Last modified: 2011-03-13 18:05:08 UTC
It would be nice if when you follow a link to a disambiguation page, then follow a link out of the disambiguation page, the software could ask you if you would like to automatically update the original page. Ie: You're at [Chess player] and follow a link to [Tom Smith]. This takes you to the Tom Smith disambig page. When you click [Tom Smith (chess player)], you would then be asked (either by another page, or a popup dialog), "Would you like to update the [Chess player] page so the [Tom Smith] link points here directly?" It would be a lot smoother and less work than the current disambiguation process.
I don't like the idea of a popup in the manner described, but I do like the idea overall. Since the software identifies pages transcluded the {{disambig}} template as disambiguation pages, it's not too awkward in terms of coding when to do these checks. Probably the most difficult parts would be actually trapping the user's moving to another page, and editing the actual link - think needle and haystack.
Doesn't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups already do this through the use of custom CSS?
No, navigation popups have a disambiguation feature but it requires more effort to operate than this idea. (And it's mainly javascript, not CSS). If this does get implemented, it'd need a highly unobtrusive UI, or a user option to keep it out of the way by default. Most readers won't want to see this feature I believe.
Rob: What if all links to disambig pages actually pointed to index.php?title=blahblahblah&surroundingtext=whatever_the_text_surrounding_the_[[link]]_is Also, we could make this a pref that automatically gets enabled when your editcount hits 5. Would a small IFRAME at the top of the page be unobtrusive enough?
I think this is waaaay too obtrusive in the functioning of the wiki. Strong inclination towards WONTFIX.
Do you mean the coding effort would be better spent elsewhere? Or do you mean the UI would be annoying? We can leave this disabled except for people who enable it.
If this is implemented at all (which it probably shouldn't be, due to complexity) I'd go for something completely automated. Record the second click destination from the disambig link. Once enough (configurable, maybe 10-20 default) *unique* click-throughs occurred and they resulted in a high correlation to one target page (configurable, maybe 80-90% default) the link could automatically be changed to direct toward the selected page. It would be nice if it was treated as a redirect from the disambiguation page, but that's even more complexity. This (as with some of the other disambiguation requests) would require a method to intentionally link to the disambiguation page without the auto-disambiguation behavior.
I have just filed related bug 12742: "Collect enwiki clickstream data (we could use it to automatically fix links to disambiguation pages and more)".
Going ahead and WONTFIXing this per comments #5 and #7. Could make a good userscript or Gadget, but I can't see this as going in core.
