Discourage linking to disambiguation pages

So, last time I checked we have 62 pages with the "disambiguation" type, some 50 of which are on the Ambiguity Index, and there are probably more that aren't set to the correct type. Since we don't want people accidentally linking to them, several suggestions were mentioned in the "Moving works off main" thread:

Give the pages a banner, linked to the index, saying something to the effect of: "This is a disambiguation page. It should only be linked to the Ambiguity Index. Please move every other wicks to one of the pages listed below." Some of the pages already have a similar message, but it would be much more convenient if it was build-in.

Do the same thing we do with YMMV - give their links a distinct look, so readers know something needs fixing. The color green would probably work best, as it isn't used anywhere on the wiki. In addition, the same kind of prompt we get for YMMV when editing a page would also be helpful. The only part of the wiki where this should be disabled would be the Ambiguity Index.

As an alternative, we could assign these pages custom titles that end in (disambiguation) like Wikipedia has. This isn't full proof as it won't work for potholes and won't be immediately visible when you just skim a page, but it might be a good temporary solution, because it can be done with our current tech and easily reversed if and when a better solution is implemented.

I suggest a sign post.

Could we also do this For Trivia and Flame Bait?

I think we were planning to eventually.

The problem is that the disambig pages are necessary precisely because people link to them. I don't really see a problem with them; following the link will get you to where you're going within one click, and it's pretty much always obvious which page on that disambig page is being referred to with the original link. They serve a convenience purpose as well as a bookkeeping one.

The issue with linking to disambig instead of the real article is that it doesn't show up in Related To searches, the way it would if you linked to a redirect. Ideally, if you encounter a link to a disambig page that should go to a real article, you should backtrack and correct it.

The disambig is there, however, to catch those kinds of mistakes, which is exactly the intended function, so it's working fine.

edited 16th May '11 7:00:38 AM by Fighteer

Doesn't mean we can't make it work better.

edited 16th May '11 8:28:42 AM by Killomatic

The majority of links to Disambigs should be inbounds. If you're making a link from within the wiki, presumably, you should know or be able to figure out which of the pages the disambig points at you really want.

There will always be some intra-wiki links, for two reasons: because each page that the disambig points at should point back to it as well; and because people don't know that (for example) Main.Twilight is not the works page it used to be. The first type should be left alone, the second type should be cleaned up and corrected.

We can solve the first issue by making the disambig pages indexes as well. I think a couple of them already are. You can also give them a tab, but that will only show when the names are exactly the same. As a matter of fact, isn't that what the second icon from the bottom here◊ is for?

edited 16th May '11 9:09:29 AM by Killomatic

This is why I suggested a street sign logo to pop up.

I just think it reduces the cognitive stress on the linker to be able to link to the disambig page - not everyone has the namespaces memorized (is it Webcomic or Webcomics? Theatre or Theater? TV or Series?) and it's less typing, too.

Less typing for you, more reading and clicking for everyone else. And we have the namespace article if you can't remember the words, though it needs some expanding, I think. We should also add an editing tip (anyone still remember those?) about using namespaces with a link to it.

I'd be interested to find out how The Other Wiki uses disambig pages - is linking to them considered OK or are links to them "fixed" wherever they're found?

Not that it should make any difference to us, but...

Ah, Tropers Law. There's no rule against learning from what other wikis have done on the matter.

WE ARE TVTROPES

YOUR WIKIS ORGANIZATION AND BENEFITS WILL BE ADDED TO OUR OWN

Huh. OK, good to know.

They need to be allowed on Short Titles as well as on Ambiguity Index.

Another place that they are often linked is on the pages of works that are on that particular index. If there's a list of 30 works with the same or similar titles, it's nice to be able to link to the ambig index on that work page rather than listing them all.

I realize that this was posted a month ago, but since I'm just now reading it I thought I'd ask for clarification: Does this mean that we should manually link to a disambiguation page from a namespaced work page, or does the "Main" button at the top of the namespaced page count for this purpose?

For example, Underdog links to Film.Underdog, Manga.Underdog, and WesternAnimation.Underdog, but each of those pages only link back to Underdog via the "Main" button. Is this sufficient?

edited 16th Jun '11 4:25:04 PM by Meeble

I guess in some cases they should also link back to the disambiguation page because of things like "has other media presence in..." and "not to be confuse with this other franchise", but don't quote me on that.

I would actually add a line something like "If this isn't the "Underdog" you're looking for, go to Main.Underdog to find out where it is." or something like that.

That's a personal preference, because I don't think that it's completely intuitive to expect that the "main" button would lead to a disambig page.

And that's why we could use a disambiguation button.

edited 24th Jun '11 10:41:07 AM by Killomatic

Ok, that works for me. I will make sure that the disambigs for pages I curate are set up appropriately.

Bumping this. I wonder if it were possible to make wicks to disambiguations into redlinks like Heroic Sociopath by default.