Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 41

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Create Redirect?

Should WP:TITLECONSISTENCY redirect to WP:NAMINGCRITERIA? The reason I ask this is having seen people cite WP:CONSISTENCY evidently thinking it redirects to the Title Consistency section of WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, but actually it goes to WP:INTERNALCONSISTENCY on WP:MOS. I previously repeatedly made this same mistake myself, which is why I have noticed others doing it. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

You brought this subject up before: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 36#Permission to make a shortcut (27 April 2012) and it was rejected.

I still think it is a bad idea because we have a link to the section WP:NAMINGCRITERIA and emphasising one of the points does not help in determining the name. Particularly in the case of consistency which normally only comes into play if the other criteria can no be used on their own to determine the name. For example the title of the article Elizabeth II is not consistent with the article title of most other British and English monarchs. Over the last five years (since the introduction of common name meaning usage in reliable sources rather than all sources) there has been a move a way from emphasising consistency in the decision making process.

Another problem that raises its head on this issue is that the criteria used to measure consistency tends to be used in such a way to favour the person who is using to make the comparison. For example does one relate the article title for the biography on Margaret Thatcher, to those of British women or the set of British aristocrats, or the set of life peers?

For these reasons I do not think that creating a link to emphasise consistency is desirable. -- PBS (talk) 12:33, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Ahah, you have a good memory. Yes I see JHunterJ said "I think you can do so boldly" and then you opposed. I have to say I still don't quite understand why it's a good idea to provide a convenient shortcut to internal consistency in Wikipedia:Manual of Style which is a guideline, but a bad idea to provide a convenient shortcut to external consistency in WP:AT which is a policy. We all do actually agree with what WP:AT says don't we? As for British aristocrats, or the set of life peers I don't really know, it's an specialist, unusual and not very important area of en.wp which has a well developed set of its own criteria and the tail shouldn't wag the dog for the rest of the encyclopedia. I'd be better equipped to understand an example from non-royalty areas. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Consistency within an article is a fundemental part of the style guide, it does not have to be weighed against other criteria. For example if American spelling is used within an article, it is widely agreed that unless a spelling is within a quote or a popper name the spelling should not change to British spelling at random points. In this case consistency is a minor part of the WP:NAMINGCRITERIA which is open to misuses by the selection used for consistency. Examples at the moment there is a debate about the spelling of Theater District, New York, a justification of the use of Theatre District, New York is because Theatre is spelt that way. If that was accepted, then it would mean that every time theatre is moved, then we should also reconsider the spelling of every article with the word theatre in it eg European theatre of World War II -- even though they are about different concepts of what a theatre is -- (for another example see Zürich Airport). ... This is using consistency in a way which is unhelpful and usually put forward by people who wish to press for a particular construct which contradicts usage in reliable sources. For anyone who is interested, and is not familiar with this topic, there are several other examples in the previous discussion. -- PBS (talk) 14:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

What I mean by that is that Margaret Thatcher being at Margaret Thatcher probably wouldn't be affected by providing Users with an easy shortcut to what WP:AT says about title consistency. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:52, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per PBS. Consistency with other similar titles, as clarified by specific naming guidelines, is but one of the criteria we are supposed to consider, and, so far as I can tell, usually a factor of last resort (when the other criteria fail to identify a single choice). See WP:How2title. --B2C 16:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose... for the same reasons. I do think we can do a better job of explaining when we should and should not be consistent... and how to do so. However, This is a complex topic, and I don't think we can do so through shortcuts and redirects. I think it will take a new WP:CONSISTENCY guideline that explains the nuances of both consistency of usage between articles and consistency of usage within articles. I will use the current "Theatre/Theater" debates to explain:

At the moment the title Theater District (all caps) redirects to the article on the specific district in NYC. There is currently no article or redirect for the unadorned Theater district or Theatre district. However, I could certainly envision someone writing a separate article on the generic topic of theater districts - a broad based article that explained what a theater district is ... outlining the history how such districts came to be, how they have developed over time, and what the differences are between notable theater districts in various cities. (It would probably include a list of notable theater districts). And not necessarily limited to ones that are explicitly called "the Theater District" (I could see it including discussion of places like Covent Garden, in London, which is a theater district)

Now, let us look to policy... Chances are, the article will be started using whichever spelling the initial author was used to (so, if the article is started by a UK editor, the article will initially be entitled "Theatre district"... and if started by a US editor it will be initially entitled "Theater district".) This is OK. However, sooner or later, someone is going to question that title... and to determine which should be used we look to the five principles laid out at WP:AT. I don't think Naturalness, Precision, and Conciseness would factor into the discussion much (In this case, not a very helpful examination - as both potential titles are equally natural, precise and consise), so most of the discussion would center on Recognizability and Consistency. To determine if one or the other was more Recognizable, we would apply WP:COMMONNAME (can we determine from the sources that discuss the various theater/theatre districts that one spelling or the other is significantly more recognizable?... probably not, but we would at least look). That leaves us with Consistency (the topic under discussion). At first glance, it might seem that we do have some consistency... the few articles that have the phrase "Theater District" in their titles do seem to favor US spelling... However, the spelling is mixed when we look at articles that discuss theater/theatre districts. It would be a debate... but I think that, ultimately, we would have to say that there is no real consistency within the topic area. So... as far as the TITLE goes... it would come down to whether there was a WP:COMMONNAME... and if not, we would go with WP:ENGVAR and keep whichever was first used. For the sake of argument, let's say that the US "Theater" is chosen.

So much for WP:AT. Now let us look at MOS. Having chosen "Theater" for the title, does this we should conform to US spelling throughout the article? Well, according to WP:CONSISTENCY, we should. However... in this case, I think there is a good argument for making an exception to that rule when it comes to specific sections... for example: if there is a section on Covenant Garden, I think it would be appropriate to start that section with the statement "In London, the theatre district is Covent Garden" and to consistently use UK spelling within that section. This could be seen as being consistent with provisions like using the name Leningrad, in the article on St. Petersberg when discussing World War II. It is appropriate given the context.

Now... the question becomes, is there a way to describe all of this in a short paragraph in the WP:AT policy (or in the MOS). The answer to me is "no". Consistency is a complex topic that really needs its own guideline. One that can explain the norm... but also explain how there are exceptions to the norm. It seems that there is a conflict (or at least a perception of one) between WP:AT and WP:MOS... I think we could bring the conflict between AT and MOS to an end if we created a separate guideline to bridge the two. Blueboar (talk) 16:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thankyou Blueboar that was a very fine considered response. I see your points. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:53, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I concur. It both identifies that we need a guideline on this, and provides some example material to work with. I would quibble slightly that a case can separately be made for "theatre", because "theatre" is in fact often used in the US, to mean "a playhouse or other venue with a state for live performance", as opposed to "a movie house", which is always "theater" here in Yankeeland. Live venues use either spelling, movie houses virtually never do (unless converted from a historical live venue). Anyway, the idea of sectional consistency is important and so far totally absent from all relevant guidance. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 22:45, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

if I understand Blueboar's suggestion properly, it allows or even encourages different English variants in different sections of an article. This seems to me a bad idea in itself, and also likely to lead to editors extending the idea. E.g. in an article which has sections on different religions' approaches to the topic of the article, why not have some sections using BC/AD and some BCE/CE? Consistency within an article has always been an important principle. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Even under the current MOS "rules" we do not adhere to narrow minded consistency. For example, according the those "rules" it would be acceptable to write: "London's theater district is Covent Garden, named after the famous Covent Garden Theatre." - Look at that closely... Two different variants in the same sentence.

But my example was not to make an ENGVAR argument... it was to illustrate how consistency is not an easy thing to explain. There are times when we should be consistent... times when we shouldn't... and times when we will disagree as to whether we should be consistent or not. There are all sorts of nuances that come into play... nuances that might make us decide to do one thing in one article, and the exact opposite in another article. (ie Wikipedia is inconsistent as to when and how we are consistent). My point was really just to say that I think a new guideline might help explain some of these nuances. Blueboar (talk) 03:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, right, I see. In your example the two spellings aren't used for ENGVAR reasons (one is ENGVAR, the other the correct spelling of a proper name), so this variation is necessary. What I wouldn't want to see is "theater" as a common noun in one section and "theatre" in another. But I can see that this is not a simple issue to explain. Whether yet another expansion of the MOS is the answer I'm not so sure. I think we're getting to the point that expanding the MOS is counterproductive (TLDR). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:20, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Use of accent marks in titles

Lately, there have been requested moves about removing or retaining accent marks from titles. Look at Talk:Han tu#Requested move 2013 and Talk:Our Lady of Međugorje#Requested move, for example. Should the policy be revised to reflect growing use of accent marks in titles? Or should be try to restrict use of them? --George Ho (talk) 05:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The title of an article should follow usage in reliable English language sources. this is true for all article titles and there is no reason to make an exception for accent marks. -- PBS (talk)

Could that policy be adjusted by adding about reliable English-language sources and accent marks? --George Ho (talk) 16:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The use of diacritics has been subject to widespread debate that has consistently failed to achieve consensus one way or another. I would definitely recommend against making any change that isn't widely supported. Resolute 16:56, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Umm... at where was this debated? I can't properly find one in its archives. --George Ho (talk) 17:12, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The issue is more like where wasn't it debated. It is probably the most debated topic on the wiki. Just do a search for diacritics on Wikipedia_talk: pages and you will find many many many megabytes of discussions. There have have been RfCs and Topic Bans and all sorts of fun involved with diacritics. -DJSasso (talk) 19:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Since it has been long debated, how can we inform readers of policies and guidelines about failing to reach consensus about diacritics? --George Ho (talk) 08:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:DIACRITICS --Boson (talk) 12:46, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

After reading this and the policy again, I realize that appropiate title may still have diacritics. Well, I guess I didn't realize that it is already reflected. --George Ho (talk) 12:52, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• WP:DIACRITICS says to "follow the general usage in reliable sources that are written in the English language". Not many diacritics can pass this "general usage" test, at least not in the sense of being majority usage on GBooks or GNews. Students the world over want to speak English like a native speaker. We are not doing them any favors by creating a polyglot dialect. Kauffner (talk) 16:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Or even any favours. English does not have a single defined orthography, which is not the same as being polyglot. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:57, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Everywhere the trend is for language simplification. China went from Wade-Giles to pinyin. South Korea has also shifted to a romanization system without diacritics. The Vietnamese government has dropped diacritics from VGP News and other official English-language sources. Not many Japanese even know how to type a macron nowadays, never mind English speakers. Our language standards should focus on communication with actual readers, not validating the nationalists of every nationality. Kauffner (talk) 06:22, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

There are only so many things that can be done with the 26 'standard' letter set of the English alphabet. Simplification, just like digitisation, does indeed increase the bandwith for other channels, but quality is lost in the process. We're only beginning to teach our kids that "cafe" is pronounced 'kaffay'. With such simplification, people would no longer know whether Petr Cech's surname is pronounced 'sech' or 'kech' or 'czehr'. Only, there is no linguistic equivalent of dither to palliate that default. That must put increasing reliance on verbal communication, which is currently outside the scope of Wikipedia. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:37, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Not everywhere. Movie credits and ESPN/TSN sports tickers are increasingly using diacritics. As are official publications from the International Ice Hockey Federation, as just three examples I am quite familiar with. I would say - obviously subjectively - that the trend in English is that dropping diacritics is increasingly being seen as incorrect. Resolute 03:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

My subjective opinion... I don't think using/not using diacritics has ever been seen in terms of being "correct" or "incorrect" in English ... it's more a question of whether they are acceptable or not (its a subtle distinction but it is, I think an important one). The world is more interconnected. Other languages are increasingly being influenced by English usage... and in exchange, English is being influenced by usages from other languages. The use of Diacritics is part of that... so they are increasingly being seen as acceptable in English language texts. Blueboar (talk) 04:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I see the opposite. Tennis doesn't use them. California schools don't teach them but simply tell the kids they exist in foreign alphabets and rare English alphabetic words or fancy usage. Diacritics have been seen as unacceptable in most instances. Most of us get info from newspapers, televison news, magazines, etc... and I see pretty much nothing, even in words like cafe and resume. I don't know if I'd say there's a trend either way on usage... for the most part of 150 years the US just hasn't used them at all or ignores them. Personal names with diacritics have seen an uptick in things like movie credits but I haven't seen them on ESPN. US books will occasionally use diacritics if they aren't too ostentatious. The only place I've seen huge amounts of diacritics is here on wikipedia, but with so many non-English-first editors these days that shift is to be expected. But to say that "dropping diacritics is increasingly being seen as incorrect" is simply not true imho. But this has been talked about a bazillion times in rfc's here, with stalemate after stalemate. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:58, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

User:Resolute's statement that "The use of diacritics has been subject to widespread debate that has consistently failed to achieve consensus one way or another" is only accurate in its first half (though Resolute's "don't editwar" sentiment is of course correct). The consensus, in virtually every discussion except a handful dominated by one or two particular wikiprojects with some frequently vocal opponents of use of diacritics, has consistently concluded in favor of diacritics being acceptable in both article prose and article titles, and concluded that removing them without overwhelmingly good reason (e.g. them having been explicitly denounced by the article subject) is not acceptable. It's been this way in high-level discussions and at obscure RMs, again and again and again. The fact that Fyunk(click) and a few others continue to "re-re-re-oppose" diacritics doesn't magically mean that consensus has changed or was never arrived at. The idea that because some sports organizations do not use the diacritics in their own player databases has never been found, site-wide, to be a compelling argument against using them in Wikipedia articles when other reliable sources use them. This didn't change last year. It didn't change the year before that. It hasn't changed this month. It's very unlikely to change next month, or next year. At least one editor has already been topic-banned from discussing diacritics at all, for editwarring, tendentious editing and forumshopping over this "issue". Re: Fyunck(click)'s recent comments: No one cares what California schools do; there is no WP:FOLLOWCALISCHOOLS policy; that said, the flippant description, that they "simply tell the kids they exist in foreign alphabets and rare English alphabetic words or fancy usage" means that Cali. schools do teach diacritics, pretty much by definition (not that it was actually an accurate characterization to begin with). "Diacritics have been seen as unacceptable in most instances."?^!!! "[F]or the most part of 150 years the US just hasn't used them at all or ignores them."?^!!!"The only place I've seen huge amounts of diacritics is here on wikipedia, but with so many non-English-first editors these days that shift is to be expected."? Well, the charitable view of that comment is that it states a clear fact which is a compelling reason per WP:Systemic bias to concede and move on; the less charitable view of it could result in action at WP:AE under the WP:ARBATC discretionary sanctions. Anyway, precisely nothing in this discussion is anything but rehash. PS: See WP:FILIBUSTER and WP:TE. Refusing to stop beating the dead horse, especially when one admits that it is one, does not actually mean that a stalemate has occurred at all; WP:CONSENSUS does not require unanimity. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 16:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

2nd order disambiguation by birth date - RFC

Be advised that I have started an RFC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#2nd order disambiguation by birth date - RFC.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:54, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed and replaced by Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(people)#RFC-birth_date_format_conformity_when_used_to_disambiguate.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:41, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

4Kids Entertainment

Hi! An editor moved 4Licensing Corporation to 4Kids Entertainment. The edit summary was "(4Licensing Corporation moved to 4Kids Entertainment: Even when a company is change, we use the name that's most used in reliable sources per WP:UCN. Therefore 4Kids Entertainment should be the article title.)" - The company had changed its name to 4Licensing Corporation after a bankruptcy.

Is this the best solution? I believed that if a company changes its name, the article must use the current name. Remember how Sears Tower became Willis Tower?

But if an organization becomes defunct then one uses the most well known name even if it wasn't the final one used. WhisperToMe (talk) 16:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely agree; we cannot sacrifice factual accuracy to policy, that is a form of WP:OR. This isn't a minor dispute about spelling or spacing or the like, but an actual, total name change that should be reflected in the article title. oknazevad (talk) 18:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm all for WP:COMMONNAME, but that's not the issue here, unless it can be shown that reliable sources specifically refer to the re-incorporated company as 4Kids. But even then, it's a distinct entity, isn't it? The idea is to minimize confusion, not to cause it as the 4Kids title does. —Frungi (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

After these responses, I just went ahead and moved it WhisperToMe (talk) 00:22, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Textiles names - cloth, fabric or textile?

Hello, I've been thinking about this for a while now, but not really sure where best to raise it for discussion. My question is:

Should textile articles have a consistent disambiguation? And if so, what should that disambiguation be? For example, we have three disambiguations, all of which are equally valid:

• Tweed (cloth)
• Chiffon (fabric)
• Calico (textile)

Would it make sense if all disambiguated textile article titles had one consistent disambiguation? And which one of the three should it be? Also let me know if this should be discussed elsewhere - maybe it is already? I looked all around but couldn't find somewhere that seemed a logical place for this discussion. I also posted this on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Textile Arts but it looked like nobody had even looked at the talk page for a long time so I'm not sure anyone will see it there. Mabalu (talk) 12:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

There is also (material) (as in Alcantara (material) or Rawhide (material), but this is more usually used for general materials - such as Cob (material) and scientific/physical articles, e.g. Orthotropic material. Mabalu (talk) 12:29, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I've wondered about the same question, because it's annoying not to know which disambiguation parameter a particular article uses. My personal inclination is to prefer "cloth". "Textile" seems overly broad, as it includes materials like geotextile that are very unlike calico or tweed. The word "fabric" seems more formal than "cloth", which might recommend it, but because "fabric" has other meanings that don't have anything to do with cloth (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fabric lists meanings related to building structure and geology), it might not always resolve the ambiguity. --Orlady (talk) 14:56, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like over-consistency to me. As far as I know, the terms "cloth", "fabric" and "textile" are interchangeable, but I am not an expert... I suppose there might be some technical difference between the terms (and if so we should use the appropriate term in each case)... but, if not, I don't think it matters which term we use.

The reality is that the average reader is not likely to care whether we use "Tweed (cloth)" or "Tweed (fabric)"... the average reader is unlikely to search using either term. What the average reader will search for is the unadorned: "Tweed". However since there are multiple articles that could use this title (such as Tweed (film), Tweed (Fender), Tweed River, Boss Tweed, etc.) we have to add something to further disambiguate. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree to an extent with this - I just wondered if it might appear tidier and appear more professional to have a consistent term. And also whether there was a Wikipedia policy for such cases, or if any prefix will do as long as it's clear what it means. Mabalu (talk) 17:04, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

No there is no policy on this... we give our editors flexibility to do what they think is best. Consistency is the weakest of our 5 principles. While consistency across article titles can be helpful, it can also be over-done (and even disruptive)... consistency just for the sake of being consistent is silly and burdensome. As far as disambiguation goes, just about any parenthetical will do as long as it clarifies what the article is about... as long as we also account for accuracy (so, for example, if there is a technical difference between a "cloth" and a "fabric", then we should account for that technical difference and use the most accurate term in the appropriate article). Blueboar (talk) 17:23, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

U.S. metropolitan areas and OMB statistical areas

Another user and I have gotten into a dispute (at this section on my talk page) over the proper titles for articles about Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States. The specific dispute relates to the article that currently has the unwieldy title "North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area", but it also applies to some other articles about U.S. metropolitan areas.

Metropolitan Statistical Areas are defined and officially named by the federal government's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The most recent directive on naming is OMB Bulletin No. 13-01: Revised Delineations of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and Combined Statistical Areas, and Guidance on Uses of the Delineations of These Areas, dated February 28, 2013. The names listed in that directive all include two-letter abbreviations for the state(s) in which the Metropolitan Statistical Area is located. Examples of this usage include "North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area", "Bloomington, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area", and "New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area". The issue at hand is how to identify the U.S. state in the title of a Wikipedia article that is singularly focused on a particular Metropolitan Statistical Area and do not address other aspects of the "metropolitan area". Choices are:

A - Use the exact name given by OMB, including two-letter abbreviation, as in "North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area" or "Bloomington, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area". Statements in support of this position that have been provided on my talk page include "I object to using the term "Metropolitan Statistical Area" with a name that is not the OMB designated MSA name" and "I don't think we should change official MSA names." It is asserted that "Almost correct names merely create confusion over the proper name."

B - Spell out the full name of the state (where it is deemed necessary to include the state name in the article title). My stated reason for this choice is: Wikipedia's standards, including the Wikipedia Manual of Style, apply here and have precedence over U.S. government usage. As discussed at WP:TITLEFORMAT and WP:ACRONYMTITLE, abbreviations are not appropriate in article titles unless the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject. The state of Florida is known primarily as "Florida", not as "FL", so the abbreviation is not appropriate. Additionally, I note that the two-letter abbreviations (which I refer to on my talk page as U.S. postal abbreviations, although I must acknowledge that now-a-days they are used more widely) can be ambiguous and confusing, particular to people outside the United States, but also to some Americans. For example, "CA" may mean "California" to the U.S. Postal Service, but in some other contexts it means "Canada". Many Americans get confused about abbreviations like "AR" (Arkansas, not Arizona) and "AK" (Alaska, not Arkansas); "MO" (Missouri, not Montana) and "MS" (Mississippi, not Massachusetts or Missouri) and "MA" (Massachusetts, not Maryland).

Instead of continuing to talk past each other on a user talk page, I'm looking for comments from the community on the best approach for naming these pages. --Orlady (talk) 05:31, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Statistical areas in the United States and Puerto Rico are defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Most recently on February 28, 2013, the OMB issued OMB Bulletin No. 13-01: Revised Delineations of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and Combined Statistical Areas, and Guidance on Uses of the Delineations of These Areas defining 1098 statistical areas.

Articles about a specific OMB statistical area should use the name defined in the OMB document, such as the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Articles more generally about a metropolitan area should use a generic name such as the Sarasota metropolitan area, and should avoid using the term "statistical" to avoid confusion with the OMB defined statistical area.  Buaidh  05:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Once we get your question answered, we can discuss the use of a dash, emdash or some other character in those names. But to your point, what is in a name? What is different between the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Las Vegas–Paradise, NV MSA? Is a source that changes the names every 5 or 10 years reliable or good? Vegaswikian (talk) 06:22, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

[Smile]. I believe you and I agree that it's best to leave matters like hyphens out of this, and deal with one issue at a time. As for the frequent name changes, you may be understating the problem. This particular Florida area received new names in 2007, 2009, and 2013! --Orlady (talk) 13:56, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the office of the federal government responsible for assigning names is about as reliable a source as you can get for official federal names. —Frungi (talk) 06:37, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I'll correct you then. Do you really believe that US citizens actually use that garbage? The common name for the area is what they use and believe me it is less convoluted, more stable, better know and who knows what else. While it may be reliable for the current OMB books, that's as far as it goes. Well, local governments may need to use it on Federal paperwork, but that is not he issue here. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:45, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I honestly don’t know anything about the OMB, but I'm going to say option B, unless there’s a more concise name that could be used (which would be my preference). State names should be fully spelled out in encyclopedic titles for the benefit of the reader. —Frungi (talk) 06:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

You prefer the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, District of Columbia-Maryland-Virginia-West Virginia-Pennsylvania Combined Statistical Area to the Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area? I don't think the former adds much clarity.

To have an interest in the (rather obscure) U.S. statistical areas, one could be reasonably be expected to have a basic understanding of the political divisions of the United States and ISO 3166-2 state codes.

OMB 13-01 is the first major change in U.S. statistical area definitions in decades. Political considerations have delayed these changes for years.

I think we should respect the federal designations. We are not creating titles for articles; we are naming articles for existing entities. I think it is tremendously arrogant to think that an individual Wikipedia editor knows better than a national panel.  Buaidh  06:52, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

It’s also arrogant to think that an individual editor knows better than a consensus, which is what we’re trying to establish here. Anyway, I disagree. The former title leaves no question as to the meaning, and the latter contains a series of letters that may be meaningless to some readers. I don't think there's any doubt which title benefits readers more—and whatever the aim of those official names was, this is our aim. But for the record, I’m not a fan of either name, which is why I brought up the possibility of a more concise name in my first comment; or, of course, they could be listed under more general articles. —Frungi (talk) 07:07, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no problem with an article entitled the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. What I do have a problem with is a bastardized version of an OMB statistical area name.  Buaidh  07:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I suppose it all comes down to the question of which is more important: adherence to federal names, or accessibility to readers. I’ll leave that for others to discuss, as I believe I’ve made my own stance clear. —Frungi (talk) 07:24, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I understand completely. I think the OMB statistical area names are quite long enough as is. ISO 3166-2 codes are an international standard, not just an American secret. If you don't know what SD means, then you probably don't know where South Dakota is either. We create confusion when we try to be too accommodating. Yours aye,  Buaidh  07:35, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

But those codes are not unique (e.g. California/Canada), and the OMB names don’t mention that they’re using that standard. In certain contexts, yes, using those codes is umabiguous, but article titles lack much context. —Frungi (talk) 07:47, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I've been creating articles for the U.S. states, counties, and statistical areas for more than six years and 130k edits. Every article I've had a hand in begins with a complete explanation of the location and significance of the region. You just can't put an entire article into the article title. The title cannot convey all information about a statistical area.

