Talk:Pass

Cleanup

(Continuing from Talk:Passing)

It seems to me that there are two kinds of cleanup that may be appropriate here:

MoS:DP says only one link per line. This is a pretty mechanical cleanup.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary seems to apply to much of the content. I'm not sure where to draw the line - clearly some of it is appropriate, but a lot of it is just definition.

I'll try to do a bit of the more mechanical cleanup (e.g., do the examples for "special ticket" really need to be a bulletized list?), but let's talk about the WP:WINAD question. Jordan Brown 03:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strictly speaking, all the definition lines with no content should go. Also, the bracketed examples on the ends of lines should go.

Passage should not be in the list of versions of "pass" but should stand alone.

Proposed restructure

For the Proof of Age Standards Scheme, see PASS.

A Pass can refer to:

mountain pass, a low place in a mountain range allowing easier passage
hall pass to visit the restroom in school
pass (United States military) to be away from one's unit for a short period in the U.S. military
Pass (compiler), a run of a code processor in a computer compiler

Pass (surname) may refer to:

Joe Pass, a Jazz musician

Passing or To pass can refer to:

Passing (sociology) means to pass ones self off as a member of one or more different sociological groups such as different:
- Passing (disability), a disabled person presenting themselves as not being disabled or as being less disabled than they really are
- Passing (ethnic group), a member of one ethnic group presenting themselves as a member of another
- Passing (gender), a person of one sex presenting themselves as a member of the opposite gender, or an intersexed person presenting themselves as a chosen gender
- Passing (racial identity), a person of one race presenting themselves as a member of another
- Passing (sexual orientation), a person of one sexual orientation presenting themselves as another
- Passing (social class), a person of one social class presenting themselves as a member of another
Passing (juggling) is when two or more people share a juggling pattern
Passing of vehicles on roads
Passing in regards to the process of digestion
Passing (law) approval of a proposed law by a legislative body

Passing is also:

Passing (novel), a novel by Nella Larsen

Similar terms:

Passing away is a euphemism for dying
Passing off (legal term), a way of enforcing an unregistered trademark by showing that someone else has pretended or impled that something else is the same
Passage (strait), a very narrow but navigable shipping channel

Comments?

That's about as tightly as I could see it being trimmed, but introduces a couple of red links that might not ever go anywhere. Pass (compiler) and Passing (law) would fudge out the red links. :) --AliceJMarkham 06:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me, with the two fudges you list.

Perhaps PASS should move into the main list. Jordan Brown 19:36, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've left the surname section separated for now. WP:MoS appears to imply that this should be a separate section, and if any additional people are added with this surname, it will be justified.

Rather than fudge links, I've simply done them as non-links.

I've just done what I hope is my final edit of this page for some time. No bolding within entries, sorted to put non-link entries at the bottom of the sections, etc. --AliceJMarkham 22:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I found a few more nits, and I'm not entirely happy with the compiler meaning (but I can't come up with anything better), but I think our work here is pretty much done... good work! Jordan Brown 05:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, that one does still need some more thought. I've just done a few more changes to make a few entires more concise.

Given that the scale of the changes now are only the odd word here, I think we're pretty close to done. Yay to us. :) --AliceJMarkham 01:34, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Misguided merge

_ _ A colleague has tagged the accompanying Dab for Dab-CU. I am not going to touch it, bcz i find the overall reorganization of about 18 months ago to be a gross mistake, primarily in succumbing to the easy conflation of the noun "pass" and the essentially separate noun forms of the verb "to pass". The former Pass and Passing probably needed reorganizing in ways that would have benefited by the editors taking a viewpoint that considered each in light of the other, but the result should have been two Dab pages, each with a lk to the other:

Passing having, under "See also", a lk to Pass (disambiguation),
which would be a Rdr to Pass,

and

Pass having, under "See also", a lk to Passing (disambiguation),
which would be a Rdr to Passing.

Even if the page were not longer than a single screen (thereby presenting a needless impediment to the careful, the single page would still be a self-mockery in making the distinction, via a second intro line:

Passing can be:

yet failing to put it on the Passing page -- the page where the well-oriented user (the long-term phase of our typical users' experience) went initially, only to be redirected onto an omnibus page on which the information they sought is, unnecessarily, below the halfway point on the screen, and more than likely off the bottom of it.
_ _ It says at the bottom of every Dab page that everything on the page would be, in this case on Pass, if it weren't for multiple topics having that as their otherwise most appropriate title. We don't tolerate verbs and adjectives as titles of articles (unless the topic is a work that has such a word or phrase as its title, or the article is not on the topic that part of speech names, but on the topic of the word or phrase itself, as with fuck (not a Rdr to Sexual intercourse) and posh (not a Rdr to luxury good). Yet this Dab page penalizes those who understand that and type "passing" when they are interested in the verb "to pass", for the accommodation of those who have not yet learned, from WP or professionally edited (print or online) encyclopedias, about the noun convention, or are looking more or less at random for ways to search for titles that use one word, without using the search box or an external search engine.
_ _ I would welcome the chance to put at least another 2¢ in if it turns out i'm not the only one who sees a problem.
--Jerzy•t 06:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jerzy and am splitting this into two dab pages. They still need a little cleanup, but I'll probably get to it later today. SlackerMom (talk) 17:20, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional items

I added some (actually quite a few) additional items and did some tidying, both of which have been reverted. I've restored them for the moment: can we now discuss?

