"Piping" means concealing the actual title of a linked article by replacing it with other text, typically to suppress parenthetical expressions.

A "redirect" is a special page used to "jump" readers from one page title to page with another title where the targeted article is located. For example, a redirect is used at the title 9/11 to send users who navigate there to the article at September 11 attacks.

In general, it is best not to use piping or redirects in disambiguation pages so that it is clear to the reader which article is being suggested, and so that they remain in control of the choice of article. However, there are circumstances where a redirect or piping is useful to the reader.

• Where piping should not be used:
  • Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed. For example, in the entry for Moment (physics), the word "physics" should be visible to the reader. In many cases, what would be hidden by a pipe is exactly what the user would need to be able to find the intended article (but see italics and quotation marks, below)

• Where piping can be helpful:
  • Piping may be used for linking to a specific section of an article using anchor points. Piping is preferred to creating a redirect in cases where the section title is easily distinguishable from the disambiguated term, and the term is simply mentioned or described within the text of the section. This indicates a low possibility that the term will eventually have its own dedicated article. This technique is used commonly for piping to the track listing section of an album; a further example, from E (disambiguation), is that the piped ESRB is preferred to simply linking to the top of the target page ESRB.

  When piping is used on a disambiguation page to link to an article section, the link should be in the description and not used to begin that line on the disambiguation page.

  • Use piping if the article title differs from what it should be due to technical limitations per {{wrongtitle}}; for instance, The Singles 81>85 or Softimage|XSI.
  • Use piping to add italics or quotation marks to part of an article name; for instance, Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "School" (song), Saturnalia (dinosaur), "Hush" (Buffy episode), Neo (The Matrix).

• Where redirects should not be used:
  • When the disambiguated term is an initialism, links should not use redirects to conceal the expanded version of that initialism. For example, on the disambiguation page BNL, linking to the full article title Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is preferable to linking to a redirect at BNL (bank) (although the existence of such a redirect may be useful for other purposes).

    This does not apply to the primary topic (see Linking to a primary topic above) on a disambiguation page for an initialism.

• Where redirects can be helpful:
  • A redirect should be used to link to a specific section of an article only if the title of that section is more or less synonymous with the disambiguated topic. This indicates a higher possibility that the topic may eventually have its own article." For example, in Delta (disambiguation), a link to the redirect term Delta Quadrant would be preferred over its target, Galactic quadrant. Use this technique when the link is the subject of the line, not when it is in the description.
  • Linking to a redirect can also be helpful when the redirect contains the disambiguated term and the target article uses an alternative title; for example, linking to cell phone (instead of mobile phone) on the disambiguation page for cell.
  • In either of the above cases, the link to the redirect should begin the line on the disambiguation page, as when linking directly to an article title.

Specific entry types

Foreign languages

For foreign-language terms, be sure an article exists or could be written for the word or phrase in question. Usually this means that the term has been at least partially adopted into English or is used by specialists.

Tambo may refer to: Tambo (weapon), a very short staff used in martial arts

Avoid adding lines for words or phrases that are simply spelled the same as an English term. For example:

• not: Tambo, a Japanese word (田んぼ) for rice paddy

People

For people, include their birth and death years (when known), and only enough descriptive information that the reader can distinguish between different people with the same name. Keep in mind the conventions for birth and death dates—see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death. Do not include a, an or the before the description of the person's occupation or role.

John Adams (1735–1826) was the second President of the United States. John Adams may also refer to: John Adams (composer) (born 1947), American composer who came to prominence with his opera Nixon in China John Adams (physicist) (1920–1984), Director general of CERN and particle accelerator designer John Adams (martyr) (died 1586), Catholic priest and martyr under Elizabeth I of England

Places

For places, it may only be necessary to write the name of the article.

Jacksonville may refer to: Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville, Alabama Jacksonville, Arkansas

It may be appropriate to add the country after the link. Leave the country unlinked.

Kimberley is the name of: Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, England Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada

Red links

Shortcut: MOS:DABRL

A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link. There is no need to brainstorm all occurrences of the page title and create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics. To find out if another article uses the red link, click on it, and then click "What links here" on the toolbox on the left side of the page to see if any other articles use the red link. See Help:What links here for more information.

A disambiguation shouldn't be made up completely of red links or have only one blue link in it, because the purpose of disambiguation is solely to refer users to other Wikipedia pages. If the only article that uses the red link is the disambiguation page, unlink the "entry word" but still keep a blue link in the description.

Red links should not be the only link in a given entry; link also to an existing article, so that a reader (as opposed to a contributing editor) will have somewhere to navigate to for additional information. A (made-up) example:

Flibbygibby may refer to: Flibbygibby (architecture), a flamingo motif used on cornices Flibbygibby, a type of noodle

In this example, the architectural motif is judged to be appropriate for a future article, but the noodle is not.

Synonyms

If the link is to a synonym, simply use it as it is named:

Serving spoon may also refer to: Tablespoon

Items appearing within other articles

If a topic does not have an article of its own, but is mentioned within another article, then a link can be included to that article. In this case, the link may not start the line, but it should still be the only wikilink. It is often useful to link to the relevant section of that page (using the #anchor notation) and conceal that by making it a piped link, as shown with "coin" below.

