Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

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the "Herb" example

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The guideline currently says:

This is even more widespread for first names—many highly notable people are called Herb, but typing in Herb gets you an article on plants. Herb (disambiguation) does not even list any people named "Herb", but instead links to Herb (surname) and Herb (given name), where articles on people named "Herb" are listed.

However, WikiNav at Herb for April shows the hatnote to be the #1 outgoing link in the article, at 733 identifiable clicks last month, which is usually a bad sign. In turn WikiNav at the disambiguation page shows given name and surname links to be #1 and #2 identifiable destinations from there, 267 and 68. So it's obvious that we need to add a direct links to at least the given name to that hatnote.

This example needs to be replaced with a much less misguided one. --Joy (talk) 10:27, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy Interestingly, the WikiNav at Herb for May shows Herb (disambiguation) is only the seventh most common destination after six articles directly related to the culinary plant meaning. In May, only 3.72% of readers navigated to the Herb DAB but in April it was 21.4%. All the other items in the top 10 only varied by 1–3 percentage points in April and May. Was April a fluke? Was some other Herb in the news? Or was May the outlier? Please note, I have no objection to the Lincoln example you have replaced this with. I was just poking around and found this curious. You have a thoughtful way of looking at traffic and clicks data, which I always appreciate in discussions. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 03:17, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I only made the hatnote change on May 28 [1] so that can't be it.
Looking at the last six months of data, looks like April was a bit of an abberation:
clickstream-enwiki-2024-12.tsv:
  • Herb Herb_(disambiguation) link 110
  • Herb Herbaceous_plant link 103
clickstream-enwiki-2025-01.tsv:
  • Herb Herbaceous_plant link 162
  • Herb Herb_(disambiguation) link 119
clickstream-enwiki-2025-02.tsv:
  • Herb Herbaceous_plant link 136
  • Herb Herb_(disambiguation) link 99
clickstream-enwiki-2025-03.tsv:
  • Herb Herbaceous_plant link 139
  • Herb Herb_(disambiguation) link 75
clickstream-enwiki-2025-04.tsv:
  • Herb Herb_(disambiguation) link 733
  • Herb Herbaceous_plant link 115
clickstream-enwiki-2025-05.tsv:
  • Herb Herbaceous_plant link 134
  • Herb Herb_(disambiguation) link 109
Now, this ostensibly weakens the argument, but in reality we just don't know.
I've previously tried to measure the hatnote click incidence against the actual ambiguity, cf. /Archive 56#on what statistics should look like for hatnotes, primary redirects, primary topics. The outcome was that most commonly the hatnotes would get a tiny fraction of incoming traffic. Yet, after we'd ponder the issue and decided to change navigation, the results afterwards had a huge spread: sometimes the previously presumed primary topics would start getting a tiny fraction of incoming traffic, sometimes modest, and sometimes a large fraction (yet even in the latter cases we'd rarely have consensus to overturn).
The thing that goes unnoticed here is that a huge majority of the incoming traffic at Herb (and often at any other article) is identifiable as other-empty and other-search (~14k out of ~18k, almost 80%). Because we don't control how readers land at an article, and instead our navigation is pre-processed by search engines, we don't actually see the entire pipeline, entire funnel. At the same time, we can surmise that the search engines necessarily short-circuit around our navigation - they don't want to send the readers to our navigation elements, rather they'll try to send the readers directly to what the reader meant because that's more efficient from their perspective. So we can't know what was the context of any of those clicks, and our statistics don't really translate into "these readers were looking for the word 'herb' and that's why they're here".
So while April was an exception, we don't know why it was an exception - it could have been an organic spike in interest in 'herb' or 'Herb' search traffic looking for biographies, or it could have been some arbitrary portion of that traffic seeping through, one that usually gets short-circuited better by the algorithms. Does this incident then tell us that the term 'Herb' is more or less ambiguous?
BTW, it should be noted that Mediawiki technical restrictions prevent us from measuring the difference between 'herb' and 'Herb'. --Joy (talk) 08:52, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting, thanks for digging in! I always wish we had a better way to assess that incoming traffic. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 10:41, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly, it looks like it's only going to get worse, with the AI crawler bots it's all over the place and inherently different (they may ingest all of our content and then produce a lot of it themselves without much new traffic towards us). Monthly page views stats for some generic topics indicate some fairly wild ups and downs, most notably the 2023 crash, which is when ChatGPT got started IIRC. Maybe it's leveling off at this point, but who knows. --Joy (talk) 13:24, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Talk:Mario § Requested move 1 July 2025

