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The Signpost: 29 April 2015

• Wikimania: Choice of small village for Wikimania 2016 ruffles feathers
  Esino Lario is set to host Wikimania 2016, but volunteers and others have raised a host of concerns that raise serious questions about the town's suitability for hosting such a large conference.

• News and notes: Wiki Loves Monuments evaluation sees diminishing returns and increasing cost
  The evaluations reveal that in the last three years, WLM has possibly fallen victim to its own success and seen diminishing returns.

• In the media: Scottish MEP blocked for edit warring; ranking articles by importance
  David Coburn, a Member of the European Parliament for the Scotland region for the UK Independence Party, was blocked from editing Wikipedia on April 6.

• Featured content: Another day, another dollar
  Ten featured articles, nine featured lists, and twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.

• Traffic report: Bruce, Nessie, and genocide
  Though the continued predominance of movies, TV, and sports noted in last week's report largely continues, three additional topics joined the Top 10 this week.

• Recent research: Military history, cricket, and Australia targeted in Wikipedia articles' popularity vs. quality; how copyright damages economy
  Reader demand for some topics (e.g. LGBT topics or pages about countries) is poorly satisfied, whereas there is over-abundance of quality on topics of comparatively little interest, such as military history.

• Technology report: VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates
  

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:11, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Olympia Page Edit

Hi, Have you edited the Olympia page and removed the fact and truth with your foolish knowledge. Don't think we are writing some jokes in your page. Please ask someone from ground zero before editing. At last for your information people seen building with name olympia on July 7 2014 in Chennai region where usually used to be a park and it got disappeared within minutes. And we currently have the same old park in the area. May be if you have some good friends in adyar region ask them and then remove someone else comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.66.170 (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 May 2015

• News and notes: "Inspire" grant-making campaign concludes, grantees announced
  The Wikimedia Foundation this week announced the winning grantees in March's "Inspire" grant-making campaign.

• Featured content: The amorous android and the horsebreeder; WikiCup round two concludes
  Seven articles, three lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week. The second round of the WikiCup has ended.

• In the media: Guggenheim image donation; Wiki campaign gets advertising award
  artnet and The Next Web report (May 6) that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is releasing a hundred images of works in its collection under Creative Commons licences in conjunction with a May 19 editathon.

• Special report: FDC candidates respond to key issues
  Elections have begun for five community members of the Funds Dissemination Committee, the Foundation's volunteer body for judging and recommending millions of dollars worth of annual grants to affiliates in the movement. The election lasts just eight days, from Sunday 3 May until 23:59 UTC on Sunday 10 May, so at the time of publication, voters will need to act promptly.

• Traffic report: The grim ship reality
  Like colliding ocean liners, rousing entertainment and harsh reality merged ungainly in this week's top 10 list. The much heralded pay-per-view pummeling of Manny Pacquiao by Floyd Mayweather, Jr. dominated the list's top slots, giving this list one of its highest total view counts in months.

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:52, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

New question raised regarding Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/April 2015 move request

Some opposers of this move have now contended that there is a "Critical fault in proposal evidence", which brings the opinions expressed into question. Please indicate if this assertion in any way affects your position with respect to the proposed move. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:35, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Straw poll at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages#People_section

FYI, if you'd like to add your 2¢. —Swpb^talk 16:54, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages#Straw_poll_results - please correct as needed. —Swpb^talk 19:49, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Use of the geodis template

Hello, I'd appreciate your opinion on this discussion which I've started. --Midas02 (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

FD

[Thank you.] Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 13:12, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 May 2015

• Foundation elections: Board candidates share their views with the Signpost
  Three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation—will be decided by Wikimedians in the election to be held 17–31 May.

• News and notes: Swedish Wikimedia chapter organizes simultaneous Wikidata contests
  This week has been a busy one for the Wikidata project, with nearly simultaneous Wikidata contests, both organized by Wikimedia Sweden, now underway.

• Traffic report: Round Two
  Casual viewers may think I've posted the same list twice. But no, readers just happen to be really interested in May 2's Big Fight. In fact, last week was just the weigh-in and the trash talk. This week, the numbers actually increased.

