Forum:Aggregate articles

The following three comments were copied from Talk:USS Bellerophon (NCC-62048). -- Cid Highwind 15:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to comment on the recent page split yesterday, but then had other things to attend to. Anyway, I think these "aggregate articles" are really only useful if we can't be sure that the topic isn't the same in both cases. Here, we definitely seem to have two different vessels, one Nebula class, one Intrepid class, so keeping them on the same page instead of creating a disambiguation doesn't make sense. However, one little problem I still see is using the registry number as article qualifier: the article doesn't state this, but if this number is from the Encyclopedia, like so many others, we probably shouldn't use it in such a prominent location. Can someone confirm the exact source of this reference? -- Cid Highwind 09:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the doubtful sources for the registry numbers were one of the reasons to keep the ships in one place. There are several reasons the ships should stay on one article (save for the "series" ships) -- Kobi 10:16, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, in this specific case, we had two clearly separated "sub-articles" on one page, both were more than stubs, and most links went to one of the sub-articles directly, anyway (while making use of some counter-intuitive link code). I don't think that every such aggregate article needs to be split up, but I don't see good reasons for keeping two or more topics combined on one page if they are definitely distinct entities. Perhaps we can move the discussion about such aggregate articles in general to a different place, if it needs to be discussed further - regarding the registry number, DITL shows a "Encyclopedia" source for this one, and if I don't hear anything different, I will work on this article later today to clear that up. -- Cid Highwind 11:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this needs to be discussed in a more general context. Basically, "aggregate articles" are pages that contain two or more separate articles as sections, and are an alternative to a disambiguation page and two or more article pages, one for each individual item. These aggregate articles definitely make sense if all items described share the same title and each individual article would be no more than stub size. It also makes sense to combine articles that way if we can't be sure whether the individual items really are different entities. In the "Bellerophon-case" above, however, we do know that there were two different ships of that name (different class), and we do know enough about each to warrant a separate article, naming issues aside. Splitting up articles in cases like these also avoids several different (and perhaps incompatible) nav boxes or categories on one page and allows for easier links to these pages. -- Cid Highwind 15:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This might also lead into discussion on "unpacking" the various "unnamed" articles if we can determine appropriate naming conventions. -- Captain M.K.B. 15:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of separating starships that are clearly separate. Since the various USS Enterprises and Defiants are separate, I never fully understood why, for example, the USS Farragut was not. Gvsualan and I talked about this last March/April, but I guess I never had the nerve to bring it up. I support the idea of separating aggregate named starship articles, and will hold off on supporting the aggregate unnamed articles of anything.--Tim Thomason 19:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)