On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:59 AM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 I have no idea what you just ask. That's a lot of jargon for one
 question.


 -Original Message-
 From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 1:06 pm
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes










 Will, simple question: do you accept that trivial disambiguations can
 be unencyclopedic and give the wrong impression, and if so, is having
 a neutral dab hatlink better than a jarring note being sounded at the
 top of a page, the first thing the reader will read after the title?

 OK, that was a long simple question...

 Carcharoth

 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:47 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 This is how I do it. If in Plankton we have only one other thing
 named
 planton, then we shouldn't have a disamg page just for two items.
 That seems
 overkill. So in that case SB_Plankton makes sense. If however in
 Bob
 Jones we have 15 people, 3 things, and 2 places named Bob Jones
 then it
 makes sense to have a disamg page.

 I.E. there's a trade-off in having too many clicks, where it is? two
 items? or three?

 W.J



 In a message dated 8/19/2009 7:37:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 If there really is a chance that
 people will search for plankton in an attempt to find out about the


 SB character, then the hatnote should be neutral and direct people to
 a disambiguation page (for other things named plankton, see here).
 And I don't care if that disambiguation page only has two entries.
 That is an acceptable trade-off to having a spongebob squarepants
 character name jarring people's reading experience by being placed at
 the top of an unrelated article.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote in message 
news:fbad4e140908200334n759b844dn5a0918285f843...@mail.gmail.com...
 2009/8/20 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com:

 That is why I am saying that it is best to have a neutral form for 
 hatnotes:
 For other things with this name, see  (disambiguation).
 Or whatever the standard wording is.


 {{otheruses}} and its variants.


 Anyway, in most cases of two item disambiguation pages there are
 actually more than two items. Even if they are redlinks, it is
 normally easy to expand said disambiguation page. That is preferable
 to having the trivial hatnote forcing people to read about something
 they might not want to read about.


 Finding multiple items is generally pretty easy. At least one more. (I
 was surprised and pleased to find so many for plankton.)

 (And I was previously unaware that jellyfish are in fact a variety of 
 plankton.)

I think that is a stretch, and I am not a phylogenist, so I hav no clue what 
rules to follow.
It just seems that they are big and organized. Size is probably not a rule 
in phylogeny.
In a sign of the times, I understand that some varieties are prolific. 




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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread Ken Arromdee

On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, stevertigo wrote:
 Right. Its not about the number of clicks, or even the presence of
 alternative linkages - its about the odd and irritating addition of
 links to trivial topics at the top of substantive articles (hence the
 term trivial disambiguation or trivial otheruses links).

Okay, so what should the disambiguation be like for [[Jethro Tull]]?  The band's
named after the guy, but the band's far more famous.

This one actually has a two item disambig page, which seems rather odd.


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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread quiddity

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 5:52 AM, Andrew Grayandrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
 2009/8/21 quiddity pandiculat...@gmail.com:

 For example, we have these pages, that are variously explicating,
 disambiguation, and listing:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_(disambiguation)
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_water
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Water
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Water
 which in the main article, [[Water]], even manages to bring us back to
 the original topic, of yes, excessive or inappropriate hatnotes could
 be considered harmful!

 I see the outlines of X pages are spreading. Last I saw, they were
 being added in see also sections - when did they leap to the
 forefront of the article?

It was an experiment that was being tested a few months ago. No new
hatnotes are being added for these (afaik), but the old ones haven't
all been cleaned up yet.

Quiddity

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-21 Thread David Gerard

2009/8/21 Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net:
 On Thu, 20 Aug 2009, stevertigo wrote:

 Right. Its not about the number of clicks, or even the presence of
 alternative linkages - its about the odd and irritating addition of
 links to trivial topics at the top of substantive articles (hence the
 term trivial disambiguation or trivial otheruses links).

 Okay, so what should the disambiguation be like for [[Jethro Tull]]?  The 
 band's
 named after the guy, but the band's far more famous.
 This one actually has a two item disambig page, which seems rather odd.


In that case, I'd actually put a note saying This article is about
the band. For the person the band was named after, see [[Jethro Tull
(person)|]].


