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Note

The following threads were originally at WT:Naming convention draft.

Some considerations

Choosing between "most common" and "Self-identity"... Dispite what I have said on other talk pages, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should not favor one over the other. There are good rationals for both methods, and both are valid ways to name an article. When there is a conflict, such determinations are best left to the consensus of editors. Blueboar (talk) 15:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The only question is what we do when they differ; when they coincide, we generally follow both. I think we should use self-identifying names precisely as far as reliable sources do (which is a long way), but no further - to do so is to adopt the subject's own point of view. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Note that to change this is a change of (declared) policy; WP:NAME has never mentioned self-identication before. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Are we happy with mentioning self-identification as a factor to be taken into account in determining the fallback name (aka official name, local name) that we use when there isn't enough English usage to establish a common name? And how about as a factor when there's plenty of usage but it's not clear which of several common names is the most common? (I'm going to mention this thread on the main NC talk page; perhaps it should be moved to there, since it's quite fundamental regardless of whether this draft is adopted?)--Kotniski (talk) 07:40, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

To quote the relevant sentences from the draft as it currently stands, for consideration:

(from #Common names, re crystal balling) However common sense can be applied – if an organization changes its name, it is often reasonable to assume that sources will be switching to the new name. It is not necessary to give weight to sources which are known to be out of date.

(from #Common names, last para) When there is no common English name, use the official name (as defined in a legal context, for example, such as a national constitution), or the name that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves. (For foreign terms, see the next section.)

(from #Precision and accuracy) A name is not considered inaccurate on the grounds that it differs from an "official" or "self-identifying" name (the name by which a person or group wishes to be known). However such names are often taken into account and used when there is no clear common name. Similarly, names which are considered offensive (as confirmed by reliable sources) are normally avoided if there is a good alternative.

This is mostly new wording, an attempted synthesis of some of what was written at Naming Conflict and elsewhere, so it is likely that we would want to modify it, but do people disagree with anything in principle?--Kotniski (talk) 07:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I think self-identification is a valid consideration when naming articles, and there are a lot of valid reasons to choose a self-identification when naming articles... The problem arises when we try to make it the primary consideration. This is because there are also a lot of valid reasons not to use a self-identifying name (more than one group may claim the name, the self-identifying name may be ambiguous, the "official" name may be overly long, the group itself may use multiple self-identifying names, etc). However, there are also legitimate concerns with making the "name used by the most number of sources" method the primary consideration (western bias, time lag in sources adopting a changed name, etc.).

The fact is, every article is unique... and the factors that must be considered in any specific naming dispute are unique. Thus, the solution to one naming dispute will not necessarily work in another naming dispute. Ultimately, the only way to resolve naming conflicts will be discussion, compromise and consensus... with the understanding that this will not always be quick or easy. Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

My suggested wording identifying cases when self-identifying names might be used insteasd of common names is:

In the majority of cases the name that a self-identifying entity uses of itself is identical with the most common name for that entity as found in reliable sources. In some cases they will differ. When conflicts arise over such differences there are certain criteria that Wikipedia editors consider in order to determine which to use in an article:

• Is the most commonly used name considered by the person or entity concerned to be offensive or derogatory?
• Is the most commonly used name significantly less accurate or precise than the official or self-identifying name? For example Canadian Navy actually redirects to the more accurate Canadian Forces Maritime Command
• Has the name of a person or entity recently been officially changed by that person or entity - as verified by reliable sources?

In such cases Wikipedia editors give consideration to using the current self-identifying name of the person or entity concerned, as verified by reliable sources. Xandar 13:17, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, all these points are in principle already included in the draft ("offensive/derogatory" under #Accuracy and precision (maybe should be somewhere else); second point also under #Accuracy and precision (the Navy example could be added there); "recent changes" in the first sentence I quote above). I think rewording for extra clarity (if needed) would be a sufficient solution.--Kotniski (talk) 14:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

1) Is the most commonly used name considered by the person or entity concerned to be offensive or derogatory?

This is a valid consideration, but is matched by the consideration:

• Would a self-identifying name be consisdered offensive by some other body of people if applied to the first group?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no... in other words, while the offensiveness of a name can and should be considered, we have to remember that there are two sides to the coin... both sides need to be considered. So, to the extent that offensiveness of a name is a consideration, we want to choose names that will not offend anyone.

2) Is the most commonly used name significantly less accurate or precise than the official or self-identifying name?

Again this is a valid consideration, but not the primary one. It is matched by the question:

• Is the official or self-identifying name overly precise?

This is why I raise the issue of overly long "offical" names. Sometimes an official name is best, sometimes a less accurate and precise unofficial name is best.

3) Has the name of a person or entity recently been officially changed by that person or entity - as verified by reliable sources?

Once again, this is something to be considered, but it is matched by the question:

• Is the new official name the best name for Wikipedia to use?

And the answer to that is sometimes yes, sometimes no.

In other words, I do not think you are wrong to say that these are "things to consider"... but, by highlighting them, I think you give them too much weight. You ignore other "things to consider" that act as counter-balances. For every example of where these considerations have been the determining criteria, there are examples where these considerations were not the determining criteria, and even examples of where they were rejected as determining criteria. Blueboar (talk) 14:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Far too much weight. We should give self-identifying names precisely the weight reliable sources give them, which is often 100%. For cases where it is not 100%, giving them more is accepting one point of view over others, which is fundamentally unacceptable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:53, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Would you make a distinction between cases where there is some real-world dispute about the name, and cases where we might look at the self-identifying name simply as a factor in making a decision when there is no clear commonest name (i.e. where "points of view" don't really apply)?--Kotniski (talk) 05:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Self-identifying names are invoked by our nationalists precisely where there is some real-world dispute about the name (as with Kiev). I would make no exception there; let the English language, not us, decide between the disputants.

Usage as a tie-breaker, when there is rough equality between common names, is unobjectionable in principle; but it will be abused in practice, and is IAR, not policy. (This is one of the cases where having a separate guideline of advice, "things you may want to consider," would pay for itself.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The Kiev argument which PMA always uses, is untypical, and more of a spelling convention than a matter of naming. We use the English spelling for Kiev. Simple. The difference between the self-identifying name Republic of China and the common name Taiwan id far more considerable. As is that between Mormon Church and the self-identifying Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

The longstanding version of Wikipedia Naming conflict simply states that "where they exist, self-identifying names should be used within articles." This is also reflected in the MOS. What I'm attempting to do is to limit that by specifying particular occasions when the use of self-identifying names actually happens on Wikipedia and is useful. I still haven't been presented with one solid example of where using a self-identifying name has caused a real problem of POV or otherwise. Xandar 02:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Responding to Blueboar's points:

1. Would a self-identifying name be consisdered offensive by some other body of people if applied to the first group?

This is dealt with in the original text of WP:Naming conflict.

Suppose that the people of the fictional country of Maputa oppose the use of the term "Cabindan" as a self-identification by another ethnic group. The Maputans oppose this usage because they believe that the Cabindans have no moral or historical right to use the term.

Wikipedia should not attempt to say which side is right or wrong. However, the fact that the Cabindans call themselves Cabindans is objectively true – both sides can agree that this does in fact happen. By contrast, the claim that the Cabindans have no moral right to that name is purely subjective. It is not a question that Wikipedia can, or should, decide.

In this instance, therefore, using the term "Cabindans" does not conflict with the NPOV policy. It would be a purely objective description of what the Cabindans call themselves. On the other hand, not using the term because of Maputan objections would not conform with a NPOV, as it would defer to the subjective Maputan POV. In other words, Wikipedians should describe, not prescribe.

2.Is the official or self-identifying name overly precise?

On some occasions. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is one example. However this is solved by common sense, and reducing it to United Kingdom rather than going with the inaccurate Great Britain.

3.Is the new official name the best name for Wikipedia to use? And the answer to that is sometimes yes, sometimes no.

"Best" is a very subjective term. The only real reasons I can see for Wikipedia not keeping up to date and using a newly-adopted self-identifying name, such as SyFy for the Science Fiction Channel, or Cheryl Cole for Cheryl Tweedy after her marriage, is if the name change is not clear and definite as verified by reliable sources, or where the body changing an organisation's name is seen to have no right to do so. However this is covered by the "Give consideration to using" phrase, anyway. Xandar 02:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The flaw with the "Cabindan" example is that it assumes that the only reason that "The Maputans oppose this usage" is "because they believe that the Cabindans have no moral or historical right to use the term". It leaves out the possibility that the Maputans also self-identify as "Cabindan" (or that there is a third group that self-identifies as "Cabindan")

To illustrate this clearer, let us make up another example... In the fictional valley of Hoodoo there was once a civil war that split the native "Hoodoi" into two rival tribes. Today, both tribes self-identify as being the "Hoodoi", and object to the other group being called "Hoodoi". Based on your understanding of the importance of self-identification... which tribe gets to be named "Hoodoi" in Wikipedia, and why? Blueboar (talk) 03:30, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I really think it's time to put this Mabunda thing to rest. (I thought we'd done that a long time ago; I'm surprised to see Xandar still bringing it out as if it's a valid argument.) If you recall, we have two statements (A calls A by name X; B calls A by name Y) which are objective and encyclopedic, and two statements (A should be called by name X; A should be called by name Y) which are just opinions (of A and B respectively). The situation is symmetrical; no reasoning can get from there to "Wikipedia should call A by name X", unless you take the prioritizing of self-identification as a premise, which is rather unfair since that's what you're trying to prove.--Kotniski (talk) 10:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I am talking of a slightly different senario... A calls A by name X, B calls B by name X (both object to X being applied to the other)... so who does Wikipedia call by name X? We can not follow "self-identification" without being biased towards A or B. We might be able to use "most common in sources" to resolve the dilemma... IF a significant majority of reliable sources use X in talking specifically about A and use a different name to talk about B or vise versa (while we are still being biased, that bias is not ours but that of the sources). But, then again we might not... If there is no clear majority among the sources. If this is the case, then our only option is to diambiguate... naming one X(A) and the other X(B). Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Kotniski may disagree with the text of Wikipedia Naming conflict, but that has been the approved guidance for four years, and therefore indicates the Wikipedia consensus over a long period. The distinction between "A calls A by name X", and "B calls A by name Y," is precisely what self-identification is all about - the fact that a person or entity has a right to choose how he, she or it is identified. Kotniski has chosen to be called Kotniski. I might prefer to call him "Dumpletrot". However my right to call him Dumpletrot is nowhere near as strong as his right to be known by his self-chosen name. They are not equal. If I continued to call him Dumpletrot, he would rightly become angry and insulted by this. As WP:Naming conflict words it: "These names are not simply arbitrary terms but are key statements of an entity's own identity. This should always be borne in mind when dealing with controversies involving self-identifying names."

