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What should decide titles?

What should determine titles? Policy like WP:CRITERIA and WP:DIFFCAPS?

Or opinions about which title better "communicates what the article is about" or "is more helpful" to readers?

Weigh in here: Talk:All_the_Best!#Requested_moves.

--В²C ☎ 05:41, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Please do not "Weigh in here",

What should determine titles? Policy like WP:CRITERIA and WP:DIFFCAPS? Or opinions ..

is evidently not a neutral summary of the issue (a "!" is missing in some books on Paul McCartney). Notification which is done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way is considered inappropriate. This is because it compromises the normal consensus decision-making process, and therefore is generally considered disruptive behavior. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:26, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

See below #Is an exclamation mark sufficient for disambiguation -- PBS (talk) 07:32, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I revived Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) which contains some good answers relevant to this discussion, & which I think was turned into a redirect too quickly... by Born2cycle --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Interesting, thank you. was there any Talk page discussion before blanking? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Is an exclamation mark sufficient for disambiguation

I placed this heading Is an explanation mark a sufficient for disambiguation above the section headings

• #"Winston Churchill not Churchill"
• #What should decide titles?

and made them sub-headings. However for reasons unclear to me user:In ictu oculi removed the heading (see [1]. Nevertheless it seems to me that the two sections are related, so I have reformatted it here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PBS (talk • contribs)

I don't see the relationship. Anyway, neither section is mainly about exclamation marks, if its about exclamation marks at all. While the current RM is ostensibly about the exclamation mark, the broader question at issue here is how such RMs are decided, and whether it's even appropriate to propose them in the first place. By "such RMs", I mean those that have no basis in policy or convention. In's starting of the Churchill section at least shows he's beginning to try to find basis in policy for his title predilections. So maybe there is a relationship. -В²C ☎ 15:52, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Discussion, ! as disambiguation

I have combined the two sections (now in bold above) into one as the debate at Talk:All the Best!#Requested moves while involving more than one title revolves around whether All the Best! differs sufficiently from All the Best not to need parenthetical disambiguation eg All the Best! (Paul McCartney album). -- PBS (talk) 07:12, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

A comment at Talk:All the Best!#Requested moves:

I'm not aware that there has been any substantive discussion regarding the title of any of these [ Them!, I Want to Live!, That Darn Cat!, Berserk!, Oliver!, Burn!, Airplane!, That Thing You Do!, Moulin Rouge!, and Mamma Mia! ]. As such, any "consensus" is at best passive in that either nobody noticed or nobody care enough to bother. Consensus can change. older ≠ wiser

I think that WP:CRITERIA is ambiguous on whether punctuation is a sufficient for disambiguation. So I suggest that specific guidance should be added to this policy to give clear guidance on this. To that end I suggest that an RfC is held here on this talk page and advertised widely . I will read the arguments presented in such an RfC to make up my mind as I am one of those older ≠ wiser mentions as somebody who has not cared enough to bother to form an opinion.

To that end I will not initiate an RfC, (too much work) but would appreciate it if someone who cares enough about the issue would do so. -- PBS (talk) 07:12, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• I think unusual title punctuation, such as "!", "?", and other common ASCII symbols, such as @#$%&*, if they frequently form part of a recognizable title, as measured by prominent occurrence in reliable and reputable sources, are sufficient for disambiguation. These characters in a title are prominent and unusual, and attention-getting.

Insufficient would be:

• Capitalisation, even camel case, as many expect search functions to be case insensitive, and other languages use different or no capitalisation.
• The period "." This is borderline, but on the insufficient side because titles are often placed in sentences, and placing periods on the end of titles is to be strongly discouraged.
• White space;
• Characters that may not render properly for many readers. This includes diacritics.
• Articles. "a"; "the". Many consider these unimportant; their importance varies considerably for people coming from other languages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Note that Airplane! is mentioned explicitly as an example in WP:DIFFCAPS:

Many such differences involve capitalization, separation or non-separation of components, or pluralization: (...) Airplane! and Airplane (...). While each name in such a pair may already be precise and apt, a reader who enters one term might in fact be looking for the other, so use appropriate disambiguation techniques, such as hatnotes or disambiguation pages to help readers find the article they want. Special care should be taken for names translated from other languages and even more so for transliterated titles; there is often no standardized format for the English name of the subject, so minor details are often not enough to disambiguate in such cases.

As for expanding the WT:AT policy page I see no need for that. As is the WP:PRECISION section on that page (with multiple subsections) lacks focus, and further, already gives too much detail for policy level imho. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I would suggest that an exclamation point is sufficient for disambiguation where it would not be expected as part of the phrase. Thus, Airplane! provides sufficient disambiguation while Surprise!, Shut Up! and Run Away! do not, because they are imperatives or interjections that would normally be seen with an exclamation point in the wild. bd2412 T 12:19, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

See https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(precision)&oldid=615173756#Minor_spelling_variations

• If the two titles have the same meaning — example: Shut Up! redirects to Shut Up
• If the two titles usually have a different meaning — example: Airplane! vs. Airplane

Note: Surprise! and Surprise can both have multiple meanings, with neither of them having a clear primary topic for the name, so they share a disambiguation page.

All the Best! has a primary topic (the McCartney album), and has not usually the same meaning as All the Best, which also has no primary topic (so disambiguation page).

--Francis Schonken (talk) 13:27, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with PBS (talk · contribs) that WP:CRITERIA is ambiguous on whether punctuation is sufficient for disambiguation, but that's okay. We can't cover all of WP:AT in WP:CRITERIA. Details like WP:DIFFPUNCT are explained separately. But we certainly don't need an RfC on something that has been settled for so long, unless there is evidence that consensus has changed about that. I certainly don't see that. --В²C ☎ 16:02, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Reformatting Talk page

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents § User:PBS reformatting Wikipedia talk:Article titles

Another nomination that relates to this discussion about !s

I saw the existence of this discussion (since I have Wikipedia:Article titles on my watchlist), and thought those participating in this discussion could either look into a bit of a troubling redirect I ran across (Boom!!) that I put up for nomination at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 July 1#Boom!!. When I found this redirect, I also found the existence of two separate disambiguation pages Boom and Boom!, which seems to correlate with this discussion. Feel free to either provide some insight into this, or use this as an example for this discussion in section(s) above. Steel1943 (talk) 19:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Auxiliary NC guideline on precision

I propose to revert Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) from a redirect to this version

As shown above this guideline can help in getting a grip on page name variations.

BTW, couldn't find any past discussion that turned this from guideline in redirect, does anyone know where to find? --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

There was a merge proposal, no discussion, but no objections [2]. That was in 2009. So the merge occurred and it remained a redirect until 2012 when someone restored the long version. I noticed two months later, when I restored the redirect. And that held for two more years, until you reversed it, and now PBS (talk · contribs) just reversed you. I do think it's better to have everything in one place. Otherwise what is more apt to happen is divergence, and you end up with having conflicting guidance. If there is anything there that needs to be on the main page, maybe we could just add it? --В²C ☎ 00:40, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The synonymous / not-synonymous distinction (which is effectively the practical way to solve most of this) is not reflected in WP:AT#Using minor details to naturally disambiguate articles. Then that section, particulary its second paragraph is a lot of bloat, not showing practical solutions, and simply not apt for a policy page. In fact that is true for most of WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation and its subsections (including how this guidance is structured): confusing, lacking practical guidance, structure that invites to not read it, etc... in sum not fit for a policy page.

So, no surprise that this discussion on All the Best! set off in such disorderly way. Starting from policy that effectively contained the example that applied, but nobody had even remarked, no surprise that most of this talk page discussion was, excuse my french, clueless.

Best to re-open the subsidiary guideline until these various problems with WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation are addressed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

One of these problems with WP:AT#Precision and disambiguation is also: way too many examples, see Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance#Role of examples. Examples should be checked regularly (is that done?) when contributing to the stability of the policy. Comprehensive treatment of examples is better diverted to a subsidiary guideline, for several reasons among which (1) readability of the policy; (2) obsolete examples cause less harm at guideline level; (3) gives a better overview how the general principles of the policy are applied in various circumstances. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:41, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Francis you may remember that back in 2009 there were a number of naming conventions sub pages that were redirected back to this page (many of those redirects were instigated by user:Kotniski), see for example the history of "wikipedia:naming conventions (common names)". If any of those redirects (which are now nearly five years old) are to be reverted, then I think it necessary for to be a discussion here on this talk page and a clear consensus for such a change to be present before such a reversal is made. I do not think that the sort of bold edit you made to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision) is appropriate for this policy and its guidelines, particularly given the Arbcom discretionary sanctions under which editing this page is now subject. -- PBS (talk) 16:13, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

"Way too many examples"

Well, okay, I understand, but I put those examples there because that's the way policy works. We have had discussions about Friendly Fire - there's nothing really important that uses that capitalization, so consensus led to a redirect. We have had discussions about MAVEN, but we have kept the articles separate because reliable sources distinguish between the formats and each one is at least on the same order of magnitude of notability. What to do in a DIFFCAPS situation? It depends on how notable each claimant is. If you don't spell it out in a policy page, confusion and discord happen eventually. If you spell it out, all it takes is to say at Talk:Airplane!#RM "Oppose as per WP:DIFFCAPS" and you stop an unproductive discussion. Red Slash 00:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. --В²C ☎ 04:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:NATURAL and uncommon names

I don’t think this is addressed in policy… if an ambiguously named subject has an unambiguous name that has fallen out of use, which option in WP:NATURAL should we generally go with: the unambiguous name that is not in current use, or the ambiguous name with parenthetical disambiguation? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 03:30, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

• "Current" use is less important than what is used in the best sources ("best" is not necessarily well defined at this level). Go with WP:NATURAL until the sources supporting that choice lose relevance. What title do you actually have in mind? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I meant it as a general policy question, but it was spurred by a response in an RM to move Macintosh to Mac (computer). —174.141.182.82 (talk) 04:47, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    • I think it better that people don't look to policy for such detailed questions. WP:Natural supports the former, but some may say the former is becoming obsolete. Better to discuss reasons and source usage explicitly than WP:VAGUEWAVES to policy. Policy can't answer every question, and policy wonks should not reign over content editors. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
      • I think you missed a "not" there? Red Slash 05:49, 9 July 2014 (UTC) Ta. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

It helps to look at how we define the terms we use... Naturalness is defined (in this policy) as: The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. I find the last part of this definition to be the most helpful... in most cases, if a topic or subject is notable enough for an article, it/he/she will be mentioned in other related articles (an Olympic gold medalist for example, might be mentioned in the articles on the various Olympic games he/she competed in)... so to determine what is natural, we can look to see how the topic or subject is referred to in those other articles. That will give us an idea of what variation on the name is natural. So... to see whether "Macintosh" is more natural than "Mac" (or vice verse)... look at the various articles that discuss this brand of computer and see what version they use. (side note... in that example, I think there may be a need to add further, parenthetical, disambiguation... whichever way we went. Both choices can refer to multiple topics). Blueboar (talk) 16:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Policy should not redefine common words to something different to what would be expected by newcomers. To do so it so diminish accessibility of the project to newcomers. I don't agree that this policy "defines" "naturalness", it appears to use a real-word usage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:16, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Initials

Earlier today, LTPowers expanded the initials paragraph of the Title Format section by adding...

• Format names of persons as reliable sources do: When deciding whether to use middle names, or initials, follow the guidelines at WP:Middle names, which means using the form most commonly used by reliable sources (e.g., John F. Kennedy, J. P. Morgan, F. Scott Fitzgerald).
  

I actually agree with this, since it is nothing more than a restatement of COMMONNAME... except... there are (relatively rare) situations where the need for disambiguation calls for using something other than the COMMONNAME form of initials - Let us suppose that there were two people who were both commonly referred to as John Q. Public (one full named "John Qwerty Public" and the other "John Quincy Public")... We might use their full names as a logical form of disambiguation, despite the fact that sources usually simply use the initial. I tried to add something about this, but was reverted. No problem... but let's discuss. Blueboar (talk) 22:34, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

According to the link at WP:Middle names, using the middle name for disambiguation is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Modify recommendation regarding middle names for disambiguation.3F, so probably best to continue to discuss the matter there. (Which, of course, you already have.) isaacl (talk) 23:28, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Back from Naming conventions (people)

At WT:NCP the discussion eventually went to a new section WT:NCP#More on using full middle names as disambiguation. What I wrote there regarding the guideline I repeat here for the policy:

Instead of the imaginary examples "John Qwerty Public" and "John Quincy Public" as proposed above we have the real John Steuart Wilson and John Sullivan Wilson. Editor discretion chose not to disambiguate by middle name expansion but instead has their articles at John S. Wilson (music critic) and John S. Wilson (economist) respecitvely. Which is fine by me.

Seems to me there is no need to repair anything here, a.k.a. a solution in search of a problem. I oppose to adding anything (additional rules, examples or suggestions) regarding initials and/or full middle names for disambiguation purposes to the policy, per K.I.S.S. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:43, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

You want simple... allow editors to choose whatever form of disambiguation they think is best. Policy wise... It doesn't matter whether a bio article is disambiguated by adding a middle names or by using a parenthetical... what matters is that the title is unique. The simplest "rule" is this: any form disambiguation is acceptable, and the editors at the article level are free to choose whatever form of disambiguation they think best. There is no need to say "use parenthetical disambiguation in X situation, and use full name disambiguation in Y situation." That's simply instruction creep. Both forms of disambiguation are acceptable (as are others). Blueboar (talk) 13:29, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I oppose to such forking exceptions to WP:COMMONNAME, which are indeed complications and unneccessary additional rules when written down. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Should MOS:JAPAN continue to require disambiguation for unique place names?

Please participate in the discussion at MOS:JAPAN. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:19, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

RfC: When COMMONNAME depends on country, culture, or demography

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In an effort to split an article, I am faced with the problem of which of the two articles after the split should be given the old well-known article title, where both of the new subjects could claim to have COMMONNAME and PRIMARY TOPIC arguments for the title depending on the demography group the reader and/or the editor belong, and would like to invite comments from wider editor-base on how to handle this article naming issue. Yiba (talk | contribs) 07:00, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Example

The case is Porsche, where the name is predominantly a brand of cars and the car maker, Porsche AG, for one demography group who are not interested in investments; and is predominantly the name of the parent company, Porsche SE, which controls many car makers such as Bentley, Bugatti, Audi, Volkswagen, Ducati, Lamborghini and Porsche for the other demography group who are more likely kept abreast of developments in economy and capital markets. The latter view considers the name on the stock of the parent company traded on public exchanges, and its roles in the German and world economy, to have significance reaching a wider Wikipedia reader base, but the other (mostly younger) group tend to place a higher significance on the brand of cars and its manufacturer because it is the way the name "Porsche" is used by the group (as well as by reliable publications catering to car afficionados).

Problem

With the well known skew in Wikipedia editor demography towards young males in mind, and assuming the two views each having reliable sources on the respective usage, how should we handle the question of which article (on the parent company Porsche SE, or the car manufacturing subsidiary Porsche AG) to be given the representative "Porsche" as the title?

Currently, the article is not split between the parent and the subsidiary, but there is a general consensus that a split into two articles would be preferable if this and other problems can be resolved.

(The problem is more complicated in this example than on most car companies because Porsche AG no longer is a direct subsidiary of Porsche SE, but has become a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, to which Porsche SE is the majority owner. Further, Porsche SE was born by renaming the old Porsche AG, and then the car manufacturing operation was spun off to form the new Porsche AG, so the parent holding company is the legal successor of the Porsche history in the past (which might give the primary topic status to the parent on the basis of long-term significance). In many countries, the parent company does not have a local presence due to the limited availability of EDR and GDR outside of London, Frankfurt, Luxembourg and New York stock exchanges, so the subsidiary is left in the country to be the only bearer of the name Porsche, except in international or foreign context. The parent currently has non-car-making subsidiaries that are likely to attract not insignificant number of Wiki readers on the products (e.g. sunglasses, bags, etc.) and services (e.g. technology consulting) outside of the new Porsche AG, who are likely to look up 'Porsche' on Wikipedia.)

Issue

This seems to be a COMMONNAME issue, not in the sense that subject X is called A or B, but in the sense that the name A is normally used to mean subject X or Y depending on what country, culture, or demography you belong within the English speaking population. The word 'Porsche' normally means different things to a stock broker or a coupon clipper in London, and for a student in Sydney.

In a way, this is because the culture and the common knowledge are not shared by the countries, generations and demography groups using the same English language. The difference cannot be resolved by the best efforts in consensus building, because the different views are valid for each group and a consensus cannot merge or unify the groups, and an amicable middle ground cannot be found because the assignment of 'Porsche' title cannot be split or weighted between the two articles. I would suspect similar issues exist between male and female, the rich and the poor, well-educated and not-so-well-educated, and between other demography groups. As none of these demography groups cannot be ignored as the Wikipedia reader base, this is not a target audience issue. May be the question of "When COMMONNAME varies according to the subject domain categorization (i.e. stand point of the Wikiproject for each domain)" should be added to this issue for those subjects and article titles that belong in two or more subject domains (e.g. Companies and Automobiles for the 'Porsche' example), and so I consider this issue to have a very wide scope, which might have caused many controversies in the past.

As the problem has two legitimate points of view, I would normally apply WP:NPOV and the principle of "Wikipedia tries to describe the dispute, not engage in it.", but a creation of problem/issue description page would not solve the problem, and the concept of due weight cannot be applied because [[Porsche]] can't direct to Porsche SE article XX% of the time, and direct to Porsche AG article YY% of the time, which might be technically possible with a Round-robin DNS style mechanism for the searches and name resolutions within Wikipedia.

