Help:Disambiguation
Disambiguation on the M3P is the process of resolving the conflicts that arise when a single term is ambiguous, or when it refers to more than one topic. For example, the word Malta can refer to the name of the country, the name of popular song performed by various artists, the name of a rock song by Maltese band Xtruppaw, a malt-based beverage, and many other things.
There are three important aspects to disambiguation:
- Naming pages in such a way that each has a unique title. For example, three of the pages dealing with topics ordinarily called "Malta" are titled Malta (country), Malta (pop song), and Malta (Xtruppaw song).
- Making the links for ambiguous terms point to the correct article title. For example, a contributor to an article about female Maltese singers may have created a link to Malta, and this should be corrected to point to Malta (pop song).
- Ensuring that a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily, whichever of the possible topics it might be. For example, the page Malta is a disambiguation page—a non-article page which lists the various meanings of "Malta" and links to the articles which cover them.
Further details about the elaborate nature of the process of disambiguation will be added as the database grows. Please feel free to use the talk or discussion link for this help page to request or recommend further information about this topic.
Note
The process of disambiguation on the M3P is based directly on that established and used for Wikipedia [1]. Information on that page can be helpful in more complex instances of disambiguation, especially until this particular help page is fully developed.