Blueboar's conundrum is a different one: "A calls A by name X, B calls B by name X (both object to X being applied to the other)". In this case, where two entities claim the same name, other factors come into the equation 1) Do both entities primarily self-identify by the same name? Some editors claimed, for example that the Orthodox Church also identified as the Catholic Church, however while the Orthodox Church does in a limited number of circumstances identify itself as Catholic, its primary and overwhelming self-identifications are as the Orthodox Church or Eastern Orthodox Church, or Greek Orthodox Church etc. 2) If both identities do primarily self-identify by the same name eg Republic of Macedonia and Macedonia (Greece), disambiguation is the solution.

The important thing about the Maputa example is that it specifies that we do not avoid using self-identifying names simply because a third party objects. Xandar 22:30, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Xandar... I agree that disabiguation is best in the situations where we have the conundrum similar to the one I discuss above... Can you then explain why this was not done in the case of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church... both of which self-identify with the name Catholic Church? Shouldn't we disabiguate rather than choose between the two? (note: I am not trying to re-open the debate... just trying to understand how you would apply what you say to this situation... as you seem to be inconsistent).

The idea that something's being marked as a guideline for some time means it represents WP consensus is unfortunately just not true - there are hundreds of guidelines, and no-one's keeping track of all of them. If it contains something illogical, then that's simply wrong, and there's no value in quoting it as if it had some authority (it's like quoting the Bible to prove that the world is 4000 years old). But I agree that we don't avoid using self-identifying names - or any names - simply because a third party objects (well, we shouldn't, although the example of China shows that we sometimes do). And I also agree that Catholic Church is a good name for that article - in accordance with the primary topic principle (the same ought to apply to China). --Kotniski (talk) 10:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is actually a part of the greater Catholic Church in communion with the Pope, so no conflict exists in use of the name. On the guideline "Naming conflict". It has been a pretty central guideline, prominently linked to from this page and many others, and deferred to for rationale and specifics in the wording of this policy. My point on self-identifying names is that they do form a rationale for naming, and that there are certain circumstances (outlined above) in which the use of self-identifying names is and should be considered by editors. Since this issue has made up a major part of WPNamingConflict, it needs inclusion and clarification in any merged page. Xandar 23:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I see... (not sure I completely understand your POV on this... and I would like to discuss the "Syro-Malabar Catholic" vs "Roman Catholic" thing more... but I would suggest we continue that discussion at my user talk page, as it is really a topic specific discussion that does not need to be debated here).

I completely agree that "self-identification can and should be considered" .... Where I think we disagree is on how much weight we should give it compared with other methods that "can and should be considered". The fact is, there are many things that "can and should be considered" when naming an article. We can consider something and then reject it in favor of something else that we think is more important or carries more weight. For example, when there is a conflict between "self-identification" and "the name used by a siginficant majority of reliable sources", the sources should carry more weight. Blueboar (talk) 12:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

That interpretation goes against longstanding Wikipedia guidance and practice. As well as Wikipedia Naming Conflict, the Manual of Style also says clearly that "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should use them too." I cannot see any solid evidence being given to justify departing from this. However I could accept a priority for "the name used in a significant majority of reliable sources.. except where that name is considered objectionable to the entity, is strikingly inaccurate, or is out of date. But we do need A) A section on self-identifying names, and B) A brief definition of Self-identifying names. The information that these are usually the same as common names, and that if they are not, common names are generally preferred except in the incidences I have just listed, or similar. Xandar 01:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Basing our articles on what is said in reliable sources is a concept that is fundamental to all of Wikipedia's core policies... and hase been since the early days of the project. If giving reliable sources more "weight" goes against some "long standing" wording... then that long standing wording goes against our core policies and needs to be re-examined and changed. I see no reason to "exempt" article naming from the core policies of Wikipedia. As for your three exceptions... I question whether any name that is used by a significant majority of reliable sources can be considered "strikingly inaccurate" (can you think of an example?). If a name it is considered "acceptable" to a significant majority of reliable sources, why should we care whether a name is "objectionable" to anyone. In fact, we don't... take for example our various articles about conspiracy theories. This name is "objectonable and inaccurate" to supporters of the theories. This went to Arbcom, and Arbcom said no... since the majority of reliable sources use the term "conspiracy theories" so should we. The same is true with other names.

Your third exception is valid, but can be dealt with by saying we should rely on what the significant majority of recent reliable sources use when naming our articles. Remember... 98% of the time, the name used by the majority of reliable sources will be the same as the self-identifying name. We are really discussing that last 2% where there is conflict. Blueboar (talk) 05:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

random break (Some considerations)

Attempting to oppose "reliable sources" to self-identifying names is creating a false contradiction that doesn't actually exist. As stated in the NamingConflict page, a self-identifying name used on Wikipedia has to be verified through use of reliable sources. It is attempts to raise the polling of numbers of reliable sources into a shibboleth that has become the problem here. On individual issues: I have already posted that Canadian Navy and Russian Army are significantly inaccurate, and so not used on WP. We also use University of Oxford rather than the much more common Oxford University. Some would argue that Taiwan for Republic of China and Mormon Church for Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are not only offensive to the entities concerned, but also inaccurate, which is why the latter names have been used on Wikipedia. Untouchables is another common name that is so inaccurate it only goes to a disambig page. Dalits a very uncommon name, is the accurate self-identifying term used by us.

Objectionable is a proper consideration, and always has been. Attempting to title an article about Muhammad Ali under Cassius Clay would be considered objectionable, and so we don't do it. Similarly we call Canadian Indians what they call themselves, First nations. Once again you seem to be wanting to change policy by adopting this shibboleth about numbers above all other considerations. This would not only be a significant change of guidance but would also be trying to lay down new orders instead of documenting what Wikipedia editors actually do.

On recently changed names. The alternative you posit to using verification of the new self-identifying name is poor and unworkable. Using "the significant majority of recent reliable sources" is a clunky, slow and unverifiable method. What are "RECENT" reliable sources? Who decides what they are (printed), (web), and what timescale is involved. It would still take longer - up to a year - and require a plethora of new rules on sources to produce a less reliable result. Xandar 15:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The fact is, the ultimate "rule" for naming articles (like everything else in Wikipedia) is WP:Consensus. What we are talking about is what to do if we are having difficulty reaching a consensus. We have multiple methods of determining what to name an article.... "follow the reliable sources" and "self-identification" are but two of them. We also have "consistancy" (naming all articles within a given topic area in the same way), "disambiguity", and a host of others... all of them are legitimate. Any one of them may be used. Which one to use is up to the consensus of editors. In any specific article, there may be good arguments for choosing one method over another... that is fine... for that specific article.

And this brings us to the heart of the debate here... I think our disagreement stems from trying to create general rules for a process that is article specific. In one specific article, consensus may determine that self-identification is the best criteria to use for naming... in another specific article "follow reliable sources" may be determined to be best... or consensus may determine to use one of the other criteria. If there is a consensus to use one method over the others... then it is absolutely OK to do so. I am not trying to say that "self-identification" should never be used, nor that "follow reliable sources" should always be used... All I am saying is that, in those rare occasions when we are having difficulty reaching a consensus, when there is no clear reason to choose one method over the others, we should give a little more weight to "follow reliable sources".

That said... what bothers me about Xandar's view is, I think, exactly what bothers him about my view. We both give precidence to one method over others... so perhaps the solution to this debate is purposely NOT choose. To simply (and neutrally) list the various criteria that can be used to name articles, and leave it at that. Perhaps we shouldn't even try to resolve naming disputes by making "rules". Blueboar (talk) 16:53, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

My position is simply that IF we're uniting Naming Conflict with the Naming Conventions page, we need a section on self-identifying names to cover the 1/3 of WP:Naming conflict that deals with this matter. So we do need to discuss specific wording of such a section for a combined page. Xandar 23:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree we should mention it along with all the other things to think about... I disagree that we need an entire section devoted to it. Blueboar (talk) 00:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggested some wording, but it seems that no one else has, and there seems to be nothing happening atm toward making progress on the issue. Xandar 00:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

What's the editing protocol for this proposed wording

Is the consensus that we directly edit the proposed wording and then discuss here, or discuss here first before editing the proposed wording? patsw (talk) 14:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess BRD applies, though I'd appreciate it if people didn't turn the spirit of the proposal upside down (nothing to stop others making alternative proposals on other pages, of course).--Kotniski (talk) 14:40, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

As this is a draft and not official Policy at this stage... I don't mind using BRD... provided we stick to a "one revert" rule... in other words, go ahead and be bold if you think you have a good idea... but if your bold edit is reverted, accept that revert and immediately shift to discussion mode. Don't push for your ideas on the draft page... push for them on the talk page.

As we go along, I would also strongly suggest side by side comparisons of key paragraphs and sections, so people can clearly see the differences between proposals and weigh them in their minds. Blueboar (talk) 14:20, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Listing the specific Naming Conventions

I do think the Policy should list the various project specific naming conventions, but we can do so without going into any detail (ie leaving the details to the specific project pages)... perhaps something along the lines of:

Beyond these general naming conventions, there are naming conventions relating to specific topic areas. See:

• WP:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)
• WP:Naming conventions (flora)
• WP:Naming conventions (schools)

Etc, etc,

Does this make sense to people

We already do this, but in a more compact way, using the box at the top of WP:NC. We could have an explicit list at the end as well, but it would add length to the page, for no purpose as far as I can tell. (These pages are already listed at the category page as well.) --Kotniski (talk) 16:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah... so we do. Never mind then. Blueboar (talk) 16:45, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Possible additional section

I removed this section for the moment, since I can see pointless conflict over its wording, when I still can't see why we need it at all. Can someone explain what they feel to be missing from the draft as is (without the additional section)? (We can - and the draft does - refer to WP:NCGN for matters that relate chiefly to place names.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

My rationale for including the section is that Wikipedia:Naming conflict's primary purpose was to establish a sequence of processes for editors to use when conflicts arise over naming. In practical terms this is one of the chief reasons people will turn to policy pages anyway. So, general principles are fine - but if we truly wish to merge the function of the pages, then we need a section that will be helpful in outlining a sequence of considerationd that will help decide such cases, including which are and are not valid arguments to consider. This section goes a long way to providing this. Xandar 13:23, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it might be difficult to determine a sequence of considerations (something like an algorithm) but we could try; it would be a novelty, though, since I don't think such a sequence has operated in practice up to now. What we have at the moment is a largely unordered set of considerations, which may be given greater or lesser weight in particular instances. But do the sentences I've quoted in the thread above not serve the purpose you seem to be aiming at?--Kotniski (talk) 14:00, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can or should try to "sequence" things... there are a multitude of considerations that get tossed into the hopper when naming articles and they all need to be considered... but how much weight to give each consideration will differ from one article to the next, because the underlying situation that causes the dispute will be different. Blueboar (talk) 14:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Blueboar (or anyone), do you think there are any considerations that are currently given too much/little weight/emphasis/clarity in the draft as it currently stands?--Kotniski (talk) 14:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Besides Xandar's self-identification section (which I think might be includable if toned way back), No... although I think we may be over stressing "name most commonly used in sources". I realize that some of this repetition is because you have built the draft by taking bits from several existing guidelines, all of which seperately highlighted that method. But it is a bit repetitive to keep saying it. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I think stressing that point is a fair reflection not only of existing wording, but also of existing ethos - but can you suggest (or boldly make) any changes to the wording that would reduce that repetition?--Kotniski (talk) 18:20, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

Just to clarify, the statement at the top of the draft says that the sections that are already in Wikipedia:Naming conventions that are not listed in this draft are assumed to remain unchanged; and these sections in the draft are sections to be added or modified. Is that correct? --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 11:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This draft is supposed to take the place of the sections of WP:NC from (and including) "Use common names" down to (but not including) "Article title format". Since discussion seems dead, maybe I'll just do the replacement on a BRD basis; even if someone reverts, at least we'll have the proposal clearly in the edit history, and we'll know who objects and why (well, "why" might be a bit too much to hope for on that page, but we'll see).--Kotniski (talk) 12:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

All right, let's see what happens if I do that.--Kotniski (talk) 10:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Note

The above threads were originally at WT:Naming convention draft. The remainder are from WT:Naming conventions.

