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Latest comment: 20 years ago by Andrew Yong in topic Vote: spaces after periods between initials? (26/32)
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Continents

Not sure if this has already been discussed, or if it's off-topic here. Is it Wikipedia policy to consider Middle East a continent distinct from Asia? Also, is it common to club Egypt with the Middle Eastern countries, perhaps because Egypt is Arab? Ambarish 23:39, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm unaware of a Wikipedia "policy" considering the Middle East a continent. However, it is common practice in English to refer to the "Middle East" as a geographical region. I think most people would include Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia (among others) in that region. Like most regions, it has fuzzy boundaries. I don't think Arab ethnicity is a requirement (e.g., Israel, the Kurdish regions). Different topic: Europe and Asia are connected, and can be referred to collectively as Euroasia. However, they are often treated as though they were separate; blame the Greeks. -- Dwheeler

I think it will always depends on the subject/topic of the entry; you cannot speak of "anceint Egypt" as a middle-eastern or Arab country. No such thing as Wikipedia "policy" in such matters; it's a wiki. :-)
Best, -- Maysara

Case citations

Is there any uniform method for referring to case names in law? Or should we just follow good judgement and local citation rules? Bbtommy 18:01, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There are two major systems for referring to cases in law: the Bluebook and ALWD systems.

Bluebook: Published by law students (specifically, law review members) at several elite law schools, led by Harvard Law.

ALWD Citation Manual: Published by the Association of Legal Writing Directors, a group of professors who coordinate legal writing instruction.

The Bluebook has been around for several decades, while the ALWD Citation Manual was first published in 2000. However, ALWD is gaining considerable ground. About half of the law schools in the country have abandoned the Bluebook in their legal writing courses in favor of ALWD. However, relatively few law reviews have adopted ALWD.

The main differences between the two systems, as I understand them (I'm a law student who's been exposed solely to the Bluebook), are:

  • ALWD and Bluebook have slightly different rules regarding abbreviations in case names.
  • The most radical difference is in type styles. Under the Bluebook system, the type styles found in a citation will be different in a law review article than in a court document. Under ALWD, the location of a citation will not affect the type style at all.

Dale Arnett 05:17, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Vote: spaces after periods between initials? (26/32)

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The leading style guides in American and International English usage (The Chicago Manual of Style edition 15 paragraphs 8.6 and 15.12, The Oxford Style Manual 3.2, and The Random House Handbook) dictate that initials in people's names, or companies named after them, should be written with spaces after the periods and a space between the initials and the name, e.g. W. E. B. Du Bois. Other, such as Associated Press Stylebook (a style book meant for newspapers where space is at a premium) and The Eonomist Style Guide, dictate against putting spaces between the initials, with a space only between the initials and the name, e.g. W.E.B. Du Bois. At the moment, both styles are prevalent in Wikipedia with frequent use of redirects.

See also: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/library/Grammar/Initials.html

Please vote on this issue:

With spaces

  1. Nunh-huh
  2. Bbtommy
  3. Ruhrjung (We are discussing the titles of the articles, right? I think the default ought to be full names instead of initials.)
  4. User:Dwheeler
  5. Tkinias
  6. Musashiwashi (I fully agree with Ruhrjung)
  7. Oliver P. (re full names: we should use whatever form of a name is most common in the real world)
  8. Paul Pogonyshev (nbsp's could be put automaticaly by software backend)
  9. Ebear422 I think the rhythm is wrong without spaces. I can do without the dots.
  10. LarryGilbert (C. S. Lewis was Clive Staples Lewis, not CliveStaples Lewis!)
  11. Herbee because it's the logical thing to do.
  12. 80.255 19:17, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC) This is the only correct way. It should ideally be the policy; however, in the absence of its being the policy, there should be no policy on the matter, for any policy against spaces would necessarily be blatantly incorrect.
  13. Fred 18:23, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC) FWIW, with spaces is the standard at Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading. I think it looks better and makes more sense than the alternative.
  14. The Anome 17:04, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC) (but please note that the appearance can be altered by post-processing: perhaps this should be an option, like the display of dates).
  15. Beardless 10:58 18 May 2004 (UTC)
  16. Andrew Yong 22:54, 24 May 2004 (UTC) I think it looks strange without
  17. I fully agree with Larry Gilbert, 80.255, and Andrew Yong -- BRG 17:45, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)
  18. OF course with spaces. Without spaces is ungrammatical. RickK 05:21, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)
  19. Conti|✉ 22:02, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  20. Merovingian✍Talk 08:59, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)
  21. I'm in favour -- 195.92.194.12 18:11, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  22. Not only correct, but also looks more professional. -Sean Curtin 06:28, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  23. Any respectable manual of style (e.g. Oxford, Yale, etc.) will tell you that the correct format is rather like this: "R. L. This" The User Formerly Known As 82.6.10.139 02:52, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  24. Acsenray 18:01, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  25. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 08:53, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  26. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 11:18, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Without spaces

