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User:Uanfala not sure if there's been any discussion / consensus on this, but per my edit summary "connecting the adjective to the noun need not be verbose and we have an easy precedent like British" which is much better maintained than this dab. Widefox; talk 08:46, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The difference with British (which too has witnessed some oscillation between the two wordings), is that the average wikipedia reader is unlikely to be aware that "Gujarati" is an adjective, and if they're presented with a sentence like "Gujarati may refer to Gujarat" it's not unlikely that they could take it at face value and take Gujarati to refer to, well, Gujarat, rather than someone or something related to Gujarat. Besides, I think it's better to be a bit more verbose and precise rather than succinct and wrong. Also, it seems that the dab page at British is the exception: of the six random dab pages I checked (Chinese, American, Australian (disambiguation), Malaysian, Indian and Japanese) every single one uses the "verbose" wording. – Uanfala (talk) 19:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Uanfala 1. Isn't there something in MOSDAB / WP:D about dabs not being dictionary content? 2. On dabs I consider desires above navigation fails "concise" per WP:MOSDAB / WP:D. Dictionary aspects are examples. 3. Links at the start of the entry are preferred 4. Any such loftier aim fails WP:V as we can't have sources.
I consider we serve readers better with quick, clean, consistent dabs. The dab is not the place to educate readers of what's an adjective. Where that concise threshold lies is debatable, but it's for navigation not dictionary type distinguishing between adjectives and nouns - more Wiktionary that WP IMHO. I disagree that it's wrong, as held up at the British dab (I put my hand up that I've edited that dab, but it's held for years). Picking one of your other examples at random, I would largely agree and prefer the style of User:JHunterJ's version [1] (the first historical version I clicked on). If I have time I may edit all those dabs, and/or take this up at the dab project. Widefox; talk 13:59, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a loot at another dozen or so dabs, and in not a single one of them is your preferred version to be found. You're welcome to bring that up for discussion at the project page, but please don't make any wide-range changes before that. It's not about educating readers (the dab doesn't talk about adjectives), or providing dictionary definitions – dab entries do have descriptors after all. I sympathise with your desire for conciseness, but I don't see how the benefits tally with the cost: I don't think any gain in conciseness achieved by lopping off a three-word descriptor balances out the effect of ending up with entries that are incorrect or misleading. – Uanfala (talk) 14:47, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Uanfala I numbered the reasons 1-4. (Add to say 1. that the Wikt link covers the adjective.) Are they unchallenged apart from "concise"? I've already said I'm not going to edit further until that's bedded down, giving others time, but I need not wait in principle. Widefox; talk 16:27, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Re the examples Indian and Japanese, I'm presuming we all agree that's a mess? - they have no primary topic, but are styled as if they do - so needs cleanup anyhow. But yes I agree that the example American should have a lot of edits/editors so high weight/consensus. Widefox; talk 16:45, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indian and Japanese might have some unnecessary entries, but I don't think there's anything bad with their format. Primary topic dabs aren't the only ones that can start with a descriptive sentence: if all of the entries on a given dab page have a common denominator, it's not unusual for that to be described briefly at the top. As for your numbered list of arguments, I feel like they have been implicitly addressed (or at least those of them that I could make sense of). Anyway, I think if this discussion is to go on, then the project talk page would be a better place. – Uanfala (talk) 10:54, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your assertion about dabs that have no primary topic having a descriptive sentence is backed by what part of MOSDAB? I can't think of an example of one, apart from old ones that have dictionary defs that pretty much always get removed at cleanup, so I don't accept that. Those two dabs need cleanup for the top entries, unrelated to any bad entries further down. Widefox; talk 19:59, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
