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Disambiguation pages on Wikipedia are used as a process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article. In other words, disambiguation pages are paths leading to different articles which could, in principle, have the same title.
For example, the word "Mercury" can refer to several things, including an element, a planet, and a Roman god. Since only one Wikipedia page can have the generic name Mercury, unambiguous article titles are used for each of these topics: Mercury (element), Mercury (planet), Mercury (mythology), etc. There must then be a way to direct the reader to the correct specific article when the ambiguous word "Mercury" is referenced by linking, browsing or searching; this is what is known as disambiguation. In this case, it is achieved using Mercury as the title of a disambiguation page.
There are three common disambiguation scenarios, of which the following are examples:
- The page at Joker is a disambiguation page, leading to all the alternative uses of "Joker". It has a {{Disambiguation}} template at the bottom.
- The page at Rice is about one usage, called the primary topic or broad-concept, and there is a short message at the top of the article, called a hatnote and created with at Hatnote templates, guiding readers to Rice (disambiguation) for the other less common uses of the term.
- The page at Shiba Inu is about the primary topic, and there is only one other use. The other use is linked directly using the hatnote created with the {{About}} template; no disambiguation page is needed.
Occasionally, a link may direct a reader to a disambiguation page instead of the intended article. The original page can be edited to link directly to the correct destination. Such edits are encouraged, as Wikipedia is a collaborative platform that welcomes contributions from all users.
See also
- Help:Contents
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages
- Wikipedia:Template messages for disambiguation and redirection
- Wikipedia:Disambiguation detector
- the {{Distinguish}} template in Wikipedia:Hatnote