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

OK. I'll break it down:

1) Do you accept that trivial disambiguations can be unencyclopedic?

Carcharoth

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:59 AM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 I have no idea what you just ask.  That's a lot of jargon for one
 question.


 -Original Message-
 From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 1:06 pm
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes










 Will, simple question: do you accept that trivial disambiguations can
 be unencyclopedic and give the wrong impression, and if so, is having
 a neutral dab hatlink better than a jarring note being sounded at the
 top of a page, the first thing the reader will read after the title?

 OK, that was a long simple question...

 Carcharoth

 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:47 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 This is how I do it.  If in Plankton we have only one other thing
 named
 planton, then we shouldn't have a disamg page just for two items.
  That seems
 overkill.  So in that case SB_Plankton makes sense.  If however in
 Bob
 Jones we have 15 people, 3 things, and 2 places named Bob Jones
 then it
 makes sense to have a disamg page.

 I.E. there's a trade-off in having too many clicks, where it is?  two
 items? or three?

 W.J



 In a message dated 8/19/2009 7:37:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 If there really is a chance that
 people will search for plankton in an attempt to find out about the


 SB character, then the hatnote should be neutral and direct people to
 a disambiguation page (for other things named plankton, see here).
 And I don't care if that disambiguation page only has two entries.
 That is an acceptable trade-off to having a spongebob squarepants
 character name jarring people's reading experience by being placed at
 the top of an unrelated article.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-20 Thread wjhonson



Here is what I think you mean.  In a situation where there are only two 
items that might be confused with each other, should we have a page for 
those? Or should we, at the top of each item, merely point at the other 
item?  That's what it sounds like to me.  And in that situation, where 
we have two things both called say White Glove, we should just point 
at each of them, from the top of the other article, thus not have a 
disamg page to list two items.

Will Johnson



-Original Message-
From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com
To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Thu, Aug 20, 2009 2:35 am
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

OK. I'll break it down:

1) Do you accept that trivial disambiguations can be unencyclopedic?

Carcharoth

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:59 AM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 I have no idea what you just ask.  That's a lot of jargon for one
 question.


 -Original Message-
 From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 1:06 pm
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes










 Will, simple question: do you accept that trivial disambiguations can
 be unencyclopedic and give the wrong impression, and if so, is having
 a neutral dab hatlink better than a jarring note being sounded at the
 t
op of a page, the first thing the reader will read after the title?

 OK, that was a long simple question...

 Carcharoth

 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:47 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 This is how I do it.  If in Plankton we have only one other thing
 named
 planton, then we shouldn't have a disamg page just for two items.
  That seems
 overkill.  So in that case SB_Plankton makes sense.  If however in
 Bob
 Jones we have 15 people, 3 things, and 2 places named Bob Jones
 then it
 makes sense to have a disamg page.

 I.E. there's a trade-off in having too many clicks, where it is?  two
 items? or three?

 W.J



 In a message dated 8/19/2009 7:37:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 If there really is a chance that
 people will search for plankton in an attempt to find out about 
the


 SB character, then the hatnote should be neutral and direct people 
to
 a disambiguation page (for other things named plankton, see here).
 And I don't care if that disambiguation page only has two entries.
 That is an acceptable trade-off to having a spongebob squarepants
 character name jarring people's reading experience by being placed 
at
 the top of an unrelated article.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

That is exactly what I am talking about. What I am saying is that
there should be editorial judgment here, rather than a black-and-white
rule. My point is that these disambiguation hatnotes appeaer at the
top of articles are are (by design) the first thing read after the
title. They are a navigation aid. But they can also give something
undue prominence and they can distract from the article.

That is why I am saying that it is best to have a neutral form for hatnotes:

For other things with this name, see  (disambiguation).

Or whatever the standard wording is.

What makes the encyclopedia look silly is when a hatnote at the top of
a core encyclopedia article says things like:

For minor fictional character ABC, see PAGE NAME
For random sex toy named after this thing, see PAGE NAME
For obscure beer drinking game variant, see PAGE NAME

And so on.

