Talk:AAP

Disambiguation Page.

Why does a Disambiguation page needs the AAP url? Bolterc (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

"AAP disambiguation" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect AAP disambiguation. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. DannyS712 (talk) 01:03, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

"Organizations" organization

@Swpb:

Could you please explain your thought process behind Special:Diff/1366681840?

• Why alphabetize? If the reader already knows the full name, they can just search for that directly. If not, they're unlikely to know what it starts with. However, they are likely to be able to infer the category from the context in which the acronym is used.
• Why group organizations together? How do you even define what counts as an organization? For example, why are the Agrupación Aérea Presidencial and the Apollo Applications Program included here, but not Andrau Airpark?

Also, was there any problem with the way I organized it? (Special:Diff/1365382516)

FTR, the reason I grouped "Education, arts, and media" together is that Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning is an educational institution for arts, and Associated Artists Productions and ArtAsiaPacific fit into both arts and media.

Rather than alphabetizing, I followed that ordering within the section: education, <overlap>, arts, <overlap>, media. This way, a reader can search near related entries, rather than having to guess what the beginning of the name might be.

Solomon Ucko (talk) 03:40, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

You might have asked these questions before you reverted, and saved yourself some trouble. All of this follows WP:LONGDAB. Per that guideline, an organization is any group of people assembled for a purpose. An airpark is a physical location, first and foremost - the topic is the airpark per se, not its operator. There are a few ways your organization of the page breaks with the guideline, in particular the first three bullets under the first principle. Education is a pretty distinct topic area from arts and media, and it is pretty easy to sort which entries belong in which, and guidance for handling overlaps. Same for philosophy and politics, and that case you didn't even have any overlapping entries. "Transportation" as a section is rife with overlaps, which is why the guideline recommends against it. And while we're following other dabs, biology/medicine and computing ought to be subheads of sci/tech, as I made them. Alphabetization of sections is, again, standard. There's little use in having entries "close to" similar ones, if that organization isn't made explicit. I'm going to revert your revert now, and I hope you will read over the guideline and express your specific concerns here before engaging in another revert, whole or partial. —swpb^{T • beyond • mutual} 18:48, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

First, some rebuttals, and then a proposal for a compromise solution:

1. I commented here 22 hours before, not after, reverting. Should I have waited longer? Or are you referring to my initial edit?

2. How is a fleet of vehicles a "group of people"?

3. For cases of overlap, I guess I could duplicate entries or add hatnotes, but both of those add clutter to the page.

4. Argumentum ad populum is a philosophy term that often describes political arguments.

5. "Science and technology" can be construed very broadly, but primarily refers to: physical science (not social science), fundamental technologies (not specific applications or products), and computing. IMO, biology is a science, but I'm not sure about medicine. I wouldn't've put an engine model here, so overlap with "Transportation" isn't an issue. However, it can overlap with "Places" in various ways (roads, train stations, vehicle license plate codes, etc.), so when such entries are present, I've concatenated the sections, putting the overlapping/ambiguous entries in the middle.

6. Alphabetical order is fine as a standard default, but it's rarely the most useful way to organize. And it isn't always obvious, especially when words at the start are sometimes skipped. In contrast, when I'm looking for something on a disambiguation page, I'll generally start by skimming through to see what areas are most likely to be relevant; this gives me the best results when all of the candidates are near each other, without too many random things interspersed between them, as alphabetization often produces.

One of my problems with "Organizations" is that it tends to be a massive list of miscellany, but the way you've added subheadings solves that. However, since some of the entries aren't really organizations in my opinion, and some of them (at least the schools) are also places, what do you think of the following heading structure?

• Language
• Organizations, institutions, and places
  • Academic and professional associations
  • Transportation [from "Government and military" and "Transport infrastructure", plus Advance Auto Parts and Automobile Association Philippines]
  • Schools
  • Other organizations
• Science and technology
  • Biology and medicine
  • Computing
• Other uses
• See also

Solomon Ucko (talk) 02:15, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Briefly:

1. Sorry, I must have misread timestamps.

2. Although the current description on the dab calls it a "fleet", the opening sentence of the article itself calls it a "unit". "Agrupación" translates to "group". To me that says organization, but it's borderline enough to list in two places.

3. Duplication and hatnotes are the consensus approach for unavoidable overlap. It is considered that their benefit to potentially confused readers outweighs the "clutter" they add. That consensus is of course changeable, but it would have to be challenged on the guideline's talk page, not here.

4. A philosophical term having application to politics does not make it an inherently political topic. At any rate, the goal of clearly defined sections usually favors grouping entries of the same type, e.g. political organizations, rather than by a loose field like "politics" or "philosophy". That way, something like Aam Aadmi Party will very clearly be in, and something like Argumentum ad populum very clearly out. That's more my own view than anything in the guideline, but I think it stands to reason.

5. I very much disagree with your definition of "science and technology". I think it is broadly (if implicitly) expected to include social sciences, specific application and products (like engine models), and medicine. That's how I've always seen it treated on dabs. Subheadings can also clear up any confusion on that.

6. I think when it comes to questions of ordering, we'll have to get down to specifics – first of all, are we talking the order of the sections, or the order within sections? What things would you like to swap? I think the words that get skipped when alphabetizing are pretty standard – just articles ("a"/"the" or the equivalent in another language) – that hasn't steered me wrong since elementary school.