  1. Viajero
  2. Taku - in encyclopedia, more compact is better.
    Wiki is not paper - Ec
    But the size of the display is limited.
  3. Elf - I'm a Chicago devotee, myself, but in this case I prefer no spaces
  4. Stan Shebs - just seems more "natural"
  5. SimonP - looks much better
  6. Hajor - with all necessary redirects, of course.
  7. DavidWBrooks - makes breaks at end of line less likely (e.g., A. / A. Milne)
    Use "nbsp" where you think that matters - Ec
    No, please don't. Markup like nbsp is very confusing to new editors with no prior knowledge of HTML. Angela
  8. Wik
  9. Morven - looks better to me.
  10. Tannin
  11. Angela - seems to be the most common way of doing it
  12. Emsworth
  13. Sam Spade
  14. Ryan_Cable
  15. Jmabel
  16. J-V Heiskanen - very slight preference, best to have one though.
  17. Piglet - more flowing and clearer in my opinion
  18. Rich0 - looks nicer and is more concise
  19. ugen64 00:36, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC) - isn't this the most common way?
  20. Alcarillo 18:09 26 Apr 2004 (UTC) - I raised this on the J.R.R. Tolkien page; it's simply not modern usage, and using the spaces looks ridiculous, even when not using monospace type. Moreover, this is an online resource, not a book, so following (outdated) style guides for print isn't correct.
  21. older ≠ wiser 17:26, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC) Looks better to me
  22. Chris Jefferies 22:35, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC) - I prefer the appearance of the no-space method, less cluttered and much clearer.
  23. Neutrality 01:13, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  24. MK 05:19, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) - No guiding principle involved; I just think "without spaces" looks better.
  25. nedward 11:36, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC) - ditto
  26. COGDEN 17:42, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC) - One additional area where the no-spaces rule is used is in the legal profession, where spaces are eliminated between any two one-character initials of abbreviations. But that's the only situation where it would be appropriate. For example, you would write "George H.W. Bush", but not "George W.Bush".
  27. Xiaopo ℑ 04:03, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC) - I'm worried about names breaking into newlines as well.
  28. Gangulf 05:57, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC): No space, I would write (but not vote) "George H.W. Bush"
  29. Jimm dodd 13:01, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC) - Most common way for people to search.
  30. Tverbeek - W.E.B. is effectively Mr. DuBois' first name. Removal of the spaces between initials is simply part of the process by which abbreviations become acronyms, and the use of traditional spacing will just make Wikipedia look "quaint" as the more compact usage becomes progressively popular. e.g. United Nations -> U. N. -> U.N. -> UN
  31. Jeff Knaggs 16:27, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC) Much neater without.
  32. Jay 12:56, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC) Much neater without.