It is a trade-off between making people click one extra time, and
having some irrelevant trivia at the top of a serious encyclopedia
article. It is also about the rigidity of people who insist on
sticking to a rule about how many items should be on disambiguation
pages.

Anyway, in most cases of two item disambiguation pages there are
actually more than two items. Even if they are redlinks, it is
normally easy to expand said disambiguation page. That is preferable
to having the trivial hatnote forcing people to read about something
they might not want to read about.

It is a balance between:

1) People arriving at the article need to be able to continue to find
what they want (they can still do that by going to the disambiguation
page); or

2) People arriving at the article and going that's the article I'm
looking for, but having to waste time reading some irrelevant
hatnote. Reading a hatnote that says For other things with this name,
see  (disambiguation), distracts the reader far less than the
other examples I gave.

Do you get what I'm saying now?

If your reply is that we should rigidly stick to the disambiguation
pages need more than two items rule, then could you explain why that
rule is so important?

Carcharoth

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 10:43 AM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:


 Here is what I think you mean.  In a situation where there are only two
 items that might be confused with each other, should we have a page for
 those? Or should we, at the top of each item, merely point at the other
 item?  That's what it sounds like to me.  And in that situation, where
 we have two things both called say White Glove, we should just point
 at each of them, from the top of the other article, thus not have a
 disamg page to list two items.

 Will Johnson



 -Original Message-
 From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Thu, Aug 20, 2009 2:35 am
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

 OK. I'll break it down:

 1) Do you accept that trivial disambiguations can be unencyclopedic?

 Carcharoth

 On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:59 AM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 I have no idea what you just ask.  That's a lot of jargon for one
 question.


 -Original Message-
 From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com
 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 1:06 pm
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes










 Will, simple question: do you accept that trivial disambiguations can
 be unencyclopedic and give the wrong impression, and if so, is having
 a neutral dab hatlink better than a jarring note being sounded at the
 t
 op of a page, the first thing the reader will read after the title?

 OK, that was a long simple question...

 Carcharoth

 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:47 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 This is how I do it.  If in Plankton we have only one other thing
 named
 planton, then we shouldn't have a disamg page just for two items.
  That seems
 overkill.  So in that case SB_Plankton makes sense.  If however in
 Bob
 Jones we have 15 people, 3 things, and 2 places named Bob Jones
 then it
 makes sense to have a disamg page.

 I.E. there's a trade-off in having too many clicks, where it is?  two
 items? or three?

 W.J



 In a message dated 8/19/2009 7:37:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
 carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 If there really is a chance that
 people will search for plankton in an attempt to find out about
 the


 SB character, then the hatnote should be neutral and direct people
 to
 a disambiguation page (for other things named plankton, see here).
 And I don't care if that disambiguation page only has two entries.
 That is an acceptable trade-off to having a spongebob squarepants
 character name jarring people's reading experience by being placed
 at
 the top of an unrelated article.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-20 Thread David Gerard

2009/8/20 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com:

 That is why I am saying that it is best to have a neutral form for hatnotes:
 For other things with this name, see  (disambiguation).
 Or whatever the standard wording is.


{{otheruses}} and its variants.


 Anyway, in most cases of two item disambiguation pages there are
 actually more than two items. Even if they are redlinks, it is
 normally easy to expand said disambiguation page. That is preferable
 to having the trivial hatnote forcing people to read about something
 they might not want to read about.


Finding multiple items is generally pretty easy. At least one more. (I
was surprised and pleased to find so many for plankton.)

(And I was previously unaware that jellyfish are in fact a variety of plankton.)


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 11:34 AM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote:
 2009/8/20 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com:

 That is why I am saying that it is best to have a neutral form for hatnotes:
 For other things with this name, see  (disambiguation).
 Or whatever the standard wording is.

 {{otheruses}} and its variants.

Thanks.

Oh joy! Another one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amygdalaoldid=307353683

This article is about part of the human brain. For infilled vesicles
in rocks, see Amygdule. For the comic book character, see Amygdala
(comics). For the music composition arm of TV production company
Original Productions, see Thom Beers.

