Template:Distinguish/doc

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Revision as of 00:31, 1 February 2016 by Bagumba (talk) (Usage: ce)
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Usage

{{Distinguish | articlename1}}
Not to be confused with articlename1.
{{Distinguish | articlename1 | articlename2}}
Not to be confused with articlename1 or articlename2.
{{Distinguish | articlename1 | articlename2 | articlename3}}
Not to be confused with articlename1, articlename2, or articlename3.

This hatnote is generally used when there can be confusion with a similar term. This is typically used when readers have misspelled their desired title, and the error would be apparent by simply displaying the alternative term without further explanation. For example, consider a reader looking for the punctuation mark who instead ends up at coma:

Coma
Not to be confused with Comma.

Readers are presumed to recognize that they actually wanted comma by merely looking at the spelling, and this case generally requires no further explanation.

However, {{distinguish}} is not suitable when the difference is not readily apparent without additional details. Consider a reader looking for a game they believe is named Reversi:

Red x.svg Reversi
Not to be confused with Reversis.

In the above hatnote, it is not generally apparent how the suggested Reversis is different from Reversi, which is also a game.

Green check.svg Reversi
This page is about the board game. For the card game, see Reversis.

Using {{about}} instead of {{distinguish}}, the differences in the suggested article is explained upfront without requiring the reader to click through and differentiate the terms on their own.

{{Distinguish}} should only be used when the ambiguity exists for a portion of the readership that is sufficient to warrant a hatnote. Care should be taken to avoid trivial uses.

Redirects

See also

  • {{Distinguish2}}, for multiple disambiguation targets or prepending "the".
  • {{About}}, links the reader to other articles with similar titles or concepts that they may have been seeking instead.