No-vote comments

  • Jerzy : Vote here should be only re article titles; in fact, i lean twd no spaces in article titles (which are already widened on the page by enlarged font), and probably in lists (which profit from compactness), but spaces in running text (aiding a reader in having info in the back of their mind, on the occasions when they pause to write a name carefully, what the logical and formal standard is). That would mean piping running-text links to such names; that may be tolerable, since the names in question are not that common.
  • Anthony DiPierro Why not whatever is more popular on a case by case basis?
  • Nunh-huh : on what basis is it asserted that "Modern typographical practice in book and newspaper publishing leans towards the latter" when book publishing and newpaper publishing clearly differs on this particular question of style? Way to skew the vote!
    • It is asserted on the basis of observation. Contemporary books and newspapers have dropped the spaces, and as far as I can tell, have been doing so since ~1960s. It appears to be a case that the style guides no longer reflect the reality -- or that they guidelines are tailored for other purposes, such as scholarly manuscripts. Look around you, can you find a book or magazine with initials formatted with spaces??? -- Viajero 09:49, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
      • Yes, actual books have retained the spaces, as is indicated by the style guides for books (as opposed to those for magazines and newspapers). The style guides certainly reflect current good practice, and the latest version of CMS is no more than a year old: it hasn't missed any 40 year old trends. Wikipedia shouldn't be rewriting style guides (especially on the basis of "it looks better" (which is a typesetting issue), or adopting styles proper to newpapers and magazines but not to books. Unless it aspires to be a newspaper, I suppose. -- Nunh-huh 10:46, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • ☮ Eclecticology Hmmm! It's an abuse of the voting process to attempt to impose the Tyranny of the Majority. I'll continue to use spaces according to the Style Manuals rather than a phoney vote.
  • Jiang: Should be whichever is more popular on a case-by-case basis.
  • ShaneKing : I'd actually support no spaces and no periods either. I think that style looks as least as good as any other and is the easiest to type and find when using the search box. Although I admit it may offend some grammatical purists.
    • (I agree with this also. Tannin)
    • Agreed, for more than one initial. Jeandré
    • I agree in any context. As Viajero mentioned, I'd contend that it's becoming standard to omit both the periods and the spaces (see style guides for Guardian, Economist). As a Brit, periods look very American, in the same way that Capitalising Every Word In A Title To An Article would do ;o) — OwenBlacker 10:39, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)
  • Andre Engels: I prefer no space, but am not going to vote, because my opinion is too much influenced by the fact that my mother tongue is Dutch, where the spaces are much more commonly not-given than in English and other languages.
  • Modern UK usage is no dots. I understand that current US usage is dots. This is just a comment not a vote. Secretlondon 18:15, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
    • I've just picked several British books of my shelves at random, and all of them used dots... -- Oliver P. 04:52, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • Don't know about English, but in Russian space is mandatory after any abbreviated word (i.e. dot and space; "i.e." in Russian would be "i. e."). <rant> Unfortunately, most people don't follow this rule nowadays. Sad to see how typographical rules are pushed away by computer users. Dashes tend to disappear too being replaced by ugly hyphens. </rant> -- Paul Pogonyshev 23:24, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
    • And yet, ironically, this issue is much more important to computer users (and their works, like Wikipedia), who must deal with the literal nature of character sequences, than it is to publishers, whose chief goal is appropriate visual presentation. -- Jeff Q 05:08, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • There's no need to base the vote on anything other than what we Wikipedians think looks best. I can't believe we're scurrying off to check what standards are followed by this book, that guide, or nation XYZ. Many book editors have probably decided on what they thinks looks good! The de facto 'rules' are no more than current common practice. So we should feel free to do what we prefer as long as it is clear, reasonably concise, and looks attractive and business-like. -- Chris Jefferies 22:49, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Whatever, with redirects. - Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 17:50, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • User:Dbachmann: internally I would prefer an encoding with some 'special space' (like nbsp) that (a) can be used by parsers to decide it's not the end of a sentence, and (b) will enable the user to set a preference for rendering. Contributors cannot realistically be asked to insert nbsp after initials, though, so I guess my vote would go to 'no spaces', with the option to automatically insert nbsps (or something) later.

