Forum:Disambiguation case study: Wish You Were Here

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Interesting case study we should probably talk about, so as to add the resulting consensus to tardis:disambiguation policy.

We have two stories alike in every major way: Wish You Were Here and (what is currently called) Wish You Were Here (The Adventure Games). Both are prose short stories. Both are Doctor Who stories. One is online, one is in a traditional print medium.

We can't leave things as is, because disambiguation rules say that if two exactly similar titles about exactly similar things are at hand, both must be disambiguated. So, because both are Doctor Who short stories, both must be disambiguated. So here are some possibilities: <poll> Disambiguation choices WYWH (author a short story) and WHWH (author b short story) WHWH (doctor 1 short story) and WYWH (doctor 2 short story) WYWH (print short story) and WYWH (online short story) WYWH (publisher a short story) and WHWH (publisher b short story) other </poll> Pick one and explain your logic below, please.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 01:10:04 Tue 15 Mar 2011 

Discussion

• In this case, I like the idea of using the authors to disambig them. While it remains a minor possibility that different authors will use the same title for different works in the same medium, it's a reasonably safe bet that one author won't ever write two separate works in the same medium with identical titles. Rob T Firefly 04:27, March 15, 2011 (UTC)
• Chose print and online. Users may not know the author but are likely to know the format of the story.----Skittles the hog--Talk 10:02, March 15, 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with Skittles the hog. Currently in use we have stories disambigged as such Shada (TV story), Shada (webcast), Shada. A quick trawl through the disambig category reveals plenty of others Cold War (comic story), Cold War (short story). It's not much more of a step to include (online short story) or (web short story) or something like that to disambig these two cited examples. --Tangerineduel / talk 16:15, March 15, 2011 (UTC)
• Well, see, I agree with Rob T Firefly. I think Skittles is misusing the word "format" here. They're both short stories; the method of delivering that short story doesn't change what it fundamentally is. I'd dispute that people are more likely to know the format of this story than the author; I personally didn't know either existed until yesterday, so it doesn't feel unnatural to me to think of one as the "Moran story". It also would be nice to have a disambiguation rule that worked for multiple cases. Fine, in this instance there's an easy distinction between method of publication. But what happens if one day there's a Doctor Who Storybook short story that uses the same title as a story from a Decalog anthology? If we go with a "disambig by author" ruling in this instance, we've got something that will cover that instance, as well.
  czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 18:55:58 Wed 16 Mar 2011  18:55, March 16, 2011 (UTC)
• Nope, I'm correctly using the word format. Surely people are more likely to know whether they read a story online or on paper.----Skittles the hog--Talk 19:43, March 17, 2011 (UTC)

I still agree with Skittles. For CzechOut's scenario the policy would just read: In the unlikely event that two (or more) short stories of the same name exist place the prefix the short story belongs to in the disambig brackets. So Story name (DWA short story) Story name (VD short story). --Tangerineduel / talk 14:39, March 18, 2011 (UTC)

So, what's wrong with that nomenclature? It's not in the poll, but I think there's some elegance to that. It really should be <range prefix> + <story type>. After all, we currently disambiguate Twilight of the Gods (BNA novel) and Twilight of the Gods (MA novel). Add "novel" to those, and I think we've got a naming convention that's consistent and logical. In this case, it should be:

• Wishing You Were Here (WEB short story)
• Wishing You Were Here (ST short story).

Anyone opposed to that?
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 23:31: Thu 13 Oct 2011 

I think that works. Seems to be more consistent than others of the like than using "print" to describe the Short Trip at the very least. "Wish You Were Here (ST short story)" and "Wish You Were Here (web short story)"? -- Tybort (talk page) 11:30, October 14, 2011 (UTC)

I agree, that makes perfect sense. — Rob T Firefly - Δ∇ - 12:18, October 28, 2011 (UTC)