Wikipedia:Partially_disambiguated_page_names

Wikipedia:Partially disambiguated page names

Wikipedia:Partially disambiguated page names

"WP:PARTIALDAB" redirects here. For the guideline on disambiguation entries with partial title matches, see WP:PARTIAL.

An ambiguous title is an article title that applies to more than one topic described on Wikipedia. Sometimes one of those topics is considered the primary topic for that ambiguous title, and the article for that use is placed at the plain base name title (e.g., Paris is an article about the capital city of France), or if another title is preferred for the article, the plain base name is made to redirect to the preferred title (e.g., Hurricane redirects to Tropical cyclone). In other cases there is no primary topic, and a disambiguation page is placed at the title (e.g., Thriller is a disambiguation page). Normally the other non-primary uses are placed at titles that are disambiguated naturally (see WP:NATURALDIS), or with a comma (e.g., Paris, Texas), or parenthetically (e.g., Mercury (planet)). Sometimes titles with a commonly used qualifier remain at least somewhat ambiguous. For example, there are 9 different albums and an EP named Thriller that are discussed on Wikipedia, so the name Thriller (album) is somewhat ambiguous. Some editors call these partially disambiguated titles (PDABs), or incompletely disambiguated titles (WP:INCDAB or WP:INCOMPDAB).

The main question about PDABs is whether a PDAB itself can have a primary topic. In the example of Thriller (album), there is one album that is very well known and is considered much more highly notable than the others.

A request for comments concluded on 3 September 2019 that PDABs can have primary topics, but that "the standard for making disambiguated titles such as Foo (bar) a primary topic among all Foo's that are bars should be tougher than the standard for titles that don't have any disambiguator". The Wikipedia guideline section known as WP:INCDAB or WP:INCOMPDAB was modified to reflect this.

WP:INCDAB was previously less specific about this issue. For example, as of December 2017, it said only that "When a more specific title is still ambiguous, but not enough so to call for double disambiguation, it should redirect back to the main disambiguation page (or a section of it). This aids navigation, and helps editors to avoid creating new articles under the ambiguous title by accident. Such redirects should be marked with {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}."

Further back in time, there was a period of a few months in 2013 when the wording of the guidelines included a stronger discouragement of PDABs having primary topics – e.g., at one point it directly said that "Only non-disambiguated terms are eligible to have primary topics."

Primary topic considerations

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Central to disagreements about PDABs is whether the principle of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC applies to incompletely disambiguated titles. The quintessential example is whether Thriller (album) should lead to the Michael Jackson album named Thriller or to the disambiguation page at Thriller. As of this writing, it is an article about the Michael Jackson album, which some editors say indicates that the album is recognized by the community to be the primary topic for the term "Thriller (album)". There is also the point that any phrase which can be the title of a dab page could also be a potential candidate for having a primary topic, and does have a primary topic if one of the uses on that page meets the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria for that title relative to the other uses on that page. Others feel that since the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC section does not specifically reference incompletely disambiguated titles like Thriller (album), the concept of "primary topic" doesn't apply to such titles, and so the Michael Jackson album cannot be said to be a proper "primary topic" for this term.

The fundamental question is whether a given PDAB title should be used as the title of an article (or should be a redirect to one specific article) in cases where there is one topic that is arguably the "primary topic" for the PDAB title. If WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to PDABs, how do we decide whether a PDAB title in question should be the title of a specific article (or a redirect to such an article) or a disambiguation page (or a redirect to a disambiguation page)?

Former WP:Disambiguation guideline content on this issue was established by this May 2013 Village pump policy discussion, which concluded that only non-disambiguated terms should be eligible to have primary topics. However, its wording or inclusion in the Wikipedia:Disambiguation editing guideline was disputed. Concurrently with a September 2013 discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation, that conclusion was removed from the guideline, for lack of consensus. See also: The shortcut's redirect for discussion.

Additionally, following a Request for Comment discussion, it was concluded in June 2016 that PDABs should sometimes be used for song and album articles when there are no other standalone articles sharing the same song or album name.

Historically, films have been treated differently from songs and albums per the WP:PRIMARYFILM guideline. However, a discussion to review the guideline was opened on 26 March 2024.

Original version of the former guideline (May 22, 2013)

Partially disambiguated titles:

Only non-disambiguated terms are eligible to have primary topics. Parenthetically disambiguated titles that remain ambiguous are not considered to have a primary topic on Wikipedia. For example, Party (album) can refer to Party (Iggy Pop album), Party (Nick Swardson album), and Party (Pet Shop Boys album), therefore Party (album) redirects to Party (disambiguation); neither article should be considered the primary topic for "Party (album)" because that title employs parenthetical disambiguation. While a partially disambiguated term should not serve as the title of an article, it can redirect to an article in cases when such redirection does not introduce additional ambiguity. For example, New York (city) redirects to New York City, which is only one of several cities called "New York"; however, the term "New York City" does not employ parenthetical disambiguation and that title can itself refer to all the other cities called "New York" as well, therefore no additional ambiguity is introduced by New York (city) redirecting there.[1]

Final version of the former guideline (September 18, 2013)

Partially disambiguated page names:

If a page name containing a parenthetical qualifier is still ambiguous, it might not be a suitable article title. In such an instance, a more precise qualifier should be used. For example, Party (album) is insufficiently precise because Party (Iggy Pop album), Party (Nick Swardson album), and Party (Pet Shop Boys album) exist. Therefore, Party (album) has no primary topic and serves as a redirect to Party (disambiguation), tagged {{R from incomplete disambiguation}}. With some naming conventions, it is appropriate to redirect a partially disambiguated term to an article. If so, a hatnote directing readers to other possible targets (or a disambiguation page) should be used.[2]

List of reported partially disambiguated article titles and their characteristics

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The following is a manually updated list of article titles with parenthetical partial disambiguation on the English language Wikipedia. Cases where there is no other standalone article involved in the ambiguity are treated in separate subsections at the end of this section.

