Disambiguating Works / Subpage Collision Discussion

There's been a lot of debate on ATT lately over whether or not we should Disambiguate two unrelated works in the same name, mostly for the sake of avoiding "Subpage Collision"- Where two unrelated works share their subpages.

Let's discuss.

I think it's fine for the most part unless the pages go over the character count and then maybe split from there. Not really keen on creating more wick migration to be done unless it can't be helped.

[edited]

Edited by XFllo on Jan 20th 2020 at 8:10:08 PM

I'm personally not very concerned either way, so whatever consensus decides...

I agree with MacronNotes. We have different media namespaces for a reason, so we shouldn't always have to move pages to different titles just because they might share some subpages. We can always separate different works with headers/folders on these pages. They should only be moved if the combined subpages would be overly long or if there's a custom title collision.

Edited by rjd1922 on Dec 14th 2020 at 12:23:04 PM

I'm personally for not splitting works unless necessary as seen in the ATT thread (there are my thoughts on the matter), though my stance has softened slightly after finding out different work namespaces may have other use than just work disambiguation with the same name (like finding misuse if a video game trope is used on a non-vidya page) and helps with putting works in categories to some extent (though not fully, as Western Animation is in both Film - Animation and Western Animation sections, depending on the case), but I don't believe that's enough reason for it. Sandbox.Page Title Collision is a perfect summation of what I think, but it's unlikely that it will become an actual Administrivia/ page in its current state, and some arguments may be discredited (like the quick travel one). And yeah, adding more wick migrations may not be a great idea per MN.

Edited by Piterpicher on Mar 8th 2020 at 11:41:00 AM

Yeah, if y'all want to see me debate over anything regarding this topic, see the ATT thread linked by Piterpicher.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 20th 2020 at 2:22:14 PM

The thought that occurs to me is that there's no good reason in my mind not to hard split subpages for same-named works. If nothing else most, if not all, the exact same reasons for doing so with work pages in the same namespace apply just as much with the YMMV and other namespaces.

It just seems simpler, if not necessarily easier, to have it as a "one work, one set of pages" deal.

Work page A has subpages for work page A, and work page B has subpages for work page B. It seems odd to me to want a single subpage for work pages A and B, efficient if, as was the case in the ATT that started this discussion, the two works are completely unrelated.

Edit to add: What is achieved by not splitting them that isn't achieved by doing so?

Edited by sgamer82 on Jan 20th 2020 at 12:31:02 PM

You won't be able to debate anything there because it'll probably get locked, but yeah, that ATT is a fairly useful resource and this discussion's firestarter. There were a few other ATTs and some scuffles in the Namespace Configuration thread, but that ATT is the most notable. This thread should hopefully be the clincher.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 20th 2020 at 8:30:37 PM

Most of what's worth saying has already been said, but for my two cents:

• I am in favor of disambiguating Similarly Named Works to avoid subpage collision, but I don't see it as urgent — it can be "whenever someone gets around to it" priority.
• What should we do if a work page shares its name with a trope? There's not much subpage collision in this case, but there's Laconic and Quotes at the least. Tropes have been renamed over this before, but in all the cases I can recall the name was clearly more iconic of the work than the trope. (The case for renaming Ten Little Murder Victims to avoid confusion with And Then There Were None was probably stronger than the case is for renaming Turncoat to avoid confusion with Turn Coat.)

I'm in favor of splitting subpages, so that each title gets its own sub page. Else you get subpages like this ome: X-Men - that's practically 4 subpages in one (and it's not the only X Men subpage that's like this).

I'm in favor, but what would the arcade game be? VideoGame.X Men Konami?

@ Piterpicher: I meant that I did debate there, when I'm less inclined to debate on the subject in general because of my lack of bias over what should and shouldn't be done.

I'm leaning heavily to "disambiguate", but I also don't think it's a huge issue that needs to be rectified. It's something that I think should be done when someone thinks it should be done, and not a hard and fast rule.

Bump because this is still popping up in ATT.