Most commonly, readers link to a statistical area article from a national, state, county, or city article or list. The referring article provides a context for the statistical area article. Not many readers are going to search directly for the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area, with or without the Florida. If you change the article title to the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, then you really should add the nation since there are many Floridas. Now you have North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida, United States Metropolitan Statistical Area. At some point you need to give up. Yours aye,  Buaidh  08:05, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

My opinion is that none of these is a suitable title. Regardless, state or other regional abbreviations are inappropriate in article titles. —Frungi (talk) 08:53, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

OK. Suppose we add the state names to each statistical area article title (hopefully Rhode Island will suffice in lieu of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations), and suppose we alter the OMB hyphenation. Do we then explain at the beginning of each article that the title of the article is not the actual name of the OMB statistical area? Do we create REDIRECTs from each of the OMB statistical area names to the statistical area article so readers searching by OMB statistical area name can locate the article. I certainly think we should.  Buaidh  09:14, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I meant that I'd prefer not to use OMB names in our titles at all, à la Washington metropolitan area, though this is just one editor's opinion. If this is what you meant, then I agree. Also, I'm not sure why OMB MSAs merit their own articles rather than being discussed in city or county articles or something, but please pardon my ignorance. —Frungi (talk) 09:46, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Clearly a name like "Sarasota metropolitan area" would be the ideal choice. However, the content of an article by that title should be expected to cover a topic somewhat broader than the OMB definition of the Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is currently the scope of this article and many others like it. Also, the choice of a title ought to be informed by some first-hand familiarity with the region, which I lack (although I have a strong hunch that it's still thought of as the "Sarasota area").

Some of our fellow Wikipedians have endeavored to create and maintain a complete collection of articles about U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas, as well as related lists (see List of Metropolitan Statistical Areas), so there are a lot of articles with titles crafted to match an official OMB definition. As long as those articles exist with that scope, I think we need a meeting of the minds on their titles. --Orlady (talk) 13:56, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The many moves in this area that Buaidh has done recently include removing the long-standing styling with en dashes, putting the article styles at odds with WP:DASH, for no particular reason. The caps question may be more subtle, and the state designators even more so. Do we really think the OMB designations are supposed to be interpreted as official proper names, or are they essentially descriptive? To me, they're descriptive, and they style them as do because that's their style. Even if we take them to be official proper names, we should style with en dashes, as we do for so many other entities that combine names (like the San Diego–Coronado Bridge). For the article titles (though I support including state name in US city names) I'd leave the state out of these long combined-area names. North Port–Sarasota–Bradenton metropolitan statistical area would be a good descriptive title. Dicklyon (talk) 18:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

That editor is also guilty of randomly inserting these definitions into articles and not bothering to update the existing articles with new names and expanding the history to show how the name, and area covered, has evolved. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Any moves that this editor recently made have been a very honest attempt to update obsolete OMB statistical area titles to the OMB 13-01 standard. If there is a consensus opinion that all articles about metropolitan areas should avoid using the OMB statistical area name for the article title, then I will happily move these articles to a generic metropolitan area title. However, there currently are a number of articles that address a specific OMB statistical area such as the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area. (There is no generic article for the Denver metropolitan area.) Should we:

1. Delete all articles about specific OMB statistical areas, or
2. Merge all articles about specific OMB statistical areas into generic metropolitan area articles, or
3. Keep all articles about specific OMB statistical areas, but link from/to generic metropolitan area articles.

Yours aye,  Buaidh  20:37, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Ignoring existing articles and creating new ones or inserting text into randomly selected articles is what I have seen and is contrary to what you are sating here. Also, moving articles may very well be contrary to WP:COMMONNAME. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

In this particular instance, the name of the MSA is absurd. This local newspaper article makes that claim and strongly supports my seat-of-the-pants theory that Sarasota is the central city of the metro area. (It's certainly the only one that most non-Floridians have heard of.) It seems that Sarasota, North Port, Bradenton, and Venice are all incorporated municipalities with population above 50,000, so all of them qualify as "principal cities". North Port has the largest population, at 54,200, so it is now deemed to be the primary city of the metro area. Bradenton and Sarasota are only slightly smaller, at 53,471 and 52,000, respectively, according to the newspaper piece. However, it seems that North Port has a huge geographic area and relatively low population density, while Sarasota is a reasonably densely populated place that has some claim on being called a "central city". The newspaper writer refers to the people who created the MSA designation as "duh-mographers", and I can see his point.

All that aside, I'd like some consensus on the binary question I asked here: whether OMB's use of abbreviations like "FL" makes it OK (or even necessary, as Buaidh contends) to use these abbreviations in titles of articles about MSAs, or if state names should be spelled out when the state is identified in the title. --Orlady (talk) 20:07, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know of an editor, including this editor, who likes using the OMB 13-01 statistical area names for U.S. metropolitan areas. However, numerous federal, state, and local agencies use the OMB definitions to produce reports and statistics. If I state in an article that the population of the Denver metropolitan area was 3,214,218 as of July 1, 2012, to what definition of the Denver metropolitan area am I referring? The Colorado metropolitan areas article alone mentions seven definitions of the Denver metropolitan area, and there are many more.  Buaidh  21:05, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

It should be possible to write content about the population of a Metropolitan Statistical Area without having an article solely about the OMB definition of that area and a title to match the OMB definition. --Orlady (talk) 21:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely yes. The question is how we reference and link the OMB statistical areas.  Buaidh  21:48, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

New York metropolitan area, which is linked for refs to the MSA, is a good example. --Orlady (talk) 22:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of being pilloried, let me suggest that we give each article about a U.S. metropolitan area an MOS compliant generic name such as the New York metropolitan area, the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, or the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. Then, let’s merge existing articles about specific OMB defined statistical areas into the relevant metropolitan area article under the relevant one of the following three subsection headings: Metropolitan Statistical Area, Micropolitan Statistical Area, or Combined Statistical Area. Finally, let’s REDIRECT the official OMB statistical area names to the relevant article subsection. Virtually all of this currently exists. Only a handful of articles require renaming or merger into a metropolitan area article.  Buaidh  22:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me. We'd still need to work out how to style the official names in the articles, and in places that link through those official names, if any, but that will be less angst-provoking than title discussions. Dicklyon (talk) 01:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's the best direction to take with these articles. It will take a good bit of work, however, to create appropriate articles for all U.S. metro and metro-like areas, as many lack suitable articles. --Orlady (talk) 03:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

A total of 602 of the 1083 OMB defined U.S. statistical areas comprise a single county. For most of these 602 core based statistical areas, a simple one paragraph subsection in the county article should suffice to describe the statistical area. Please see User:Buaidh/sandbox#Test 5 and Polk County, Florida for examples.  Buaidh  14:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

PS: A total of 38 of these 602 single-county Core Based Statistical Areas encompass the primary city for a more extensive Combined Statistical Area. These 38 single-county CBSAs will also be documented in their metropolitan area article.  Buaidh  16:17, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Wrong! These areas evolve over time and the history of the evolution is encyclopedic and needs to be tracked in an article. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:39, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

My goodness; God has spoken. You are correct. OMB statistical areas do evolve, but the trend is to grow more extensive. Most of the single county OMB statistical areas have never been a part of a more extensive Core Based Statistical Area, so there is no evolution to document. We should most certainly document any exceptions. Yours aye,  Buaidh  01:44, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

A further caveat regarding redirects is that some existing redirects for MSAs and CSAs are grossly misleading. Just one example: Until I turned the redirect into a stub a few weeks back, Albany-Corvallis-Lebanon, Oregon Combined Statistical Area was a redirect pointing to Corvallis, Oregon (I noticed that redirect because it was in a category; it also had backlinks), which is just one of the principal cities in a CSA that comprises two counties. --Orlady (talk) 04:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

PS: Let me add a (perhaps controversial) personal observation. While the evolution of an OMB statistical area may be very interesting to local residents and urban historians, it is of limited practical use. Whenever the OMB renames or redefines a statistical area, federal and state agencies revise historical statistics to match the new definition.  Buaidh  02:02, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a current-information manual or guidebook. History -- and historical background -- is an important topic for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Changes over time in the OMB definition of a metropolitan area may seem like a trivial historical topic, but the evolution of the metropolitan area itself can be a topic of tremendous historical interest -- and the changes in the federal definition are a documentable indicator of that change. --Orlady (talk) 02:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

As a history nerd, I obviously find taxonomic evolution interesting. I just doubt that the casual user would find it of much interest. Metropolitan areas evolve with no regard for the taxonomic judgement of the "experts".  Buaidh  03:29, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I think Orlady is here confusing the metropolitan area itself with the OMB’s label for its statistics. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the label is arbitrary; the history of the area itself may be of great interest, but the history of how the government has labeled it is very likely not. I don’t think anyone is suggesting limiting encyclopedic coverage of the actual areas themselves. —Frungi (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe I'm confused. The changes over the years in the official designations for the Sarasota metropolitan area may be rather absurd, but in many metro areas these changes form part of the record of urban expansion and urban sprawl. --Orlady (talk) 04:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Not to belabor this subject, but I think you both have good points. The OMB is charged with coming up with a politically correct method of designating statistical areas that is consistent across 1098 areas. Their judgement is historically significant for many, but not all, statistical areas. Yours aye,  Buaidh  14:37, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• We should avoid two letter state abbreviations. We do not use them in the article names like Sterling Heights, Michigan, Denver, Colorado or Santa Monica, California. There is no reason to use them in metro-area names. We should also not slavishly follow the federal government in article names. Federal definitions are only one of many ways in which metro-areas are defined.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:30, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
  • If we merge the OMB statistical area articles into the metropolitan area articles as I suggested above, this ceases to be an issue. Yours aye,  Buaidh  01:36, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
    • I tend to agree with Buaidh's last comment. I question whether the individual statistical areas are really notable enough for stand-alone articles, and think the information would be better presented by merging it into the metropolitan area articles (per WP:PRESERVE). That said... If the individual statistical area articles are considered notable enough... then we are dealing with a "official name" vs "descriptive title" issue. Since the OMB abbreviates, the abbreviations are part of the "official name" of each entity... and if we choose to use the "official name" as the title, then we should use the abbreviations. However, we don't have to use the "official name". We are allowed to come up with our own "descriptive title", and use that instead. If we do that... I would not use the full names of the states, however. Using the full names would make for unwieldy (overly long) titles, and the principle of conciseness applies here. Blueboar (talk) 15:24, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

If the article title differs from the OMB statistical area name, we do of course need to point that out in the article and link the OMB statistical area name to the article. Yours aye,  Buaidh  16:05, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I've posted a list of existing and proposed articles for the metropolitan areas of the United States and Puerto Rico at User:Buaidh/U.S. metropolitan areas. Please post your comments at User talk:Buaidh. Thanks,  Buaidh  23:05, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for a naming convention to avoid the word “disaster” in article titles about man-made disasters

See List of accidents and disasters by death toll for data on which the below is based:

Note that the word “disaster” is already almost never used in articles about natural disasters, even if they are bona fide cases. Thus, Hurricane Katrina might be the most expensive US natural disasters, but the article is not called the “Hurricane Katrina disaster” and won’t ever be.

The reason for the proposal is that the use of the word “disaster” in titles of WP man-made disaster articles is already fairly rare, is capricious where it is used, and is subject to recentism and hysteria, as well as lack of logic in so far as fatality proportions. Thus, we presently have a situation where there is a Hindenburg disaster but only have merely the Sinking of the RMS Titanic. And we have two space shuttle disasters, but only the worst air disaster on record (at Tenerife airport disaster) gets the title disaster, while the next 30-worst air disasters, until we reach a crash in 1975 that killed 188 people, are not called disasters. This word is used in perhaps 8 of the 177 air disaster articles, all of which killed more people than any space shuttle problem.

The List of accidents and disasters by death toll has lists where not only magnitude of man-made disasters is given in order, but it’s done by category and article links are given. Some interest trends and reversals can be recovered for examining this to come out with some kind of look at how WP does things.

The first obvious trend is that there are no maritime disaster articles with the name disaster. Except one: 1947 Ramdas Ship Disaster in which 625 people died, the #19th worst. Slipped though the cracks. The worst shipping disasters have killed several thousands each, but don’t get the title. Again, we have no Titanic disaster.

Another obvious terminology habit is that railway disasters are “almost always” called disasters. Of the first 19 articles with good names, all but the second largest disaster on record is called a disaster. Possibly because that one is part of a natural disaster from a tsunami.

The rest of the categories, however, are a mixed bag. The worst industrial disaster (Bhopal disaster) is called a disaster at 3800 dead, but then the word isn’t used again until Texas City Disaster at #5 with 500 dead. We end up using the word last at #124, the Boston Molasses Disaster with 21 people dead. There’s no rhyme or reason here, and I don’t believe all this is a result of the WT:search engine test. And here is a case where we probably shouldn’t be using the Google Test anyway, as Google sums-over-history and this fights with recentism, and you end up getting new and old things called “disasters” and nothing in the middle, as with Bhopal and the silly molasses thing.

There is no sense in having killer stampedes listed that killed over 1000 people even in recent times, but not call a single one of these things a disaster till you get to #22 at the Hillsborough disaster that killed only 96.

Similarly, sports events are known for riots and bleacher collapses, with loss of several hundred people at a time, but our first sports fan disaster was #8, the Port Said Stadium riot, in which 79 people died, and is now #10 1971 Ibrox disaster in which 60 died. What about the the nine riots and incidents that were worse?

Structural failures have killed up to 500 people per incident in modern times, but our first disaster article is Cavalese cable car disaster at #36 with 42 people, and we go all the way to Cave Creek disaster that killed only 14 people.

Explosions: Our first named “disaster” is the Texas City Disaster, but it’s #18 on the disaster list, it and killed only 500, which is a quarter of the worst ones. Does it deserve the title? Formally? Remember, just because these are lists of disasters doesn’t mean they all need to be called disasters in the titles. And where do we stop once we start?

I could go on, but the discussion above was prompted by a spirited debate about whether or not the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown deserves the title of disaster, especially in light of the Chernobyl disaster. Is Fukushima Daiichi going to ultimately kill more people due to radiation than died at Bhopal from chemical inhalation? Unlikely. More than the Benxihu Colliery explosion (a WW II Chinese/Japanese joint occupation screwup) that killed 1500, trying to process coal for electrical power? Also unlikely.

PROPOSAL: So here is the proposal. Because all this is complicated and the number of articles with the word “disaster” is already low in all categories but rail accidents, I propose it be banned or deprecated entirely in WP:MoS. This will obviously affect rail articles more than anything, and if somebody wants to make a single historical exception for rail disasters (specifying the top #50 of all time, or something, or anything with loss of life over 100 persons), then I could live with that.

What say you? Votes and comments below. See also this same proposal on another TALK page here: [1] SBHarris 00:00, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose any intent to use a style guideline to ban or deprecate entirely anything. Oppose turning MoS pages into de facto government pages. The best titles should be decided based upon prevailing usage in the best sources on a subject-by-subject basis. MoS pages should provide advice, guidance, explanations, logic, etc, but not law. MoS advice should be accepted or rejected on a case by case basis. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:35, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Neither Support nor Oppose... Follow WP:COMMONNAME. If a significant majority of sources call something the "Footown Disaster"... so should Wikipedia. If not then we should see if there is some other name that is more commonly used (and use that instead).

Note (and this is important), when examining the sources, we are looking to see whether the source uses the word "disaster" as part of a name for the event... not whether the source is describing the event as being a disaster. To illustrate: a source that says, "The Footown Disaster of 1912 was the most influential event in Footown's history" uses the word "disaster" as part of the event's name... but a source that says, "The fire of 1912 was the most significant disaster in Footown's history" does not. In that second sentence the word was used as a description.) Blueboar (talk) 03:03, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with following COMMONNAME where applicable. But the distinction between name and description is often not as you portray it. For example Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is what the event is commonly called, but it's not a name. Some of the capitalized ones shouldn't be, like Texas City Disaster and 1947 Ramdas Ship Disaster and Boston Molasses Disaster. Dicklyon (talk) 03:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with SmokeyJoe: Terminology in the titles of these events should be based on prevailing usage regarding the specific event. I don't think the magnitude of the event is the main determinant for using the word "disaster". Oftentimes, I think the word "disaster" is used for events that defy easy characterization, such as the Hindenburg disaster -- more specific terms like "fire" and "crash" don't do full justice to what happened in that event. When the event can be named as a hurricane, earthquake, tornado or sinking ship, then the word "disaster" isn't likely to be applied. --Orlady (talk) 03:17, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - Use COMMONNAME based on sources. Much of the proposal relies on an implied, necessary relationship between the term "disaster" and loss of human life but that is very narrowly defining the term. Jojalozzo 03:23, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - As others have said, just follow COMMONNAME. --B2C 21:16, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - per the first line "Note that the word “disaster” is already almost never used in articles about natural disasters, even if they are bona fide cases"... so if we can't find many sources with the word disaster then per WP:COMMONNAME it shouldn't be named with the word "disaster." It should take care of itself. We certainly don't want a ban on its usage if from time to time English sources use "disaster" in the description, such as the "Hindenburg Disaster."Hindenburg Museum, The Atlantic. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:56, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:Fyunck(click). -sche (talk) 23:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

May I point out that I'm being misread, above. I indeed said WP hardly ever uses the word "disaster" in articles about natural disasters, but this is not because of COMMONNAME. The WP current history of usage here is an argument against the general utility and WP use of COMMONNAME. COMMONNAME is explicitly not being followed for natural disasters now. IOW, if you really like COMMONNAME you'll go back and rename all those articles about various natural disasters, to have the word "disaster" put back into them, since that's the way they are commmonly and most often referred to outside WP (and also how they are categorized in WP). The same is true for shipping disasters. Do you all really think that the most prevalent common name for the Titanic disaster is (or ever has been) "Sinking of the RMS Titanic"? Nonsense.

I might also point out that WP is such a huge resource that it becomes self-fullfilling when it comes to an internet search on such things, so take care and use only print sources like Google scholar if you want true answers. The most COMMONNAME for Custer's last stand since that time to this, has involved either "last stand" or "massacre" but WP insists on calling it a "battle" in contradiction to COMMONNAME. In mirror fashion, the common name for Wounded Knee was "battle" until the Native American consciousness uprising of the 1970's, and thus WP has chosen the more politically correct (but hardly official) name of "massacre" for THAT incident. I take no sides, but I do observe that COMMONNAME has nothing to do with it. I simply use these examples to suggest that the idea that the naming problem solves itself, and that WP already generally follows COMMONNAME guidelines, is ridiculous. It does not. SBHarris 00:04, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

When I said "I agree with following COMMONNAME where applicable", I meant where applicable. If you read it, it's about names. Most of these article titles are descriptive. In many cases, a similar principle could apply, that we call it what others call it, in support of "recognizability" (we sometimes don't do that, as you note, for a variety of reasons). But the "most commonly called" aspect of COMMONNAME tends to be applied in a fairly heavy-handed way sometimes, to the point of minimizing consideration of the other naming criteria; so be careful what you ask for. Probably it's best to look at cases, and see where better names would be appropriate. Like "Sinking of the Titanic" would almost certainly be better than the current title with the superfluous "RMS" in it. As for when to use "disaster", decide on a case-by-case basis; no need to encode in policy or guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 00:15, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

It is precisely because the case-by-case treatment is not working and causing a lot of argument and terrible lack of uniformity, that I'm suggesting a guideline change to help. Perhaps "policy" was too draconian. Nobody is required to follow a guideline. But someplace there should be something we point to and say (as with the deprecation of the word THE to begin articles) that we try to avoid it. As I think I noted, this arises out of complaints on the Fukushimi Daiichi nuclear "disaster" page, where some people want it to be referred to as a disaster and others don't. There is no good answer but to avoid the question entirely, and that's easily done, as we very nearly do it already (we avoid the word in titles far more than COMMONNAME would suggest we do). "Disaster", like massacre, is a judgemental and emotionally-laden word without a good definition. It's exactly the type of thing WP in other contexts attempts to avoid. Just sayin'. SBHarris 01:14, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Re: "causing a lot of argument and terrible lack of uniformity"... Could you provide a few links to some article talk pages where the arguments are taking place (so we can get a better idea of why people are arguing about it)? I have to say that my initial reaction is: I don't really see a need for uniformity in this topic area. Blueboar (talk) 17:49, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

You mean, other than the fact that it makes WP look more amateurish, capricious, and silly than usual? As for examples, I already said how I got to this page: [2] [3] [4] [5]. People also show up at disaster talk pages regularly asking guidelines whether a thing should be called a disaster, and get no answer. And finally, there exist rudamentary guidelines [6] about where the "year, place, event, name" should go in an article about a disaster, and yet I can make exactly the same arguments against any guideline or uniformity in this matter, as have been made against my proposal above. This is certainly a more important matter than some officious dictim that the words in subsections of articles should be lower case if possible, except the first one. Who cares? Does this affect the utility of of the use of WP as a reference? No. Not as much as a nearly random, and certainly without guideline policy on the WP naming of major destructive events. SBHarris 21:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

We look amateurish, capricious, and silly when some people make up rules in a back room and force them on articles and their writers. This is especially so when the answer to the question “Why do we do this” is “Because we have a rule”. If you could write an essay on when it is appropriate to use “disaster” in a title, and when not, I think you would be on a path to consensus, not confrontation.

If people turn up on an article talk page asking forum style questions, they should be reminded that talk pages are not forums for the subject.

If they are asking specific questions about the content, including title, of the article, they should be able to find the answers ni the existing references. In other words, every article should be able to stand alone as a complete document, based on listed references, and making all articles look like they were written from the same template is not important. --SmokeyJoe (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:57, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Is that so? Well, you should go straight to WT:INFOBOX and tell them all they waste their time. And then you have work to do on the article page for which this is TALK. Specifically, there is a section called "Non-neutral but common names" (WP:POVTITLE) which gives a guideline as to when the commonality of the name of an event might overide the WP pillar against taking sides in POV debate, such as whether or not an event is (say) a massacre or a disaster. By itself it's enough to do much of what I've proposed, and certain for the eggregious cases. Why do I need an essay? There's an short essay above, and it's already too long. Although it does perform a service (I think) in showing how much WP:POVTITLE is ignored in rail accidents.

As to your general remarks about "rules" when it comes to naming conventions, they contradict much of what's in WP:MoS, as well as ordinary spelling and grammar guidelines, and so on. Most conventions in life are arbitrary, don't you know, but they are helpful anyway to save time. Example: if you have an active driver license and use it, we wouldn't be having this conversation, sinch unless you have spent a lot of time following arbritrary traffic rules, as you would already be dead. For that matter, in some states you would have a driver license (like California) and in others a driver's license (like Idaho), but nowhere in the US (or so I am told) can you get a drivers license. Isn't this a bit of confusion that is unnecessary? Yes. SBHarris 00:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I’d just like to try and clarify SBHarris’s point as I feel it may have gotten lost in his post, and please correct me if I get this wrong: Making articles look like they're written from the same metaphorical template can serve a purpose. Uniformity is beneficial over chaos in an encyclopedia, regardless of where the rules for uniformity come from; it helps both readers and editors and helps avoid arguments.

I don’t necessarily agree with this myself, but that’s what I get out of this response. That, or he hates traffic laws. —Frungi (talk) 02:56, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Providing a template, or a MoS, is a good thing. "I propose it be banned or deprecated entirely" are fighting words. Uniformity and chaos are two extremes that we do not have to choose between. Usage in reputable sources is most consistent to how we build, we are guided by our sources. "Disaster" in a title may assert a POV, and may be best avoided in many cases, but it is not for this page to talk of "banning" it. I would be much more interested in a few test cases, debated on article talk pages. Diversity in style on different pages won't cause a vehicle accident. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:00, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, largely per Orlady. If an incident is most commonly called a "disaster", then that's what it should be called here. Why it's called a disaster instead of some other term is likely because its a catch-all that covers things that don't easily fit in more specific categories. It does not say anything about size or scope, which seems to be the mistaken assumption at the base of this proposal. oknazevad (talk) 04:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, let me point out that Orlady is largely wrong when it comes to rail disasters, since on WP, these certainly are very likely to be called disasters, in spite of many other suitable terms for rail crashes, derailments, and all the other things that the non-disaster rail accident articles, are already called. So, lack of suitable terminology is no explanation. Perhaps Orlady is right that "disaster" got used for the Hindenberg and space shuttles because these were such shocking and unusual ways of people to die (zOMG-- you go down in a flaming airship!). However, history catches up. If it is not numbers that make for a disaster but rather shock, surprise, novelty, suffering, lethality, and spectacle, it's hard to make a case why we should not have "2013 Luxor hot air balloon disaster" or "1937 Hindenburg zeppelin crash." Two thirds of the Hindenburg passengers survived, after all, but the Luxor passengers fared much worse after a longer time of being burned alive. In any case, there seems little defense for having an article called 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which isn't named as a disaster, while having Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which was just a small part of the overall former event.

