Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages

"Mos:Dp" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mos:Dp has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 25 § Mos:Dp until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 21:50, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

"Mos:DP" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mos:DP has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 25 § Mos:DP until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 21:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

"Mos:Dab" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mos:Dab has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 25 § Mos:Dab until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 21:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

"Mos:DAB" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mos:DAB has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 25 § Mos:DAB until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 21:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Red links in English, but blue links in Wikipedias in other languages

The guidelines in MOS:DABRED is currently silent on whether it would be OK to add entries to disambiguation pages if the article exists in a foreign language wikipedia using the Template:Interlanguage link. Wouldn't it be a good idea to add something about it? I'd like to add something about it, but I'm not sure what to add. If the article exists in a foreign language Wikipedia, would it count as a blue link? or would all the rules for red links still apply? The Mountain of Eden (talk) 05:18, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The reason I am asking is that I recently created a new disambiguation page, and there are tons of articles that could be added to it if it's allowed to add articles in foreign language Wikipedias. But I'm not sure whether this would be permissible. The Mountain of Eden (talk) 05:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

DABRED contains the information you're looking for: "Do not create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or are likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics." Bearing in mind that other language editions of Wikipedia have differing standards of notability, and differing levels of willingness / ability to enforce their standards... in general, a foreign language article is a good clue that the topic is notable, so a red link is probably fine. As an extreme example of the bad case, there are some articles that used to be on English Wikipedia but were since deleted at AFD/PROD, but the old articles were already translated to other language editions, resulting in an apparent "gap" that won't be filled. But yeah, go read the other language's article, and take a decent guess as to whether it'd pass notability here.

That being said, disambiguation pages are the wild west, and I was put off from editing them for some time after another editor rather rudely reverted me several times when I added some red links, when I had even been planning on translating the added articles over to en-wiki. (In the realm of saltily fighting ancient battles, I will note that all of the links I added except one do indeed have articles now.) So there are clearly editors who disagree out there, and you might yet run into one; I just think they're wrong and not in compliance with the guideline. SnowFire (talk) 06:06, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

But the previous sentence of WP:DABRED is A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should be included on a disambiguation page only when a linked article (not just other disambiguation pages) also includes that red link., which puts the above quote into context. I understand "liked article" to mean "linked article in en.wiki", and perhaps we need to insert that term to avoid ambiguity. I don't think a link to another language Wikipedia is enough for a dab page entry: the reader should be able to find out more in English about the topic, so we need a blue link to complement the {{ill}} red link. If we allow entries which are only linked to a non-English wikipedia article, our dab pages could expand to include every biography on any other wikipedia, every hamlet in the world even where there is no WP:RS, and so on. PamD 07:33, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm definitely not advocating for mass inclusion of anything in any other language wiki. As I wrote above, a foreign language article is a good clue that the topic is notable, but a clue != inclusion for sure. That said, I'm not sure the number of incoming links is really that useful a measure. I've found articles on plainly 100% notable people who, when I searched for them, had mentions all over the place on English Wikipedia, but that were in plain text and not already linked. (Mostly academics whose work was being cited in citations.) SnowFire (talk) 08:45, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the best way to proceed is to look for instances of WP:DABMENTION: often, topics are mentioned in other more generic or related articles, so you can actually start even without a red link if you're unsure if there's WP:POTENTIAL. --Joy (talk) 07:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)