The edit summary for the revert said:

All these new links are not apprpriate here - this page only for things known simply as "Pass", not everything with "Pass" in the name

I don't agree – a dab page is not just a list of synonyms, it is to help people find things they may look for by typing (in this case) "pass". Such things are not restricted to things known only by the single word. For example, imagine you want to look up a film you saw years ago, and could only remember that it was called "pass something" or "something pass". Similarly, what if you want to look up someone with the name "Pass"? For these and many other articles "pass" is exactly what you would type – and you'd be sorely disappointed if you only found things called "pass" and nothing else. Surely we should remember that no-one using a dab knows the full title of the page they want, or they wouldn't be here. The objective of a dab is not to keep the page short – if something is not here, people can't find it.

Secondly, how are the new links different from all the previously existing one where "pass" forms only part of the name?

Thirdly, if not all of the items do deserve to be included (which might well be possible), let's be discerning, not remove them wholesale.

Finally, another edit summary, about places with "Pass" in the name, was "there must be hundreds like them". Actually no: those were the only settlements I could find. There are hundreds of mountain passes – I did not include any of those, and they are dealt with by the link I've just added (List of mountain passes). Not sure what to do about "sea passes" – it seems to be a Canadian and Alaskan term for passage or strait: there are quite a few, but I can't find a suitable list to link to. Richard New Forest (talk) 15:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I unreverted you again by way of resolving an edit conflict. But your approach to disambiguation is rather at variance with the accepted one - it says at the guideline page (WP:MOSDAB) that we don't include everything with the phrase in its name. I like to take a liberal attitude to inclusion, but being that liberal is unlikely to find support unless you can propose an overall change of policy.--Kotniski (talk) 15:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Yes, I thought so. I've put it back for the moment...) On WP:MOSDAB, do you mean where it says : "do not create entries merely because Title is part of the name"? (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Examples of individual entries that should not be created)

If so, I don't think that is what we have here – it says look at "lists", so it must be talking of situations where "list of..." is an alternative – it gives the examples of "hospital" and "university". That's quite different from the items under discussion, which could (mostly) not go on such a page – it's surely talking of the "List of mountain passes" situation. I don't think my suggestions are in conflict with the MOS at all. Richard New Forest (talk) 15:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By way of a quick comment (all I have time for just now), please see the Disambiguation guideline here which concerns items to include or exclude from disambiguation pages. You have added far too many. I'll add more to the discussion later if needed. SlackerMom (talk) 15:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a bit more - disambiguation pages are not the same thing as search pages. Their purpose is not to help people find anything that may have "pass" in the name, or anything that has to do with some kind of "pass". That's what the Search button is for. The purpose of this page is to help people distinguish between various articles that could be known simply as "pass". This is very common and accepted dab page editing practice. Your question about previously included links with "pass" as part of the name is a valid one. It is quite possible that some of those links need to be removed, also. SlackerMom (talk) 17:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Written before last contribution) Yes, that's a useful link, and I think it does apply to some. For example, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition", The Black Star Passes, God Passes By – I can see that there is little chance of anyone looking for those just by typing "pass". However, note the rider in the guidance "where there is no risk of confusion". In most of the things I added, I think there is such a risk – it is likely that someone would just type that, and in a great number of cases the thing could easily just be called "pass". There is a judgement to be made as to exactly where the line is drawn. We could have only things which could be "pass" alone (only about six items) – but I've not found many (any?) dabs which are as restrictive as that. For illustration look at Mercury (the example used in the lead of Wikipedia:Disambiguation), which has very much the same length and type of content as my edit of Pass. I do agree that some (and perhaps quite a few) of my additions could safely be pruned, but certainly nothing like all of them. Richard New Forest (talk) 17:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think Mercury is a bit bloated, also! If you'd like, we can just work backwards from your new version rather than reverting all your hard work. I agree that we must use judgement to draw a line, and it isn't always easy to see or agree upon. Why don't you run through your new additions and see if you feel their inclusion can truly be defended? I'll drop in later and pull out the ones I disagree with (and then we can argue!). Also, to respond to an earlier point you made, keeping a dab page short (when possible) does actually serve the user better because it is easier to find what you're looking for in a short list than a long one. That doesn't usually help decide what should be included, but it is something to keep in mind. Would you find it helpful if I posted a request at WT:WPDAB for some more dab editors to join the discussion? SlackerMom (talk) 18:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the list still needs trimming. The problem with having so many items is that it's hard for readers to find what they are most likely to be looking for. For example, we currently have Mountain pass, which is one of the main meanings of the simple word "pass", buried right down the bottom under "other uses". If we insist on having large numbers of meanings, can we at least move this one up near the top somehow?--Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a good bit of weeding (I think just before the previous comment). I've also made a "Geography" section for mountain pass – does that do it?

I'm now feeling tough about some of the other things... What about putting the lesser entries for the various tickets and transit passes in separate articles (List of transit passes or the equivalent), linked from their main articles? After all they are all essentially the same as the main thing, and few of them could be called simply "pass". Richard New Forest (talk) 15:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Passed