Perhaps SmokeyJoe is correct that suggesting a "ban" or "deprecation" are fighting words, and I should have suggested a guideline, template or disaster "naming convention," which is what we're all doing here in the first place, and why I have people essentially having to argue dubiously that "2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami" is the article name due to actually being the most COMMONNAME of this event in news services around the world, and history books. LOL.

So why don't you-all just pretend that I proposed a naming convention guideline (see I changed the header above), and discuss THAT? Instead of marching around like hippies protesting an idea you didn't think of first: "No ruuuuules, duuuude, that's our ruuuule here!" SBHarris 23:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: WP:COMMONNAME should use common orthography

WP:COMMONNAME should be modified to have article titles for proper nouns use the most commonly used orthography (capitalization, punctuation, etc.) of that name as well, if there is one if one is prevalent in reliable sources, as is already the case with titles like k.d. lang (not K. D. Lang) and iPod (not Ipod). —Frungi (talk) 20:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC), edited 07:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose. This is dealt with on the WP:TITLE page (the same page as WP:COMMONNAME) at WP:TITLEFORMAT. We follow the manual of style for this. See also MOS:TM and WP:NCCAPS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 20:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

  Actually, no, it isn’t. We’re talking about proper nouns here, and all TITLEFORMAT says on the subject is that they’re an exception to using lower case. And that aside, the capitalization of the acronym laser (not LASER) for instance doesn’t follow from these policies/guidelines—but it would under this proposed change. As for the MOS, I’m pretty sure a policy would trump it if there’s any contradiction. —Frungi (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're getting that from. WP:TITLEFORMAT points to WP:NCCAPS for further guidance. And whilst "laser" has its origins in an acronym, it is now a standard everyday English word. --Rob Sinden (talk) 21:04, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I’m getting it from the first heading under TITLEFORMAT: “Use lower case, except for proper names.” NCCAPS doesn’t give any guidance there either, beyond saying to capitalize them. I’m focusing on proper nouns because that’s where this seems most relevant, but your point about “laser” is exactly my point with this proposal: that we should have the title in line with every day use. —Frungi (talk) 21:21, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

You're not reading WP:NCCAPS properly. It's a lot more in depth than that. It also goes on to state the importance of following a Manual of Style for capitalisation: "Because credibility is a primary objective in the creation of any reference work, and because Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility." In fact, if there is to be any change, it shouldn't be here, but at WP:NCCAPS. And probably also at MOS:CAPS, MOS:TM, etc. --Rob Sinden (talk) 21:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I took it here because I thought it would be best to have as a policy, and because it’s so closely related to COMMONNAME which is here. —Frungi (talk) 21:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It isn't a naming issue, it's a styling issue. --Rob Sinden (talk) 21:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It’s both. —Frungi (talk) 21:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Not really. The name is "K. D. Lang", the stylisation is "k.d. lang" --Rob Sinden (talk) 21:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The name is Kathryn Dawn Lang, and the performer's registered trademark is k.d. lang; so normally we would apply MOS:TM, but we've made an exception for this one. Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, of your two examples, iPod is explicitly dealt with at MOS:TM anyway. --Rob Sinden (talk) 21:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

And I'm not really sure how I feel about "k.d. lang" - maybe that's just a rare exception, as it does go against WP:NCPEOPLE. I note that "e.e. cummings" is at "E. E. Cummings", the only other example I can think of. --Rob Sinden (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe I’ve read on Talk:E. E. Cummings that the man was in fact against having his name rendered in lowercase. And to an earlier post: Spelling and orthography (or stylization, if you prefer) are both part of a name. —Frungi (talk) 21:53, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

No, a name is a name, regardless of orthography (unless of course, somehow it does change the meaning, but that would only usually be the case with proper names, which are dealt with anyway). In any case, no need for a change to this guideline, as, for the most part, it is adequately covered by other existing guidelines... --Rob Sinden (talk) 22:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, this points to a flaw in your proposal, as Cummings is commonly rendered in lowercase. --Rob Sinden (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

How is this a flaw? This proposed change would have the article under the most common rendering, whichever that may be, or under standard English rendering if it isn’t clear which is most common. Though if this were Frungipedia, I’d go with the man’s own preference regardless of common use. Anyway, I’ll leave this proposal here and wait to see if anyone else chimes in on it before taking any further action. —Frungi (talk) 22:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Anyway, as I stated, WP:COMMONNAME is not the place for this and should not be changed. It's a WP:TITLEFORMAT issue at worse, but more likely a WP:NCCAPS/MOS:CAPS issue. However, your concerns for "iPod" are already adequately dealt with by existing guidelines, and there doesn't seem to be a real issue with "k.d. lang", but that should be addressed at WP:NCPEOPLE if there was. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you’ve already made that opinion clear; and as I said, I’m going to wait for more opinions here before doing anything either way. —Frungi (talk) 10:24, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

• Weak support - I take a middle of the road stance here... I firmly believe that we should follow the applicable MOS guidelines in titles... except when there are factors (such as WP:COMMONNAME) that indicate an exception should be made. Such exceptions are made for specific titles, and do not apply to other titles. I think it is important to use words like "exception" and "specific" in any language we use on this issue ... doing so makes it clearer that the norm is to follow the MOS, and that a decision to make an exception to the norm in one title should not influence any other titles (ie you should not argue that E. E. Cummings should be lower cased because we do so at k.d. lang... both title determinations are unique and have unique factors that influence how we format them.) Blueboar (talk) 13:01, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Are the guidelines elsewhere not already sufficient? The fact that "k.d. lang" is not at "K. D. Lang" would suggest that current guidelines already allow for appropriate exceptions. By making provision at WP:COMMONNAME, my concern is that we risk setting a controversy higher up the titling process, and we risk negating WP:TITLEFORMAT, WP:NCCAPS, the related manuals of style, and so on. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:08, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Given the amount of argument over the apparent conflict between MOS and COMMONNAME, it is clear to me that the guidelines elsewhere are not sufficient. If they were, we would not be arguing about them. The simple truth is that there are COMMONNAME exceptions to the MOS... Because they are exceptions they do not (and can not) "negate" the MOS.

One thing you have to understand about this policy page... the provisions listed here are intentionally not hierarchical. Titles are determined by examining all the provisions and codicils mentioned... and doing so all at the same time. There is no "higher up" in the titling process.... in fact there is no "process". It is a balancing act. Which provisions and codicils will be given more or less weight changes from one title determination to another. COMMONNAME is usually give a lot of weight... but it does not necessarily "trump" other provisions. We never ignore the MOS... we simply weigh it against other factors. How much weight it is given, compared to any other factors, depends on the specific title we are talking about... and our final decision will be different from one title to the next.

It seems that this is a difficult concept for most MOS oriented editors to grasp... they seem to want firm and fast "rules" to follow - "do X"... "don't do Y". The problem is that WP:AT is intentionally not "rules" based. It's consensus based. It essentially says - To help you reach a consensus: examine X, but at the same time examine Y... Hopefully X and Y will not conflict... but when they do, weigh them against each other in the unique context of the specific article you are working on. This means that in one article, X will be given more weight... while in another, different article, Y will be given more weight. Blueboar (talk) 14:12, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

By "higher up in the process", I mean that if an editor is told at WP:COMMONNAME (one of the first sections on the WP:AT page) to use the "most commonly used orthography" as Frungi suggests above, then the editor may not look any further and pay no attention to WP:TITLEFORMAT, WP:NCCAPS, etc, etc, which the proposed clause both leapfrogs and contradicts. Hence it is not an acceptable change.

However, I think what you're suggesting is not the same as Frungi is - in fact your "weak support" !vote seems misplaced, seeing as you clearly don't agree with his proposed change. I think your suggestion may have some merit, but let's nip this suggestion in the bud first, and then discuss separately. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:56, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you give an example of how this change might contradict policy where COMMONNAME doesn’t? The only possible examples I can think of are common-sense exceptions like titles rendered in all-caps, and even those I don’t think are common enough to be considered. —Frungi (talk) 20:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Some of the examples at MOS:TM: Se7en, Alien3, Toys Я Us, eXistenZ, etc. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

With the possible exception of eXistenZ (which isn’t mentioned on that page, but a quick Google search does show both renderings), I think the standard formatting for each of these names is more commonly used by RSes—remember, I’m proposing using the most common rendering—so these examples are invalid. I think you’re reaching here, since I can’t imagine that this wouldn’t be the case for any name containing superscript (Alien³) or a backwards Latin letter. Also, “Se7en” seems a matter of spelling, not orthography. —Frungi (talk) 23:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose – there's no reason to use "most common" in choosing styling of names or titles, just as there's not elsewhere. That approach would be chaotic, inconsistent, and hard to judge. That's why we have an MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 16:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Just one clarification to what I have been saying... when we are talking about descriptive titles (ie titles that we make up our selves) I actually agree that we should follow MOS... the contentious issue is with NAMES. Names don't follow always conform to accepted spellings, punctuations, capitalizations etc. ... names can be unique (and can have unique stylings - ex: k.d. lang). It is important to note that Wikipedia should never invent a name for someone or some thing... we always defer to sources for names - so our choices for what name to use in our article is limited to what is used by the soruces. In essence, the style has already been determined before we write our articles and determine our titles. Now, sometimes the sources disagree... sometimes one source will indicate that a name should be styled one way, and another source will indictate that it should be styled in a different way, and when that occurs we can choose between the different styles used by our sources (that's where COMMONNAME comes into play). But we never make up our own name for something... and that includes style choices. Blueboar (talk) 17:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment I'd like to make the point I've made at some length elsewhere, namely that "orthographic style" is not a simple unitary concept, but a spectrum. Some style changes are purely visual, such as spacing between initials or not; in such cases the MOS should be followed strictly. Other orthographic choices, particularly in proper names, such as "MacKinnon" versus "Mackinnon", are cases where the source should be followed, since changing the orthography changes the name. In the middle we have cases where there can be legitimate disagreements as to whether changing the orthography changes the meaning/reference or not (e.g. "k.d. lang" instantly suggests one particular person with this name, whereas there could be more than one "K.D. Lang"; on the other hand "k.d. lang" is the same name as "K.D. Lang"). These intermediate cases are where, as Blueboar rightly notes above, WP:AT requires careful case-by-case weighing of principles. If the existence of a "style spectrum" isn't recognized, editors end up arguing past one another by using the term "style" in different senses. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:58, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

RE: "Some style changes are purely visual, such as spacing between initials or not; in such cases the MOS should be followed strictly." It isn't that simple. Ignoring the capitalization issue for the moment... look again at the title k.d. lang... one initial has a space after it, the other does not, and our MOS would have us put a space after both... the way we do at the title E. E. Cummings. But in fact, the reason why it is appropriate to style these two titles differently in Wikipedia has nothing to do with the MOS... they are different in Wikipedia because they were styled differently outside of Wikipedia. Our titles in each case are source based ... not MOS based. We are simply following the sources. COMMONNAME does apply to style issues when it comes to names. Blueboar (talk) 23:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

“COMMONNAME does apply to style issues when it comes to names”—I agree that it should, but this isn’t explicit. My proposal is that we make it explicit. —Frungi (talk) 00:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:INITS regarding k.d. lang: "There is no consensus for always using spaces between initials, neither for never using them". --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:03, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this makes my example of spacing initials not the best. But if the MOS did recommend a style for this, then, unlike Blueboar perhaps, I would support applying it regardless of the styling in the source, because it's purely a matter of appearance. No-one is going to think that "k.d. lang" is not the same name as "k. d. lang". Peter coxhead (talk) 08:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose as formulated. Capitalization, punctuation, etc. are traditionally handled by publishers' style guides. Such style differences may have meaning, enabling a reader to see the difference between compounds formed from two words in different ways, for instance. The publishers of the sources also have style guides governing such matters, enabling the reader to so differentiate. A reference work that used different styles depending (indirectly) on the style guides of the different publishers used as sources would make nonsense of such sensible differentiation. There may be cases where the MoS should not override the original punctuation, as in book titles like "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" but this applies to all uses of the title, not just as an article title, so is also best handled by the MoS. And even here, it is sensible to use italics, regardless of what the sources do.--Boson (talk) 11:29, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

• Weak Support I should outright state my bias in that I am not very happy with the MOS in general. I think, as an encyclopedia, wikipedia should be documenting how names are actually used, not recapitalizing and punctuating them to be internally consistent. Regardless of precedent set by previous encyclopedias, wikipedia should strive to accurately document verifiable information. Redirects exist for a reason, so if people capitalize a tile in a different way in their search, they are redirected to the correct page. The issue I really have is commonname vs given name. If an author or work choses a specific title, and the newspapers/databases/wikipedia all get it wrong, which use should be documented? I tend to favor the authors decision over journalists, because Manuals of Style create entirely contrived but popular orthographies. If I titled my book "xkcdreader Of the darkness" and every manual of style across the world recapitalizes it "Xkcdreader of the Darkness" the "common name" is the latter not the former. Then, by adopting the common name, wikipedia is just adopting other sites/newspapers/encyclopedia's Manual of Style (which in my opinion is pretty damn close to original research.) One example is "Star Trek First Contact" which many sources, including imdb and wikipedia, have added a colon to. Star Trek Generations has a colon on imdb but not wikipedia. Star Trek Nemesis has a colon on imdb and wikipedia, but a hyphen on rotten tomatoes, and google itself calls it "Star Trek Nemesis." My claim is that all the various MOS across the web are making a mess of what should be a simple decision. Another example is the film "Pretty Maids all in a row." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Maids_All_in_a_Row Wikipedia and IMDB have both decided to capitalize "All" and "Row" but I can't exactly figure out why. The movie poster clearly reads "Pretty Maids all in a row" which to me implies "all in a row" are less important words. I firmly believe "Se7en" should be the title of the article, and not "Seven (film)." IMDB, Movieposterdb call it Se7en, and rottentomatoes calles it Seven (Se7en). (This issue might require further investigation, eg what is it registered as at the trademark office, with the mpaa, etc? How does the movie title card read? I know the movie posters use both.) Xkcdreader (talk) 21:01, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

• Note I am basically reiterating what Blueboar has said. "when we are talking about descriptive titles (ie titles that we make up our selves) I actually agree that we should follow MOS... the contentious issue is with NAMES." The issue is PROPER NOUNS. For articles like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quick_brown_fox_jumps_over_the_lazy_dog or any panagram for that matter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pangrams) the MOS applies. But when we are talking about a PROPER NOUN, wikipedia should be using the correct name itself. Wikipedia should NEVER be inventing its own name to be internally consistent. If no one else has called it that before, to do so because the MOS says so is unacceptable. Xkcdreader (talk) 21:32, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I think this misses the point. No-one is seriously proposing that Wikipedia should invent its own names just to be internally consistent. The issue is a different one: what degree of change in typographic style counts as changing a name? Everyone agrees that some changes don't create new names (e.g. spacing or not of initials). Everyone agrees that other changes do (e.g. "Mackinnon" versus "MacKinnon"). In the middle there isn't agreement: at one extreme are those who want as many cases as possible determined by the MoS; at the other are those who want as many cases as possible determined by common usage. I see Blueboar's recent edit (being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Article Titles) as a bold (and brave) attempt to set out some principles; not perfect but a good starting point. Those who object to this approach should explain how else we are going to achieve the consensus we need. It isn't going to come by editors just sticking rigidly to either of the extreme views: "always the MoS", "always common usage". Peter coxhead (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Taking the discussion to MOS did make some sense, but his bold proposal still seems to be making it about titles, when he said "While MoS guidance generally applies to all parts of an article, including the title, it is important to remember that Wikipedia does make exceptions to the MOS when consensus indicates that an exception should be made." Why is it more important to keep exceptions in mind when talking about title than other times? Shouldn't titles always be styled the same way as the text in the article? If we want to make an exception in how a name or trademark is styled, shouldn't the exception be make irrespective of whether it's in the title or the text? And the example "if the English language sources that discuss a particular musician commonly use a non-standard styling when mentioning that musician, our articles should follow the sources, and use that non-standard styling" seems to exactly contradict MOS:TM, rather than point to occasional exceptions; I presume it was for how to style k.d. lang, the registered trademark of Kathryn Dawn Lang, which we do treat an as exception, not as the rule as this would make it. I agree that it would be OK for the MOS to mention where exceptions might be likely; so let's discuss that, and not conflate it with title issues. Dicklyon (talk) 04:41, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree entirely that there shouldn't be a distinction between title and text. But the cause is that WP:AT is written in terms of balancing different principles whereas the MOS is written more dogmatically. So long as this is the case, editors who are unhappy with the apparent rigidity of the MOS are bound to want to use the more reasonable-seeming WP:AT as the starting point. So let's discuss at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style how to make the MOS similarly open to balancing and accommodation between its preferred styles and the styles used in reliable sources, avoiding the extremes either way. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:14, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

You guys are still sort of missing what I am saying. Article titles are sometimes proper nouns. "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" should have the MOS applied to it as an article title. Proper nouns should NOT be stylized to abide by the MOS. The MOS should apply to all article titles EXCEPT proper nouns. By using the word title without making the distinction between proper nouns and other article titles, this conversation gets confusing. Xkcdreader (talk) 22:59, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the distinction. What in MOS conflicts with TITLE? What is MOS is not applicable to proper nouns? I'm sure that MOS:CAPS and MOS:TM talk about proper nouns or names; do we need to modify what they say? Dicklyon (talk) 01:42, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I dont see anything in MOS:CAPS that really matters. I would argue MOS:TM should be almost completely scrapped. Wikipedia should not capitalize words that are rendered lower case in every other form. Xkcdreader (talk) 02:10, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per Boson. Each publishing house has its own house style of how to treat caps and punctuation, and such house styles are applied as much to content as to titles. There is the universal convention that proper nouns are capitalised in English, so we can talk about "k.d. lang" as a unique exception. But otherwise, as we know, there's very often no "common style", and there is the potential for huge disruption if and when fans KE$HA inter alia start demanding their "proper" but in our eyes "vanity" stylisations. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the first half. I agree with you that "often there is no 'common style'." In those cases the MOS should apply. However stylized names should be used. I firmly believe the Ke$sha article should reside at Ke$sha because that is her name. The redirect already exists so... people who type it without the $ would be redirected to the correct page. A quick survey shows 1) her official website 2)youtube 3)twitter 4) mtv 5)lastfm 6)imdb all use Ke$ha. Wikipedia is the odd one out, and as any encyclopedia should not be inventing its own interpretation of her name. Xkcdreader (talk) 02:10, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, no... Wikipedia is hardly the odd one out. A simple google news search shows that a lot of reliable news sources style her name Kesha. The question is whether enough do so to offset the sources that style it Ke$ha. That's the sort of examination we need to do to determine if there is a COMMONNAME. Blueboar (talk) 02:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

“But otherwise, as we know, there's very often no ‘common style’”—in which case, of course, this would not apply and would change nothing. I really don’t understand this objection; I said right in the original proposal, “if there is one”. Since Kesha’s being used as an example: Neither “Kesha” nor “Ke$ha” is overwhelmingly prevalent in suitable sources, so the standard rules of English and good sense apply. —Frungi (talk) 06:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I just want to note quickly that we can and should always "document how names are actually used." The issue isn't whether we document that Kesha likes "Ke$ha." Certainly we do that. The issue is whether we need to use that style over and over again in the text of our articles and article titles because some publicist thought it would be good for marketing to use a decorative dollar sign instead of a regular old letter S. Croctotheface (talk) 00:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support, more or less. We are not a publishing house. We are a collection of others' already published information, not a creator of information. We should always be guided by our sources. Our sources should trump style guidelines that we ourselves made up. I'm not tied to the proposed formulation, preferring "modified to have article titles use the most commonly used orthography (capitalization, punctuation, etc.) used in the best sources" , but am not much dissuaded by Boson. Generally agree fully with Blueboar in his measured support.

  Am I mistaken in my impression that the issue in debate relates only to article titles that take or use the name of a person or product, and never applies to an academic subject? That the issue could be sidestepped by non-minimalist titling? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:09, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

  Per this and other comments, I’ve edited the proposal somewhat to hopefully clarify the intent. And yes: like WP:COMMONNAME, this primarily concerns proper nouns. —Frungi (talk) 07:21, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

  Er, I think SmokeyJoe's got it all wrong. Yes, we are guided by what other sources give us, and we do recycle the news amongst other stuff. But we do publish: we're an encyclopaedia, much like Britannica. Don't try to pretend Britannica doesn't have a style guide; we all have one. The only significant difference is our organisation. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 07:34, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support per various above, but particularly SmokeyJoe's argument that we are not a creator of information.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Quite simply, what I mean to say with this proposal is this: When an exception to a rule occurs consistently enough, it should be considered part of the rule. —Frungi (talk) 06:09, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I support a coordinated (although sufficiently flexible) approach to style in this sprawling international project. That's what we have now, largely. Smokey, I cannot agree that "we are not a publishing house". I doubt you'd find many legal authorities agreeing either. Tony (talk) 10:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• We're not a publishing house, because we don't publish anything for anyone else. In fact, we don't publish. We Wikipedians make a single product. Wikimedia, who are not us, publish it.

  We should reflect our sources over a made up MOS because our sources' diversity is a strength, and because the MOS is a minority view that is not very good in difficult cases. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:06, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• Word games. Once again, the difference is solely in our organisation. We have products; – they are called 'articles'. Whether it's WP or WM that has the legal responsibility for the product, the fact is someone does. Other publishers have an editor-in-chief who decides on the house style. Here, the manual of style is defined 'locally' by an unwieldy and nebulous committee called 'the community'. Instead of being arrived at by one person's dictat, it's formed by a compromise called consensus. That's why the MOS is often indeterminate or wishy-washy. If you would rather that Jimbo (or some other individual) had that decisive role, that's one thing, but don't pretend we're all that different from other publishers in the key respect. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 14:47, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• I would prefer that article authors, informed by their sources, be given more respect in article titling, and that the MOS be considered guidance and not law. No one person should dictate over the contributions of others. No unrepresentative group should either. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:25, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• We need a manual of style that has coherence. All publications do. Some may rely solely on the Chicago Manual of Style, some may use the AP one, for example. Others, like us, mix and match. But to have one based on the source for each and every individual subject or topic without overall coherence would be utter nonsense. Style 'rules' may have exceptions, but exceptions mustn't be allowed to drive style. You acknowledge we already have a whimsical or hotch potch style; adopting your approach would make it more whimsical and more subject to violent disputes, not less.