• In the media: Grant Shapps story continues
  Grant Shapps, who was the co-chairman of the UK's Conservative Party until this week, has been accused of maliciously editing the Wikipedia biographies of his party's rivals.

• Op-ed: What made Wikipedia lose its reputation?
  There is a public misconception of Wikipedia: that any anonymous editor can edit Wikipedia at any time, and cannot be tracked or identified.

• Featured content: Four first-time featured article writers lead the way
  Eight articles, one list, and five pictures were promoted to featured status on the English Wikipedia in a slow week.

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:19, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Precious

older≠wiser
Thank you, veteran editor, for quality articles, starting with Albion College and Kalamazoo River, for places and people in Michigan and New Zealand, for improving Cherry Wilder, for your gnomish engagement in disambiguation, for pointing out where precision is a mistake, and for a great signature, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:45, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Question

Could you at least give a reason why you would revert my edit? I accidently typed 2011 but I meant 2009. As can be read here on the German Wiki. Why should this song not be named here, even though it is a perfectly fine song given out under the name Superstar in 2009? Kennyannydenny (talk) 18:19, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no article linked in the entry. Providing navigation to ambiguous topics with existing content in Wikipedia is really the only purpose of disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 18:21, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah that explains a lot. Must be a different rule from the Wikipedia's I'm used to be working on ^^ Thanks for the explanation! Kennyannydenny (talk) 18:25, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Unnecessary hatnotes on Michigan township articles

Though these hatnotes have existed for almost a decade, they are unnecessary per WP:NAMB, and in my opinion, excessive. All of their "NAME Township" and "NAME Township, Michigan" variants either target a disambiguation page or are a disambiguation page. If the reader arrives at the page with full disambiguation ("NAME Township, NAME County, Michigan"), then they arrived at WP:PRECISE-ly what they are looking for. Steel1943 (talk) 13:19, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

That presumes readers have local knowledge about counties. As someone who lived in Michigan for many years and had some familiarity with the subjects, I found these confusing. WP:NAMB is a contested guideline and even explicitly states The presence or absence of hatnotes in articles with disambiguated titles has been a contentious issue, and this guideline doesn't prescribe one way or the other. older ≠ wiser 13:43, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

As someone who once upon a time lived somewhere nearby (this is the first time I've ever revealed what continent I live on, so I better add a userbox), I have to disagree that confusion can happen with townships in any state (except for Louisiana, of course, because that state chose to be different) if there is proper county disambiguation and they are in different counties. To me, seeing these hatnotes actually makes me second guess myself in a way which an encyclopedia should not. If I were confused, I'd immediately look up an ambiguous term. Steel1943 (talk) 17:00, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Deadline

What was the problem with adding Deadline comics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.66.18.145 (talk) 18:16, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 May 2015

• From the editor: Your voice is needed: strategic voting in the WMF election
  The Wikimedia Foundation's bi-annual Board of Trustees election is open for voting. Of the ten seats on the board, three are elected representatives of the global Wikimedia community—you.

• In focus: The awful truth about Wikimedia's article counts
  The article counts of many Wikimedia wikis suddenly changed on 29 March 2015: as the Signpost reported at the time, sixty-five wikis fell below milestones tracked at the Wikimedia News Meta page, and three increased to new milestones.

• Traffic report: Inner Core
  The list is topped this week by Danish scientist Inge Lehmann, thanks to a Google Doodle celebrating her 127th birthday. Lehmann discovered in 1936 that the Earth has a solid inner core. It is sometimes surprising to realize how recently such basic scientific knowledge of the Earth, which we now take for granted, was discovered.

• News and notes: A dark side of comedy: the Wikipedia volunteers cleaning up behind John Oliver's fowl jokes
  Wikipedia editors logging in on May 19 found themselves walking into an unexpected amount of anti-vandal work to keep the site in line with its extensive biographies of living persons policy. A plethora of Wikipedia articles related to the United States House Committee on Appropriations, and the fifty-one representatives serving on it, have been hit by a raft of anonymous editors making often vulgar edits referencing "chicken fucker," or more creative combinations: "sexual conduct", "sexual congress", "fornicator", "intimate relations", or "trysts with chickens."