To be fair, this time there is more than just one other use, though
this time one of them is a similar spelling. But you have to smile
when you see comic book characters and music companies named after
parts of the brain.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-20 Thread Keegan Paul

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:05 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:

  I don't however see the
 whole mountainish molehill if there is only one link at the top.

 Will Johnson


From what I'm understanding and agree with, the molehill is not the issue
over disambig pages.  The initial issue is that someone looking up plankton
would have seen a See also Spongebob link.  The perception by people
looking up plankton will be to already question the validity of the
editorial content if Spongebob is the first thing they see.  Correct me if
I'm wrong about this being the initial issue, Carcharoth.

~Keegan

-- 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Keegan Paulkgnp...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:05 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:

  I don't however see the
 whole mountainish molehill if there is only one link at the top.

 From what I'm understanding and agree with, the molehill is not the issue
 over disambig pages.  The initial issue is that someone looking up plankton
 would have seen a See also Spongebob link.  The perception by people
 looking up plankton will be to already question the validity of the
 editorial content if Spongebob is the first thing they see.  Correct me if
 I'm wrong about this being the initial issue, Carcharoth.

Yes, that's what I'm driving at. I'm uncertain as to whether Will
realises this is what I'm getting at, and doesn't think it is an
issue, or missed the point entirely. My issue has never been with the
disambiguation pages (which are fine), but with the hatnotes.

Some more examples can be seen in the what links here listing for
the otheruses4 and otheruses6 templates:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Otheruses4

Most of those are OK, but it is difficult to tell. I certainly hope no
articles have This page is about USE1. For USE2, see PAGE2. For USE3,
see PAGE3. For USE4, see PAGE4. For USE5, see PAGE5. at the top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Otheruses6

At the top of Democracy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

We have: For other uses, see Democracy (disambiguation) and Democratic Party.

I wonder if it is possible to find silly hatnotes or not?

I think it is part of the overall tendancy to say too much upfront,
and not make a judgment on whether to push something down to
footnotes, or off to a disambiguation page.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-20 Thread stevertigo

Keegan Paulkgnp...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:05 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
  I don't however see the
 whole mountainish molehill if there is only one link at the top.

 From what I'm understanding and agree with, the molehill is not the issue
 over disambig pages.  The initial issue is that someone looking up plankton
 would have seen a See also Spongebob link.  The perception by people
 looking up plankton will be to already question the validity of the
 editorial content if Spongebob is the first thing they see.  Correct me if
 I'm wrong about this being the initial issue, Carcharoth.

Right. Its not about the number of clicks, or even the presence of
alternative linkages - its about the odd and irritating addition of
links to trivial topics at the top of substantive articles (hence the
term trivial disambiguation or trivial otheruses links).

From the wiki point of view, presenting information upfront is quite
common sense, and this is why in the past we often had four-item
disambiguations at the top of articles - people kept exploiting this
presentation of information concept to push for making their own
interests prominent in non-trivial articles.

From the encyclopedic point of view, its necessary to make at least a
basic qualitative distinction between trivial and substantive
articles, so that while there may be a link to Ubermensch on Superman,
there won't be one to the latter on the former. (Dunno how it's set up
now).

Taking things one step further (as I like to do), it might make sense
to deprecate even the usage of cross-topic otheruses hatnotes among
substantive articles. Does it make sense to mention a history topic on
the top of a biology article?

Anyway, the current beef I have with {{otheruses}} tags is that they
don't format well, when doubled (tripled or more) up - something
solved if we could get rid of the carriage returns and whitespace
between them.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-20 Thread quiddity

We do already have on this guideline wording on this, for anyone wondering:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation_pages
If there are three or more topics associated with the same term, then
a disambiguation page should normally be created for that term (in
which case disambiguation links may or may not be desirable on the
specific topic articles – see below). If only a primary topic and one
other topic require disambiguation, then disambiguation links are
sufficient, and a disambiguation page is unnecessary.

more at these two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hatnote#Examples_of_proper_use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Disambiguation_pages_with_only_two_entries


I sympathise with the distaste for linking to popular culture entities
from hatnotes (pokemon and beanie babies should all burn in some
spikey hellscape...), but I'm not sure whether creating new disambig
pages just for 2-items is a reasonable solution.


