Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/〇 (disambiguation)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was soft delete‎. Based on minimal participation, this uncontroversial nomination is treated as an expired PROD (a.k.a. "soft deletion"). Editors can request the page's undeletion.

If an editor would like to create a Redirect to Wiktionary, feel free to do so. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:51, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

〇 (disambiguation) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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There are currently 200 pages in the category Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles. Usually, Wikipedia policy is to WP:TRANSLITERATE article titles. In the past this category of pages has been treated as an exception because many Chinese characters are not just used in Chinese but also Korean, Japanese, etc, and have multiple valid transliterations.

While I acknowledge these characters are ambiguous, I don't think Wikipedia should be in the business of dis-ambiguating them. Wikipedia is WP:NOTDICT nor a translator. Where appropriate (such as for 〇 (disambiguation)) I propose that we redirect readers to Wiktionary. Otherwise, I think these pages should be deleted. SilverStar54 (talk) 21:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Disambiguations, China, Japan, and Korea. SilverStar54 (talk) 21:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• I think there should be specific (if not overly so) criteria for when an article title in Chinese characters is appropriate. Presently, I can only think of "several surnames corresponding to the same romanization", à la Li (surname 李), and analogous situations where it is simply the least troublesome, most natural disambiguator. — Remsense聊 22:27, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah, I definitely agree that sometimes the character is the only reasonable disambiguator, specifically in the case of names, and I'm hoping the scope is dabpages with titles comprised entirely of CJK glyphs. Folly Mox (talk) 23:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Notified: MOS:ZH. Folly Mox (talk) 22:26, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Also notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation. Folly Mox (talk) 23:34, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. see AfD:土城 and Talk:She (Chinese character) for recent discussion related to this topic. — Remsense聊 22:30, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Not sure what to do with this page, but I disagree with the idea that we should delete everything in Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles. It's well-established that for topics from non-English-speaking countries, it's valid to have redirects from foreign-language titles (WP:RLOTE). When it comes to CJK titles, there are some that have multiple valid targets (e.g. New World Development, Shinsekai, and Shinsegae for 新世界). When a would-be redirect has multiple valid targets, the well-established solution is to turn it into a disambiguation page. Normally it would be better to put the disambiguation page at a transliterated title and redirect the CJK title there, but in many of these cases there is no transliteration that's valid for all of the targets, so keeping the disambiguation page at the CJK title seems best. Again, not sure about 〇 (disambiguation) specifically, just responding to the broader point about disambiguation pages like this. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:52, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  All of you are making good points. I'd be satisfied if we laid down some clearer guidance about when these pages are/are not appropriate. I think 〇 (disambiguation) is a good example of when they are not, because "〇" does not correspond to the title of any specific page. In my opinion, these pages also shouldn't try to list all the uses of each transliteration, if there are multiple (instead it should just link to the disambiguation page for that transliteration).

  Would this have been better as a RfC? I wasn't sure where it belonged. SilverStar54 (talk) 17:31, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  It can always be moved there if deemed apropos! And yes—I think that's the crux of the issue. Disambiguation pages are for, well, disambiguation.
  Maybe this is overly reductive, but I think you have to picture someone sitting down at the English Wikipedia and typing a term into the search bar. If that is an implausible situation, there shouldn't be a disambiguation page for that term. — Remsense聊 17:37, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Honestly, to me that last point is the strongest argument for why we shouldn't have this sort of page. I have a hard time imagining someone searching for Chinese characters on English Wikipedia. But I guess it does happen! SilverStar54 (talk) 17:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  That's what I mean, to be clear! We are in agreement. Remsense聊 17:55, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• So I using Mx. Granger's example above of 新世界, we have a dabpage that includes five content articles: New World Development (transliterated Xin Shidai, delta tone markings), its subsidiaries New World Department Store China and New World Telecommunications, Shinsekai – neighbourhoodPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallbackPages displaying short descriptions with no spaces, and Shinsegae – South Korean company. We also have a link to a further dabpage, Shin Sekai, a redlink to The New World (TV series) (zh:新世界 (2015年電視劇)), and an unlinked entry about a later TV series by the same name (zh:新世界 (2020年電視劇)). I'll note also at this juncture that the zh.wp 新世界 dabpage lists over twenty articles, two redlinks, and two interwiki links.
  Meanwhile, if I plug "新世界" (apostrophes included) into Special:Search over mainspace, I get 255 matches, most of which I haven't clicked through to, and which include articles linked from Shin Sekai like Shin Sekaï, but which also include seemingly valid list entries for 新世界 or Shin Sekai like Biosphere (album) and New World Amusement Park.
  I'm currently agnostic on whether these dabpages are more helpful or unhelpful, and despite a comment in an earlier AfD that they should all stay or all go, there could very well be some that are more better and some that are more worse.
  From a practicality standpoint, a single word or term in CJK glyphs is unlikely to be a smart thing to search for if a person is searching for one of the articles linked from the dabpages (by which I mean they should employ a second search term, like "Osaka", "amusement park", "department store", "Hong Kong", etc). On the other hand, for the particular case explored, the 新世界 dabpage does help winnow out a lot of search hits that are less likely to be what the person is searching for (like, from the first page of results, Fantasy Land Tour 2004 in Taipei, List of Terra Formars episodes, and Jiahewanggang station).
  I don't know if I have a point I'm trying to make, or really any idea what if anything to do about this category of dabpages. I'll report back if a thought shows up. Folly Mox (talk) 20:55, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, I think this cuts to the heart of it. There is a space of cases between functioning as a dictionary, and functioning as a redirect here. — Remsense聊 21:02, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. Discussion is wonderful and important. But we also need some opinions on what should happen with this specific article for this discussion to be closed.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:31, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion on 〇 (disambiguation) specifically remains the same. The entries are three dictionary definitions of "〇" and a topic (Marumaru Tsuma (○○妻), 2015 Japanese television drama aired on NTV) that doesn't have its own page and doesn't seem likely to be referred to just as "〇". Readers would be better served by a redirect to Wiktionary. SilverStar54 (talk) 01:22, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• I've just come across Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation/CJKV task force, apparently a task force focused on these disambiguation pages, and left a notification about this discussion there. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 22:56, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:ONEOTHER. After I merged the entry of primary topic and removed invalid entries per WP:DABMENTION and WP:PARTIAL, the only remaining entry doesn't have its own article. Thus, there's no reason to keep it and if a soft redirect to Wiktionary is preferred per SilverStar54, it should be implemented with {{Wiktionary redirect}} at the base name 〇, like other pages in Category:Redirects to Wiktionary. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 06:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.