Solutions

Giving the representative [[Porsche]] title to one or the other of the two subjects may violate the principle of WP:NPOV either way, because it gives the benefit of being easier found in a search to one article at the undue expense of the other, despite both subjects having a valid COMMONNAME/PRIMARYTOPIC argument for the article title with supporting and not insignificant population with their own view point. If, only if, WP:NPOV(as a non-negotiable policy) must be adhered to no matter what cost, then the Round-robin mechanism idea that directs [[Porsche]] to one or the other of the articles with a pre-set probability ratio (e.g. 50:50, 80:20, etc.) may gain some validity with a small but fundamental alteration to the way this online encyclopaedia functions (of course with a hatnote on the result page to call attention to, and a direct link to, the other article).

In deciding "Subject X is called A or B", search engine test is sometimes used. However, this would not result in fair outcomes in this "Name A means X or Y" example, because the usage that equates 'Porsche' with the parent company is under the natural requirement on securities, economics, and business publications to qualify the name more carefully (adding 'SE' after 'Porsche' to avoid confusion) than on car magazines, so is naturally penalized in the statistics "How often the word 'Porsche' is meant for the parent, and for the subsidiary". This is a systemic bias in the test. Moreover, the patterns cannot be established for sufficiently long period because the parent was renamed and the subsidiary was established only recently in 2007.

Giving the [[Porsche]] title to a disambiguation page is another, a bit messy, solution I came up so far, but this solution may trigger waves of protests from Wikiprojects with established and conflicting conventions to such a practice (e.g. Wikiproject:Companies and Wikiproject:Automobiles in opposing directions, may be). In this case, the Precision criterion in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA may be used not to give the 'Porsche' title to either of the two articles, against which the Projects might use the Consistency criterion, or primary topic, as the basis for opposing the action.

I would like to receive comments and especially different ideas from those editors who, preferably, do not belong in the Companies, Automobiles, Brands, Germany, or other related WikiProjects to the example. Similar cases in the past and the ways they were resolved would be of interest if the solution seems reasonable. Those comments pushing for one of the two views in the example without grasping the underlying issue are NOT invited. Yiba (talk | contribs) 07:09, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Discussion, RfC on COMMONNAME

I think this is a non-issue. There are really only three scenarios:

• There is no primary meaning among the general readership in which case a dab page and dab extensions.
• There is a primary meaning among the general readership in which case the primary meaning can have a hatnote to a dab-page.
• There are several primary meanings of a name known to to different unrelated groups -- usually these go under one of two things: either first created and a hatnote to a dab-page; or a dab-page with two or more dabbed articles. The decision on this can often come down to how many links exist for first article and can anyone be bothered to change the articles from whence the links come. Occasionally as with football there is a whole article to explain the difference to those who do not know about the other meanings (in the case of football it seems to be there chiefly to educate and slow down new impassioned editors).

In the case of Porsche, the general readership know about the car Porsche and the hypothetical expert group who deal in share in the companies probably own one(!) and so the least surprise for most readers would be to place the car brand at Porsche as the primary meaning, and a hatenote for the more specialised meanings.

There is a more difficult problem which is the use of marketing names which adopts other names and then popularise them (for example the Google Chrome browser). Judging when usage of a name has changed to mean something else can be tricky, both with the adoption of a new meaning and with a term possibly reverting to its old meaning or to anther new meaning. -- PBS (talk) 12:33, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the comment, PBS. I think what you described basically is WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The way you described may even be better (easier to apply in real cases) than the first paragraph in the guideline. The first two cases in your description use the concept of 'general readership', which is the main issue we are discussing here. when the 'readership' can't be lumped together in one 'general' category, this issue becomes real. The third case may apply on Porsche, but the case is more like "There are two primary meanings of a name, one each for two reader groups" which can't be limited to Porsche example. I feel "The decision on this" has inherent NPOV issue to it, except in giving the representative title to a dab-page, because the decision favors one of the two valid points of view at the expense of the other. All the links to the two subjects (parent and subsidiary) are to [[Porsche]] because the split of the article into two has not yet happened. The concept of "the least surprise" depends on the reader group because the 'normal', 'primary' or 'not-surprising' meaning of a word depends on the group you belong. It is very difficult for a 20 or 30 year-old to place him/herself in the 50-year-olds' shoes (the reverse is easier because he/she once was there), but you might be surprised by the way your grandma uses a word matter-of-factly contrary to the way you would use the same word. I agree that evolving meaning of a name to be very tricky. In a way, when a company changes its name, the name changes its meaning. Yiba (talk | contribs) 02:13, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I personally won't take this as an NPOV issue, but rather the simple issue of: to a reasonable English speaker, what is the primary meaning of the term Porsche? To me, it is Porsche the car marque, rather than any particular corporation that at any point manufactures it. For example, when people say, "a Porsche factory," how likely would people mean:

1. 1. A factory that makes Porsche-branded cars, regardless of ownership?
   2. A factory owned by (current or legacy) Porsche AG, which makes Porsche-branded cars?
   3. A factory owned by Porsche SE, which may or may not make Porsche-branded cars?

I would say the likelihood decreases in the above order, and the likelihood (1) would be much larger than (2). --Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori 20:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the comment, Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori. The concept of reasonable person relies on the definition of the group the jury represents (or the subject of the applicable law), like all the people in the country, the area under jurisdiction, or people in a society/organization, to determine how a "reasonable representative member" of that particular group would behave or judge. When the concept is expanded to "reasonable English speaker", it needs to encompass many countries, cultures, and legal systems that are diverse in places like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Germany, HongKong, Israel and New Zealand (see the link). I would think making a decision only according to what the term means to me might have a POV pushing side to it. "A Porsche factory" may not be a good example because "a Porsche watch", by the same token, would normally mean the product of Porsche Design, a Porsche SE subsidiary. WikiProject Brands might favor a "marque" vs. "corporation" argument (that might argue the opposite of your argument because the Porsche Brand may mean more than "car marque" to them), which might contradict what WikiProject Automobiles may want to see. Yiba (talk | contribs) 04:54, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any person who would more likely associate "Porsche" with Porsche SE than cars of the Porsche marque. Even there may be people who may associate "Porsche" equally with Porsche SE and Porsche marque, I don't think for those people, applying COMMONNAME will cause an NPOV issue. Given the situation, I would prefer Yiba provide evidence of an actual dispute over this, rather than one that sounds hypothetical to me.

Your Porsche vs Porsche Design argument is inadequate. Plainly "Porsche" (not "Porsche cars" nor "Porsche watches") predominantly refers to car-related topics. While dablinks to Porsche Design would be appropriate, that does not invalidate my argument.--Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori 05:50, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• I think it's fairly clear that the car brand is the primary topic here. To claim this is a viewpoint held primarily by young males is pushing at the realms of reality. The "other demography group who are more likely kept abreast of developments in economy and capital markets" is minuscule in comparison to the general population (I speak as someone who worked in the City of London), and it would be extremely WP:UNDUE to give the holding company equal importance when considering disambiguation. Number 57 11:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
• I agree with others commenting here that it is pretty obvious that the primary topic is the brand of cars (and this regardless of age). The parent holding company (as holding company rather than the manufacturer of the brand name autos) is really a specialized use that is not in common currency except in special contexts. older ≠ wiser 12:02, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
• @Yiba: you wrote above "The third case may apply on Porsche", as Number 57 says, your are talking about a minuscule group. Beside dealers tend to be young men and they too would mean the car unless qualified in some way: if you were to walk in to a City of London pub of a Friday night, and if you over heard the word Porshe few if any of the conversations would be about the company. The third case does not apply. -- PBS (talk) 12:15, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all for the comments. Keeping in mind the list is incomplete, let me try to measure how minuscule the group may be from the figures in the List of countries by English-speaking population:

India 125Million, Pakistan 99, Nigeria 79, Bangladesh 29, Egypt 28, Total 360Million English speakers.

Out of this total, let's assume 50% is female, 20% to be classified as 'old', and 50% don't know about Porsche cars and potentially likely to lookup 'Porsche' when she sees the word.

360x0.5x0.2x0.5=18Million (Old ladies in just the five countries who doesn't know about Porsche cars. No offense intended to people in these countries. Porsche car production before 1965 was very small, and exports to these countries were extremely limited.)

This is more than, or about equal to, the male and female English speakers in New Zealand (3.7), Switzerland (4.7), Denmark (4.8), and Singapore (4.8) combined, or about 63% of English speakers in Canada. This figure excludes 1. stock broker in London, 2. well-to-do retiree in London, 3. those older people who don't know much about cars but reads economy/business articles(might have to qualify this group to be outside of the five countries). So please keep in mind this 18Million figure is not the size of the group, instead, it's a small part of the group just used as an example to evaluate the 'miniscule' description. In developed countries, population is generally declining in the last decade or two, so the percentage of retirees in the population is quite large. The specialized vs. primary usage argument is quite different in nature, and the London pub argument is interesting, I might try to address these later. Yiba (talk | contribs) 06:41, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

My pub comment is not the way Wikipedia editors ascertain the weight behind a particular usage, instead it is done it by surveying usage in reliable English language sources on the assumption that their usage reflects what a person who knows about the subject but is not an expert on the subject will look for. I have not started to do a survey (I leave that to those interested), but I would be very surprised if Porsche the car marque was not the dominant meaning for Porsche. If your hypothetical old woman on the back of a Bangladeshi bus becomes interested in the word Porsche, not ever having heard of it before, she is likely to do so from reading about it/hearing about it in some other source (even if it is two young men in the seats in front of her on the hypothetical bus), the chances are that source will be the common usage. It is gonig to be relatively rare event that she is looking up (on her iphone ;-O) the name of a female friend (and so looking for a different meaning). -- PBS (talk) 09:39, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

The point I made in my first comment is that in general the policy works as described. If you think that the wording of the policy needs an amendment we can discuss that, but lets drop the Porsche example because it is not a useful example (as you have been told by several other editors). -- PBS (talk) 09:39, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment, PBS. This is closely related to specialized vs. primary, and I generally agree with WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, so let's talk about it a bit further. The first "major aspects" in the guideline that measures if there is a primary topic says "the topic sought when a reader searches for that term" and this "reader" is en.wikipedia reader in general (tell me if you disagree on this or other parts of this comment). The second major aspect is long-term significance, which I pointed out originally above to belong (or likely to belong because it is the legal lineage) to the parent that changed the old Porsche AG name to Porsche SE. (The subsidiary, the new Porsche AG, was created anew in 2007.) Now this opens up another question if we will be splitting the Porsche article to the parent and "Porsche cars", "Porsche brand" or the new "Porsche AG" subsidiary, but the general consensus seems to be to split between the parent and the subsidiary.

Going back to the first major aspect, I don't think it is reasonable to argue the searches on the article describing the new subsidiary company will be "more likely than all the other topics combined" including the parent (attracting people interested in business, economy, law, international affairs, Volkswagen, Audi, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ducati, Bentley, celebrities, sunglasses, watches, bags, etc.) Ferdinand Porsche (attracting people interested in engineering, history, Porsche cars lineage, etc.) and others on Porsche (disambiguation). I tried to illustrate the demography group that is likely don't know about Porsche cars within en.wiki readers to be not insignificant above. "A person who knows about the subject but is not an expert on the subject" may describe an average wiki editor, but does not describe the demography group, or reader-base. The man on the Clapham omnibus is a narrower definition of Reasonable person that assumes the person to be English, so it would not apply to an old lady who may have a modest life savings or inheritance in Bangladesh, who might have recently received an investment recommendation.

I see that Porsche cars to be the primary use of the term by most of en.wiki editors, and it might be natural that the majority of comments here reflect that. But it is the readers, who may not be as well-educated on the average, whose first language may not even be English, who are older on the average, who may not be as poor (or, not interested in world economy) as you might think, who decides PRIMARYTOPIC. Yiba (talk | contribs) 15:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

How dare you suggest that the man on the Clapham omnibus is reasonable? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:58, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I demand to see the evidence that old woman on the back of a Bangladeshi bus is not :) Yiba (talk | contribs) 01:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

You're speaking of a hypothetical readership. I see not a shred of credible evidence that such readers of wikipedia exist in any significant number or that there is any reason editors need to contort common sense to address such hypotheticals. older ≠ wiser 16:17, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment, older ≠ wiser. I love your name. "English Wikipedia Reader", "general readership" and simply "readers" in this discussion are hypothetical concepts. So yes, I am speaking of hypothetical readership, and yes, I cannot give you an evidence that there are potentially 100 Million en.wiki readers who don't know what a Porsche car is, but nobody can give me the evidence that there aren't. So we discuss these concepts in hypothetical terms, using reasonable conditions and assumptions, after accepting the lack of concrete evidence. There may be a rather wide range of "What are expected of Wikipedia editors" in terms of his/her abilities, depending on the case and the area of activity, but the ability to place yourself in readers' point of view is placed high on my list (so this is just my opinion). We need to set our own common sense aside, and think about what kind of people (with what kind of common sense) the readers may be, when we consider things like WP:PRIMARYTOPIC which is supposed to be determined by the readers. I think the 100 million figure (when people outside of the five countries, males and those outside of the age bracket are included) is well within a reasonable estimate, but I am not using that figure because it is difficult for me to place it in a reasonable, convincing framework. Yiba (talk | contribs) 06:56, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I decided to test the theory that women would be less likely to identify "Porsche" as the kind of car by doing a Google Books search for recent books by authors with distinctly female names (or with female-sounding names whose sex could be confirmed by further searching). Most examples that I found fit the following pattern:

• Linda Gong Austin, Mountain Bike! Northern California (2013), p. 435: "They graced the trails with names that were colorful as well as expressive: Faceplant, Nosebreak, Pipeline, Whoops!, Porsche 914 (so named for an abandoned Porsche hidden here)..."
• Alison Mackey, ‎Susan M. Gass, Research Methods in Second Language Acquisition (2011), p. 126: "This illustration depicts the following sequence of events for each trial: (1) a semantically related auditory distracter car (the picture's basic-level name) is presented 200 ms before the picture, (2) the target picture (Porsche) is presented for 800 ms, and (3) the participant names the picture (i.e., says Porsche) as quickly as possible". Note, the book includes a drawing of a Porsche.
• Margaret Way, Australia's Maverick Millionaire (2011), p. 72: "It was Josh's powerful Porsche. He was signalling her to pull off the road. Right or wrong, she had no intention of obeying that signal. The Porsche swept past her, then pulled in dead ahead".
• Kristen Mylonas, Guinevere's Walk of Life (2011), p. 13: "Then they walked downstairs the butler opened the door and the limo driver brought Bryan's silver two door Porsche around from the back from one of the garages".

I also saw two instances where female authors referenced characters named "Porsche" and one where a female author had written on the company, Porsche, acquiring other companies. However, it is clear that the substantial majority of female authors referring to "Porsche" are aware of (and writing about) the car. bd2412 T 18:51, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the comment, bd2412. I appreciate your effort in assembling the examples. It takes time to prepare such a list, and I take it to be a reflection of your sincere attitude towards this discussion. However, "Female book writers in developed countries" do not even overlap with the "old ladies in the five countries" group I used in deriving the 18 Million figure, so I cannot see how the examples invalidate or discredit the calculation, or my argument. I didn't even want to apply the 50% 'women' reduction factor in the calculation for the fear of being called a sexist which I am not, so I don't mind your considering the figure to be 36 Million instead (old English speaking 'people' in the five countries, which is more than the entire English speaking population in Canada or Australia) in your mind if you don't like the women part of the calculation. I used the reduction factor just to make the argument conservative and more acceptable. Yiba (talk | contribs) 15:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is available in over a hundred languages, and many people who speak English also speak another language, which might be their preferred language for looking up encyclopedia articles. Can you provide some evidence with respect to how many of these "English speaking" people would use English Wikipedia as opposed to some other language? Moreover, can you provide some evidence with respect to what proportion of English-speaking people in actually use Wikipedia at all, by country? It would not make sense to tailor our content to non-readers. bd2412 T 16:18, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you bd2412. It was my turn to spend time, and here is the result. Please keep in mind that my knowledge on the five countries and their languages is extremely limited, so I am sure I missed/misinterpreted/misunderstood a lot in the process, but I tried:

India 4 language groups, 22 major languages, about 1500 recognized languages, Official Language: Hindi and English

Pakistan 4 major languages, 5 minor languages, Official: Urdu and English

Nigeria 8 language groups, 17 minor language groups, Official: English

Bangladesh 4 language groups, 36 major languages, Official: Literary Bengali, Vernacular: Bengali, English

Egypt 7 minor languages, Official: Literary Arabic, Vernacular: Egyptian Arabic, Main foreign languages: English, French, German

Some of the Wikipedia sites in the above non-English languages are:

Hindi Wikipedia, https://hi.wiki.x.io/wiki/

SE: https://hi.wiki.x.io/wiki/%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%87 87701 bytes

AG: Merged into Volkswagen article

Sanskrit Wikipedia, https://sa.wiki.x.io/wiki/

No entry on Porsche, Porsche SE, Porsche AG

Tamil Wikipedia, https://ta.wiki.x.io/wiki/

SE: No entry.