In this particular instance, the new disambig page is also breaking
the guideline about inclusion-criteria.
Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on
which a reader might use the Go button, there is more than one
Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to
lead.
IAR is a good policy, but it needs rationalisation for usage -- If we
make exceptions at [[Plankton (disambiguation)]] for
[[Electroplankton]] and [[United Plankton Pictures]], then why not
also for [[Zooplankton]] and [[Phytoplankton]] and [[Aeroplankton]]
and [[Continuous Plankton Recorder]], etc? Because, then the guideline
would be pointless, and the mess it is intended to prevent would
proliferate.


Therefor, in my opinion, and according to my limited-understanding of
the disambig guidelines, there doesn't need to be a [[plankton
(disambiguation)]] page at all, and the [[plankton]] article doesn't
need a hatnote at all.

If someone wants to find the Spongebob character, Sheldon J.
Plankton, they can search for plankton spongebob, and obtain far
more information on the variety of places the character is mentioned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/special:search?search=plankton+spongebobgo=go


Seem reasonable?
Quiddity

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-20 Thread stevertigo

quidditypandiculat...@gmail.com wrote:
 We do already have on this guideline wording on this, for anyone wondering:
 If there are three or more topics associated with the same term, then

[argument (against trivial disambiguations)] = strong
[counterargument] = doesn't work
alternative tactic = [point to policy]
  (where [policy] = old, inadequate, wrong)

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-20 Thread stevertigo

quidditypandiculat...@gmail.com wrote:

 Therefor, in my opinion, and according to my limited-understanding of
 the disambig guidelines, there doesn't need to be a [[plankton
 (disambiguation)]] page at all, and the [[plankton]] article doesn't
 need a hatnote at all.

Hm. I don't agree. We need to at least point people to the fact that
there are other uses, even if they are trivial. We are in the business
of information, after all. The only distinction being is that we don't
need to mention the trivia in the substantive article, and that
satisfies the substance-fascists like myself that still think en.wiki
can be an encyclopedia.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

Some disambiguation pages have see also sections for things that
aren't strictly disambiguation. But yes, it can be difficult to draw
the line between classic disambiguation and a topic overview of
loosely related terms, annotated in a way that is more informative
than search results would be (at this point, someone will probably
mention the 'overview' articles).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_overviews

It seems that non-standard disambiguation pages, lists, overviews,
categories, topic navboxes, and true topic articles, all lie on a
spectrum trying to do similar but different things, in different ways.

Carcharoth

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 8:05 PM, quidditypandiculat...@gmail.com wrote:
 We do already have on this guideline wording on this, for anyone wondering:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation_pages
 If there are three or more topics associated with the same term, then
 a disambiguation page should normally be created for that term (in
 which case disambiguation links may or may not be desirable on the
 specific topic articles – see below). If only a primary topic and one
 other topic require disambiguation, then disambiguation links are
 sufficient, and a disambiguation page is unnecessary.

 more at these two:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hatnote#Examples_of_proper_use
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Disambiguation_pages_with_only_two_entries


 I sympathise with the distaste for linking to popular culture entities
 from hatnotes (pokemon and beanie babies should all burn in some
 spikey hellscape...), but I'm not sure whether creating new disambig
 pages just for 2-items is a reasonable solution.


 In this particular instance, the new disambig page is also breaking
 the guideline about inclusion-criteria.
 Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on
 which a reader might use the Go button, there is more than one
 Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to
 lead.
 IAR is a good policy, but it needs rationalisation for usage -- If we
 make exceptions at [[Plankton (disambiguation)]] for
 [[Electroplankton]] and [[United Plankton Pictures]], then why not
 also for [[Zooplankton]] and [[Phytoplankton]] and [[Aeroplankton]]
 and [[Continuous Plankton Recorder]], etc? Because, then the guideline
 would be pointless, and the mess it is intended to prevent would
 proliferate.