My stance has softened slightly, but I am still a near-radical single-page keeper. I have added two reasons on Sandbox.Page Title Collision why I'd get disambiguation for cases that aren't just "same namespace, same title". I still think that subpage collision is no real problem and it's ultimately a better idea to separate them by headers or folders per most of my previous reasoning, no matter the number of them.

Edited by Piterpicher on Mar 11th 2020 at 10:50:22 AM

I have the exact opposite stance; avoid subpage collision whenever possible. (Hence my creation of Series.Class 2016 four years ago, even though no other work named Class had a page; this future-proofing proved unnecessary.)

That's because there's a 2010 CBBC comedy sketch series also called Class.

Edited by rjd1922 on Mar 11th 2020 at 7:11:26 AM

Edit: Welp, the above post was edited, so I'll edit mine as well.

We need to figure out a standard that everyone can follow; because so far all that has happened is endless debate over what's better.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 11th 2020 at 8:15:33 AM

I cited the CBBC programme at the time, yes.

I'd like full disambiguation, both as reader and editor, but as I'm unlikely to help out with such a change, my opinion isn't worth much.

But what I've personally been missing when editing is any sort of guide on how to deal with cases of disambiguation. Like, I made The Spider (1908) a while back, but never did anything with The Spider because I plain don't know what is expected of me. Do I move it to a disambig too? Do I need to get permission first? Am I obliged to fix links? Do I make an disambig page? What should a disambig page look like? Even if the answers to this might be obvious, fact is there's not much to easily find or verify those answers.

Relatedly, I'd really like to see some guidelines on disambig naming methods. Like, is there an order of preference for identifiers? Is it a problem if two disambig'd pages have different identifiers, such as one a year and one a country of origin? Or if, say, two disambig pages by year already exist but a third won't do by year, do the former two need to be changes? What "year" goes for disambig: creation or publication? What about disambiguating franchises from first installments (imo, My Little Pony is really in need of some splitting)? What about a franchise having, say, multiple comic series? Year or publisher? And is there a way to make those comics available through the upper tabs, since they don't share a namespace with the franchise, or are things limited to a link on the franchise page and possibly the character page?

Some sort of accessible and sensible system to make disambiguation a more natural part of editing just would be nice.

That'd be a good idea. Even if we don't come to the consensus that disambiguating is always preferable, that page would help the people who do want to disambiguate.

I'm more or less neutral, as I think subpage collision is annoying and confusing and Wiki Word crash even moreso, but I also don't see disambiguating as a necessity in all instances. If doing so would make things less confusing or complicated I'm all for it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to disambiguate something if the benefit isn't there (for example, I disambiguated Now You See It... from Now You See It because the wiki-word of the first one messed up the second one, but I've not touched Literature.Power, despite it being entirely surrounded by subpages for Series.Power, just because it's not using any of those subpages and more or less just exists.)

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 12th 2020 at 5:52:30 AM

Then maybe this could be how to deal with disambigs:

1. A guide is written up to help people through the disambiguating process in whatever variable it may come.
2. Disambiguation is not made a rule, but if someone wants to have a work separated they are free to do so. That way, people who want to have this change can work on it at their own pace and people who don't want it aren't cajoled into doing something they don't want. It's pretty much the situation as is, but a little more disambig-positive.

1. I've been drafting one in my head for awhile; I'll post one by the end of the weekend.
2. There are cases where we do want to proactively disambiguate (and two long-term threads dedicated to it), and I plan on incorporating those situations into the rules.

Should the guide for how to disambiguate be added to Sandbox.Page Title Collision, or should it have its own page? I personally don't feel like two pages are needed here, but I could potentially put a guide on my sandbox (or you could do it, I'd be fine with that as my Wi-Fi is currently not working too well).

Edited by Piterpicher on Mar 14th 2020 at 10:26:30 AM

I admit that at first glance that page strikes me as way overlong...

I personally think that some pages are just going to be long, but it seriously isn't that long. Some Administrivia/ pages are even bigger. I'll at least put my part in a folder, as I can't bring myself to delete anything there (I dunno, maybe I'm a hoarder). Anyway, I think that this page should be used for how to disambiguate as well. Any takers or thoughts?

Edited by Piterpicher on Mar 14th 2020 at 1:13:42 PM