• Featured content: Puppets, fungi, and waterfalls
  Three articles, seven lists, and seven pictures were featured on the English Wikipedia.

• In the media: Jimmy Wales accepts Dan David Prize
  Jimmy Wales and five others accepted the 2015 Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University on May 17. The prize comes with US$1 million, ten percent of which goes to doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships.

• WikiProject report: Cell-ebrating Molecular Biology
  This week, we had the pleasure of interviewing WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, which has come a long way since our last interview in 2008. Like most projects, it has a long member list, but only a small subset of that group regularly contributes. With 28 featured articles and 58 top-importance start class ones, the project has clearly had some success, but has a ways to go. We talked to three regular project contributors.

• Arbitration report: Editor conduct the subject of multiple cases
  The Arbitration Committee has an unusually large case load at present. Although perhaps not on a par with the high-profile, multi-party cases seen towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, with five open cases the arbitrators are likely to be kept busy for the next several weeks.

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:48, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

NPS

Please stop making unhelpful edits at this article. Thank you. 86.186.14.124 (talk) 18:02, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Why don't you stop re-adding 1) an entry that makes no mention of the ambiguous term and 2) unnecessary markup which also incorrectly places ftext between the TOC and the first section heading. older ≠ wiser 18:12, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

The layout is broken in IE. My edit fixes this. The correctness of the newly added term is trivially verfiable. Obviously you do not understand either of these points. If you continue with your disruption I will report you to the dispute resolution process. 86.186.14.124 (talk) 19:00, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

The criteria for inclusion on a disambiguation page is clear. The linked article must support the claimed usage. As for the latter, that it's not any reason for using non standard markup. It mIght be a reason for switching to a standard compliant browser though. older ≠ wiser 20:45, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Intervention_requested. 86.152.163.183 (talk) 12:38, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

See further on my talk page. PamD 14:47, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks PamD. older ≠ wiser 16:17, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Hounding?

Hi. Do you have a program checking ALL changes to disamb. pages on English WP that "does its thing" automatically, or are you hounding me around "by hand"? For now just using the technical term as such, nothing more.Arminden (talk) 21:21, 24 May 2015 (UTC)Arminden

Uh oh, you're on to me. After all, there's nothing I like better than to interact with an irritating nit who has a tenuous, though remarkably self-righteous, understanding of editing disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 00:14, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

---

So that's a YES. I'll only take it to a point. Get your hobbies, topics, kicks and general satisfaction elsewhere. Logic and manners are too much to ask for. There's enough space on WP for more than one "style". The old, tenuous, irritating nit, thank you very much.

Sadly, no, you misunderstand. I edit a lot of disambiguation pages and have many on my watchlist. When I notice an editor making irregular edits to a page on my watchlist, I often check their recent contributions for other similarly irregular edits to disambiguation pages. It's nothing at all about you. older ≠ wiser 11:13, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

What's "legitimate" about song titles?

Why did you rv my removal of song titles from disambiguation pages? I removed these titles if they didn't refer to an actual article about a song title. Do you think every song title is entitled to be on a disambiguation page? You would quickly load down these pages with song titles if you allowed that. Some of these are just to obscure to belong on disambig pages. I think Wikipedia could do a better job of decided what belongs on these pages. They are just loaded down with trivia.Chisme (talk) 23:20, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:DABMENTION provides the criteria for inclusion. I wouldn't go out of my way to systematically add song titles, but it is wrong to remove them. What is or is not trivial is subjective. older ≠ wiser 23:36, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

You're a fellow with a lot of time on your hands, aren't you? Chisme (talk) 23:41, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

twenty-four hours in any given day, same as anyone else. older ≠ wiser 23:43, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

AW = Athletics West

Please don't be a jerk. I gave you a reference showing the abbreviation in usage. Those are the easiest results to pull up from that era, but its common. The Olympic Trials are the highest level of domestic meet in the USA. You have now removed a sourced piece of information. Read first, revert later if its a fraud. I don't want to get into an edit war with you, so I'll expect you to be replacing the content you deleted. Trackinfo (talk) 21:35, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

dont revert me

Please unrevert my exit to end of the world 107.77.70.114 (talk) 14:09, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