No Foreign Scripts, Please

"Established systematic transliterations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred."

I think this clause should be removed. All spellings should be agreed upon by agreement of the community of English speakers to which the thing in question is relevant, and the spelling conventions of English, and not the spelling conventions of another language.

When we're talking about Chinese names, bear in mind that Chinese encompasses a wide variety of spoken languages or dialects of varying mutual (un)intelligibility. Hanyu Pinyin is a representation of spoken Mandarin, which is but one of the languages of the Sinitic family (Chinese). Hanyu Pinyin being systematic in itself is not a reason for its preferred usage. Other spoken languages or dialects of Chinese have their own established systematic representations as well.

Hanyu Pinyin and romanizations of other Sinitic languages follow different sound-letter correspondences from English spelling and may be quite difficult for English speakers to make out. Historically, English representations of Chinese loan words have tended to be close approximations of the sounds in the original dialect from which the word was borrowed.

Hanyu Pinyin romanization has been employed to conceal the historical significance of names of places, by removing the psychological link between referent and signifier. Take a look at Yishun. From the town's new name, you would never have guessed that its namesake was a man who went by the name of Nee Soon. Certainly, in this case, a rose by any other name isn't as sweet. In the event all the Chinese dialects were to disappear due to the dominance of Mandarin, words like "tea" and non-Mandarin names for people, places and things would serve as a distant reminder of what once was.

On a related note, there has been a proliferation of non-English scripts in articles, where they serve no purpose of clarification as to the entity involved. Lychee is a good example. I think steps should be taken to limit the use of foreign language scripts to when they are absolutely necessary. What do you think the conditions for allowing foreign language text should be? Nameless123456 (talk) 08:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe this would be better raised at WP:Naming conventions (Chinese). In general, though, if we have a set of items that have no particular established English name, I think it's preferable that the choice of names we use be made according to some system than randomly (though there may be good arguments for and against particular systems and particular exceptions). About "allowing" foreign text, I think it's like any other information people may or may not put in articles - if it's likely to be of interest to a significant number of readers seeking information on the subject, then it should stay. Of course, lexical information is best put in Wiktionary, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse for removing such information from Wikipedia without making sure that it is in Wiktionary and people know they can find it there (but we're going off topic for this page now).--Kotniski (talk) 10:12, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Back to basics

When you cut the verbage, naming articles comes down to consensus... We name articles by what the consensus of editors working on the article choose to name it. There are many factors that we should consider when reaching that consensus, including (but not limited to): Is a potential name recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, consistent, etc.? Does the article topic fall into a topic area where there is a pre-existing consensus on naming? Is there a name for the topic that a preponderance of reliable sources use? If the topic is about a person or group of people, what does the subject call himself/herself/itself? What name would readers expect to find the topic under? Could a potential name for the topic be confused with some other topic (ie do we need to disambiguate)?

All of these factors need to be considered. In any specific article, however, one or more of these factors may end up carrying more "weight" than the others. Which factors carry more "weight" will be different from topic area to topic area and even from article to article. We need to accept this. Sometimes people will disagree when trying to reach a consensus on naming... in which case they need to seek third party opinions, argue the merits and flaws of one name over another, and attempt to reach a consensus. If they really can not agree... they can use the dispute resolution process. We should not write policy in an attempt to prevent disagreements... when we try to do this, we only end up creating new things to dissagree over. Blueboar (talk) 15:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

What we need to accept is that when we have multiple naming conventions for local naming, the most restrictive one should apply when there is a conflict and that the existence of a less restrictive convention does not confer the items it covers as having the main name space. In fact I'd like to see wording to make that very clear and to bring this page and the dab page into better agreement. Yes this is a little hazy, but I'm trying to avoid being up problematic previous discussions. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

By restrictive, you mean the one with the narrower scope? I.e. that the royalty naming conventions trump the people naming conventions, and the people naming conventions trump this central naming convention; is that what you're getting at? I know we were at one point succeeding in moving away from this concept of pages trumping other pages, but it has to be admitted that that is pretty much how it works in practice (and of course makes the "policy" tag on this page total nonsense, if its interpretation is supposed to be that it overrules the specific guidelines).--Kotniski (talk) 08:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I slightly disagree with this... while the topic specific conventions relfect a broad consensus and are strongly recommended, they are guidelines and not manditory policy. If the consensus of editors at a particular article is that there is good reason to ignore an applicable topic area convention, then it is perfectly OK to not follow it. Blueboar (talk) 13:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, Blueboar, you're saying that WP is ultimately governed by men rather than by rules. That sounds nice in theory, but in practice it means the rule of whim, and constant bickering. If we're not clear on which principles have precedence when, then virtually any position can be reasonably rationalized to be consistent with policy, and there is really nothing to debate. You might as well as wipe out all the policy and guideline pages and just put up everything to vote.

The whole point of having policy and guidelines is to ensure "the big picture" is being given due consideration and weight at each point. It's the role filled by the Constitution and constitutional laws in the American system of justice. Even if consensus wants to outlaw the free speech of Nazi advocates in, say, New Hampshire, they can't pass a law against it. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Even if we wished to imitate the dubious American judicial system (and its characteristic maxim, "the Constitution is what the judges say it is" -see Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, currently being argued), we cannot. We are a society of volunteers; ArbCom has no effective power to enforce any content rules by injunction - only consensus can do that. They may have the power to drive everybody who disagrees with some sacralized WP:NAME out of Wikipedia, but I doubt they would exercise it; both because it would be a preposterous amount of work for them (they're volunteers too) and because the result would be to limit Wikipedia to some body of insiders who liked whatever rulrs were enshrined.

Yes, this does mean an argumentative society - it means the argument B2C is currently conducting will continue until one side gets bored - so was Athens. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:50, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

It is a flaw in our system that {{policy}} and {{guideline}} makes the pages they adorn seem more important than FAQs - but's that all they can be; they're not enforceable rules, they are compendia of arguments which are sufficiently popular to stay in Wikipedia space - which usually means sufficiently popular to prevail in article space. Nothing more. Wikipedia cannot legislate; it has no government. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, okay. I'm with you. Really. I'm not calling for any kind of authoritarian system, believe me. But I do think we need an authoritative system.

And here's my basic point about consistency. I recognize that we value consistency in general. I think consistency is important. In fact, that's why we have naming policy and guidelines: so articles are named consistently.

A system in which everything was named by consensus would have no need for policy or guidelines. We would just see what the consensus is in each case, and go with that.

So, the very reason we even have the principles which we document in this policy is precisely in order to have consistency in naming in Wikipedia. In that sense consistency, in general, is fundamental to Wikipedia naming. We all want our titles to be consistently recognizable, easy to find, only as precise as necessary and concise.

But consistency defined as "similar articles should have similar titles" is something that is totally different. That calls for consistency not with these other principles, but with another name that is consistent with these principles, even if those principles don't apply to the topic in question.

In other words, there is top-down consistency (or principle-driven global consistency), and bottom-up consistency (or local consistency, if you will). Often the same name results regardless of which is being followed, or global consistency does not produce a single obvious name, but local consistency does and it does not conflict with the general principles of global consistency; but we should provide clear guidance for when they do conflict. And in those cases, the only way we can adhere to consistency consistently is by giving principle-driven global consistency preference over local consistency. That's not being authoritarian, it's being authoritative. To do otherwise is to contradict the very reason we have naming policy, guidelines and principles in the first place: consistency in naming. Yet that's exactly what saying "similar articles should have similar titles", without any qualification, does. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

My point is that we can say what we want... and it won't make a bit of difference. If the consensus of article editors is to ignore one or more of our guidelines, they will, and MAY do so. We can offer guidance and suggestions, but that is all we can do. Blueboar (talk) 01:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

If it's true that we can say what we want and it won't make a bit of difference, why say anything at all? Why bother with guidelines and principles? Why bother offering guidance and suggestions if "it won't make a bit of difference"?

Of course anyone can invoke WP:IAR at any time, but unless consensus agrees to do that, what we say in offering guidance and suggestions does matter. That's why the guidance and suggestions we offer should be clear and non-contradictory. What's the point of offering guidance and suggestions if it all it does is provide fodder to rationalize all kinds of names that conflict with each other? That's just guaranteeing what we say will be ignored, because there will be no way to follow it. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

But we should not make rules that go against actual practice... what actually happens is that consensus determines how we name articles, not the various guidelines. One think I have learned, for every example of an article that does follow our guidelines, there is an example that does not. Even Arbcom has been inconsistent on its decisions concerning article naming. It is time to admit this inconsistencey and deliberately incorprate it into policy. Blueboar (talk) 19:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course we should not make rules that go against actual practice. But that's exactly what "similar articles should have similar titles" does, which is why I want it to not say that. It goes against actual practice because the vast majority of articles do not have, and should not have, titles that are "similar" to the titles of "similar articles".

