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Disputed

In the section /Archive 11#The most common name versus the canonical name above [now archived], and again in section /Archive 11#What we've all been overlooking (I think), I offered an argument, and evidence, that in situations where a canonical name is available, Wikipedians will often use it, without giving much thought to what is the most common name. Therefore, I argued, this policy page, which is supposed to be descriptive not prescriptive, places way too much emphasis on the "use the most common name / use the most easily recognised name" clause, improperly raising it to the status of an overarching principle, whereas it is in fact just one of many competing priorities. My argument may be summarised by the following quote:

All over Wikipedia, people are adopting canonical names where they exist. They use gazetted geographic names; they use standardised common names; they use the official names of medical conditions, astronomical bodies and chemical compounds; they use the exact titles of books, films, albums and songs; they use the registered names of companies; they use the registered names of ships and trains; and so on. In many cases they don't give a second's thought to what is the most common name; they simply follow the canonical nomenclature of whatever field they are working in. This is what they do whether this policy page says so or not. This proposal is about making this policy page an accurate description of what people are actually doing.

Progress was made towards resolving this, but this can to a sudden end with the appearance of a couple of editors who wish this policy to be prescriptive. Thus this policy remains an inaccurate description of the modus operandi of editors. I have therefore marked the policy as disputed. Hesperian 02:12, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

All of Wikipedia is supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive, and what Hesperian describes is the actual practice, the actual best practice of thousands of editors who work together to contribute content within the scopes of numerous WikiProjects. --Una Smith (talk) 03:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

False dichotomy alert! Wikipedia policy, guidelines and conventions are neither purely prescriptive nor purely descriptive. They are an ever-evolving blend. The guidelines describe convention which in turn are supposed to provide guidance for consistency with those conventions. Nothing is written in stone, but it's not a blank slate every time an article is named either.

All of Hesperian's examples -- gazetted geographic names, standardised common names, official names of medical conditions, astronomical bodies and chemical compounds, exact titles of books, films, albums and songs, registered names of companies, registered names of ships and trains -- are consistent with WP:NC in a way that WP:NC (flora) currently is not. Each of these examples involves the use of commonly used names (if not the most commonly used name), or a recognizable derivation of it, and ultimately results in a name that either is the most recognizable name for a given topic, or is just as recognizable. This is not at all the case when using a scientific Latin name used by plant specialists to refer to a given plant, like Yucca brevifolia, that is commonly known by a common and recognizable English name, like Joshua tree.

As far as I know no other guideline calls for the use of a completely different name, as opposed to the commonly used English name that is most likely to be recognized by a general audience (rather than specialists) [1], or some related derivation of it. But if anyone can identify another guideline that does that, I would like to know about it. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Who said anything about flora? Are you trying to roll this thread into that other one? Two points for you: one for derailing this thread, one for finding some way to sustain the other one for a few more days. Hesperian 05:39, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not trying to roll this thread into the flora discussion. But, while you did not explicitly mention flora, I don't know of any other guideline which is in conflict with the particular parts of WP:NC that you're proposing be changed. Do you? If so, which one(s)? If not, how then is this not effectively about flora?

Anyway, my main point is that your whole proposal is based on a false dichotomy, which I explained above, and to which you did not respond. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

To return to the point at hand, in the hope that Born2cycle will not have succeeded in hijacking this thread, the problem is that

This naming convention places way too much emphasis on the "use the most common name / use the most easily recognised name" clause, improperly raising it to the status of an overarching principle, whereas it is in fact just one of many competing priorities.

Hesperian 05:44, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

It might help to list the other priorities. I can think of 2... --Una Smith (talk) 06:45, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

• Use a canonical name
• Use an unambiguous name

The priorities that I can see are

1. Choose a name that is correct;
2. Choose a name that is reasonably precise;
3. Choose a name that is reasonable unambiguous;
4. Choose a name that is unbiased;
5. Choose a name that is consistent with other chosen names;
6. Choose a name that is encyclopedic; (or perhaps including this results in a circular definition)
7. Choose a name that is accessible (which is where common and recognisable comes in);

If anything, the overarching principle should be what Aervanath (I think) called the "principle of least surprise": Choose the name that people would most expect to be used by a reputable encyclopedia. The priorities listed above come from that because each priority encapsulates a value that we, as a reputable encyclopedia, uphold. Hesperian 11:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Hesperian's premise. It has been my impression also that most of our contributors understand the value of using canonical names in general, preferring uniqueness over most common / most easily recognizable names that sooner cause problems when used on such a large scale.

My feeling is that the current wording is a relic of the past that got started with the first version of WP:NC in 2001. It was written at a time when Wikipedia was still relatively unknown, when the most important thing was for our articles to get "noticed" by the various search engines. If we had known back then that Wikipedia would soon become a such a success, I'm sure we would have given this policy more thought. Clearly, with Google giving us a search preference nowadays and so many visitors coming here directly, things are different: we can now afford and should therefore take advantage of the more precise naming conventions available. I see this as a logical and natural development to ensure maintainability as our collection of articles grows ever larger. To ignore this is to hold back Wikipedia. Besides, redirects are cheap, they remove most of the inconvenience for readers and constitute only a minimal esthetic compromise. --Jwinius (talk) 08:32, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

There seems to me to already be quite a lot of mention of other priorities than the "common name" rule. My impression is that in most areas of the encyclopedia, the common name principle holds powerful sway among editors, so we are right to emphasize it, though things could certainly be expressed more clearly. Can someone make a specific proposal as to how they would change the wording of the page?--Kotniski (talk) 09:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

For starters, as a baby step, I propose merging the "Use the most easily recognised name" section into the "Use common names of persons and things" subsection. There may be a subtle distinction between these two, but they are similar enough that they can be treated in the same place. Implementing this would (a) prevent this page from presenting this principle as if it trumps all other priorities; (b) stop this page from redundantly giving this particular priority two bites of the cherry; (c) make clear that, if indeed there is a distinction to be made between "common name" and "most easily recognised name", the "Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication" bit applies equally to both.

Ultimately though, I think it needs a complete rewrite. In reality, what Wikipedians do is

1. eliminate unacceptably incorrect names;
2. eliminate unacceptably imprecise names;
3. eliminate unacceptably ambiguous names;
4. eliminate unacceptably biased names;
5. identify the most encyclopedic name(s);
6. if there are multiple, equally encyclopedic names, identify the most common name.

Consistency across articles also comes into it, though I'm not sure where.

This is, I believe, the basic steps of the mental process people go through then choosing an article title. The policy page should reflect this process. (The list is in chronological order, not order of importance.)

Hesperian 11:01, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you define "encyclopedic"? --Kotniski (talk) 11:12, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

In fact I don't think it's a chronological process exactly; there are a number of factors to be considered, and they have to be balanced appropriately. For example, we might choose a slightly biased name if it's a lot more precise, an arguably incorrect name if it's much more common, etc. The policy should emphasize that there is no one algorithm, but a number of factors that may need to be taken into consideration at the same time.--Kotniski (talk) 11:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but favoring those factors you speak of also causes problems. Basically, our current default is to leave forever open to debate the question of which name "the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize" -- a question that is too often impossible to answer objectively and precisely. It leads to debates that are time-consuming and are too often settled through a combination such things as the Google-test and votes based on biased and uninformed opinions. Therefore, the resulting outcomes are almost always arbitrary and of questionable value.

A new formulation that would instead gives priority to precise, authoritative and unambiguous names would make it possible to determine correct names with far less debate (often none at all), while the results would more likely be considered more neutral and objective. In addition, canonical names tend to scale better, making large collections of articles much easier to maintain. --Jwinius (talk) 13:44, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Let me nip one misunderstanding in the bud. I am not proposing to "give priority to precise, authoritative and unambiguous names"; personally, I am satisfied with the decision to use the title Gulliver's Travels rather than "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships". For this reason, I would never make a proposal that would result in us always choosing the most accurate/correct title. This proposal is about (1) acknowledging that various values come into play in choosing a titles; and (2) not blessing any one particular value with priority over the others. Hesperian 11:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC) not blessing any one particular value with across-the-board priority over the others. Hesperian 23:31, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think "encyclopedic" is circular; the whole point of this process is to identify the most encyclopedic name, so that clause is essentially saying "the most encyclopedia name will be encyclopedic": pointless. I hinted as much in my reply to Una, but it has crystalised for me now. Yes, in hindsight I agree that it isn't really chronological.

Based on this discussion, I would be looking for this policy to be structured as something like this:

Section "Basic principle"

Choose a title that most readers of the article would expect to be used by the encyclopedia that we aspire to be.

Section "Values"

Subsection "Accuracy"

Why it is important that a title not be strictly incorrect. Example: gravitation not gravity, because in strictly scientific terms the latter is an incorrect title.

Subsection "Precision"

Why precision is important; why it should not be overdone.

Subsection "Ambiguity"

Explanation of why ambiguity should be avoided; explanation of the role of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

Subsection "Bias"

Explanation of why titles should avoid bias; bias pitfalls and how to avoid them. Explanation of special cases; such as the inevitable bias in using a national variety of English, and how it is handled by WP:ENGVAR.

Subsection "Consistency"

Explanation of why it is advantageous to use consistent titles across a block of articles;

Subsection "Accessibility"

The importance of using titles that are as accessible as possible, preferably because they are in common use and highly recognisable in the real world;

Section "Striking the right balance"

General comments on the ways in which these values can conflict. Advice on how to balance them; discussion of the role of specific naming conventions in recommending the right mix for a specific field. Mention that even within a field, the balance will vary from article to article; for example, for basic maths topics accessibility is more important than precision, but for highly advanced maths topics precision is more important than accessibility.

