Wikipedia talk:Hatnote

Currently, the template uses '"USE1", "USE2", "USE3", and "USE4" redirect here. For other uses, see USE1 (disambiguation), USE2 (disambiguation), USE3 (disambiguation), and USE4 (disambiguation). {{{text}}}.' when {{redirect-multi|text=}} is present, as seen in this revision. It needs to be changed to '"USE1", "USE2", "USE3", and "USE4" redirect here. {{{text}}}.' for simplicity. 2600:1700:6180:6290:E8C6:83FC:3353:1AB0 (talk) 01:46, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure if it is ok to ask this question here, but I a bit confused and want some clarification on whether adding a hatnote to a political label or pejorative term is something that is ok based on policies for hatnote. I have a similar scenario like the term Zionist (used as pejorative form) on Bhakti article. Currently, Bhakti has a hatnote to Bhakt (pejorative). As I have mentioned in that article's talk page:

I think adding a hatnote for Bhakt (pejorative) on Bhakti article violates few policies. e.g WP:TRHAT - adding a political slur as a hatnote at the very top of a religious concept article seems undue and creates confusion for reader by implying the two are related even though they are not related. Also, WP:COATRACK - I think it is not NPOV to give such undue promotion to a political label on this page.

Would appreciate clarification on whether hatnote policy allows adding a hatnote to a political/pejorative term on the primary topic (religious concept).

Just a note for comparison - Zionist currently redirects to Zionism, which has a hatnote for Zionism (disambiguation) with no mention of Zionist as a pejorative, which seems correct because since same word but used in different context (religious / political) - but I can get clarity for this on disamb policy talk page. Asteramellus (talk) 21:56, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Hatnotes are purely for navigating the reader when they entered an ambiguous term, and may be looking for different topic than the one they initially landed on. POV of the hat's target page is not a consideration for whether or not a hatnote is needed. —Bagumba (talk) 22:05, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Bagumba for quick response. Asteramellus (talk) 22:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Could someone check whether these reverts were justified under WP:NOTAMBIG? Reverts: revert #1 and revert #2. I believe the template additions were appropriate according to the {{Redirect}} template documentation and disagree with the reverts, but wanted to check here first before raising a complaint. ~2025-44035-28 (talk) 17:38, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

For me as a non-linguist, I'd say those hatnotes are useful, since the characters look quite similar and could easily be confused. It would be good to get some input from the other editor @JMF: as well. --Jameboy (talk) 16:11, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

First, a thank-you to ~2025-44035-28 for raising it here, even if it has taken six weeks for anyone to notice. And I don't think it is a question of linguistics but rather whether is a credible risk of confusion, that the question only occurs to an editor who is already in the article by the conventional route and wonders whether someone else might be confused.

Let's reword WP:NOTAMBIG to see how it might be relevant

It is usually preferable not to have a hatnote when the name of the article is not ambiguous.

The double acute accent (◌̋) is a diacritic mark of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. It is used primarily in Hungarian and Chuvash, and consequently it is sometimes referred to by typographers as hungarumlaut.

The Latin script letters A̋ a̋, Ő ő, Ű ű and the Cyrillic letters Ӳ ӳ redirect here. For Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü, Ÿ ÿ , see Two dots (diacritic)

Here, the hatnote can be removed. A reader who is following links within Wikipedia is unlikely to end up at Double grave accent if they were looking for other other diacritics. A reader who is looking for Ä is unlikely to end up at Ä. [but if they do mistype it, the error will be immediately obvious.]

A hatnote may still be appropriate when even a more specific name is still ambiguous. For example, Tree (set theory) might still be confused with Tree (descriptive set theory).

The presence or absence of hatnotes in articles with disambiguated titles has been a contentious issue. There are cases where some editors strongly believe that such hatnotes should be included, such as the various articles about treaties called Treaty of Paris.

While to my eye, it might be reasonable to have {{hatnote| A̋ a̋, Ő ő, Ű ű and Ӳ ӳ redirect here.}} it would be purely because of (and IMO over-interpreting) the wp:principle of least surprise, I see no case for a {{Distinguish}} or a hatnote emulating it. I haven't looked but I assume that the See Also has Double grave accent, Two dots (diacritic) etc. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:02, 17 February 2026 (UTC)