From my talk page

You removed the phrase
Modern typographical practice in book and newspaper publishing leans towards the latter.
from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions declaring it "unsubstantiated". I don't know where you live but where I live I don't see any books or newspapers using the periods-with-spaces style. As far as I can tell, it went out of fashion in the ~1960s. Fine, you can adhere to the in this case outmoded prescript of the style guides, but that is called pedantry. Also, I would be reluctant to submit every issue on wikipedia to a vote, but it seems that for essentially aesthetical issues, which is what this is, it is not at all inappropriate. -- Viajero 09:35, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I moved it here because I'm not pursuing a private conversation on this matter. "Unsubstantiated" simply means that no facts were offered in evidence. So I looked at three books which I acquired in the past week, all first published in 2003: Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival published by Henry Hold; Poundstone, How Would You Move Mount Fuji? published by Little, Brown; Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea published by Doubleday. These are all major publishers. I also looked at the December 2003 issue of Scientific American. All used spaces between the initials. The previously cited C.M.S. and O.S.M. (note that I do not use spaces here because the initials are standing alone) were both published in 2003. That's out of date?

Contrary to the intended tone in its use, I do not find the use of the word "pedantry" to be wholly negative, although it may perhaps have been misapplied in the present circumstances. According to Fowler, "Pedantry may be defined ... as the saying of things in language so learned and demonstratively accurate as to imply a slur upon the generality, who are not capable or not desirous of such display. The term, then, is obviously a relative one; my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education, and someone else's ignorance. It is therefore not very profitable to dogmatize here on the subject; an essay would establish not what pedantry is, but only the place in the scale occupied by the author, and that, so far as it is worth inquiring into, can be better ascertained from the treatment of details... There are certainly many accuracies that are not pedantries, as well as some that are; thare are certainly many pedantries that are not accuracies, as well as some that are; and no book that attempts ... to give hundreds of decisions on the matter will find many readers who will accept them all."

Given the evidence, a vote purposed by one person's aesthetic cravings is completely inappropriate. ☮ Eclecticology 11:20, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

Just to be pedantic :-), it isn't one person's aesthetics since there are official style guides that recommend omitting spaces too. This looks more like one of those situations where publications have to decide on a "house style"; while we generally follow Chicago, in the past people have argued strenuously that some of its recommendations are wrong, for instance on points of capitalization and date format. In the print world, one would have an editor-in-chief to hand down our reality from on high :-), but in the absence of one, discussion and voting is the next-best.
Just to trot out a couple standard aspects that I haven't seen mentioned here yet - is this an English dialect (American/British/Australian/etc) dependency, and would one or the other form make it easier to process automagically? For instance, could thin spaces be inserted as part of creating the HTML page, and which form would make it easier for software to detect and change reliably? Stan 14:44, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I love your idea, Stan. I think this is rather software issue like whether to have an empty line after headings. A nice thing about wikipedia is that it is a software that produces a nice format. Writers should not be too bothered with formats and conventions. Software solution is usually the best. The heated date format discussion we had in the past is an good instance of this. In short, I bet the results of this policy would become obsolete in the future with the advent of the brilliant parser that automatically generates aritcles compliant to any standard setting. -- Taku 19:33, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that it's an American vs. British issue. Chicago is American, and Oxford is British, which is why I made a point of citing both. (I would have been much less enthusiastic about this issue if these two had disagreed.) I don't know about the Australians. I couldn't find a specific rule in the Canadian Globe and Mail Style Book, which is primarily for newspapers. Where relevant names are cited in the text it uses spaces; one notable exception there was the use of the name "J.A. (Sandy) McFarlane", one of the authors, on the title page of the book. The Associated Press Style Book is one that prefers no spaces, but it does give reasons which are similar to those raised by David W. Brooks above.

I am not well enough versed in the technical operations to comment on the automagical aspects, but I suspect that the "thin space" compromise could lead to the same kind of difficulties that were mentioned by Angela about "nbsp".

I know that no one is in a position to promulgate edicts from on high, presuming that such an issue would not be of momentous importance to Jimbo. I do agree that a discussion of the matter is healthy, but I find voting on such issues and treating the results of such a vote as a binding rule to be an evil aberration. There are clear differences about what is more "natural" or "aesthetically pleasing", both of which are subjective matters, and using a vote to impose either view is unduly restrictive.