  OH, the last time I looked, the MOS was guidance, not "law". Having one person to lord over style questions would make it "law", but it does have the advantage of avoiding Gigibytes of discussion, argumentation, and eventually multiplication of Arbcom cases. ;-) -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:48, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

• MOS guidance I'm all for. Looking at Talk:Star Trek into Darkness I see editors attempting to overenforce. Exceptions should be easier than that. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

• Smokey, you say "No one person should dictate over the contributions of others." This is a not-uncommon mantra used by those who may be unfamiliar with standard requirements in the professional publishing industry; this includes even less formal, less academic registers than WP articles, such as news outlets, which all strive for stylistic and formatting consistency and cohesion, since they underpin the authority of a text, to a certain extent. But let's make something clear: no one on WMF sites is beaten over the head concerning non-compliance with our style guides. (If they are, tell me and I'll be the first to pipe up and object.) A polite request or reminder is about all that is acceptable, unless there's wilful and mass editing that really inconveniences the gnomes who do so much housecleaning here. Please see en.WP's WP:CIVILITY code, which governs the avoidance of direct and personal criticism of others' editing. Tony (talk) 07:09, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

• Tony, you sound reasonable as always. I'm not sure what you think I meant that you seem to be disagreeing with. If its ugly (incivil) disputes over whether an aspect of the MOS should be decisive or not, I think they tend to occur in contested RM discussions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Support As stated earlier, Wikipedia is not a publishing house; rather, it is a tertiary source. It exists to collect from existing sources, and anything else goes into original research. If the common usage in secondary sources contradict whatever rules we have, it is the secondary sources that should be given precedence. This is for the sake of recognizability and naturalness. English is not a static language; we should follow how things are used commonly rather than imposing rules on something that is ever changing.--New questions? 02:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Current policies and guidelines seem perfectly adequate for providing exceptions such as k.d. lang when they are merited. I don't see what positives would come from such a change. On the other hand, making a change like this seems very likely to provide ammunition for warriors who believe that their favorite band or the phone they use deserves "respect" from Wikipedia and therefore recognition and use of the "official" style, and who raise that issue every few months out of the hope that others will finally give in. Croctotheface (talk) 00:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

  I was actually hoping to mitigate that battle mentality with this proposal. To my mind, it would be simple and not leave much room for argument: if a styling that conflicts with our MOS is so broadly used that most reputable sources use it and it's not trivial to find counter-examples, then we use it as well; if not, we stick to our MOS. —Frungi (talk) 01:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The warriors will just argue that their pet style is "prevalent" or "used broadly" even if it plainly is not. No different from now. Croctotheface (talk) 02:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

And if they're wrong, it would be trivial to disprove. Link to a few high-profile sources that format it differently and cite this amended policy, and the argument's over. —Frungi (talk) 02:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think your proposal would end arguments quicker. You'll just get people to argue "what does constitute 'prevalent' anyway"? Honestly, I'm not sure that I know either. As I see it, the purpose of this policy is to codify that we are accepting of sufficiently "prevalent" nonstandard styles? That would turn this into a question of where the line is drawn. People who are very devoted to their favorite band or phone or whatever will be very adamant that their pet style is prevalent (meaning widespread), and they may even be correct. As I said in my original comment, the current practice seems to allow for exceptions at about the correct clip anyway. I don't see what we gain from a change.

But really, we just don't see eye to eye on this, and that's OK. I don't think that WP:CN principles translate well to style decisions. I don't think it's beneficial to the encyclopedia to use a nonstandard style because 51% of sources use it. I know that it's not precisely the way your proposal would mean to work, but it does seem that it would open that can of worms. We have a style guide in part so that there is uniformity. We want to treat similar cases similarly, not create loopholes for people to argue that there should be an indulgence for this or that style. Croctotheface (talk) 02:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I had meant to propose the concept, not the wording; I’d expected that the best wording would get worked out if and after the general idea was approved, and that it would be appropriately explicit. Beyond that, I have no disagreements with your disagreement aside from the fact that you disagree. —Frungi (talk) 03:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion (WP:COMMONNAME and formatting)

Re: "We need a manual of style that has coherence."... I agree. However, I see nothing incoherent about saying "WP:COMMONNAME applies to styling in titles". It seems very coherent to me. Blueboar (talk) 13:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. It seems incredibly coherent to say that proper names should overrule style guidelines, and the guidelines apply to everything that isn't a proper noun. Simple, concise, and easy to understand and apply. All the rule has to say is "the manual of style does not overrule proper nouns orthographies." Translations are a different matter. Would anyone argue that "Jay-Z" should have a lower case Z? Xkcdreader (talk) 06:09, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The guidelines do, and should, apply to proper nouns. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The question is to what extent they should. I say they shouldn’t override common use. But some editors say they should override everything. As it is, it’s somewhat unpredictable and inconsistent: One title has a letter capitalized mid-word because of WP:COMMONNAME, the next de-capitalizes a word because of our MOS, the next replaces a “&” with “and”, the next has a Talk page debate over how much weight to give the MOS… it’s kind of a mess, and it’s distressing that there’s not much consensus on what to do about it. —Frungi (talk) 19:24, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

What examples are you referring to? One that annoys me is the film dot the i, for which there is no good reason for styling in lowercase, it's purely aesthetic. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Perfect example of what I was saying and why this change would be beneficial. This one doesn’t even seem to fall under COMMONNAME (with or without the change), as I’m finding a lot of Dot the I, Dot the i, and even Dot The I on Google. My proposal here would have us go with the MOS on that one since there does not seem to be a prevalent orthography in common use. —Frungi (talk) 19:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so - I think all we'd end up there is an argument because of the various sourcable orthographies, and we'd probably end up reverting to the "official" orthography (much as we have now, due to "consensus" in a recent move request). At the moment, WP:TITLEFORMAT/WP:NCCAPS is clear, and it is clear that is what we should be following in this case (despite "consensus"). I don't think changing the guideline would have had any effect on that, and I think we'd risk a lot more by changing it than we'd gain. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

This is a fundamental difference of opinion that we will never agree on. Some of us think we should strive for internal consistency above all else, in all cases, and others think we should be an encyclopedia that documents actual usage. One that annoys me is Pretty_Maids_All_in_a_Row which should be Pretty_Maids_all_in_a_row. We can have redireccts so people don't get lost, but I believe the title at the top of an article should clearly document the actual stylization of proper nouns. People shouldnt have to go hunting through an article to see that Ebay or Ipod are capitalized that way because of wikipedia editors. We have already made exceptions for eBay, iPod, k. d. lang, why are these other things like "dot the i" and "Pretty Maids all in a row" considered lesser cases. I think the correct way to be internally consistent would be to follow the commonname, which means iPod, eBay is the RULE not the exception. Xkcdreader (talk) 15:06, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with that movie title example per this very proposal: No one calls it that. Because of that, this discussion is probably the wrong place to suggest changing that title. I suggest starting a new discussion on this matter. —Frungi (talk) 19:50, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

The cases for "iPod" and "eBay", and indeed "k.d. lang", are not the same as for "Pretty Maids All in a Row", which is correctly styled per WP:AT and WP:NCCAPS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

If I say "the rules are wrong" and you cite more rules, this goes nowhere. Pretty Maids all in a row should be no different than k.d. lang. Xkcdreader (talk) 10:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

The "rules" are formed by consensus, and I see no argument for an exception here, other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If you have a look at WP:NCCAPS it explains why we have uniformity in naming composition titles. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:54, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:NCCAPS is precisely the rule we are claiming is broken. Or in reality, being over enforced. "adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility" Writing a movie title with the correct capitalization does not make wikipedia "less credible." The rule also starts "In general" which means it should be applied with some intelligence. Xkcdreader (talk) 12:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Nothing is broken. "In general" allows for reasonable exceptions to be made. However, there would have to be convincing consensus for us not to apply the guideline. The system works. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:38, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

The system should work... the problem is that there are a few over-zealous editors who are un-willing to ever accept a consensus that says: "In this case, WP:COMMONNAME indicates that we should set the MOS guidance to one side and follow the styling used by a significant majority of reliable sources." Blueboar (talk) 12:50, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Common name doesn't (and shouldn't) affect style. As I keep pointing out - this is covered at WP:TITLEFORMAT. Any change (if any is to be made) should be effected there, or perhaps more appropriately at WP:NCCAPS. If you include it at WP:COMMONNAME, you may as well throw WP:TITLEFORMAT and WP:NCCAPS out of the window. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:56, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

And that statement shows why the "system is broken"... WP:COMMONNAME most definitely does apply to style. Applying WP:COMMONAME to style does not mean we have to "throw WP:TITLEFORMAT and WP:NCCAPS out the window", it simply means there are exceptions to both. We normally follow WP:TITLEFORMAT and WP:NCCAPS (indeed we should follow them)... except when WP:COMMONNAME indicates otherwise. This exception isn't going to occur very often, but it is an exception that can occur, and we need to account for it. Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Why do you think that WP:COMMONNAME applies to style? WP:COMMONNAME is used to determine the title, and WP:TITLEFORMAT is used to determine the format (style) of that title. (Both are parts of WP:AT) --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:56, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

But, even if you were right, it would not be appropriate to include the suggested proposal at WP:COMMONNAME as it would override the "normal" procedure of following WP:TITLEFORMAT amd WP:NCCAPS, and make the exception the rule. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec) There are several reasons why WP:COMMONNAME applies to style... all related to the core principles laid out in this policy... a) Recognizability: when a significant majority of reliable sources all present a subject's name using a specific styling, that styling is the most recognizable styling of the subject's name. Our readers will be surprised if they find that the article title does not use that common styling. b) Naturalness: since the COMMONNAME is most recognizable, it is what most article writers will use in other, related articles. c) Precision: when a particular styling is intentionally adopted by the subject of an article, that intentional styling becomes part of the subject's "official name". "Official names" are the most precise usage (and actually should be used... unless WP:COMMONNAME indicates otherwise).

In other words... by using the WP:COMMONNAME for our title, we achieve three of the five basic principles that form the heart of this policy. When we don't follow WP:COMMONAME (and instead follow the MOS) we do not achieve these principles. Blueboar (talk) 14:31, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Re your next comment: it would override the "normal" procedure of following WP:TITLEFORMAT amd WP:NCCAPS, and make the exception the rule. That is exactly the point. COMMONNAME already "overrules" several other aspects of this policy. It is is already the "rule" (and has been the for a long time). It is not a "rule" that applies very often... but when it does, it is the "rule". Blueboar (talk) 14:47, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I note you miss out consistency, which is the one point that is more relevant to styling than the others. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

OK... let me address Consistency: First, we have to remember that we are talking about names (used either as the entire title, or as part of a descriptive title). Namesare, by their nature, inconsistent. We see this inconsistency most often in spelling... one person may spell her name "Elizabeth", another may spell it "Elisabeth", a third may spell it "Elysybeth". But the inconsistency does not stop with spelling... it does not happen often, but sometimes people style their names inconsistently: One person may style his name "John", another may style it "jOhn", while a third may style it "j-oHn".

Now to discuss policy... As the AT policy says, the ideal title will meet all five of our principles at the same time... unfortunately this is not always possible. In such cases we have to give more weight to some of the principles, and less weight to others. In such cases we go with the title that will achieve as many of the principles as possible. As I noted above... In cases where there is a COMMONNAME... using that COMMONNAME achieves three out of the five (Recognizability, Naturalness and Precision). Conforming the name to MOS only achieves one of the five (consistency). Therefore, when there is a COMMONNAME, we should give less weight to the principle of consistency than the other principles. We should use the COMMONNAME as our title.

There is another thing to consider... something that is not (but probably should be) noted in the policy... there are actually two kinds of consistency... internal consistency (being consistent from one Wikipedia to another) and external consistency (being consistent with sources outside of Wikipedia). We should try to achieve both kinds of consistency... but if they conflict, I would give precedence to external consistency. And if we do that... then following WP:COMMONNAME would actually be more consistent than following MOS. Blueboar (talk) 14:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The key point for me about WP:COMMONNAME is that, like WP:AT as a whole, it requires a balance to be struck between the five principles. Consistency is indeed important, not just in styling but in choosing the names of articles in a given area. But consistency doesn't over-ride the other principles; it's just one of the factors to be considered. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:11, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with viewing WP:AT as a whole, alongside other relevant subject-specific guidelines, hence my objection the proposed addition which singles out the sourcing of style under the WP:COMMONNAME banner. --15:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎Robsinden (talk • contribs)

The problem is that we already single out COMMONNAMES and give them preference. I'll rephrase what I said above... COMMONNAME does not "overrule" TITLEFORMAT and NCCAPS... it outweighs them. The idea that we examine and defer to reliable sources to settle disputes is a fairly fundamental one to Wikipedia... it is an idea that lies behind all three of our core content policies, WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV (especially in determining DUE WEIGHT)... in title disputes, the idea is expressed through the concept of WP:COMMONNAME. Thus, when balancing the various principles, rules and guidance stated in this policy, we give a lot of weight to the concept of COMMMONNAME. We don't ignore the other principles, rules and guidance... we simply give COMMONNAME a lot more weight. Blueboar (talk) 17:45, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know where this idea comes from the COMMONNAME outweighs anything. It has always been a strategy in support of the recognizability and naturalness criteria, as it states; that's all. And it has never been about styling. Look at the examples. Dicklyon (talk) 22:24, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Rob—WP:TITLEFORMAT is “used in deciding on questions not covered by the five principles.” I was going to point out how WP:COMMONNAME enforces these principles, but Blueboar did so better than I would. Now, if COMMONNAME did not apply to orthography as you say, why would we, for instance, include quotation marks in the title of Toys "R" Us? —Frungi (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

It would be silly to infer a general principal from the name of one article. Anyway, sources are all over the map on that one, with straight and curly single and double quotes, with and without spaces around the quoted R, with no quotes, etc. Is it our principle to see which of all those is most common and follow it? I don't think it ever has been, nor would it make sense in the context of our house style. Their own web site (and many others) uses straight double quotes, with no space (Toys"R"Us); we provide that as a redirect, but stick closer to normal English styling in the title per MOS:TM, and straight double quotes are pretty normal in our style, so if we're going to represent their name, how else would be we do it? Leave out the quotes altogether? Doesn't seem like a great choice, but some sites do that. Whatever the strategy is, if it has some generality we could make sure that MOS:TM covers it. Dicklyon (talk) 22:24, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

All right, it was a bad example. But I think my point still stands: WP:TITLEFORMAT applies to title formatting in cases where other considerations (such as WP:COMMONNAME) do not. So it’s a faulty argument to say that one or the other universally should or should not apply to formatting. —Frungi (talk) 00:35, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

My point is, and has been, that when it takes admin intervention to capitalize the i in "Star Trek into Darkness" SOMETHING is broken. I don't really care which document we are arguing about. Put the exception in commonname, put the exception in titleformat, it doesn't matter, and the debate over where it put it is designed to cloud the issue. This is the stupid star trek debate in disguise. Rob is still arguing the MOS should overrule capitalizing the I. All this is, is the exact same conversation, over again, except now we are trying to prevent the last shitstorm from continuing every single time this issue arises. SOMETHING IS WRONG. If nothing was wrong we wouldn't be here. Something needs to be changed to make it easier to overrule a small stubborn group of people who wont listen to common sense. Xkcdreader (talk) 03:52, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, no, I don’t think so. I agree that the problems at Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness were symptomatic of the issue I was trying to address here, but I think you have it backwards—that debate was really largely about this concept, not the other way around. If you see arguments being made here that you saw there, that’s because this is the appropriate forum for them. And what’s being debated here isn’t “where to put it,” but whether it’s true that titles following a common name should also follow a common orthography. Where it belongs can be hashed out once that’s settled. —Frungi (talk) 05:15, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

you are right, this debate is an abstraction level higher than that one. my point still stands that it is the same people, and it just moved here. regardless of where the debate takes place, it is the same debate. aka "Should stylistic orthography override MOS capitalization rules." It's literally the exact same conversation, we just abstracted it to be more general. Xkcdreader (talk) 05:24, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. That’s why I opened it here, where a more appropriate audience could see it and participate, and where the results could benefit the project in general. Both of these are less likely with a debate on one specific article.

Now back to what I was saying: WP:TITLEFORMAT applies in cases where concepts like WP:COMMONNAME do not. If it is possible for COMMONNAME to be interpreted as applying to the common formatting of a common name (and several editors have said they do interpret it so), it cannot be argued that either one universally supersedes the other. But COMMONNAME should be explicit in whether or not it may be applied to formatting, and not be left open to such interpretation. —Frungi (talk) 07:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Xkcdreader (talk) 04:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

X, are you arguing for a Star Trek exception? Or for an exception that says an admin can override what the community would otherwise do? It's not clear we want either, just because it's what happened in one case. Dicklyon (talk) 07:07, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

RE: "what the community would otherwise do"... that is the issue. We are trying to determine what the community should "otherwise do". Half of us say "Give more weight to TITLEFORMAT (and the MOS in general)"... the other half say "Give more weight to COMMONNAME". That disagreement is what needs to be resolved. Blueboar (talk) 12:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Star Trek shouldn't need to be an exception. What is the point of making strict rules and then having exceptions at every turn? Star Trek was a plain as day COMMONSENSE change that took months and months. I stand by my position that COMMONNAME should include orthography, and stylistic decisions. Proper nouns should be treated as sacred and not stylized for internal consistency. Use the MOS for article titles that are not proper names. If we are going to make exceptions for eBay, iPod, kd lang, Star Trek Into Darkness, WHY not make it the rule. We shouldn't need to be arguing that every single case is an exception. Every case shouldn't be an exception, the weighting of the rules is wrong, and should be fixed. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Composition_titles is particular is worded too strongly for a page that begins by telling users to use common sense when applying it. Xkcdreader (talk) 04:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

eBay and iPod aren't exceptions, they are specifically dealt with per the guidelines at MOS:TM. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:02, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

You are missing the point. They are exceptions written into the rules. There shouldn't be four conflicting documents. People shouldn't be able to use the manual of style to hold pages hostage until everyone agrees. Repeatedly you come into the discussion and say "WP:TITLE WP:TITLEFORMAT manual of style MOS:TM WP:NCCAPS" and then assert there is no room for further discussion of whether some of these documents are flawed. There is a deeper issue here rather than whether ebay is an exception or part of the rule. Stop nitpicking little things to achieve "gotcha" moments. CommonSense and CommonOrthography should be part of CommonName. Wikipedia should NEVER be inventing it's own style if it doesn't exist elsewhere. Ever. (MOS:TM - When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones) and choose the style that most closely resembles standard English, regardless of the preference of the trademark owner.) Regurgitating the current rules is not helpful. We know what the current rules are, and as many of us have stated there is a problem. When you come back and say "no there isn't" it isn't helpful. There IS a problem. Xkcdreader (talk) 16:31, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think YOU are missing the point. Many of us believe that avoiding unnecessary capitalization is a good idea, and that when sources are mixed we go with lower case, and that we should have left the lowercase "into" in the Star Trek title, and that if there's a relevant class of exceptions that should cover that, we should figure it out and put it in the guidelines. But it got moved by a zealous fan admin, in spite of widespread support for MOS. Nobody is in a hostage situation here. Dicklyon (talk) 16:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

What about when sources overwhelmingly prefer a single styling, as is the case with the capital “I” of Star Trek Into Darkness? Hence my proposal here to address this class of exceptions in the policy dealing with naming articles. —Frungi (talk) 17:04, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you are rewriting history. Show me any source using a lowercase i that is not in direct reference to the wikipdia debacle. "That when sources are mixed we go with lower case." I agree, sure, and that means Kesha and Seven stay Kesha and Seven. I'm fine with that. My issue is that when a vast majority or in the case of star trek EVERY SINGLE SOURCE uses the same orthography, and people try and use the manual of style to overrule vast worldwide consensus to the contrary. Another example is Some Like It Hot, where It is clearly capitalized across nearly/virtually/every single source that refers to it. Xkcdreader (talk) 17:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

There were four or five of those linked in one of my comments on the RM, which you can review if you like. Dicklyon (talk) 17:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Issue/comment: "Many of us believe that avoiding unnecessary capitalization is a good idea" directly conflicts with "When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones)." As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should reflect reality, not concoct its own. Xkcdreader (talk) 17:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The use of lowercase i in film-industry sources was documented in the RM. Dicklyon (talk) 17:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Can we stop using technicalities to try and one up people? Instead of focusing on the letter of the law, let's focus on the principles behind them. COMMONNAME is just that, the common name. Maybe some "industry" sources used a lower case i until they knew better. That isn't the point. Xkcdreader (talk) 22:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

So I suppose the question then becomes whether it's best to follow the practice of a very few industry sources, or that of the general public, the press, and the world at large. I vote the latter, and I honestly can't see any valid argument for the former without disregarding the very sensible principles mentioned in WP:COMMONNAME. —Frungi (talk) 23:22, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

When I said "industry" I didn't mean "insiders", just not random blogs or such; I don't recall who the sources were, but feel free to check. In many cases I agree that insiders or specialists use stylings that are at odds with what the public uses, like when the astronomers capitalize Comet and Galaxy usually, while outsiders usually don't. Dicklyon (talk) 01:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think this applies to the specific examples we are currently discussing, but... when faced with a choice between a name that is "Commonly-used-among-the-experts" vs an name that is "commonly-used-by-the-average-joe" we do give a bit more weight to the experts... However, the real point hear is both are determined by an examination of usage in the sources. That is what lies at the heart of WP:COMMONNAME. Blueboar (talk) 01:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps. I wasn't really think expert vs common Joe, but insider vs outsider. Insiders tend toward jargon, shortcuts, hyphen dropping, over capitalization of their own stuff, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 02:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

OK... I see what you are saying. I supposed the "insider" usage could (in some circumstances) be considered the "Official name", but I think it highly unlikely that there will enough "insider" sources to be a significant factor in a COMMONNAME examination. Blueboar (talk) 02:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It typically only comes up in styling questions. See WP:SSF. Dicklyon (talk) 02:35, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, I'd suggest that if Xkcdreader wants to contribute to this discussion, they should do so without reference to the Star Trek article, due to the conditions of their unblocking. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:10, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Well... to be fair, the discussion is really about applying COMMONNAME - the star trek title was simply an example. More importantly, Xkc was not the first to use it as an example in this discussion. But yeah... Xkc, given the situation, I would strongly suggest you focus on a different example in the future. Blueboar (talk) 13:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Well... if youre going to win this by silencing me, im done here. Xkcdreader (talk) 15:54, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I had no idea he had been blocked – and unblocked – over the Star Trek debacle, but I assumed that was what got us here. Dicklyon (talk) 05:47, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Dick... what do you mean by "got us here"? If you mean that you assumed that the debates over the Star Trek title was what inspired this discussion, I don't agree (It certainly has nothing to do with my involvement). The issue of whether COMMONNAME applies to styling is a debate that has been bubbling away for at least a year now. It isn't about any one article... its about clarifying a potential conflict between two policy pages. Blueboar (talk) 21:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think the presently assembled wants to get Xkc into trouble, nor would we want to be held responsible for what an over-officious admin might do knowing someone is in violation. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah, yes, SSF seems to be what I was accusing you of (sorry for that!). But the question remains: Should our MOS have precedence over the formatting used in mainstream media and general use? Because many editors seem to think it does, and if they’re wrong, policy should address that. —Frungi (talk) 21:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Generally, yes, our style is defined by the MOS, not by how outside sources style particular things. And "mainstream media and general use" seldom have any coherent style. Dicklyon (talk) 05:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

So doesn’t that mean it’s significant when they do consistently style a name a certain way, capitalizing (or not) a certain word or otherwise using non-standard formatting? That’s the case that this is about, where one could reasonably say that everyone capitalizes “Into”, or everyone spells it “eXtreme”, or everyone puts a slash in a weird place or whatever. —Frungi (talk) 06:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

eXistenZ is a good example. It is stylized as eXistenZ at IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon, Metacritic, Netflix, and TVTropes. Wikipedia decides "Existenz (styled eXistenZ)" makes more sense than just stylizing it correctly in the first place. Unlike Kesha/Ke$ha and Seven/se7en which both have a pretty even split, eXistenZ has a universally agreed upon style. Well universally except here. Xkcdreader (talk) 08:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

"Existenz", "Star Trek into Darkness" "Kesha" "Toys "R" Us" aren't any less recognisable for being formatted 'our' way. It just means we don't buy into vanity/marketing to the same degree as other sites do. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

eXistenZ isn't any harder to read than Existenz. Think about it for a second. If the title was eXistenz, we would stylize it eXistenz, but because the Z is also capitalized you restyle the whole thing. That doesn't make sense. Instead of taking some kind of noble stand against marketing, it makes more sense to recognize that style is part of an identity. We already recognize that for eBay, iPod and k d lang. It's haphazard and inconsistent. Existenz should redirect to eXistenZ so the correct title displays at the top of the page when people read the article. Even worse. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(technical_restrictions)#Lower_case_first_letter says dELiA*s (located at DELiA*s), but someone decided to restyle it Delia's. You're not even following the exceptions laid out in the rulebook. Xkcdreader (talk) 17:27, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the eBay exception if you think we'd style eXistenz that way. In the eBay case, the medial cap signals a word break and pronunciation; Ebay would not be very recognizable, nor would Ipod. These letter prefixes are hard to recognizably render any other way. And quite a few books, and the NY Times, style Existenz as we do, so it's hardly an odd case. Dicklyon (talk) 19:32, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Which is the entire point of this proposal. The VAST MAJORITY refer to it as eXistenZ. If you read ebert's review, he styled it Existenz as the title, but eXistenZ every time he referred to it in the body. The MOS crew keeps saying "Because the MOS says so" while the rest of us are saying it should be modified to prevent these incidents. Citing the rules when people are objecting to the rules is backward progress. IF a person is looking for the film eXistenZ, which page title is more likely to confirm they landed in the right place? Obviously eXistenZ. If you think people will type it in unstylized, put in a redirect. As far as STiD, outside of wikipedia, the rest of the world was laughing at you. Heads are so far up their own wikipedia, they have lost sight of reality. If you go venture out of wikipedia, and look at fresh voices, there is near unanimous consensus. Why does IKEA get all caps? in Sweden, the newspapers restyle it Ikea. The rules are inconsistent. And from my outside perspective, it appears that overzealous people take restylized where they can, and cut their losses when overruled. That is no uniformity, and consistency. The most consistent procedure is to follow commonname styling, and if non exists, choose the one that matches the MOS most. Wikipedia should NEVER BE INVENTING ITS OWN STYLE THAT IS NOT PROMINENTLY USED ELSEWHERE. (a couple insider blogs do not count.) Xkcdreader (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