 Therefor, in my opinion, and according to my limited-understanding of
 the disambig guidelines, there doesn't need to be a [[plankton
 (disambiguation)]] page at all, and the [[plankton]] article doesn't
 need a hatnote at all.

 If someone wants to find the Spongebob character, Sheldon J.
 Plankton, they can search for plankton spongebob, and obtain far
 more information on the variety of places the character is mentioned:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/special:search?search=plankton+spongebobgo=go


 Seem reasonable?
 Quiddity

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread David Gerard

2009/8/19 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com:

 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton
 When I go to look something up on plankton (a core encyclopedic
 article if ever there was one), do I really want to have to read:
 For the SpongeBob character, see List of characters in SpongeBob
 SquarePants#Plankton?


This is almost a FAQ on this list :-) The usual cure is a two-item
disambig page. For an example, see what I just did to [[Plankton]].


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread Carcharoth

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 4:24 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote:
 2009/8/19 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com:

 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton
 When I go to look something up on plankton (a core encyclopedic
 article if ever there was one), do I really want to have to read:
 For the SpongeBob character, see List of characters in SpongeBob
 SquarePants#Plankton?

 This is almost a FAQ on this list :-) The usual cure is a two-item
 disambig page. For an example, see what I just did to [[Plankton]].

Thanks.

I feel informed now I know about:

*Plankton Man
*Electroplankton
*United Plankton Pictures

Purist dabbers will dispute some of those entries, but I think dab
pages should be informative, as well as referring purely to things
that might conceivably be searched for or linked to as plankton.

Carcharoth

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread Carcharoth

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
 On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 4:24 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote:
 2009/8/19 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com:

 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton
 When I go to look something up on plankton (a core encyclopedic
 article if ever there was one), do I really want to have to read:
 For the SpongeBob character, see List of characters in SpongeBob
 SquarePants#Plankton?

 This is almost a FAQ on this list :-) The usual cure is a two-item
 disambig page. For an example, see what I just did to [[Plankton]].

 Thanks.

 I feel informed now I know about:

 *Plankton Man
 *Electroplankton
 *United Plankton Pictures

 Purist dabbers will dispute some of those entries, but I think dab
 pages should be informative, as well as referring purely to things
 that might conceivably be searched for or linked to as plankton.

Hey, you missed out:

*Plankton! - episode 3b(7) of SpongeBob SquarePants (season 1)

I am impressed, though, that we have this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_the_plankton

And *three* articles on plankton surveys. Not stubs either. Really
rather nice articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Plankton_Recorder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Continuous_Plankton_Recorder_Survey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCAR_Southern_Ocean_Continuous_Plankton_Recorder_Survey

Ooh, look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diel_vertical_migration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_layers_(oceanography)

I hope the SpongeBob SquarePants fans that went looking for
information on their favorite characters are reading these articles!
:-)

Carcharoth

PS. And people wonder why there is debate over articles on fiction?

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread Phil Nash

Carcharoth wrote:
 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton

 When I go to look something up on plankton (a core encyclopedic
 article if ever there was one), do I really want to have to read:

 For the SpongeBob character, see List of characters in SpongeBob
 SquarePants#Plankton?

It can get worse than that! I encountered, on [[Pol Pot]], {{seealso|Paul 
Potts}}, and vice versa. The IP addresses resolved to [[CERN]] of all 
places.





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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread Andrew Gray

2009/8/19 Phil Nash pn007a2...@blueyonder.co.uk:

 For the SpongeBob character, see List of characters in SpongeBob
 SquarePants#Plankton?

 It can get worse than that! I encountered, on [[Pol Pot]], {{seealso|Paul
 Potts}}, and vice versa. The IP addresses resolved to [[CERN]] of all
 places.

I still hold the best example I've seen of this was on [[Beirut]]:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beirutoldid=21810147

''For the drinking game, see [[Beer Pong]]''

...yeah.