No. older ≠ wiser 14:22, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'm the same person as that IP 107.107.62.167 (talk) 14:13, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

3RR

You have violated 3RR and are edit warring on James Jackson. Try discussing on the talk page instead of reverting. Very, very pathetic. Bgwhite (talk) 02:36, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I have been discussing on the talk page. It might pay to check before making baseless accusations (and making edits that ignore established guidelines). Pathetic my foot you ass. older ≠ wiser 02:39, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Civil too I see. I forgot why people call you little Eric. I saw three people discussing on the talk page. You and two against you. I see you reverting mulptiple people. That is not consensus. Bgwhite (talk) 02:46, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

What are you talking about. I'm not aware of anyone ever calling me little Eric. I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean. I returned your incivility with an appropros response, so don't go calling the kettle black Mr. Pot. The discussion has been fractured across various forums, and FWIW, read the discussion carefully and I think you will seen that Willondon was not exactly agreeing or disagreeing with either me or with EauZenCashHaveIt. Don't make stupid assumptions about things you are too lazy to bother looking into carefully. older ≠ wiser 02:53, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

It is pathetic to violate 3RR. Doesn't matter the reason. I wasn't calling you pathetic, only your action. You started name calling, and now I'm an ass, lazy and stupid. You have reverted three people (EauZen, Willondon and me) on the page while "talking". You did violate 3RR. You did shout in an edit summary. I did read the talk page discussion which is why I asked a BD2412 for their comment. The discussion seemed to go nowhere and no one side "prevailing". I thought a 3rd, neutral party was best. Yup, I'm a stupid lazy ass for asking a 3rd party. Next time I'll SHOUT, revert and resort to name calling. I'm done. Bgwhite (talk) 03:45, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Um, whatever. And don't bother trying to explain whatever you meant by your snide comments about Little Eric or about living up to my "reputation for a change". Whatever respect I might have had for you in the past has unfortunately dissipated in this exchange. older ≠ wiser 03:54, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 June 2015

• News and notes: Three new community-elected trustees announced, incumbents out
  The Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer election committee has announced the election results for the three vacant seats on the Board of Trustees. Dariusz Jemielnak, James Heilman, and Denny Vrandečić are set to take up their two-year terms on the Board. They will replace the three incumbents, all of whom stood this time unsuccessfully: Phoebe Ayers, Samuel Klein, and María Sefidari.

• Blog: How Wikipedia covered Caitlyn Jenner’s transition
  Caitlyn Jenner—the American hero of the 1976 Olympics, a film actor, and prominent member of Keeping Up with the Kardashians—may now be the most famous openly transgender person in the world.

• Discussion report: The deprecation of Persondata; RfA – A broken process; Complaints from users on Swedish Wikipedia
  Since the dawn of Wikipedia, or at least since 22 December 2005, the template named Persondata has existed.

• Featured content: It's not over till the fat man sings
  Two featured articles and ten featured pictures were promoted this week.

• Technology report: Things are getting SPDYier
  Over the past few weeks, developers have been working on improving Wikimedia's performance when users connect to it using SPDY.

• Special report: Towards "Health Information for All": Medical content on Wikipedia received 6.5 billion page views in 2013
  Wikipedia appears to be the single most used website for health information globally, exceeding traffic observed at the NIH, WebMD, WHO et al..

• In the media: Anonymous Australian editing targets football player, shooting victim
  More UK government vandalism; legend has it; minding the gender gap

• Traffic report: A rather ordinary week
  The traffic report is nothing unusual this week, with a Google Doodle for astronaut Sally Ride topping the list, the accidental death of famous mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. at #2, and the normal fare of recent popular American movies and television.

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 June 2015

• News and notes: Chapter financial trends analyzed, news in brief
  This week saw the publication of the Chapter-wide Financial Trends Report 2013, a now-completed research project that examines the finances and outlays of the 36 movement-affiliated chapters.

• Traffic report: Two households, both alike in dignity
  "Happy families are all alike," Leo Tolstoy said, "but unhappy families are unhappy after their own fashion."