AG: https://ta.wiki.x.io/wiki/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8B%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B7%E0%AF%8D 1642bytes

Persian Wikipedia,

SE: https://fa.wiki.x.io/wiki/%D9%BE%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%87_%D8%A7%D8%B3%E2%80%8C%D8%A7%DB%8C 3207bytes

AG: https://fa.wiki.x.io/wiki/%D9%BE%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%87 (this URL has DNS issues) 49201bytes

Urdu Wikipedia, https://ur.wiki.x.io/wiki/

No entry on Porsche, Porsche SE, Porsche AG

Yoruba Wikipedia, https://yo.wiki.x.io/wiki/

No entry on Porsche, Porsche SE, Porsche AG

Bengali Wikipedia, https://bn.wiki.x.io/wiki/

No entry on Porsche, Porsche SE, Porsche AG

Arabic Wikipedia,

Porsche: https://ar.wiki.x.io/wiki/%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%87 15160 bytes

No entry on Porsche SE, Porsche AG

In this list, Persian (spoken in Pakistan) Wikipedia may be typical in what tends to happen at major non-English Wikipedia on non-local content such as articles on Porsche. The accessibility to Porsche AG article on the site has some technical problems, but the article with considerable size (49201 bytes) seems to be the translated version of Porsche article on en.wikipedia from a few years ago. The number of editors on these non-English major wikipedia (excluding de. fr. es.) are much smaller than on en.wiki, and the number of editors who can translate English (or German) into the local language is further limited, so there simply isn't enough human power to update these articles on non-local subject. So English speakers in these countries tend to use en.wiki on non-local content, leaving the local Wikipedia rather specialized on local subjects such as Sanskrit matters and ideas on Sanskrit Wikipedia.

One exception I found is Hindi Wikipedia. I was surprised by this, as I didn't know about it, but the way Hindi Porsche articles are organized, and the way its Porsche SE article appears (I can't read Hindi) really impressed me. This makes me accept the possibility of people in India who speaks Hindi and English to use Hindi Wikipedia on non-local subjects. Hindi speakers in India is about 40% of the population (see List of languages by number of native speakers in India), and I feel the quality of Hindi Porsche article can't be the norm among all the Hindi articles on non-local subject. So let's assume a half of those English/Hindi speaking Indians to use Hindi Wikipedia. so by reducing the number of Indian English speakers by 40% x 0.5 = 20% gives me:

India 125x0.8= 100Million, Pakistan 99, Nigeria 79, Bangladesh 29, Egypt 28, Total 335Million English speakers.

Out of this total, let's assume 50% is female, 20% to be classified as 'old', and 50% don't know about Porsche cars and potentially likely to lookup 'Porsche' when she sees the word.

335x0.5x0.2x0.5=16.75Million (Old ladies in just the five countries who doesn't know about Porsche cars. No offense intended to people in these countries. Porsche car production before 1965 was very small, and exports to these countries were extremely limited.)

Even if a half of the 16 Million old ladies don't have any child, grand child or nephew/niece and their children to ask for a few minutes of Internet terminal or cellphone time (and ask how to look up info on 'Porsche'), the figure would be 8 Million, which is larger than the entire English speaker population in Israel, Denmark, Switzerland, New Zealand or Singapore. Yiba (talk | contribs) 12:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

You left out one country, though - this little ol' place we like to call The United States of America, population 400 million. According to Alexa, Wikipedia is the 6th most popular website in the United States, and I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of Americans use only the English version. As for Porsche, why would "old ladies" in India be looking that up at all? I come across lots of unfamiliar product and company names in my daily life, and don't feel compelled to look any of them up. You might as well be asking whether Midnight Cowboy (novel) should predominate over Midnight Cowboy on the grounds that old ladies in India would prefer to read about the book rather than the film. bd2412 T 14:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment, bd2412. I countered your argument that English speakers in the five countries may use local Wikipedia by the above list and servey, and USA is not part of the five countries. I'd rather not second-guess, but probable reasons would include the name on stock listings, investment recommendations, a watch, bag, or a pair of sunglasses given to her by her children, and on news on economy. If they prefer to see the movie or read the book has no bearing in the article naming decision. Even if they prefer to read the book, if their normal use of the word Midnight Cowboy is for the movie, then the movie is the primary use of the word for the demography group. If the decision was made on the stand point of en.wiki editors without the view point of the readers, then I'd consider the decision process was flawed (which does not necessarily mean the outcome is wrong). When thinking about the readers, the fact that there are more English-speaking ladies (all age brackets) in India than all New Yorkers and Californians combined should be kept in mind. Yiba (talk | contribs) 18:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: First, I have to question whether the idea of a split into two separate articles is really the best way to proceed. However,if that is indeed the consensus... then I think the need for disambiguation outweighs the desire to use the COMMONNAME. I agree that BOTH Porsche AG and Porsche SE have equally valid claims on the un-adorned name "Porsche"... so, my call is that neither of them should get it. Here is my solution... give the unadorned title to the disambiguation page... ie:

current DAB page Porsche (disambiguation) --> Porsche

current article Porsche --> Porsche AG and Porsche SE

Does that resolve the dilemma? Blueboar (talk) 21:36, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the comment, Blueboar. It seems I am the only one who has been pointing out the problems in the split on the talk page on Porsche. I agree with your comment and appreciate your intelligence. I wish if you could re-evaluate the part with WP:NAMINGCRITERIA in the above Solutions section and give me further advice. I just can't believe this is the first case with two or more valid COMMONNAME arguments on a term, and wished someone to come up with a better solution. Yiba (talk | contribs) 15:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

There is an appropriate place to request title changes for specific articles. bd2412 T 16:19, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you bd2412. I know that. As I have stated above, I may be the last person preventing the current Porsche article to be split. I and other editors on the article will think about how best to execute the transition after I am convinced this and other problems on the split is resolved. During the mean time, I am really looking forward to receiving some further comments from Blueboar. Yiba (talk | contribs) 12:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• Non-issue – is there anyone that thinks the financial entity should be the primary topic, over the car brand? I doubt it; but if there is, and you don't want to dismiss them, then make no primary and use a disambig page. Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the comment, Dicklyon. It seems we are not going to create an article for the car brand, but will be splitting the current article into the parent company and the subsidiary. I do see the validity of the view point that considers the parent, which controls Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Ducati, Lamborghini in addition to Porsche, to have much larger significance because of the larger impact on far larger number of consumers in addition to German and world economy. Also, the parent is the owner of Porsche brand (may be outside of cars), including watches, bags, sunglasses and technology consulting. So, many members of WikiProjects Companies, Germany and Brands may consider the parent to be the primary topic. (I have discouraged these people to be a part of this discussion, so I feel I have an obligation to speak for them. Wikiproject Automobiles may not need help at all.)

As I consider dismissing this view point to violate the principle of WP:NPOV, and as a part of me agrees with it, I will probably take the disambiguation page solution to be the consensus here. Thanks again. Yiba (talk | contribs) 17:15, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you have made up a fictitious troll or something. Do you know of anyone who has expressed the opinion that the parent company should be primary over the one that makes the Porsche cars? I'm not seeing it; even the "part of you" who agrees the parent company is in some sense more significant hasn't expressed that opinion. Per everyone else, the primary topic here seems clear. But I wouldn't object to a disambig page if that's what people prefer. Dicklyon (talk) 16:25, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I would appreciate more opinions and comments on the underlying issue side of this discussion. WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC have not addressed the fact "who you are" is a big part of what COMMONNAME and PRIMARYTOPIC arguments depend. Old English-speaking ladies in India, or retirees in Florida, may be a large part of en.wiki readership, yet their view points may have been ignored partly because their version of common sense is described more on dusty paper than on digital media so that search engine test would naturally place less weight. Some WikiProjects may have been unduly penalized in article naming when their view point is more mature than what the generally young Wiki editor demography considers to be the norm. Am I better off using no examples to get the concern understood? Yiba (talk | contribs) 17:15, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

This is why we determine COMMONNAME and PRIMARYTOPIC based on usage in reliable sources rather than guessing about what is likely to be most common for this or that group.

That said, the current layout is confusing. I agree with others that the brand/marque is the primary topic for Porsche, and, so, an article about the brand should be at Porsche. It should be an article about the cars known as Porsche. --В²C ☎ 00:45, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment, B²C. When we take reliable books or magazines for wristwatch afficionados, we may find predominantly all references to the word Porsche may point to the parent (to Porsche Design, which belongs to the parent). When we take books or magazines for car afficionados, Porsche might predominantly mean the car or the subsidiary. I hope you would see the pattern that "what kind of person you are" decides what publication to choose as reliable sources, and their view point that determine the primary use. There may be more car magazines than wristwatch magazines, but there are numerous business/investment publications and newspapers on economy whose primary use of the word is likely biased toward the parent. Currently there is no article that describes Porsche brand or marque, but if it is going to be created, I believe it should include watches, sunglasses, bags, pens, clothing, wallets, umbrellas, etc., and these non-car products do not belong to the subsidiary. So the parent, the subsidiary, the cars and the brand are difficult to be cleanly separated, and the current consensus seems to be to split the current article into the parent and the subsidiary if this title and other problems are solved. May be a possible approach in the future is to have four separate articles on each of these, but we are not there yet. Yiba (talk | contribs) 11:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion it was a mistake to try to separate the parent company/corporation from the cars, and the cars from the the merchandizing non-car products... all are inter-related. The company would not exist without the cars, and the cars would not exist without the company. That said... in any article different sub-topics are appropriately given more weight than others. The cars are obviously the most notable sub-topic, and so should be given significant article space. The non-car products are worth perhaps a small section. Blueboar (talk) 11:42, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Blueboar. I completely agree with you. The fact the owner/founder/designer of Porsche Design is the designer of the original Porsche 911 clearly illustrates the difficulty in separation. I think the way you described quite accurately reflect what WP:NPOV says. Recognizing/presenting minor points of view (if not insignificant), and allocating due weight is what we 'must' do, as the policy is non-negotioable. Now in the cases of article title selection in COMMONNAME and PRIMARYTOPIC discussions, the concept of due weight is difficult (if not impossible) to be applied because the selection normally requires picking one at the expense of the other(s). This makes the assignment of a well-known title to a disambiguation page more reasonable in this case, as it allows avoiding the placement of undue weight.

I generally agree with WP:COMMONNAME, however, this practice of assigning the well-known title to a dab-page (which is mentioned in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC in a different context), and the recognition of minor view points, are not mentioned in WP:COMMONNAME, and no explanation or instruction given on what to do when COMMONNAME arguments can be made in two or more directions by different points of view represented by countries, cultures or demography groups. This quideline says "editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering the criteria listed above", which in my mind violates WP:NPOV a bit because 'editors' are mostly in one extraordinary group, and no warning on the consideration to minor view points in general readership is given.

If I move on to a proposal to add this consideration (may be an addition of a new section) to WP:TITLE, what would be the chances of success? The way the above discussion progressed suggests that I have no reason to be optimistic. If that is the case, I will consider this RfC to be enough for what I can do and stop right here. Yiba (talk | contribs) 14:53, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I have arrived here as a result of an invitation to participate in this discussion. Although I am not an expert on Porsche, I have a fair amount of experience of RfC discussions. Many of these arise from a single dedicated editor adopting an obtuse attitude to an already-solved problem: this is what is happening here. The general precedent is quite clear (see, for example, Ferrari, Isetan, IBM, Sungard, and almost every other company): the "principle of least surprise" requires that searches for a company direct to a generic article on the company, generally focusing on the main business unit. In this case, therefore, the article should be about "Porsche", the car company, and its primary focus should be the achievements and activities of "Porsche AG". In addition, the article should contain notes about the company's business structure - whether it is part of a group, conglomerate, or whatever. We absolutely do not carry specific articles on particular group companies set up for the purpose of stock or bond issuance, unless these companies are in themselves notable. This is not the case with "Porsche SE". Suggestions that we consider the little old lady who has invested in Porsche SE on the grounds that she has no interest in sports cars are disingenuous: investors invest in companies on the basis of those companies' activities. This reality is already part of our existing approach: IBM issues its bonds through a range of special-purpose subsidiaries, and Sungard has over the years had a range of complicated subsidiaries whose purpose is to afford tax and legal efficiencies in its equity issuance, for example, but we do not have separate articles on these companies. Equally, with Ferrari and Isetan our articles are about the relevant operating companies, not about their parent or holding companies. We include information about holding companies, like information about subsidiaries, in the article on the main business unit. Where there are several distinctive operating companies in the same group, as is the case here, we have a separate article for each one. In this case we should therefore have separate articles on Bentley, Bugatti, etc.; each of these articles should describe each company's position in the group, and a link should be provided to the section in the main "Porsche" article describing the overall group structure. Where there is a clear leading company within the group (obviously the case with Porsche), nothing more need be done. In a small number of cases, where a holding company has been created by a notional "merger of equals" (e.g. Isetan and Mitsukoshi - this approach is common in Japan, less common elsewhere - we have a small article on the joint holding company, but focus our efforts on the articles about the individual components of the group). Note that Wikipedia is not an economic or investment bulletin or tip-sheet; it is not our business to make economic or investment assessments, so we should only describe the group structure, not include assessments of its relative economic or business efficiency. We should guard against including comments from pundits or tipsters, however well-referenced, recalling that most commentators on such issues will have a conflict of interest. RomanSpa (talk) 08:12, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the effort in writing the comment. I was going to dismiss this discussion as a fruitless attempt at countering systemic bias, but your arguments prompted me to respond.

As I repeatedly stated above, the current Porsche AG was established in 2007 by spinning off car-making operations from Porsche SE. The current Porsche SE came into being (also in 2007) as a result of changing the old Porsche AG name to Porsche SE. So the current Porsche AG did not create Porsche SE, but instead it was Porsche SE that created the subsidiary Porsche AG. Porsche SE owns Volkswagen AG, and Porsche AG was sold by Porsche SE to Volkswagen AG. As Volkswagen AG owns Audi, Bentley, Bugatti and Porsche AG, Volkswagen AG is the leading 'operating' company within the group (with much larger car production and sales than Porsche AG) according to your logic (In fact, this --giving 'Porsche' title to Porsche SE article and merge Porsche AG article into VW article-- is the way Hindi Wikipedia organizes its Porsche articles, which makes sense). Moreover, since Porsche SE was created by changing the name of the old Porsche operating company, the "achievements and activities" of Porsche before 2007 belong to Porsche SE, not to its grand-child subsidiary Porsche AG, which has only 8 years of history. I know what the general convention is, and I accept that you don't know much about Porsche, but do you still insist on your logic after understanding this much?

Since the notability on the parent is clear with the length of achievement and activity history alone (there are other factors supporting the notability as well, which are described somewhere above), I agree with Blueboar's assessment that the need for disambiguation outweighs the desire to use the COMMONNAME, and that there is no primary topic. It appears that majority of editors here do not subscribe to business or economy publications, but millions of others do, and not all of them recognize Porsche to be a Volkswagen subsidiary born in 2007. Ignoring the reader view point that considers business, economy, history, or brand outside of production cars to be more significant, or the editor stand points of Wikiproject Companies, Germany and Brands is a violation of WP:NPOV. You or I considering something to be insignificant has no influence on COMMONNAME and PRIMARYTOPIC arguments. It is the readers who decide COMMONNAME and PRIMARYTOPIC, and we editors are supposed to be making judgements on behalf of the readers. I just hope many editors who participated in this discussion have come to see that subtle but important difference. Yiba (talk | contribs) 16:41, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I don't insist on a particular position, and am quite susceptible to persuasion. However, I do not find your reasoning persuasive. I believe you have arrived at your position because you have confused form with substance. The naming and re-naming of different companies in a business grouping, and the creation of subsidiaries with the same name as a predecessor company in the group, is a common phenomenon. However, it is generally the case that such changes happen for legal and accounting reasons, and do not change the substance of the business. In my earlier comments I specifically mentioned the case of Sungard, because I have recently had to become familiar with its business structure (for non-Wikipedia reasons) and noticed a clear parallel with the case of Porsche. (For full details, read its filings with the SEC.) The parallel lies in the careful restructuring for tax and legal purposes of a fundamentally unchanged business unit. It is fairly clear that the current Porsche AG has inherited the structure of the older Porsche AG, and that Porsche SE exists for reasons of legal and business form, not business substance. This is self-evident when you look at the company's (that is, "Porsche AG"'s) website, where it specifically refers to a business tradition that is many decades long. The "principle of least surprise" requires that we follow this in the way we present information in our articles. This is not to say that we should not include a description of the group structure, but this should not be granted undue priority. As I remarked earlier, I think you are confusing form and substance. RomanSpa (talk) 17:08, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC on official names versus common names

There is an RFC on WP:PPAP's naming conventions, which stipulate that official names should be used over common names, at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Political_parties_and_politicians_in_Canada#RFC_on_official_names_versus_common_names that you may be interested in commenting on. TDL (talk) 01:03, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Quotation marks in article titles using <q> tag

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Quote tags

Toward a standard for disambiguating titles of articles on domestic animal breeds

Anyone who turns this into a capitalization argument will be WP:TROUTed.

