Disambiguation: We really need to finish it this time!!

[J. Noel Chiappa]

I for one would not object to no article claiming the base name when there is multiple use.

I lean that way.  It saves arguments.

If I can finish off the Disambiguation Mechanics proposal (I guess I need to move a vote in the EdCouncil, or something - I have to go review the process stuff and figure out what's next), we can move onto that.

I would suggest that making that a very small, stand-alone proposition for the EdCouncil to rule on is the way to go - I'm sure it will be contentious.

The default should be no article with the base name, and a strong case would then have to be made to allocate one.

The problem with this concept is that it doesn't get rid of the possibility of debate; you can still have arguments over whether the "strong case" is good enough.

Basically the decision tree on this question is first 'do we allow any exceptions at all' (which is a simple yes-no binary); if 'no', we are done with the question - and also with any future debate on disambiguations. If 'yes', then you have to i) set guidelines on when a particular meaning is allowed to claim the 'base name', and then ii) (most painful part) apply those guidelines in all future cases.

While we might reach agreement on i) (e.g. something like 'far more common', as is the case wth 'dog' and 'ball'), it's ii) that I fear, because there will inevitably be cases ('tree', 'protocol') where it's not so easy to decide.

Now, if we had some objective measure which chose for us  - e.g. '80% of all uses of the term in the body of WP have to be to the meaning which is allocated to the base name' - that I would be happier with, because then phase ii) cannot become a time-sink. (I specified 'WP' instead of 'CZ' above because I don't think we have enough content yet. Eventually, we could replace 'WP' with 'CZ'.)

Noel

[J. Noel Chiappa]

"Obvious" means what a third grader would answer, not what computer science and military people would answer.

I like this.  Talk about 'everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten'.

The problem is that we're not writing encyclopaedia for third-graders, but rather for people who are considerably more advanced - and the content matches that.

Take as an example 'tree'. Now, to you I'm sure it means the leafy (OK, some have needles :-) green things. However, trees of other kinds are very important in computer science, mathematics, biology, various kinds of engineering, etc. In fact, I expect that if you total up all the references to 'tree' in a good encyclopaedia, there's a good chance the leafy green thing is meant less than 50% of the time!

Which do you think would make CZ look less professional and polished: looking up "tree", and being taken to a disambig page, or clicking on "tree" in an article on graph theory, and winding up directly at a page about the leafy green ones?

Realistically, what percentage would need to be disambiguated? I'm assuming it is not that many.

Hard to say. Most nouns in English do seem to have more than one meaning, but many would not deserve encyclopaedia articles. I would guess that very few two-or-more word titles would need to be disambiguated (and I'd hazard a guess that that's the majority of our content), but a good share (no idea how many) of one-word title would need to be.

Noel

[Daniel Mietchen]

I for one would not object to no article claiming the base name when there is multiple use.

I lean that way.  It saves arguments.

I agree.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

"Obvious" means what a third grader would answer, not what computer science and military people would answer.

I like this.  Talk about 'everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten'.

The problem is that we're not writing encyclopaedia for third-graders, but rather for people who are considerably more advanced - and the content matches that.

Take as an example 'tree'. Now, to you I'm sure it means the leafy (OK, some have needles :-) green things. However, trees of other kinds are very important in computer science, mathematics, biology, various kinds of engineering, etc. In fact, I expect that if you total up all the references to 'tree' in a good encyclopaedia, there's a good chance the leafy green thing is meant less than 50% of the time!

Which do you think would make CZ look less professional and polished: looking up "tree", and being taken to a disambig page, or clicking on "tree" in an article on graph theory, and winding up directly at a page about the leafy green ones?

Realistically, what percentage would need to be disambiguated? I'm assuming it is not that many.

Hard to say. Most nouns in English do seem to have more than one meaning, but many would not deserve encyclopaedia articles. I would guess that very few two-or-more word titles would need to be disambiguated (and I'd hazard a guess that that's the majority of our content), but a good share (no idea how many) of one-word title would need to be.

Noel

To say nothing of the computer scientist who doesn't know that a "trie" is different from a "tree", so tries to look up the data structure and gets either an acyclic graph, a green leafy thing, or a green thing that's probably an acyclic graph, with a trunk connecting two of what the computer scientists call roots: the top root and the bottom root.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Well, when there are multiple different meanings of a word, we need a disambiguation page. The exception -- and yes, it will need to be argued -- should exist when one meaning is a very common word and the other meanings are rather obscure for averagely educated adults. Tree is a borderline case; in fact, this should be part of a policy decision.

So, in conceptual terms:

Do we want to emphasise (with a base article) common words when there are less common words which are also quite well known (as in "tree")? If NO, then a disambiguation page for all words with multiple meanings is the policy. If YES, then some qualitative criterion is needed for making the decision on exactly which words should qualify for baseline articles.

The advantage of choosing a disambiguation page for all multiple meanings, is that no decisions are required. The disadvantage is that we will end up with ridiculous disambiguations for common words which also have more obscure meanings -- like "yellow" or "sky" or whatever...

[Aleta Curry]

Well, Martin's post, directly above, pretty much sums it up.

My view is yes, we need an exception for ye olde 'very common word' and yes, we need a base article on 'borderline' words, and yes, we will need to slug it out.  So what?  We're big kids now.

The thing is, Noel, no one writing about graph theory should be linking 'tree' without making sure what it links to.  Not picking on graph theory people, it's exactly the same for me with e.g. 'coat'.  I should know better than to simply link 'coat' if I mean pelage.