Like Ruhrjung I would prefer full names in titles, but I've already been through that fight over David Wark Griffith. Without getting into details the date format and capitalization issues should also remain open. Taking positions that differ significantly from the major style guides should only be done with extreme caution, and should be supported by at least some measure of scholarship.

The point has also been raised about whether the debate is only about article titles. Technically yes. It is also only about personal names in situations where the person is known as using two or more successive initials. In looking for evidence in the various sources that I have used I found very few people to whom this situation would make a difference. If it is only about article titles the argument about separated initials would not be important since the initials would normally be at the beginning of the title. ☮ Eclecticology 20:22, 2004 Feb 18 (UTC)

I've just picked several British books of my shelves at random, and all of them used dots with spaces between them. Omitting spaces would just look ugly! -- Oliver P. 04:52, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Village pump discussion

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on February 21, 2004.

Some style guides dictate that initials in people's names, or companies named after them, should be written with spaces after the periods and a space between the initials and the name, ie W. E. B. Du Bois. Others dictate against putting spaces between the initials, only a space between the initials and the name, ie W.E.B. Du Bois. Modern typographical practice in book and newspaper publishing leans towards the latter. (Currently, Wikipedia has a mixture of both.)

Please cast your vote: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions

-- Viajero 09:26, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The very latest editions of the most popular style guides have not, despite what is stated above, shown any tendency toward the "condensed" version: they continue to recommend spaces after periods. Can these alleged "other" style guides that dictate against spaces be named/referenced? -- Nunh-huh 09:41, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Economist Style Guide, 3rd Ed. 1993 -- Viajero 16:03, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

High quality typography uses a thin space after initials. I believe that the practice of using no space dates from the days of typewriters which used fixed-width characters. The period character always had the dot to the left of center, so typing "A.B" meant that there was already a half-space after the period (and 1.5 spaces looked excessive). However, in Wikipedia we don't have the option of a thin space; we have to choose between all or nothing. I don't like either. --Zero 10:17, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Another advantage of a "thin space" over the space bar is that it combined the initials into a single "word" so they wouldn't get separated by the end of a line. To accomplish the same thing, I think Wikipedia should *not* put spaces in initials, or we're more likely to get browser views like this:
He was as good a children's author as A.
A. Milne

DavidWBrooks 15:51, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thin spaces are an option. HTML supports thin spaces, as well as a few other space sizes (see the entity reference). In particular, we could have some clever wikicode that automatically detects initials and inserts an HTML &thinsp; after the period. Examples:

A.A.Milne (no space)
A. A. Milne (thin space)
A. A. Milne (full space)

Automatic thin-space insertion could potentially insert thin spaces where we don't want them, but it's one possible solution. Preventing line-breaking in the middle of someone's initials is easy though - we could just use the non-breaking space &nbsp;, or CSS to specify that breaks should not occur after a thin space. If done right, it wouldn't have to ugly-up the wikitext either; just let the PHP do all the work. -- Wapcaplet 16:21, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thin space comes up as an unknown character on my computer ("A box A box Milne" isn't very easy to read). Before everyone jumps on me and tells me to get a better font, I'll point out that many people we are aiming Wikipedia at will not have administrator privileges on the computers they use at work/school. This is the first time that a character (which isn't part of a foreign alphabet) has not displayed on my machine while surfing Wikipedia. fabiform | talk 17:14, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
OK, guess that isn't a great idea then :-) What browser/platform are you using, out of curiosity? Does it work to use the numerical equivalent &#8201;? (used here: A. A. Milne) I wonder if this affects other entity references like &mdash;. -- Wapcaplet 17:50, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thin spaces are in the HTML spec, but most browswers do not yet support them. (Browser? Character set? Or both? I can't remember.) The upshot is the same either way, much as they would be the best—and also an asset for the mdash—but, alas, it ain't practical. Try again in a decade or so. Tannin 10:31, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm on Windows 2000, and crazy browser (which is based on IE). So pretty much your middle of the road non-techie user demographic! The numerical equivalent didn't work either, but I've never had any problems rendering mdashes etc, so don't panic too much!  :) fabiform | talk 22:07, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I get the same thing with Windows XP Pro, IE6. --Rlandmann 23:33, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
On Win2K IE5.5 I get boxes in the first instances, and spaces in the second BUT the thin spaces display wider than the standard space! --HappyDog 00:23, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Here (Win NT IE5.5) I am getting very wide spaces instead of narrow spaces in all instances. Basically using the numeric code or the ampersand code is a non-starter. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:04, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why don't we have the option of no periods after initials? I always type A A Milne, H G Wells etc, and I think it looks much cleaner. Adam 22:28, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't know of any' style manual that allows for initials with no periods. Can you offer some, any, justification other than "I think it looks much cleaner"? Acsenray 18:10, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, I think that in a case where Oxford and Chicago agree, it is silly to go against them. The above-cited AP style manual is not exactly an example of good guidelines for typography; among other things, it advises against serial commas (i.e., it demands "A, B and C" vice "A, B, and C") and does not use italics at all. It is very specifically geared to print newspapers, and in particular to the technical restrictions of the teletype machines of bygone eras. (For that matter, following AP style means omitting all diacriticals from non-English names, something that is clearly inappropriate for Wikipedia.)