The fact that there are certain inconsistencies is not disputed. But that's a far cry from essentially saying that there is no consistent following of any principles. The fact that there are some exceptions is fine too, and does not mean we can't say that there are principles that are usually and normally followed, principles like choosing the most commonly used name (when applicable), names that are recognizable, etc. But the fact that sometimes titles are chosen to be similar to titles of similar articles does not justify saying that "similar articles should have similar titles", which implies much more than actually occurs in practice. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you noticed that the moral claim should have hasn't been in the policy for a week? Can you take yes for an answer? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The current wording, "Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.", has the same problem; the "should" is now implied. It can only mean that Editors should "prefer titles that...". I mean, if it doesn't mean that, then what does it mean? When your SO says, "take out the garbage", that means you should take it out... Same with the declarative "Prefer ...".

Blueboar says, "we should not make rules that go against actual practice". The rule that editors should "prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.", unqualified, is not in actual practice. This unqualified wording incorrectly implies that in most cases "titles follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles". That's just incorrect. In contrast, note that it is not wrong that in most cases titles are names that are recognizable, concise, etc. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fine. You believe that it is "just incorrect" that similar articles are generally named similarly; you have no evidence for this, and have cavalierly dismissed the evidence against it. You don't like it that articles are named similarly to other articles (although this is inconsistent with the first complaint), although that argument is used all the time, and often successfully; no one else objects. Until either of these changes, I see no purpose to continuing this discussion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand what I'm saying. Let me try again. I'm saying almost every article title is recognizable, concise, only as precise as necessary, etc., but that most articles do not "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles". I'm NOT saying that we don't have examples of articles which are named to "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles". I'm not even saying we don't have plenty of examples of that. I am saying that that does not apply to the vast majority of article titles the way the other listed principles do.

As for evidence, do we need to go over Hesperian's 20 again? How many of those "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles"? The only ones I see are the reasonable Illinois Route 48 (reasonable because there is no single other obvious choice, and this is one of its reasonable names) and the unfortunate BL 4 inch Mk IX naval gun (unfortunate because it is not even a name but more of a description, and it has a name), unless you consider the argument that the reason articles about people tend to use the First Last "pattern" is not to match common usage, but to "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles" to be valid, which does not explain Cher. But even if you include the people articles as examples of "follow the same pattern" (which I'm not conceding) you have less than 50% of this random sample, which is no where near as widespread as what is implied by describing consistency as ""Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." in the same context as the truly widespread principles of recognizability (which applies to all but Pelargonium), concise (all but the gun), etc. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• I'm saying almost every article title is recognizable, concise, only as precise as necessary, etc., but that most articles do not "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles".
• I am saying that that does not apply to the vast majority of article titles the way the other listed principles do.

I understand that you are saying both these things. I do not understand, or believe, that either of them is true, or that anybody else believes them.

The second is a more subtle error than the first. On the one hand, all these principles (including consistency) apply to all articles - although some may be outweighed in some cases. On the other hand, for most articles, any of the principles is satisfied trivially: there is no name that anyone would consider which fails to be concise, for example.

You can stop explaining now. Asserting what nobody believes may surprise someone into reconsideration on the first time of hearing,. or the second; but the twentieth? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:50, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I certainly agree consistency (in general) applies universally the way the other principles too. But it seems to me that "similar titles" and "follow similar patterns" only applies even trivially to a minority of articles. But, perhaps I have a different understanding of what "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." means than you do.

What does "follow the same pattern" mean to you? What are some examples of "same patterns"? In Hesperian's list, which do you believe follow the "same pattern" as other similar articles, and for each what are those patterns and how would you characterize the group of "similar articles" in that case? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

From Hesperian's 20, I accept all the similarities he draws; Furthermore Meta-plastic design and Hedgehog's dilemma are lower-case (usage would support either) because of the Wikipedia rule, documented here, to use lower case unless the subject is unquestionably a proper noun; which is an application of consistency only. We could just as well have chosen the other way without violating idiom; and most common would be a mixture. The remainder are vacuously consistent; there is no parallel article to be inconsistent with. But that's true of all the principles; where there is no other name, as with species of algae, recognizability is vacuously satisfied by the only name available. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You draw a distinction between titles that are similar because the principle of consistency was applied; and titles that would have been similar anyhow, because the title chosen is what what have been chosen solely on the basis of the other principles. I dig it. But I ask you to be consistent and apply the same distinction to the other principles. How many of my twenty are concise because the principle of consistency was applies, as opposed to titles that would have been concise whether we value conciseness or not? None? How many are easy to find solely because we value the easy-to-find principle? None? How many are recogniseable solely because we value recognisability? None? Hesperian 02:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The concise principle applies (implicitly if not explicitly) in all but one or maybe two of the 20 in your list. The consistency principle -- when defined as "similar articles should have similar titles" or "follow the pattern of titles in similar articles" -- does not apply at all, not even implicitly or subconsciously in over half, and just a few if you don't count patterns which are never intentionally followed. I mean, Paris, Texas would probably be there regardless of the convention for U.S. city articles to follow the city, state pattern, but it would still get credit (if it were in your list) for implicitly following the pattern since the pattern is intentionally followed in so many obvious cases (like Tallahassee, Florida, Boise, Idaho, etc.). But I don't know of anywhere where the First Last pattern for people is documented, or any case in which a title is what it is explicitly to follow the First Last pattern. That is, in each case where First Last happens to match, that also happens to be the most common name of the topic in question (a la Paris, Texas). Also note the lack of adherence to the pattern pretty much whenever it's not the most common name (Cher, C. S. Forester rather than Cecil Forester, TJ Cummings, O. J. Simpson, etc.) You can't give a principle credit for being followed when there are no (or very few) cases where a title is what it is explicitly to follow that principle.

It should be easy enough to refute what I'm saying, by identifying the pattern and applicable group of similar articles for each of the 20 in your list that you believe at least implicitly "follow the pattern of titles in similar articles", and by also providing a reasonable number of examples from that group where titles are what they are obviously to follow that pattern. --Born2cycle (talk) 14:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Missing or avoiding the point again. I should expect it, really.

If we didn't value conciseness, would Hedgehog's dilemma take a different title? Would American Topical Association? Would Alistair Nicholson? Which, if any, would take a different title if we didn't value conciseness?

This is precisely the standard you are upholding for consistency. By fair and uphold it for the others too.

Hesperian 15:18, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

No, this is not the standard I am upholding for consistency. The difference is that from just about any random sample (like yours) we can easily identify a number of titles that are concise precisely because of the concise principle, but not so for consistency as currently defined. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

"any random sample (like yours) we can easily identify a number of titles that are concise precisely because of the concise principle, but not so for consistency as currently defined." This is precisely the assertion that I have repeatedly asked you to defend; and your response is to reassert it?! Where is your evidence? Tell me which of my 20 are "concise precisely because of the concise principle", and tell me what their names would be if we didn't have a concise principle. I'll be happy with just one example, for a start. This is not an onerous request. If you cannot meet it, you must withdraw the assertion as unsupportable. Hesperian 23:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

(left) from just about any random sample (like yours) we can easily identify a number of titles that are concise precisely because of the concise principle, but not so for consistency as currently defined

This is an exaggeration, which is not helpful: even its poster acknowledged, in the same thread, two of them were placed -over clear alternatives- where they are, for consistency.

But even if we tone it down, it's still false; Hesperian himself listed over half of them as influenced by consistency (see immediately following the list), and he omitted consistency in capitalization.

This editor has convinced himself of a falsehood. He is, as often, beyond the reach of evidence; he makes reckless statements about policy which he has not made the slightest effort to check (for they can be disproven with only the slightest effort). Enough.

If someone else agrees with these fantasies, it will be worth discussing with that hypothetical third party. But unless there is a retraction, I am not wasting more time on this editor. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to stop having this unending circular conversation? B2C, while I tend to sympathize with your views on naming in general, surely it's time to admit that consistency has been clearly shown to have a significant influence on the way we name articles? (I mean, Adolf Hitler is surely 100 times more often referred to as just Hitler, similarly Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare... yet we include the forenames in the titles... and that's just another piece of evidence to add to the mountain already collected.)--Kotniski (talk) 15:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think (and hope!) we're getting close. This is a good point, and those are examples of where First Last is explicitly followed. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

And in so doing, they follow Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people), in the lead, in boldface. Since I didn't know where it was, but merely looked in the obvious subpages, it cannot be hard to find. I would like to believe that Cyclic Bore was merely too lazy to do the same before posting But I don't know of anywhere where the First Last pattern for people is documented; the alternative is worse.

And it regularly comes up in discussion where the other order is actually used in practice - even in some other language. We have express conventions for East Asian languages; the practice of First Last for Magyar names as article titles may be undocumented but seems to be fairly widespread. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) makes my point about "First Last". It states:

General Wikipedia Naming Conventions start from easy principles: the name of an article should be "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things". This boils down to the two central ideas in Wikipedia article naming:

1. The name that is most generally recognisable
2. The name that is unambiguous with the name of other articles

Several general and specific guidelines further specify that article names preferably:

• Do not have additional qualifiers (such as "King", "Saint", "Dr.", "(person)", "(ship)"), except when this is the simplest and most neutral way to deal with disambiguation
• Are in English
• Are not insulting

For people, this often leads to an article name in the following format:

<First name> <Last name> (examples: Albert Einstein, Margaret Thatcher)

That is, the First Last pattern is a consequence of following other principles, and creating titles that match the First Last pattern because they match the First Last pattern is not following any of those principles. That's the point I've been making all along. The reason we end up with First Last titles is almost never because we "Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.", in almost all cases of First Last, -- except maybe a few notable exceptions like those Kotniski listed in which one might argue that the person is better known by surname only, though in most if not all of those cases he or she is no well less known by First Last -- but because following other general naming principles results in those names.

Again, I'm not saying consistency does not belong in the list. I'm saying "Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." does not belong because it does not apply explicitly or implicitly to most articles, while all the other listed principles do apply at least implicitly to almost all article titles. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

To some people, everything makes their point; we have unkind names for people like that. In fact, the causes cited do not explain why we use 'Albert Einstein" and not "Einstein, Albert" (or even "Einstein", the most common). Consistency does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I see you have trouble understanding not only my words, but also the words I quoted from the guideline. It explains why we use "'Albert Einstein" and not "Einstein, Albert" (or even "Einstein", the most common)" right there. Because...

For people, this [following the two central ideas in WP naming listed above, along with the general and specific guidelines noted, none of which comes even close to anything like "prefer following the pattern of titles in similar articles"] often leads to an article name in the following format:

<First name> <Last name> (examples: Albert Einstein, Margaret Thatcher)

Albert Einstein is even one of the cited examples. I've taken the liberty to clarify what "this" means in that sentence. Granted it might be referring to something else, but I can't imagine what. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The fact that a guideline says that X implies Y in no way means that X really does imply Y (we had a similar problem at WP:Naming conflict). The guideline you cite would be far more helpful and accurate if it just said "in the vast majority of cases, the title of an article about a person consists of the person's first name followed by their surname." What I suspect has happened is that someone has insisted on its being worded in a way that seemed compatible with the way of thinking then espoused on the main NC page, even though that way of thinking was not what actually operated on Wikipedia.--Kotniski (talk) 19:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Well you're just saying what the people guideline says is wrong, which is essentially conceding that that guideline agrees with what I'm saying. Yet when I pointed this out to PMA, he ridiculed me for it. That makes it very difficult to have a coherent discussion.