Summary:

• In real-world sources, there are no domestic animal breed names that are not disambiguated by appending the species name when disambiguation is needed.
• Specialist publications devoted to particular kinds of domestic animals virtually never disambiguate the names at all, because they don't need to within their content (e.g. in a sheep journal, "Costwold" always refers to a breed of sheep).
• As a result, specialist publications cannot help us determine how to disambiguate here; at best they only tell use what the "official name" is (and even then, only if they're published by breed registries).
• Parenthetical disambiguation is already used for individual animals (e.g. racehorses, TV dogs, etc.).
• There thus doesn't seem to be an policy-based or common-sense reason to depart from using natural disambiguation (Caldes rabbit), instead of parenthetical (Caldes (rabbit)), for breed names.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:29, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Original long version:

There's a lot of ground to cover with regard to this issue. I'll try to break this into succinct paragraphs, since the total length is significant. Part of what's going on in various disputes with regard to how to name domestic breed articles is pure confirmation bias. An article title in the form Breedname species only sounds weird to someone to whom the Breedname string only and always refers to the kind of creature in species. Meanwhile, to everyone else in the world it's perfectly normal to append species so we all know WTF is being talked/written about.  :-) Meanwhile, if one specialist in the topic of insert-species-here asks another specialist in the same topic, they'll immediately agree with each other, as if engaging in a ritual of mutual grooming, that the species part is not part of the name even for WP purposes. This is two lions agreeing together that the antelope is for dinner and calling this an consensus against which the antelope is just being a tendentious filibusterer. Since no one but me in the debate to date seems to be into cats, let's use them as an example so no one gets territorial about what I'm saying here. To a cat breeder, or a subscriber to Cat Fancy magazine, or some other form of "cat person", the cat breed named "Himalayan" is formally named simply the Himalayan, and only Himalayan. Most if not all registries and breeder associations will call this breed "Himalayan" or "the Himalayan" (or one of its alternate names like "the Himalayan Persian"), without "cat" appended. Well of course they don't append "cat", since they already know they're talking about cats when they're talking amongst themselves and writing for their own members! They only time they would, in their usual context, is when the phrase itself is so ambiguous even they can't stand it, as in the case of the Norwegian Forest cat, Norwegian forest cat or Norwegian Forest Cat, depending on how you like to capitalize (a debate I suggest we not re-open right now; let's focus on one thing at a time, here). Here the WP:Specialist style fallacy will come into play with dyed-in-the-fur cat people [theoretically – I haven't seen any of them actually do it] demanding that the "true name", the "real name", whatever, is "Himalayan", that the article should be at that title, and that if it isn't the "primary topic" for that title it should be disambiguated with an awkward parenthetical as Himalayan (cat). The problem with this is that this idea is not supported by non-specialist sources, which invariably disambiguate by appending the species, thus Himalayan cat. Even specialists don't actually avoid the species name all the time, only when inside the "cat people" context. Thus, many breed orgnizations (across all sorts of domestic animals) do in fact include the species name, because at least some of their organizers realized that people not already familiar with what the org is about will be confused by a name that doesn't include it. "Not already familar" is what we presume about our readers, BTW. Some orgs still drop it the species, but this is more true of small and local groups than national and international ones, almost across the board. E.g. we have the Atlantic Himalayan Club, which begs the question "Himalayan what?" to everyone but is own members, and the Seattle Persian and Himalayan Rescue (which sounds like mountaineering SAR performed half a world away somehow), but the national/international Persian and Himalayan Cat Rescue (PHCR), the Himalayan Cat Club [of Australia][3][4], and so on. Plenty of the local ones do it, too: Himalayan Cat Fanciers (of Concord, New Hampshire)[5]. Meanwhile, pet/veterinarian/agricultural sites routinely add the species name: "Himalayan Cat | Cat Breeds" at Petfinder[6], "Himalayan Cat Adoption - Search & Adopt a Himalayan Cat" at AdoptAPet[7], "Himalayan Cat Breed Information, Pictures, Characteristics" at CatTime.com[8], "Himalayan Cat Breeders: Fanciers Breeder Referral List" at BreedList.com[9], and on and on. The same sort of results abound, regardless of the species, and regardless of the type of name (e.g. geographical adjective as in this case, or geographical noun, human surname-based, descriptive, etc.). The only generally categorical exception is when the breed name includes a synonym of the species name, or some other redundancy. E.g. it would usually not be expected to write/say "Dachshund dog", because -hund is the combining form of the word that means "dog" in German. Similarly the Ocicat breed would almost never be called the "Ocicat cat". [Various wild subspecies, and domestic landraces and generic types, none of which are breeds, are treated this way because their names are unitary and essentially include the concept of the species within them, e.g. dingo, boar, burro and pony, not "dingo dog", "boar pig", "burro donkey" or "pony horse". Few if any domestic breeds are treated this way.] Every marginally fluent English speaker knows to append the species any time one feels it's necessary for disambiguation or clarity; we all do this, all the time. When asked what pets she has, someone with a little menagerie will readily say something like "I have a Sokoke cat, a Barbet dog and Hungarian Warmblood horse" (unless hoping someone will ask for clarification, to keep the conversation going or whatever). The exact degree to which the appending happens varies primarily by probable familiarity of the breed to the intended audience, not to the writer/speaker. And this is a crucial point: Our presumption at WP is that no breed is familiar to any given reader. We presume this lack of familiarity about all topics in our naming and writing here. [If this doesn't seem reasonable, consider how many people know English around the world and use en.wp, and ask yourself if you're really certain that very common breeds in your country actually are common in ever single other country, and you have statistical facts to prove this. :-] Keep in mind also that more breeds are created every year, while very few go extinct, an increasing number of them are named for breeds of other animal due to appearance similarities, and virtually no one on the planet knows the same of every breed of every kind of domesticated animal. Next, WP:AT instructs us repeatedly to use natural disambiguation rather than parenthetical when we can. The most common name within specialist literature is one thing, but the most common name in writing when a breed name will not be understood immediately to be a breed name and of what, is to disambiguate by adding the species, e.g. "Himalayan cat". Even a breeder would do this in a situation that called for it, e.g. when talking about cats to dog people, or when talking about Himalayan cats in a context in which someone might think Himalayan people were meant, e.g. a conversation about Buddhists or Asia. Finally (for this short summary of the issue - I haven't gotten into proofs with n-grams, etc.), WP:OFFICIALNAME is especially important in this context. It really doesn't matter if the official name of a breed doesn't include "cat" (or "dog" or "horse" or "duck" or whatever) in the internal documentation of breeder and fancier organizations; we still need to use whatever name best suits all of the naming criteria and resolves their tensions with the reader, not the editor, most in mind. In the course of doing that we notice clearly that WP:COMMONNAME has precedence over OFFICIALNAME and many other concerns. As with all policies and guidelines the analysis of this naming procedure is also tempered by WP:COMMONSENSE. In closing, simply doing what we all normally do in the course of using English, and what a plain reading of WP:AT, WP:DAB, etc. tell us to do, without trying to shove contorted interpretations into it, yields a very clear answer to how to disambigate breed names here, that is totally independent of any topical/wikiproject-specific arguments or positioning (which have and might continue to lead to completely different handling of such articles titles depending on species and what project claims scope and wants to make up its own rules). Using natural disambiguation, which is the most common name (per COMMONNAME) outside of specialist-to-specialist jargonistic usage in insider publications, is a clear KISS principle matter, and also satisfies the principle of least astonishment.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:05, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment I agree with SMcCandlish that it seems more natural to disambiguate a breed name by adding the English name of the species without parentheses. So "Persian cat" seems more natural to me than "Persian (cat)" or "Alsatian dog" than "Alsatian (dog)". On the other hand, I'm not sure that it matters much; a lot of passion gets expended on article titles, and a lot of time wasted arguing about them, both of which seem pointless to me. Provided that there are redirects from the other forms, and that the name ignoring styling is both common and precise, does it really matter which style is used in the title? Yes, it's tidier to have them all the same, but Wikipedia is never going to be as tidy as a paper encyclopedia organized by an editorial committee, so if there's any significant opposition, I take the view that this isn't worth bothering with. But nevertheless, SMcCandlish is surely right that the form without parentheses is more natural. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:39, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

There's a wall of text here and I would recommend that you detail out exactly what you agree and disagree with. Dreadstar ☥ 08:23, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Dreadstar's comment was general or addressed to me. If the latter, then I agree that if we were starting from the beginning and choosing between with or without parentheses around the species name in order to disambiguate a breed, I would choose without parentheses, as it's seems more natural to me – to that extent I agree with SMcCandlish. However, I'm not convinced that there's a need for a new rule (i.e. more instruction creep), if the choice is controversial. So I await further discussion before !voting on changing WP:AT. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

In the context of cats, such as in a cat magazine, of course the word "cat" is going to be minimised, and "Persian cat" will become "Persian". The alternative is that "cat" is reused a thousand times within the one magazine, tedious to all but the most autistic cat lover. Recognizability, as determined by prevalence sources, should consider the best sources most highly, and the best sources are independent. The best sources to look for evidence of broad audience recognizability are sources that do not assume a context of familiarity with the topic.

I agree with all of  SMcCandlish's points. However, I don't see the question or proposed action. Does someone want to retitle Himalayan cat? Is there a battle elsewhere trying to depose WP:NATURAL? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't proposing an action (certainly not modifying AT itself), just opening a discussion on whether this interpretation of AT seems to be correct. Yes, some do want to retitle Himalayan cat and all similar articles on all breeds to names like Himalayan (cat). Others want to do this for all breed articles of a specific species, just "because". Many dog breeds are parenthetical names, for example, and were moved back to them after being moved to natural disambiguation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• To be honest, both formats seem equally acceptable to me. Both can be supported by policy, and so the debate becomes a narrow wikilayerish one that really centers on the question of which criteria each of us thinks is "more important" than the others. To cut through the BS, let me ask a more basic question... is there really a need for a standard format for these titles? What is wrong with one article being at "X cat" and another at "Y (cat)"? ... especially since we can easily create a redirect pages for whichever title isn't chosen. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

@Blueboar: I agree that provided redirects are created, inconsistency isn't a real problem (it just offends some editors' preference for tidiness/standardization). However, the reality is that redirects aren't always created when they should be, so I guess there's a weak argument for consistency of title style/format being helpful to readers. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:57, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Peter, f an appropriate redirect does not yet exist... create it. Problem solved. Blueboar (talk) 01:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• How does one search for all "Y (cat)"s? I was only able to find Trim (cat). I don't see any in Category:Cat breeds. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:49, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Apparently a number of them were in fact recently moved away from the "(cat)" pattern, in early June, some of them by SMcCandlish himself and some by Sphilbrick. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:47, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Right. Same with goats, sheep, dogs, etc. The dog ones were moved back to parenthetical disambiguation, and some have suggested doing this with the others, on the basis that the moves were "controversial", but no one seems able to articulate a reason for them to be named parenthetically other than "our wikiproject likes it that way". I'm trying to see if all eyes on WT:AT can actually come up with any. So far it's not looking like it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Blueboard, we have policies and guidelines for predictable article naming for various reasons that the community finds compelling enough to bother with. This isn't a debate about whether those reasons are good enough, it's a discussion about how to implement them with regard to breeds. I and a few others had moved the parenthetically disambiguated stragglers among the breed articles to natural disambiguation (many were already natural-DABed), and these moves were declared by some editors (mostly from the dogs project) to be "controversial". Yet, here I'm seeing resistance to the idea of even discussing the matter, so is there a real controversy? Anyway, there are actual reasons to favor one over the other; a parenthetically disambiguated name would indicate that the name is always and invariably used, even in mainstream, non-specialist sources in contexts where they need to disambiguate, without the species name attached. This is true of several wild subspecies, e.g. peccary, javelina, dingo, etc., but so far I cannot find a single case of any breed of any kind of domestic animal where this is the case, except as noted above where the name itself would make this redundant because it already includes a word for the species. As Montanabw points out below, a parenthetical may also indicate an individual animal. So that's already two reasons to not use parenthetical disambiguation for breed names. Both formats aren't actually supported by policy. There is no breed name that is not naturally disambiguated, when disambiguated is needed, in independent reliable sources. This mistake being made here is the assumption that sources entirely about [insert species here, e.g. dogs] can tell us anything about how to disambiguate dog names; they can't because they never disambiguate them at all; "Akita" never refers, in a dog magazine or book, to anything but a dog breed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• I think this stick needs to drop; see no need for an overall bright line rule across multiple animal breeds. What is going on here in part is that some animal breeds use natural disambiguation (Siamese cat) and others use parenthetical disambiguation (Siamese (cat) ) Usually it is a project-wide consensus (yes, the dreaded "LOCALCONSENSUS") but arrived at for good reason based on the unique circumstances surrounding each animal. For example, WikiProject poultry is not going to need to deal with thousands upon thousands of articles about individually-named chickens! But is is an issue for companion and working animals - in the project I work on most, WikiProject Equine, we have thousands of articles on individually named animals (mostly race horses) as well as several hundred breeds. Parenthetical disambiguation works well for the individually named animals, such as Salerno (horse), which needs to be distinguished from the breed, whose article is titled Salerno horse. We also have Hackney horse and Hackney pony. Conversely, at wikiproject dogs, they made precisely the opposite decision as they encountered the very awkward situation of Billy (dog), and individual animal, AND Billy (dog breed), which to use parenthetical dab made more sense than Billy dog, which even I must admit resembles Billy goat more than a breed name. They are currently having a debate about if it's German Shepherd or German Shepherd Dog (with a couple wags arguing for Alsatian). While I might put in my two cents for the value of natural disambiguation, I see the wisdom of letting the projects work out their own naming scheme within the broader guidelines of the MOS - of both methods are acceptable broadly, no need to impose needlessly rigid rules. Montanabw^(talk) 17:29, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

  Agreed. If disambiguation is not necessary for technical reasons (no other uses of that title have articles on WP), then don't disambiguate. If disambiguation is required, then follow sources. If sources use natural disambiguation, then so do we. If they don't, then we use parenthetical disambiguation. Simple. Clear. Helpful. --В²C ☎ 19:30, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

  B2c, the problem there is that no sources ever use parenthetical disambiguation; it's a Wikipedia invention. All sources use natural dismabiguation when they have to disambiguate. See my original post and SmokeyJoe's response. The entire issue is that breed names are almost never disambiguated in breeder-oriented publications, because in a dog magazine you already know they're talking about dogs, so they're not going to insert "dog" 1000 times in the same magazine, after all the breed names. No disambiguation is needed in those publications. Meanwhile, all non-specialist publications like newspapers, will disambiguate naturally; it's just how English works. Despite this, some editors (mostly in a couple of wikiprojects, imagine that) have decided amongst themselves to use parenthetical disambiguation with some but not all breed names, for no clear reason.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

  Sources rarely use parenthetic disambiguation for any subjects - there is nothing unique about that in this case. But many topics are naturally disambiguated in sources. Maybe all of these topics are; I don't know. But I presume there are breed names that normally don't need to be disambiguated in sources, but do need it here. Say Mustang (horse). Holy cow (no pun intended), that article is at Mustang horse. This is a perfect example of what's wrong with that convention. That article needs to be moved! --В²C ☎ 00:29, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

  Except a) some sources do actually use "mustang horse(s)", and mustangs are not a breed anyway, but a wild population like boars and dingos, so they're unrelated to the discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

  Montanabw, no stick is beating anything here. An ANI case in which you participated recently closed with the conclusion that moving these articles around without discussion can't continue; resolving this thus necessitates that discussion happen. Objecting to the discussion taking place isn't helpful. At any rate, the examples you provide are actually a clear reason, site-wide, to not use parenthetical disambiguation for breeds, the lone odd case of Billy (dog) vs. Billy dog vs. Billy (dog breed) notwithstanding. That breed name is going to be awkward no matter what is done with it. And the dogs project did not disambiguate the way you say they did. There is no individual "Billy (dog)" article; they put the breed name at "Billy (dog)", and when it was moved to "Billy dog", they moved it back; "Billy (dog breed)" is a redlink. Regardless, one case to work around can't reasonably thwart the adoption of a general standard that works for 1000 or so other articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• Question: has anyone notified the relevant WikiProjects of this discussion? Those would probably include, at the very least, Cats, Dogs, Rodents, Horses, Poultry, Farm, and of course Birds. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• In progress. I ran out of time yesterday. Some of domestics of which there are breeds don't have their own projects, just WP:WikiProject Agriculture/Livestock task force. WP:BIRDS isn't relevant; they cover wild species, not breeds, which are covered by WP:POULTRY. Done. NB: There is no WikiProject Farm.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Try these:

1. Wikipedia:FARM
2. Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Domestic pigeon task force

Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

1. Already notified at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Agriculture/Livestock task force
2. Inactive for two years, and should be part of the poultry project, but I notified it anyway. Aren't you capable of using the edit button, too? Heh. It would have taken about as long to post multiple times here about projects needing notices as to simply go give them notices.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Just been notified of this by a post on WikiProject Poultry. I personally don't really care about which is used. I don't intend to waste my energy on debating it, because I think either works provided the other is a redirect to it. I intend to spend my energies on improving articles; we don't need a lovely, standardised Wiki with no content. Not that it really matters, SMcC edited all poultry articles to his preference about two weeks ago (and managed to stuff up several breeds in the progress, which the project has got to get around to untangling). JTdale ^Talk 11:23, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• Contra Please, let it be a Hamburg (chicken). I am so tired of discussiuns like

Q: What is the name of the breed?

Aa) "Hamburg",

Ab) "Hamburg chicken" or

Ac) "Hamburg Chicken".

All versions are possible. Hamburg (chicken) fits all options and is better for interwikilinks: [[Hamburg (chicken)|]] --> Hamburg. There are really better things to do than moving articles headlessly around. Most exisiting articels are outdated stubs.

