Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Proposal

This is an introduction to a proposal to rewrite Wikipedia:Naming conventions. The draft text of that proposal (addressing only the preamble and initial sections) is here. In a nutshell, the proposal is to cease treating "use the most easily recognised name" as an over-arching principle, and replace it instead with a set of encyclopedic values:

This page in a nutshell:

Choose page names that most readers would expect to be used by the encyclopedia that we aspire to be.
The ideal title will be accurate, reasonably precise and unambiguous, unbiased, accessible to as many readers as possible, and consistent with the titles of related topics.
Where these values conflict, seek a compromise title with the right balance between these values.

The problem

At present, Wikipedia's naming conventions policy treats "use the most easily recognised name" as an over-arching principle. This is inconsistent with the realities of article naming at the coal-face. In reality, editors bring to bear a number of encyclopedic values when choosing a title. Titles should be

correct
precise and unambiguous
unbiased
accessible to as many readers as possible (which is where "use the most easily recognised name" comes in)
consistent with the titles of related articles
stable so that readers can generally expect a title to remain the same over time

Where these value conflict, a compromise must be reached, and accessibility doesn't always win.

It is easy to find examples where one or more of these values has been considered more important than consistency. Here's a few:

the names and titles naming convention (precision and consistency trumps accessibility);
Metallica (album) not The Black Album (correctness trumps accessibility);
Beslan school hostage crisis not Beslan massacre (neutrality trumps accessibility).
Elk not Alces alces (accessibility and stability trumps correctness and precision)

None of this is to deny the importance of accessibility. The point is that accessibility is not the only value in play here, and therefore the present naming conventions policy is a woefully inadequate description of what we are actually doing when we choose a title for an article.

Unfortunately, our present policy is an effective tool for prescriptivists who wish us to elevate accessibility above all other values; and unfortunately it holds sway in policy-oriented areas like Wikipedia:Requested moves.

The proposal

The essence of the proposal is to rewrite our naming convention is such a way as to articulate the encyclopedic values that we use in choosing article titles, without prescribing how editors are to balance these values.

If for no other reason, this is necessary to restore the policy to an accurate description of how Wikipedia operates, rather than a prescription of how some people think we should operate.

But doing so should have flow-on effects. Most importantly, it will devolve responsibility for balancing these values back to specific communities, and ultimately back to individual editors. Instead of a small group of people at WP:NC and WP:RM ruling on what titles and naming conventions accord with policy, these decisions will be made by communities of editors.

Here's a specific example: at present the good people at WikiProject Birds follow the convention of always using the "official common name" as the title for bird articles. This eminently sensible convention is in violation of the present policy, because there is no guarantee that the "official common name" of a bird will coincide with the most easily recognised name. By rewriting the naming conventions policy, we give them back the right to adopt a sensible naming convention within their field; essentially, we are saying to them "feel free to adopt the naming convention that works best in your field, as long as it respects our shared values."

The text

A draft proposal is at /Draft. This addresses only the preamble and initial sections; everything at the current convention from #Name construction onward would need to be appended to the bottom of this draft.

Feel free to edit the proposal, so long as your intent is to strengthen it or improve the prose. But please don't change the fundamental premise. In particular, please do not add any material that elevates any one value above the others.