As to whether that guideline is wrong, I agree it could be improved, but I think it's essentially correct. That is, the reason we end up with so many people articles at First Last is because in almost every such case that happens to be the most common name used to refer to the person in question, and it's not because we have a convention to specifically use First Last. This is made evident by the fact that in any case where the person is clearly not well known by First Last, we don't use First Last (e.g., Cher, C. S. Forester rather than Cecil Forester, TJ Cummings, O. J. Simpson, etc.).

One might argue that entries like Albert Einstein go beyond that, because Einstein alone is "far more commonly used", but I suggest that in most if not all such cases (of which there are probably only a few dozen at most which can even be argued to be best known by surname alone, so these are very special cases anyway) these people are so well known that they are just as well known by First Last as Last alone, so either is probably appropriate and First Last just seems more encyclopedic. That's the part that can be clarified on that page, but, again, that affects only a tiny number of articles. What it says is exactly correct for the vast majority of people articles, and it supports what I've been saying.

What we're saying on this page now is going way beyond that, and incorrectly implying that "Prefer[ing] titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles" is a principle that applies much more broadly (as broadly as the other principles listed) than it actually does.

In fact, the people convention page got it right. The top part of the lede I quoted above is a much more accurate account of general principles and how they are used in actual practice (for all articles in WP, not just people articles) than what we have stated here at WP:NC now, especially with the highly misleading wording currently explaining "consistency". The fact that I had nothing to do with writing that guideline (I didn't even know about), and yet it says essentially what I've been saying all along here, further supports my case. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't need to ridicule B2C, he is ridiculous all by himself. Does anybody else believe a word of this? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I can cope with the argument that most of our consistency emerges from the other principles (and, ultimately, reflects consistency in reliable sources). But I am getting very frustrated with B2c's blind refusal to examine whether most of our conciseness, for example, also emerges from the other principles (and, ultimately, reflects conciseness in reliable sources). The repeated assertion that consistency is somehow different from the other principles, coupled with the repeated refusal to take the most basic steps to establish this point, is very bloody annoying. Hesperian 00:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm beginning to think that "use the most common name", which is not even listed as a fundamental principle, is even more fundamental than "concise" or "recognizability". More on this below in response to PMA. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Me too. In fact, I think we all agree on this core point here, which is to follow real world usage. This is the overarching principle from which all our other principles emerge. Where we seem to depart from each other is in the precise phrasing: I want it to be "follow usage in reliable sources"; you want it to be "use the most common name". Perhaps the compromise is to put "follow real world usage" into the convention. This will nail down many of the issues that keep cropping up, without preventing us from arguing until we're blue in the face over exactly how this should be assessed. Hesperian 02:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Just some thoughts after a few glasses of wine... Perhaps the most salient part of "most common name" is name - there really is something fundamental in WP naming that involves using the name of something, when applicable. Whenever possible (except for the exceptions), a title is the name most commonly used in the real world. Of course "real world" can mean "outside of WP" or "outside of the internet". I think you mean the former, but it is ambiguous. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:14, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The five principles which NCP states are recognizability, unambiguity, no slurs, Englishness, and no unnecessary titles. In order to argue that they decide between Albert Einstein and Einstein, Albert , one should do two things:

• Show that one satisfies a principle the other doesn't.
• Explain why the Britannica and so many bibliographies and indices use Einstein, Albert anyway.

All B2C has done is argue that Einstein, Albert isn't the most common. That's not one of NCP's principles, and it doesn't always follow from recognizability - as B2C himself observed in protesting recognizability, which is why to have a section Use Common Name. Meither order is ambiguous, insulting, unEnglish; both equally omit needless words. Therefore, if Einstein, Albert is equivalently recognizable (and it is, or the Britannica and indices would avoid it) no logical implication exists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, this seems to be more evidence that, as the people guideline states, "common name" is a more fundamental principle in naming than any of the others, including concise and recognizable, much less "prefer similar patterns". In the realm of people articles, it alone explains why we use Albert Einstein rather than Einstein, Albert, and why we use Cher. I mean, editors did not start putting people names at First Last because other articles were at First Last; they put each person at First Last because that person is most commonly referred to as First Last; common name is fundamental. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As I said above, might we all agree that the fundamental principle is to "follow real world usage"? We don't seem to be able to agree on whether to "use the most common name" or to "follow usage in reliable sources"; but really these are simply different faces of "follow real world usage". If "follow real world usage" is common ground, then we might formulate the convention in these terms. This would reframe the discussion here, and maybe allow us to move forward again. Hesperian 02:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

An answer that might lead the way out of this bog is as follows:

Naming involves two distinct steps: choosing a name, and choosing how to render that name into an article title. "Albert Einstein" and "Einstein, Albert" are the same name rendered differently. Similarly, "Gone With The Wind", "Gone with the Wind", and "Gone with the wind" are the same name, rendered differently. We apply consistency when it comes to rendering names—title case, sentence case, First Last—but not when it comes to choosing names.

I am not endorsing this argument. I think it is impossible to draw a line between these two putative steps. However there may be something in this.

Hesperian 00:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It is an interesting observation and I agree it deserves further consideration. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

How about "Einstein" and "Albert Einstein" - are they the same name rendered differently? That's pushing it a bit - one clearly has more information than the other. "Queen Victoria" vs. "Victoria of the UK" - again it's hard to see that it's just a rerendering. "Poznań County" vs. "Poznań District" vs. "Powiat Poznański". "Foos" vs. "List of foos". There's a common element in each case (though probably not in every example), but I think it's stretching it to say that these are just different renderings of the "same" name.--Kotniski (talk) 09:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Street naming

Bit of a discussion going on at WT:WPPL#Streets in Warsaw, about to what extent street names should be translated if they don't have an established English name - has this ever been discussed before? Can anyone ccontribute?--Kotniski (talk) 10:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Consistency wording

Why is it we're still having so much trouble finding a wording for this sentence (after Consistency - in the first section)? We've established that consistency in titles applies widely but not universally; I would have though we should just list it among the criteria for an ideal title and explain in a few words what we mean by it, not try to define when and to what extent it applies, because there's clearly no overall policy on that. That would make this point consistent (!) with the other bullet points preceding it.--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Because we do not have consistency for consistencies sake, and the wording you have now put in place suffers from exactly the same problems as the wording I replaced. -- PBS (talk) 12:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean, we don't have consistency for consistency's sake? Surely all the recent discussion has shown quite conclusively that we do? How much more evidence do you want? In any case the wording that everyone was perfectly happy with before - "similar articles are often given similar titles" - it doesn't even say that we do it for anything's sake, it's just a statement of fact. I don't understand how it's possible to have a problem with that statement.--Kotniski (talk) 13:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes we do have consistency for consistency's sake.

• We use nouns even if the adjective form is more common e.g. monophyly, not the much more commonly used "monophyletic";
• We use singular nouns whenever the noun is countable, e.g. cluster root not the much more commonly used "cluster roots", with some tightly proscribed exceptions;
• We use sentence case, not title case, even though these are in fact titles; with some tightly proscribed exceptions;

What proportion of articles have I accounted for already? And I haven't even started on specific cases, like years (why is 1 an article about a calendar year?); application of title case ("an initial capital, except for articles, the word "to" as part of an infinitive, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters, unless they begin or end a title or subtitle."); royalty; flora; birds; ships; predisambiguated place names....

Consistency for consistency's sake? My word, yes. It is endemic. Anyone who claims otherwise has their head in the sand.

Hesperian 13:21, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Monophyly is one of those cases where Consistency overlaps with Easy to Find: use the noun, not the adjective, on the grounds that people will look for and link to the noun. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

That's precisely because of the consistency, right? They only do that because they know that WP uses nouns as titles. (In fact, probably not the best example, since the adjective presumably redirects to the noun, so it would make little difference which you went for.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

No, that's because of the broader convention (beyond naming) to use the noun form as the topic of the articles, so of course we're going to use the noun form of the name of the topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

broader convention (beyond naming) to use the noun form as the topic of the articles What broader convention? Where? How is it "beyond naming"? Our convention (and as far as I know, the only one) is the bullet point use nouns [Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Article_title_format|on this policy page]]. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:18, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we do have consistency for the sake of consistency, but usually only when it doesn't conflict with the other fundamental principles. To address H's examples...

• Article topics are almost always nouns by necessity. The choice is not between monophyly and "monophyletic"; it's between monophyly and monophyletic group.
• Yes, we use singular nouns whenever the noun is countable. How does that conflict with normal usage?
• Yes, we prefer sentence case to title, arguably precisely to be consistent with other principles, most notably common usage.
• I'll give you the numbers/years thing (1 is year), but that's an exception covered by saying usually (not always) when consistency doesn't conflict with other principles. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Article topics are almost always nouns by necessity. Nope. There is no necessity about it; nothing prevents us from having articles headed by adjectives, verbs, or squiggles (as long as they display). The reason we don't is consistency: readers will come to expect nouns, and the consistency therefore makes them easy to find. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:12, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Point taken. I should have said, article titles are almost always nouns by necessity, because article topics are almost always nouns by convention.