By the way: American Game chicken is ridiculous and poorly wrong. If you don't like American Game (chicken) use American Game Fowl. Same goes with Sebright chicken. If you don't like Sebright (chicken), use Sebright Bantam! But be warned: non english native speakers do not know "Fowl" and "Bantams", but they do know "chicken"! So, non native speekers may have an idea what a American Game (chicken) may be, but never with American Game Fowl or a Sebright Bantam. --PigeonIP (talk) 14:42, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

You're aware that the original article title was American Game, right? Regardless what the ideal title would be, that was the worst possible choice. The article is at American Game fowl presently. Given your that redirects work, why wouldn't we use "fowl"? What evidence is there that only native English speakers use it? Is there a provision in AT to rename articles to the names most likely to be recognized by non-native speakers? Are you proposing to move all the articles that already are at "... fowl" names? There are quite a few, and there were before I moved any poultry articles. Why would whether something is an old stub have anything to do with how we name it? Finally, the capitalization issue (not the topic of this discussion will surely eventually sort out; it simply won't be true that "Hamburg Chicken" (or "Hamburg Fowl"), "Hamburg chicken" (or "Hamburg fowl") and "Hamburg" will all be equally acceptable as article titles. We already know that "Hamburg" by itself isn't and would have to be disambiguated. And even fans of capitalizing the breed names (Hamburg would be anyway because it's a proper name) don't capitalize the species/type term that follows it except in cases where is always used (American Quarter Horse, not American Quarter horse, because no one says "American Quarter", which sounds like coinage). So, again, there doesn't seem to be a cogent argument here for anything but "Hamburg chicken", other than perhaps "Hamburg fowl", which for purposes of this discussion is the same sort (i.e. it's not "Hamburg (fowl)").  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Dear SMcCandlish, you moved it without thinking/revision from American Game (chicken) to American Game chicken [10]. As you did with a lot more poltry and pigeon breeds, as I saw on wikidata.

There is nothing wrong with the existing "fowls" or "bantams", like Old English Pheasant Fowl, because these are official given names of the breeds (with references [11] [12]). Because of that (official given name) your move and "typo" to Old English Pheasant fowl was wrong, as well.

I do have a very big problem with the next rename-troll on Commons because of the naming guidelines there. That is where non native-english-speakers have to work with this mess (CatScan) and can't handle it. Thank you very much, for the following amount of file-categorisation-work there.

Your work would be most welcome, if there really was a problem and you would take a minutes to google the proper name. But you do mindlessly jump into action to create not used names that others have to correct... Only with a lot of WP:AGF I do not think of plain Wikipedia:Vandalism#Page-move vandalism ... --PigeonIP (talk) 19:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and befor you start the pigeon vs. Pigeon discussion: as you can see in the List of Fancy Pigeon Breeds, there are breeds with "Pigeon", like the Mulhouse Pigeon, the Saar Pigeon or the Ice Pigeon. With article-names like Jacobin (pigeon) it is clear to everyone, that "pigeon" is not part of the name of the breed. And if you had asked me befor you moved Archangel (pigeon) to Archangel pigeon, I would have asked you to move to Gimple, because this is the more general name of the breeds (as you also could have read in the article). --PigeonIP (talk) 19:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Mustang RM notification

I'm a firm believer in establishing local consensus on individual actual articles before changing policy based on local consensus (see User:Born2cycle/FAQ#Shouldn't you get the policy/guideline changed, rather than try to subvert it one article at a time?), hence this Mustang horse → Mustang (horse) RM at Talk:Mustang_horse#Requested_move_-_July_2014. --В²C ☎

• I don't think the above discussion speaks to this example. This example concerns an alleged contrived natural disambiguation, thus not a natural disambiguation. If no one says "That's a mustang horse over there", it is contrived. If it is natural to say "That's a Persian cat over there", then "Persian cat" is a natural disambiguation. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:49, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Furthermore (with reference to the larger topic here, not just that RM), mustangs, like boars, dingoes, etc., are not a breed but a wild or feral population. While a species is not commonly appended after such names, it is sometimes and specifically to disambiguate, in real-world sources.[13] Note that the "mustang horse[s]" usage shot up rapidly after the WWII introduction of a fighter plane by the same name. Regardless, this has no impact on the larger question of Clydesdale horse vs. Clydesdale (horse). B2c seem unclear on the purpose of this discussion, which is not "changing policy based on local consensus", but avoiding any further WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy problems of trying to set a "rule" an individual article at a time, by instead properly applying a general one evenly. PS: As Montanabw already noted, the format "Mustang (horse)" is used by WP:EQUINE as an explicit convention for naming articles on individual notable animals like racehorses, and so conflicts with B2c's suggestion to rename.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

LOCALCONSENSUS means that a group of editors can't over-ride an agreed policy. Is always choosing "X species" rather than "X (species)" an agreed policy? If not, then LOCALCONSENSUS is irrelevant. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:12, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

That's a novel interpretation. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS doesn't actually say that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:17, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

On the contrary, that's exactly what it says. Read it again. There's nothing wrong with groups of editors reaching a local consensus; it's the essence of Wikipedia. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is crystal clear that its objection is to this consensus seeking to override a "community consensus on a wider scale" (which it seems to me has to be a policy or guideline, otherwise how would we know there was such a consensus?) or a "generally accepted policy or guideline". I repeat my question: is there a policy or guideline which says always choose "X species" rather than "X (species)"? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:33, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, in either case, the RM is over there. Let me say here that there is no difference in saying "that's a Persian cat" or that's a Mustang horse". I might as easily say, "that cat is a Persian." But a comment here is that the Mustang is not a dingo - The dingo is a distinct subspecies of dog, the Mustang is merely a type of domestic horse (E. ferus caballus, not E. ferus ferus) many of which have been captured, tamed, trained are are now being bred in captivity. So without getting into complicated political discussions (as opposed to biology where we have NO controversies! /snark), some bands clearly are "breeds" and others contain genetic markers clearly showing near-pure descent from breeds, and some are the descendants of the stud horse Local Rancher turned out with some captured Indian ponies, so it's nigh on impossible to really say if the Mustang is precisely a breed, a crossbreed, a landrace or what; save that it has unique characteristics that derive in part from its environment, but also in part from whose local horses got stolen/turned loose/deliberately introduced to various herds. For convenience on wiki, we use "breed", as it clearly isn't a subspecies. With horses, it's a minefield to get into the question of landrace issues, particularly in the western United States, where even with pedigreed bloodstock, today some people still turn a stallion loose with a herd of mares and hope to see a bunch of little cow ponies in the spring. Montanabw^(talk) 23:17, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is that SMcCandlish raised the issue here to discover what the community view was on having a general rule in the MOS that titles like "Mustang (horse)" when used for disambiguation would be at least deprecated if not forbidden. So it's not just a matter of a specific RM, and the issue of whether to decide such matters by local consensus or by a MOS rule is a real one. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:13, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Peter do you mean the WP:MOS or the AT Policy and its naming conventions? -- PBS (talk) 14:53, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

• Just want to note that someone at the RM has made an alternative proposal that would make the whole Mustang horse vs. Mustang (horse) debate irrelevant - the proposal is that the horse type be considered the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and that it be moved to the non-disambiguated title Mustang... and the dab page be moved to Mustang (disambiguation). Works for me. Blueboar (talk) 12:02, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

wp:commonname

This is just a really, really dumb policy. After all, this is supposed to be an encyclopaedia... - ^theWOLFchild 22:43, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

The policy is good. It is the shortcut that is unfortunate. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:45, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The policy "Use commonly recognizable names" makes sense. The notion that it trumps everything else, or that only "the most common" is OK, causes a lot of trouble. Dicklyon (talk) 01:58, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@Thewolfchild: It’s a good policy. Sometimes it’s applied dumbly. But if you’d like to share your specific concerns with it, that would be helpful here. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 06:23, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Basically, I think every article here should have it's proper/official name as the title. If it is known by another names(s), (short-form, nick-name, some variant, etc.), then that should be mentioned in the opening paragraph and there should be a re-direct(s) created for it. It's more professional, respectful, accurate and in some cases, respectful. What is the argument here - that people will search for the 'most common' name in use? Fine, that's what re-directs are for - if you're looking for it, you'll find it. Some of the articles here have stupid nicknames that might not even be accurate, but because one guy found a source, and four more people backed him up, as opposed to the three people (at the time) who want the official name... then it stays. And the project looks silly and amateurish. It's a stupid policy.- ^theWOLFchild 08:17, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually it is a good policy which is sometimes applied in a silly and amateurish way. To give you an example William Jefferson Clinton -v- Bill Clinton. One is his "official name" and the other his common name. In a case like that common name makes perfect sense. If you have an example where you think it has been applied wrong, let us know. --Richhoncho (talk) 08:51, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

We often do use official names for article titles, and incidentally the official name is often a common name for the subject. In the case I believe you’re concerned with, the disagreement is over what the official name actually is: the one used in print, or the one portrayed in a logo. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 09:02, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

"Often" is not always. And I'm not here because of just one case. I've seen several articles with the same problem, and have been involved in naming disputes before... all because of this stupid policy. - ^theWOLFchild 06:00, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I see your point, but that ship has sailed. For better or for worse, for article titles, when there is a conflict, Wikipedia favors the name most commonly used in reliable sources over the "official name" of a topic. Is that encyclopedic? That's a valid question, though not necessarily relevant. Wikipedia is not a traditional encyclopedia and is therefore not always "encyclopedic" in terms of how things are managed here. --В²C ☎

"That ship has sailed"? Why? ...because the article titles are carved in stone? I'm aware WP favours this - that's why I'm complaining about it. - ^theWOLFchild 06:00, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

It's important to remember that WP:COMMONNAME really sets forth a methodology, not a goal in itself. The goal is to have a title that is Recognizable, Natural, Precise, Concise and Consistent. The most commonly used name (if there is one) is almost always going to be the one that best achieves these five basic goals. It is also important to remember that the most commonly used name might well be the "official" name. Blueboar (talk) 21:13, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

A "methodology"? What does that have to do with this? A subject can have multiple names, all in common use, that are "Recognizable, Natural, Precise, Concise and Consistent". That's why we have redirects and descriptive intros, known as leads. The official, proper name is just that - I don't see how we can justify labeling it anything else. - ^theWOLFchild 06:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I've come across a few articles where this policy has been applied in a silly way, and because too many people here can't use logic and/or think for themselves, foolishly believe that these "policies" are cast forever in stone and therefore, no changes can be made... ever.

Perfect example: House, M.D. - at least, that's what it should be called. But, someone changed it to simply "House". The show's proper title is "House, M.D." But some sources, whether referring to the character, or just lazily dropping the "M.D.", have used just "House", so some people here think that wp:commonname" dictates that must be the article title. (apparently wp:naturalids and wp:commonsense don't apply). Where's the methodology? - ^theWOLFchild 07:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Thewolfchild: No disrespect, but I think you’re missing the point of WP:COMMONNAME. It doesn’t mean that we blindly choose the most popular name. It means that the name we choose should be one that is actually used. Assuming you’re right about the show’s official title: If no one actually uses that official name when referring to it, then neither should we. That is, the question wasn’t whether “House, M.D.” was a real name; it was whether anyone actually calls it that. If your arguments had included examples of reputable sources that used the “M.D.,” if you’d shown that the name was in use, I wager you would have been much more successful. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 03:23, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not "missing the point" - it's that very point that I disagree with. This is an encyclopedia. It should use proper/official names. I don't give a rat's ass if people "hardly ever use it" or not, nor do I care if they more commonly use an alternative name, whether it's a bastardization, short form, nick-name or anything else. The article title should be the proper name. If the article subject is more commonly known by something else, well... that's what redirects and leads are for. - ^theWOLFchild 05:55, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Wolf - We respect the fact that you disagree with COMMONNAME, but don't expect the policy to change any time soon. There is a very strong consensus behind COMMONNAME. Please (grudgingly, if necessary) accept the fact that Wikipedia consensus has decided to favor a more commonly used "unofficial" name over a less common (and therefor less recognizable and natural) "Official" name. Blueboar (talk) 11:41, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

"...don't expect the policy to change any time soon." - I don't. I know why this has been done. I just don't agree with it, nor do I see the need for it. It makes WP look amateurish. What's next... re-name New York City "The Big Apple"? I bet I can find plenty of sources that call it that. But there's no need. We have re-directs for that, (along with any other nick-names). Just as we can denote it in the lead (or anywhere appropriate in the article). Sometimes "consensus" amounts to nothing more than a popularity contest among a very small group of people at one random moment along an article's timeline. Consensus isn't always the answer. 10 years ago, WP needed all the volunteer it could get to build something. Well, now it's built, we need to be more professional to maintain it. wp:commonname isn't professional, it's just momentarily popular. - ^theWOLFchild 00:36, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a project governed by community consensus. That is its nature as an “encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” In short, barring exceptional cases like legal issues, consensus is always the answer on Wikipedia (and it’s important to remember that consensus can change). It sounds like what you want is for a dedicated professional editorial team to take control… and as I understand it, such a team is free to fork Wikipedia’s content and do exactly that, so long as they adhere to the CC and GFDL licenses. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 04:03, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• 1) Tell me something I don't already know. 2) Doesn't mean it's always the right answer. 3) "Sounds like"? 4) I'm pretty sure I said "we". 5) Then & Now. - ^theWOLFchild 01:17, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Re: What's next... re-name New York City "The Big Apple"? No, of course not... While there are a goodly number of sources that refer to that city by its nickname ("The Big Apple"), an overwhelming majority of sources call it "New York City". Thus "New York City" is the COMMONNAME, and what we should use. By the way... the Official name of that city is actually "The City of New York". Blueboar (talk) 00:11, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

• Which means the article should be titled; "The City of New York", with redirects for "New York City", "NYC", "The Big Apple", etc. By attacking the example, you've skipped the point. - ^theWOLFchild 01:17, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of the "point", I see this has become "pointless". Big surprise... - ^theWOLFchild 01:17, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:PRECISION On tropical cyclone names

Should the word "Cyclone" or "Typhoon" be removed from article titles? For example, Typhoon Haiyan is commonly called as such without the word "Typhoon" as in "Haiyan was the perfect storm". I'm not bringing hurricanes into the mix here, as their names are derived from names that are frequently used in English; I don't think an English speaker names their kid "Xangsane". –HTD 12:06, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Generally, a name is not considered precise if it is ambiguous. Haiyan, for example, is a disambiguation page, which also includes several place names. It would be difficult to show that a fleeting typhoon is the primary topic of that name, over several for more permanent geographic locations. bd2412 T 12:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Well sure "Haiyan" can stay where it is, but how about storms such as "Typhoon Xangsane"? Would they be moved to Xangsane? (which is a red link!) –HTD 13:17, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

This is where the goal of Consistency comes into play... Since most of our articles on storms do need to be disambiguated with "Tropical storm", "Hurricane", "Cyclone", "Typhoon", etc... our readers will expect to find the disambiguation... even for the few storms that might not need it. We disambiguate anyway... for the sake of consistency. Blueboar (talk) 13:25, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Most typhoons have names that are ambiguous to other topics, and would naturally include "Typhoon" in the title just as a disambiguator. I think that the few that are unique names should still be named consistently with those that include that term. Note, I have redirected Xangsane to Typhoon Xangsane. bd2412 T 13:27, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I dunno if "most" typhoon names are unambiguous as long as Wikipedia is concerned. Yes, they're named after something/some idea but that thing/idea isn't always in Wikipedia. Such as Xangsane or Ketsana. –HTD

Exactly. (Okay, this discussion was a ruse to bring up this topic; I'm totally on your side lol.) Consistency is the ignored stepsister amongst the five. People have focused too much on WP:PRECISION and WP:CONCISE to the detriment of the other three. –HTD 13:30, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

The reason consistency is the poor stepsister is that it is the one criteria that has the most exceptions. Yes, in broad scope, we want a degree of consistency... except we don't want mindless consistency. When consistency does not make sense, given the specific topic/subject under discussion, we are free to give it less weight (or even discard it completely). That said... in the case of storms, I think consistency is helpful. In that case, it isn't mindless. Blueboar (talk) 13:45, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd agree, and I'd add one more reason: there are a few classes of articles where we can invoke this criterion. It involves articles which have to be named on some sort of a pattern. For example, sports teams (<Place name> <nickname>) or places (<town name>, <state name>) or football clubs (<Place name> F.C.) or popes (Pope <Papal name>). The question is, if an article qualifies to this criterion, do we apply to everyone or do we have exceptions (defeating the purpose of the criterion). –HTD 18:21, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that the classes of articles you have mentioned are all rigidly consistent. Sports teams (I assume you mean NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB): I think the place name is an intrinsic part of the team's name and not because it's consistent. For place names, almost all countries use the <place name> format and only uses the <place name>, <state/region name> format when necessary for disambiguation. Football clubs: Inter Milan, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, D.C. United, Chivas USA. I agree that pope articles are rigidly consistent (discounting Saint Peter which is a really special exception). —seav (talk) 16:22, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

LOL at "almost all" countries. This is how we've referred to places for ages. Via addresses. To deny this is like saying the Earth is flat. As for sports names: yes, it's North American pro sports names, excluding sports teams elsewhere. It's like <given name> <surname> for most Western names. I dunno if it's "intrinsic", but again, that's the way they've been called since it became popular to call sports teams that way. For football teams, I'm referring to British teams. It's always ends in "F.C." except for places where rugby is popular, where it becomes "A.F.C.". So yes, it's consistent, for the "almost all" part. There could be an outlier but you could count the instances with your right hand. –HTD 17:20, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I thought we were talking about article titles and not addresses, yes? So looking at article titles, almost all countries' articles on places use the <place name> format. So, no: rigid consistency is not prioritized in titling articles on places here in the English Wikipedia. However, consistency with local guidelines is indeed usually applied. For example, if disambiguation is needed, then the disambiguators must be consistent. —seav (talk) 16:57, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

It gets even more confusing. Three examples:

• The Typhoon Haiyan article describes the deadliest Pacific Typhoon on record. The article's lead sentence has info on other designations for this tropical cyclone (and see the lead paragraph there for info on alternative and disambiguating terms). This article is linked from a disambiguation page titled Haiyan and is currently targeted by redirect pages titled Hurricane Haiyan, Super Typhoon Haiyan, Super Typhoon Yolanda, Super typhoon Haiyan, Super-typhoon Haiyan, Supertyphoon Haiyan, Tropical Storm Haiyan, Typhoon Haiyan (2013), Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), Typhoon Yolanda, Typhoon Yolanda (2013), Typhoon haiyan, and Typhoon haiyan (2013). The disambiguation page titled Haiyan contains disambiguations between three tropical cyclone articles: Tropical Storm Haiyan (2007), and Typhoon Haiyan (2013). The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) does not use official international names for tropical cyclones, and designated this one Typhoon Yolanda, and there was another tropical cyclone with that name in 1992 (See Tropical Storm Yolanda (1992)).
• The Typhoon Rammasun (2014) article describes a recent typhoon (July 10-20, 2014). It is currently targeted by two redirects, Tropical Storm Rammasun (2014) and Typhoon Glenda (2014), The Typhoon Rammasun article is a disambiguation page, listing entries for Typhoon Rammasun (2002), Typhoon Rammasun (2008), Typhoon Rammasun (2014), and Typhoon Rammasun (2014). PAGASA gave this typhoon the name "Glenda". The Typhoon Glenda article is a redirect to a disambiguation page titled Tropical Storm Glenda, which disambiguates between (using wikilinks from that article) 1963's Hurricane Glenda, 1965's Tropical Storm Glenda, 1969's Hurricane Glenda, 1973's Tropical Storm Glenda, and 1977's Tropical Storm Glenda, and notes that The name Glenda has also been used to name three tropical cyclones in the Philippines by PAGASA in the Western Pacific: 2006's Typhoon Kaemi, 2010's Typhoon Kompasu, 2014's and that the name Glenda has also been used for two tropical cyclones in the southwest Pacific: 1967's Cyclone Glenda and 2006's Cyclone Glenda.
• The Hurricane Katrina article is currently targeted by redirects from 12L.KATRINA, 12L.Katrina, 2005 Florida-Louisiana-Mississippi hurricane, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, 2005 Katrina, H katrina, Huricaine Katrina, Huricane Katrina, Hurrican Katrina, Hurricane Katarina, Hurricane Katrina (2005), Hurricane Katrina (contents), Hurricane Katrina (lists), Hurricane Katrina 2005, Hurricane Katrina and technology, Hurricane Katrina disaster, Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, Hurricane Kutrina, Hurricane katina, Hurricane katrina, Hurricane «Katrina», Hurricanekatrina, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Katrina (hurricane), Katrina 2005, Katrina Hurricane, Katrina Storm, Storm Katrina, Tropical Depression Twelve (2005), Tropical Storm Katrina (2005), and Typhoon Katrina.