You also fundamentally misunderstand why eXistenZ is the perfect example. It is pronounced "eggs i-stenz" or something NOT existence. Watch the trailer. youtube/HAdbdUt_h9M?t=22s The capitalization is there to denote a different pronunciation, just like iPod or eBay. Xkcdreader (talk) 20:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It's very hard to see how the capital x suggests such a pronunciation. Dicklyon (talk) 04:54, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

And k d lang is not an accepted exception; it's more like the Star Trek Into Darkness case, where a strong fan base objects to following MOS:TM in that case; not really a precedent for anything. Dicklyon (talk) 19:37, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not just some crazy loon who thinks the MOS:TM is broken, without reason. You guys are just unwilling to question central tenets and dogma. You refuse to even entertain the idea that the MOS is wrong or antiquated. To quote Guy Keleny, the Independent’s top grammarian: "The only near analogy I can think of is David Garnett’s novel Lady Into Fox. A quick internet check seems to indicate that most publishers [emphasis mine, publishers are authorities unlike croudsourced sites like goodreads] have given it a capital I. There’s only one thing to do. Follow the preference of the film-makers. It is their title, after all. They call it Star Trek Into Darkness – so that is what it is. In the same way, for instance, everybody accepts that the singer is called k d lang. Her typographical peculiarity may be pretentious and irritating, but her name belongs to her." There is a professional, paid for his knowledge of grammar, offering his professional opinion. Xkcdreader (talk) 20:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that if Kemeny were writing MOS:TM it would say to style names and trademarks per the preference of their owners, even when that styling is pretentious and irritating. But this is WP, not Kemeny's domain, and that's not the way we decided to go. Dicklyon (talk) 04:54, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

As I said in my reply below (why is this above it?), MOS:TM supports such styling. Incidentally, it was my understanding that our MOS is influenced by things like existing style guides and language experts. —Frungi (talk) 05:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe “existenz” is a German word, and that “eXistenZ” is pronounced identically to that word. I can’t imagine why they decided to format that title so oddly, so I can only guess that it’s named after the titular game which was so named because it just looks cooler. As for whether I think WP:COMMONNAME would or should affect that title, iTunes and Yahoo Movies both spell it as “Existenz”, but the mixed case does seem more prevalent and differentiates the title from the German word (i.e. recognizability). And in fact MOS:TM supports mixed case: “use: ooVoo, Mitsubishi i-MiEV”, and the point about CamelCase, are more applicable to this and similar examples than Se7en—this is a matter of capitalization, not replacing letters with non-letters. —Frungi (talk) 22:45, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, MOS:TM does seem to agree in many respects, like capitalizing, with "most style guides" per this book. I'm not sure what styling you're saying it supports. It says "choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones) and choose the style that most closely resembles standard English, regardless of the preference of the trademark owner." Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

See my reply above, where I pasted examples of non-standard capitalization that MOS:TM encourages. Specifically, they’re from the third sub-item of the third major item of MOS:TM#General rules. I’m not sure how many reliable secondary sources are sufficient to establish a title style for MOS:TM purposes, but in this particular case, I was able to find two (which I’ve named) that use the same styling as the article’s title. (As for your link, unless I’m looking in the wrong place, that book says to use the official styling unless the trademark is being used as a common generic term, which is far from the issue here.)

But this discussion is supposed to be about the scope of COMMONNAME, not debating the finer points of MOS:TM, so I request that we either get it back on topic or move it to MOS:TM Talk or Talk:Existenz. —Frungi (talk) 05:59, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I reverted the recent uncommented undiscussed anon addition of the odd exceptions ooVoo and Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Those may or may not be OK but shouldn't be added without discussing what point they're supposed to illustrate. As for the scope of COMMONNAME, it's what it is, such that it doesn't conflict with the MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 06:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

But the question was, and continues to be, what is that scope? Does it include the commonly used style of commonly used names? There is precedence both for and against in accepted article titles because many editors have interpreted it both broadly and narrowly, and that kind of inconsistency is Bad. The policy should explicitly state whether or not it extends to formatting and styling. I still believe it should, but if it does not, then it should say it does not. —Frungi (talk) 06:36, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

You are clearly right that the policy should be explicit, one way or another. I'm sure we can all agree on that. However, as the discussion above illustrates, we don't agree as to which way it should be made explicit. There's simply no consensus. So we will have to muddle along as we are, in the normal Wikipedia manner. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:34, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The normal wikipedia manner? Argue about it and get nothing done? Agree compromise can't be reached and stand stubbornly in opposite corners? The stylization rule is apparently for "readability". I understand why Se7en could suddenly be hard to pronounce or confusing, especially to non native speakers. eXistenZ doesn't make it harder to read, and the commonly used identity should be represented. People should be able to look at the article title and KNOW they are on the right page, instead of having to hunt around to make sure it's the page about the movie. Unless the stylization starts swapping out characters (* for ', $ for s) I think the Frungi is right. It encourages you to abide by style. Like I mentioned before we respect all caps for things like IKEA. Xkcdreader (talk) 19:06, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Except for those pesky Swedes with their sv:Ikea. Dicklyon (talk) 00:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

In fairness, IKEA is an acronym (which I did not know until reading it in our article). But I agree: to my mind, recognizability is paramount in titling encyclopedic articles. And I believe that naturalness and precision both support and follow from ensuring recognizability. —Frungi (talk) 23:47, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of recognizability and naturness and precision, but I don't think mimicing the trademark styles of companies and performers, or letting sources vote, is the best way to get there. It is more natural to use a normal English-like styling when such is in use in sources; and more consistent. Dicklyon (talk) 00:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

But how do you define “in use in sources”? Is a minority sufficient? Or even one lone source? It’s not consistent if it jars with how it’s styled in standard use. —Frungi (talk) 00:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to put a number or a ratio on it, but I've always said that one is not enough. But yes a minority is obviously sufficient, otherwise we'd just say go with majority usage, which is not what we've ever done. Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

"Normal English-like" is a suspect phrase. How do you define most "English-like"? Do you mean "most often used in English"? If so, then that is exactly what letting the sources vote mean.--New questions? 02:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

"the style that most closely resembles standard English" is pretty much as described in MOS:TM. Things like Existenz over eXistenZ. Sometimes there may be ambiguity, but more often it's pretty clear. Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, what is "standard English"? Standard because we define it to be standard? Standard because we take a few "sources that proclaim their definition of 'standard English'"? It should be noted that there is no universal standard of English, and standards differ. Therefore, I do not see how we can adopt any standard without violating NPOV.--New questions? 05:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You should bring that up if we ever have a substantive disagreement on which styling is closer to "standard English". Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• I liken the distinction to company names and trademarks. Company registries generally allow registration of unique company names, which are case insensitive: you can thus register a company 'eXistenZ Ltd', and this would be treated indifferently to 'Existenz Ltd' so that nobody else could register a company using any distinctive capitalisation applied to that spelling. You can equally register a trademark, which is the trade name including adornment with any element of typefacing, colour, non-standard capitalisation to give it a distinctive brand identity, including a set of values.

  My understanding is that our naming conventions adopt an approach much like company registration, and means that we would generally eschew titling other than by strict orthography. This approach already seems fully consistent with the tenets of "recognisability", "naturalness" and "precision" cited. And for those who would argue that failure to adopt vanity capitalisation as intended by the brand owner detracts from recognisability, our articles usually have a fair use brand logo which accurately reflects all the elements defined and determined by the brand owner which would lend itself to an in-article discussion or analysis as to its styling. With the logo present, there would be no doubt upon reading the article (or its infobox). As to being natural, the long-standing universal convention is to capitalise the first letter in proper nouns; it's certainly not natural to expect capitalisation anywhere except at the beginning of a name, unless the whole name was capitalised. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  I take issue with your final point. If a name is capitalized or otherwise styled in a way strange to normal English, and this is well-known and widespread enough that indisputably reliable sources (including reputable news outlets) use that style, I disagree that it would be natural to assume that we would be an exception to what became standard usage. —Frungi (talk) 07:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Only my final point? Glad to hear that... -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 07:53, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  I don’t entirely agree with the rest of what you said, but I think the point about naturalness covers what I didn’t agree with in the rest. —Frungi (talk) 08:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  I'm surprised, because my points were largely factual and anecdotal. I suggest you check with a lawyer, if you like. My last part, that you disagree with, is consistent with the evidence given – company registrars still do not recognise separate upper and lower cases, and I think that alone sufficiently demonstrates that traditional proper name capitalisation is "standard capitalisation" and that erratic capitalisation is of a 'vanity' nature. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 08:19, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  I'm not contesting anything you said about how a legal system chooses to view name styling. What I'm saying is that iff an exotic styling becomes standard in common use (e.g. if everyone talking about eXistenZ used that capitalization in every source), Wikipedia should follow that standard rather than insist on sticking to its own. —Frungi (talk) 09:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  Well, we have a well-trodden policy against soap-boxing that contraindicates such blind adherence to the stylistic preference of the 'owner'. Repetition by umpteen sources is merely a sign that they've fallen for commercial brand hyping that we try hard to avoid. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  What part of styling the movie title correctly is soap boxing? It's not advocacy, or an opinion piece. It's not scandal mongering or self promotion (unless one of us worked on the movie). It sure isn't advertising, because it has nothing to do with neutrality or verifiability. Styling the title correctly has nothing to do with advertising a product, and everything to do with being more recognizable. When people land on the page, it is easier to tell it is the right page if it is styled correctly. When you google "Existenz" wikipedia styles it differently than the rest, and as such, causes the reader to need to investigate further to make sure it's the correct link. There is NO REASON to style it Existenz except for stubbornness. It doesn't make it harder to read and it isn't a marketing gimmick that we are playing into. There is NOTHING in WP:SOAP about "adherence to the stylistic preference of the 'owner'" and to claim so is blatantly misleading. If you want to move this discussion to WP:Trademark, that is fine but it will be the same conversation. Plus there are proper names that are not trademarked, but the same rules should be applied, so I think it is better to hash out the proper name rule here, and then modify WP:Trademark accordingly. Nobody has explained yet why IKEA gets a pass but Time does not. Xkcdreader (talk) 19:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  I noted above that IKEA is an acronym (see the IKEA article). —Frungi (talk) 19:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  Laser, Scuba, Necco, Radar are all acronyms that follow standard capitalization. Xkcdreader (talk) 21:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  If you want to propose Ikea, I'll support you. If you just want to use borderline cases as if they're precedents for something, I won't. The case was more clear with Lego Group; see Yahoo. Dicklyon (talk) 21:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I think under those circumstances, then a case could be made for an exception, rather than changing the guideline. Changing the guideline would lead to less consistency. We have already let dot the i slip through the net. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:05, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• So clearly you are against "vanity" stylization in titles. What about the body of articles. If you look at ebert's and the new york times reviews of eXistenZ, both abide by their manual of style in the title, and then resort to the stylized version in the text. I still contend the stylization modifies pronunciation. The x and the z are stressed because of it. Xkcdreader (talk) 19:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Let me state it again here now: to avoid ambiguity, companies registrars always take the broadest read on a name and ignore the stylisation. Holders of the trade name like this as it protects them, whilst leaving their marketers to build their brand identity with whatever styles and values they feel are required for the product. And yes, I'm opposed to adopting this type of styling as 'the rule' although I would be open to discussing adopting it as an exception in certain specific cases. Just because "everyone" does it doesn't mean it's right, or that we must follow. In the same way that there is the CMOS, there is no obligation for everyone to follow, otherwise there won't be the AP stylebook of our own MOS. 'Laser', 'Scuba', 'Radar' all started as fully capitalised acronyms, but have become proper names in their own right with 'standard capitalisation' for functional and practical reasons – that it's a nuisance to pop the capslock for entire words; many people don't realise it's an acronym nor care that they were historically acronyms. "eXistenZ" goes in quite an opposite direction – deliberate miscapitalisation following a marketing trend, with marketing aims by interspersing use of the capslock within a single 'word'. In other words, this styling is pure marketing spin, which marketers would lurve for the whole world to adopt, for that is the true mark of their successful conquest of the consumers' mind. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

  Re 'Just because "everyone" does it doesn't mean it's right, or that we must follow'—It isn't Wikipedia's place to decide or determine what's right or wrong. Our job is to present secondhand information in a non-biased way. I don't think a strong anti-marketing editorial bias fits into that; if our sources "fall for marketing," then it's our job to reflect that fact. —Frungi (talk) 02:05, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• Correct spelling/orthography is one thing, but capitalisation is an element of style. It's not a question of right or wrong, although you seem to see it that way and have been arguing accordingly. But each to his own – that's what style manuals are for. They merely embody certain conventions as a matter of editorial choice. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

  There is no single “right”, but there are right ways and wrong ways to do style. Put simply, I feel that if a Wikipedia article were to render the name of its subject in a way that, for whatever reason, none of its cited sources do, we’re doing it wrong. To go back to the example we’re all using, I would have the same issue with an article titled “eXistenZ” whose sources solely use “Existenz” as I would with the inverse. —Frungi (talk) 03:05, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

  I think we're already on the path of agreeing to disagree. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• If it's true that absolutely no sources use the style we use, then it should probably be changed, and I'm surprised that it hasn't been already. If a small minority of sources use the style we use, then that's a different circumstance. Croctotheface (talk) 03:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• As I said, style is an editorial matter that may or may not be influenced by external factors. Our community may decide to IAR, but it's plain wrong to say that we are wrong not to go with trademark/vanity styling. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

  That is not what I’m saying. I don’t care why the styling exists or who started it. I’m saying that we would be wrong not to go with whatever styling people actually use in practice, regardless of its origin. —Frungi (talk) 03:27, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• Funny that. I don't care why the styling exists either. I merely wanted to explain, from en empirical standpoint, why and where the line is between 'content' and 'marketing', thus the line I believe we should hold for stylistic purposes. I don't much care what styling other people employ, and believe we should stick to our own conventions. That doesn't mean we should not note within the article that 'Existenz' is frequently styled 'eXistenZ'. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
• I'd just like to add to the above: We very often see "tabloid style" prose or wording. We also often see it written in the papers that somebody "passed away". Our convention is to eschew this manner of expression, and we would instead write someone "died". This is purely a matter of style, and we would not derogate our convention unless there is some very special or unique reason. I would say the same goes for unconventional capitalisation. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:14, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

  I’m not sure what these examples have to do with naming an article’s subject. —Frungi (talk) 04:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I think his point is rather excellent, actually. If it's most common for sources we use for a singer's death to write that he "passed away," but it's most common for sources we use for a politician's death to say that she "died," should we use different styles in those different circumstances? The whole point of a style guide is to be consistent. I see that you recognize that it would be unwise to "let the sources guide us" for something like that. I think that it gets at why it's also unwise for the matter we're discussing now. Croctotheface (talk) 04:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• If you understand my distinction between content (including orthography) and style (or substance and form), then you probably would see the relevance. The example of "passed away" is not the best parallel to the adoption of caps in titles – I think the difference in scope between company registrar vs trademark registry is actually a much closer parallel, but I feel that both illustrate well the point I am making. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 05:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• "Correct spelling/orthography is one thing, but capitalisation [sic] is an element of style." You are making a made up distinction that shows you are using the word orthography but don't know what it means. "Orthography is a standardized system for using a particular writing system (script) to write a particular language. It includes rules of spelling. Other elements of written language that are part of orthography include hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation." Orthography includes capitalization. If you are respecting a titles orthography, you are respecting it's correct capitalization. Restyling something is throwing its orthography out the window. Capitalization and thus orthography are part of a proper noun's identity. Here is a page of examples where the word means different things depending on capitalization. List_of_case-sensitive_English_words#List_of_capitonyms_in_English Xkcdreader (talk) 07:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Dont forget this, explained in the lead of WP:NCCAPS: "Because credibility is a primary objective in the creation of any reference work, and because Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility." --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, come on! Existenz isn't even an orthodox English word, but an invented word and a marketing device. All aspects of its erratic capitalisation has zip to do with the 'orthography' I'm referring to. It's strictly a marketing construct. It's fancy capitalisation is just another layer of marketing. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 08:48, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I do hope that no one is seriously proposing that titles and main text in articles should differ in style or formatting. Tony (talk) 08:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Ohconfucius: Wrong. It's a German word, no more "invented" than any other. But we were discussing a title, not a word, so capitalization is relevant. And I don't know why you're so hung up on marketing as if Wikipedia's capitalization would have any effect on anything's success.

Tony: Absolutely not. The article should use the same style as the title, always. —Frungi (talk) 10:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

If "Existenz" were really and truly never written that way in the source material, then the article wouldn't use that style in either the title or the body. Would the New York Times review help put that incorrect assertion to bed? If the non-weird capitalization is used only in the rarest of rare circumstances, which may very well be the case here, then that might be a persuasive argument that could gather consensus for using the crazy capitalization. I know that I wouldn't lose any sleep if it did. However, apparently a consensus of editors did not find that argument persuasive. So it goes. Croctotheface (talk) 10:27, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Whichever way we look at eXistenZ, if we were to use the "official" styling, this should be an exception to the rule (and it may be a reasonable one), and we shouldn't be advocating a change in the guideline to accommodate it. Remember, it's the change in the guideline that we're discussing, not this specific case. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and I don't mean to imply that I think editors should have been persuaded to use "eXistenZ," just that it seems like a reasonable outcome to me. That they were not may indicate that Wikipedians are strongly disposed toward standardization, and that a change that brings us away from that may not be supported by a broad consensus of editors who don't participate in discussions such as these. And since it's relevant to Rob's comment, I'll say again that my biggest concern with making this sort of change to the guideline is the way it will serve as a rallying point for people who want to advocate for crazy styles. You could probably make the argument that ANY weird style is "prevalent" (in the sense of widespread), as there will be publications out there that show deference to "official" styles. You'll have sites that are essentially fan blogs for companies/bands/whatever else that they cover, and you have writers and editors who don't want to bother with standardization, either out of laziness or because they don't see the value in it. There's a clear consensus at WP that we do see the value in it. Croctotheface (talk) 11:07, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes - these are also my concerns. And that it would cause a lot more arguments! --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that would depend on how the amended policy was written, which as I’ve said is not what this proposal is about. I had no doubt that if the concept was accepted, its final form would have explicit boundaries to avoid having it be interpreted too broadly. —Frungi (talk) 16:12, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Any way we write the policy, it'll have the effect I'm concerned about. You have editors now who argue that our use of "eBay" justifies any use of a lowercase-except-for-one-internal-capital style. Obviously that's not the consensus interpretation, but it's clear that you have people hanging on any possibility to justify using "official" styles. However we write it, this change would be the #1 go-to argument for those who want to use "official" branding. The whole point seems to be to give them a stronger argument, but we're hoping they won't overdo it. They overdo it already! Croctotheface (talk) 19:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• @Frungi I think that based on our and general public acceptance of certain camelcases such as eBay and iMac, where 'e' denotes 'electronic [commerce]' and 'i' denotes 'internet', you could propose an explicit statement to allow such names. But for me, eXistenZ is still only a pure marketing construct that still would not qualify under any reasonable exemption on the above basis. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 04:20, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

  I'm unaware of any such abbreviations, but it doesn't matter as MOS:TM already makes an explicit allowance for such names. I still don't get what you mean about marketing; any name of any commercial property is "pure marketing" (some blatantly so, such as Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!), but that doesn't affect our duty to accurately report it via reliable sources. (Note that I'm not arguing specifically for "eXistenZ" as that was, again, merely an example for the broader argument, and this isn't the place for that debate anyway.) —Frungi (talk) 08:54, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion (WP:COMMONNAME and formatting) part 2

"And that it would cause a lot more arguments!" No it wouldn't, it would DRASTICALLY reduce the rules needed to come to a conclusion. I would like to point out that orthography means STANDARDIZED capitalization and punctuation. Thus, orthography means the standard usage in English. I will now list the "standard" representations of proper nouns. Dot the I, eBay, iPod, Star Trek Into Darkness, Pretty Maids All in a Row, eXistenZ, IKEA, Lady Into Fox. It doesn't matter where the origin of the capitalization comes from, whether it be marketing or pronunciation. What matters is what has been standardized in the English language (and I don't mean general rules, I mean how the proper name is represented in reputable English sources.) We shouldn't focus on authors intent. If there is no standard usage (Ke$ha, Se7en) THEN we should defer to restyling names. IF the rules said "proper names should respect their English Orthography" we don't need any of the other rules, except as backup when a name is not standardized. "Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre" and thus should respect common English standardization of proper nouns, not influence them. If we style titles differently than the majority of authors, we risk influencing others in the future with our non-standard usage. How often do you think someone googles something to check how a title is stylized, glances at the title on wikipedia and closes the tab? What percent of those people would think wikipedia is restyling things instead of respecting standard English usage? Even worse, places like google grab info like titles from wikipedia, but DONT also convey the "usually styled" explanation. Google Existenz and Dot the I, and look at the right side of the page. It's clear Google is gathering this info from Wikipedia. I would also like to comment that authors/sources like Ebert and the newyorktimes DO use names differently in titles and in the body. Ebert even starts sentences with dot the i. The most correct, respectable, and accurate way to represent titles, is to respect their common form. It also makes the rules about a thousand times easier to comprehend. "But it's marketing" is not a valid counterargument, if the marketing caught on and is now standard among English writers, it should be respected. Xkcdreader (talk) 22:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

This seems to be quite a change from your earlier position, and I 100% agree with the sentiment. If an odd styling is so common in reputable English-language sources that it could be called “standard”, we should use the same styling here, both in titles and in content; if not, or if there is any reasonable doubt of such standardization, we should style it as plain English (or as close to it as our sources get). If arguments result over whether this applies to a specific article, then there’s likely reasonable doubt and we should use plain English—argument over. —Frungi (talk) 00:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

For most of the examples he gave, there's no issue, no conflict between current guidelines and "standard", whatever that is. To do anything with this idea, we'd need to look specifically at a pile of cases where there is conflict, and see which way makes most sense for WP. eXistenZ is one such case, perhaps. I wouldn't necessarily agree that that odd styling is "standard English", but it is pretty common. Does that mean we want to use it in WP? Personally, I'd prefer to stick with the guidelines like MOS:TM for such cases. And why is "Lady Into Fox" in this list? It's much more commonly "Lady into Fox" in reputable English sources. And why is he mentioning the unmentionable? And how does this square with his comments at Talk:Dot the i#Requested move? I he saying that he's going to fight doing the obvious right thing unless we give him the rule by which he wants to make it the right thing, instead of using the current rule that makes it the right thing? This is nuts. Dicklyon (talk) 00:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

What you are doing is using the rule when it benefits you and ignoring it when it doesnt. In the case of Dot the I, it supports what you want, so you use the argument "all the other sources do it that way" but when it comes to into darkness or kd lang or ee cummings you call it an exception you disagree with. My rule makes it where we dont need "exceptions" and applies the same rule across the board to all cases. You are trying to have your cake and eat it too (applying this idea only when it supports your argument), where as my rule is consistent across the board. As for Lady Into Fox, I contend there is NO standardization so we should differ to the rules. The rules state you capitalize compound preposition, and Into is a compound preposition. Just because reduction has occurred, doesn't suddenly make it no longer a compound preposition. "Two prepositions of direction are compounds formed by adding "to" to the corresponding prepositions of location. [into/onto]." https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/594/02/ Xkcdreader (talk) 01:58, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

But… you gave Lady Into Fox as an example of source standardization. And wait, I thought I proposed the rule change. —Frungi (talk) 03:32, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

if we are on the same side, what are you trying to achieve here? both of your nitpicks are correct. im going to modify your proposal slightly in my next edit because "commonly used orthography" is redundant and we should stop using that phrase. orthography already includes the word standard in its definition. Xkcdreader (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm perplexed. Dicklyon (talk) 02:07, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

