Template:Disambiguation/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Disambiguation.
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template is used on approximately 180,000 pages.
To avoid large-scale disruption and unnecessary server load, any changes to it should first be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can then be added to this page in a single edit. Please consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This template should not be substituted.

Shortcuts

This is the {{Disambiguation}} template.

Important: Please do not subst: this template.

This is a general-purpose template, to be placed at the bottom of any article that exists to help readers find other articles with the same or similar names. This concept is called disambiguation and is used with many common words, such as cross, life and work. This template automatically adds articles to the Category:Disambiguation pages.

Page title fixes

This template will automatically detect incomplete disambiguation present in page titles. If the title includes anything other than (disambiguation) in parentheses, it is assumed to be the article type. For example, this template on the page 1st Division (France) would produce the text "This disambiguation page lists France articles associated with the title 1st Division". If the page title contains parentheses that are not used for disambiguation (such as Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)), set |ignore_parentheses=yes. If you wish to manually specify the article type, use the |type= parameter.

Variant templates

Disambiguation

For disambiguation pages requiring cleanup, use {{Disambiguation cleanup}}.

More specific and alternative templates exist for disambiguation pages whose entries are limited exclusively to items of a particular type:

{{Airport disambiguation}} for airports – Category:Airport disambiguation
{{Biology disambiguation}} – Category:Biology disambiguation pages
{{Call sign disambiguation}} – Category:Broadcast call sign disambiguation pages
{{Caselaw disambiguation}} – Category:Case law disambiguation pages
{{Chinese title disambiguation}} – Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles
{{Genus disambiguation}} – Category:Genus disambiguation pages
{{Place name disambiguation}} – Category:Place name disambiguation pages
{{Human name disambiguation}} – Category:Human name disambiguation pages
- {{Human name disambiguation cleanup}}
{{Hospital disambiguation}} for hospitals or medical centers – Category:Hospital disambiguation pages
{{Letter disambiguation}} – adds a Latin letter navbox, does not auto-categorize
{{Letter-number combination disambiguation}} – Category:Letter-number combination disambiguation pages
{{Mathematical disambiguation}} for mathematics titles – Category:Mathematics disambiguation pages
{{Military unit disambiguation}} – Category:Military units and formations disambiguation pages
{{Number disambiguation}} – Category:Lists of ambiguous numbers
{{Phonetics disambiguation}} – Category:Linguistics disambiguation pages
{{Road disambiguation}} – Category:Road disambiguation pages
{{School disambiguation}} for educational institutions – Category:Educational institution disambiguation pages
{{Species Latin name disambiguation}} – Category:Latin name disambiguation pages
{{Station disambiguation}} for railway and public transport stations – Category:Station disambiguation pages
{{Wikipedia disambiguation}} for ambiguous titles and shortcuts in the Wikipedia namespace – Category:Wikipedia disambiguation pages

Note: A set index article (SIA) is not a disambiguation page; it is a list article about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name. Wikipedia:Set index articles includes templates for SIAs.

Parameters

Sometimes there isn't a specific disambiguation template (see list above) that fits for a page, or the page has items in more than one of the above classes. Then use {{Disambiguation}} but with one or more parameters telling which categories to use. Up to ten parameters can be fed, and in any order, for example:

{{Disambiguation|school|hospital}}

Only add a parameter from this list if the disambiguation page has several items of that type:

{{Disambiguation|human name}}: for Category:Human name disambiguation pages (note that you must instead add the category separately if it needs a different sort key)
{{Disambiguation|bird}}: for Category:Bird common name disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|church}}: for Category:Church building disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|county}}: for Category:County name disambiguation pages
- {{Disambiguation|uscounty}}: for Category:United States county name disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|fish}}: for Category:Fish common name disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|genus}}: for Category:Genus disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|geo}}: for Category:Place name disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|hospital}}: for Category:Hospital disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|latin}}: for Category:Latin name disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|letter number}}: for Category:Letter-number combination disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|math}}: for Category:Mathematical disambiguation
{{Disambiguation|number}}: for Category:Lists of ambiguous numbers
{{Disambiguation|plant}}: for Category:Plant common name disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|political}}: for Category:Political party disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|road}}: for Category:Road disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|school}}: for Category:Educational institution disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|ship}}: for Category:Ship disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|station}}: for Category:Station disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|tndis}}: for Category:Title and name disambiguation pages
{{Disambiguation|township}}: for Category:Township name disambiguation pages