Hesperian 12:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

That looks a very sensible structure to me. What about all the other pages we have, though, like WP:Naming conventions (common names) and WP:Naming conventions (use English), which focus on specific values? Should they be left as separate guidelines (misleading ones at that, since each individually implies too much weight for one factor), or could they be worked into the main NC page? Then, to reduce the load on the main page, we could remove the whole list of conventions on specific topics, and just give a list of pages where those conventions can be found. (Namely, we merge in everything on particular general criteria, and merge out everything on particular topic areas, as the latter do not mislead by being alone.)--Kotniski (talk) 15:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I would probably retain them as they are for now; each may need to be introduced as expansion on one of many values, but other than that they are okay I think. Hesperian 04:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The "accuracy" section worries me; I find it hard to understand exactly what is meant by "it is important that a title not be strictly incorrect" (I think the fact it effectively contains a double negative – not incorrect doesn't help). It seems to me it could support whatever level of meaning the reader wants it to hold. Do you mean titles should be "strictly correct" or are we talking about excluding names widely accepted as thoroughly wrong? Where would this leave Venus de Milo and the other examples at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common_names)#Examples? Which if any of these should change, and if none, why is gravitation vs. gravity different? What kind of support from reliable sources would be needed to declare a particular candidate title unsuitable due to this criterion?

It's interesting that the principle of accessibility (essentially what use of common names is about) is demoted to the bottom of this list. Isn't this tantamount to ignoring our readership?

--Rogerb67 (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Outstanding points and questions. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth II, HRH Queen Elizabeth II, the majority of some 200 million readers only know her as one these three or some other variant very few if any would be looking for Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, so this is a precise name and a correct name but accessibility no where near it. Gnangarra 06:26, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

anyone can cherry pick an example, the idea is to find consistancy for the majority of articles then let editors of the articles discuss those that are exceptions. Gnangarra 06:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I specifically said "the list is in chronological order, not order of importance." Initially I thought I was putting it in chronological order of application, but I have abandoned that view. By all means re-arrange the order.

Obviously the above is a proposed structure, not proposed prose, so picking on a double negative is pointless.

It isn't clear to me why the title Venus de Milo is inaccurate, but suppose it is. Then we have a conflict between the values of "accessibility" and "accuracy" which need to be resolved one way or the other; in this case my personal opinion is that "accessibility" wins hands down. The "gravitation not gravity" situation is one where I agree with the decision to maximise accuracy at the expense of accessibility. Another example is University of Oxford, which is better known as "Oxford University". Clearly in this case the decision has been taken to use the correct name rather than the most accessible. To my mind, this is a more borderline case. Do you understand what I mean by "accurate" now?

It is important to understand that I am not arguing that accuracy is more important than accessibility, or less; nor am I proposing that any value is more or less important than any other value. I am saying that all of these values come into play when we choose a page title, and that "accessibility" doesn't always win, as shown by the University of Oxford case. And I am saying that this policy should document that, rather than prescribing something else.

Hesperian 03:55, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Hesperian I do better understand your intentions now. In my view, the current wording of policy already contains the tension you describe, between "use the common name" (accessibility) and "use precision"; "accuracy" comes in because policy appeals to what reliable sources call the subject. I certainly don't have any objection to rewriting policy to make it clearer. Frankly I still don't know what you mean by accuracy. I don't understand why Venus de Milo is OK while gravity is not; both of these subjects are known by one name generally, and a more technically accurate one by those more familiar with the field; allowing Venus de Milo over Aphrodite of Milos would suggest you just want to avoid egregious inaccuracy (while Venus is the Roman "equivalent" of Aphrodite, she is viewed as separate, with separate – albeit interlinked – Wikipedia articles for example. To describe a Greek statue of a greek goddess using the name of a Roman goddess is not strictly accurate), while requiring gravitation over gravity suggests you want titles to be strictly accurate (gravity is after all a synonym of gravitation to the general reader, and a redirect to gravitation). I don't expect you to clarify this, nor am I suggesting your position is somehow inconsistent, I'm quite sure consistent and logical arguments could be used to support it (I might even be persuaded to agree). Instead I think this illustrates the problem, that this issue comes down to personal opinion on each article; however policy is phrased, editors will find support for their viewpoint and a rewrite will change little if anything at all. Right now, in general editors believe in good faith that their preferred name is supported by policy, and unless policy is rewritten to be more prescriptive, editors will hold the same view. As far as I can see, there would be no consensus for a prescriptive policy. --Rogerb67 (talk) 17:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

We seem to be in violent agreement. The problem, as I see it, is that we do have a prescriptive policy, and it is preventing editors from handing titles as seems best on a case-by-case basis. You may not feel that the policy is prescriptive, but it is most certainly being used prescriptively by some editors and in some areas.

I am not endorsing "gravitation" over "gravity". I am endorsing the right of the community of editors who understand the implications of that naming issue, to make an informed and balanced choice, rather than prescribing that they must use the most commonly used name. At present the decision to go with gravitation is a policy violation, because the chosen name is not the most easily recognised.

I am not endorsing "Venus de Milo" over "Aphrodite of Milos". I am endorsing the right of the community of editors who understand the implications of that naming issue, to make an informed choice, rather than prescribing that they must come up with the most commonly used name.

Hesperian 23:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

There certainly is considerable overlap between our views, and neither am I endorsing the alternative names. I wouldn't go so far as to say we are in agreement though: I see editors arguing in good faith that current policy requires an accurate name; this would be less common if it were prescriptive of the common name. Perhaps the problem is that the current policy gives the appearance of being prescriptive, even though it cannot be. Perhaps what is needed is a more explicit affirmation that it is not and cannot be prescriptive, since it is based on conflicting principles. This could easily be worked into your suggested framework. We could also mention that it is the lead, rather than the title, which is the most important description of article content; in many cases, especially ones such as gravity vs. gravitation, in my view it's really of minor importance where the article actually is. While such changes wouldn't stop the debate, perhaps they might assist in reducing the polarisation and acrimony often present and foster consensus-building.

Since your current ordering is up for debate, can I suggest one of two possibilities; either the sections are explicitly noted as being in some neutral order, such as alphabetical, or that the principles most commonly in tension are placed adjacent to one another, to emphasise that tension, for example by placing Accessibility between Accuracy and Precision. --Rogerb67 (talk) 00:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Who are the readers? Or maybe what is the target audience? I think your suggestions could produce different results based on the audience or the technical expertise of the editors. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're asking, Vegaswikian. I don't believe I am suggesting a new process. I believe I am documenting the process that exists currently. At present, when people choose a name, they take into account certain values, such as accuracy, precision, consistency, and accessibility. It is beyond dispute that no one value dominates every time. Deciding how, for example, accessibility should be balanced against accuracy, is a decision that is made on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes accessibility wins, as it did at Gulliver's Travels, which is not the actual title of that book; sometimes accuracy wins, as it did at Metallica (album), which really is self-titled even though every man and his dog calls it "The Black Album". Now, what was your question again? Hesperian 11:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think H's suggestions are intended to produce one right result in every case - that wouldn't be possible anyway. Instead they emphasize the important fact that there are possibly conflicting considerations that have to be balanced.--Kotniski (talk) 08:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

But that is at the root of many of the problems. What might make sense to the average reader is not what the experts want. If the experts run the projects, as you would expect, then the average readers and editors voices are not heard. Vegaswikian (talk) 09:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I have not introduced any dichotomy between experts and average readers, and I don't see where you got that dichotomy from... unless it be by acknowledging that accessibility is sometimes in conflict with accuracy, and accuracy doesn't always win. Hopefully you can see from the examples I've given—Gulliver's Travels, Metallica (album), University of Oxford—that this doesn't really have anything to do with expertise. Hesperian 11:27, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Why the assumption that the experts are not also average readers and likewise wouldn't an average reader expect to find information using//explaining the terminology of that which the experts of a particular field use. Does that not go hand in hand with being an authorative reference and what is so difficult about the use of redirects just look at this example; Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth II, HRH Queen Elizabeth II, QEII. The realy root cause of problem is the presumption that the term "average reader" is being defined a 10yr old kid or some hick from the other side of the mountains, so whats wrong about saying use names that have the minimum of confussion like multiply instead of times, subtract instead of take away. When readers refer to an encyclopeadia they are looking for information about the subject they want to know more, they have a reasonable expectation as an encyclopaedia we have that information. I leave this with the words of Denis Diderot "We're an analytical dictionary of the sciences and arts nothing more than a methodical combination of their elements, I would still ask whom it behooves to fabricate good elements." Gnangarra 10:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The Venus de Milo is a prime example of why we should be exceedingly cautious in reviewing names for "accuracy" and "bias". The name of a thing is what it is called, and this statue has been called that since it was found; this is where readers will expect it to be.

But it was found before the independence of Greece. The goddess was then normally called Venus, not Aphrodite, as she would be now; the island was under Turkish rule in 1820, and was (for historical reasons) known by its Italian name Milo, not by its ancient and modern name Melos (also the heavily Demoticized Milos) . Putting those names together would lead us to call the statue Aphrodite of Melos; but very few writers actually do, and it is a sure way to confuse the reader who has heard something about the statue - and is therefore looking it up-, but not much - and will therefore benefit from our article.

A more serious example is the Macedonian snakepit. Greek editors sincerely claim that the only neutral term for the modern country is FYROM or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; the advocates of the Republic equally sincerely claim that the only neutral name for that country is Macedonia. Each then wails about the disadvantaged population of their nationals which is being insulted (in the Greek case, the population of the province of Macedonia (Greece)). We could go back and forth between them all day; but instead we get off the road, and its incompatible claims of legitimacy, by asking what English does.