• In the media: Arbitration case attracts media coverage; Wikipedia in Israel
  UK media covers Wikipedia Arbitration case; Lila Tretikov visits Israel.

• Featured content: Just the bear facts, ma'am
  Four featured articles, two featured lists, one featured topic, and twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.

• Technology report: Wikimedia sites are going HTTPS only
  Today it was announced that Wikimedia sites are going to become HTTPS only, finishing up 10 year effort of rolling out HTTPS.

• Blog: Making Wikipedia’s medical articles accessible in Chinese
  The Medical Translation Project, an ambitious attempt to improve and translate Wikipedia’s medical content from English into other languages, began in 2012.

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:09, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 June 2015

• In the media: Wikipedia wins Asturias Prize; printing out Wikipedia; HTTPS switch
  The Princess of Asturias Foundation announced that Wikipedia would be the recipient of the 2015 Princess of Asturias award in the category of International Cooperation.

• Arbitration report: An election has consequences
  The Arbitration Committee delivered its final decision in a case that reached the attention of the UK national press.

• In focus: Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe
  This would end a long-standing tradition in many countries that the skyline and the public scene should belong to everybody.

• Op-ed: Making a difference in Wikipedia, one GA at a time
  We need to be ever-diligent in ensuring that articles remain of high quality.

• Technology report: HTTPS-only rollout completed; proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts
  The rollout of HTTPS only has now been completed across all Wikimedia wikis.

• Interview: A veteran’s Wikipedia edits help him understand the brutality behind Yugoslavia’s wars
  We interviewed an Australian veteran who deployed to the region as a peacekeeper and now writes articles on the region's history to help him understand what he encountered there.

• News and notes: Labs outage kills tools, self; news in brief
  A more than usually severe outage Wikimedia Labs occurred after a massive database corruption implosion on June 17.

• Featured content: Great Dane hits 150
  Six featured articles, seven featured lists, and seven featured pictures were promoted this week.

• Discussion report: A quick way of becoming an admin
  Author's note: This might be a violation of WP:BEANS; read at your own risk.

• WikiProject report: Western Australia speaks – we are back
  It wouldn't be the WikiProject report if we didn't feature an Australian topic once in a while, so this week we're looking at the left side.

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:48, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 June 2015

• From the editor: The Signpost tagging initiative
  Over more than a decade of weekly publication, The Signpost has accumulated an incredibly lengthy and detailed record about the issues, controversies, successes, and failures of the English Wikipedia community and the movement at large.

• Op-ed: Content Translation beta is coming to the English Wikipedia
  The Wikimedia Foundation's Language Engineering team plans to introduce Content Translation—a tool that makes it easier to translate Wikipedia articles into different languages—as a beta feature on the English Wikipedia.

• Special report: Small impact of the large Google Translation Project on Telugu Wikipedia
  During 2009–2011 Google ran the Google Translation Project (GTP), a program utilising paid translators to translate most popular English Wikipedia articles to various Indian language Wikipedias.

• Featured content: One eye when begun, two when it's done
  Four articles and nine pictures were promoted to featured status this week.

• Recent research: How Wikipedia built governance capability; readability of plastic surgery articles
  One paper looks at the topic of Wikipedia governance in the context of online social production.

• Technology report: 2015 MediaWiki architecture focus and Multimedia roadmap announced
  This past week saw the kick-off of the 2015 MediaWiki architecture focus of improving our content platform.

• News and notes: Board of Trustees propose bylaw amendments
  The Board of Trustees is the "ultimate corporate authority" of the Wikimedia Foundation and the level at which the strategic decisions regarding the Wikimedia movement are made ...

• In the media: Turkish Wikipedia censorship; "Can Wikipedia survive?"; PR editing
  The Hürriyet Daily News reports that the Turkish Wikipedia has posted banners on the top of the encyclopedia to warn users that a number of articles are being blocked by the Turkish government.

• Blog: 7,473 volumes at 700 pages each: meet Print Wikipedia
  After six years of work, a residency in the Canadian Rockies, endless debugging, and more than a little help from my friends, I have made Print Wikipedia.

• Arbitration report: Politics by other means: The American politics 2 arbitration
  Clausewitz' pithy summary of warfare as "politics by other means" seems to be the motto of some Wikipedia editors.