These can be added if there are one or more elements in the list (per their category descriptions):

{{Disambiguation|airport}}: for Category:Airport disambiguation
{{Disambiguation|callsign}}: for Category:Broadcast call sign disambiguation pages

These can be added even if there's only one element in the list, since these types are not actually ambiguous:

{{Disambiguation|given name}}: Category:Disambiguation pages with given-name-holder lists
{{Disambiguation|surname}}: for Category:Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists

This parameter reflects the title, not the contents:

{{Disambiguation|chinese}}: for Category:Disambiguation pages with Chinese character titles

And this parameter reflects a maintenance need, not the contents:

{{Disambiguation|split}}: for Category:Disambiguation pages in need of being split

Note that {{Disambiguation}} might not have parameters for all subcategories of Category:Disambiguation pages, then you have to manually add the category to the disambig page.

Nocat

If categorization is not needed on pages that are not in mainspace, then the "nocat" parameter may be set equal to "true" or "yes" as follows:

{{Disambiguation|nocat=true}}
{{Disambiguation|nocat=yes}}

Redirects

The following redirect to this template:

{{Disambig}}
{{Dab}}
{{Disamb}}

Technical details

Internally, this template uses {{Dmbox}}. That template categorises pages into Category:All disambiguation pages and Category:All article disambiguation pages.

This template also uses {{Disambiguation/cat}} to handle the categorisation parameters, such as "hospital" and "school".

Other templates and modules used:

{{Disambiguation page short description}}
{{Template other}}
{{Title disambig text}}
{{Title without disambig}}
{{Trim}}
{{Str rep}}
{{#invoke:Redirect|isRedirect}}

Template use

Place template at the foot of the disambiguation page after all of the disambiguation content but before any categories (see below) (interlanguage links to Wikidata), as per the WP:DCAT guideline.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData documentation for this template used by VisualEditor and other tools; see the monthly error report for this template.

TemplateData for Disambiguation

Place at the bottom of Disambiguation pages.

Template parameters
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
1	`1`	Used to put the page in a category. Can be one of 'split' (dab pages in need of being split); 'clean up','clean-up','cleanup' (dabs in need of cleanup); 'airports','airport' (airport dabs); 'call sign','call signs','broadcast call sign','broadcast call signs','callsign' (broadcast call sign dabs); 'chinese char','chinese-char','chinesechar','chinese character','chinese' (chinese character dabs); 'churches','church building','church buildings','church' (church building dabs), 'fish' (fish dabs); 'geodis','geography','geographical','place name','place names','place','places','geo' (Place names); 'county'; 'uscounty' (United States county dabs); 'township' (Township name dabs); 'name','names','human name','human names','hn','hndis' (Human name dabs); 'surnames','surname' (surname dabs); 'given names','given name' (given-name dabs), 'hospital name','hospital names','hospitals','hospital' (hospital dabs); 'latin name','latin names','latin' (Latin name dabs); 'letter-number','letter number' (Letter-number combination dabs); 'mathdab','maths','mathematics','mathematical','math' (mathematical dabs); 'numberdis','numbers','ambiguous number','ambiguous numbers','number' (Lists of ambiguous numbers), 'plants','plant' (Plant common name dabs); 'roaddis','roads','road' (road dabs), 'schooldis','schools','educational institution','educational institutions','college','colleges','university','universities','school' (Educational institution dabs); 'political','party' (political party dabs), 'genus' (Genus dabs)	String	optional
2	`2`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
3	`3`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
4	`4`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
5	`5`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
6	`6`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
7	`7`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
8	`8`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
9	`9`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
10	`10`	Further category keys, as parameter 1.	String	optional
page-title	`page-title`	Page title to use, only useful for special cases when default does not work. Default (FULLPAGENAME)	String	optional
nocat	`nocat`	Set to 'yes' to prevent categorisation.	String	optional
demospace	`demospace`	Used for testing.	String	optional
ignore_parentheses	`ignore_parentheses`	Set to 'yes' to prevent parentheses in the article title from being parsed as incomplete disambiguation.	String	optional
type	`type`	Manually specify the article type in the descriptive text ('This disambiguation page lists {{{type}}} articles...')	String	optional