Changing the question like this at least provides us a holding ground, while the international controversy rages. It doesn't always work, but opening the door to claims of bias would render these insoluble, even in the short term. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This is exactly the careful scholarly attention that many plant editors apply to plant articles, and that is blithely discounted by Born2cycle and to a lesser extent by PBS. It is the scholarship that shows that "Joshua tree" is the name applied to the tree form of Yucca brevifolia (which may be Y. brevifolia var. brevifolia; I don't have a reference at hand), not to the whole species. Just because in the case of Venus de Milo, scholarship supports the accessible name, that doesn't mean that scholarship should be discounted when it supports another name instead.--Curtis Clark (talk) 18:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I would regret this proposal turning into another discussion of Joshua tree; as a native speaker of English (not from California), I have only seen Joshua trees called thus; the native speakers of Neo-Latin who persist in this debate have a Latin Wikipedia at their disposal, which they are invited to improve. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Not Latin. Not even Neo-Latin.[1] As much English as kangaroo and kindergarten. Hesperian 23:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

You should see Medieval Latin, which has no shame about loan-words and errors. There's a fairly mild example at Celt (tool); but Peggichisme is not unparallelled. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

• In fact, I oppose this. Accuracy, neutrality, consistency, and so on, are all good things; although, as above, many of them will be abused. But usage is the only test of whether something is English at all, and should not be subjected to the rest. We could, I suppose, devise a set of names for the Republic of Macedonia and related topics, which had all these virtues but usage: "correct" (whatever that means here), encyclopedic, systematic, and so on. But we could not use it; that would be WP:OR. When several names are possible, and exist in the common speech other than as fringe uses, then we can reasonably consider whether the second or third most common have virtues worth using it instead; in fact, we routinely do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Isn't that H's point though - the rule is not always "use the most common name", but some people interpret the policy's present wording to mean that, so we may need to change the wording to ensure that it can't reasonably be so interpreted. --Kotniski (talk) 20:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
    • That would be a valid point, I think, but Hesperian goes much further: not blessing any one particular value with priority over the others is not what we do. We use Donation of Constantine for a document which is not a donation, and which Constantine never saw. Usage trumps accuracy, here.
    • Similarly, there are recurrent proposals to replace the Serbian names of towns in Kossovo with the Albanian names, because the Kosovar government has so declared; likewise with "corrections" to the names of towns in India. In both cases, WP:RM generally replies "Wait till the new name catches on". Usage trumps official standing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
      • I agree that usage wins in all of your examples, Septentrionalis. But not because usage is inherently more important than the other values; rather, because in every example you have given, the usage argument is compelling, and arguments for the others not so. Do you dispute the existence of article titles that are clearly the result of usage being treated as not the most important value in the relevant contexts? Are those titles all to be prescribed as wrong? Do you think that if we liberated the average user to take all values into account, rather than solely usage, that the title of Donation of Constantine would change? I doubt it. Hesperian 22:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
        • Perhaps, Septentrionalis, I should have said not blessing any one particular value with across-the-board priority over the others. The point is not to prescribe even-handed treatment of these values; quite the opposite. The point is to allow people to alter the priority given to these values according to the situation. For example the maths people may value accessibility very highly for basic topics, but treat it as less important than precision for advanced topics; after all the audiences differ. Hesperian 23:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
          • Let me rephrase: we can, and often should, follow usage when it is inaccurate and unsystematic (hence the examples), but accuracy and systematization without usage is not enough. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

• (EC) Reply to Kotniski: Yes, that's exactly why some form of Hesperian's proposal should be adopted. The current wording allows, or encourages, some people to stop reading after the first paragraph—when it is really just one of several conventions, all of which need to be given due weight. The vast majority of real content contributors here already use this balanced and common sense approach, so this proposal will only be affirming what is common practice. First Light (talk) 21:56, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
• Reply to PMAnderson: The Queen Elizabeth example above is just one where accuracy trumps usage. The policy should be based on common practice, not on an unrealized ideal. First Light (talk) 22:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Read WP:NCNT. The reason we use Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom is not accuracy (it's not strictly accurate); it's a combination of systematic naming and disambiguation. But QE of the UK is one of the competing usages, which is necessary. (The minimal technical requirements of disambiguation are also necessary, but less important.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Actually it is Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. So we agree that this title is not the most common name? We agree that this article has been so-titled based on an attempt to balance the competing values of accessibility (your term: "usage"), precision (your term: "disambiguation") and consistency (your term: "systematic naming")? Then my questions to you are: (1) Why does this policy prescribe that this title is illegal unless an explicit exception is made, because it is not "the most easily recognised name"? And (2) why are you opposed to this policy more clearly documenting the fact that article naming is informed by many values? Hesperian 23:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Usage is not "accessibility"; it answers the much simpler question: what does English call [this subject]?
      • Consistency is only of value where Wikipedia actually has some consistency. There are too many move requests of the form "we have to move A to resemble B and C" when the pattern appealled to is an optical illusion; B and C were never intended to be models, and D, E, F and G all differ from them.
        • • This page doesn't make anything illegal; that is a misunderstanding of the nature of Wikipedia - we don't and shouldn't have Roolz like that.
          • Consistency doesn't need an explicit convention; it needs agreement that there is and ought to be a pattern. But that's also when we should note the pattern on a guideline page, for future reference, so any such exception will be short-lived and rare.
        • The policy page now begins Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. That's a clear claim that this is generally true, but there are other points may be considered, especially when two names are about equally recognizable and easy to link. They are named in the following sections.
        • But Hesperian wishes to go much further than this page does now; that's not "clarification", it's a major change of policy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

          I have no problem with this proposal being seen as a major change of policy; I'm not sure why you've put clarification in quotes, as I don't believe I have ever misrepresented this proposal as such.

          There are two facts that people seem not to be speaking to here, so I can only assume you agree:

          1. People are not following this policy. It is way too inflexible to yield the sensible thing to do in all cases; and whenever the sensible thing to do clashes with this policy, this policy is (rightly) disregarded. I have given many examples, and could give many more.
          2. Some people are treating this policy as prescriptive; ramming it down people's throats, in fact.

          Between these two issues, it seems an inevitable conclusion that there is a problem with this policy that can only be fixed by editing it. You might not agree with my approach, but unless you dispute at least one of these two points, it is impossible to coherently argue that policy is just fine as it is.

          With respect to your comments on consistency, I can't give a better reply than what I've already written in the draft: "Note that consistency is one of several values, the relative importance of which varies on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, unless a naming convention is explicitly adopted, an article's title should not be used as a precedent for the naming of any other articles."

          Hesperian 22:57, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

But this page does in fact fairly well represent what Wikipedia does, and while there are dissentients, they are usually a loud minority, which we are just as well overruling; that's my experience from WP:RM. Claims of NPOV violations in proper names are usually nationalist vaporing for some foreign spelling of a name which is differently spelled in English. (See Talk:Novak Djokovic for an extreme example of this, where the name is uniformly spelled without diacritics in English; he's even nicknamed the Djoker.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: "this page does in fact fairly well represent what Wikipedia does", I don't agree. I think this page wrongly implies that "use the most easily recognised name" trumps all other values. Hesperian 00:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Examples where we have done otherwise, and done wisely?

If this page said that usage trumps, it wouldn't mention any other value; but referring our decision to the consensus of English as a whole is our chief line of defense against cranks who want us to use the Real Name of [whatever], and I am not willing to abandon it.

It is regrettable that naming discussions have not always been conducted with all possible tact. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed addition

I turned thoughtful over the usage of obsolete ethnonyms, such as Zyrians as applied previously to Komi peoples, Voguls to Mansi or Khakas, formerly Abakan Tatars. The issue of Armenian–Tatar massacres 1905-1907 have recently exposed problems over the relevant naming convention. Various hints, including WP:NCON and WP:PRECISION, have been put forward, but none ultimately succeeded. The matter is in the impass so far as the summary of viewpoints, supporting the move to modern ethnonym, have been cast aside again. I propose an addition to the general naming convention or to Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Dealing_with_historical_contexts, restricting the usage of obsolete and misleading ethnonyms in the article titles only to unique names, such as book/film headings. Brandспойт 13:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, Gauls should not be renamed "French", Aztecs should not be renamed "Mexicans", and Tatars should not be renamed "Azerbaijanis". Meowy 22:j09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

What you just said makes no sense. Gauls were completely different from the French and Aztecs were completely different from Mexicans in terms of ethnicity, languages, cultures, and history. Is that observed with the 'Tatar' - 'Azerbaijani' dichotomy? I think not, and you can never prove that it is. 'Tatar', or in its more precise form 'Aderbaijani Tatar', was just a more archaic name for Azerbaijanis, just like 'Eskimo' was once a name for the Inuit or 'Indians' for Native Americans. There are hundreds of sources to support that. There is no indication that those who were referred to as 'Aderbaijani Tatars' in 1897 were any different in any respect that defines an ethnic group than modern-day Azerbaijanis. Why lie to yourself just to prove a point to someone? Parishan (talk) 04:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The Gauls are not completely different from the French, and the Aztecs are not completely different from the Mexicans. Both are the ancestors of a significant part of the modern populations - but they are separated from their modern populations by time, by cultural differences, and by the fact that those modern nations did not exist when Gauls and Aztecs were around. The comparison with Tatars and Azerbaijanis is exactly the same. Meowy 02:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