Also see the List of hurricanes article.

Also, and probably most relevant to this discussion, I see that Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones has a style guide and an article guideline on naming articles. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Redirects are fine and cute, but only the actual title is in discussion, which is always in "Cyclone/Hurricane/Typhoon <name>". For cyclone names that are not derived from English (and probably French and Spanish), the article can be ***safely*** moved to the <cyclone name> as they are almost always redlinks.

As for article guideline, of course anyone could challenge that as what has been happening recently. –HTD 12:30, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

What's wrong with ambiguous or imprecise titles? What's the problem?

If not for the technical limitation that no two articles can have the exact same title, what's the harm in having an ambiguous or imprecise title? For example, other than the technical limitation, why couldn't the titles of the element, planet and myth that share the name "Mercury" all have the title Mercury? It strikes me that if not for the technical limitation and thus the need for disambiguation, and the articles about topics which don't have names and thus must have descriptive titles, almost all titles would be unrecognizable , ambiguous, and imprecise to most readers. Would that be a problem?

More to the point, whenever there is no other article with a given name (like the albums with date range names discussed above), what is the harm in using that name for the article title even when it is ambiguous or imprecise due to other uses in English, but none that have articles on Wikipedia? What is the benefit in using a more descriptive title? That is, how exactly is a user confused or harmed in any way by such a title? How do they not get to the article they're seeking, or how do they get to the wrong article, or how are they confused once they get there, because of such a title? How exactly do they benefit from making the title more descriptive? I just don't see what the problem is.

--В²C ☎ 15:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The principle of least surprise? Although the problem may be self-correcting in the long term, in some cases, the most common usage of the title may not have an article, while an obscure usage does. There may even be cases in which the most common usage of the title may not meet WP:N, while a less common one does. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

So people are surprised to find an article about an album named "1978-1990" at 1978–1990? And even so, this surprise is harmful or disruptive in what way? --В²C ☎ 17:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

You know full well the answer. But some of the answers are WP:BLP issues when you link to a real article at an ambiguous name. Some place names in England seem to have 10 or so different uses? How are we suppose to know as readers if we are at the wrong one? In an encyclopedia, accuracy is important. Being ambiguous or imprecise is not helpful. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

• Ambiguous or imprecise titling means that readers can't have confidence that article titles are meaningful. The question is so absurd, unless perhaps you are used to him asking inane questions, that I think the solution is to ban him from titling policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:21, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

If I understand the question correctly… you’re asking how having identically named articles about different subjects would be a bad thing for users? I think that’d be self-evident. How would it not be a bad thing? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 05:18, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Or wait, is this question just here to make a WP:POINT about a discussion above? Reductio ad absurdum? In that case it seems like this should be a subsection of that section. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 05:33, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not self-evident how identically named articles would be a bad thing for users. Please elaborate. Brittanica does it apparently with no issues.

And that's not all I'm asking. I'm also asking more generally about the need for titles to be descriptive - I'm questioning the value of descriptive titles (unless the description is to disambiguate when disambiguation is necessary for technical reasons). --В²C ☎ 20:31, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs), do you not have confidence that article titles in the online Brittanica are meaningful? They use ambiguous and imprecise titling. See below. --В²C ☎ 20:31, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

The question is serious. Principle of least surprise and some rare vague BLP issues is all you've got? You guys are so sure it's a problem, but you can't explain why. Brittanica does not have the technical limitation, so they just use the natural common names of topics, even if they're ambiguous with other uses, with apparently no ill effects. For example, they use the title Mercury for their articles about the planet[14], the god[15], and even the (relatively obscure) plant[16]. Is that a problem? How so? If it's not a problem there, why would it be a problem here? Why do we ever use anything other than the plain common name of a title, besides disambiguation required to resolve the technical limitation? --В²C ☎ 17:46, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

If you investigate more closely, you’ll find that, in its page titles and its search results [17], Britannica uses the same parenthetical disambiguation that we do. This is because of an inescapable technical limitation not of the server-side technology, but of language. Wikipedia could hide the disambiguation as Britannica does, but how would that be a benefit?
Also, yes, I do think said hiding is a problem there; I think Wikipedia handles ambiguous titles much more transparently and intuitively. If you’re looking for the planet and you somehow come across the article for the element instead, WP has a hatnote pointing to the DAB page. Britannica has no such nicety that I can find, and that seems to be a usability problem with their site. Would you happen to know how they handle it in print? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

TL;DR: Ambiguous and imprecise titles are a problem because ambiguity and imprecision are bad. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 21:58, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean Brittanica's page titles. When I got to each of the Mercury pages, the titles are all just Mercury. As to search results, our search results show the leads from each article, so finding the desired Mercury, for example, is not a problem, even if you don't look at the titles at all. [18].

Context matters. Ambiguity and imprecision are generally bad, but when you're looking at one given article, it has only one title, and it doesn't matter what it is - you're at the one article anyway. What is much more important, is that the title reflects how that topic is commonly referring in English; not give some especially clear description of the topic; that's what the lead is for.

So I still don't see how it's a problem to have a title like, say Desideratum or All the Best!, since that is how these topics are commonly referred in English sources. If you don't know what they are, click on them and you'll find out. --В²C ☎ 22:48, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

“I don't know what you mean Brittanica's page titles.”—Look at your title bar, the name of your browser window while the article’s page is open. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 23:56, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

В²C is being disingenuous. The reason Brittanica doesn't disambiguate the article title page is because the article name does not completely form the URL. In line with paper indexes and WP it does identify clearly the subject matter in its indexing in a manner very similar to WP's disambiguation. This particular debate started with B2C asking, "what's the harm in having an ambiguous or imprecise title?" to which there are two responses, one, Vegaswikian has already given the answer, the second is another question, "what's the harm in having an unambiguous or precise titles?" Or more commonly, should we use titles that are ambiguous or unambiguous? Precise or Imprecise? Taken to such a basic question (which B2C raised first) there can only be one preferred answer, unless we are determined to build the world's first lottery encyclopedia. The solution to B2C's points are at technical, not hanging around the talk pages of policies and guidelines and opposing every RM accordingly. --Richhoncho (talk) 00:04, 12 July 2014 (UTC) _{Amended and added to --Richhoncho (talk) 08:14, 12 July 2014 (UTC)}

Ah, well, the page title is the "title" within the html. Some browsers, including Chrome, don't even display that. That's more of a technical artifact, isn't it?

In theory we could make the title of the page, which is displayed to the user, different from the final component of the URL. In fact, for titles that have certain special treatments, like Italics, they're already decoupled to some extent. That way the "URL title" would have to be unique and disambiguated, but the "display title" (if you will), would not have to be. But the real question remains: what reason is there, besides the technical one, to disambiguate titles at all? Richhoncho, like the others, dismisses the question, without answering it. And the answer to User:Vegaswikian's questions ("Some place names in England seem to have 10 or so different uses? How are we suppose to know as readers if we are at the wrong one? ") is simple: read the lead. But in those cases we actually have multiple uses each with an article on WP. The main impact of this question is not in those cases, which would not be affected (they must be disambiguated for technical reasons), but in those cases where we don't have to disambiguate for technical reasons, because the ambiguity, or lack of precision, has nothing to do with others uses with articles on WP. --В²C ☎ 14:42, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

“But the real question remains: what reason is there, besides the technical one, to disambiguate titles at all?”—I thought that when a question has been answered, it no longer “remained”. I’m one of those who’s answered it, in my last post above. But here’s the TL;DR answer: To benefit the users. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 18:17, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

“Some browsers, including Chrome, don't even display that.”—Yes it does. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 18:41, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi 174. Yes, his questions have been answered many times, but he is not listening. It's quite obvious where Britannica and WP are different, but both have the same problem to the same conundrum. Get the reader to the correct site as quickly as possible. The way WP works is that some subjects have to be disambiguated irrespective of any opinion of any editor. It's as simple as that. Having accepted that disambiguation can be necessary in WP, then why oppose when it helps? If Mercury needs to be ambiguated, then why not date ranges to make it helpful to readers. If the choice is between precise and imprecise, surely no editor at WP is advocating imprecise? Same for ambiguous or unambiguous. If B2C feels as strongly as he does he should be pestering the tech dept - not involved in trench fighting around every RM and related guideline or policy. Once the technical problems are overcome, some may even change sides. --Richhoncho (talk) 18:43, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

• This section was inartfully posed. Of course, in the abstract, ambiguity and imprecision should be avoided if possible. But there is no such thing as a 100% unambiguous or precise title anyway. The question is where do we draw the line of acceptable ambiguity and imprecision, and what kinds of ambiguity and imprecision are we even talking about? And the real question should indeed always be: how do our titling decisions affect the readers? Dohn joe (talk) 18:38, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I see now that Chrome displays the html title in the tab of the page - I always have so many tabs that each tab is so small that I don't see it. But good website design generally does not depend on readers necessarily seeing the value of the html title tag. Brittanica is quite useful without seeing that - and is no more useful if you can see that. Like I said, it's just a technical artifact. Insignificant.

User:Richhonchos statements and questions demonstrate that he does not understand the question I'm asking, and explains why he thinks it has been answered. Perhaps I can shed some light on this by addressing his statements and answering his questions.

Rich says both Britannica and WP have "the same problem [did he mean solution?] to the same conundrum. Get the reader to the correct site as quickly as possible. " True that, but that has nothing to do with this issue. For example whether the album is at the more ambiguous and less precise Desideratum or it redirects to the less ambiguous and more precise Desideratum (album) does not affect how quickly any reader gets to the correct article. That point is not at issue here. Irrelevant.

Rich asks: "Having accepted that disambiguation can be necessary in WP, then why oppose when it helps?" No one is opposing when it helps; the issue is whether it helps, and, if so, how exactly it helps? Again, Desideratum (album) is more precise and less ambiguous than Desideratum, but does it help? I don't see it. How does it help? Same with 98 Degrees. We could move 98 Degrees to the more precise and less ambiguous 98 Degrees (band), but would that help? How? And, of course, there is 1978-1990 vs. 1978-1990 (album). Again clearly the latter is less ambiguous and more precise - but is it more helpful? How? In what context? What exactly is a reader doing such that he is helped more by the more descriptive title? I just don't see it.

Rich also asks: "If Mercury needs to be ambiguated, then why not date ranges to make it helpful to readers?" The answer is that Mercury is disambiguated because we can't have more than one title at Mercury. But that doesn't mean when you click on Mercury to go to the article about the planet that it's helpful to have that planet disambiguator in the title. So if it's not helpful to have Mercury disambiguated, why would it be helpful to have the date ranges disambiguated?

Finally Rich asks, if the choice is between precise and imprecise, surely no editor at WP is advocating imprecise? Editors prefer more ambiguous and less precise titles all the time. See Talk: Desideratum#Requested move for an example that went unanimously against the more ambiguous and less precise proposed title. In fact, for almost every article on WP, there is probably a less ambiguous and more precise title, certainly a more descriptive and arguably more "helpful" title, but we have chosen the less descriptive one in every single case. Like Dohn joe says, it's all about where we draw the line. One clear place to draw the line is where disambiguation is necessary for technical reasons. If disambiguation is not necessary for technical reasons, what is the reason to disambiguate? Saying it's more helpful does not make it so. How, exactly, is it more helpful? That's what nobody has explained, much less how else to draw that line, and where, exactly. --В²C ☎ 21:12, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

You appear to be the only editor advocating imprecise and ambiguous titles. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:21, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

I tried to post a reply to this, but apparently the automated filters have realized this thread is unconstructive. Edit: Managed it. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 22:16, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Vegaswikian, I'm far from the only one. It's the default position of the community. In one of countless examples, the less precise and more ambiguous title was favored unanimously at Talk: Desideratum#Requested move . And if you want another example, go no further than Paris, which would clearly be more precise and less ambiguous at Paris, France. Dare I mention Las Vegas? See also: Talk:Marjah#Requested moves, Talk:Results#Requested_move, Talk:Love?#Requested move (2), etc., etc. etc. Time and time again, the community favors more ambiguous and less precise titles, particularly when the proposed disambiguation is not necessary for technical reasons. --В²C ☎ 23:49, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Default, right. You may not be the only one, but you are the loud one. Invoking Paris, an obvious case of a title with a well-accepted primary meaning, is not going to save your silly insistence on ambiguity. And Desideratum is not a precedent-setting case, since it's one that a number of us would obviously have supported disambiguation of if we had seen it. And you might recall that Las Vegas was a long-fought case, since the city and strip, which are disjoint, tend to contend for primary. Dicklyon (talk) 01:43, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Ditto. Born2cycle I have to say that comment ranks with the "I'm Wikipedia's fireman" comment earlier. While filibustering may have managed to get some RM titles that go beyond User-unfriendly into the realm of being embarrassing, the decision to place an unsourced "ambient" album stub over Google Book uses in that case really just proves the point of the editors who contribute to article space. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:29, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Nevertheless, by the time he wrote his Desideratum, Wesley had thought long and hard about the nature of electricity. He provided his readers an extensive justification for thinking of electricity as the elixir of life that God provided ...

This is an essential point about titling which you, and equally Dohn joe, just don't get. Our user-demographic generates enormous amounts of fluff so for pretty much any word in the English language there'll be a manga or Christian Death metal rapper or an episode of a soap squatting on the base space. If you actually contributed to the encyclopedia by creating/editing articles some of that balance could be addressed. Instead of which we appear to be seeing a return to similar behavior as caused your recently expired topic ban; and also, if I may say so, dominating guidelines and policies for other editors to work by, when you don't contribute to article space yourself, is what, what is the adjective I'm looking for? It is what it looks like. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:29, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Let me tackle these one at a time:

• Good web design absolutely does mandate meaningful page titles.
• I stated earlier my belief that Britannica’s approach introduces usability issues (ambiguous article titles) that Wikipedia avoids.
  • That’s not your point anyway. So shall we drop the Britannica thread?
• To the example you introduce here: It’s only meaningful if that album is the primary topic of that title. If it’s not, and if the reader was looking for an article about some other use of the term, or even some other album by that name, he would potentially waste time visiting the irrelevant article first before realizing it wasn’t the one he wanted. This is the benefit of unambiguous titles.
  • I would argue that the term “1978–1990” has no primary topic.
• I thought I discussed this earlier, but: Primarily, “Mercury” is disambiguated because there are multiple things known by that word. It’s not due to technical limitation of the software, not because we can’t have same-titled articles. It’s due to a limitation of language; if we could and did have multiple articles by the same name, that would be needlessly confusing for users.
• It may be worth your while to review WP:PRECISE. If you find that bit of policy problematic, I suggest starting a discussion to change it.

—174.141.182.82 (talk) 05:43, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I keep promising myself I won't get involved in pointless and pointy discussions. Britannica is mildly relevant insomuch as the article titles can be ambiguous - however the search function is not. Something that's not possible in WP at the moment. Do we want to consider a technical solution?

The answer to the million dollar question, (according to some!), "What's wrong with ambiguous or imprecise titles?" is that you send readers in the wrong direction and makes the encyclopedia unusable. Of course, if somebody is not adding to article space, but hanging round the guidelines and RMs it would not concern them!