Tail may also refer to: The reverse side of a coin Part of an airplane fuselage Part of a bird's anatomy

Only use this feature if the item being described actually appears on the page you are linking to, so avoid:

• On-off switch is what turns on a television set

if the television article does not mention it.

Order of entries

In most cases, place the items in order of usage, with the most-used meanings appearing at the top and less common meanings below. A recommended order is:

1. Articles with a clarifier in parentheses (Anticipation (music))
2. Articles with the item as part of the name (Computer keyboard as part of a Keyboard dab page)
3. Synonyms
4. Larger subject articles which treat this item in a section (Medieval art from a Fresco dab page)

Unless the list is quite short, separate the articles in categories (1) and (2) from those in (3) and (4), with the "may also be" line shown below:

Thingymabob may refer to: Thingymabob (mathematics), the square root of minus-pi Thingymabob (music), a note slightly higher than Q-sharp House thingymabob, a phallic door-knocker Computer thingymabob, carving-knife device for cutting off mouse's tail Thingymabob may also be: Whatchamacallit Doodad A fetish used in Tribal ceremonies

Longer lists

The list may be broken up by subject area:

Thingamajig may refer to: In science: Thingamajig (chemistry), an isotope of chlorine Thingamajig (physics), a kind of pulsar Thingamajig (biology), an invasive plant used as ground cover In world music: Thingamajig (Qatar), a seven-stringed musical instrument Thingamajig (Peru), a wind instrument similar to an aulos thingamajig (UK), a wind instrument, similar to but longer than, the Peruvian instrument

Subject areas should be chosen to best aid navigation. Choose divisions that are well-defined, and that break the entries up into similarly-sized chunks. Very small divisions may impede navigation, and should usually be avoided. Disambiguation pages will frequently have an "Other uses" section for entries that don't fit neatly into another section. Keep in mind that a particular division scheme may not work equally well on all disambiguation pages.

Section headings may be used on longer lists instead of, or in addition to, bold subject area headings, but using more than a single level, as on Aurora (disambiguation), is rarely necessary. Section headings should not include links. See Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Headings for more.

On longer lists, {{TOCright}} may be used to move the table of contents to the right hand side of the page. This reduces the amount of white space and may improve the readability of the page. (For more information, see Help:Section#Floating the TOC.)

Images

Including images is discouraged unless they aid in selecting between articles. Examples of this are the images at Congo and Mississippi Delta (disambiguation).

"See also" section

There may be a "See also" section which can include:

• Terms which can be confused with Title, for example New Market and Newmarket
• Likely misspellings of Title, for example Belmont, Belmonte and Bellmont
• Different forms of Title, for example Splitting, Split (disambiguation), and Splitter

When appropriate, easily confused terms can be placed in a hatnote.

The disambig notice

Depending on the type of disambiguation page, there are different templates to use, including {{disambig}} for general use, {{geodis}} for locations, {{hndis}} for human names, {{numberdis}} for number-related pages, and {{mathdab}} for mathematics pages. However, if the page encompasses multiple topics, {{disambig}} should be used to avoid confusion.

Place the appropriate template after all of the content sections (disambiguation entries and See also entries) and before any Categories (see below) or interlanguage links. {{disambig}} produces the following message (as of December 2006), and also places the page in Category:Disambiguation pages.

If a disambiguation page needs cleaning up to bring it into conformance with this style manual, use {{disambig-cleanup}}. This replaces both {{disambig}} and {{cleanup-date}}.

Do not use {{subst:disambig}} or {{subst:disambig-cleanup}}, as the contents of this notice may change in the future (see Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits). Also, the Wikipedia software relies on links to the templates to determine which pages are disambiguation pages (see MediaWiki:Disambiguationspage), and subst'ing breaks this feature.

If topical categorization of the disambiguation page seems to be needed, please bring this need up for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Experience has shown that ad hoc and un-discussed category creation is controversial and prone to create agitation among the many editors working in the area of disambiguation. Be bold, but as that exhortation warns, don't be reckless.

Categories

Categories aid navigation between articles. However, disambiguation pages are non-articles and do not require categorization other than for maintenance purposes; they already get auto-categorized by using {{disambig}}, {{hndis}} and {{geodis}}. No other categories should be added, except Category:Surnames, Category:Given names or their subcategories (if the disambiguation page includes sections of name information or lists of people), or disambiguation subcategories that might apply.

Exceptions

Set index articles

Set index articles are list articles about a set of items that have similar or identical names. Set index articles are disambiguation-like pages that do not obey the style outlined on this page. Note that the set index article exception was designed to be narrow: for pages that contains links to articles about different topics, please follow this style guide for disambiguation pages. One example of a set index article is a list of ships with the same name. For more information about such ship lists, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Guidelines#Index pages.

Disambiguation pages with only two entries

Some disambiguation pages with "(disambiguation)" in the title list only two meanings, one of them being the primary meaning. In such cases, the disambiguation page is not strictly necessary, but is harmless. The recommended practice is to use a hatnote on the article for the primary meaning to link directly to the secondary meaning. If neither of the two meanings is primary, then a normal disambiguation page should be used.

Break rules

For every style suggestion above, there is some page which has a good reason to do something else. These guidelines are intended for consistency, but usefulness to the reader is the principal goal. So ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason.

See also

• Disambiguation pages with links
• Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup