Bulbapedia talk:Disambiguation poll

I've suggested time and time again to make short links to the species disambigs. But no one gives me feedback on what those short links should be. Well, except TTE, because he seems to always have something to say about everything. --Pie ^~♪♫ 03:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I say what I gotta. TTEchidna 03:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Why we use the (Pokémon) in the first place?

Because we always have. The first of the Pokémon articles created featured this. Subsequent ones did ad well. We now have 493 articles, and something like 160 disambigs. It would be a hassle to do the moving now-- an absolutely huge one.

Also: moves. Types. TCG cards. Abilities. All have what they are in parentheses. Air Lock. Electric. Energy cards. Conversion2. Shall we move these as well? After all, Psychic is easier to link, but OH WAIT. It's both a MOVE and a TYPE. What to do... well, we could just disambiguate Psychic. And then someone linking to moves would link to a disambiguation page all the time, of course. Make it a bigger pain in the ass for us who know to automatically link with {{m}}.

And don't tell me that it'd not happen. People would link Fire Blast and Psychic the same. They'd link Grass and Psychic the same. They already do, anyway, because no one reads the damned manual of style. No one notices. No one lurks. No one just looks at the damn coding of the page and sees the PATTERN in that all of this stuff is linked like this.

So why, exactly, is a disambiguation page more important than the species itself? Because who's to say that a page filled almost completely with game data is more important than one filled with mostly anime data or manga data? Bulbasaur is important to those who play the games more than anything. Ash's Bulbasaur and May's Bulbasaur are for those who focus on the anime. Danerina is for someone who likes Pokémon PiPiPi Adventure. But Bulbasaur opens it to all. Believe me, if Bulbasaur's species page was just at Bulbasaur, I would never know that May had one (I stopped watching the anime mid-Johto and restarted near the end of BF), nor would I know that there was another in any manga. Who is to say that the games should be more important than the manga and anime? Oh, sure, they came first and are the basis for all other canon... but this does not mean they're the most important of the canons.

Plus, seriously. If you've been here for more than ten minutes you'll see that all Pokémon pages are at [species name] (Pokémon). There's not one exception to this. All 493 are. Arceus, Dunsparce, Snorlax, Latias. Doesn't matter, they're all the same. The search may be difficult, especially if you have a slow browser or slow internet, and you know, we're sorry if you do, but really... by now, you should know to just type in Bulbasaur (Pokémon) to get where you want. And if you can't type the é? Learn it. Alt +130 or Alt + 0233 on Windows. Option + e, then e on Mac. If you're using any foreign language you'll likely need to know this, among other keycodes. áéíóú.

So yeah. That's my personal reasoning. Anyone else got anything to add or say sucks about this? TTEchidna 04:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Plus the fact that nearly every single article on Bulbapedia would have to be edited to remove the P templates. Zurqoxn 21:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Now that's something I think Zhen would be able to get BulbaBot to do... TTEchidna 08:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

So basically, the only reasons are "too much work" and "it's already this way". Are you implying that there's any mechanic of this Wiki that would make the disambig guideline on Wikipedia not applicable to this Wiki? I have shown that much more than 50% of all Pokémon do NOT have an article on even the most minor character in the species. And in all likelyhood, more than 50% of the articles that do have exactly that - a minor one-shot that says the exact same thing as what the episode summary would, but only plot details pertaining to the Pokémon. The simple fact is that disambig is a tool used for the sole reason that it is necessary - not for consistency. Most of the disambiguation is comprised of nothing more than disambiguating something and nothing, like in the case of Rattata. - A Link to the Past 03:55, 22 September 2007 (UTC)