7(?). I don't see "organizations" as miscellany at all – broad yes, but well-defined. Nor do I think it needs stating that institutions, schools, and businesses are all types of organization. And if there was some confusion of that, you have the subheads, which you pretty much always have when there are this many entries there. Yes, schools are also places, and if we had a "Places" section there would be a good case for duplication or a hatnote, but we don't. As for "Transportation", see my argument under point 4. "Transport infrastructure" is very clearly physical: airports, roads, rail lines, stations. "Transportation" that includes organizations when there is a separate "Organizations" section, not so clear. Cheers, —swpb^{T • beyond • mutual} 16:29, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

1. Gotcha, oops.

2. One of the definitions listed at https://dle.rae.es/agrupaci%C3%B3n is: "Conjunto de personas o cosas agrupadas" -- a set of people or things grouped together. So the word could indicate an organization, or any other grouping. However, "organizations and institutions" ought to be broad enough to include it.

3. I use duplication and hatnotes as needed, but I generally prefer to engineer the sections to avoid needing them. One benefit of merging overlapping sections is that I don't need to come up with a way to divide the entries and distinguish the scope of each section, which can be difficult and controversial. If I just put all of them together, and put the overlapping or uncertain ones in the middle, readers can conceptualize whatever exact or fuzzy boundary makes sense to them.

4.A. Including anything that's mentioned on the news in "Politics" is not helpful, but I would include politicians (unless there's a "People" section at the top), political parties, poli-sci concepts, etc.

4.B. The sections listed in WP:LONGDAB are roughly half-and-half subjects vs types of things. For categorizing entities, grouping by type makes sense to me, but for articles, which can discuss concepts, multiple interrelated facets of things (e.g. an institution with a location [=> place] and people [=> organization] that does something specific [=> subject]), etc., that doesn't always work. As an extreme example, a military television station that specializes in the physics of sports would fit under like half of LONGDAB's top-level sections.

5. Social science could be construed to include just about anything that has human involvement, under the banner of anthropology. If interpreted broadly, computing includes video games, but those fit better under "Arts, entertainment, and media". Medicine is close enough in various ways to science and technology that I'm fine with lumping it in as needed. If you'd like, I can do a random sampling survey to see what existing DABs are like, when I get a chance.

6. I generally try to use a semantic ordering for both section headings and entries within them, though the two can be independent. Skipping articles is standard and intuitive, but "Cornell University College of" (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AAP&diff=1366681840&oldid=1366347344) is not one.

7.A. Even if we can pin down what counts as an organization, the broadness of the section is itself problematic, because subdividing it can often be difficult, and it's hard to search by subject in a giant alphabetized list. And I've very often seen, for example, brands included but bands excluded, which is part of why I'm frustrated with it.

7.B. If a DAB has an "Organizations" section, it should include (though duplication if needed) and/or have section links leading to all of the organizations within the scope of the DAB. But I generally prefer not to have that section, instead putting organizations only into sections by subject, and putting any remaining ones into "Other uses".

7.C. Subheads can help clarify scope, but they aren't initially visible in the mobile layout.

7.D. Do you have any objections to my proposed structure of sections and subsections? I don't understand how what you're saying applies to it, rather than to hypothetical alternatives.

Solomon Ucko (talk) 03:27, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

2. If "organizations and institutions" is broad enough, "Organizations" is broad enough, as it inarguably includes institutions.

3. You're mostly just reiterating the guideline here re minimizing overlap, except that you're ignoring the "Only combine closely related subject areas" bit when it comes to politics and philosophy, or organizations and places. Having overlapping entries does not make two subject areas closely related, and putting those overlapping entries "in the middle" does not smooth over the fact of those subject areas being unrelated.

4A/B. Let's stick to issues that apply to this page please. There are no politicians or contrived super-multi-subject entries to worry about here.

5. No, social science does not include "anything that has human involvement", it only includes the scientific study of such. It is usually very clear whether a given entry is scientific or not, and I don't think we have any counterexamples here. You will note the guideline already addresses e.g. video games: "Games and digital content belong under 'Arts and media', not here". Reiterating: let's stick to issues that apply to this page please.

7A/B/C. Again, if you want to challenge the guideline on handling of organizations or anything else, the place for that is on the guideline's talk page. Any agreements reached here apply only to this dab.

7D. Yes, I do object. "Organizations, institutions, and places" goes against the guideline, and while "Transportation" is merely recommended against, I don't think it benefits readers here. —swpb^{T • beyond • mutual} 14:27, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

4 A/B, 5, 7 A/B/C. Ok fine, I'll leave the general questions for a different venue.

2. Some senses of "institution" are indeed types of organization, but some describe places, customs, etc. I'd be happy to use a different word if there's one you'd prefer, beyond just "organizations"?

3, 7D.

• I do sometimes thread together disparate topics, but in this case, I think they are related enough:
  • Politics is often applied philosophy (especially ethics), just as technology is often applied science (especially physics).
  • "Organizations, institutions, and places" is like "Arts, entertainment, and media": sometimes they can be distinguished, but often they bleed into each other, especially when evaluating articles rather than entities per se.
• LONGDAB says that the "Transportation" section "may have significant overlap", not that it should never be used. If it's a subsection within "Organizations, ..., and places", that takes care of all of the overlaps that apply to it on this page.

Solomon Ucko (talk) 04:03, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Some things that are clearly not organizations are sometimes (casually) called institutions, but we don't have anything like that here so I don't know why we're talking about that. I don't really feel like continuing to argue over whether politics and philosophy, or organizations and places, are valid to combine. I've made my cases. Feel free to invite wider participation. —swpb^{T • beyond • mutual} 13:43, 5 August 2026 (UTC)