And how exactly are 'Tatars' "separated from their modern populations (present-day Azerbaijanis) by time and by cultural differences"? The "modern nations did not exist" argument does not count because that is not an argument but the very thesis you are trying to prove. Are you saying that an average modern-day Azeri who goes under Azeri and his grandfather who went under Tatar differ in terms of time and culture as much as the Gauls differed from the French and the Aztecs differed from the Mexicans? Parishan (talk) 01:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The above assertions made by Parishan are misleading at best. You cannot retroactively apply a modern ethnonym to a group as diverse as Caucasian Tatars for various reasons. While the bulk of Tatars eventually formed the modern Azeri nation of Azerbaijan under Russian rule, care must be taken to distinguish between the former and the latter. Up until the late 19th century the only thing binding them in one group was religion, there was no sense of ethnic kinship or solidarity. Second of all, many non-Turkic Muslim people were included under the umbrella of Caucasian Tatars (including Kurds, Caucasians speakers, other Iranian speakers etc.).-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 15:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia is not supposed to process the information but present it as is. Perhaps Meowy's comparison was not complete but should suffice here. Your comparison is inadequate and this was already explained to you a countless number of times; Eskimos are Inuits, just as much as Hays are Armenians. In what regards the Azeri, they are a Turkic speaking people, some Turkic people became Azeri, others Turks etc. You on the other hand have been going back in the Turkic culture tree and calling those people Azeri, when they are the ancestors of different cultures that are still alive. It was also documented that Tatar also referred to Muslims in general in the region and not only Turkic speaking people. To go there and rename things amounts to processing information. I don't know in what other way this can be said to you when multiple sources have been provided already. - Fedayee (talk) 18:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

You are applying the term "formation process" to something that occured overnight, when the it was decided to include the (already existing but semi-official) term Azeri in the official nomenclature in the 1930s. Formations of ethnic groups take centuries to come about. What you are claiming is that one night a person went to bed as a Tatar and woke up as a completely different person, i.e. an Azeri the next morning; or that a modern-day generation Azeri belongs to a completely different ethnic group than his or her grandmother did. What is more misleading and illogical: what you just said or my factual assertion that calling 'Eskimos' Inuit (not parallel to 'Hye'; Inuit is the official English term that replaced 'Eskimo' in Canada in the 1970s) is the same as calling Aderbaijani Tatars Azeris? Based on academic sources, Wikipedia defines an ethnic group as "a group of human beings whose members identify with each other, usually on a presumed or real common heritage. Ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioral or biological traits, real or presumed, as indicators of contrast to other groups". Why was it "only religion" that unified them? What about language? There is in fact no indication of any cultural contrasts, mutually unintelligible dialects, differences in behaviours and lifestyles, racial or religious variations between pre-Soviet groups of Azeris, or of a lack of solidarity between those people. Just because they never formed a nation-state to include the Azeri-populated lands does not mean they did not identify with each other, especially given that Islam discourages ethnic nationalism, and as a result, Azeris are not the only traditionally Muslim ethnic group not to have a nation-state in the medieval era. There was a lot more cultural, linguistic and religious differentiation, antagonism and lack of common identity among people in post-medieval Germany (ethnicity-wise: Saxons vs. Prussians vs. Thuringians vs. Bavarians vs. Austrians, etc.; language-wise: High German languages vs. Low Franconian languages vs. Low Saxon languages; religion-wise: Catholics vs. Protestants) and post-medieval Italy (the Genoese, Venetians, Florentians, Tuscans, Sicilians), but it would be unwise to claim that Bach and Goethe were not German or that Dante and Davinci were not Italian. Regardless of what academicians and historians used to define a certain group, it is not logical to argue that a sudden change of that definitive had so much impact on people that it transformed them into a whole new ethnic group within less than a year. I doubt that whatever sources you have support this completely baseless and ridiculous assertion. On the other hand, we have sources like Gumilev stating that the Azeri ethnicity began forming in the medieval era and by the 15th-16th century it could already be clearly distinguished from the neighbouring groups, including Turks.[2] Parishan (talk) 22:11, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

An "Azerbaijani" is esentially a Soviet-period creation. On the Turkish side of the border the Tatar population has retained its real ethnicity, and they still call themselves Tatars. Meowy 02:57, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It is not a "Soviet-period creation", it has been in use since at least the late 19th century, and it is used in one of the best anthropological works of its time, The Races of Man by Joseph Deniker (1900). Even if it was not, the point is that the application of a new ethnonym to a certain group does not transform it into a whole new group, and certainly not to a point where one would have reasons to juxtapose them so contrastively. As for the "Tatar population on the Turkish side of the border", I am not even going to dignify that nonsense with a comment. Parishan (talk) 05:28, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Guys, the article shows there were no Tatars involved. Don't arrange a storm in teacup again, confusing community. Obscurantism should have its bounds. brandспойт 20:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you practice what you preach. We are discussing Caucasian Tatars not Tatars. -- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 21:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

It does not change the matter. Your stance is known anyway. brandспойт 21:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

alterations for further discussion

I have put back the word Convention:. It is important to distinguish between the naming conventions and the guidelines to the conventions. My preferred solution is to rename this page but last time it was suggested there was no consensus for such a change.

I have moved the following addtion from the section Lowercase second and subsequent words in titles to here for further discussion:

A notable exception is books, films and other works, which are written in title case. The specific title case convention adopted is to capitalise all words except for articles ("a", "an", "the"), the word "to" as part of an infinitive, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters (e.g., "on", "from", "and", "with"), unless they begin or end a title or subtitle. For example: A New Kind of Science, To Be or Not to Be.

Is this correct and is it needed in the policy or is it better off in a guideline? --PBS (talk) 12:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Frankly I think there is way too much crud on this page, and I hadn't appreciated that stuff was being jammed in here in order to elevate it to policy status. By including that I was just trying to include what is obviously a significant exception. The material was taken from the capitalisation naming convention. Hesperian 13:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

My taste would be to drop the "Convention:" (the word adds nothing and may mislead people into thinking they are absoulte rules), and also to drop the detail about titles (it can be replaced by a very short summary and a link to the other convention page).--Kotniski (talk) 16:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This is not correct, the capitalization rules are language-specific. Some books, films and other works have foreign language titles, where the rules are different. Colchicum (talk) 16:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And we should follow foreign rules only if English does; just as we use Cervantes' spelling of Don Quixote, not the modern Spanish. Foreign language rules should be mentioned here, but followed on foreign Wikipedias. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

English does. See numerous formatting and style manuals. Colchicum (talk) 18:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

A claim that would be more useful with a source, but style manuals aren't the non-existent English Academy of Letters either; only usage is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:08, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

This stuff should be sorted out at the capitalisation convention. Once it is sorted out there, all we need to discuss here is to what extent it needs to be articulated here. Hesperian 23:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --PBS (talk)

I have put back the word Convention again: It is important to distinguish between the naming conventions and the guidelines to the conventions. --PBS (talk) 12:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Proposal

Okay, it looks like the cat is out of the bag anyhow, so here it is. Following on from the #Disputed section above, I have drafted a proposed rewrite; enter via Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Proposal. As far as I'm concerned only the basic premise is fixed—that a range of encyclopedic values are brought to bear in naming articles, and editors can be trusted to balance those values appropriately. As long as that premise remains immutable I am happy to see the prose rewritten from the ground up. Hesperian 23:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I like it. It certainly seems an improvement on what we have now. I would use a bit more of the "ideal title should" type of language though, particularly in the list of values near the top, to prevent misinterpretations when sentences are cited out of context. And given that we have to put them in some order, I would put Accessibility first, since it does seem to be the concern that has most commonly been treated as overriding.--Kotniski (talk) 06:54, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

As hesitant as I might be about this change, it does appear to be an improvement. The Consistency section may need some work to deal with conflicting naming conventions. Also there are hints that titles should make clear what the subject is. This could lead to renames for titles that are correct but would be better understood by many more readers with a longer title. I don't see that as bad, but it is something to consider. Vegaswikian (talk) 09:16, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that the wording is likely to cause as many problems as it solves, because there are so many areas where there are conflict between the principles it describes. I made some points on this subject some time ago (see Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions/Archive 11#What we've all been overlooking (I think)) I would like to reply in more detail, but am not sure where to do so. Hesperian where would you like to conduct the conversation? Also such a large change would need very wide participation to build a large consensus, because the effects of such changes can be surprising and far reaching in areas of Wikipedia which can not easily be predicted without a working knowledge of that area (unforeseen consequences). --PBS (talk) 10:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: "so many areas where there are conflict between the principles it describes", I think the most compelling reason to adopt something along these lines is that these conflicted areas are going to exist whether this policy acknowledges their existence or not. Every example I've used here is a conflicted area right now, under the present policy.

Re: "I would like to reply in more detail, but am not sure where to do so", I think here would be best, but I don't mind if others want to push it over to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Proposal.

Re: "such a large change would need very wide participation", I agree. Eventually this will have to be tagged as proposed, advertised at the pump, etcetera. But I am under no illusions as to my inability to write a solid and elegant policy from scratch all on my own, so I would prefer to see this workshopped informally for a while first.

Hesperian 10:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I am going to copy this section to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Proposal as it could quickly come to dominate this page. --PBS (talk) 11:09, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I have made lots of little changes in response to your comments.[3] Can I again urge you to be bold if you can be bothered.

At present my main discomfort is around neutrality; I can't quite put my finger on what the problem is, and Septentrionalis' comments about it above don't pin it down for me either. I guess my concern is that NPOV is a "cornerstone of Wikipedia", and is supposed to be non-negotiable; yet we routinely use biased article titles simply because we have no other reasonable choice. An example is the Battle of Pinjarra. "Battle of Pinjarra" has always been its name, and is still its name to most people; but in the last decade or so, a small (but not fringe) minority have strenuously objected to the event being called a "battle", and instead promoted the name "Pinjarra massacre", which really is biased. Given the available names, the only possible choice is the most-accessible least-biased name "Battle of Pinjarra". I reckon nearly everyone who fully understood the context would come to the same decision. Yet the fact remains that the name is not entirely neutral. How do we document this so that our policy does not contradict WP:NPOV?