Somebody asks above "Where do we draw the line?" There are no lines to be drawn, there are guidelines that should be used with common sense and no matter how much we like or dislike a specific guideline, there will always be exceptions. The problem is people that don't consider each item separately. There is a lot of harm in that. --Richhoncho (talk) 08:13, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, I agree. To briefly answer the question asked in the heading: the problem with an ambiguous title is that it's ambiguous, and the problem with an imprecise title is that it's imprecise. Precision is one of the titling criteria, and this question sets it aside. But also, I do get tired of being told how things work by someone whose contributions are mostly in discussions, many of which become difficult largely because of the way in which he participates, and only 14% of whose contributions are in the main space, compared to 84% in my own case and 60% for IIO. Discussion are important, of course. But so is editing and improving the encyclopedia. To return to the question: ambiguous or imprecise titles harm rather than help the encyclopedia. Omnedon (talk) 14:45, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I assume you also discount the views of SmokeyJoe (4% mainspace contribs) and Blueboar (23% mainspace contribs). What about Francis Schonken (38% mainspace contribs)? Or are they alright because they agree with your position? What about me (46% mainspace contribs)? Dohn joe (talk) 16:37, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Who said anything about discounting positions because of this? I'm saying that B2C's primary activity here seems to relate to telling other editors how things should work, and he has a long history of doing it in an unpleasant and difficult manner -- and many of us are tired of it. It's not about whether he is right or wrong -- though in this case, the very question is diametrically opposed to the precision criterion. Omnedon (talk) 16:50, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay - my bad. It just seemed to me that you were using the mainspace % as a reason in itself to discount a user's position. If it's a personality issue, then there's no need to bring in the contrib % argument. Dohn joe (talk) 18:33, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

As it happens I did not bring it up. In fact, though, I do think it can have relevance. Not, however, as a standalone statistic, any more than the sheer quantity of edits has meaning regarding, for example, the quality of those edits. Omnedon (talk) 20:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the issue with B2C is that the other editors aren't recently off a ANI topic ban, the context of which was not unrelated to only having 14% contributions in the main space.　Ｉ'm surprised to see SmokeyJoe, an editor who talks sense, has only (4% mainspace contribs), but again no one is finding SmokeyJoes' contributions bludgeoning. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:21, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Dicklyon, please consider my statements in the context in which I made them. User:Vegaswikian claimed I was the only editor "advocating imprecise and ambiguous titles". So I gave Paris as one of several counter-examples. Nobody can deny that Paris is less precise and more ambiguous than Paris, France. It's true that it's an "obvious case of a title with a well-accepted primary meaning", but it's still less precise and more ambiguous than Paris, France. My point stands. Desideratum is of course not a precedent setting case. However, it still counters Vegaswikian's claim that I'm the only one "advocating imprecise and ambiguous titles", which is why I mentioned it. Discussions with false claims are not helpful, and obfuscate the real issues being discussed. That being said, Desideratum is far from an unusual case - WP:NOTADICT is commonly used to counter claims that a given name should not be used undisambiguated because it's ambiguous with a dictionary use of the word, even though we don't have an article for that word on WP. And I don't insist on ambiguity. I insist on undisambiguated WP:COMMONNAME when disambiguation is unnecessary. --20:27, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Again I’ll point to WP:PRECISE: article titles should be precise enough. “Paris” is precise enough because, though there are many other Parises, one is indisputably the primary topic. Going back to the example that started this all, “1978–1990” has no fewer than three other possible uses on Wikipedia, and it does not clearly have a primary topic. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 22:31, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting Paris should be disambiguated. I'm just pointing out it is inherently ambiguous. In fact, the title of every primary topic is ambiguous, by definition. Now, the city in France happens to be very well known, but that's not why it's the primary topic. It's the primary topic because of it's popularity relative to all other uses of that name. That is, an obscure name can be primary too, as long as the other uses are much more obscure (sufficiently less likely to be sought to make the least obscure primary among them). So, it seems silly to not disambiguate a title because it's "ambiguous" with other uses that are so unlikely to be sought we don't even have articles for them.

There is no evidence those other uses are ever referenced as 1978-1990 in reliable sources, much less that they are commonly referred to with that name. Nobody would ever suggest that 1978-1990 be the title for any of those other uses. However, 1978-1990 is unquestionably the common name for the album, and thus the album is the primary topic. Aren't all the other alleged "uses" actually partial title matches and so should not even be listed on the dab page? And if you end up with a dab page with only one topic listed - doesn't that kind of make it the primary topic? --В²C ☎ 00:28, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

• OK... First, let's look at the sources... according to the discography on the band's website, the "official" name of album appears to be "The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990". More importantly, this title also seems to be the COMMONNAME for the album (Looking at other sources, a significant majority of seem to refer to it using that same title. I don't find a lot of sources that refer to it as just "1978-1990").

Having done that preliminary examination, let's examine which title will be best - in terms of achieving our five basic criteria:

• Recognizability - Since the "official" title is "The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990", and that title is also the COMMONNAME, that title would be far more recognizable than just the date range string "1990-1978".
• Naturalness - Since the COMMONNAME is "The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990", that title would also be more natural than just the date range string.
• Precision - this is where disambiguation comes into play. Since there are other albums that could be searched for using the date range string (as well as the, admittedly unlikely, possibility that someone might use the date range string in hopes of finding a summary of historical events), we would need disambiguation if we use just the date range string. If we use the COMMONNAME title, however, we don't need to disambiguate at all (the disambiguation is built into the title). Therefor, the title "The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990" seems to be the most precise.
• Conciseness: While the date string "1978-1990" is shorter than "The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990", I don't think it is more concise. Concise is not the same as "shorter". In other words, I don't think conciseness is an issue here.
• Consistency: At the moment, we don't have a consistency issue... I will get back to this later.

Balancing all these together (as the policy tells us to do) it seems clear that the title "The Go-Betweens: 1978-1990" best achieves the most number of criteria. I would therefor say that the fuller title should be preferred over just the date string.

Now to get back to consistency... the same examination can be made with all the other albums that use date range strings in their titles (and where Wikipedia might use just the date range string as the title of its article on the album). And in the majority of cases, we will get similar results. A title with more than just the date range string alone will be preferred. We can therefor re-examine the few possible exceptions with an eye towards consistency... and say that consistency indicates not using just the date range string. Blueboar (talk) 14:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Just for the record, we don't actually get similar results. For each of the date range albums, I had done a Google Books search for the title, and the band-free title outdid the band-less title by a healthy margin each time, generally around 3 to 1 - including for the Go-Betweens, which was 11:5, or 69%. Feel free to check out the talkpages and follow my links to verify. That pushes recognizability and naturalness back into the date range camp, and should tilt the WP:AT analysis as well. Dohn joe (talk) 15:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Blueboar, your otherwise solid analysis unfortunately fails because the key premise about the official name is incorrect. The album name is 1978 to 1990 on their discography. On individual album pages, they precede all album names with the band name for all of their albums. Thus 16 Lovers Lane is titled The Go-Betweens: 16 Lovers Lane on that albums page, but that's no reason for us to move 16 Lovers Lane to The Go-Betweens: 16 Lovers Lane. At most what we have is an argument to use 1978 to 1990 as the title, except we need support in non-primary reliable sources for that, and I don't think it exists. The album cover uses the hyphen, not the word "to", between the dates. I suspect the web page designer just used artistic license with the use of "to" there. --В²C ☎ 17:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) approach

I had a look today whether Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) could bring some relief in this continuing story.

What I found there:

• single numbers as page names: up to four digits several decades in the future content of such pages should be regarding a year, otherwise (some of the examples from that guideline page):
  • 36 (film), not 36 (the year Pontius Pilate was called back to Rome)
  • 4711 (brand) for the Eau de Cologne (this example apparently became obsolete, I updated the NCNUM guideline accordingly)
• Decades: expressed as year ranges (e.g. 1800–1809) they redirect to pages such as 1800s (decade)

Apart from the ranges that are articles on albums (as discussed above) I found these:

• 14-18 - an article on a film
• 1914-1918 - redirect to World War I
• 17:28 - an article on a boys band

I'd like to add a new section to the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) guideline, probably just after the section regarding Articles on other standard time periods:

---

==Article titles consisting exclusively of numbers and separators==

Article titles consisting exclusively of both arabic numerals and separators (like hyphens) are discouraged for content pages. They should be either redirects or disambiguation pages, for example:

• 1914-1918 redirects to World War I.
• 1/2 is a disambiguation page

---

14-18 could be made a disambiguation page, with for example links to the film, e.g. renamed to 14-18 (film), and the WWI page.

Alternatively, make 14-18 a redirect to the WWI page, and on that page a hat-note, which either links to 14-18 (film) or to 14-18 (disambiguation). --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:59, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Your thoughts about this proposal?

• Sounds OK. Sounds good for being concistent. Waiting to hear of problems. Confusion with years should be strongly avoided. Beyond the 21st century shouldn't be an issue. Fictional future years should be unambiguously disambiguated as fiction. An encyclopedia, and definitely Wikipedia, should be treated as an historiological work, and within that context, time periods are prominent. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:40, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose A solution desperately seeking a problem. --В²C ☎ 17:48, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Unnecessary disambiguation at its finest. This seems like an attempt to circumvent the normal RM process, where there isn't much consensus for all these pedantic RMs. Calidum ^{Talk To Me} 19:03, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
• I'd like to thank Francis for making this proposal - it's a good concrete step, and hopefully gets us away from what was becoming an unproductive series of discussions. That said, I think it could use some work. One main difference is that we already have the year and decade articles, but do not, and likely will not, have the 100,000s of potential date range articles covering every potential date range.

  First, I would have no problem with guidance to the effect that a date range can have a wp:primarytopic. If a date range is so greatly identified with a particular event or topic, so as to be synonymous (or nearly) with that event or topic, then we can treat the date range as an alternate name for the topic. Thus 1914-1918 could redirect to World War I. Non-notable date ranges would not redirect anywhere. Thus 1962–1967 would remain a redlink, since none of the events that occurred in that timeframe are known in RSs by that range.

  Second, when an otherwise non-notable date range is the wp:commonname of an actual subject, we can use that date range as the article title or redirect to a subheading. Thus, since 1983-1991 is not particularly associated with any historical event, we can be free to use it for the album article where it currently is. This largely holds up the status quo, while making it explicit and adding the ability to redirect notable date ranges to their respective topics. Dohn joe (talk) 19:48, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

  • I Support this variation of the proposal and would emphasize that considerable use of a date range to refer to a given topic in RS is required to make that date range be a redirect to that topic on WP. --В²C ☎ 20:23, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
• Question: How would this apply to titles like 17:28 or 1978–1990? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 22:25, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
  • 17:28 → 17:28 (boy band)
  • 1978–1990 → The Go-Betweens 1978–1990 or 1978–1990 (Go-Betweens album) depending on where current RM (Talk:1978–1990#Requested move) goes. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:41, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Francis, thank you for these comments. I've added a jpg to 14-18 to help mobile readers. I think the issue with The Go-Betweens 1978–1990 is slightly different from a film because the subject of 14-18 is not Jean Aurel 14-18. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:38, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Re. "I think the issue with The Go-Betweens 1978–1990 is slightly different from a film because the subject of 14-18 is not Jean Aurel 14-18" — where do you see the distinction? And more importantly: even if there is such a valid distinction, how would that be relevant to this proposal? --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:09, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata got this right

See how Wikidata handles "Mercury":

• Mercury (planet)
• mercury (chemical element)
• Mercury (Roman god)

I actually thought of a similar idea for Wikipedia several years back but I never expressed it since it would be a drastic change that would likely get shot down quickly. Anyway, by removing the technical limitation on articles having the same title and putting the disambiguator into a subtitle/short description field, as Wikidata has done, we would not have these countless debates on which topic is primary or what is the best disambiguator or if unnecessary disambiguation is more important than rigid consistency. —seav (talk) 16:36, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Ridiculous idea, to title by database code, and to hide the topic. System friendly maybe, but very user unfriendly. Titles should reflect and identify the thing they title. Where different topics can be titled ambiguously with respect to each other, editors should consider how to best distinguish the topics from each other in their titles. Editor discussion of titles of their articles, considering ambiguity, is a good thing. Yes, it is good that books have ISBNs. No, books should not be titled by their ISBNs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:33, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Not titling, just using a URL that’s independent of the title. But I agree that there is value in using uniquely identifiable titles like Mercury (planet), rather than having six different articles about six different things all with the same title. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 03:00, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Yuck... I don't think Wikidata got that right at all... it is extremely difficult to use. Imagine you were someone searching for information about the Roman God, Mercury... you go to Wikidata and type "Mercury" into the search box... first, there is no drop down box listing likely pages, you are forced to go to a "hit" page that lists every article that uses the word "Mercury" in its title ... you then have to scroll through several pages of unrelated articles before you can find the page you are looking for.

Compare that to our system... same scenario... you type "Mercury" into the search box, and immediately get a drop down box listing potential hits - which (as it happens) lists Mercury (mythology) near the top. If that is not enough, there is a hit for the unadorned title "Mercury" - which goes to a dab page where you can find the article you are looking for very quickly. No, I think our system is not only quicker, but much easier and more efficient to use. Blueboar (talk) 12:20, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Weird; I do get the dropdown, the third entry in which is:

Mercury
Ancient Roman mythological god of tr…

But I agree that WP’s titles are more user-friendly. Not forcing the user to read extra irrelevant text is a good thing. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 17:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Wikidata's format works for machines, and that's it. For a project aimed at people, it would be a horrible way to do things. Resolute 18:44, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• I actually liked having the title of any article free from parenthetical disambiguation but it shows up in search and making wikilinks. –HTD 12:26, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

  À la Britannica online? Personally, I prefer the current Wikipedia ways, making sure the reader knows which article he’s reading. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 18:57, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

  Perhaps, or maybe even make the disambiguator a "subheader" immediately below the article title. –HTD 16:38, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

  Basically, similar to how Wikidata does it: it places the description (or disambiguator) as a subtitle. —seav (talk) 16:59, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

  Not exactly. Instead of "first planet closest to the Sun in the Solar System", use "(planet)" and that can't be changed with a simple edit. And it seems every Wikidata data has this "subheader". I'm only wanted it to work only for disambiguation. –HTD 20:31, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

DIFFCAPS appears to be ignored at Talk:Layer Cake (film)#Requested_move

A couple of people have stated that since the C in "Layer Cake" is sometimes capitalized on menus, Layer Cake should be a redirect to Layer cake. But I suggest we should not do that unless we think people are likely to search for the cake by capitalizing the C. What do you think?

• Talk:Layer Cake (film)#Requested_move

--В²C ☎ 00:19, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not being ignored. WP:DIFFCAPS states that "Certain applications of this policy are often heavily debated." Other than referring to this odd little paragraph as a policy, this makes sense. It is often debated because people (other than you) prefer precise titles to ambinguous titles, often. Or if you want to insist that it is policy that "Titles of distinct articles may differ only in their detail", that's fine, but it doesn't say that titles of distinct articles should differ only in their detail such as capitalization; very frequently editors object to such ambiguity. Dicklyon (talk) 01:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

What is the standing of an official name if a common name hasn't been proven?

If no data has been provided at any time to support an existing, even stable title (basically decided to be the common name by someone's personal experience or whim), and the official name is somewhat commonly used (because it's been the official name for a long time), wouldn't the official name at least be a default choice until a more common name is proven? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 01:32, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

First, in many cases the most commonly used name (ie the COMMONNAME) actually is the official name... because sources often use the official names. I don't know if that is the case with the article you are talking about.

That said... I would answer your question with "No" ... not because I have anything against official names, but because there is no such thing as a "default" when it comes to choosing the best title. Every title involves a unique balancing of the various criteria laid out in the policy. Our goal is to reach a consensus as to what the best title is.

So... If there are multiple names, and no single one stands out as being used more often than the other(s), then none of the choices is more recognizable than the others (ie there is no single COMMONNAME). When this occurs, we have to look to the other criteria (Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency) to determine the best title. I would say that the "official" name is likely to be the most precise (but again, there are exceptions to every generalization)... but that does not mean it is necessarily the best choice for the title... even if it is the most precise, it may not be the most natural, concise, or consistent.

The best title will be the one that comes closest to achieving all of these criteria at the same time. That might be the "official" name... but it may be some other name instead. Each article title will involve a unique examination of the choices with respect to our criteria. Blueboar (talk) 18:08, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Blueboar, when I read your response it seems more like a can of worms rather than a possibly more fair, objective manner to provide a name. COMMONNAME according to whom? This can easily turn into a the tyranny of the majority. For example, Myanmar has been Myanmar for multiple decades. The problem is that some nations and individuals are so against the military government that to this day they use Burma. The majority use Burma and the result is that we have a name Burma as the name here on Wiki. A second example, is the rather long name when used at the beginning of a sentence, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". If we talk to Evangelicals the name is Church of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church, or just simply the cult. In a world where small groups or entities are always a distinct minority, your criteria easily leads to the tyranny of the majority.

Then we have examples such as the Catholic Church. Several years ago this was changed from "Roman Catholic Church" to just "Catholic Church" must to the dismay of many individuals we believed they belonged to the catholic church, but not the Roman Catholic Church.

It is always been my thinking that extra weight should be given to what the groups or entities want to call themselves. It is just too easy and I don't see a downside. Some names are offensive to some groups and they should be avoided completely. It is like a group of us asking what your name is and you say Blueboar and from then on we just call you Blue because, well because it is easier, more concise, and common.