      I can't speak for PBS, but I've never argued that consistency in general is not important. My issue is with "similar articles should be named similarly", which is a specific kind of consistency which, as far as I can tell, is followed usually (not always) only when doing so does not conflict with the other naming principles. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

      • Being almost all nouns is itself a similarity. This is a principle; the way it's carried out is a matter for further conventions and guidelines (just like other principles: does Conciseness require UK, or is it satisfied by avoiding United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
        • Yes, being almost all nouns is itself a similarity. No argument there. But it's similarity in the scope of article topics, not titles. The titles happen to be nouns not to be consistent with other titles of similar articles, but for each title to accurately reflect its own topic! --Born2cycle (talk) 20:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
          • That the titles of two articles are nouns is a similarity "in article topics, not titles". Huh? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
            • Forget titles. The topic (subject) of an article, independent of its name, can be a noun or a verb. That is, the topic can be about the thing or the action. Some articles can be written either way. The WP convention is to write about the thing. That's a convention with respect to article content, not article titles. The fact that the title also takes on the noun form is simply for the title to be consistent with how the article is written (about the thing not the action). Surely you understand this. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:26, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
              • A category error. Topics are concepts; nouns and verbs are words. Words can express a concept, but several different different set of words can express the same concepts, or ones close enough that the articles will be substantially identical - as Pollution and Pollute would be. (Observe that one redirects to the other.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
                • No error. Things and actions are concepts; the convention is for article content to be about the thing (like pollution) rather than actions (like pollute) - the titles in each case just follow suit. The article being at Pollution rather than at Pollute has everything to do with the convention of articles being about things and nothing at all to do with giving similar articles similar titles. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
                  • It cannot be disputed that the concept referred to by the word "pollute" is covered by the article pollution. Either pollution covers a single concept, to which both "pollute" and "pollution" refer; or pollution covers two concepts: "pollute" and "pollution". Either way, both "pollute" and "pollution" are legitimate titles for the article. Hesperian 02:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
                    • The words "pollute" and "pollution" refer to two separate, though related, concepts. The first is a human action, the second is the result of that action. If the topic of the article was primarily about the action, then the appropriate title would be pollute. The reason the title is pollution rather than pollute is because the article is written such that it is primarily about the noun, not the verb. The convention here is to write our articles in this manner, and the titles reflect that. They are not nouns independent of article content specifically to be consistent with other titles. If you or anyone else can find even a single example of an RM request based on "titles should be nouns to be consistent with other titles" (or something to that effect), I would be very interested to see that.

                      See also Litter. Is that the noun or the verb? We can't know from the title in this case because the word is the same for both forms. But the article content is definitive on this point: "Litter is waste that ...". If there was a verb form of "litter" different from the noun form, it would be inconsistent with article content to use it as the title.

                      By the way, in the rare cases when the article content must be about the action for making it about the noun is awkward or doesn't make sense, the title follows suit. Or do you guys really think Ice skating should be at Ice skate? Too much. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

                      • We don't write articles about nouns, nor verbs. We write articles about topics, all of which have a noun form, even if they are actions. "Ice skating" is a noun phrase that names an action. By your own twisted argument, "If the topic of the article was primarily about the action, then the appropriate title would be ice skate." Well the article is about the action—certainly not the "result of that action"—so why don't you go ahead and move it? Either that or abandon this ridiculous new argument and admit that we use noun forms in our titles solely for reasons of title consistency. Hesperian 03:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Fine. I give up; the wording of titles has nothing to do with titles; things are concepts, concepts are actions, and everything is whatever Serge Issakov wants it to be. Cyclic Bore (what's his next user name, Camille Paglia?) has invented a whole new metaphysics to defend his otherwise unreasoned stylistic prejudices; there is no hope of communicating with him.

However, I continue to oppose rewording this page to suit his whims, and will join in reverting any of them that leak on to the page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

If anybody can explain B2C's meaning, or will agree with it, there may be hope for continued discussion; both would be best. But without that, I see no way to deal with someone who will make any preposterous claim to get what he wants, for reasons which nobody else can see. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

What does this have to do with anyone getting what they want (unless you're speaking about yourself)?

It's preposterous to point out the obvious? That Wikipedia articles are about things rather than the related actions (when there is a choice)? And that that would be the case regardless of how articles are titled, including if they were titled by random strings? The quite apparent fact that Wikipedia favors articles about things rather than actions has nothing to do with article naming in general, much less with making sure "similar articles have similar titles". To go back to your example, even if the name of Pollution was something utterly meaningless like XR290123A the topic would still be pollution rather than pollute. Since we use helpful/descriptive titles, the title simply reflects what the topic is. That's why it's Pollution rather than Pollute, not because "similar" articles like Contamination are not at Contaminate. I mean, the intro sentence for Pollution is "... is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability". That's why the title is Pollution rather than Pollute. It's not like that's the intro sentence rather than "is to introduce contaminants into an environment that causes instability" because of the title, it's the other way around. The article topic determines the title; the title does not determine the contents, including the intro. Moving Contamination to Contaminate would not be a basis to rename Pollution to Pollute; it would be a reason to move Contaminate back to Contamination (and not to be consistent with Pollution, but to be consistent with the content of the Contamination article). How is this even controversial, much less preposterous?

Anyway, even if it were true that the reason article titles tended to be nouns rather than verbs was to be consistent with all other articles (because their titles tend to be nouns), that would still not be because "similar articles should have similar titles" which refers to having (an unqualified) preference for similar titles among articles within some common category.

All I'm saying is that the undisputed fact that Wikipedia article titles tend to be nouns supports H's assertion that Wikipedia has consistency for the sake of consistency (which is why he first brought it up, above, and which I do not dispute), but does not support the assertion that "similar articles should have similar titles".

I can't believe you're even challenging me on such an obvious point, and, frankly, it makes me suspect that you tend to disagree with most things I say simply because it's me saying it. Let's focus on policy and the arguments, rather than who is making them, shall we? Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

In fact, I agree with you about 40% of the time. This, however, is a farrago of nonsense; Born2cycle may believe that the fact that most of our articles are nouns does not support the observation that "similar articles have similar titles", but I don't see why anyone else should - more importantly, I don't see that anyone else does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:34, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I've seen this over and over again. Born2cycle's reaction to being refuted is to retreat further and further into the bizarre. Last time it happened, he ended up backing into the ridiculous position that we should favour titles constructed out of words in the dictionary. e.g. "Pearl Gray" not Zane Gray, because "Pearl" and "Gray" are dictionary words but "Zane" is not. Then there was the time he back himself into the position that Yucca brevifolia is the name of a species, "Joshua tree" is the collective name of the individual plants that comprise the species; the two concepts are too close to warrant a fork; and the latter concept is more notable! Oh, and let's not forget the time he ended up at the idea that the sign on the front of "Joshua Tree Drycleaners" is a reliable source for purposes of assessing the prevalent name of a tree. This has become a serious problem. Hesperian 01:52, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, if Liriodendron were the common name (as it is not), the name "understanded of the people", we probably would see "Liriodendron Dry Cleaners"; I would be shocked to see one, but would find "Rhododendron Dry Cleaners" natural. Not the strongest argument, but not incohetence nor metaphysical declamation either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Joshua Tree Dry Cleaners is named after the town in which it is located. Hesperian 00:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Which just puts another step into the argument: the town is named Joshua Tree, not Liriodendron (whereas there is, I see, a Rhododendron, Oregon). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Born2Cycle, I note you've made more wikipedia talk edits than mainspace edits. I am not impressed with people who make little mainspace contribution come and spend so much time on pages such as naming conventions and try to dictate how the rest of us should be naming articles in such a headstrong manner. You really need to go and do some gruntwork (i.e. mainspace contribs) and just leave this alone for a bit. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Casliber, we all contribute in different ways. I'm not here to impress you or anyone else. I am interested in how WP articles are named, so of course discussing those issues comprises much of my edits.

Hesperian, Zane Gray, and the drycleaners were your examples, not mine. That would be like me saying you and PMA just argued that Ice skating should be moved to Ice skate (which, for the record, you of course did not).

You still don't understand my point about Joshua trees. Oh well, this is not the appropriate place, except I'll say that when most people see, think, read, speak or write about "Joshua trees", they are not thinking about the technical definition of a species, and probably have no idea whether Joshua trees are a species, any more than most probably don't know whether Agave is technically a species. To them its merely a type of plant they know as "Joshua tree" (or "Agave").

Enough with the ad hominem arguments. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you just argued for a move to ice skate. I quote: "If the topic of the article was primarily about the action, then the appropriate title would be [verb form]." Ice skating is an article about an action. Since you don't comprehend that actions have names too, you consider the appropriate title to be ice skate. You said it. Hesperian 03:31, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I did not say that ice skating should be moved to ice skate. Even if your interpretation of my words implied it, that's not the same as me saying it. This is typical of how you place words onto the finger tips of others.

The term "ice skate" is much more commonly used to refer to the thing you put on your foot when engaged in ice skating. And what on Earth caused you to say that I don't comprehend that actions have names too? Ice skating is the name of the action; the action is the topic, so Ice skating should be the title, not the noun Ice skate as you guys imply it should be when you argue that consistent use of nouns in titles is basis for "similar articles should have similar titles". Again, you're off on some bizarre semantic tangent, and not at all addressing my point.

I will concede that "Ice skating" is a bad example since it is a noun form, but that is no excuse for you to ignore the rest of what I said. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

"not the noun Ice skate as you guys imply it should be". That is beyond ludicrous. "We use nouns for reasons of consistency" equals "Let's be inconsistent and use a verb"? PMAnderson was wise to walk away from this garbage. Hesperian 00:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

When you put an "ice skate" on your foot, it's a noun. Anyway, like I said, bad example (because "ice skate" can also be a verb, and "ice skating" can be both too), but don't let that stop you from playing your semantic games and putting words in my mouth ("'We use nouns for reasons of consistency' equals 'Let's be inconsistent and use a verb'") and ignoring the real argument I'm making. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:48, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The reason why we have John Dove and not Dove, John was because for years we had it covered with "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." It seem to me that we should put that wording back to explain why we use John Dove and not Dove, John.

The current wording "Consistent – Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." still does not address the issue of when reliable sources use one name and the pattern of names in Wikipeida are different and the pattern is not supported by reliable sources. Fore example "occupation of ... by Nazi Germany" or Military of the United Kingdom instead of British Armed Forces because other articles are named the same way. -- PBS (talk) 15:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The Dove, John example is something of a red herring; the real alternative to FirstName LastName is just LastName, as in Einstein or Mozart. The sentence you quote certainly wouldn't provide any reason to include the first names of such people in their article titles; yet that's the well established practice.

I'm not sure of your point about Military/Armed Forces - it seems perfectly valid to wish all the national military articles to be named the same way (I see from the BAF talk page that you yourself were once of that mind), but there are other considerations which have outweighed the desire for consistency in this case. In other cases (like the monarchs) it's been consistency that's outweighed other considerations. All we're saying is that consistency is one of the valid (and possibly competing) considerations when deciding on a name. I would be happy to go back to the statement of fact that "Often similar articles are given similar titles" (or whatever it was), to avoid the "Prefer..." instruction.--Kotniski (talk) 16:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Meh. I don't know of any evidence that Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are not at Einstein or at Mozart due to consistency with some First Last convention. It is true that in some cases certain names are chosen for the sake of uniformity, but rarely does uniformity trump other principles. For example, even in your example common name trumps uniformity (with First Last) by putting the Mozart article at Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart rather than at Wolfgang Mozart. Only in relatively rare and rather unfortunate situations does uniformity trump other principles, particularly common name (the only really clear case that I know of is U.S. cities that are not on the AP list). Despite this common name is currently not even listed as one of the principles... outrageous!