[[Squirrel]] also used to have a hatnote directing people to something
like Squirrels in Scientology, of all things. We actually got people
writing with complaints about that one, if memory serves.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread Ray Saintonge

Phil Nash wrote:
 Carcharoth wrote:
   
 Does anyone else get annoyed by certain hatlinks?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton

 When I go to look something up on plankton (a core encyclopedic
 article if ever there was one), do I really want to have to read:

 For the SpongeBob character, see List of characters in SpongeBob
 SquarePants#Plankton?
   
 It can get worse than that! I encountered, on [[Pol Pot]], {{seealso|Paul 
 Potts}}, and vice versa. The IP addresses resolved to [[CERN]] of all 
 places.
   

It boggles the mind to imagine what Pol Pot would have done with a 
nuclear facility; he could have outdone his relative, Stew Pot.

Ec

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:24 AM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote:
 This is almost a FAQ on this list :-) The usual cure is a two-item
 disambig page. For an example, see what I just did to [[Plankton]].

I remember bringing this up once yarns ago, and eventually getting
lots and lots of resistance to the idea of two-item disambiguations.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-September/028499.html
. People often said things like: 'If its only two items, it's
inconvenient to make someone click on the (disambiguation) link just
to see the actual article title,' and 'what if they are really looking
for [favourite pokemon/porn star/hair band]? You would be robbing of
them of their right to find it quickly and easily.'

Anyway they were wrong. And four years isn't too long I suppose for
those people to finally get the notion that trivial disambiguations
are unencyclopedic. Fugly too.

Now, if some serious 'medians could help me get [[McLaren]] turned
into a proper Scottish surname disambiguation - overriding all the
fanboys there - that would be just swell.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote:

 It boggles the mind to imagine what Pol Pot would have done
with a nuclear facility; he could have outdone his relative, Stew Pot.

Ah. Cambodian genocide jokes. Just before lunchtime, too.

-Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread David Gerard

2009/8/19 stevertigo stv...@gmail.com:
 Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote:

 It boggles the mind to imagine what Pol Pot would have done
with a nuclear facility; he could have outdone his relative, Stew Pot.

 Ah. Cambodian genocide jokes. Just before lunchtime, too.


Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. HITLER!!


- d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote:

 Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
 A. HITLER!!

Not accurate. It was actually the eugenics policies of the factory on
the east side of the strasse that motivated the crossing. Goebbels
Gobbles had better benefits too.

-Steven

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread WJhonson

This is how I do it.  If in Plankton we have only one other thing named 
planton, then we shouldn't have a disamg page just for two items.  That seems 
overkill.  So in that case SB_Plankton makes sense.  If however in Bob 
Jones we have 15 people, 3 things, and 2 places named Bob Jones then it 
makes sense to have a disamg page.

I.E. there's a trade-off in having too many clicks, where it is?  two 
items? or three?

W.J



In a message dated 8/19/2009 7:37:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
carcharot...@googlemail.com writes:


 If there really is a chance that
 people will search for plankton in an attempt to find out about the
 SB character, then the hatnote should be neutral and direct people to
 a disambiguation page (for other things named plankton, see here).
 And I don't care if that disambiguation page only has two entries.
 That is an acceptable trade-off to having a spongebob squarepants
 character name jarring people's reading experience by being placed at
 the top of an unrelated article.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 This is how I do it.  If in Plankton we have only one other thing
 named planton, then we shouldn't have a disamg page just for
 two items.  That seems overkill.  So in that case SB_Plankton
 makes sense.

Repeat: And four years isn't too long I suppose for
those people to finally get the notion that **trivial disambiguations
are unencyclopedic.** Fugly too.

Generally speaking we try to be an encyclopedia. That means its not an
issue of a trade-off in having too many clicks.

-Stevertigo
PS: Thanks for getting back on topic here.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes

2009-08-19 Thread WJhonson

So you repeat what I say and then say you're not repeating what I said, and 
then repeat it

There's an issue here that you're arguing against your very own position.
I'm not sure you are understanding what I said.

W.J.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes