Help:Disambiguation

Works

 * Works would be defined as main and Translation: namespaces for the purpose of this guidance, and it would be expected that the disambiguation pages would occur in the main namespace, not in the Translation namespace.


 * Disambiguation pages are for listing works that share the same or very similar title. One shouldn't list works with distinct titles on a disambiguation page, even if they are versions of the same work, or commentary on the same subject. Similar titles are variations such as singular vs. plural or choice of initial preposition or article, e.g. A or The.
 * Templates to be used:
 * disambiguation on the listing page
 * hat template similar at the top of each linked disambiguated work


 *  pages are for listing different versions of essentially the same work, regardless of title or author. You shouldn't list completely distinct works on a versions page, even if they have the same title, or the same author, or the same subject, or even if they are analysis or commentary on the work for that the versions page. A versions page should not be created until a second proofread copy of the work exists.
 * Templates to be used
 * versions on the listing page
 * hat template other versions at the top of each linked version


 * Translation pages are a specific type of versions of a work that have a number of translations
 * Templates to be used
 * translations on the listing page
 * hat template other translations at the top of each linked translation

Case study: Song of Songs is a book of the bible also known as Song of Solomon, Canticle and Canticle of Canticles. The works of commentary Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)/Solomon, Song of and Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Canticle of Canticles are neither works with the same title, nor versions of the same work, so they should not be found together on a disambiguation page or a versions page. The only appropriate place to pull together all the various published commentary and analysis of Song of Songs, regardless of title, would be Portal:Song of Songs.
 * Song of Songs (Bible) is a versions page that lists all the different versions of that book, regardless of what title the version uses. It does not include works like Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Canticle of Canticles, because this is a distinct work of commentary, not another version of the book.
 * Song of Songs is a disambiguation page that points at the versions page and also a poem and a play of the same name.
 * Song of Solomon is a disambiguation page that points at the versions page and also works of commentary such as Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)/Solomon, Song of
 * Canticle is a disambiguation page that points at the versions page, an encyclopedia article on canticles, and a poem named Canticle
 * Canticle of Canticles is a disambiguation page that points at the versions page and the work of commentary Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Canticle of Canticles.

We would not create disambiguation pages as part of a published work, nor to solely list subpages of that work, that is the purpose of a table of contents of a work. As such, all disambiguation pages for works are base (root) level pages in the main namespace, and would contain works from different publications, nor be subpages.

When creating links to subpages of a work, often it is useful to create redirects at the root level that point to the respective subpage, and use those root level links for the disambiguation page listing, eg. on [[My Children]]. The benefits of this approach is that it allows for the easier conversion of redirects to be versions pages and it allows for the redirects to be linked in Wikidata to a respective work item, per d:Wikidata:Books

Note that a version of work utilising the hat note other versions would not normally also use the template similar where the linked versions page already links to the disambiguation page.

Authors
Disambiguation pages are for listing authors that share the same name. Where authors of the same name, the method of disambiguation is to use full names, and, as required, years of life with a hyphen separator, eg. John Smith (1522-1596).
 * Template to be used disambiguation (or disambig)
 * Example: Author:John Smith

The guidance of author page nomenclature is pertinent, and neither use of titles (eg. Sir, Lord, etc.) nor name suffixes (Snr. Jnr., etc.), is to be used as the means to disambiguate people.

Other or multiple namespaces
It would be unexpected for disambiguation pages to be required outside of the main and Author: namespaces.

It is possible that the same page name/title can be used in multiple namespaces without issue, and disambiguation is not required in this circumstance. However, we shall only have one disambiguation page per name, so if we are requiring to disambiguate across namespaces then that should be undertaken in the main namespace (ns:0). An example of this would be two works of the same name "John Smith", and two authors of the same name "Author:John Smith (yyyy-yyyy)" (with a hyphen). If uncertain, please request help.

[Administrators: When merging multiple disambiguation pages, consider whether the deleted page should be infinitely protected from creation, and with an active link to the target disambiguation page.]

Wikidata
Disambiguation pages can have Wikidata entries, and should be paired with comparable disambiguation pages with the same name at Wikidata.
 * See also Labels and disambiguation.

Due to works being linked to Wikidata, it is important that existing page are moved to their new page title, as the system will follow the linking and update at Wikidata.

Implementing disambiguation and page moves
On pages that are disambiguated, we ask that you utilise one of the identifying hat templates (similar, other versions, other transltions) at the top of those pages to point back to the disambiguation page.

Where you need to disambiguate a title/name as a work/author/page that already exists with that name, then you should
 * 1) create your new work/page at a variation of the work name (see naming conventions);
 * 2) move the existing work/page to another variation (this will create a redirect, and update the Wikidata entry for the page);
 * 3) convert the new redirect (the root page) into the relevant type of disambiguation page listing the works;
 * 4) add relevant hat template, e.g., to pages to point back to the disambiguation page.

Questions and further help
If uncertain about the guidance above, or you have questions, then please ask at Scriptorium.