Talk:Disambiguation

Note: This is the talk page for an article formerly titled "Disambiguation", now a redirect. You may be looking for Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation, the talk page associated with Wikipedia:Disambiguation.

Deletion

I accidently created this article and do not know how to delete it. If someone could tell me how to delete pages in "my talke" page that would be very helpful so I can correct this error and keep it in mind for future reference.

Don't worry, I found a good use for it! - Stormwatch 13:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article be called Disambiguation (disambiguation)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.236.128.117 (talk • contribs)

It was: [1]. How ever, it was a little overly tongue in cheek, and was moved. See also Talk:Disambiguation (disambiguation) and old AfD. MrZaius^talk 05:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation (disambiguation)

Come on, a little joke now and then never hurt anyone. Having a page legitimately called "Disambiguation (disambiguation)" is just too cool to pass up. Plus it's more consistent with the naming scheme, anyway. Eleland 21:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see it as a joke or a "cool" thing myself. It follows WP conventions perfectly. Apparently, others feel the same way, since it is currently there. David Spector 15:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Down with "Disambiguation"

That's enough drama.

I realize that this strikes at one of the hallowed shrines of the Wiki World. Let's see how religiously hallowed it really is:

The better word to use here is a variant of "Equivocation" (disequivocation, unequivocation?)

The reason lies in the etymology.

Equi- voca

Equal voices.

Equivocation important connotative difference. Think of entering a room with several speakers, all saying different things. If you need to hear clearly (as in, "understand") what any speaker is saying you must block out or silence the other speakers. This is not because any or all of them are saying things you don't understand: Rather it is due to the very fact that they are, each, entirely comprehensible. You could understand any of them, as long as it was the only voice you heard.

There really is nothing ambiguous (cloudy, difficult to see boundaries, hard to identify) in this room. No speaker is saying anything other than entirely comprehensible, coherent and verifiable content.

It is, in fact, *because* of the many coherent voices that all of the messages are in danger of being lost. If you would, however, listen to each of them in turn, you would understand exactly what this person was saying.

The "disambiguation" function in Wikipedia is exactly this dis-equivocation: the elimination of multiple competing definitions. When there are several possible ways to address a topic, or several topics indexed by the same name, Wikipedia compels the reader to select one voice to first attend, then perhaps a second or third, etc.

By taking the competing, equally valid voices out of the same room (page) you are reducing the equivocation. Of course some information is lost in the process, but the choice of one account at a time is much easier for most of us to handle.

There are things going on in Wikipedia that do need to be made less ambiguous.

For example: (1) someone makes an edit which seems to be adding valuable content, but which is presented in a way that doesn't really make sense. In this case, you would be reducing the ambiguity by clarifying the language used.

(2) a "hot" topic bleeds flames from the discussion page into the article page. Several "edits" by different sides in the matter end up creating a mishmash of completely incoherent sentence fragments and lost clauses. This article needs to be made less ambiguous by sorting out the differences on the discussion pages, perhaps resulting in different camps writing different sections in the article, each presenting their own camp's viewpoint.

(3) as a result of a patchwork of attempts to "fix" an article (say, in relationship to a (1) sort of entry) different editors have started to take the article in different directions, each running out of time or energy to finish the job. Thus we have a presentation of information from respected sources that is cited. However, the tone, use of voice (2nd, 3rd person; in addition to clear changes in levels of formality, etc.) combined perhaps with some photos or tables that have somehow managed to drift away from whatever bullet-point they used to call home can result in an ambiguous presentation.

(4) some topic that most everyone knows is so, so very uncomfortably hot (e.g., male/female circumcision including "female genital mutilation", Jewish 8th day ceremonies, "figurative" circumcision; the political standing/leaning of various news organizations including changes at Village Voice, FOX news, NYTimes, Washington Post, BBC and anything owned by Rupert Murdoch; what are "neo-cons", who is and who is not, today) as a result the prose is so subdued, almost pedantic, while the accompanying visuals and links are smoking hot. This will usually end up confusing the reader as it would anyone trying to match the pictures of "dead babies" alongside of "girls killed by back-street abortion butchers".

(5) The text in an entry contains so much bland, non-committal, indecisive and generally non-sense as you finish reading the article you are nagged by the feeling you have just read 500 words of grammatically not-awful text in an encyclopedia and you know nothing now you didn't already know before you started reading.

There are more but I am sure you get my drift. A stereotypical politician's speech is ambiguous because the last thing any successful politician wants is to hear back a strangely me-sounding voice promising all sorts of specific actions. A pun is equivocal--done well, it bears two completely sensible meanings--with one perhaps functioning as a commentary on the other.

This obviously is not a huge deal, and I am sure someone more persuasive than me has already raised the issue. Nevertheless it is so rare that we get such a perfect match between the roots of a word and the function of a technology tool it seems an unfortunate miss.

I do know there are many different pages in Wiki-land where all sorts of different types of discussions go on. As little as I know, there might be a page devoted to discussion the way Wikis label functions. I really don't want to be a crusader. Rather, there are far too many crusades that are of much greater importance to me than this.

So I've made my plea.

You can find an interesting discussion/application of the equivocal to organizations in Weick, Karl. The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd ed. Sage. 1979 (I'm not absolutely certain of the date). In it Weick defines organizations as "consensually validated grammars for reducing equivocality by means of sensible interlocked behaviors" the relevant idea being that we are faced with so many possible choices that the modern organization "helps us out" by narrowing our possible choices. He is not a fan of the MBA crowd, you can imagine.

Vagabundus 11:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Arguing that the disambiguation policy and the pages created through it should be renamed would be better directed to the Wikipedia:Village Pump, as you are really discussing a policy change that would affect far more than this page. MrZaius^talk 11:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree. David Spector 15:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 15 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: procedurally closed. We do not move redirects and this is mirroring another discussion. Jenks24 (talk) 12:37, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

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Disambiguation → Disambiguation (disambiguation) – See discussion at Talk:Disambiguation (disambiguation)#Requested move 15 November 2015. Reverse the redirect. Si Trew (talk) 03:01, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Without an article

Is a disambiguation page necessary if it consists of multiple entries without a Wikipedia article that is directly related to the disambiguated term? E.g. High on Life consists of multiple entries but none of which has a Wikipedia article. The editor whose username is Z0 06:50, 27 July 2018 (UTC)