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Mario § Requested move 1 July 2025. -- Joy (talk) 11:09, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Taskmaster (TV series)#Requested move 13 June 2025

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An editor has requested that Taskmaster (TV series) be moved to Taskmaster, which may be of interest to this page. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Pineapple Storage (talk) 23:44, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2025 July 2 § Template:WikiProject Disambiguation

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2025 July 2 § Template:WikiProject Disambiguation. older ≠ wiser 11:50, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Parenthetical disambiguation in the middle of the title, i.e. Gay Street (neighborhood), Baltimore

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I came across a handful of neighborhood articles that are disambiguated like Gay Street (neighborhood), Baltimore, with the parenthetical disambiguation right in the middle of the title instead of at the end. The style I would have expected is Gay Street, Baltimore (neighborhood). This is the only one that went through an RM, and quite recently (Talk:Gay Street (neighborhood), Baltimore#Requested move 22 May 2025). It was mentioned that combining comma and parenthetical disambiguation is discouraged but this was rebutted with precedent from Patterson Park (neighborhood), Baltimore and no one seemed to objected to the placement of the parenthetical. A lot of these are in Minneapolis and Baltimore, pointing to local consensus.

Most of these titles have been stable for many years as far as I can tell. I don't think I've ever come across this and I can't find anything saying the parenthetical must go at the end of the title. This came up at here and surprisingly this was the most common form of parenthetical DAB for neighborhoods. Am I missing something?

--MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 23:30, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, I think you're right per MOS:USPLACE. Gay Street might be a little complicated because there's also an article about the street, titled Gay Street (Baltimore street). Do we have a naming convention for streets, US or otherwise? If so, is there a conflict between the one for places and the one for streets? Possibly we should be distinguishing "Gay Street, Baltimore (street)" from "Gay Street, Baltimore (neighborhood)"? Largoplazo (talk) 01:34, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could not find any general guidance. We have WP:NYCPLACE for NYC neighborhoods (use the borough instead of (New York City) to DAB) and highways in the US. I did an in title search for neighborhood and found these and the other examples I posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Seattle#Is Westlake, Seattle the primary topic for "Westlake, Seattle"?, which led to this. I can understand the need to get creative with Gay Street, and Minneapolis, which I learned has "communities", some of which share names with neighborhoods that are in a different community. But I don't see how the mid-title parenthetical achieves this any better than placing it at the end. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 03:00, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, it is a stupid convention, but appears to be more or less accepted (although it has been a long time since the last discussion that I can recall, so consensus can change). older ≠ wiser 10:47, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When this post came up in my watchlist I was drawn to it because I had just been participating in the discussion at Jacksonville, Florida#Requested move 11 July 2025. There, two people so far have supported the move to JacksonvilleJacksonville on the grounds that the guideline is stupid (one of them having used that word), so you have company. I'd like to find the discussion that led to the creation of that guideline, though, in case it sheds light on the reason(s) for issuing it and makes it appear not so stupid after all. Largoplazo (talk) 11:59, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the City, State convention I consider stupid, it is the insertion of a parenthetical disambiguation in the middle of a comma-disambiguated title. That is essentially a Frankenstein's monster conjoining of disparate methods. older ≠ wiser 12:11, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, that's different from what I thought you meant. Still, regardless of the wisdom of the USPLACE example of Callicoon (CDP), New York and Callicoon (town), New York, on that model I'd deduce that we're meant to have Gay Street (street), Baltimore, Maryland and Gay Street (neighborhood), Baltimore, Maryland. Largoplazo (talk) 12:36, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the mid-title insertion of '(CDP)' and '(neighborhood)' is precisely the sort of stupidity I was referring to. older ≠ wiser 12:55, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, I have seen the (CDP) example, and I can see where editors find the "Neighborhood (neighborhood), City" convention as an extension of the guidance for CDPs and counties. . Terminal (DAB) or even natural disambiguation would work well here. I can't speak to local conventions, but Gay Street neighborhood, Baltimore looks good to me. I for one am glad we can leave the states off here, keeping titles shorter, but I can see where it's out of whack with the "City, State" requirement. I don't quite agree, but I'm sympathetic with the view that if Arlington (Jacksonville) is acceptable then why not simply Jacksonville? Anyone know the history of the (CDP) convention? I may look into this later. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 13:50, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the (CDP) convention was introduced with the original run of Rambot using census data to autogenerate the US placename articles. I don't think there was any discussion prior to what appears to be an arbitrary decision to use that convention. It has been discussed subsequently, but it would take some digging. older ≠ wiser 13:58, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. I may still look into it. I don’t have the energy for a mass ‘(neighborhood)’ RM but may get there. The CDP convention, being memorialized as it is, requires a bigger discussion. I can understand extending this to neighborhoods but it’s not what I would come up with. Another justification could be to make clear the name is properly “Gay Street” and not “Gay Street, Baltimore” but this is pretty weak. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 15:47, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ha! I’ve occasionally wanted to call MOS:GEOCOMMA stupid so part of me wants to shake their hand. But it’s not a very persuasive argument. I tend to sit out RMs where I know I’ll feel obligated to invoke this standard. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 13:35, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
GEOCOMMA is sensible, no different from other uses of comma-delimited words or clauses that add extra information and that could be removed without changing the overall meaning of the sentence, as in "Nolte's daughter, Angelina Jolie, has appeared in ..." or "My car, the one you saw me driving last week, has a manual transmission." Largoplazo (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I find the result awkward and frankly jarring in titles like 2018 Crozet, Virginia, train crash. Don't get me started! I understand the argument and pick my battles. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 15:22, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(and I agree it's mostly sensible.) --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 21:41, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:GEOCOMMA
MOS:GEODUCK
Does this clarify matters? (image, right) Mathglot (talk) 22:51, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, 2018 Crozet🦆 Virginia🦆 train crash? (I see no emoji for clams, gooey-ducks or otherwise.) Largoplazo (talk) 23:25, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a Washingtonian, this does speak to me! --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 02:58, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Including redirects, I see 28 of them. Not all cities, though; some are other places (e.g., Orchard Park (neighborhood), IndianaOrchard Park (neighborhood), Indiana) or redirects (Navy Yard (neighborhood), Washington, D.C.Navy Yard (neighborhood), Washington, D.C.) or both. I don't like them, either; can we just change all of them to postposition? Having medial parenthetical disambiguation is ducking the issue. Mathglot (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I excluded redirects—which I'm much less concerned about—and only collected US examples to start with when I did my rather clunky search, but I'm not surprised I missed some titles while scrolling down the page. I tend to be rather conservative when it comes to undiscussed page moves. Given the number of pages impacted, and especially given that Gay Street was implemented as the result of an RM one month ago, these probably need an RM… or an RFC confirming the standard is terminal parenthetical? (And if anyone wants to implement MOS:GEODUCK, I'm in! 🦆) --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 03:09, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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The page at Investigating judge has recently been changed from a redirect to a two-item disambig page. Setting aside for the moment the issue of two-item dabs vs. mutual hatnotes (let us assume there were three or more), I am mainly concerned about whether a dab page should ever contain two items related by hypernymy.

In this case, the two items are: 1) Examining magistrate (a type of investigating judge in numerous European countries) and 2) Investigating judge (France). In other words, examining magistrate is a hypernym of investigating judge (France). Is this permissible? (Trying to think of a metaphor that's easier to grok, I came up with Bee and Africanized bee, however that is a poor example as it doesn't involve paren-dis or use entirely different wording, but was the best I could do on short notice.)

My gut feel is that the disambig page at Investigating judge is improper in its current state, possibly shouldn't exist at all, but I can't put my finger on why, or what is really appropriate here. Can you help? Secondly, WP:D does not refer to hypernymy anywhere on the page; depending on the outcome of this discussion, perhaps it should? Mathglot (talk) 07:50, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Investigating judge should be reverted (or taken to WP:RFD is uncertain). Definitely improper. I'm struggling with what the guidance might say generally about hypernymy, that isn't already covered in some other way by existing guidance on DAB pages, lists, hatnotes, etc. Listing every single felid at Cats (disambiguation) would obviously be wrong but hypernymy–hyponymy isn't the best or only reason why. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 20:24, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Other" or "incorrect"?