As far as the line-breaking problem goes, simply follow good Web style and use the &nbsp; entity. This is also standard LaTeX practice: One writes, for example, W.~E.~B. DuBois. --Tkinias 23:39, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thin spaces look like DOUBLE normal spaces on my browser. So instead of a thin space I see two full spaces. Optim 02:44, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia article titles for specific literary works

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on February 21, 2004.

Today, someone had initiated a series of articles with titles like Mother Earth (Asimov) for short stories by the author whose last name is Asimov. Isn't there a better way to title that sort of Wikipedia article? Bevo 22:03, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No. :-) I would probably do Mother Earth (Asimov short story) rather than just Mother Earth (short story) since the title is so generic there are probably lots of authors who've used the title. When title searching is back you can do a little exploring to see what other people have done. Stan 22:11, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Actually, that was done by User:Ausir. He and User:Lefty are both new here, and have both been doing great work over at the Foundation Series. As for the Mother Earth (Asimov), since it's such a generic name, I think he made the best choice possible. IMHO, Mother Earth (short story) is a *terrible* title and Mother Earth (Asimov) is a much better choice. →Raul654 22:19, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)
Has this been thought out completely? What if it had been written by someone like Robin Cook or Stephen King whose last names have generic meaning and could be confused with categorizations outside authorship? I'd like to encourage either the form Mother Earth (short story) or a variation on Stan's as Mother Earth (short story, Asimov). Isn't there a Wikipedia help page somewhere already that suggests some patterns to follow? Bevo 23:15, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I did a quick survey of existing titles and found these embellishments: (novel), (book) and (series). This (Asimov) qualifier is something new entirely. I suppose it will become an example of an alternative for us to study when it is completed, but is sure is irregular as it stands. It may actually turn out to be a "good thing", but I sure wish they had set the bar just a little bit higher when they wanted to do something better than current practice. Bevo 00:40, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I think it's a good initiative. Probably these embellishments should only be used when there's a dismbiguation article of some sort, which there is in this case at Mother Earth. My only worry is that I'm not completely sure how this differs to the now-discouraged practice of using subpages, but it seems it does. If the author's name is such as to be misleading, such as (King), then just use a longer version, as in (Stephen King). Andrewa 02:41, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Maybe this needs to be moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions? Do we move the entire discussion when that happens? (maybe without this "meta"-comment) Bevo 02:52, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Agree discussion should continue somewhere else. Andrewa 08:42, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

To be fair, this is consistent with what's done with music. Since there are eight billion "Symphony Number 1"s, it's usually postfixed with (Bach) or whoever. I'm not sure if either is "better". -- Dwheeler