Hesperian 11:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, strike that, there is no conflict with WP:NPOV, which states "Where proper nouns such as names are concerned, disputes may arise over whether a particular name should be used. Wikipedia takes a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach in such cases, by using the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources." Hesperian 12:40, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

act (statute)

In accordance with MOS:CAPS and the most widespread use as shown by most UK dictionaries (Cambridge, Oxford, Collins, Longman), the word "act" is best spelled lowercase when it's a common noun and not referring to a specific act. We might want to add a note that the UK Parliament (and other legislatures and many members of the legal profession) often do not follow this most widespread usage recorded by dictionaries and instead often uppercase "act" (and other terms) even when used as a common noun. --Espoo (talk) 10:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the use as an Act of Parliament/Act of the Oireachtas/etc. is almost always spelled with a capital A. Stifle (talk) 16:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There is indeed a convoluted discussion underway on whether the specific phrase should be dealt with differently to the noun... Shimgray | talk | 16:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Stifle, did you look at the links? Shimgray, according to the sources provided, there is no difference in spelling between "act" in the sense of a law adopted by a parliament or the more explicit expression "act of Parliament" referring to exactly the same thing. --Espoo (talk) 10:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Policy

Why does this page have the force of official policy? It is merely part of the Manual of Style and should be downgraded to a guideline. SpinningSpark 10:19, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Why do you think it is part of the Manual of Style? --Kotniski (talk) 10:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is, I think it should be. The article title is really just a level 0 section heading and should be treated by way of a style guideline, along with the section headings. Elevating this to the level of policy, with the implied threat of administrator action against you for daring to breach it is ridiculous and constrictive. SpinningSpark 12:04, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I dunno, there are people in other places talking about making MOS into policy... I always say in these situations, what does it matter? Ask any n experienced WPans what the difference between policies and guidelines is and you'll get at least n different answers, all of them unsupportable either by logic or by the facts. So my view is - not worth arguing about. (I am pretty surprised to see this marked as policy, though, I must admit.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It's very simple; administrators are expected to enforce policy. They have no authority to use their administrative powers to punish poor style. This is a matter for all of us to put right by normal editing. The very idea of making the whole of MOS policy in its entirety fills me with foreboding. If that were to go ahead it would end up with people being blocked for recklessly placing commas on the wrong side of quotation marks or for obstinately using sub-headings out of sequence. Don't think I'm exaggerating either, I have seen both those complaints come up at ANI. SpinningSpark 12:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I take your point, but I disagree; the naming conventions are not only internal to the article, they influence the rest of Wikipedia as well, as they are the primary means of article identification and only one article can have a particular name. If someone is "recklessly placing commas on the wrong side of quotation marks" within an article, no direct harm is done, and absolutely none outside the article. But if people start recklessly moving articles to new names, things quickly get messy, and giving administrators the direct authority to intervene in such circumstances is desirable. --Rogerb67 (talk) 15:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense, though I would point out, from WP:BLOCK (which is a policy): "blocks may be necessary in response to: [violations of four specified policies and] persistently violating other policies or guidelines." So there perhaps isn't such a bright line between policies and guidelines as regards blocking as some people seem to think (and I've been told as much by admins).--Kotniski (talk) 16:13, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Questions like this have often been debated before. An answer to a similar question see: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Archive 11#Discussion

Tony you wrote "May I turn it around and ask: what disadvantage would ensue from making this a styleguide like Layout?" I think that is answered by the disputes that end up at WP:RM. Most editors who edit in good faith are willing to accept policy trumps guidelines when it comes to making decisions over what applies in Wikipedia. If this is not policy then a local group of editors could legitimately argue that if there is a local consensus (a policy) to name a page that clashes with the naming convention, then that name should prevail because as Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines says "Policies and guidelines express standards that have community consensus. Policies are considered a standard that all users should follow, whereas guidelines are more advisory in nature." This would tie the hands of an administrator who is face with moving a page to a name that clashes with the naming conventions, because if the WP:RM process has thrown up a local consensus to move it, even if it was explained to those taking part in the WP:RM process why the name is inappropriate according to the guidelines, they could say but the naming conventions do not apply as they have a consensus for the move. As an administrator who deals with WP:RM requests when a backlog develops, IMHO without the Naming Conventions being policy the muppets will prevail. Just ask any administrator who often moves pages listed at WP:RM how many comments are placed on their talk pages complaining about how they have made the wrong decisions and that is with WP:NC as a policy!--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

New guideline proposal Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland/Conventions

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland/Conventions a proposed new guideline. --PBS (talk) 18:12, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Television and Radio Channels

I think we need to address the changing of television and radio channels, as I cannot find anything on this page addressing this specific topic. To explain, I'm referring to when a channel stops being known by a specific names and starts being known as a new one. Should a page be titled after the new name, or should the page reflect an historical standpoint and make note that the channel is still the same it's just being referred to by a different name now? When Fox Kids started going by "Fox Box", should the article have changed names even those "Fox Box" only lasted a short time before it was canceled for a completely new, and separate channel owned by someone else? Is Spike TV distinct from TNN that TNN should have remained its own page; Spike TV's page be TNN's page since it's been around for over 6 years? Where should we say, ok, this warrants a new page name and this doesn't?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:43, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Distinct articles separated by minor spelling variations

Is there a policy that says how similar article titles can get before they have to formally disambiguate themselves using parentheses?

The example I'm considering here is:

Hillclimbing. Redirects: Hill Climb Hill-climb Hill climbs Hill climbing. Redirects: Hill-climbing

closed compound open compound hyphenated compound open compound open compound hyphenated compound

The difference between an open, hyphenated, and closed compound are relatively insignificant, almost on the order of British- and American-English variants of words. Is there anywhere that formally says that article names are confusingly similar once they get this close linguistically (and thus are required to use parenthesized disambiguation)? --Underpants 14:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Churches

Is there an active naming convention for churches (or possibly other places of worship too)? For example, there seems to be some inconsistency over whether to use "St X's Church" or "Church of St X". Whilst most articles seem to use the former, we have for example in my local area one article at Church of SS Peter & Paul, Aston but various others at St Augustine's Church, Edgbaston, St Edburgha's Church, Yardley, &c. It seems even more confusing where one article is currently occupying a very common page title, as with Church of Saint George which forces all others out to a disambig page at St George's Church. Any thoughts? DWaterson (talk) 22:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The simple answer is to use the correct name of the church. With churches, where the names are frequently used for many different buildings, there should be a dab page at the main name space. The exception is when one church is clearly the most notable. Church of Saint George has been changed. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Vegaswikian is correct, but the "correct" name must be determined according to the naming conventions. This may not be the "official" name of the church, although frequently it will be. --Rogerb67 (talk) 01:26, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

(instrumental)

The guide currently says:

When a track is not strictly a song (in other words a composition without lyrics, or an instrumental that is not a cover of a song), disambiguation should be done using (composition) or (instrumental).

However, although this makes sense, it doesn't seem to accord to actual practice, which almost always uses "(song)" for disambiguating instrumentals: Telstar (song), Apache (The Shadows song), etc. Is there really a consensus for using "(instrumental)", and if so, why is it largely ignored? --Zundark (talk) 11:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I've never interpreted the term 'song' to be limited to compositions with lyrics. In other words, a 'song' can be an instrumental. My take would be to continue the actual practice, and update the guide if necessary. --mwalimu59 (talk) 14:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I would not change the guide and encourage the actual practice itself to change. We aren't here to change the definition of the word "song" for convenience's sake.--Ultimaking (talk) 19:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Historic states named after towns which later changed their names?

I noticed some inconsistency regarding the naming of historic states named after towns which later changed their name. For instance, historic states in the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea named after towns use the historic name of the town, like the Duchy of Neopatria, the marquisate of Bodonitsa, the lordship of Negroponte, the empire of Trebizond, the empire of Nicaea or the duchy of Philippopolis. The duchies of Silesia however use mostly the current names of the cities, which weren't used when these duchies existed. Is there a naming convention for such cases? Thanks a lot. Karasek (talk) 08:52, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Karasek you are incorrect. The duchies use their original names-not the Germanised versions.--Molobo (talk) 14:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I can provide several books of documents of both dukes and towns which support my case. Karasek (talk) 17:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Lehns- und Besitzurkunden Schlesiens und seiner einzelnen Fürstenthümer im Mittelalter p.1

Lehns- und Besitzurkunden Schlesiens und seiner einzelnen Fürstenthümer im Mittelalter p.2

Codex Diplomaticus Silesiae p.8

Codex Diplomaticus Silesiae p.12

Codex Diplomaticus Silesiae p.20

Codex Diplomaticus Silesiae p.27

Codex Diplomaticus Silesiae p.6

These books of documents are a pretty complete collection of documents from almost every Silesian duchy and clearly show that the names we use here weren't used at that time. If needed I can also provide page numbers for almost every duchy. So, my question again: is there a naming convention for such cases? Karasek (talk) 10:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

act (statute)

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

After several discussions on the topic, it is clear that there is no consensus on whether the phrase "act of Parliament" should be capitalized or not. As there is no consensus, the pages concerned (as is standard practice) should be moved back to their original stable locations, which in this case seems to be at the capitalized form. Any editors who wish to move these to lowercase should bring this up again on this page at a later date, when consensus may have changed.--Aervanath (talk) 16:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

---

Proposal A

I propose we adopt an official policy on the lowercase or uppercase spelling of act in the sense of "law" to avoid edit wars and huge amounts of time and effort wasted in numerous and repeated discussions of the same thing on numerous pages.