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@Woodensuperman: and I disagree on whether Night Watch (Discworld)Night Watch (Discworld) is an {{r from incorrect disambiguation}} or an {{r from other disambiguation}}. The issue is what "a format that does not follow Wikipedia convention" means. I say disambiguating by franchise does follow convention, it is just more specific than disambiguating by creative work type. Woodensuperman has pointed to WP:BOOKDAB. Paradoctor (talk) 12:41, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BOOKDAB makes no provision for disambiguating by series, we disambiguate by book type first, then add author's name if necessary. Therefore if we are using "Discworld" as a disambiguator, this does not follow convention for the disambiguation of books, and is therefore incorrect. --woodensuperman 12:44, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
a format (my emphasis) Paradoctor (talk) 13:10, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and using a book series as a disambiguator is not the correct format when disambiguating books. --woodensuperman 13:18, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Were I to come across the article, Night Watch (Discworld), I would probably leave it alone and enjoy it. So if I were to come across a redirect with that same title and dab, and it needed to be categorized, I'd sort to the Redirects from other disambiguation cat and move on. I don't think I'd be too perturbed, tho', if another editor were to happen along some time after and re-sort to Category:Redirects from incorrect disambiguation. BOOKDAB is a naming convention guideline and therefore is backed by community consensus; however, that to me is less prescriptive and more descriptive, or "guiding". I wouldn't have therefore thought the later reversion and replacement sort to be "correcting my mistake", but merely a fresh and perhaps a "more distinct" choice of cat. I could be wrong. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 17:15, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The rcats are not in a subset/superset relation, one excludes the other. If the community says not so, the definitions need to be clarified. Paradoctor (talk) 19:51, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
? {{R from incorrect disambiguation}}'s cat has been a subcat of {{R from other disambiguation}}'s cat since the former's inception in 2010, so an "incorrect dab" is also an "other dab". What am I missing, editor Paradoctor? P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 01:07, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That detail escaped my attention. I was going by the description.
{{r from other disambiguation}}: This is a redirect from a title with an alternative disambiguation qualifier of the target name. The disambiguation of these page names is not incorrect, incomplete nor unnecessary. For those redirects use {{R from incorrect disambiguation}}, {{R from incomplete disambiguation}} or {{R from unnecessary disambiguation}} instead. Paradoctor (talk) 01:53, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thank you, I see how the dab "of these page names is not..." is misleading. "Not" should probably be avoided when possible. Since all three of those rcats sort redirects to subcats of "other dab", I have clarified its bullet. At least I hope I have clarified its bullet. If it can be made even clearer let me know. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 02:34, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't solve the issue of "other" vs. "incorrect", though. Paradoctor (talk) 03:49, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not discount that, nor am I able to agree or disagree. If I read correctly, you consider the redirect an "other", but not an "incorrect" dab, while editor Woodensuperman sees the redirect as both an "other" and, more specifically, an "incorrect" dab. Since I have no opinion either way, I can only thank you both for helping me to see that when I first wrote, The disambiguation of these page names is not incorrect, incomplete ... (etc.), I should have made it more clear. If you want more input on the issue of "other" vs. "incorrect", then we can only hope that more editors will chime in. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 11:15, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, that's what I came here for. Paradoctor (talk) 12:04, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

R from ambiguous

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@1isall:: Needs to point to the actual disambiguation page[2]. I beg to differ. Paradoctor (talk) 07:35, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a redirect from an ambiguous page name to a page or list that disambiguates it.
Judgement does not seem to be a page that disambiguates the term. Therefore, {{R from ambiguous term}} doesn't apply. Thanks, 1isall (talk/contribs) 09:01, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The template is called "r from ambiguous", not "r from ambiguous except to primary topic". The usage instructions should be updated to include redirects to ambiguous primary topics. Or we need something like {{r from ambiguous term to primary topic}}. Paradoctor (talk) 09:18, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the key thing to note here is that we don't have an R template that says "this is a primary redirect to a single primary topic" as opposed to one that says "this is a primary redirect to a broad-concept article that implicitly disambiguates it". Maybe we should make one for the latter purpose. --Joy (talk) 09:19, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Judgment (disambiguation). The disambiguation need is the same whether the primary topic is broad or narrow. Paradoctor (talk) 09:23, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Want to initiate an RfC on this matter? Thanks, 1isall (talk/contribs) 09:30, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the time being, I'd settle for having the points raised being addressed. Or conceded. Paradoctor (talk) 09:36, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, the question here is whether the significance of the meanings described in that list is comparable to the significance of the meanings described in the WP:BCA.
In other words, are the articles about the meanings in mathematical logic, law, ethics etc now more worth navigating readers to, or should these still go through the broad description first?
If there's less value in having the BCA first, then there should be e.g. a WP:RM to move that article to something more specific, like Judgement in informal context, psychology, philosophy and religion, or a proposal for it to be split up, or something like that. Or even the reverse: the mathematics, law, ethics etc topics could each get their own heading in the BCA, to ease navigation to those aspects.
The spelling difference between "judgement" and "judgment" shouldn't dictate how we organize navigation about these topics. --Joy (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Talk:Luigi (disambiguation) § Requested move 30 July 2025