(actor) or (actress)

(album)

(AM)

Per WP:NCBC, current radio stations are considered the primary topic over former ones with the same callsign, resulting in partial disambiguation when an AM radio station callsign is ambiguous with non-radio topics or FM radio stations.

  • KOLT (AM) (current radio station in Terrytown, Nebraska) – also KOLT (1320 AM) (defunct radio station in Scottsbluff, Nebraska)
  • WAYS (AM) (current radio station in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina) – also WAYS (1500 AM) (defunct radio station in Macon, Georgia) and WFNZ (AM) (current radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina that previously held the callsign WAYS)
  • WCHI (AM) (current radio station in Chillicothe, Ohio) – also WCHI (1490 AM) (defunct radion station in Chicago, Illinois)
  • WLEE (AM) (current radio station in Winona, Mississippi) – also WLEE (1480 AM) (defunct radio station in Richmond, Virginia) and two other defunct radio stations that previously held the callsign WLEE
  • WZUM (AM) (current radio station in Pittsburgh, Pensylvania) – also WZUM (1590 AM) (defunct radio station in Carnegie, Pennsylvania)

(band), (singer), other music artists

(cat), (dog), other animals

  • Socks (cat) (a pet of the Clinton family) – also the protagonist of Socks (novel), the short name of the cat Sockington, and a prominent Blue Peter pet, RM closed as no consensus on 13 January 2024 (pageview ratio about 7:1 relative to those other three combined)

(cricketer), (footballer), other sports players

(film)

Please note the guideline WP:PRIMARYFILM, which discourages the use of partial disambiguation for film articles.

(magazine)

(opera)

(song)

(TV series) or similar

(video game)

Comma disambiguation

Canada and United States page names

860 partially-disambiguated titles of US and Canada municipalities exist in the format Municipality, State when other articles in the format Municipality, County, State also exist. The following is a list of those partially-disambiguated articles whose titles have been the subject of an RM:

Other

Album and song articles with no other standalone article

Following a Request for Comment discussion, it was concluded in June 2016 that when a song or album is the only song or album that has a standalone article on Wikipedia, but other songs or albums of the same name are listed on the disambiguation page for that name per MOS:DABMENTION, the article title of the song or album that has a standalone article should not include the artist name. This conclusion has since been included in a footnote of the guideline at WP:ALBUMDAB.

The following is a manually updated list of such instances:

More information Extended content ...

The template {{Incomplete disambiguation}} should not be used in such articles. That template is intended for use only on disambiguation pages.

Band articles with no other standalone article

Film articles with no other standalone article

Note: The guideline WP:PRIMARYFILM likely does not apply in the following cases.
  • Because (film) (a 1918 British film directed by Sidney Morgan) – also a 1990 German film directed by Tom Tykwer
  • Big (film) (a 1988 American film directed by Penny Marshall) – also a 2023 Taiwanese film directed by Te-Sheng Wei
  • Frozen (2010 film) (an American film directed by Adam Green) – also a Hong Kong film directed by Derek Kwok
  • Rustin (film) (a 2023 American film directed by George C. Wolfe) – also a 2001 American film directed by Rick Johnson (quarterback) (the other film is only a subtopic and doesn't seem very notable, although some famous people were involved in it) (RM closed as moved to the PDAB name 23 October 2022)

Other articles with no other standalone article

List of partially disambiguated article redirects

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Among the options for how to categorize partially disambiguated article redirects are (multiple categories may be appropriate):

The following is a manually updated list of WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT article redirects with parenthetical partial disambiguation on the English language Wikipedia.

(band), (singer), other music artists

(cricketer), (footballer), other sports players

(Disney)

(TV series) or similar

Comma disambiguation

Other

Partially disambiguated article titles detected but not yet studied

These two tables contain a list of cases where one title has a partial qualifier which is a prefix or suffix of one or more other title's full qualifier. For the example of "John Doe (footballer)", the first table might pair him with "John Doe (footballer, born 1987)" and the second with "John Doe (Irish footballer)". False positives have been filtered out by automated elimination of set indices etc. and by manual checking, but some may remain. The correct course of action is not obvious and varies between cases. Some partial qualifiers should be made more precise, with the partially qualified name becoming a new dab or a redirect to an existing dab; other cases may be moved to the lists above once they have been studied. There should be no overlap between the tables, but some cases in the prefix table may also have undetected matches of the suffix kind.

More information Prefix, Partial dab title ...
More information Suffix, Partial dab title ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    14:24, May 22, 2013 version, permanently linked here.
  2. [2]
    12:30, September 18, 2013 version, permanently linked here.
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