Help:Disambiguation

This is aninformation page.

It is not one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines;rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels ofconsensusandvetting.

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Disambiguationpages 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, disambiguations 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",unambiguousarticle titles are used for each of these topics:Mercury (element),Mercury (planet),Mercury (mythology).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 asdisambiguation.In this case, it is achieved usingMercuryas the title of adisambiguation page.

There are three principal disambiguation scenarios, of which the following are examples:

The page atJokeris adisambiguation page,leading to all the alternative uses of "Joker". It has a{{Disambiguation}}template at the bottom.
The page atRiceis about one usage, called theprimary topic,and there is a short message at the top of the page, called ahatnoteand created with the{{Other uses}}template, guiding readers toRice (disambiguation)so other uses of the term can be found.
The page atAnita Hillis about the primary topic, and there are only two other uses. The other uses are linked directly usinghatnotescreated with the{{For}}template; no disambiguation page is needed.

Occasionally, a reader may follow a link that ends up at a disambiguation page rather than at one of the links shown on that page. The original page can be edited to link directly to its intended destination. Feel free to make such edits; everyone is welcome to improve Wikipedia, including you. It could be you who makes the overall experience of Wikipedia that much better.

Help:Disambiguation

See also