System for handling multiple publications with the same simple name[]
"DAR, 1981" probably applies to several or many publications. (So do some others in this category, but it's an easy example.) The page currently contains only the "Tombstone Inscriptions Jefferson County, WV", its author being one "chapter" of the U.S.-wide DAR, the "NSDAR, Bee Line Chapter, WV". But I imagine that other chapters were producing similar publications in that year.
If we get a second "DAR, 1981" reference, we can:
- Turn the page into a disambiguation page and put each separate record/paper on a uniquely named page (then someone goes back to the original internal link and amends it)
- Simply show the next one on the same page and devise a system of headings/groupings so that readers can easily find the one they want
Desirable to agree on a process before it becomes necessary? As someone (only superficially anonymous) said on this site in September last - "a trainwreck waiting to happen".
- HI Robin, as we become more familiar with how the wiki works, and its advantages and limitations, things that looked like trainwrecks, appear now to be less serious. With regard to your observation about multiple references with the same name----that problem is already being encountered to some extent. White 1902 normally refers to "Descendants of John Walker....", but there's also a publication by her husband that appears in the William and Mary Quarterly, also dated 1902. I've seen it only in annotated form, and haven't used it, but eventually will add it to the list. How to handle it? your suggestions would work. A couple of other choices that might be considered:
- more elaborate titles (ie, "White, Emma Siggins, 1902" A bit clumsy, and if someone had two publications in the same year, you'd still have the problem)
- adding a sequence letter---(ie "White 1902a"---fairly standard practice, but who gets labeled a and who b? ---not much of a problem unless we get a lot of same name references).
Probably going the disambiguation route is the best. Bill 16:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Robin Patterson 11:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)