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Luigi (disambiguation) § Requested move 30 July 2025. -- Joy (talk) 08:49, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Daphne (disambiguation)

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Can someone with more patience than I have please explain to User:Jacobolus that we do not remove notable subjects from a disambiguation page merely because they get fewer page views. This editor has twice removed the longstanding entry on the page for Daphne (singer) on the grounds of it being the person's name (and assertedly therefore belonging only on the list of people named Daphne), and has similarly suggest to remove Daphne (brig) to a separate page for ships named Daphne. BD2412 T 19:54, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are entirely mischaracterizing our conversation. –jacobolus (t) 19:57, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly we have different perceptions of the matter. BD2412 T 14:14, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do have a question here though: is there some kind of guideline for deciding which, if any, people and fictional characters to include on a 'main' disambiguation page titled "Name" or "Name (disambiguation)", when there is also an article with a title like "Name (given name)"? BD2412 has some inconsistent, personal-preference-based, "I know it when I see it" kind of criteria which I do not really understand and which they will not describe explicitly; this makes it very difficult for me to understand how to make principled improvements. I've been trying my best to make improvements with the explicit goal of satisfying what I thought their preferences would be, and each time they have a new contradictory complaint. –jacobolus (t) 20:04, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:DABNAME which says: People who have the ambiguous term as surname or given name should be listed in the main disambiguation list of the disambiguation page only if they are frequently referred to simply by the single name. I suppose the "only" could be interpreted that these are not required to be listed there. But I think most DAB long-timers would agree that in most cases the main disambiguation page should include entities commonly known solely by a single name, even where the article title might use their full name. older ≠ wiser 20:23, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bkonrad, should every fictional character be included in the top level page, under the theory that usually in encyclopedias fictional characters are referred to by their first name? The effect of this seems to me to be undue promotion of fictional characters and performers with a stage name, and undue suppression of people with the name. It doesn't really seem like a supportably fair criterion. –jacobolus (t) 20:25, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Literally no one is making such an argument for every fictional character. In this case, Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo is known to the world as "Daphne". BD2412 T 20:28, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412 All of your arguments about it apply to essentially all fictional characters. You haven't articulated any clear distinguishing criteria other than, basically, "this is what BD2412 prefers'. –jacobolus (t) 20:29, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The same with Shaggy and Scooby, by the way. BD2412 T 20:31, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what this comment is getting at. "Shaggy" is a page with 6 entries, and no sub-page called Shaggy (given name). Daphne (given name) has 68 people and 20 fictional characters, only 2 of which you apparently want to promote, but without explaining the criteria for that. –jacobolus (t) 20:34, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jacobolus, I'm not sure how you got every fictional character [should] be included in the top level page from my comment. Not all characters are commonly known by single name. The respective articles should have verifiable indications that this is the case. older ≠ wiser 20:33, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't get it from your comment. I'm asking a follow-up, based on conversations with BD2412, who says that because "professionally written sources" refer to people by their last name but characters by their first name, fictional characters with a particular first name should be listed at the "main" disambiguation page, but people with the same first name should not. –jacobolus (t) 20:37, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, if the article and sources both indicate a subject is commonly known by the sole name, then yes, they would be included on the main disambiguation page. There is no presumption anywhere that every fictional character is known by a single name. older ≠ wiser 20:39, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We're discussing characters with full names. It is conventional in encyclopedic writing for most fictional characters to be referred to by their first names in running prose, after being introduced with their full name. (e.g. "the series finds Luke, Leia, and Han facing off against ..." rather than "the series finds Skywalker, Organa, and Solo facing off against ...".) By comparison, it is conventional for people to be referred to by last name. –jacobolus (t) 20:42, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Typically, when a person or character is commonly known by a single name, the article will contain some indication of this. In cases where there is nothing that gives a clear indication of this, attempts to include that entity on the main disambiguation page can be challenged and then per WP:Verifiability it is up the editor arguing for inclusion to provide sources in the article (not the dab) for the sole name usage. older ≠ wiser 20:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What kind of evidence is necessary