On many wikis, directly inserting the magic word __DISAMBIG__ (or equivalent) is undesirable, a template is to be used instead. Can the disambiguation page tick box (Visualeditor-dialog-meta-settings-disambiguation-label) be disabled or customized to insert something else?
Topic on VisualEditor/Feedback
What's the practical purpose for preferring a local template to core MediaWiki magic words?
What's the practical purpose for inviting users to violate local policy? The wiki communities get to decide what a disambiguation page is supposed to look like. When direct insertion of the magic word is undesirable, the tick box is a pitfall.
My question is why any community would decide that using MediaWiki's native wikitext markup is actually "a violation of local policy". I can understand "Eh, I'm used to templates, and I run AWB, so I auto-replace this code with a template, just because I like it that way, and I can", but why would you make something (IMO) so unimportant a matter of "violating local policy"?
Firstly, I wouldn't classify __DISAMBIG__ as a "core MediaWiki magic word" since it requires an optional extension. So a local template would make turning off the extension more practical.
Perhaps "violating local policy" was too strongly worded. But it's not like you describe. Disambiguation templates already existed as standard practice on hundreds of WMF and non-WMF wikis when the extension was introduced in 2013. The templates generally inform the reader about the purpose of the page and track them in a category. And after installing the extension, these templates are generally modified to also transclude the magic word. So the primary way of marking a page as a disambiguation page is via the template.
Based on the conversation last year at T187116 (which is a much smaller request than your idea), I'm doubtful that we'll see any progress on anything related to this.
As a more immediately accessible workaround, it's theoretically possible for a local admin to add some additional information to MediaWiki:Visualeditor-dialog-meta-settings-disambiguation-label. In English, that message current says "This is a disambiguation page", and perhaps you might like it to say something like "Mark this page as a disambiguation page without adding any explanation for the reader. (Note: This wiki normally inserts Template:Disambiguation instead of using this option.)"
I thought about changing the label before starting this thread, but since in my opinion this tick box should probably never have been added in the first place, I hoped there was an option to disable it.