It's simple. Standard agreed upon use? Use that. Disagreement. Refer to the rules. People who generally think Into should be lowercased are ignoring the "the first word of a compound should be capitalized" rule, because it suits what they want. Like I said, selective reading. Having cake and eating it too. Xkcdreader (talk) 02:10, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not that simple, since there is seldom a "standard agreed upon use". What method would you use to determine that? What threshold of variant use would you be willing to ignore? And if the "rule" about compound prepositions was meant to apply to "into" and "onto", wouldn't there be an example of a single preposition considered as a compound? You're clearly stretching outside the normal interpretation and intent of that phrase. Again, why not find some cases to discuss? There are now and then disagreements on cases where the MOS disagrees with what some editors claim sources support as "standard". Besides the one you're not allowed to mention any more, are there any worth considering to see what would be best for WP? Is it just eXistenZ? Dicklyon (talk) 04:58, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

It would be better for wikipedia because it would simplify the rules. Right now we have Wikipedia:TITLEFORMAT#Article_title_format Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(capitalization) MOS:CT#Composition_titles Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Trademarks#General_rules Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common_names Wikipedia:Official_names and Category:Wikipedia_naming_conventions among others. The "How to title an article" is overly complicated. I really think if the rule reads "if it is standardized aka orthography" it frames the debate differently. It would have ended the STID debate before it started, there wouldnt be a debate at dot the i, ebay and iphone wouldnt need their own exception in the rules, nor would kd lang. Instead of causing the community to get into a debate every time an exception arises, the rule strealines the process and lets people get back to real issues. That benefits wp immensely. I think the burden of proof belongs on your side of the court, to prove how it would make wp much worse. Cuz at the moment it's nearly non functioning. It also feels like youre not even reading what I write before you disagree with it. Go back and read what I wrote at the top of this section. Google parses wikipedia titles, but NOT the disclaimers about style. When wikipedia restyles something it propagates/infects other websites, but doesn't carry the "it's really this way" note afterwards. Bad bad bad. If you don't think it chances wikipedia at all, and we do, why don't you step out of the way and let us introduce the change? Xkcdreader (talk) 20:40, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

As Dicklyon pointed out, there’s still the question of exactly what constitutes “standardized”. Myself, I think that would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis, but I believe that in most cases, that question would only be brought up if the rule probably doesn’t apply. And I agree with Xkcdreader that having a somewhat binary rule like this would simplify things by making a number of NC and other pages unnecessary, which was kind of the point of proposing it. —Frungi (talk) 23:54, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't change the fact that we already use an undefined "standardized" as the rule when making exceptions. STiD and kdlang were considered standardized to the point that they won out. We will never have a precise definition of standardized. The point of this change is to REFRAME the conversation so as to make common sense exceptions easier without requiring pedantic six month debates. Instead of picking apart all the rules and arguing over every little detail, the debate will first be over whether or not it has met the threshold of being an English standard. If standard -> use standard. If not standard -> debate, and see the rest of the MOS mess. In cases like STiD and kdlang the answer is obvious, and no further debate would be necessary. Xkcdreader (talk) 07:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

This is my version of the proposal: WP:COMMONNAME should be modified so proper noun article titles respect and reflect their English orthography (standardized capitalization, punctuation, etc,) as is already the case with k.d. lang, IKEA, eBay, and iPod. Academic and professional sources should be weighted heavier than informal writing when coming to a conclusion concerning standardization. (KISS, thirtysomething, adidas would need to be reevaluated. Has the restyled wikipedia title influenced standard use across the internet, is there a markable difference between scholarly and casual sources, etc?) Xkcdreader (talk) 07:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: If a Wikipedia article title has influenced standard use, for good or for ill, then it already follows this rule. It’s circular, I know, but standardization is standardization, regardless of cause. —Frungi (talk) 07:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
• I'm kind of bored of this debate now (and I don't think I'm alone - many established editors seem to have walked away), and I've said this before, but we should not be amending the guideline to include exceptions. They should remain, as they are: exceptions. --Rob Sinden (talk) 07:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• The MOS are guidelines that act as suggestions and not end all be all rules. Until you and your crew of enforcers agree that the MOS is PART of the consensus process and not above it, there is an issue that will continually erupt. This needs to be fixed so history stops repeating itself. Consensus is people working together to find a solution. If you are walking away, I think it is fair to assume you are no longer willing to be part of the consensus building process. Xkcdreader (talk) 08:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Don't get personal! I do not have a "crew of enforcers". However, I try to respect and stand by the guidelines, and do not try to bend Wikipedia to fit my personal view of how it should be. You're a relatively new editor, and you've come a long way since our first encounter, but it's counter-productive to wear everyone out insisting on the same thing over and over again until you get your own way. That is not consensus building! --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You refuse to acknowledge that the guidelines can be changed. You cant just refer to the MOS and say "because the MOS says so." You have refused to budge an inch since I have met you. That is not consensus building. The MOS is wrong, and no matter how many times you say "nuh uh" it doesnt make it true. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(capitalization) specifically has come out of nowhere without reason. Wikipedia is one of the only sites in the internet that does not capitalize the bear in Black bear. Using sentence case for titles defies MOST style guides. If you are not going to work together to meet half way, feel free to walk away. Xkcdreader (talk) 09:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course the guidelines can be changed if there is good reason to do so. To state that "the MOS is wrong" is a bold statement and also incorrect. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) has not "come out of nowhere" as you attest, but has been carefully considered, by consensus. Meeting half-way is only possible if there are good ideas from both sides of the argument, but there should not be compromise on everything, just because one editor thinks so. Your claims show absolute contempt for the considered guidelines, and you just seem to want everything your way. It's kind of disruptive. Oh - and you are wrong about "black bear" also (see below). --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:22, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Should books have full titles, or short titles when necessary?

I was looking through a few applicable guidelines for this (this page, WP:WikiProject Books, etc.) and I ran across an issue: I am unable to find a set guideline regarding article titles for books that have short name and longer names. I recently performed a few moves on some physics-related book titles that I thought would not have been considered controversial, given the fact that I was moving the articles from their short names to their long, full names. To show what I did, here's one example of a move I performed:

Liberation by Oppression to Liberation by Oppression: A Comparative Study of Slavery and Psychiatry

...the first title not being the full name of the book, and the second title being the full name. Since I could not find a guideline for this, I was doing these moves based on my own common sense which tells me this: A person's name would not be shortened for an article name, so why should a book's article title? With that mindset, I performed these moves. In addition, the titles I moved these articles to are the most common title these books are found when searching for them in search engines. So, unfortunately, since I was unable to find any guidelines to perform these moves, I went by my gut ... which told me that the best article titles are the most technical article titles. If there is no guideline set for this, it should be discussed. If there is, please cite to me the guideline that specifically frowns upon moves such as these, and I will do my best (time willing) to get an admin involved to revert my moves. Either way, I hope that a consensus can be reached that can be put into a guideline of some sort. Thanks. Steel1943 (talk) 21:31, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

People's names and book titles have absolutely nothing in common with each other, for Wikipedia purposes. We would never move "Tom Cruise" to just "Tom", but that's because many people have the name "Tom". Conversely, it's perfectly acceptable for "The Myth of Mental Illness" to be at the short title, and not "The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct", because there is no other "The Myth of Mental Illness" the book could be confused with. Including the subtitle may be necessary sometimes to prevent books from being confused with things having similar names, but there's no need for it in the large majority of cases. Also, any editor is allowed to revert Steel1943. An admin is not needed to do that. Interested in science (talk) 22:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

We do have a convention for this at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Subtitles: "Usually, a Wikipedia article on a book does not include its subtitle in the Wikipedia page name." The reason is that subtitles can be very long, and they're often really not an integral part of the title. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you; I wasn't aware of that. In that case, the book titles should be moved back, unless Steel1943 can provide a good reason for moving them. Interested in science (talk) 22:39, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out, SlimVirgin. I definitely wasn't aware of that policy, not could I find it. Seriously, that was very informative. This discussion can be closed, unless more needs to be added to this discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 22:48, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. Would you mind moving Mad in America and the other titles back now? You can then start a requested-move discussion on those talk pages if you think the longer titles are better for those particular books. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:20, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Since this conversation is getting a bit off topic ... Response posted on SlimVirgin's talk page. Steel1943 (talk) 00:32, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Another way to look at this is as a Recognizability question: a choice between the "Official name" (the full title - including the subtitle) and the COMMONNAME (which in most cases, but not all cases, will be the short title - not include the subtitle). We can also look at it as a Precision question... is the short title precise enough to identify what the article is about? Do we need the subtitle to disambiguate it from articles about other topics that might have the same name? Most of the time, the short title will be precise enough, but there may be exceptions. Blueboar (talk) 14:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

While I agree with the guideline that a book's (or other work's?) subtitle usually should be omitted from a Wikipedia article's title, Steel1943's move is a wonderful example of when the title of an article about a book should include the book's subtitle. The article's present title, Liberation by Oppression, give a reader only a vague hint of what the book is about, but no indication that it is a critique of psychiatry. The book's subtitle, A Comparative Study of Slavery and Psychiatry, identifies the book's thesis clearly and concisely. For that reason, this article's title should include the subtitle. Does SlimVirgin agree?—Finell 21:25, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

This was a matter of an established consensus-based policy that could not be found ... until SlimVirgin found it. Unless someone thinks that the policy needs to be amended to contain additional information about this topic, feel free to add some more thoughts. Steel1943 (talk) 03:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Need for a shortcut to Wikipedia:Article titles#Special characters

Hello everyone. I recently created a shortcut for the Wikipedia:Article titles#Special characters; that section definitely seemed like it needed a shortcut to be able to put in edit histories due to the fact that it might need to be cited to justify some edits/page moves. However, the only reasonable shortcut title I could think of to point towards this section, WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS, is obviously too long to be considered a shortcut. Unfortunately, I am unable to think of a way to shorten this section title (or for that matter, the shortcut title) to a name that would be able to be recognized by other editors as a shortcut that points in the right direction if they were looking for this information specifically. I was thinking that WP:TITLESPECCHAR or WP:TITLECHARACTERS could have worked, but the former seems to short to be understood and the later seems like it could represent title names for articles about characters in novels, movies, etc. So... any ideas for a better shortcut name for this section? Steel1943 (talk) 04:33, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe leave "TITLE" out instead? WP:SPECIALCHARACTERS or WP:SPECIALCHARS. 62.44.246.109 (talk) 10:29, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Where did the sentence case rule come from?

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

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For example: https://www.google.com/search?q=black+bear+animal and http://www.editage.co.kr/resources/pdf/case.pdf

Wikipedia is the only site I can find that does not capitalize bear in Black bear. The MOS rules are arbitrary and poorly formed. Instead of giving up and walking away, we should be working on widespread reform to be more consistent with the rest of the English speaking world.

TITLES that represent names should be written with every word capitalized per standard English "Title Case"

Why does wikipedia come up with its own convention to use sentence case, where title case is more appropriate? Common English animal names should be capitalized. I am starting to get the impression that the MOS was written by a small faction of people and enforced around wikipedia without gaining site wide consensus. The bird people seem to be one of the few that fought back. Xkcdreader (talk) 09:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

"Bear" is not a proper noun, so should not be capitalised.[7][8][9][10] --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

From the Chicago Manual of Style: "Chicago recommends capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives, as in the following examples, which conform to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Dutchman's-breeches, mayapple, jack-in-the-pulpit, rhesus monkey, Rocky Mountain sheep, Cooper's hawk." --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:13, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

That is for SENTENCES not titles. You are misapplying the rule. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] Xkcdreader (talk) 09:17, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

No I'm not - we use sentence case for article titles. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:22, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

American black bear is the TITLE of an article. It should be written in TITLE CASE not SENTENCE CASE. Letter_case#Headings_and_publication_titles Xkcdreader (talk) 09:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It's an article title, but it's not the title of a bear. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:AT: "Use lower case, except for proper names". --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:25, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you please stop citing the rules you wrote? I can see the way you currently do things, and it doesn't make it right. Xkcdreader (talk) 09:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I didn't write them. They've been here a long time. Please stop trying to force your view on Wikipedia. Just because you don't like the way things are done, does not make them wrong. Please stop trying to disrupt Wikipedia like this. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:27, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Oxford Manual of Style" (2002) suggests capitalizing "the first word and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, but generally not articles, conjunctions and short prepositions." I am not trying to disrupt wikipedia, you constantly having a rebuttal to everything I say is equally, if not more, disruptive. Xkcdreader (talk) 09:29, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll concede being wrong on this one. Back to proper nouns, let's move along. I still think if the title itself is a singular noun, using sentence case makes no sense. Newspapers and Science journals use sentence case because their titles are USUALLY sentence fragments. "American black bear" is a noun phrase not a sentence fragment, and sentence case doesn't make all that much sense. All you have done is appealed to tradition, which is not HELPFUL. I wouldn't have such a problem with you if you gave reasons WHY rules existed, instead of just throwing a list of rules and walking away. If you want to reduce future problems, maybe try justifying why the rules the way they are when people question them. Xkcdreader (talk) 09:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Under further investigation, the Chicago Manual of Style that keeps being cited suggests TITLE CASE for article titles, as does the The Associated Press Stylebook. Unless someone can explain why we are using sentence case for noun phrases, I think it should be changed REGUARDLESS of how long it has been that way. Appeal to tradition http://grammar.about.com/od/grammarfaq/f/capitalstitle.htm Xkcdreader (talk) 09:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

So now you think that our use of sentence case for article titles, as well as our whole MoS is wrong? I'm not sure why you continue to contribute seeing as you disagree with nearly all the guidelines. Most editors, whilst they may question them, do seem to manage to come round to the reasoning behind the guidelines after a while, without trying to change them to fit their view. The article you link to shows that there are different methods. We use sentence case. Deal with it. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe I would come around quicker if you could explain why rules are the way they are instead of just regurgitating them. Oxford, Chicago, MLA, and AP Stylebook all advocate TITLE CASE. Have you seen The Time Machine? The Eloy still hide underground when they hear sirens, even though they don't know what the sound means? You have yet to explain why you use sentence case for titles that are nouns. If you don't feel like explaining why, maybe sit back and let someone more helpful respond to me. You are really good at restating rules when I ask for justification of the rules. Xkcdreader (talk) 09:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Re-read your opening entry to this section. Do you think or research before you write? You just assert that you are right and Wikipedia is wrong at every turn, and assume that the guidelines are poorly though out. Of course you're going to put peoples backs up. Maybe the answers you are looking for could be found in the archives. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:07, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Did you read the title of this section before you posted in it? I'll take it you can't explain why wikipedia uses sentence case for noun titles? And can you just back off and let someone else talk? I've had this problem with you since I met you. You don't need to be the first to respond to everything I say. Can we stick to the topic instead of talking about each other? Why not just let someone else talk to me if it is so frustrating for you? If you're not going to be helpful and link to an answer, why bother? Nothing you said in the last response was constructive. Xkcdreader (talk) 10:14, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes - maybe I do react too quickly to your incendiary posts. It's hard not to bite when someone posts "The MOS rules are arbitrary and poorly formed" --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:21, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Focus_on_content Xkcdreader (talk) 10:39, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I recommend that this whole section be moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, particularly if it is to continue. Preferably without the personal attacks. —Frungi (talk) 11:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It actually relates to WP:TITLEFORMAT, not the MOS, despite X's use of MOS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey i did something right, sort of. Xkcdreader (talk)

Some written publications display their articles' titles in title case. Others use sentence case. Both are valid house styles.
The English Wikipedia's decision to use sentence case was made long before I'd heard of the project (and I haven't investigated the reasoning behind it), but I do know that sentence case conveys which words/phrases are intrinsically capitalized (a semantic distinction absent from title case). —David Levy 12:18, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe it's always been done this way, and probably been tradition so long, no one has thought to question it. You are right it is a "valid" choice. Sentence case is used by newspapers and science journals because their titles act as sentence fragments. "American black bear cured of aids like disease" or "Baseball player hit in head with ball, likely admitted to heaven and baseball hall of fame." It doesn't make nearly as much sense to use sentence case for a title that is a simple noun phrase like "American Black Bear." Like I said above, Oxford, Chicago, MLA, and AP Stylebook all advocate TITLE CASE for this scenario. You tend to see Sentence Case in places like The Economist and Nature. My suspicion is that Wikipedia erroneously emulated newspapers without analyzing the nuances and distinctions between news (sentence like) and encyclopedia titles. Xkcdreader (talk) 12:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this is an encyclopedia, and as such the article titles are supposed to be descriptive of the subject, and not attention-grabbing headline type titles. In that respect it makes more sense to use sentence case. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, the Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't even use the initial capital for "black bear". --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:10, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

We have been using Sentence Case since at least 2006 (which was when I first started to edit). So any discussion that explained why we chose to do so (and chose not to use Title Case) would have taken place before that date. Had I been around when the discussion took place, I would have suggested using Title Case for noun titles ("Black Bear", "Rocky Mountains", "Boston Massacre", etc.), and Sentence Case for descriptive titles ("History of slavery", "Development of the urinary and reproductive organs", etc.}
It is important to remember that our "rules" are made by consensus, and that consensus can change over time... a decision made six years ago can be revisited now, to see if the Wikipedia community still agrees with it. And if the community no longer agrees with it... we can and should change the "rules".
That said, I have no idea whether the consensus on Sentence Case vs. Title Case has changed or not (I would suggest starting a discussion at WP:Village pump to find out). However... if consensus has changed, it will require a LOT of work to implement . Thousands of articles will have to be retitled. It may not be worth the effort. Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It looks as if we have almost the exact same views here as well. Noun titles and Descriptive titles should be treated as two different discussions. It may not seem to be worth the effort, but there also seems to be a huge effort coming from the MOS to retitle a large portion of WP already. If the effort is going to be put in to rename all these pages, the discussion of the rules should be reopened, before we commit to the wrong rabbit hole. If it really is 7 years old, I consider that even more reason to talk about the rule. As I read more about this issue, I see it has already gone to arbitration once. The MOS/uniformity push is causing problems. A lot of problems. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:06, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

And where, exactly, are these guidelines causing "a lot of problems", and where is the "huge effort" to retitle per MOS? A link to the arbitration could be useful if you can provide. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:12, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, we should be internally consistent. We shouldn't be using title case for some articles (unless of course it is a "title"), and sentence case for others. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Says you, and some other people. If the bird community uses one convention, and the bear community uses a different convention that is an issue you have to deal with individually. You can't make a blanket rule and push it on all of them. That isn't how consensus works. Your preference for universal uniformity does not outweigh their preference for standardized convention within their field. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you've got that a little backward. There is consensus for uniformity throughout Wikipedia, and this uniformity should be paramount. However, the "bird community" have got away with it by shouting loudly. Personally I can see no reason not to bring the bird naming convention back into line with the rest of Wikipedia as it's pure WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, but all the attempts have failed, and most of us have given up! --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:39, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Because credibility is a primary objective in the creation of any reference work, and because Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah - the genre in question is reference work. Not birds. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The majority of reference works about birds capitalize their names. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:48, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an general encyclopedia, not a reference book about birds. Lets not make this about birds. It's a sensitive and contentious issue and will just muddy the issue. However, I believe you misinterpreted the guideline you quoted - we should stick to conventions widely used in reference work, i.e. other encyclopedia. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

If other sources make an exception for birds ... that would be a "convention widely used in reference work ie other encyclopedias." (and can you cut it out with the me forcing my views on others rhetoric. Ive kept this to the talk page, and have not made a SINGLE edit to any of the articles themselves. Im trying to have a discussion not an edit war.) Xkcdreader (talk) 13:59, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The point here is that it is widely accepted that we should be internally consistent. The bird thing is an anomaly, and we shouldn't be using it as an example. (And what edit war? I don't see one...) --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I am going to assume youre not being purposely obtuse. I asked you to cut out the "disruptive/forcing my views" rhetoric. If that were the case I would be editing policy itself and not talking about it on talk pages. I'm NOT causing an edit war, which was my point. Xkcdreader (talk) 14:09, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You do have a habit of calling the guidelines "wrong" just because you don't like them. That isn't constructive, and it makes it look like you are being disruptive by rubbing everyone up the wrong way. The guidelines aren't wrong, just different to what you would like to see. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:19, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

What "problem" is caused by our use of sentence case for article titles and section headings? What benefit(s) would a switch to title case (or a partial switch, which would make our conventions more complicated and more likely to be misunderstood) provide?

I noted an advantage of sentence case above. Another is that capitalization (or the absence thereof) sometimes serves as disambiguation (e.g. Red meat and Red Meat). Presumably, we'd need to identify these cases, determine whether a primary topic exists, append parenthetical qualifiers to one/both/all titles, and update the affected internal links (with no control over the external links suddenly leading to the wrong articles). For what benefit(s)? —David Levy 13:23, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The problem is over-enforcement of the MOS not necessarily the guidelines themselves. The overly complicated guidelines are causing enforcement to turn into insane debates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation The idea of consensus is being ignored in favor of blanket enforcement of uniformity. That is a problem. My goal here is to make the rules simpler and make conclusions easier to reach without consulting 40 documents to see which way it should be capitalized. From my point of view the MOS needs to be weakened, so places like Birds can use their own agreed upon convention, and proper nouns reflect their (standardized) English orthography. A couple simple rule changes drastically reduce the debate over which title is correct. Maybe it should be "black bear" and "red meat" (Rob briefly mentioned Britannica before deleting his comment.) Xkcdreader (talk) 13:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, yeah, I moved it, as I thought it more appropriate elsewhere, but to repeat it, the Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't even use the initial capital for "black bear". --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

They don't use sentence case either. Is the only reason for sentence case the technical restriction? if so, that is sort of embarrassing. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• I've always assumed that preferring sentence case for titles, which is slightly unusual, was an arbitrary choice. I don't see a problem with that, not seeing a down side to it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:25, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Sentence case in titles is far superior to title case because it retains the important signalling function of upper-case letters in normal usage. It was only because of the limitations of typewriters during the pre-computer 20th century that capping initials became the standard way of highlighting titles (you could use caps or underline—that's all). Computers have brought a wealth of highlighting devices; This Makes The Mania For Capping Even The Littlest Words In Headlines By The New York Times Et Al. Very Puzzling. WP's decision to use normal case was an early and excellent decision. It makes our titles easier to read, avoids the ugly, obstructive alphabet soup effect, and above all enables functional caps to mean something in titles. Tony (talk) 13:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

This section has gotten so long already that points are already being ignored and repeated. You are ignoring the difference between "Title Case for noun titles ("Black Bear", "Rocky Mountains", "Boston Massacre", etc.), and Sentence Case for descriptive titles ("History of slavery", "Development of the urinary and reproductive organs", etc.}" We have already discussed this, and it seems everyone agrees that Sentence case should be used for sentence fragments. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Which would lead to internal inconsistency and should be avoided. As David points out above "a partial switch [...] would make our conventions more complicated and more likely to be misunderstood". --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

What's wrong with internal inconsistency? Blueboar (talk) 14:23, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It's unprofessional and causes confusion. You need to be consistent so that both editors and readers who are familiar with the conventions know best how to find / create articles. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:28, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

This claim is bollocks imho. 1) redirects exist 2) nobody is actually having trouble finding articles. Besides if we change the convention so noun phrases are all caps or no caps, editors should become familiar with the convention change. No problems are caused. It isnt unprofessional nor does it cause confusion. Nobody outside of MOS enforcers are confused by capital bird articles. Xkcdreader (talk) 14:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Please stop this assumption that I am some kind of "MOS enforcer". Yes, I might be a stickler for the rules some times, and I don't believe in changing guidelines without a compelling argument and good reason to do so. The guidelines we have in this matter are, to my mind sufficient, and we shouldn't be changing them on a whim, just because an editor doesn't like them. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". You seem to be saying that we should either use no caps or all caps (title case) for "noun phrases". If you're advocating either, why not throw your hat in the ring with sentence case too? What is so wrong with the sentence case that we are currently using? As we have demonstrated, it is widely in use elsewhere. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you are an enforcer because you refuse to let exceptions to guidelines occur. "As we have demonstrated, it is widely in use elsewhere." Except you have not demonstrated it is used WIDELY elsewhere, you came up with a couple examples of Black bear. The vast majority of sources are black bear followed by Black Bear. http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=black+bear%2CBlack+bear%2CBlack+Bear&year_start=1740&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share= Xkcdreader (talk) 14:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

So, just to be clear, it's not good etiquette to call people names, or to call good guidelines "wrong". And I am happy to allow exceptions if there is overwhelming support and good reason to do so. Doesn't mean I won't argue against them if I disagree. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I noted some problems that would be caused. You replied without addressing them.