for that. It seems like a difficult thing to verify; you aren't typically going to find reliable secondary sources analyzing whether a fictional character is known by their first name or their full name. But if the "evidence" is just that typical sources use the first name in running prose, then that is true for most fictional characters. To take an arbitrary other example, if you look up Daphne Bridgerton / Basset of Bridgerton in newsaper stories about the show, you'll find usage like "[...] the juicy drama [...] follows beautiful young aristocrat Daphne Bridgerton .... Women like Daphne would have had some control over who they danced with or agreed to court publicly [...]". Does this mean that the character is "commonly known by a single name"? –jacobolus (t) 21:33, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jacobolus: For the record, I have gone through the sources currently used in the article on the Scooby Doo character, and a majority of those only ever refer to the character as "Daphne", with no reference to a surname at all. Does that not verify to a reasonable degree that the character is primarily (or at least frequently) known mononymously? BD2412 T 00:03, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You mean that these sources never say the surname? I find that surprising. When I did a search (in books, academic literature, newspapers, and the web) I found that essentially every reliable source I clicked on which discussed the character per se initially identified the character by the full name. The cases I found without a full name included web forum discussions and very brief episode summaries. I wasn't super scientific about it though. I can try looking again. –jacobolus (t) 00:16, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jacobolus: See for yourself:
I'm not a huge fan of these sources, and I don't think we need a parade of footnotes, but fair enough. Maybe they can be consolidated into one footnote, and we can search for a better source or two? –jacobolus (t) 02:35, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The first source is The Los Angeles Times, which is generally considered a high-level source throughout Wikipedia. The rest come from an wide variety of media generally considered appropriate for use in Wikipedia. I generally gathered these sources from throughout the article, so most of them support multiple unrelated propositions in the article. It would therefore be rather unwise to consolidate them into a single footnote, because then we would either have to provide all the unrelated sources with each use of that footnote, or duplicate sources across multiple footnotes. These sources are merely representative. There is no limit to sources like these in the world. BD2412 T 03:05, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a problem with the newspaper, and I now believe you that there are plenty of folks referring to "Daphne" without mentioning a full name. I just bet we can find a source that supports this claim while saying something more substantive about the character than a couple sentences along the lines of "Daphne (Rachel Kimsey) moves in a series of deliberately cutesy poses — finger to cheek, hand on hip." As for the footnotes, having 6 in a row in the middle of a sentence seems like Wikipedia:Citation overkill. –jacobolus (t) 04:02, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need a source that supports this claim in an academic sense, or even in a particularly substantive sense. The discussion here is about whether there evidence of mononymous, so that it makes sense to include the name on the disambiguation page. This is for the benefit of the reader looking to find this particular subject (which many readers obviously are). BD2412 T 14:17, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) :There is also WP:NAMELIST which is similar, but a bit more tersely presented. older ≠ wiser 20:28, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's not super useful guidance for dispute resolution there. It just punts to local consensus. –jacobolus (t) 20:31, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's typically how most of Wikipedia works when there is a disagreement. Very few "rules" are written in such a deterministic manner as to provide precise guidance for every circumstance. older ≠ wiser 20:37, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understand that, but it makes it a challenge when someone insists that this is how things are done or that is not how things are done, but it's not written down anywhere and when I go skimming around other disambiguation pages I find that, to the contrary, that there is great variation and apparently no standard. –jacobolus (t) 20:40, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(The) Signature

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There are a handful of "The Signature" entries that could be disambiguated and I don't have a strong sense of whether these should be added to the existing Signature (disambiguation) or on a separate page only for "The Signature" entries, either at The Signature (disambiguation) or by demoting The Signature (a film) from being the primary topic. What are the considerations for creating (or not) a separate "The ..." dab page? Page size perhaps? --Jameboy (talk) 15:55, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, size is one consideration, but I would say the most important consideration is what makes it easiest for most readers to find the article they are looking for. That may vary from case to case. In this particular case, I don't see any articles that would be titled The Signature except for the film and possibly The Signature at MGM Grand,[3] so there doesn't appear to be a need for a separate dab page. A hatnote on The Signature pointing to the hotel and/or Signature (disambiguation) could be appropriate, if not strictly necessary. Station1 (talk) 23:30, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]