For a very recent example of this, consider the argument made in this discussion about renaming articles with "car" in the title to use "automobile" instead of "car" for consistency:

It's done for uniformity. We had a discussion to retain the "automobile" name for the automobile article, so why have conflicting terms? Only in a few cases should the name "car" be used, which is "less formal" word. OSX (talk • contributions) 02:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Uniformity is good, but we must not (under Wikipedia conventions) create neologisms. Kit automobile strikes me as absolutely crazy. "Kit car" is the phrase, as evinced by the phrase used throughout the article. This one should be reverted. I'd agree with the above comments on "police car" too but that one may be a cultural (US/UK) difference. Kit car just isn't. Try Googling the two, for what little that's worth. The resounding absence of "kit automobile" makes the point. – Kieran T (talk) 03:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

While Kieran does not explicitly refer to common name, that is certainly the implied principle at work here, and this argument that common name trumps uniformly-naming-for-the-sake-of-uniformity won.

To be accurate WP:NC should clearly state that consistency is a primary principle in naming, meaning that all articles should be named consistently with the naming principles (that's how we get consistency) - and uniformity is a second tier principle, which means we strive for uniformity in naming within a group of articles about related topics when doing so does not conflict with the primary principles., and is usually only applicable when an article title needs to be disambiguated due to a usage conflict with its most common name. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Would it were so; but on the other hand we have Victoria of the UK and that aircraft carrier and so on. We can't just write something on this page because we think it should be so, when the community seems to have decided it needn't be. Perhaps we need another RfC on this matter.--Kotniski (talk) 06:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I mentioned the ordering of names because Hesperian brought it up as a justification for consistency. I think the older wording that was in here for years should be put back into this policy because it neatly covers the ordering of first-name last-name without the problems that consistency raises.

As to mono names Kotniski, we have had this conversation before "If Albert Einstein was always referred to as Einstein then the article on Wikipedia would be at Einstein, but in reality that he is not. The argument for moving Basia Trzetrzelewska to Basia was because it was the common name for that person, which if consistency had been followed would have remained at Basia Trzetrzelewska --PBS (talk) 11:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)" and you replied "Barbara, presumably, but anyway, that's a case in the Madonna/Pele category. It's evidence that consistency is not always maximized, but no-one's disputing that."

My major complain is with the current wording of consistency (which AFAICT is B2C's complaint) is that the wording as currently on the page, has not addressed the our concerns that it will be misused, to justify consistency for consistency sake rather than as a guide when other more pertinent guides are should be used. For example B2C wrote "Much better. Even more accurate would be something like, 'Often, but usually only when the other principles don't indicate an obvious choice, similar articles are given similar titles' ". and you wrote "I'd be fine with that --Kotniski (talk) 08:50, 6 October 2009 (UTC)". So why do we still have wording "Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." which is open to misunderstanding/exploitation? -- PBS (talk) 08:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Because others weren't "fine with that" (didn't PMA say such wording would be tantamount to vandalism?) In fact looking at it again, it's not quite right: similar articles normally get similar titles when the other principles do indicate an obvious choice, because the obvious choices for similar articles tend to be similar. Logically what we want to say (and what the monarchists and shippists and others will no doubt continue to oppose) is that similar articles are often given similar titles if (not "only when") the other principles don't indicate an obvious choice. (But PMA is right that it's not really necessary, since the context is a list of criteria where no one automatically dominates.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Except in that list the other principles rarely conflict with each other, and use similar titles often if not usually would, if it were given equal priority, conflict with what is arguably the primary naming principle in Wikipedia: use the most common name (when there is an obvious common name and this is the primary or only use). However, in actual practices, uniformity in naming is rarely given priority over common name, and that fact about actual usage should be reflect in what we say here. This is not a matter of wanting it to say something about what we wish the situation to be. Victoria of the UK and the aircraft carrier are all relatively minor exceptions to this. Names of royalty have been an exception to common name from the beginning of Wikipedia - as an exception it should not be used as an example of how articles are ordinarily named in WP. Same with ship names. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Merge tryout

Since no further discussion seems ongoing on the WP:Naming convention draft (see #Merge above), which would merge the separate pages for common names, Use English, precision, and naming conflict into this one, I'm going to put the merged text on this page (but without changing any of the other pages yet). Let's see if we can live with the proposed merged version or if there's anything that needs changing; once that's settled, we can think about whether there's any continuing need for the other pages involved to exist separately.--Kotniski (talk) 10:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Done (there was one section of the draft - under WP:NC#Explicit conventions - which someone felt to be unnecessary; I've commented that bit out so we can consider whether it adds anything).--Kotniski (talk) 10:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, since this has passed off without incident, I'm going to raise on the talk pages of the various other guidelines whether those guidelines are now unnecessary (can be considered to have been fully merged into this page) and can be replaced with redirects to here.--Kotniski (talk) 16:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Just what is this part saying to avoid?

WP:NAME#Use common names says, "...the name chosen for an article, while in common use, should be neither vulgar nor pedantic..." I find this pretty opaque. Apparently it's referring to avoiding two extremes, but I'm not sure what they are. Can someone who understands this make the wording clearer (perhaps with examples)? Ntsimp (talk) 16:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The vulgar one we've been talking about was "Shit" for Feces, though a less offensive example might be preferred for the policy page itself. I don't know what was in mind when the "pedantic" bit was added. Perhaps some of the examples at WP:Naming conventions (common names), or in the proposed merged version, illustrate the point.--Kotniski (talk) 17:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

It's saying that in principle we should avoid the extremes; nothing more. That's why words which imply that a given choice has gone over the cliff were used. Where those extremes lie, in any given case, is debatable; no line could be drawn which would have consensus, and any editor's own line (exactly put) would be intolerably and unusably long.

Examples and specifications, therefore, can only be approximate indications, and are unlikely to be consensus; even if they are consensus, they belong in {{guideline}}s. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

But one example of pedantry in discussion was United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; which should give an example of what we are trying to avoid. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:17, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

If I get your points, there must be a way to express them more clearly and directly. As a start, note that "shit" isn't the name by which you would most likely refer to excrement when talking to a stranger, but "United Kingdom" is one of the most likely ways you'd refer to the UK. (And, while shit is still often used with its literal meaning, a sentence such as "Shit is a waste product from an animal's digestive tract expelled through the anus (or cloaca) during defecation" would be funny due to its obvious mismatch of registers (and it's not a lexicon issue; "Shit is a waste product from an animal's bowel expelled through the arsehole during shitting" wouldn't be any better). ___A. di M. 21:09, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Ammunition articles

So WP:MOSNUM#Unit symbols suggests that if a measurement is given in an article that it be separated from its units by a non-breaking space. On the other hand, articles on types of ammunition are named without a space: 9x19mm Parabellum, 5.7x28mm et cetera. Is this right, or should they be renamed to include a space? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:18, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No. Ammo IDs aren't strictly measurements, they're names. Hence, no spaces. (Tho I do forsee headaches from people not familiar with this convention always "fixing" it...) TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 14:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

If that's the case, then it should probably be mentioned at MOSNUM.--Kotniski (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Good point. MOSNUM already has a calibre-specific exception under Decimal points; this spacelessness is another quirk that should probably be noted. —JAO • T • C 09:41, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I've pinged WT:MOSNUM. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit removing linked-to header

This edit removed a header that is still being linked to from this subsection: Wikipedia:Summary_style#Naming_conventions_for_subarticles. Kotniski et al., could you have a look and do the necessary? --JN466 12:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done with this edit. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Providence, Rhode Island → Providence ... for consistency!

The move of Providence, Rhode Island → Providence has been proposed in order to -- get this -- be consistent with other related articles that refer to the city of Providence as just "Providence" (not "Providence, Rhode Island") in their titles. Of course, this proposal is going down hard, showing once again that consistency in naming is usually considered to be secondary importance relative to other naming principles.

Una Smith even explicitly argues, "Consistency is less important than many other guidelines here". It's not often that Una and I agree, but when she's right, what can I do?

This naming policy should clearly state what is obviously true in practice: Consistency in naming is less important than the primary naming principles used to guide naming in Wikipedia.

I opposed this move because the principle that primary topic needs to be established for an article to use a given name (another fundamental principle that we don't have listed) is much more important than the principle of consistency in naming for related articles. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that this is just a case of one type of consistency being preferred over another. I.e. the consistency embodied in the City, State rule versus consistency within a small number of articles on the same topic. You can hardly hold this up as evidence that consistency is being disregarded. --Kotniski (talk) 06:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

So now one kind of name uniformity trumps another? No one has even hinted that that was a consideration in their decision. And I didn't say consistency was disregarded - I said it was trumped by another principle - primary topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

For example, Una said "in this case the current page name of this article is more consistent". Presumably you must know that with US place names, the primary topic principle has been rejected in favour of a rule designed to bring widespread consistency? (I don't particularly agree with it either, but we can't claim it isn't so.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:55, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

No, primary topic has not been rejected (certainly the primary topic of Providence, Rhode Island is the city, so that name is in compliance) - most common name and disambiguate only when necessary have been unfortunately rejected in favor of consistency in naming non-AP-list U.S. cities, a very rare exception to the general rule that the consistency-in-naming-of-similar-articles-similarly secondary principle defers to the other fundamental primary principles when they produce a clear and obvious most common name.

I missed Una's comment because she made it after mine, but it begs the question, why is one "more consistent" than the other? Any guideline that gives as much indication about what to do as tossing a coin is not a guideline at all. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

One more spoon stirring the pot: there are two separate questions:

1. What is the primary topic (if any) of "providence"? If there is one, that article should exist at or be the target of a redirect from Providence. If there isn't one, then Providence should be a disambiguation page (as it is now).
   • WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:PLACE#Disambiguation cover this.
2. What should the title of the article about Providence, Rhode Island, be?
   • WP:PLACE#Disambiguation again: "In other cases, a disambiguating tag will usually be needed. [...] With the names of cities, towns, villages and other settlements, as well as administrative divisions, the tag is normally preceded by a comma, as in Hel, Poland and Polk County, Tennessee." This disambiguating tag is applied when needed for disambiguation, not when needed for consistency with the names of other places of the same size/administrative function/etc.
   • but even without that WP:PLACE#United States goes on to say "The canonical form for cities in the United States is [[City, State]] (the "comma convention"). [...] Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier may have their articles named [[City]] provided they are the primary topic for that name. The cities listed by the AP are Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York City, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington. No other American city may have its article named [[City]]."

So Providence, Rhode Island is currently the correct name for the article about Providence, Rhode Island, and the possible courses of action are:

• WP:RM to discuss a change of primary topic for "providence" (a proposal to move the disambiguation page currently at Providence to "Providence (disambiguation)" instead -- based on the current proposal to move Providence, Rhode Island to "Providence", I would expect this proposal to fail)
• Discussion at WT:PLACE to change the naming guidelines for some set of U.S. places that would cover Providence (e.g., state capitals). Even then, moving it to the unqualified base name would involve determining that it is the primary topic of "providence" (which also seems unlikely).

