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| Readers' FAQ |
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| Disambiguation |
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Disambiguation pages on Wikipedia are used as a process of resolving conflicts inarticle 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, disambiguation pages 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 nameMercury,unambiguous article titles are used for each of these topics:Mercury (element),Mercury (planet),Mercury (mythology), etc. 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 using Mercury as the title of adisambiguation page.
There are three common disambiguation scenarios, of which the following are examples:
Occasionally, a link may direct a reader to a disambiguation page instead of the intended article. The original page can be edited to link directly to the correct destination. Such edits are encouraged, asWikipedia is a collaborative platform that welcomes contributions from all users.