The terms "act of Congress", "act of Parliament", and "act" in that sense are common, not proper nouns. In accordance with MOS:CAPS (Wikipedia's house style avoids unnecessary capitalization; most capitalization is for proper names, acronyms, and initialisms) and the most widespread use in reputable sources as recorded (not prescribed) by all major UK and US dictionaries and at least 2 major encyclopedias (Cambridge, Oxford, Collins, Longman, American HeritageRandom House, Cambridge American, Merriam-WebsterColumbialBritannica), the term "act (of Congress/Parliament)" is best spelled lowercase when it's a common noun and not part of the name of a specific act.

We should add a note that many legislatures and many members of the legal profession often do not follow this most widespread usage recorded by dictionaries and encyclopedias and instead often uppercase "act" (and other terms) even when used as a common noun. Nevertheless, for example the drafting rules of the (US) National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws specifically say

• Use lower case letters for internal references within the same act, article, part, or section.
  • Examples: “An individual who violates a provision of this [act] . . .”. “The procedures set forth in this [article] . . .”. “Except as otherwise provided in this section, . . . ”.
• Do not capitalize the word “act” when used to refer to the act being drafted.

We should add a hidden note (<!-- -->) explaining that Wikipedia is primarily and according to one of its main policies based on secondary sources, not primary sources, and does not have to follow usage in primary sources. We also need to add a note that modern dictionaries and encyclopedia do not impose rules and instead describe current usage in reputable sources based on huge databases of quotations (and themselves use the most common usage). --Espoo (talk) 12:20, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal B

• The following pages were recently moved on the basis of what I believe was fallacious reasoning about whether "Act" in "Act of Parliament" should have a capital letter. I think that they were moved without consensus and I would like to see them moved back. — James500 (talk) 19:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
  • List of acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom → List of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom
  • List of acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1601 → List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1601
  • List of acts of Parliament of the English Parliament, 1603 to 1641 → List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament, 1603 to 1641
  • List of acts of the Scottish Parliament to 1707 → List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament to 1707
  • List of acts of the Parliament of Ireland to 1700 → List of Acts of the Parliament of Ireland to 1700
  • List of acts of the Parliament of Ireland, 1701 to 1800 → List of Acts of the Parliament of Ireland, 1701 to 1800
  • List of acts of the Scottish Parliament from 1999 → List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament from 1999
  • List of acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly → List of Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly
  • List of acts of the Northern Ireland Parliament → List of Acts of the Northern Ireland Parliament
  • List of acts of Parliament of Canada → List of Acts of Parliament of Canada

*Do you have support for your assertion that the moves were based on "fallacious reasoning"? Act of Parliament and Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom certainly do not support your assertion. – ukexpat (talk) 20:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)Oops I misread your message - yes the A should be a capital letter. I support these moves. – ukexpat (talk) 21:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• • Incomplete. JPG-GR (talk) 07:22, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• • One of WP's main policies is to base editing on secondary sources. Trying to make inferences from primary sources, especially when they contradict usage in all major encyclopedias and dictionaries all major UK and US dictionaries and at least 2 major encyclopedias is blatant WP:OR. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#act (statute) --Espoo (talk) 12:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• All major encyclopedias? IIRC, Halsbury's Laws of England, which is the leading encyclopedia on this subject, uses this capitalisation throughout; in the remote event that I could be wrong, I shall check that. I am quite sure that I have never seen a textbook that uses the lower case capitalisation.

In the event that the policy WP:OR is relevant, I (tentatively) suggest that it might be answered by WP:IAR. Even you concede that it is common knowledge that the legislatures and lawyers spell the word with a capital letter. I really have no doubt whatsoever that the Parliament of the United Kingdom consistently uses a capital A in all legislation.

I also feel that effecting extensive changes across the encyclopedia (which would be the outcome of adopting the convention that you propose) is excessive. The titles of the articles listed above are actually inconsistent with the other lists that you did not move, presumably because you did not notice them. To put it another way, I think that you are trying to fix something that isn't really broken, and the disruption that I anticipate this might cause is out of proportion to any conceivable benefit that could be gained from it.

The page moves that have been effected have large numbers of articles pointing at a redirect page. This promotes link rot.

Anyway, since our policies do not impose American spellings merely because they are more commonly used, why should they impose this particular capitalization? At the very least, this is an entirely acceptable variant capitalization. James500 (talk) 13:45, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• Please see directions above (With the exception of a brief description of the problem or objection to the move proposal, please do not discuss move proposals here). Please add your good comments to Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#act (statute) and please lets discuss this there. I'll just add this short answer here. I meant "all major dictionaries and at least 2 major encyclopedias" as changed above and as on the relevant talk pages. --Espoo (talk) 16:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

---

The messages in this section above were moved from Wikipedia:Requested moves. Please continue discussion below. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:26, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

---

• Comment. I believe that it is completely beyond the scope of any encyclopedia to specify how something should be spelled, rather it is our scope to specify how something is spelled. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 02:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, we should definitely mention that both spellings are used (and provide some additional info about this issue), but as pointed out in my intro above and as pointed out in MOS in general, it's a good idea to decide on how to write some words in Wikipedia to avoid wasting time in many discussions of the same topic again and again in many different places. The whole purpose of WP:NAME and WP:MOS is to specify how something should be written in WP, not elsewhere. --Espoo (talk) 15:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose (proposal B) – if I understand correctly that the proposal is to change titles to capilalize "Acts" in what look like generic word positions as opposed to something that could be interpreted as "proper names". WP policy, if I recall correctly, is to not capitalize terms unless they are "almost always" capitalized in normal use; I'm not convinced that evidence to that effect has been presented (if it has, please link it here, as I may have missed it). Dicklyon (talk) 04:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The word Act is, as far as I am aware, always capitalized in what I shall describe as "academic legal writing" (i.e. textbooks and encyclopedias within this subject area). I would suggest that where an article is "academic legal writing", as these articles are, the conventions of that kind of writing (where it is always capitalized), and not the conventions of any other kind of writing, should be followed.

As far as I can see, for this purpose, normal use means normal use for the kind of writing contained in the article. James500 (talk) 14:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

• • The titles of the articles above are inconsistent the titles of the majority of these lists, because the user who recently moved these lists missed the others. James500 (talk) 14:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The moves that were effected are contentious and ought to have been requested beforehand. There was a lengthy and rather heated argument on some of these pages about this a few weeks ago. James500 (talk) 14:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
    • At the risk of being drawn back into this time-sink, the earlier discussions were here, here & here (and possibly a fourth page I seem to have forgotten) - as should hopefully be clear from the CFD page among others, there certainly was no consensus to make such systematic changes at the time. Hopefully there can be some kind of consensus either way settled now and adhered to throughout, rather than the current situation... Shimgray | talk | 11:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• It could be said that parliaments referring to their acts generically as Acts is one more case of a group who make something capitalizing the word because the article referred to is important to them. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I think that it is more likely that it is because, originally, all common nouns where capitalized in Acts of Parliament, and the usage has stuck. That's just guesswork though. James500 (talk) 14:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
• The people who are writing articles on legal subjects, who I imagine are likely to be lawyers, may not appreciate having this (alien) capitalization imposed on them. I think that an attempt to impose this particular spelling, which is not used in legal writing, is more likely to result in edit warring than to prevent it. James500 (talk) 14:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose (proposal B). I am a common law/non-American legal academic, and I would suggest that the "legal academic" style is not consistent on this point as has been claimed. Many legal academics capitalize "Act" only when it is referring to a specific statute. Here, we are referring to statutes in the generic, so capitalization would be inappropriate in this style. Other academics always capitalize it, but others never capitalize it unless it is part of the name of an act (e.g., Crimes Act). I see no reason to favour the method that would always capitalize the word. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law letting them know about this discussion, since hopefully many of the editors who work on these articles watch that. My views are hopefully clear from the earlier discussion, so I'll leave the matter well alone now! Shimgray | talk | 11:44, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Well, in addition to the commenter above who refers to Halsbury's Laws, my Butterworths Concise Australian Legal Dictionary uses the uppercase. And, might I add that regardless of what is done in the general case, when one is talking about the Acts of a particular Parliament collectively, as is the case with all of those lists, it is appropriate to use the uppercase, as severally each of those Acts are proper nouns. --bainer (talk) 13:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (long lists)#"List of foos: People" or "List of foos: people"?

The grammatical niceties of the usage of capital letters in the names of sublists has arisen at a couple of Featured List Candidate discussions recently, so I'd invite people to discuss the issue at the above link. Thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 00:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Wording of Be Precise

The second sentence of the convention "Be precise when necessary" currently says: "If all possible titles have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming conventions and use common names of persons and things."

It's a bit more complex than that, though, isn't it? This kind of implies that precision trumps commonness, which I don't think is the intention. In practice I think we would often prefer an ambiguous name, even if it means adding a disambiguating tag to it, over an unambiguous but less common alternative. For example, Mercury (element) over "Quicksilver" (this would still hold even if quicksilver had no other meanings).--Kotniski (talk) 08:17, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No replies, so I'm going to be bold I have been bold and tried to fix it. By the way, what happened to the proposal to reword the whole thing to make it clear that naming is based on competing priorities rather than fixed commandments? Is anyone still working on that? --Kotniski (talk) 07:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I too believe that Wikipedia has taken a very imprecise direction if it were to follow other English speaking publications, to the cost of a fresh report from the field and from the majority of people living in a certain country!

I think that in doing so, Wikipedia loses touch with present time reality! And fails to represent the majority! And Wiki was founded on peoples reports and articles that represent the majority of reality! Chosing suddenly not to follow upon those reports, blocks Wiki from adopting the semi liquid state of reality that changes in every day changes in the world.