I'm rather new here, so I wasn't entirely aware of the naming convention. Should I move them (the other ones are Reason (Asimov), and Evidence (Asimov)? Ausir 18:26, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As I say above, I'd like to see a naming pattern for literary works that would have employed
Mother Earth (short story, Asimov), Reason (short story, Asimov), etc. But at this time, that's just my feeling. I don't recall seeing clear guidance in a Wikipedia style guide, so you do what you feel is right (including leaving it as you have it now if you want to). What we need to do is try to either find that there is already a Wikipedia style guide that we can folow, and perhaps amend, or create one. Bevo 00:43, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I would like to promote with your suggestion that Title (type, author) would be the most usable and scalable. This would allow commonly titled works to be distinguished and differentiated by type and author. This could also cover how written works outside "literature" could be named to avoid conflicts, which would have a much higher instance of possible overlap. For instance "Muscle Cars" is a title of numerous works, and with overlapping subject matter, but would be distinguishable by author. I think this proposal has the most scalable options, yet is not overly long or unwieldily to implement. Lestatdelc 19:35, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

I've added a suggested convention for literary works to the bottom of the main meta page. I did this because I couldn't find any other clear guidelines, and I was having misgivings about my choice of name for The Stranger (book), which perhaps really ought to be "The Stranger (novel)" instead. Comments, suggestions, and improvements are all welcome. —LarryGilbert 02:33, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC)


Lists

If an article is a list of internal links to more specific lists (e.g. List of fictional species), what should it be called? "List of fictional species", "Lists of fictional species", "List of lists of fictional species"...? — Timwi 03:04, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Lists works for me. --mav

Deities and mythology

The goddess Venus: main page at Venus (mythology). Venus (goddess) is a redirect to that page. The god Mars: main page at Mars (god). Mars (mythology) is a redirect to that page.

Likewise: the mythical Chimera is at Chimera (mythology), but the mythical Kappa is at Kappa (mythical creature).

Should the naming convention be "name (mythology)", or something more specific? I support the former, personally. The main argument I can think of in favor of the latter is that it helps avoid disambiguation in the case of mythical beings sharing the same name, but those are the exception rather than the trule anyways. -Sean 06:58, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think (mythology) is more standard - I would suggest going for that. Martin 21:49, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
They used to be spread out at (god), (goddess), (God), (Greek god) and all sorts of other disambiguators. A long time ago, I standardized them all to (mythology), but many more have been created or moved since then, so re-standardization is necessary. Tuf-Kat 21:52, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
Wouldn't maintaining NPOV require not making a judgement call over whether a god is `legitimate' or not? Using _(mythology) seems to imply that the deity in question isn't the object of real religion. I'm sure you would have unhappy poeple if you changed Jesus to Jesus Christ (mythology)... Tkinias 02:48, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Seconded - (god) and (goddess) (and other deities) should be labeled as such, and not 'dismissed' and mythology in a POV manner. 80.255 19:23, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Thirded. Rmhermen 15:36, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
I disagree. Mythology is not about legitimacy vs illigitimacy of the religion. It's about a certain realm of subject matter: the explanation of the mysteries of the universe. As such, all deities belong under the category and disambiguation of mythology. The conflict comes in the misunderstanding on what the word mythology means. Remember, we're talking about how to distinguish the usage of the artcle name from other uses... and the usage that has an overwhelmingly larger link base tends to get the undisambiguated name, while other usages get a disambiguation mark. When there is no clear cut primary usage, then all usages get the disambiguation. Jesus Christ would never be Jesus Christ (mythology) because the mythos usage is the primary usage. However Category:Christian mythology should be used on Jesus Christ. - UtherSRG 16:43, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Buildings

I'm about to write an architecture article on the Auditorium Building in Chicago. I was wondering if there's any convention on architecture. I'm hesitant to use Auditorium Building as that just seems like disambiguation nightmare, so I've considered Auditorium Building, Chicago, and [[Auditorium Building {Sullivan)]]. Comments anyone? Isomorphic 02:37, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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I am dealing with a similiar problem with the name of a bridge. I think your use of Auditorium Building, Chicago is fine presuming there are not more than one Auditorium Buildings in Chicago. If that were the case, a longer name would ovbiously be necessary. Cacophony

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