I think if people in specialist areas, and those who will feel inclined to argue for obscure topics, just bear in mind as honestly as possible that there is a difference between baker and Baker, we should be able to get through this will little blood on the floor.  We managed 'football'; we can manage 'tree'.

[Hayford Peirce]

Isn't there an Olde Englyshe phrase called "Common Sense"?

If I start an article called "George Jones"  or "William Smith" or "Archydticex Vermillion III", shouldn't men and women of Good Will be able to figure out when a disambig page is needed or isn't?

[Daniel Mietchen]

So, in conceptual terms:

Do we want to emphasise (with a base article) common words when there are less common words which are also quite well known (as in "tree")? If NO, then a disambiguation page for all words with multiple meanings is the policy. If YES, then some qualitative criterion is needed for making the decision on exactly which words should qualify for baseline articles.

The advantage of choosing a disambiguation page for all multiple meanings, is that no decisions are required. The disadvantage is that we will end up with ridiculous disambiguations for common words which also have more obscure meanings -- like "yellow" or "sky" or whatever...

I already stated that I am for NO (such that the whole site can profit from a consistent system of disambiguation) but since consensus seems to home in around some kind of YES, I gave the implementation another thought: As far as I understood the intention behind the CORE articles, they were meant to reflect (once properly arranged, which they are clearly not at present) something that could be considered the opposite of obscureness. So what about taking the presence of a particular word in one of the CORE articles lists as a measure of obscureness and appropriateness of basename use? This would leave us with three basic options in cases of words with multiple uses:

• If none of the uses of a word in question are listed as CORE, none gets the basename (such that most of the site can profit from a fairly consistent system of disambiguation).
• If exactly one use is listed as CORE, it shall get the basename.
• If more than one uses are listed as CORE, none gets the basename (since we accept no hierarchy between workgroups).

If we were to adopt such a system that couples CZ:Disambiguation with CORE content, this may make the whole site more easy to use and to develop and maintain. Luckily, we already have CZ:List of words with multiple uses which may help with the latter two points. In terms of usability, some further suggestions can be found on the CORE articles talk page.

As for "tree", "yellow", "sky" and so on, adoption of such a system would imply that we would still have to discuss but whether they are CORE or not (which I find more productive) rather than whether they qualify for the basename (which would then be settled based on the outcome of the discussion of their COREness).

[Aleta Curry]

That might be a very useful way to approach it, Daniel.

Shall we wait and see if anyone runs anything else up the flagpole, and then start working on it?

[Daniel Mietchen]

Shall we wait and see if anyone runs anything else up the flagpole, and then start working on it?

Well, waiting for comments on that is certainly useful before starting with implementation, but this topic seems to jump off the radar screens more quickly than others.

[David E. Volk]

The actual number of core articles will be minute (small, not time unit) compared to the full CZ data set, so a separate rule for them seems needless to me.

My operational mode so far for new articles is:

1) If the name isn't taken, take it.
2) If the name is already taken, disambiguate my new article, the old article, and make the disambig basename page.
3) If the name is not taken, but obvious disambigs come to mind emediately, say Panther (Mac OS) & Panther (mammal), skip (1) and go to (2).

What to do with Chemistry (chemistry) vs. Chemistry (romance)?  Daniel's core concept might help this one.
It seems eventually all pages will need disambigs.

[Aleta Curry]

David V, surely thou art kidding?

If the authors here are supposed to be writing an encyclopaedia but can't decide the relative importance of  Chemistry vs. Chemistry (kitschy word for instant romantic/sexual attraction) then there's very little hope--not just for this topic, but for the project in general.  Look, you couldn't even write Chemistry(??) you wrote chemistry (chemistry).


You're not seriously suggesting that that example is a good illustration of why 'It seems eventually all pages will need disambigs.'?!

I find it interesting that it seems more of the scientists are proposing that *everything* be 'disambiguated', but they do NOT follow that uniformly on the wiki if a scientific article foo is the first one written, which, naturally, is often the case.





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[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

I really would object to the article "chemistry" appearing in any guise other than "chemistry". This is one of the obvious names that cries out for a base article and some links in the intro or at the top of the page to any other trivial usages.

It is also a clear example of why everything should not be disambiguated: you do not perform disambiguation on things that are not ambiguous. It's like perfoming heart surgery on someone whose heart is perfectly functioning!

[Hayford Peirce]

I agree wholeheartedly with Martin: don't take out your heart if it's operating properly.

I repeat an earlier post: I'm 100% for common sense and 100% against a long set of arbitrary rules that will only, eventually, screw things up.

As Martin says, obvious BIG things like Chemistry, should be just plain "Chemistry".  Ditto for "Tree", etc. If other meanings arise, a note at the top of the BIG page will direct people to a disambig. page.

I suppose it's important that this subject be settled eventually, but I'm surprised that some people are so willing to over-complicate what seems like a fairly simple thing to me.

[David E. Volk]

I don't really want Chemistry (chemistry), just pointing out the absurd.  There are so many (to me) obvious basename winners, but there will be ties and arguments and people that enjoy arguments.  So ...  we need either 1) a rule, such as Daniel's but not limited to Core articles because that list is too short  2) a benevolent decider, not a divider, or 3) Dictionary rule, first meaning in dictionary X wins everytime and/or ...

4) a clever "if exist" macro or template automatically runs on each page, such that when you visit page Foo and Foo (disambig) also exists, the page automatically includes the "For other meanings of Foo, see Foo (disambig).  If Foo (disambig) does not exist, the phrase is not shown on the page.
  
Personally, I will stick to my previously stated M.O. until I see a resolution to vote on.