For instance. Why should Wiki neglect the way people in a country name their cities, mountains, rivers, towns etc? Theres a problem of how those names on those countries have been named earlier on, on old publications, or even non properly studied, by not going on the field and capturing a reality today - publications, and Wiki just follows those other English speaking publications, EVEN when there are reports now, and today, that there are those inaccuracies of names, from people living there constantly, even now as you read this!

I propose that the majority of people living on the country must have a say on how their mountains, rivers, lakes, cities are called, and respect their way of naming it, so as they too would be represented into Wiki and not be left neglected!

Otherwise, Wikipedia loses touch with reality of how the majority of people that get to see, touch, hear and taste those places on that country! And I think if we are to add the whole world here, the majority of people's reports in any country shouldnt be neglected at any cost!

DiedonD (talk) 08:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The title Mar in the Assyrian Church of the East

Most if not all the names I see associated with this church all start with Mar, which is basically the Assyrian equivalent of "Saint". Would it be appropriate for the articles to be titled "Mar (X)" or not? John Carter (talk) 15:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Treatment of contradictory naming conventions

• WP:NAME says to favor easily recognized names for general audiences over vocabulary of specialists.
• WP:MEDMOS#Naming conventions says exactly the opposite - to favor specilist vocabulary over commonly used names.

Which takes precendence? Why? The conflict should be resolved, or at least documented with usual procedure for dealing with it (precedence rules, etc.) Thanks. Zodon (talk) 08:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh boy, here we go again. For extended discussion on this matter, see Archive 11, starting from this section and continuing on down and into Archive 12. Also see pretty much all of WT:FLORA. My personal view on this is that WP:NC (this policy) takes precedence, since it represents community-wide consensus, and that other specialized naming conventions should be changed to recognize this. Often, with specialized projects, there IS no easily recognized name; millions of kinds of flora/fauna/fungus/disease/insert specialized topic here are not commonly known, and thus the "most commonly used name" is the one used by experts in the field. So the majority of the time, the MEDMOS naming conventions are probably correct. However, all naming conventions should contain an exception that if a particular subject is known to the general public by a name different than what experts call it, and this name is widely known, then the layman's term should be favored over the expert's. So, I would disagree with the example given at the top of the MEDMOS naming conventions: Myocardial infarction should redirect to Heart attack, not the other way around. WP:Naming conventions is policy, while all of the WP:MOS pages are just guidelines.--Aervanath (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I should point out that NAME actually says that, where common names and other more specific conventions conflict, the sub-convention should take precedence. Sceptre ^(talk) 02:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Another important point is that even if a written policy said that WP:NAME took precedence over MEDMOS, that fact that all medical articles current follow MEDMOS render the written policy invalid, since consensus has obviously chosen, organically by the actions of many users, to follow MEDMOS. Resurr Section (talk) 02:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: While I see the point that common terms should be used in Wikipedia articles (i.e. you want to make it easy on the reader to find the article they are interested in), I don't see why that is not alleviated by redirects? The article should portray to be informational and educational, teaching the reader about the topic being discussed. If you perpetuate common terms as if they were the generally accepted term in the field, then you are doing a disservice to the reader. For example, you are educating the concerned reader who wants to know more about "Myocardial Infarction"...but they only know the lay term "Heart Attack". While physicians are trained to use both interchangeably for the benefit of the patient, they also try to educate the patient as best they can about the specifics of their disease. For example, if I ask a patient a history question I ask "Has anyone in your family had a heart attack", it is a screening question and you want to get the information quickly. But if the patient had an MI, then you would educate them about what an MI is since that is their diagnosis. A concerned reader coming to the page needs to be informed about the medical or scientific term where appropriate, and in the case of an encyclopedia, we should be using medical terms at least when referring to the disease. Of course we also include re-directs, disambiguation pages, and definitions of common terms in the article to cover all bases and the general text in the article is written with medical and non-medical terms as appropriate for the common reader. Flipper9 (talk) 14:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

But then the lay reader freaks out when he sees some weird jargon as the title of the article after typing something perfectly normal into the search box. (Basically, people who understand MI also understand heart attack, but not vice versa, so using heart attack presents the least surprise.) If there's some difference in meaning between MI and HA, then maybe they should have separate articles; if they mean practically the same thing, and HA is better known and is not in some way misleading, then I would be for HA. But whatever our differing views on the weight to be given to particular factors in naming an article, it can hardly be denied that there are a number of factors that need to be balanced, and it would be good to rewrite the naming conventions pages in a way that clearly acknowledges that. (I wouldn't even call this page "naming conventions", I'd call it "Article names" or "Article naming", and leave the "conventions" title for the subject-specific rules that really are conventions rather than general principles.)--Kotniski (talk) 14:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. I've found that many articles in the very first sentence explain the scientific name and all of it's various lay-terms quite well. "Myocardial infarction (MI or AMI for acute myocardial infarction), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs..." explains it clearly right at the beginning, and just above that any particular redirects are clearly stated. The lay reader wouldn't freak out because that's the first thing that's explained whenever a scientific or medical article is presented. What about those who call a stroke a "heart attack", they'll have to read a good part of the article (more than just the first introductory sentence) to understand or realize that they are on the wrong article. In the case of "swine flu", there is a lot more confusion even amongst scientists and medical professionals on what to call it because everyone (including the WHO and CDC in the beginning) messed up. Perpetuating misconceptions because many people do it doesn't seem to be the right way to go in an encyclopedia. Flipper9 (talk) 15:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

While WP:COMMONNAME contains an exception for specific naming conventions, the Wikipedia:NC#Use_the_most_easily_recognized_name states the principle that should underly all naming conventions: "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." So, for a general audience, "heart attack" is far more appropriate than the medical term.--Aervanath (talk) 20:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Use common names of persons and things

I reverted the changes to "Use common names of persons and things" for two reasons.

The first is that the new wording seems to me to indicate a disagreement over the use of "conflict" in the paragraph. Changing "use the naming conflict guideline when there is a conflict." to "Use the naming conflict guideline when there is disagreement over the right name to use" is a different reading of the word conflict it can be read to be a disagreement over the name by two or more editors --the first meaning of conflict in the OED- but the OED has a another meaning "3 fig. Of interests, opinions, statements, feelings, etc.: To come into collision, to clash; to be at variance, be incompatible." IE one can not use the name because it comes into collision with another name, as it is not possible for them both to share the same name, eg orange the fruit and orange the colour, then they are in conflict.

The second is there is a naming conventions guideline to deal with this called Wikipedia:Naming conflict, it is not necessary to suggest looking at the semi detached guideline Wikipedia:Disambiguation in this section, as that is not the only solution available the very next section in the naming conventions policy also helps to resolve the issue (be precise when necessary).

Sorry, I re-reverted before I noticed this talk. But I think you've not appreciated the problem - look at WP:Naming conflict and you'll see that it is about "disagreements over the right name to use". And it is the disambiguation guideline (and certainly not Naming Conflict) that tells how to solve the other kind of conflicts (i.e. conflicts between articles trying to use the same name). I've tried to improve the wording slightly to take account of your last point about "be precise...".--Kotniski (talk) 05:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, another part of the text you've tried to restore twice says "use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things". I don't know if you intended to restore this wording, but surely we can't say this - very many (most?) names used for Wikipedia articles conflict with the names of other people or things (that's why we have "for other uses see xx (disambiguation)" at the top of so many articles). --Kotniski (talk) 05:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

All-caps brandnames in titles and body

A SPA has just made major changes and also a rename to an all-caps version of the name, mimicking the "official website", at PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola (see Talk:PEAK_2_PEAK_Gondola#Massive_changes_and_name-change_by_SPA) and also throughout the article substituted the all-caps version of the name. Are brand-names acceptable this way? Noting, as an aside, that in non-"official" copy, e.g. local newspapers, the all-caps version is not (so far as I know) in use.Skookum1 (talk) 01:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

No, that's probably not ok. See WP:MOSTM.--Aervanath (talk) 04:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Naming for swine flu outbreak

Should it be 2009 H1N1 outbreak or 2009 swine flu outbreak? See Talk:2009 swine flu outbreak. MOS:MED conflicts with WP:COMMONNAME in this regard. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• There is no conflict with WP:COMMONNAME; that policy says that other accepted naming conventions supercede it. MOS:MED is an accepted naming convention, since articles on medical topics are given non-common names and nobody complains. Resurr Section (talk) 05:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

i do not know about the anglo world, but here in Europe, media are moving away from "swine" and towards "Mexican" or "North-American" flu, the reason for this being that pigs really do not have a lot to do with the disease

Article names for events which are primarily about a person

Sorry for slightly convoluted title!

There is an AfD currently underway for Samantha Orobator. As part of that discussion there have been some suggestions to rename to something like Case of Samantha Orobator. I'm a bit undecided as to what the correct naming should be. On the one hand, the article is not a biography as such, in that it is specifically about a person in relation to a specific event. On the other hand, most people searching would probably just look for the name of the person.

In terms of other articles, I note that for Madeleine McCann, the article is called Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, with redirects to that page.