It would be helpful to at least give some credence to what the entity itself would prefer to be called. --^StormRider 04:34, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

COMMONNAME according to an examination of a wide range of sources that discuss the topic. Blueboar (talk) 11:59, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Apostrophe-like characters

WP:TSC says

* Characters resembling quotes or accent marks (avoid them): The characters ʻ ʾ ʿ ᾿ ῾ ‘ ’ “ ” ^c, and also combining diacritical marks with a "space" character, should generally not be used in page titles. A common exception is the apostrophe ' (e.g. Anthony d'Offay), which should, however, be used sparingly (e.g. Shia instead of Shi'a). See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (punctuation).

Now, I have to repeat the question from /Archive 20#Avoid accent-/quote-like characters: Why? That debate from 2009 ended without a clear answer or outcome. The guideline just lumps together a number of glyphs, based solely on visual similarity, and is desperately out of sync with our current practice, good typography practice, and common names. It also refers to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (punctuation) but it is in apparent conflict with it. Let me first dissect this broad and barely related collection:

• ‘ ’ “ ” – MOS:QUOTEMARKS says that typewriter-style quotation characters should be used rather than „low-high“, guillemets (« ») or “typographic” characters. Thus, I agree, they shouldn't be used in Article titles.
• Per MOS:QUOTEMARKS, grave and acute accents or backticks (`text´) should not be used. No problem here as well.
• Also per WP:', typographic apostrophes are to be avoided, (’)

However:

• ʻOkina is a regular letter of Hawaiian and other Polynesian alphabets, often used in English borrowings, as can be seen in ʻIʻiwi, ʻAnianiau, or ʻOkina itself. There is no technical reason to discourage its use. WP:HAWAII could sort out usage of English vs. Hawaiʻian rendering (similar to e.g. MOS:JA), but this page should not stand in their way. Replacing ʻokina with an apostrophe is IMO a crime against encyclopedia.
• Per WP:', transliterated Arabic ayin ( ʿ ) and alif ( ʾ ), are represented by their correct Unicode characters (that is, U+02BF MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING and U+02BE MODIFIER LETTER RIGHT HALF RING respectively), despite possible display problems. (bold mine). They are proper parts of Arabic transliteration and are sanctioned in our texts – why discourage them in article titles?
• Also, the Shi'a vs Shia example should be removed and left to other guidelines such as WP:COMMONNAME to sort it out. There is no technical or typographic reason to prefer one or another.

Proposal. Replace the text in question with

* Use straight apostrophes (') and quotation marks ("). Variations such as typographic quotation marks (“...”), typographic apostrophes (’), "low-high" quotation marks („...“), guillemets («...»), grave and acute accents or backticks (`...´) should be avoided in titles, just as in article text. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (punctuation).

No such user (talk) 10:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

• My guess is that the limitation was initially included for technical reasons... reasons that had nothing to do with style. Some characters are used in programming language as commands ... and thus using them in an article title can confuse the program that makes Wikipedia run. I know the program has been tweaked over the years... and that some characters can now be used... but we would need to check with the programmers to know which characters are OK, and which still cause difficulties. Blueboar (talk) 11:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Part of the answer is outlined in MOS:QUOTEMARKS ("Consistency keeps searches predictable" section), but as far as I know other than these reasons, the listed characters have never posed a technical issue, as the WP:AT confirms: Technically all other Unicode characters can be used in page titles; but some characters should still be avoided, or require special treatment... Yes, some symbols are inconvenient to type, such as &minus; or &ndash;, or the accented letters, but that's why we provide ASCII-style redirects. However, it is odd to single out only the above subset out of the vast array of Unicode characters. No such user (talk) 13:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

No, the reason is to have, for instance, "Brokeback Mountain" (as it should be according to MOS) at Brokeback Mountain (short story). Part of the reason is that all the quotemarks would look silly in Category:Short stories and related (sub)categories. Similar, "Summertime" → Summertime (song), listed in Category:Songs-related (sub)categories. etc... I think ""Heroes"" is about the only exception to that while yes, the actual title apparently includes quotation marks. Further, if quotation marks are not (or almost never) used in actual page titles, they should not be replaced by less common glyphs that an average user would not type in the search box (as an escape to the actual policy that is to avoid quotation marks). Avoiding an unwanted scare quotes effect (for instance for quoted sentences that are page titles, e.g. "veni, vidi, vici" → veni, vidi, vici) is another reason to generally discourage quotes in page titles.

Re. "the ... example should be removed and left to other guidelines such as WP:COMMONNAME to sort it out" - this is the talk page of the COMMONNAME policy: that example is sorted out by that guideline (in fact: policy). For transliterations, generally, even if some transliteration systems present an abundance of additional marks there is a general preference for the simpler transliteration systems. There has been considerable discussion over which is the most ideal transliteration system for several languages, e.g. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Arabic and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Cyrillic) ... both pages "proposals" for as long as I know for lack consensus. So there's no possibility yet for these languages to defer to a romanisation guideline (in other words, indeed yes, keep the instructions on this page) — for some other foreign script languages like Chinese there is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) which could be deferred to for page titles. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

See also recently archived discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 47#Quotation marks in article titles using <q> tag --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:37, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, I see your point – that quote marks of any kind are discouraged – and I agree with that part, so I'm striking my proposal as inadequate. Still, the current wording is awful, and should be replaced with something in that effect. 'Okina, alif and ayin should be just left out, as they are not quotation marks, as outside of scope. No such user (talk) 08:56, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I strongly concur. Our don't-use-quote-marks-in-title rule should never affect 'okina, alif, or ayin, nor affect apostrophes where they are normally used (we need to clarify that we use Shia not Shi'a because of a WP:COMMONNAME analysis, but which we would contrariwise keep the apostrophe in Li'l Abner. "Avoidance" isn't really the goal, just not adding it if essentially extraneous.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:54, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

DIFFPUNCT and NATURAL

People familiar with how WP:DIFFPUNCT, WP:NATURAL (and any other applicable policy) should apply in deciding between Janet. and Janet (album) are requested to participate here:

• Talk:Janet (album)#Alternative: re-evaluate Janet.

Thanks, --В²C ☎ 17:30, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

The above is thankfully neutral, and I suppose other editors may have done it too, but B2C, you have been asked several times by several different editors to not post RMs in which you are generating enormous blocks of text here at WT:AT. At least I have only seen you be asked not to do it, I haven't seen anyone thank you and ask you to continue doing so. My own view agrees with those who have asked you not to, or at least do so less. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:28, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think "People familiar with how my favorite recently-made shortcut to so-called policy should apply in my current dispute is exactly neutral. Dicklyon (talk) 01:16, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

No, you're right I suppose it isn't, I was being generous, struck. It's WP:CANVASS again again again again. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:21, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeesh, this is totally inappropriate. No RM should be listed here unless it raises serious issues about AT policy interpretation that are not liable to sort themselves out without broader input. Every RM is vaguely relevant to AT, simply by virtue of being a discussion about article titling, but if we listed them all here we would just merge WP:Requested moves into WP:Article titles as a section, and obviously we're not going to do that, ergo, stop canvassing misc. RM discussions here. Same things goes for listing RMs at WT:MOS; just because style has come up doesn't mean all MOSwatchers need to be asked to jump in; only mention RMs at MOS if they raise serious MOS interpretation questions. Basically, if there isn't a strong possibility that something in AT or MOS needs to be clarified, or is being grossly violated or misconstrued by a LOCALCONSENSUS problem, don't post RM notices to AT or MOS, please.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:32, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

See example below, where I've pointed to two discussion that involve the same sort of perceived but imaginary "conflict" between AT and MOS. The frequency of this sort of pseuod-issue wasting time at RM, RfC, etc., indicates that we need to revise AT and MOS to clear this problem up. That's worth bringing up here, for AT regulars' consideration, regardless how those particular RMs or RfCs go. And in one case, other parties specifically requested broader input, so seeking more from the talk pages of the main policy and guideline being cited in that discussion is an obvious course of action.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:23, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Propaganda names

Often users choose military propaganda names as titles for articles about military conflicts, as was the case with Operation Protective Edge for the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. It would be helpful if we had a section here making clear that this is explicitly not wanted: Propaganda names are usually chosen to let the own military appear heroic, and they are often euphemist, such as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" for the 2003 Iraq War.--Galant Khan (talk) 23:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

The distinction is between using the topic's name as our title vs. using a descriptive phrase as our title. We usually prefer names over descriptive titles (but not always).

When using names, we should use the names that the sources use, per the principle of Recognizability (see WP:COMMONNAME). This does mean that we sometimes use non-neutral, "propaganda" sounding names (see the WP:POVNAMING section of our WP:Neutral point of view policy for more on this). For example, lots of historians have pointed out that the Boston Massacre was not really a massacre at all; and that calling it a massacre was a bit of colonial propaganda. However, we still use it as our article title, because sources overwhelmingly use that name when discussing the event. Another example is Holy Roman Empire, which has famously been described as "neither holy nor Roman nor an empire".

So... if the sources routinely use "Operation Iraqi Freedom", then so should we... if they routinely use "2003 Iraq War", we should use that. If the sources are mixed (ie no one name stands out as being used significantly more frequently), then we are free to choose which of the various names we think is best, or use a descriptive title, based on other criteria. Blueboar (talk) 11:55, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

One issue bring overlooked here is that the Boston Massacre and the Holy Roman Empire are historical events separated by hundreds of years from present time (The more recent Boston Massacre being over 260 years ago) so historians have long since settled on the names. That is not necessarly the case with the military conflicts, with the oldest starting 11 years ago so that may not be as strong an argument as it first appears.--67.68.22.129 (talk) 03:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Any such military or intelligence operationla codename could have a valid article here, but it would need to be limited to that operation as an operation, not the title of the page about the conflict as a whole, which has two sides (at least), and we have WP:SYSTEMICBIAS and WP:NPOV to keep in mind. For police operations, this may sometimes be different (the opposing side, e.g. prosecuted child pornographers or something, may essentially be a WP:FRINGE element whose interests WP need not try to balance), but not always. Cf. Operation Sundevil; it wouldn't be right to merge any and all specific legal cases, e.g. Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service (SJG won, notably), under the former title, but it's perfectly fine that we have a neutrally-written article at the former title.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:50, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia military history buffs disprove of operational names as a general rule because often they are often meaningless (for example the British Army uses a random word generator to throw up two words and combine them for an operational name) -- so unless a reader knows what specific codename was the reader can not search for the operation -- or biased towards the side that came up with the operational name, therefore for military operations descriptive names are often more appropriate (see WP:MILMOS#CODENAME). -- PBS (talk) 18:44, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to use recently coined vernacular names instead of scientific names for fossil species

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

Those familiar with how we name articles (and why) on species only identified in the fossil record may be interested in this discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds#English name vs. Scientific name,  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:23, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Clarifying that common (vernacular) name doesn't mean COMMONNAME

I have commented there... but what the discussion highlights is that some editors are still confused by our use of the word "common". The underlying problem is that the word "common" has multiple meanings. It can mean "frequent" (which is how we use it)... but it can also mean "non-expert" (ie "vernacular"). I know we already mention that (as we use the word) a scientific name can actually be more "common" than a vernacular name... but perhaps we need to make it even clearer. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi @Blueboar:. Can you please commment on the latest post at the linked page? I'm trying to get guidance on how we should "search" the literature. Thanks, MeegsC (talk) 20:15, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Agreed, it cannot possibly hurt to clarify this here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:52, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

PS: It doesn't seem to be covered here at all, only at MOS:LIFE and by extension at WP:NCFAUNA and WP:NCFLORA. Keeping these in synch is always a challenge, but synching them on this in particular point would seem to be a good idea. I'd give it as the vernacular ("common") name, with "common" in scare-quotes, and maybe not even use that word at all in either of the NC pages, just to avoid any hint of confusion with COMMONNAME.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:56, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

See https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles#cite_note-5 Where the terms "COMMONNAME" and "common name" appears in this policy they mean a commonly or frequently used name, and not a common name as used in some disciplines in opposition to scientific name.. That footnote seems clear to me. So I see no need for a change. -- PBS (talk) 18:57, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

NB MOS:LIFE is part of the MOS guidelines and as such is of no direct relevance to this policy page. WP:NCFAUNA and WP:NCFLORA are naming conventions and ought be read in such a way that they enhance and explain this policy page and do not contradict it. -- PBS (talk) 18:57, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The language in the footnote is clear, but who reads the footnote? Bring the footnote into the main text. Previous discussions 5 years ago (Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names)/Archive 3#Hesperian paragraph) concerned a more verbose and controversial version of the text explaining the difference between a vernacular name and a commonly used name. User:PBS ultimately developed a more succinct version of the proposed text and put it as a footnote in this diff, which is has survived largely unchanged. Get the footnote (or similar language) into the main text where people will actually see it. "King tyrant lizard" is an English "common" (vernacular) name, but not the commonly used name for Tyrannosaurus rex. Plantdrew (talk) 02:36, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely, move the footnote text (which is admirably clear) into the main text. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:11, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• It would be better to do away with the shortcut "COMMONNAME" as it misleads. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

  Sadly that genie is out of the bottle. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:11, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

  The redirect is entrenched, but it doesn't have to stay prominently advertised on the policy page. There are better, shorter, shortcuts, such as WP:UCN. The practice of of using allcaps words as policy catch cries is detrimental to understanding policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:23, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

To understand where the text is now one has to understand that there used to be a naming convention (common name) that Kotniski turned into a redirect in October 2009. So the redirects such as COMMONNAME and UCN used to redirect to the naming convention. The use of "common name" came about because before the use of reliable sources this policy really did advise using the common name (and no one raised the issue that it was confusing). I would support SmokeyJoe's suggestion the removal of advertising "COMMONNAME" as a link in the section, but would suggest a replacement one such as FREQUENTLYUSEDNAME, unfortunately FUN is taken, so a shorter name for a redirect is needed such as FRQNTNAME, but perhaps some one can suggest a better short name. Or how about WP:COMMONUSAGE and WP:CU? -- PBS (talk) 07:58, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I do not think it necessary to place the text of the footnote into the main body for three reasons. One only has to read it once to understand it (after that it is clutter). It is a minority issue which only affects discussions of a few scientific disciplines (for example neither historians or physicists need to know about this issue -- let alone those who write articles about Muppets). The advantage of a footnote is that it is easy to link to the specific sentence (as I did here) if it is needed in an external conversation. -- PBS (talk) 07:40, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Concur with SmokeyJoe. The genie might be out of the bottle, but that doesn't mean we have to keep feeding it. If Wikieditors have been confused by the phrasing of the rule then of course it should be fixed. SmC's proposal (SmC's second post in this thread) looks good to me. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Frequently disputed move request at Wolverine (character) with potentially wide repercussions

FYI

 – Pointer to a relevant discussion elsewhere.

There is a discussion at Talk:Wolverine (character)#Page move back discussion, again concerning whether the page in question should be named Wolverine (character) or Wolverine (comics). This has long been a contentious issue—the page has been moved back and forth several times, and has had several discussions at both Talk:Wolverine (character) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics). The outcome will likely have repercussions throughout WikiProject Comics, especially in light of the result of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Comics#RfC: Proposed rewording for instructions for disambiguation.

There are also concerns regarding WP:CANVASSing for the discussion. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sports teams) purports to be a guideline but shows no history of a consensus. Could someone explain where the consensus for this came from and why it seems to be running counter to the Wikipedia:Article titles policy? Hack (talk) 00:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be the work of just one editor, writing back in 2009. It does not look like there ever was an actual consensus discussion for it. I suppose one could say that it enjoys a "silent consensus" (a consensus that results from no one objecting to it)... however, checking "what links here"... it has been pointed to in very few article discussions... so it has not really been tested for consensus in actual discussion. It should certainly be reviewed, because it contradicts WP:AT in several places. Blueboar (talk) 11:49, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Update proposals for naming conventions regarding compositions (classical music)

See proposals & discussion thereof at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)#Compositions (classical music) --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:54, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Differentiation between two band articles of similar names

Main page: Talk:Attack Attack!/Archives/2014 1 § Article title

Hi there, there are two band articles that have very similar names, these bands are:

• Attack Attack! - An American metalcore band.
• Attack! Attack! - A Welsh pop punk/rock band.

While the two bands are very different in both style and origin their article titles have a mere "!" to differentiate the two, noticing this I moved the articles to these titles; Attack Attack! (American band) and Attack! Attack! (Welsh band) however has since been reverted by User:Sock who believes that the simple "!" is enough to distinguish between the two articles, while I disagree I would appreciate some third opinions to gain a clear consensus whether they should be moved or not, thank you for your time and hope you can contribute to this discussion here. SilentDan (talk) 01:38, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• WP:DIFFPUNCT is applicable, although it is of dubious applicability. The correct procedure to follow at this point is to make a multi-move request as set forth at Wikipedia:Requested moves. bd2412 T 02:46, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
• Disambiguation is a technical necessity, not a stylistic feature. We use disambiguation if two articles would otherwise have to occupy the same article name. The correct procedure for this case is to not use disambiguation and have the bands' articles refer to each other using hatnotes ("For the Welsh band, see..."). —chaos5023 (talk) 12:55, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

  @Chaos5023: That’s only looking at it from the technical side. Disambiguation is also a means of precision and recognizability, two of the naming criteria. In addition to the technical limitations, we have to look at whether the titles are sufficiently distinct to be recognizable from each other. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 01:25, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

  That's not strictly true at all, Chaos5023; cf. the discussion on disambiguating article names that are the titles of works that take the form of date ranges.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• A hatnote can take care of a case like this, though it does point out why WP:DIFFPUNCT can't be relied upon very heavily.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 6 September 2014 (UTC)