The bird issue is a red herring (my apologies for tossing a fish into the mix). It isn't confined to article titles or directly impacted by the style convention under discussion. The styling "American Goldfinch" appears throughout the article's prose because the capitalization of "Goldfinch" has been deemed an intrinsic element of the bird's name (a distinction that sentence case preserves, as noted above). Whether that practice is justified or not, our use of sentence case doesn't affect it. Only the convention that you advocate would result in capitalization changes within titles (and resultant inconsistency with the articles' prose). —David Levy 14:53, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

FYI... Just so we can have accurate background information, I am trying to track down the original discussions that resulted in our "rule" to use Sentence Case (assuming it wasn't an arbitrary decision) I have not yet found them with a quick look through the archives at MOS (it is possible that the discussions were held somewhere else)... so I have asked for help (at the VPP) to locate them. I will let you know if I find them. Blueboar (talk) 14:06, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, since it will make no difference, I don't know why you're bothering to track it down. I find it extraordinary that you're asking "what's wrong with internal inconsistency" on a website that takes itself seriously. Tony (talk) 14:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar and I are making the point that reflecting REALITY should be given precedence over INTERNAL consistency. We should reflect real world usage and standardization. That is what it means to be a credible encyclopedia. Xkcdreader (talk) 14:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Whether we should use the styling "black bear" or "Black Bear" has absolutely no bearing (no pun intended) on the convention under discussion. If we decide on "Black Bear", that's what will appear in our articles' titles and prose. Sentence case doesn't remove intrinsic capitalization. —David Levy 15:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Why does the title have to match the prose? Do you really think people would be confused if the title was "Black Bear" and the article referred to it as a "black bear." There is no reason the style of a title must match the usage in the article itself. I would also be fine discussing lowercasing non proper nouns. red meat, black bear. Then there should be exceptions in commonname for things like Birds where a standards organization has come up with a widely agreed upon naming convention. If you didn't notice, the point of this sections was exploratory, I asked WHY the rule was the way it was. Everyone enforcing the rule couldn't explain why it existed in its current form. That is not good. That's how Eloi die. Xkcdreader (talk) 15:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

A simple "can anyone point me to the discussion where it was decided we use sentence case" would have been exploratory. Instead, in your very first entry, you claimed that "the MOS rules are arbitrary and poorly formed", that "title case is more appropriate" and that "the MOS was written by a small faction of people and enforced around wikipedia without gaining site wide consensus" without backing it up. That's not exploratory, as it seeks to court controversy. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:44, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Then why not ignore it and not feed the controversy? And if you read the links below, the decision was fairly arbitrary and mostly made for reasons that are completely irrelevant now. In that sense I was right. Xkcdreader (talk) 15:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The end does not justify the means. Winding other editors up and openly criticising guidelines without doing your homework on the off-chance you might be right isn't the way to behave. Besides, I don't have time to go through all the previous conversations to see why we do it, nor do I really care. It works as it is, it's not a style guideline we invented, and there's no compelling reason to change. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Look, if you think I'm causing controversy, don't feed it. If you don't have time then I'm confused as to why you are participating in the conversation in the first place. The question was why, not please argue with xkcdreader. I contend it was a style guideline that was invented here. From my reading of the material, it is largely a side effect of technical aspects, which IMHO is a silly reason to stick by it. PLEASE point me to the external style guidelines that advocate Sentence case for non proper noun titles. Newspapers and Journals use it for descriptive titles. There isn't exactly precedent for the way it is used here. It's fine if you don't want to change it. Xkcdreader (talk) 16:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Why does the title have to match the prose?

My point is that our use of sentence case for our article titles and section headings doesn't remove uppercase styling appearing in prose (so if we decide to include it in the names of birds, bears, plants or patio furniture, this policy won't interfere). You're conflating two largely unrelated issues.

There is no reason the style of a title must match the usage in the article itself.

It isn't something that must occur, but benefits have been cited. I await your assessment thereof, as well as the problems that your proposed changes would cause. I also await an explanation of the benefit(s) that would arise (apart from consistency with your personal preference).

If you didn't notice, the point of this sections was exploratory, I asked WHY the rule was the way it was. Everyone enforcing the rule couldn't explain why it existed in its current form.

We've cited advantages. You've ignored them. —David Levy 15:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

And what was the advantage of Sentence case over lower case for non proper noun titles? Xkcdreader (talk) 16:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to sentence case's advantages over title case.

As you noted, a technical restriction currently prevents us from beginning an article's title with a lowercase letter. I don't know what changing this would entail (and what problems it might cause), but I believe that it's theoretically possible (given the practices of some other wikis, such as Wiktionary). Whether this would constitute an improvement (let alone one justifying the effort) is debatable. —David Levy 16:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Just thought I’d chime in… “If you didn't notice, the point of this sections was exploratory”—not judging by your opening post. Your point seemed not to be “this is odd, why do we do it this way?”, but “this is undeniably WRONG and we need to change it!” accompanied by rhetorical questions. If you start off (and then continue) a discussion with entirely the wrong tone, you’re gonna get people confused and not responding the way you’d expected. —Frungi (talk) 17:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Sentence case came about after we stopped using CamelCase (see Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia) in 2001. Start with Wikipedia:Article titles (6 November 2001) and Wikipedia:Canonicalization (5 October 2001). — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:59, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Interesting... thanks Hex. That explains a lot.

It seems that the choice was originally between using CamelCase ("BlackBear" or "HistoryOfSlavery") and Sentence case ("Black bear" and "History of slavery"). I actually agree with our decision when faced with that choice ("Sentence case" is much better than "CamelCase"). The next question is whether we ever discussed the pros and cons between "Sentence case" and "Title Case"? Blueboar (talk) 17:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, it appears that case itself did not matter. "For instance: naming conventions, naming Conventions, Naming conventions, Naming Conventions ...will all link to the same page (which will be titled titled "Naming Conventions"). One could link to http.../naming_conventions or http.../naming_Conventions, etc." Xkcdreader (talk) 17:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

That only works if there are redirects in place. Otherwise case does matter in the links. older ≠ wiser 17:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Hence the use of past tense. =P He was quoting the “March 28, 2001 update” in this archived discussion. Apparently, the old software treated wikilinks as case-insensitive. —Frungi (talk) 18:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

That's nothing. You should have seen the problems we had before redirects were invented. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

To cut to the point... We originally went with Sentence case due to limitations of the software that existed back in 2001... these limitations in the software limited our options when it came to titles. However, at least some of those original software related reasons why we went with Sentence case formatted titles no longer apply. For example, we now have piped links, which allow us to use different capitalization between the Title of an article and how it appears when linked in article text (and we can link without the need for a redirect)... something we could not do back in 2001. Changes in the software mean that, now, in 2013, we have more options as to how we are able to format our titles (options that we did not have when we created the sentence case "rule"). And given that we now have more options, perhaps it is time to revisit the "rule" and see whether it still has consensus or whether we should modify it. Blueboar (talk) 18:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

As this is a fundamental change, this would need participation on a Wiki-wide scale. I can see no compelling reason to make this change, and I doubt it would garner consensus, but of course, if anyone is willing to make a proposal with a compelling case for the change please ensure that it is made in the correct forum, so that it reaches the widest possible number of interested editors. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:27, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course. No one has suggested making such a significant change without good discussion and wide consensus. Indeed, I am not even sure how I would vote if this came up in an RFC... I just wanted to make sure that we all understood the context of why we made the "Sentence case rule" in the first place, and at least consider the idea that this context might no longer be relevant, and the "rule" outdated. Blueboar (talk) 19:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it is, but I do think that every rule should have some associated footnote explaining how it came to be. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia still treats lowercase first letters (in links) as upper case right? Theoretically, would there be any consequence, besides loss of labor, to adding "lowercase title" to pages with non proper noun titles, such as "red meat" and "black bear"? Xkcdreader (talk) 00:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• The history of sentence case for Wikipedia titles is interesting to several of us and well worth documenting in an essay. As for changing this styling, I think it would create great confusion and trouble where there is virtually none. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Move to close

I would move to close the foregoing discussion. All the arguments seem to have been raised, and I detect absolutely no consensus to change the status quo. Our sentence case appears to be a firmly embedded and supported house style. The counter-argumentation also seems to place a huge reliance on the exception/exemption claimed by the birds community for the vanity capitalisation of their subjects (although we know the point is moot because their arguments rely on them claiming specific names are proper nouns). Be reminded that although local consensus is essential in our participation model – and is all that is usually necessary – it can never supplant or trump general consensus. Anyone who disagrees that we should retain sentence case for our articles is free, subject to accepting that consensus doesn't change every month, to launch an RfC to try overturning the rule. I guess it's fair enough to revisit this after six years. IMHO, such an attempt likely to go down in flames bearing in mind the discussion we've had up to this point, but if it will prove the lone dissenting voice is actually Tonto ;-), then perhaps it's a price worth paying. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:01, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The capitalization of the common names of species really has nothing to do with whether different case rules should be used for different kinds of title, which is what Xkcdreader seems to prefer. If the common name of a species forms an article title, then if it is fully capitalized in the text, it is in the title; if it is not fully capitalized in the text, then sentence case is used in the title. I'm sad to see the "birds issue" dragged up yet again. For the record only, Ohconfucius' account of the issue above is one-sided and the use of pejorative terms such as "vanity" wholly inappropriate. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

As you might recall, you and I have different views regading the capitalization of common names of species (and bird species in particular). I'm pleased to see that we're in agreement that the issue is irrelevant to the above discussion and needn't be dredged up here and now. —David Levy 13:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

No proposal was made. If you don't want to see the discussion about where the rules came from and why they exist in there current form, don't look here. There is no reason to close this, talking about the rules isn't hurting anyone. As far as sentence case itself, it goes against nearly every style manual, unless in reference to descriptive titles. Xkcdreader (talk) 03:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Can't you read???? The sub-section title says Move to close, and the opening sentence says "I would move to close the foregoing discussion". You're the only person pursuing this, AFAICT. So please put up or shut up. If you want to know the reason why, you should yourself be bothered to comb through the archives for the original rationale, or it will surely come out in the RfC discussion. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:24, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

It's fairly evident you have not read the above section. Xkcdreader (talk) 03:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support closure. This is not a productive discussion. Tony (talk) 05:00, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
• Support the retention of sentence case for titles, and support documentation of the history at Wikipedia:Titling in sentence case and ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Titling in sentence case. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:40, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• ongoing discussion of the history, I mean. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support closure as no proposal to change has been made, and the discussion does not add anything. Would suggest we suspend any ongoing discussion as suggested by Smokey Joe until such time as someone can make a compelling case for change. If we do revisit it, I don't think Wikipedia talk:Titling in sentence case is the correct place for the discussion, as it would constitute a fundamental change. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:06, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Why close down a discussion? If you don't want to take part, just don't. A proposal to change such a fundamental policy would be a very different matter, but none was made. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
• There is nothing to "close". This is a talk page discussion, not some sort of formal RfC. Unlike a formal RfC, discussion threads are not "closed". They simply die off of their own accord when no one has anything further to say on the topic... at which point they quietly slip into the archives as we move on to discuss other things. Blueboar (talk) 13:01, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• I think the concern was that the discussion was seen as disruptive, and that we should "close" the discussion unless a more formal proposal was considered. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• Disruptive? In what way? What exactly was this discussion disrupting? ... hell, the only thing I find even remotely "disruptive" here is the attempt to shut down (ie "close") the discussion while people still have something to say. Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that the discussion isn't disruptive. It has the potential to become disruptive, but only if we allow it to spiral into another fruitless "bird" debate (which would be unfortunate, as that issue really has nothing to do with this policy or Xkcdreader's criticism thereof). —David Levy 13:40, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

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

Objection to "closing" the above discussion

If anything in the last few days has been disruptive, it is the attempt to "shut down" the above discussion. I want to register my strong objection. I have asked for ANI to look into this. Blueboar (talk) 15:28, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Re Hex's side note in his "closure" comments above ("As a side note, Xkcdreader is contradicting herself by stating that No proposal was made, when this section begins with 'TITLES that represent names should be'... which is a proposal.")... I disagree. Xkcdreader's comment was not a proposal... it was a statement of her opinion (and we are all entitled to have opinions, and to state them.) Blueboar (talk) 15:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

To my mind it was purposefully incendiary and was unconstructive, and therefore disruptive. Let's move on and if necessary we can open a constructive debate. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:45, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I am amazed at how two people can participate in the same discussion and come away with such completely different attitudes about it. I certainly did not find anyone's comments to be "purposefully incendiary and unconstructive". Did people disagree? sure... but we were all being civil and respectful about it. So what did you find incendiary and unconstructive about the discussion? Blueboar (talk) 17:49, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe there were several accusations and assumptions of bad faith traded between Rob and Xkcdreader, and some comments that were just shy of personal attacks, especially early in that discussion. That may be what was perceived as disruptive, as well as opening the discussion by declaring unequivocally that we’re doing it wrong. —Frungi (talk) 21:51, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I would like to say that I may be abrasive at times, my levity may not convey well through text, and I sometimes get distracted by tangents, but what I find most infuriating is the group of people that decide what others are allowed to talk about on talk pages. The same thing happened on the page im not suppose to talk about. I was having a conversation with people, and others who DIDNTLIKE the conversation, come in and close it. If Blueboar, Hex, Frungi, and I want to have a conversation, and you don't like the conversation, no one is forcing you to join it and voice your opposition. That IS disruptive. The brick wall that refuses to work with anyone they disagree with is the problem here. I'm willing to be proven wrong, meet people half way, change my mind, and come to new conclusions. Im not willing to stop challenging traditions just because "that's the way we do it." If we are not allowed to even question dogma, there is a major problem. And the idea that the MOS has sitewide consensus is laughable or some more PC word I cant think of. The MOS is the center of MULTIPLE major contentious issues. If anything the MOS is a localconsensus. Consensus is suppose people who are willing to work together. If youre not willing to work WITH people to come to an agreeable accord, you are removing yourself from the consensus process. Xkcdreader (talk)

I didn't detect your levity. Maybe you should put on a funny font? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:41, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

While Xkcdreader did start off the discussion on the wrong foot, it was ultimately about determining the origin of the naming convention, and it was quite informative in that respect. It may or may not be leading up to a proposal, but this discussion was hardly “disruptive”; it was educational. If there is a more appropriate place for a discussion about the history of Wikipedia practices, I vote that it publicly be moved rather than simply shut down. —Frungi (talk) 16:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Register?

• Note WP:MOS has a register here: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register. Should we have something like that for the WP:AT page? --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

That seems a very good idea. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:49, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Not sure there is a need for it... Doesn't the search archives function do the same thing? Blueboar (talk) 14:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, if anyone can be bothered to search them! With a register, you can link specific decisions per section to the related discussion in the archive. Just thought it might be a useful additional tool if anyone could be bothered... --15:02, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

New question relating to Title Case

The above discussion got me wondering... how many new articles start off using Title Case and have to be retitled to conform to Sentence case? Any way to find out? Blueboar (talk) 16:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

On second thought... this is probably better asked at WT:RM... they are more likely to know the answer than anyone here. Blueboar (talk) 17:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

In my experience, articles written by inexperienced editors and with a promotional tone (even if they are suitable, encyclopedic subjects) tend to use title case fairly often. It's not hard to move them, though, and the only time RM would hear about it is if someone needed an admin to move a page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Titles of articles about suicide victims

When there is a suicide about a previously unnotable person that becomes notable because of the death, should the title of the article be the name of the person, or "Suicide of ..."? Discussion here: Wikipedia:VPP#Notability_of_deaths_and_dead_people_who_become_notable_after_death. --B2C 21:33, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

• And a related multi-move proposal: Talk:Suicide_of_Kelly_Yeomans#Requested_move. --B2C 22:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

This isn't really WP:AT issue. Both of the choices (Kelly Yeomans and Suicide of Kelly Yomans) are acceptable options under WP:AT... one is a "Proper Name" title, while the other is a "Descriptive title". This Policy does not favor one or the other. Which to use is a WP:Notability question, factoring in various notability guidelines like WP:ONEEVENT and WP:Notability (people). Personally, I resolve the debate by merging all of the articles in question into a single Suicides cause by bullying article, but that's just me. Blueboar (talk) 00:48, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that per WP:BLP1E that the article should be titled "Suicide of ...".

BLP1E says, "We should generally avoid having an article on a person when each of three conditions is met: If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a single event; If that person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual; and it is not the case that the event is significant and the individual's role within it is substantial and well-documented."

Since you asked about a non-notable person's suicide, I think that all three conditions are met unless it is an exceptionally high-profile suicide (which seems unlikely if the person isn't notable, but not impossible). AgnosticAphid talk 01:35, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I share your concerns about these suicides that are likely to be nothing more than a media storm and then nothing (perhaps in a few years, we'll start merging them into lists), but it would be very helpful if people would comment [[there instead of here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be an awful lot of forum shopping going on. I've lost track of how many places this has been raised and canvassed now. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 22:00, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

RFC-birth date format conformity when used to disambiguate

I have closed my own discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#RFC-birth date format conformity when used to disambiguate. Please feel free to take any action necessary to modify the closure of my own discussion to make it appear more Kosher.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:59, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: WP:TITLEFORMAT... clarifying the first point

OK... I thought this would not be controversial... Obviously my assumption was wrong. (since I was reverted).

The first point of WP:TITLEFORMAT currently reads:

Use lowercase, except for proper names

The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized; subsequent words in a title are not, unless they are part of a proper name, and so would be capitalized in running text; when this is done, the title is simple to link to in other articles: Northwestern University offers more graduate work than a typical liberal arts college. For initial lowercase letters, as in eBay, see the technical restrictions page. For more guidance, see Naming conventions (capitalization).

I find this jumbled and quite confusing... leaving the reader unclear as to the general rule for when one should or should not use various "cases" (ie capitalizations). Would it not be much clearer if we broke the point into two parts...

For descriptive titles, use Sentence case

Descriptive titles are almost always put in sentence case; The initial letter of the first word is capitalized; subsequent words are not capitalized (unless they are a proper name). Examples: Opposition to slavery, History of role-playing video games, (but List of counties in West Virginia)

For titles that are proper names, use Title Case

Proper names are almost always put in Title Case; the initial letter of all parts of the name are capitalized. Examples: Barak Obama, National Football League. (Occasional exceptions to this can occur when WP:COMMONNAME indicates that a non-standard capitalization should be used. Examples: CaliCam, ActRaiser. Note: there are technical restrictions that apply in situations where WP:COMMONNAME indicates a lower case first letter should be used (Example: k.d. lang, eBay)) )

For more guidance on capitalization in titles, see Naming conventions (capitalization).

As I see it, my clarification does not change the "rules" in any way... it just does a better job of explaining them. Blueboar (talk) 01:18, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Your explanation is confusing/misleading, as it conveys that we use a different style for titles that are proper names. That simply isn't true. We're still using sentence case, in which intrinsic capitalization is retained.

Many titles consist partially of proper names. In the title List of cities in Germany by population, "Germany" is capitalized because it's a proper name. Likewise, Universal Studios is a proper name, so it gets capitalized too. In the latter example, we aren't switching to title case. In both instances, we're simply applying normal grammatical rules to our use of sentence case.

Whether a proper name appears as part of the title or composes it in its entirety, it's treated exactly the same way. There's absolutely no reason to single out titles that happen to consist solely of proper names, thereby highlighting a nonexistent distinction. —David Levy 02:08, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

The way the existing wording reads, I understand it to be telling me that the title is supposed to be Universal studios... which I think we both would agree is NOT the intent. Blueboar (talk) 02:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

"...unless they are part of a proper name, and so would be capitalized in running text" —David Levy 02:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying. I have been editing WP for years and do know what the existing text is supposed to mean... But that meaning really isn't clear to the average editor. That's what I am trying to clear up.

Also, I have given several examples of proper names that don't follow Sentence case (in that they have odd, unique capitalization within the words). So, I still think we need to separate descriptive titles from proper name titles in some way, because COMMONNAME can result in weird "non-standard" capitalization. I am more than willing to consider alternatives. Blueboar (talk) 02:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying. I have been editing WP for years and do know what the existing text is supposed to mean... But that meaning really isn't clear to the average editor.

On what do you base this conclusion? I've been here about as long as you have, and I don't recall ever encountering the type of confusion that you describe.

What's unclear about "unless they are part of a proper name"? How, in your view, is the current wording "telling [us] that the title is supposed to be Universal studios"?

Why do you regard titles consisting solely of proper names as distinct cases that must be described separately? Wouldn't the same hypothetical editor believe that the title List of cities in germany by population should be used? What material distinction exists?

Also, I have given several examples of proper names that don't follow Sentence case (in that they have odd, unique capitalization within the words).

The exceptions are addressed. They appear in article titles that are proper nouns (such as iPod) and those that are descriptive (such as List of iPod models). Again, there simply isn't a material distinction. —David Levy 03:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me ask you this... is there anything incorrect with the first paragraph (the one on descriptive titles)... if so, that narrows down the issue. Blueboar (talk) 02:45, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It's inaccurate to draw a distinction between "descriptive titles" and "titles that are proper names". We apply the same rules to both. "Universal Studios" is capitalized for exactly the same reason as "Germany" in the title List of cities in Germany by population, and it has absolutely nothing to do with title case. —David Levy 03:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that Blueboar's change is not actually helpful, although it was intended to be. The problem is that "Title Case" is just as likely to be misunderstood by those who might find the current wording confusing, and we'll end up with too many capital letters, e.g. "Seven Of Nine" rather than "Seven of Nine" (especially by Those Editors Who Read The Wall Street Journal). On the other hand, "Use lowercase, except for proper names" does seem to prioritize the "lowercase" element too much. What I would like to say is "Use sentence case" and then explain that this means that titles should be styled precisely as they will be if they occur at the start of a sentence in the text of the article. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:28, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar also made this uncommented change against consensus, so I undid it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• I didn't find it confusing. It may not be blindingly obvious, but it is hard to misread. I support clarification, but think it should be completely moved to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). The overlaps and duplications I think are more confusing through obscuring where the rules/explanations are found. The specific thing that I think is most unclear is the boundary between a descriptive name and a proper name. With use, descriptive names become proper, and some cases are ambiguous. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:49, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

• For example, at Talk:Vidal Blanc, we see a bunch of grapes are looking like their apparently proper names (the original authors thought so?) actually contain a descriptor. This sort of thing, whether the Vidal is blanc or the Vidal Blanc is white, deserves space in a guideline, not in policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:10, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

"Vidal blanc" is even more complex, because of the language issue. If it's a proper noun phrase and in French, then the lower-case "b" appears to be normal French styling (but then the title should in in italics, in my view, to show that it is not in English). If it's a proper noun phrase and is considered to have been assimilated into English, then upper-case "B" would be correct. If it's a descriptive noun phrase, then why is it not in English, i.e. "White Vidal"? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:14, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It would be accurate to replace the 'use lowercase' line with this:

Always use sentence case, which means lowercase for everything except proper names

WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

And the first word. —Frungi (talk) 04:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I would avoid "proper name"; it will just create arguments over what is or is not a proper name (as we've seen elsewhere). Just say, as I suggested above, "use sentence case" and then explain that this means that titles should be styled precisely as they will be if they occur at the start of a sentence in the text of the article. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:58, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Hiding the difficult points is a poor way to guide. There is a link. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names. That guideline should not point back here for guidance on proper names, instead that guideline should accurately paraphrase this policy. Is there a reason that MOS page is separate to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:09, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting "hiding" anything. What is or is not a "proper name" is a difficult and contentious issue in English. There are significant disagreements in the linguistic community. Once you move outside the categories of geographical names, personal names, etc., specific decisions have to be made (e.g. should the names of breeds of animals be capitalized?). All that matters for titles is that Wikipedia uses sentence case. Guidance on what is capitalized in text and titles belongs under the relevant topic (acronyms, programming languages, scientific names of organisms, names of planets, common names of organisms, names of cultivated plants, names of breeds, etc.). Peter coxhead (talk) 07:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I've been reading Proper noun. Interesting. Why are we using "name" when we don't distinguish from "noun"? The MOS is comparatively amateur in grounding. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:23, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Per proper noun: "only single-word proper names are proper nouns: "Peter" and "Africa" are both proper names and proper nouns; but "Peter the Great" and "South Africa", while they are proper names, are not proper nouns." --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:48, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

"South Africa" isn't a proper noun?? Blueboar (talk) 13:45, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Apparently not, according to our own article on the subject. Personally, I always assumed the two to be synonymous, but maybe this isn't the case. Going to do a bit of digging... --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

A noun is a category of word. "Africa" is a noun; "south" and "southern" are adjectives; so "South Africa" and "southern Africa" are noun phrases. In many circumstances such differentiation is unimportant, and non-linguists sometimes use "proper noun" loosely to mean a (proper) name, including noun phrases with a proper noun as their head (e.g. "South Africa") and names with a common noun as their head (e.g. "United States of America"); cf.:

• A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Quirk et al.; Section 5.60):

"We may therefore draw a distinction between a PROPER NOUN, which is a single word and a NAME, which may or may not consist of more than one word."