I was just wondering if there was a consensus for how to approach this type of situation. Quantpole (talk) 12:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Generally, if a person is only notable for one event, then the article should be named after the event, not the person, and be structured to emphasize the notability of the event over that of the person.--Aervanath (talk) 18:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Slash in name

It's not that clear if the / symbol is allowed. Please see my comments at Talk:Good_cop/bad_cop#Name.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I've commented over there, too, but in general there shouldn't be a problem with it, as long as it complies with the rest of the naming conventions.--Aervanath (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

A related issue is # in the name, which does seem to be a problem. See Talk:Bam Margera Presents: Where the#Name. Any advice welcome, and perhaps WP:NC#Special characters needs some expaansion. Andrewa (talk) 09:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Good cop/bad cop#Name

I think this article should be renamed to remove the / symbol from the name. See Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Avoid_non-alphanumeric_characters_used_only_for_emphasis and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Subpages.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a good technical reason for not using / as it creates a sub-page. -- PBS (talk) 17:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Those two policies just say "page names should avoid beginning with non-alphanumeric characters" and "do not intentionally use slashes to make subpages". Is the "good technical reason" still an issue, in modern Wikipedia? (An article like AC/DC doesn't appear to have any hacks or warnings on it.) --McGeddon (talk) 17:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point, I've asked at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Slash_in_name.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Subpages are disabled in the article namespace, so the use of the / character is not a problem. As long as "Good cop/bad cop" is the WP:Most common name (as opposed to, say, "Good cop-bad cop", with a hyphen), then there is no reason it should be a problem. (Note: I'm not actually suggesting which one is more common, I'm just using it as an example.) Cheers,--Aervanath (talk) 18:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Bam Margera Presents: Where the#Name

Wikipedia:NC#Special_characters doesn't mention # but it should. Unfortunately, # is used to identify anchors within the page, that's the problem here. Unsure what the best solution is here, but it's not RM. I'll pursue further, the request is not lost! Andrewa (talk) 09:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

You could use ♯ instead of #. --Zundark (talk) 10:13, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I've now done this, as it's better than the truncated title anyway. --Zundark (talk) 10:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I've made the problems with the use of the special characters more explicit in the Naming Convention.

At the moment the advise given at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Characters totally forbidden in page titles is "However, it may be necessary to spell out the character (e.g. Gtk Sharp instead of Gtk#) or use another substitute" we could add to that "like '♯' for of '#'" Should we add Zundark idea? It seems to me that it may cause more problems than it solves as most people will not have access to ♯ on their keyboard when entering searches in search engines (and would probably not notice the difference unless it was pointed out to them), but after brief check with Google, Google seems to substitute one for the other as it does with many other similar characters (Could someone please verify this?). What do others think? --PBS (talk) 15:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Aervanath are subpages also disabled from article talk pages? Should we mention in the naming convention that "/" in a name is depreciated unless reliable sources also use "/" in a name. --PBS (talk) 15:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Subpages are not disabled in the article talk namespace. I've thought about the possibility of this causing issues before, but I haven't come across any cases where there actually was an issue.--Aervanath (talk) 07:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

See Talk:AC/DC and Talk:AC/DC/Archive 1 they lead to the talk page of talk:AC. So AFAICT if the article AC and its talk pages were moved it would impact on the talk page Talk:AC/DC and all other subsidiary pages. -- PBS (talk) 19:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Slashes break Wikiblame, nothing that breaks Wikiblame should be allowed! Please. :-) Dougweller (talk) 20:28, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I see the problem PBS has pointed out. I think the reason it's not an issue on Good cop/bad cop is that there is no Talk:Good cop, so the software doesn't treat Talk:Good cop/bad cop as a subpage of anything. I have filed bugzilla:19032 to see if the developers can develop a hack to get around this issue.--Aervanath (talk) 12:51, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Indefinite articles within titles

What's the preferred way of dealing with this? Currently there's a debate at the Talk:Gay icon page over naming of gay icon-related articles. At present, we have two ways of naming these articles (eg: Madonna as gay icon and Judy Garland as a gay icon), and no one seems to be able to agree or state definitively which should be preferred and why. Exploding Boy (talk) 21:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I definitely prefer the form without "a". Maybe it's just my taste, but it seems we shouldn't be using unnecessary articles in titles.--Kotniski (talk) 19:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Since the article is about Madonna as a gay icon, the title should clearly be "Madonna as a gay icon". --Zundark (talk) 21:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I agree with Zundark, but is there any particular rule about this? Exploding Boy (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this covered by the "use common names" policy? --Zundark (talk) 08:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

That syllogism doesn't hold - the articles about dogs and the Baltic Sea are not called Dogs or the Baltic Sea. --Kotniski (talk) 07:38, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but I didn't mean it that literally: I was just trying to express why "Madonna as gay icon" isn't a viable title. It's because it's not normal English. --Zundark (talk) 08:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

the "gay icon" part is a nominal predicate. In English, these have to be supported by the indefinite article

• He is a teacher.
• She is an idiot.

It is impossbile to leave out the indefinite article in this construction unless you are using telegraphic style. In other languages, this is different for some subtypes of nominal predicates, eg German "Er ist Lehrer" (He is teacher), where the article does not show up. The question boils down to whether we want to use telegraphic style in headers or not. There are arguments for both positions. For instance, we leave out the definite article "the" per WP:MOS. It is = = early years = = not = = the early years = =. Jasy jatere (talk) 11:57, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

But "early years" is a little bit different, plus it's a sub-heading. To me, "X as gay icon" sounds like a newspaper ("X reflects on status as gay icon") rather than an encyclopedia, especially an online one where we don't have to worry about conserving ink and paper. Exploding Boy (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

as I said, the question is whether wp should adopt "newspaper style". For some reason, this is done with subheadings. Those reasons could apply to the title as well, or not Jasy jatere (talk) 16:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Ducati

Currently Ducati redirects to Ducati Motor Holding. Ducati is by far more in compliance with easily most recognized name and use the most common name than is Ducati Motor Holding, and I see nothing at WP:NCCORP that indicates WP:NC policy should be overridden here. The current name seems like an obvious case of unnecessary precision to me. Since Ducati already redirects to the article, there is no ambiguity issue.

As this is potentially controversial, I'm inclined to make a formal WP:RM request, but thought I would do a quick sanity check her in case I'm missing something with respect to company names. Am I? Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:03, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be fairly sane here, as far as I can tell. For comparison, see IBM. which is far more widely used than International Business Machines Corporation.--Aervanath (talk) 19:47, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Style considered harmful in article names

It is English style to name things simply. This reads great (which was Strunk or White's original idea), but I fear often leads to articles with "interesting" titles but are intrinsically pov. Let me take cases that may seem amusing: "French kissing" implies something the French do or know or originate. There is a built-in implication that the French are better at, well something, anyway. I agree that it is simple and interesting.

Another example is "Spanish flu" or "Asian flu." While there may have been health vectors from those places, history has often named diseases after countries or places they didn't like or were even enemies (e.g "German" measles, "French pox").

My point in all this is that there are simple, one word (maybe two or so) subjects that can only be named one way: France, arithmetic, Bill Clinton, etc.

There are larger classes that get us into trouble. I propose inserting the general topic first, the specific target second. So in my joke example above (I'm not really seriously considering doing this, just for example only), the title would be "Kissing by French people", "Flu vectored from Asia". We have had many articles, which I don't want to list here to avoid spilling over boundaries, that would have been easily solved by using these guidelines for titles. These also, BTW, imply the possibility of other articles which the original titles didn't do. Do Swedes kiss? Did a flu bug ever originate in the US? (written before reading subsection above on swine flu BTW).

Unstylistic, but npov.Student7 (talk) 18:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose such a change. (KISS principle) --PBS (talk) 20:39, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose such a change because it would violate naming policy (use the most easily recognized name and use the most common name) in each instance. In most cases it would also amount to unnecessary precision. Naming policy evolved from conventions and guidelines that were developed for good (usually self-explanatory) reasons. I see no justification to throw all that out. I do not see the "trouble" you think we currently get into. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

While we should be concerned with having a neutral point of view, calling something by the name it is most commonly known by and referred to by the majority of English speakers is about as neutral as you're going to get, so I'm afraid I see no need for this change.--Aervanath (talk) 06:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

These names often reflect a distinct media (US media, BTW) bias. In the worst cases, they are not even close to being encyclopedic. "OJ Simpson scandal" "Monicagate", etc. Student7 (talk) 01:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Those two cases you references are currently located at O.J. Simpson murder case and Lewinsky scandal, which seem perfectly neutral titles. Also, re-reading your original post above, this seems like a purely hypothetical issue. Are there any cases of articles which actually violate NPOV because they comply with the naming conventions, or is this just an intellectual exercise?--Aervanath (talk) 07:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I wish it were an intellectual exercise! Definitely not one though. Yes there are a number of articles (and categories) that are pov named partly due to editor pov, also due to media pov (looking for the "catchy" title). Some I don't want to get into, because we are having enough problems as it is! Spilling over to here will probably not be helpful. I am having trouble getting computer time but will try to remember to furnish some examples from categories, which is a little bit easier to address, I think. Without getting specific, my pet complaint is with "scandal" categories. Another absurd category was "Category:Fraudsters" instead of "people convicted of fraud." In other words, Wikipedia winds up heatedly labeling people instead of cooly labeling the act. Great for tabloids, not so great for a supposedly discompassionate encyclopedia. Student7 (talk) 21:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

BTW, I do not agree that the two tiles are in any way neutral. OJ a little better than Lewinisky, but still pov. Here we would have to redirect to the (presumably renamed) article since they are well known by those titles, but they are far from dispassionate. They are both tabloid titles.

When you try to turn the titles around so they are logical, they sound silly, as they should. This would forcd a npov title. For example, why is Lewinsky a "scandal" and OJ not a scandal? Are sex cases automatically "scandalous?" I suspect, rather, that politicians involved in sex cases get labeled with "scandal" for political reasons. (and, BTW, I voited for Bush/Dole!  :). But this is a "media lynch job" to copy a phrase. Student7 (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that the KISS principal (as enunciated by Strunk and White) was ever intended to be applied to abbreviated titles. I believe it was supposed to apply to sentence construction.Student7 (talk) 17:03, 20 June 2009 (UTC)