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:13, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Blood Moon

The next time you revert something, learn your science!

Basically the general definition of a 'blood moon' is when the moon appears reddish because of how light can appear. Lunar eclipses are not the only cause. Notice the following:

There are few situations that can cause a red moon. The most common way to see the Moon turn red is when the Moon is low in the sky, just after moonrise or before it’s about to set below the horizon. Just like the Sun, light from the Moon has to pass through a larger amount of atmosphere when it’s down near the horizon, compared to when it’s overhead. The Earth’s atmosphere can scatter sunlight, and since moonlight is just scattered sunlight, it can scatter that too. Red light can pass through the atmosphere and not get scattered much, while light at the blue end of the spectrum is more easily scattered. When you see a red moon, you’re seeing the red light that wasn’t scattered, but the blue and green light have been scattered away. That’s why the Moon looks red. Pocketthis (talk) 21:58, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but it's irrelevant for the purposes of a disambiguation page, which are nothing more than navigational aides that direct readers to articles with information about a subject. They do not contain citations and they do not contain external links. older ≠ wiser 22:18, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Please, please consider redacting

You are involved in a discussion at WT:Disambiguation in the thread "A disambiguation of disambiguation pages". In this thread you had to be guided by another editor, in an edit at 18:07, 27 June 2015, to "understand" the argument that I had actually presented and then, with no justification provided, you accused me of being "obtuse". You now claim "Ignoring the condescensions," and yet WP:ASSERT again without reasoned substantiation that "(my) claim that article titles such as John Blair Smith ... do not require disambiguation is utterly unfounded and is little more than a fantasy." You then present an assertion regarding your claim of my "frankly bizarre interpretations". Please also see WP:YESPOV. IMO you are way off track if you consider that you are avoiding condescension. I am again extending an olive branch this time on a personal basis with intention to reduce WP:Drama and ask you to please respect this. The John Blair Smith as an initially appearing example in a extensive list of "* John * Smith *" examples and any of them can be used to present similar points to those that I have already presented. GregKaye 18:16, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

No. I find your presentation incoherent and your claims that there are no "reasoned substantiation" regarding your claim is nothing more that you not agreeing with the reasons -- not that there are none. I'm not trying to avoid condescension, only pointing out yours. older ≠ wiser 19:24, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Bkonrad, another editor even stepped in to say, "I don't think it is accurate to say "you presume John Blair Smith should not be under John Smith."" Please provide any quote from my text that gave any suggestion to indicate that this was in any way what I was saying. GregKaye 05:06, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps that goes to show the extent to which whatever it is you actually meant to propose in indecipherable. How about your statement:

The content at John Smith also presents 96 subjects with titles that may not have needed any disambiguation at all and these include titles such as:

• John Blair Smith (1764–1799), president of Union College, New York
• John Augustine Smith (1782–1865), president of the College of William and Mary, 1814–1826 and
• John Smith's Brewery, a brewery founded in 1758 by John Smith at Tadcaster in North Yorkshire, England

Again for many such titles no disambiguation will have been IN ANY SENSE required and, in connection to these articles, a categorisation as "disambiguation" is incorrect.

What is the implication of this statement if not that these entries do not belong on the John Smith disambiguation page? And nowhere have you demonstrated an understanding that these entries ARE disambiguated using natural disambiguation. And that you cannot exclude likelihood that a reader might search for them under John Smith, thus rendering the subject ambiguous. older ≠ wiser 11:17, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Bkonrad please familiarise yourself with WP:NATURAL. This p / g presents:

"Natural disambiguation: If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title. Do not, however, use obscure or made-up names.

Example: The word "English" commonly refers to either the people or the language. Because of the ambiguity, we use the alternative but still common titles, English language and English people, allowing natural disambiguation. In a similar vein, mechanical fan and hand fan are preferable to fan (mechanical) and fan (implement). Sometimes, this requires a change in the variety of English used; for instance, Lift is a disambiguation page with no primary topic, so we choose elevator as the name of the lifting device."

WP:NATURAL in no way relates to a title that is already presented in its WP:COMMONNAME form.

