Improve disambiguation pages
Many disambiguation pages on the wiki list a lot of useless content. Or they are lists of things sharing a certain property. This seems unfitting for disambiguation pages. And again, just doesn't seem to useful for me. I want to propose new guidelines, which are as follows.
- Disambiguation pages should list two types of content:
- Things with the same name as the title
- Things that are easily confused with the title (and thus might be referred to by the same name by a player)
- You should avoid listing variants in disambiguation pages. A variant is often described well by the main feature page or the variant's page. However, a variant should be listed when:
- It is easy to confuse with the topic in-game.
- It is not obvious what name the variant or the main feature should have.
- If a disambiguation page would only list two features, it should not be created. Instead, each feature should use
{{For}} to link to the other feature.
- Achievement and Advancement are all listed on two huge pages, which makes this impossible. Therefore, they should have disambig pages.
- You should avoid writing dismbiguation pages as set index pages, or as lists of things that share a given property. Because:
- Set index pages should be cohesive, and not list things that are seemingly unrelated to their set or topic.
- Lists of things that share a given property should be written as list articles, and should also be somewhat cohesive. Specifically, the property should be distinctive and notable (it should meet the notability guidelines).
- If your set index page of list of things is cohesive and notable, it should be created, and use the proper template / category. You can list whatver you want in those, as long as it maintains cohesion.
- If necessary, you can fuse a disambiguation page with a set index page. For example, Wood (disambiguation) and Stone (disambiguation) act as set index pages for their respective tiers. This is because all tiers have set indexes pages.
Perhaps we should use a less condescending term than cohesive / cohesion. I might also be using the wrong term. Coherent might be the right word. Anyways, that doesn't matter. I think my intended meaning is clear.
Here are some of my revisions which I believe demonstrate what I mean with the proposal above:
Similarly, per my proposal, I believe the following pages should be deleted:
Feel free to provide specific feedback on the guidelines above, which are just a draft. Or feel free to propose your own ideas. It would also be helpful if you discussed what you think is good or bad on specific disambiguation pages, like Ice (disambiguation).
-- Simanelix (T|C) 02:48, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- Well you already changed those disambiguation pages (like Ice disambiguation in parenthesis) so it's kinda hard to discuss what I think about them, right? But anyways, I feel like there are a few issues with these changes. While there are a lot of fairly big stretches in these disambig pages that could be removed, the point of them is not to be navboxes for related blocks but instead to be a directory to pages that people may be trying to go to if they don't know exactly what the page is called. This is why the spin-off sections are so important, since nobody would ever know right off the bat that they shouldn't put "Example" in the URL and must instead put "Dungeons:Example". Also, with some pages like Charge, you removed everything aside from fire/wind charges and gameplay charges, removing Charged Creeper even though that is a quite important game feature that could be confused with other such "charge"-s. (Heck, I knew what a charged creeper was before I knew jackety-split about Minecraft itself.) Same thing goes with Fire, the point isn't to list out blocks related to the Fire block (that's what set indexes are for), it's to disambiguate when many different "fire" blocks could cause ambiguity. Generally, big stretches (like with rock --> flint) are much more helpful than having no stretches at all (where someone looking for specifically fire coral or the exact URL of "Story Mode:Order of the Stone" would still be confused). That's just my thoughts, though. 👁 Image
GameCatastrophe (talk) 03:01, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- Huh, okay. So you're proposing what quite a few people have been doing. I follow you, I follow you. Though, me putting Smelting and Terracotta in Fire (disambiguation) because you can "fire" clay in a furnace is a bad example. But these things with unobvious names seem like they might make some sense. -- Simanelix (T|C) 03:08, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah. Disambiguation pages are more like appendages to articles than articles themselves. They exist primarily for user-friendliness, so they don't need to be all-encompassing nor do they need to follow strict rules. 👁 Image
GameCatastrophe (talk) 03:20, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- I agree with you there. I was just thinking there are lots of messy pages and soem rules might help. -- Simanelix (T|C) 07:07, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- I don't really care enough about disambiguation pages to weigh in on this, but i 👁 Image
Oppose deleting the pages listed, mostly because of the spinoff/cross-namespace links, but also because I believe they are rather helpful. Lots of new users don't know about namespaces, so why assume that readers do? And if the pages are helpful/useful to me when viewing the wiki as a reader and not as an editor, then surely other people find them useful too, so what will fill their use when deleted? 👁 Image
amethyst_hhh👁 Image
04:08, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- Okay, yes. But that doesn't apply to Mangrove (disambiguation). But I know what you mean. -- Simanelix (T|C) 06:02, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
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Support the proposed rules. 👁 Image
leaning oppose on deletion those specific disambigs listed, they're still valid I think. The generic word association disambigs needs a nuke though . Nixinova T ⁄ C 05:49, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
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Support the proposed rules, but I don't think pages like Deepslate (disambiguation) should be deleted. They should have the {{set index}} template instead. ––– Aed8814 (C | T) 06:33, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, set indexes should be treated separately and not confused with disambigs -- the two have different scopes. The relevancy rule still needs to apply on set indexes as well. Nixinova T ⁄ C 06:44, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- Having more set indexes could be good. I do personally like having more pages, and I love lists. Some pages are a lot like navboxes though. All of the deepslate blocks are there, for example. But also, these pages are better than navboxes in some ways. Especially if you're specifically looking for a thing with deepslate and don't want to type. -- Simanelix (T|C) 07:10, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- Some of these aren't disambiguations, but lists of related items. For example, "Oak (disambiguation)" would probably better be called "List of Oak items". | violine1101 (talk) 10:41, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
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Strong support, but I think it should be a bit more strict and disambiguation pages should only list features that can be confused with each other only because of the title or primary alt name (not community names). Disambiguation pages should only replace {{confuse}} hatnotes when there are more than 3 pages, and in no other situations. 👁 Image
Support converting/creating "wrong" disambiguations into set indexes, but those shouldn't be linked in hatnotes like disambiguations. MinecraftBedrockPlayer7 (talk) (contribs) 👁 Image
11:22, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- On the topic of set indexes, what format should they have? List of Oak features? Also, for utility, we could link to set indexes in disambiguation, like this:
- -- Simanelix (T|C) 13:53, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
- I don't see the need of an Oak disambiguation page at all. Move everything to the set index, but I'm not creative enough to find a fitting name. I like how the page is organized, but maybe it could get a little intro description. MinecraftBedrockPlayer7 (talk) (contribs) 👁 Image
13:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC)
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Support, I’ve been pretty unhappy with how disambigs have looked for a while now. From memory I think around 20% of these would be better as indexes, it seems like a lot of editors don’t know the distinction. The index category is tiny compared to disambigs. Realshow19 (talk) 17:05, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
