Terraria Wiki:Style guide/Disambiguation
Disambiguation on Terraria Wiki is the process of resolving conflicts that arise when a potential article title is ambiguous, most often because it refers to more than one subject covered by Terraria Wiki, either as the main topic of an article, or as a subtopic covered by an article in addition to the article's main topic. For example, "Gold" can refer to the metal, the coin type or the dye color.
This page discusses the standard ways of handling the above issues. For detailed advice about the format of other pages and general guidelines, see the style guide.
Deciding to disambiguate
Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead. In this situation there must be a way for the reader to navigate quickly from the page that first appears to any of the other possible desired articles.
There are three principal disambiguation scenarios, of which the following are examples:
- The page at Goblin is a disambiguation page, leading to all the alternative uses of "Goblin".
- The page at Pirate is about one usage, called the primary topic, and there is a hatnote guiding readers to Pirate (disambiguation) to find the other uses.
- The page at Ghost is about the primary topic, and there is only one other use. The other use is linked directly using a hatnote; no disambiguation page is needed.
For how to decide which of these scenarios is appropriate in a given case, see the following section:
Primary topic
Although a word, name, or phrase may refer to more than one topic, sometimes one of these topics can be identified as the term's primary topic. This is the topic to which the term should lead, serving as the title of (or a redirect to) the relevant article. If no primary topic exists, then the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated).
While there is no single criterion for defining a primary topic, two major aspects that editors commonly consider are these:
- A topic is primary if the term is used in-game and no other instance with the exact spelling exists (i.e. Stone, Sand, etc.).
- A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely – much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined – to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term (i.e. Werewolf, Pirate, etc.).
Disambiguation pages
A disambiguation page is a non-article page that lists and links to articles covering topics that could have had the same title. The purpose of disambiguation pages is allowing navigation to the article on the topic being sought. The information on a disambiguation page should be focused on getting the reader to their desired article as easily as possible.
What not to include
The purpose of a disambiguation page is to direct a reader seeking information on a topic to the right page. It is common to add a little additional information (which may make reference to the full article unnecessary).
Partial title matches
A disambiguation page is not a search index. Do not add a link that merely contains part of the page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion between them. For example, Copper Shortsword is not included on Copper because players would not readily identify it as the "Copper" (whereas Copper Coins, Copper Ore, and Copper Bars are indeed commonly abbreviated to "Copper"), and including all copper items in the disambiguation page is impractical (though group pages could be listed in the "See also" section). Add a link only if the article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context – regardless of the article's title. For instance, the Gold Bar article could not feasibly be titled Gold, but it is included at Gold because its subject is often simply called "gold".
Instead of listing partial title matches, consider adding the {{intitle}} template at the bottom of the "See also" section, which link to all articles containing a particular term.
Related subjects
Include articles only if the term being disambiguated is actually described in the target article.
Notes, trivia and references
Do not include notes, trivia, and references in disambiguation pages; disambiguation pages are not articles. Incorporate that information into the articles linked from the disambiguation page, as needed and appropriate.
Page style
Page naming
In general, the title of a disambiguation page is the ambiguous term itself, provided there is no primary topic for that term. If there is already a primary topic, "(disambiguation)" should be added to the title of the disambiguation page.
At the top of the page
The first lines should consist of the following, in order:
- the
{{disambig}}template - if there is a primary topic: a link to the primary topic (see Linking to a primary topic)
- the introductory line (see Introductory line)
Each of the latter two should begin its own line. Thus if there is no primary topic link, the introductory line should be the first line.
Linking to a primary topic
It is recommended that a link back to the primary topic appear at the top, in a brief explanatory sentence. This link should be the primary topic set in bold.
The primary topic is the one reached by using the disambiguation page title without the (disambiguation) qualifier.
Since it is unlikely this primary topic is what readers are looking for if they have reached the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links. It is recommended that the link back to the primary topic appear at the top, in a brief explanatory sentence. For instance:
Stone is a type of block that composes most of the world.
Stone may also refer to:
When the ambiguous term has a primary topic but that article has a different title that does not match the term (so that the term is the title of a redirect), the primary topic line normally uses the redirect to link to that article. However, in some cases it may be clearer to link directly to the redirect target.
Introductory line
The term being disambiguated should be in bold (not italics). It should begin a sentence fragment ending with a colon, introducing a bulleted list:
Speed may refer to:
Where several variants of a term are being disambiguated together, significant variants may be included in the lead sentence. For example:
Turtle or Tortoise may refer to:
Individual entries
After the introductory line comes a list of individual entries – lines which direct the readers to articles on the various topics which might be referenced by the term being disambiguated. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the specific article they want quickly and easily. For example:
Speed may refer to:
- Attack speed, the frequency at which a character's weapon is used
- Movement speed, how quickly the player travels around
Apply the following rules when constructing entries:
- Preface each entry with a bullet (an asterisk in wiki markup).
- If possible, start each entry using
{{item|<entry name>}}. If not possible, start each entry with a capital letter. - Insert a comma after an entry when a description is included.
- If an entry link by itself is insufficiently descriptive for navigation, use a sentence fragment, with no closing punctuation unless it is part of the description (e.g., a description that ends in "etc." would end with the period).
- Include exactly one navigable (blue) link to efficiently guide readers to the most relevant article for that use of the ambiguous term. Do not wikilink any other words in the line. For example:
Clothier Voodoo Doll, an accessory that allows the player to harm the Clothier ✔️
but not:
- Clothier Voodoo Doll, an accessory and boss-summoning item that allows the player to harm the Clothier, summoning Skeletron if killed at night ❌
- Avoid descriptions that simply repeat information given in the link, e.g.:
Seaweed (junk), a junk item ❌
However, this information may be repeated as part of a fuller description, if it adds value for the reader:
- Seaweed (junk), a junk item obtained while fishing ✔️
- Keep the description associated with a link to a minimum, just sufficient to allow the reader to find the correct link. In many cases, the title of the article alone will be sufficient and no additional description is necessary. If the type of entry is identified in a header (e.g. buff, NPC), it usually does not need to be repeated verbatim in the description.
In most cases the title of the target article will be an expansion or variation of the term being disambiguated (as in the example above). If this is the case, the article title should appear exactly as it is on the target page; the link should not be piped except to apply formatting.
Organization
Ordering
The following guidelines describe the appropriate order of entries on disambiguation pages:
- The primary topic, if there is one, should be placed at the top.
- Long disambiguation pages should be grouped into subject sections, and even subsections as necessary. These sections (and any subsections) should typically be in the same order as the following point:
- Within each section, entries should be ordered to best assist the reader in finding their intended article. Entries are typically ordered first by similarity to the ambiguous title, then alphabetically or chronologically as appropriate. A recommended order is: Group articles, item articles, NPC articles, buff articles, etc.
See also section
Some entries may belong in a "See also" section at the bottom of the page in the following order:
- Terms which can be confused with title, for example Lime Kelp if title is Seaweed.
- Likely misspellings of title.
- Certain notable partial title matches.
- Links to all partial title matches (using
{{intitle}}).
The "See also" should always be separated from the other entries with a section header. Links to other disambiguation pages should use the "(disambiguation)" link.
In the "See also" section of a disambiguation page, an intentional link to another disambiguation page that does not contain "(disambiguation)" in the title should be written as [[Foo|Foo (disambiguation)]].