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Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Editing/Warn when linking to disambiguation pages

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Warn when linking to disambiguation pages

  • Problem: Between 500 and 800 links are added to disambiguation pages each day. This means readers are less likely to get directly to a relevant article when they click on a link and instead are shown a list of possible matches for the term. A recent en RFC to en:Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make links to disambiguation pages orange by default suggested coming to the community wishlist.
  • Who would benefit: Readers - in helping them get to the relevant article and editors in not having to fix bad links.
  • Proposed solution: A warning message appearng on preview or publish when adding a link to a dab page asking whether the editor really wanted to do this.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets: T97063
  • Proposer: Rodw (talk) 08:34, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Sure, but if you know enough to install a userscript like that, you're probably already checking for accidental dabs. A warning to newer users along the lines of "are you sure you wanted to link to this page" seems like a good idea IMO, as long as there were an easy way to resolve it (i.e. pop up options linked from the dab page). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:54, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
.mw-disambig { background-color:#AFEEEE; }
.mw-redirect { background-color:wheat; }

Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 13:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it's available on all Wikis, it only has to be implemented by the local communities. So there is nothing to do here for the devs, it's an existing gadget. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 16:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying this. Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 19:02, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ruwiki solution:
    ru:MediaWiki:Gadget-disambiguationLinks.css
    ru:MediaWiki:Gadget-disambiguationLinks.js Carn (talk) 20:13, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment I supported this, but only on the assumption that implementation will focus on solving the problem in a modern and user-friendly manner, and not merely implement the disruptive workflow currently hinted at in the comments. I think it'd be a lot simpler and better for everyone if we focus on the act of writing itself. In the visual editor, we can prompt users contextually right as they are creating or inspecting a link, and suggest one of the destinations from the disambiguation page instead, at which point we can have a list of suggestions right there. A similar thing could be done in the 2017 wikitext editor, and even in the 2010 editor when using the dialog to create a link. I don't think this is important enough to distract readers with, nor to inject a primitive warning forcibly into the save workflow. Doing so would, I think, drain considerable amounts of energy and will power from contributors to still continue with their edit, and much more to actually rediscover and address the issue itself. That sounds more like abuse mitigation, and less like contributor education. --Krinkle (talk) 03:28, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

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