-- JHunterJ (talk) 14:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

If you think anyone besides maybe the one guy who proposed the current move, and even he apparently has come around, might possibly not already agree with all of this, either you or I are missing something. But, thanks for reiterating the obvious. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't tell what the outcome of the "consistency" discussion above was (so that's probably what I'm missing). If there wasn't any remaining question, sorry to have stirred the pot. :-) -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The discussion is ongoing. What I can't tell is the relevance of your comment to that discussion. What you posted here seemed to address the issue of whether Providence should be moved, and talked about reasons that have nothing to do with consistency, much less whether consistency deserves equal or secondary billing in this policy (which is the issue being discussed). --Born2cycle (talk) 21:41, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

My point was that the "consistency" is with the current guidelines, and I named the guidelines, which hadn't been trotted out here yet: WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, WP:PLACE#Disambiguation, and WP:PLACE#United States -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh! Yes, of course, consistency with guidelines is a real consideration of the highest priority. Consistency in naming to be similar to titles of similar articles... much lower priority, in practice. Yet the current wording is not clear on this. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to answer as if this is a straight comment -- I'm really unsure whether it's supposed to be rhetorically sarcastic or not. The city is not the primary topic of "providence", so the base name can't be the city article nor a redirect to it. The article is named consistently similarly to titles of similar articles, such as Columbus, Ohio (not primary topic of "columbus") or Sacramento, California (primary topic of "sacramento"). History of Providence, et al., could be made consistent with it by moving it to History of Providence, Rhode Island, etc. (which I see has been done). So I'm not sure what wording on which policy is unclear and how it needs to be clarified. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The current wording about "consistency" is not clear that naming articles so that their titles are similar to those of similar articles is given a lower priority in most cases; in most conflicts, usually the principle to be consistent with principles like common name and "only as precise as necessary" trumps "similar articles should have similar titles". See here for some examples. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... it seems we are inconsistent... on one hand we argue that we should use Providence, Rhode Island over Providence because there are multiple towns named Providence... yet we use Paris over Paris, France dispite the fact that there are multiple towns (and other things) with that name. Blueboar (talk) 21:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Right. Basic naming rules formulated from the main principles, like don't disambiguate the most common name when it's the primary topic usually trump consistency, which is a secondary principle. That's the point I keep making. Yet we currently give consistency "equal billing" - that does not accurately reflect actual use. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Where Born2cycle would say "Right", I'd say "no" -- Providence, Rhode Island is used because of WP:PLACE#United States, and would be whether or not there are multiple towns named Providence and whether or not it is the primary topic for "providence". Paris is so named because of WP:FRMOS#Cities & communes (and because it is the primary topic for "paris"). -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like we have a conflict between WP:PLACE#United States and WP:FRMOS#Cities & communes. Or are we saying that WP:FRMOS#Cities & communes does not apply to US cities? Blueboar (talk) 00:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

There's a difference, yes, but no conflict. Until there's a U.S. city (WP:PLACE#United States) in France (WP:FRMOS), which doesn't seem likely. WP:PLACE recognizes these differences consistently. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:11, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The conflict is between WP:PLACE#United States and the primary naming principles, conventions and rules used to title most articles in Wikipedia, in particular: disambiguate only when necessary (which means: use the most common name whenever the name is obvious and it is unique or the topic has primary use). WP:PLACE#United States is in conflict with this because it calls for unnecessary precision and disambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I still don't see the conflict. Sacramento, California and Providence, Rhode Island are the common names of those cities -- how they're introduced in reliable sources. WT:PLACE would seem like a better forum to bring up this complaint, though. And I see you've done that, which makes this seem like a bigger waste of time now. Striking the last -- older discussion there about neighborhoods, not cities. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

First, Sacramento, California is not the name of the city, much less the common name; Sacramento is the name. If someone who lives there is asked where they live, they might answer either way. But if they are asked the name of the city in which they live, the only correct answer, and clearly most likely answer, is Sacramento.

Second, Sacramento, California is unnecessary disambiguation, Providence, Rhode Island is not. See the discussion below. Sacramento alone identifies the topic of that article, as is made evident by the fact that Sacramento redirects to it. Providence alone, however, may refer to any one of several uses of that name, none of which is primary, and so each must be disambiguated for its use, including the city in Rhode Island. This is the same basic algorithm that is followed consistently to name almost every article in Wikipedia except those that don't have obvious names (like List of ... articles, highways, etc). --Born2cycle (talk) 03:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

"Sacramento, California" is the way the city is commonly introduced in reliable sources (and that commonality has been codified in the AP Style Guide). Proposals to change that should be brought up at WT:PLACE. We agree on your second point. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:09, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Even if it happens to be commonly introduced that way, doesn't mean that is its name. Nobody would say "The capital of California is Sacramento, California". That is, , California is only added when it might be helpful to indicate the state the city is in; it is not its name.

I'm not proposing to change anything here. The point of discussing this and all the other examples here is to better understand what these principles mean and how they apply in various cases.

What this example illustrates is how interpreting "consistency" to mean similar articles should have similar titles, and to give it "equal billing", leads to titles like Sacramento, California that are (ironically) inconsistent with primary principles like concise, only as precise as necessary, common name, etc. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I suppose what I am wondering about is this... if consistency is so important, why do we have one set of conventions for cities in the US, and another set of conventions for cities elsewhere? Why not one set of conventions for all cities? What makes places in the US different from places in France or some other nation? This sounds like a perfect example of where we should merge and come up with one naming convention for all cities and places. (Personally I prefer the specificity of "Sacramento, California" and "Paris, France" to just "Sacramento" or "Paris".) Blueboar (talk) 13:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Places in the United States are different from places in France because the United States and France use different geographical-political systems. But WT:PLACE is the place to discuss keeping or eliminating those distinctions. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I certainly think that random inconsistency should be ironed out (for example, Czech towns and villages have disambiguators in parentheses rather than after commas, probably for no reason other than that some editor started doing them like that sometime). But "Paris, France" is weird - and it would be inconsistent with the even more general principle that we don't disambiguate unnecessarily (we don't say "France, Europe" for example, or "Lion (animal)"). I can just about tolerate the City, State convention for US places only because it seems to be common American idiom in real life - and that doesn't extend to other countries I know of, so the convention shouldn't either. --Kotniski (talk) 13:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... well, as I said, I prefer specificity... Of course, being more historically minded than geographically minded, I find it odd that someone searching for the unadorned word "Paris" will be pointed to the article on the French city of Paris as opposed to, say, the mythological figure (Paris (mythology)) ... In fact, there are enough different reasons to search for the unadorned "Paris" that I would think that the user should initially be pointed to the dab page: Paris (disambiguation). But that is yet another issue.

I suppose what I am getting to is this... if we are going to stress consistency, perhaps it is time to address the fact that our various topic area conventions are often inconsistent with each other. It may be that we have too many topic specific conventions (or perhaps too narrow topic conventions), and that we need to consolidate some of them (ie undo some of the instruction creep that plagues this policy). Instead of having one narrow convention for US Places, and another narrow convention for French Places... wouldn't it make sense to simply have one broad convention for "Places"? Blueboar (talk) 14:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think it would (though leaving a certain amount of flexibility to take account of different circumstances - and usage - in different countries). Well we do have WP:NCGN, which lays down general rules as well as local specifics, but I agree that in general there are too many local rules which have no reason not to be harmonized.--Kotniski (talk) 15:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Extending titles to make them more meaningful

I will admit that I have not been closely following the discussions here of late, but this discussion raises a point that I don't think we have amply considered and that is, the clarity of the title. A title like Providence, Rhode Island is clearer then Providence and would be more meaningful to more people, especially if they normally associate Providence with one of the other uses. While Yaoundé may be the primary use and the most common name, what does it mean to the casual reader? No cheating on this question, but do you know what Yaoundé is? Would we really hurt anything by expanding the title to make it clearer what this is? If we wanted to argue for constancy, we would choose the most restrictive of any naming convention and use that for all other topic articles. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up; it should definitely be discussed. Here's my take.

If we start disambiguating titles beyond most common name solely for the purpose of conveying information to the casual reader about the topic beyond its name, we're opening Pandora's box. I mean, Yaoundé, Cameroon conveys more, but why stop there? Isn't Yaoundé, Cameroon, Africa even better, and Yaoundé, capital city of Cameroon, Africa better still? Where do you draw the line, and on what rational grounds? Use the most common name, and disambiguate only when necessary (when the common name is not unique or primary), draws a very clear line, on very simple and rational grounds. There is also something very clean, elegant and utilitarian about conveying the most common name used to refer to a topic, and the title is the ideal way to do that. Doing so also makes titles more predictable, which can be very helpful.

The case for Providence is different in that Providence has many notable meanings, and none of them, including the RI city, are primary. That's why it is necessary to disambiguate.

Besides, almost all references to articles are within a context that conveys, or should convey, other information to the reader about what the topic is, because most references, especially those that are relevant to the casual reader, are within the text of other articles. So there shouldn't be much if any value in conveying more information to the reader anyway - that's the purpose of the lead in each article. If you don't know what it is, look it up. If that's not fulfilling the main purpose of an encyclopedia, what is? Here, "look it up" of course merely means click on it.

Paraphrasing Jay Leno, if I may, "Have we really become so lazy that now clicking on a link to find out what some unfamiliar name means is too much work? No wonder we're so fat!" --Born2cycle (talk) 14:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The title need only identify the topic. Giving you information about the topic is the article's job. In the case of Yaoundé, ", Cameroon" does nothing to identify the topic. If you know what "Yaoundé" is, there is no need for the ", Cameroon" bit. If you don't know what "Yaoundé" is, ", Cameroon" won't help you. It merely gives you the information that the unidentified topic is something in Cameroon. Contrast this with the Providence case. There will be many readers who know what "Providence" means, yet are unable to identify the topic on an article from the title "Providence", because the term is inherently ambiguous. Adding ", Rhode Island" will yield a title that identifies the topic to those people. Big difference. Hesperian 23:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

What a clear and logical explanation. Unfortunately the titles of U.S. city articles go beyond merely identifying the topic, except for cities big enough to make it on the AP list. This logic applies to Carmel-by-the-Sea just as much as it applies to Yaoundé. For example, adding , California to get Carmel-by-the-Sea, California merely adds information that should be provided by the article, but Portland, Maine, like Providence, Rhode Island and Paris, Texas, needs that extra information for pure identification purposes. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Hesperian 00:03, 23 October 2009 (UTC)