Tolkien Gateway:Disambiguation

From Tolkien Gateway
Revision as of 18:34, 2 March 2010 by Mith (talk | contribs) (→‎Multiple names: Re-linked)

Disambiguation is the process of resolving ambiguity — meaning the conflict that occurs when a term is closely associated with two or more different topics.

See also: Category:Disambiguation

Multiple names

Throughout J.R.R. Tolkien's world, names have been used more than once.

Disambiguation

Because of this reuse of names, it is important to disambiguate these multiple article titles. There are several ways of doing this.

Numbers

Some of the characters have numbers, especially royalty. The two Aragorns are thus named Aragorn I and Aragorn II.

Epithets

An epithet is an honorific name. Thus the legendary Beren becomes Beren Erchamion, Túrin becomes Túrin Turambar and Húrin becomes Húrin Thalion. They do not all have to be in Elvish: Turgon can be found at Turgon the Wise.

Titles

Titles differ from epithets in that they usually start with "of". Hence, Galdor of Dor-lómin and Húrin of Emyn Arnen.

Descriptions in parantheses

These descriptions in parantheses (brackets) can be patronyms (Faramir (son of Denethor II)) or descriptions (either Beregond (Steward of Gondor) or Fastred (Rider of Rohan))

Use within the text

It may look tiresome to type the following:

[[Aragorn II|Aragorn]] promised [[Boromir (son of Denethor II)|Boromir]] he would go with him to [[Minas Tirith (Gondor)|Minas Tirith]]

Typing the following instead would be much simpler:

[[Aragorn]] promised [[Boromir]] he would go with him to [[Minas Tirith]]

But is important that proper disambiguation happens. The purpose of Tolkien Gateway is to service the reader over the editor. Though readers can, in general, deduce which of the offered options is the one they were sent to, correct linking is one of the Standards for Featured Articles at least. For all articles that need to be disambiguated, see: Category:Disambiguation.

Disambiguation page

Disambiguation pages should be made when there are three articles with the name, or that have the name in them. In the case of two articles, the most popular of the two gets the main aritcle as a redirect, with a notification (see below) at the top. This could also be applied to disambiguation pages: if one of the three is the most popular (such as Minas Tirith), it redirects to the main article. If not, the "naked" term is redirected to a an article of the same name, with "(disambiguation)" added behind the name.

Layout

  • The first line of the template should be the same as other articles: the page name bolded, with a arbitrary sentence saying something like "Subject can refer to the following characters" or whatever is appropriate.
  • The list of disambiguated articles. The list should be split up, when necessary, between Legendarium-related links and Real-world links (see for example Minas Tirith (disambiguation) and Tom (disambiguation)).
  • At he end of the article, add {{disambig}}
  • Further categorization is not necessary.

Templates

  • If a page has two entries, use {{disambig-two}} or {{youmay}} at the top of the first page
  • In the case of three or more articles, use {{disambig-more}} at the top of the page that is redirected from the naked term - unless that is the redirect page. Note that all these templates have parameters.