In this clear p/g context the text of my thread OP presented:

"On the topic of helping the reader I also think that it would be to the benefit of readers if we moved towards the use of "navigation" based terminologies and this is an issue that was previously raised in the thread Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 43#Disambiguation pages are navigation pages. In web searches:

• article navigation -wikipedia got "About 594,000,000 results" while
• article disambiguation -Wikipedia

got "About 560,000 results"

That's a ratio of 1060:1 in relation to the raw data results.

My interpretation is that "disambiguation" is a necessary editor concern in relation to the differentiation and frequent dissection of terminologies so as to fit mainly technical article address requirements. Reader concern however is, arguably, navigation of content and, in effect and even though it has its advantages, a title such as "Foo (disambiguation)" fails WP:UCRN. The main thing that this format of title achieves is a non commonname disambiguation from "Foo""

My argument has been and continues to be that we should also apply Wikipedia's commonname ideal to our various navigation pages that we currently and in many cases erroneously call disambiguation pages.

GregKaye 05:14, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Your discussion of examples such as John Blair Smith is about as clear as mud. I remain thoroughly unconvinced that this is not disambiguation. I suspect most Wikipedians would not agree with you either. As to whether there is any benefit to labeling disambiguation pages differently, that might be worth some consideration, though to be honest, your convoluted arguments really don't make the best case. older ≠ wiser 10:43, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Bkonrad, again the problem as I see it is that you have, WP:ASSERTed without reasoned substantiation that "(my) claim that article titles such as John Blair Smith ... do not require disambiguation is utterly unfounded and is little more than a fantasy." You have claimed that I had indicated that I wanted the entries of such articles to be removed from navigation pages even though the final text of my OP made it abundantly clear that I was proposing a name change.

Which text and what wording regarding John Blair Smith did you find unclear? If there are things I can do better I am happy to learn. GregKaye 15:54, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I have already indicated precisely what text you wrote that quite clearly as far as I'm concerned indicates that you do not think the title John Blair Smith requires disambiguation. I'm not sure what else to say about it other than that I disagree with your interpretation of what disambiguation is and is not. older ≠ wiser 16:02, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

• Bkonrad, please. Re: "you do not think the title John Blair Smith requires disambiguation." How many John Blair Smiths are there? Which John Blair Smith needs to be disambiguated from which John Blair Smith? Again, "Which text and what wording regarding John Blair Smith did you find unclear?" GregKaye 19:22, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Can you honestly say, without sneering condescension, that John Blair Smith was never known as John Smith or that no one would look for the person under that name? The SUBJECT is ambiguous, regardless of the name chosen for the article. This has been explained repeatedly, but you choose not to hear. older ≠ wiser 22:23, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Bkonrad are you now insinuating "sneering condescension"? If so please justify. Please state what I have said that in any way justifies this view.

"John Blair Smith" is predominantly known as "John Blair Smith". "James Clark Maxwell" is predominantly known as "James Clark Maxwell". The list goes on. "John Blair Smith" was just chosen as a first relevant result on the navigation page listings and I do not have any prior knowledge of other uses which also carries into his younger days. I certainly think that it may even be likely that in an environment such as school he may have been known simply as "John Smith" if, that is, the school did not make simple use of first name only. Then again, for all I know, they may have used "Blair Smith" in such a situation. In another case, I do not have personal knowledge as to whether Paul McCartney was ever known as James McCartney but, from the actual content of the "disambiguation" page, I suspect that such use would, if anything, not have been greatly notable.

Re: "The SUBJECT is ambiguous". Which subject are you claiming to be ambiguous of what? how? GregKaye 05:30, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

We seem to be repeating ourselves and getting no where. I will not reply to any further inquiries from you here and would appreciate it if you would not continue to post here. The ambiguous term is John Smith. You cannot establish with certainty that John Blair Smith is never referenced as simply John Smith. That is the fundamental ambiguity. You might resist understanding, but John Blair Smith is a disambiguated name. The addition of Blair is intended to distinguish the person from all the other John Smiths (that this addition has been done outside of Wikipedia and for some time now is validation of the ambiguity). older ≠ wiser 13:28, 3 July 2015 (UTC)