• The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston and Pullum; pp. 516–517):

"The central cases of proper names are expressions which have been conventionally adopted as the name of a particular entity [. . .] or entities. [. . .] Proper nouns by contrast, are word-level units belonging to the category noun. Clinton and Zealand are proper nouns, but New Zealand is not. [. . .] We distinguish [. . .] between strong proper names like Kim or New York, where there is no determiner, and weak proper names like the Thames or the Bronx, where definiteness is redundantly marked by the define article the."

• The Oxford English Grammar (Greenbaum; Section 4.4):

"Names may consist of a combination of a proper noun with other words (adjectives, common nouns, prepositional phrases), and it is usual for the initial letters of each open-class word in the name to be written in capitals . . ."--Boson (talk) 16:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I ask people to note carefully that proper names are "conventionally" adopted as the names of entity/ies, and that it is "usual" for the initial letters of nouns, adjectives and other open-class words (not e.g. prepositions) in proper names to be capitalized. There have been too many dogmatic statements from both supporters and opponents of capitalising particular categories. Some linguists do not consider "weak proper names" to be proper nouns or noun phrases, because they do not obey the syntax rules they use to define them (e.g. not requiring a determiner when morphologically singular). That's one reason why it's important to distinguish between the semantic category "name" and the syntactic category "noun (phrase)". Peter coxhead (talk) 17:32, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

This is getting us a bit off track, but now I'm even more confused... why would "United States of America" be a proper noun but not "South Africa"? (aren't "United" and "South" both adjectives, modifying the nouns "States of America" and "Africa" respectively?) Blueboar (talk) 17:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

"United States of America" is not a noun, since a noun is a word. "United States of America" is a noun phrase (a sequence of words) containing one adjective/participle ("united"), one common noun in the plural ("states"), and one prepositional phrase consisting of a preposition ("of") and a proper noun ("America").--Boson (talk) 18:14, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Can we at lest clarify the example

I think we need to clarify the explanation of why we format the title in Sentence case... it currently reads:

• When this is done, the title is simple to link to in other articles: Northwestern University offers more graduate work than a typical liberal arts college.

Now, you and I (experienced editors) know that this is accurate... but to a new user there appears to be a contradiction ... we just said that the first letter should almost always be capitalized... fine, but in the example we include a link that does not capitalize the first letter (liberal arts college). Now, we experienced editors understand the difference between a link and a title... and that links actually ignore capitalization ... but new users will not understand this. They may read this example and get confused... They will wonder whether Liberal arts college is supposed to be formatted with a lower case initial letter "l" (as done in the link) or an upper case "L". Any suggestions on how to clarify this? Blueboar (talk) 13:37, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

It's the first letter of the word that begins the sentence that is capitalized. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

"liberal arts college" in the above example does not begin a sentence, yet the article title capitalizes the first letter. Why is this? —Frungi (talk) 18:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Because we use "sentence case" for titles and headings, in other words we treat a heading or title like a sentence as regards capitalization. --Boson (talk) 18:24, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

If an article's title begins with a letter, it's always uppercase on a technical level (and all but a few exceptions are displayed accordingly). How could said capitalization possibly depend on whether a particular link to the article begins a sentence? —David Levy 18:30, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Getting back to the original point, surely this isn't the reason why we now use sentence case for titles? It may be why sentence case was originally used, but the software was then much less flexible. We use sentence case now simply because this is the style chosen for the English Wikipedia. There's now no functional reason. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I don’t think Blueboar’s concern has been addressed. The page says to capitalize the first letter of article names, and then doesn’t. How should this be clarified? —Frungi (talk) 19:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I’ve just tried to do so. I don’t think I’ve altered any meaning except for the added clarification. —Frungi (talk) 19:10, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Legislative acts

Among the options for titles of legal acts, statutory enactments, are the citation form or the normal English form. For example recently a number of acts have been moved from their normal English form to a citation form. See, e.g., Consumer Protection Act of 1986 and Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The slightly telegraphic, "Consumer Protection Act, 1986" (also "Consumer Protection Act (1986)") was substituted for the normal English form which is "Consumer Protection Act of 1986". In general Wikipedia does not use abbreviated forms, for example for journal titles. In the age of texting there is a tendency to shorten and abbreviate. We should resist those temptations, and use normal English, per WP:MOS, and a natural title (naturalness) per this policy, and not a legalese form. --Bejnar (talk) 20:40, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi there! I'm part of a project of people working on writing articles on notable pieces of U.S. legislation. We've been debating article titles for a while. The problem with the United States Congress is that it tends to reuse bill names from Congress to Congress, if the bill didn't pass the first time. It also automatically reuses numbers, starting back at #1 every new Congress. I'm on the side of people that, regarding United States legislation, articles should be titled "Short Title (HR/S#;XXXth Congress)" This provides the most robust title - the official short title (which people might use to search, and which Congress reuses from one year to the next), the bill number, and the Congress (which tells you the time period). You can see our debate about it here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data. "CISPA" and the "Marketplace Fairness Act" are both cases of legislation with titles that are being reused in the 113th Congress after failing in the 112th. Do you have any comments on this? Thanks. HistoricMN44 (talk) 21:20, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

However, in India the Bill names or numbers are not reused (except if such Bill was withdrawn and later re-introduced, which separate Bill number). The reliable sources in India mostly uses a "citation form" rather than "normal English form" to refer to such legislative titles. Generally Acts are not written in the fashion "xxx Act of 19xx" in legal books or elsewhere. Though the "normal English form" may be used while reading out the name of the Act, such titles in the written form is generally uncommon. Other countries like South Africa, England, New Zealand (Commonwealth Countries) follows the pattern "XXX Act 19XX" or more correctly "XXX Act, 19XX". Further, I think using of the year after the title helps in distinguishing from other Acts of similar title (or Amendment Acts). Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 03:19, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

For example, Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill, 2012 which was passed in the Indian Parliament recently, have been referred by most RS in the format "xxx Act, 20xx" and not "xxx Act of 20xx". NDTV Bar and Bench, PIB, Times of India, Firstpost, The Hindu, Indian Express, Outlook. Bejnar is kindly requested to put forward evidence, if the usage of "xxx Act of 19xx" is a common form in RS in India. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 03:35, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

In the U.S., bills may have a popular name given within the text of the bill, typically in the first section. See discussion in the "Long title, short title, colloquial names, acronyms" section of Template talk:Infobox U.S. legislation. This counsels strongly against changing "Happiness Protection Act of 2013" to "Happiness Protection Act, 2013" or the like, I think. Does there need to be a standard title format for articles about legislation, given varying naming practices in parliaments around the world? Certainly you want one for each country. Maybe consistent standards for the world are possible, but that is a big task! JimHarperDC (talk) 04:55, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

While there is no ambiguity related to the proposition that the most popular name, per WP:COMMONNAME should be used as title, whether it is an official Short title, an official acronym or an unofficial acronym (though acronym are discouraged and are to be used in rare cases). The test would be the most popular usage of title in English language WP:RS, which I guess need to be done on a case to case basis. Framing an universal policy might be difficult, though we may have country specific policies. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 05:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME proposed clarification: specify that many topics don't have a "common name".

Lately I've noticed several instances of editors bringing up this guideline while discussing the titles of articles on very specific, technical subjects that are not only not commonly known among readers of English Wikipedia, but are barely mentioned in any English-language reliable sources. It has apparently been interpreted as meaning that if one or two popular sources made mention of the subject and misspelled the name, we should use the misspelled name rather than the name used in specialist sources. This obviously doesn't make sense since neither is a "common name": can I add clarification on this? Something along the lines of "Some topics are only discussed in English in a small number of specialist sources, or otherwise are not commonly-known among the general public. In these cases the most accurate name, or the one used in the majority of reliable sources, should be treated as though it were the 'common name'." Konjakupoet (talk) 17:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Without looking at the examples that you're concerned with, this clarify seems unnecessarily abstract. Has there been an actual problem of people wanting to use a misspelling or anything like that? Dicklyon (talk) 18:56, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see you linked Talk:Jutte#Requested move above; that seems like more a Romanization or Transliteration issue if the topic has no common name in English. In this case, I don't think commonname is applicable, since it says it's about proper names (although the caffeine example suggests some confusion remains about what it applies to). Dicklyon (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I assume you mean something similar to what is stated at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#No established usage in English-language sources.I think it would be wise to attempt to reach a consensus on the exact wording before making any changes. If the amended text could conceivably be used to support the use of diacritics (even if that is not the motivation for the change), a well-advertised RfC would probably be necessary. Having said that, it might not be worth the effort. --Boson (talk) 19:08, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't need to fix the guidelines to win arguments over diacritics. ;) Dicklyon's above interpretation of COMMONNAME as basically not applying to the problem I am referring to is my interpretation. But I think we should specify it, as some people seem to think "common name" means "name that is used by layman and not by specialists" rather that "name that is commonly known". That seems like a semi-reasonable interpretation of the policy as it is now, so we should probably clarify it. I'm completely open to suggestions about the wording, though. Konjakupoet (talk) 00:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Idludu village

((idludu)), idludu village, sidlaghatta taluk, chikkaballapura district, karnataka state — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.212.1.102 (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:Wikipedia

There is an Rfc at Talk:Wikipedia#RfC: Wikipedia in italics? that may interest you. Please come and read the summary, then include your !vote if you would like to do so. Thank you in advance for your consideration. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 18:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME examples (again)

I have noticed that the number of examples given is creeping up again.
How many examples do we need?
Perhaps more importantly, what kind of examples do we need?
Perhaps we need to discuss why each example is given, and come up with a way to organize/group them. For example, "Caffeine", "Down syndrome", and "Guinea pig" are all science related COMMONNAMES "Bill Clinton" and "Lady Gaga" are both people related COMMONNAMES. Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

COMMONNAME Counter examples?

As long as we are discussing the examples in WP:COMMONNAME, and how they might be misunderstood... I am concerned that editors will misunderstand a key point about WP:COMMONNAME - which is that it is a subject specific application (ie that you can not take the result of a COMMONNAME determination at one article, and apply it as a "rule" in other articles). Offering counterbalancing examples may resolve that. For example, we could counterbalance

• Bill Clinton (not: William Jefferson Clinton)

With

• John F. Kennedy (not: Jack Kennedy)

The idea is to highlight that applying COMMONNAME does not always give you the same end result. Results are determined by the sources - and since the sources don't follow one consistent "rule" from one subject/topic to another, COMMONNAME will result in WP having inconsistent titles... and that is OK. Blueboar (talk) 12:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The specific example is fine, but on the other hand, consistency is one of the five principles, so I wouldn't want to imply that it's simply "OK" to have inconsistent titles. Ideally the five principles would produce the same answer, but in practice they often don't, and a balance has to be struck, which may lead to inconsistency in some cases but to a less commonly recognized title in others. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:54, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying... and we certainly don't want to imply that consistency is "bad". However, I think most people would agree that when we balance the five principles, consistency is usually (but not always) the first to be set aside in favor of the others. It belongs in the five principles... but it sort of marches a half step behind the others. My point though was really focused on COMMONNAME (a function of the principle of Recognizability)... and in that context (and only that context) consistency does not enter into the picture, and inconsistency is OK. Blueboar (talk) 02:18, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Use commonly recognized names

I propose to rename the Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common_names section title to "Use commonly recognizable names in titles".

The current title, "Common names" seems regularly confused as to referring to vernacular or nick names ("common") versus formal names. I think what it means is: "Use commonly recognized names". — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs) 01:11, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

There was a protracted squabble in Sept. 2009 (around here) about whether commonname was a goal, or a strategy in support of recognizability. I agree with you that it should be in support of recognizability, and that the current section title obscures that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks. I had missed that. I think that "common name" can't be a goal without defining "common", and that if it needs definition is is a poor explanation. I meant to put "commonly" in the suggested section title (now inserted), not wanting to break continuity, or recognizability of the section for people expecting to find the old title. I also think the on-screen encouraged shortcut should be changed from "WP:COMMONNAME", given the tendency of many to assume the all-caps oneword is a sufficient summary of what it links to. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:05, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to see the shortcut WP:COMMONNAME deprecated. It's often cited inappropriately in move discussions (Talk:Picea pungens and Talk:Medusagyne are recent examples). I'd also like to see the overlooked footnote 3, "Where the term "common name" appears in this policy it means a commonly or frequently used name, and not a common name as used in some disciplines in opposition to scientific name," brought into the main body of WP:COMMONNAME. Plantdrew (talk) 18:59, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I entirely agree. Some editors clearly misunderstand what "common name" means in this context. (They typically also stress this part of WP:AT to the exclusion of the other four principles – how often do you see WP:PRECISION used in a discussion?) WP:COMMONNAME should really be WP:RECOGNIZABILITY. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

If anyone would read it, WP:COMMONNAME should probably redirect to a section that explains what is not a common name. Sometimes explaining what something is not is better then trying to explain what it is. 23:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

• Is there no opposition to renaming the section title? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:16, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Not from me... I think it is a useful clarification. My call... make the change, and we can discuss further if anyone objects after the fact. I would keep the shortcut, however... people are used to it. Blueboar (talk) 13:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• I have been BOLD and made the change. Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME - The original 4 examples

These were the original 4 WP:COMMONNAME examples when a list was first merged in:

• Bill Clinton (not "William Jefferson Clinton")
• Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento")
• Venus de Milo (not "Aphrodite of Melos")
• Guinea pig (not Cavia porcellus)

The second in the original list was removed with summary "Pelé is not a good example as "Pele" without the squiggle is the common English spelling" - and reverted "the article is titled with the "squiggle" (accent))"

But is there any doubt that the "WP:COMMONNAME" for Edson Arantes do Nascimento does in fact include an accent?

Firstly we know it does (since it is Portuguese). Secondly in English Google Books:

• Pele footballer -pelé "About 2,750 results" since 2000
• Pelé footballer -pele "About 5,450 results" since 2000

So what is the problem with retaining Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento") as one of the 4 original examples? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:42, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

One problem is that your search omits American sources... try your searches with the word "Soccer" instead of "Football"... I suspect the results would be very different.

Another problem is that using Pele/Pelé as an example needlessly gets us into the "Great diacritics debate". While your hit count would support:

• Pele or Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento")

What you are really asking us to say is:

• Pelé (not "Pele" or "Edison Arantes do Nascimento").

Which is not justified. Both Pelé and Pele get thousands of hits. While both are significantly more commonly used when compared to his real name, neither is significantly more common than the other when compared to each other. The choice between "Pelé" vs "Pele" remains unresolved under WP:COMMONNAME. That's why it is a bad example. Blueboar (talk) 13:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record, "Pele footballer -pelé" gets about 7.5 million web hits and Pele footballer -pele" about 2.1 million web hits. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, I thought the purpose of WP:COMMONNAME was to establish commonly used names Bill Clinton (not "William Jefferson Clinton"), Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento"), Venus de Milo (not "Aphrodite of Melos"), Guinea pig (not Cavia porcellus) not to act as some kind of guidance on using basic Anglo ASCII fonts? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:45, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

You miss my point. We don't want to use an example that involves three choices. Yes... both Pelé and Pele are more common than Edison Arantes do Nascimento... but there is great debate over the choice between Pelé or Pele. That choice is more complicated, and involves issues that have nothing to do with the basic concept of COMMONNAME. So, my opinion is that it does not make a good example for use in WP:COMMONNAME... we should not use either Pelé or Pele, because no matter which we use, it will get us away from explaining clearly the the basic concept behind COMMONNAME. Blueboar (talk) 18:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, But why would anyone even raise the "third" choice - which is no choice, and isn't mentioned. You raised above what was and wasn't missing from the WP:COMMONNAME examples, I'm saying that what was made missing in the removal of "Pelé (not "Edison Arantes do Nascimento")." was the possibility that a Non-basicASCII name could be a WP:COMMONNAME. As it stands the Pelé removed list looks unanimously basic ASCII, it could (and has) lead readers to think that only basic ASCII names are WP:COMMONNAMES. And yet en.wp 100% of Pelé, Antoni Gaudí, Teresa of Ávila, Søren Kierkegaard, François Mitterrand, Tomás Ó Fiaich (to cite those examples used in MOS guidelines) are non-basic ASCII, are none of these examples WP:COMMONNAMEs? Likewise, is Emily Brontë "(not Emily Jane Brontë)", since not basic ASCII, not a suitable WP:COMMONNAME?

PS - On a side issue (but related to your question) in many ways the example on WP:NCP Antoni Gaudí (not Antoni Gaudí i Cornet) is quite important in that en.wp departs from ca.wp and es.wp in not using matronymics. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:51, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

But people do raise the third choice... Frequently. A LOT of Editors don't see Pelé and Pele as being simply two variations of the same name (a matter of ASCII typography) either of which could be the title... they see them as two distinct titles and want guidance on which to use. We intentionally don't give that guidance in WP:COMMONNAME, because we realize that often one is not significantly more common than the other (and thus not solvable through an application of WP:COMMONNAME). We leave that debate for WP:DIACRITICS to resolve (note: while the specific issue of Pelé vs Pele may not have come up, editors have gotten into huge debates over other, similar titles ... with both sides of the debate attemptinf to point to WP:COMMONNAME to support their arguments. So far, neither side has done so successfully - precisely because we have intentionally avoided framing the issue in terms of WP:COMMONNAME... leaving it for WP:DIACRITICS to discuss.) Blueboar (talk) 19:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, well my experience is that it isn't working. Wikipedia talk:Article titles is a "policy", Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) is a "guideline", therefore some users may read that the noPelé "policy" trumps the "Tomás Ó Fiaich, not Tomas O'Fiaich" guideline.

However as a aside, you know that of the circa 2-300,000, European accentable titles on en.wp 99.999% are in fact accented yes? (I'm just checking, some editors will deny this, but I wouldn't expect you would/do).

If you don't deny that, then are there none of those 99.999% of possible titles which are in line with WP:COMMONNAME? If you were asked to cite an en.wp non-basic-ASCII article title which is in line with WP:COMMONNAME which article would you cite? (I would cite Noël Coward FWIW). In ictu oculi (talk) 19:41, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

This is a distraction from the point of COMMONNAME. The question of when and whether to use diacriticals can have its own place. The fact that this particular article full of guidelines is called "policy" may be a problem, but that's yet again a different problem from what we're discussing here. Dicklyon (talk) 21:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course diacritics does have its own place on WP:AT - the non-anglicized titles Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard, and Göttingen are used since they predominate in English language reliable sources, while for the same reason the anglicized title forms Nuremberg, delicatessen, and Florence are used., but the fact that Søren Kierkegaard (not Søren Aabye Kierkegaard) can't be mentioned up in WP:COMMONNAME, means that WP:COMMONNAME is going to continue to be misused, misread, and mislinked. The reason we're having this discussion is some editors saying "'Oppose Søren Kierkegaard per WP:COMMONNAME" when Søren Kierkegaard isn't mentioned in WP:COMMONNAME Bill Clinton is. Dicklyon, you have seen that happening, yes? This may or may not be a distraction from the point of COMMONNAME. But the fact that WP:COMMONNAME doesn't even link or hint to the existence of non-ASCII letters when so many 100,000s of AT use non-ASCII letters is what? In ictu oculi (talk) 00:25, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

There was a time when there was a technical limitation on article titles when mentioning ASCII was pertinent to the debate but that was a long time ago, so Iio why do you use the term ASCII and not the "English alphabet" when discussing this issue? -- PBS (talk) 14:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Convenience/shorthand for the more complicated issue (where I wear two hats, one in university publishing, one in finance publishing) where cost decisions override technical as the main basis of MOS, although technical considerations still have a part. Please ask someone in academic publishing if you are not familiar with the issues. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

This is a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" issue, it seems to me. By not including an example of a common name with diacritics, WP:COMMONNAME can be read to imply that diacritics won't occur in a common name used as a title. On the other hand, putting in an example with diacritics distracts from the point of the examples. How about putting in a parenthesised sentence saying something like "(For the use of accented characters in titles, see WP:DIACRITICS.)"? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

If the feeling is that a accent mark is needed then why not just use one that meets the suggestion in WP:DIACRITICS "In general, the sources in the article, a Google book search of books published in the last quarter-century or thereabouts, and a selection of other encyclopaedias, should all be examples of reliable sources; if all three of them use a term, then that is fairly conclusive". Would a maiden name in place of the less common married name or pen name do eg Charlotte Brontë not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell? -- PBS (talk) 15:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

While I prefer Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento") for page-history consistency, neverthelss would support PBS suggestion Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell) ...and it is possible that the double inclusion of the married name and pseudonym Currer Bell is particularly useful. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

NOTE... The appropriate and inappropriate use of diacritics is dealt with in the WP:AT policy... it is simply dealt with in another section (see WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS). The diacritics issue is quite clearly explained there. There is no need to include it in the COMMONNAME section. Indeed, including an example with diacritics in the WP:COMMONNAME section will simply detract from the basic concept we are trying to explain in the COMMONNAME section (how we determine recognizably), lead to unnecessary arguments, and confuse new editors. It is a separate issue, and thus should be dealt with separately. Blueboar (talk) 15:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but this doesn't preclude putting in a link to where this separate issue is discussed, which is what I propose. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:44, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Instruction creep... no need to link... it's further down the page in the same policy. Blueboar (talk) 15:55, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but when editors follow a link like WP:COMMONNAME, how often do they read further down the page? (Rhetorical question!) Clearly there is a need to cross-link because editor have misunderstood WP:COMMONNAME to mean that diacritics shouldn't be used. It's not "instruction creep" to cross-link; it creates no new instructions. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, I'm afraid the comment "Instruction creep... no need to link... it's further down the page in the same policy." is exactly the wrong point. The whole point of this discussion is as said above that some users are unable to scroll. It's a long way down the same policy, and anyone misciting WP:COMMONNAME and reading "Bill Clinton (not William Jefferson Clinton) as "Bill Clinton has no accent", may not even know that Søren Kierkegaard is a person not a place (I'm serious). However if PBS suggestion Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell) was among the examples, that may remove the need for scrolldown assistance. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I have no problem with Charlotte Brontë as an example, as the diacritic there seems completely uncontroversial. Don't be surprised if half the readers don't recognize it as a person's name though. Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

However, to my great surprise, Google ngrams show that the form with a diacritic is much, much less common than the form without in all corpora (except French!); see e.g. [18]. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:13, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Peter, why would that surprise you. Charlotte Brontë isn't more common in bulk sources any more than the examples we do use Pelé, Antoni Gaudí, Teresa of Ávila, Søren Kierkegaard, François Mitterrand, Tomás Ó Fiaich. No more than Björn Borg, Emily Brontë, Emeli Sandé, Noël Coward, Zoë Ball, Zoë Baird, Renée Fleming... none of these article titles are more common in Google Ngrams. All of en.wp's relevant articles among the 4 million are wrong if we go by counting numbers. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I guess it surprised me because "Bronte" just seems wrong to me, as does "Pele" or "Francois" and because I hadn't realized the degree to which English sources drop diacritics – my reading matter is obviously not typical! I certainly don't endorse just counting numbers; this is an encyclopaedia and we should value correctness over populism. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree, but our guidelines are written (or rather edit-warred) to push the idea that we should value a majority of populist/cheap/old/low-MOS sources other a minority of correct/expensive/accurate/academic/high-MOS sources, and consequently all our en.wp titles are actually wrong according to the guidelines. Or it's possible that the 1000s of editors creating and upgrading articles are right and the MOS-warriored content here is deliberately at odds with the en.wp reality. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:48, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

In ictu... when you use words like "correct" and "accurate" and "wrong"... according to who? If the majority of sources spell the name as Bronte instead of Brontë... then who are we to say that Bronte is wrong, or that Brontë is correct or accurate? They are different, but one is not correct and the other is not wrong. Blueboar (talk) 11:25, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, sure, answer my questions to you and I'll be happy to answer your latest set of questions to me. This is a discussion, not a one way street after all. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:02, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I thought I had answered your questions. Which ones did I not reply to? Blueboar (talk) 14:30, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The statement "none of these article titles are more common in Google Ngrams" is worse than misleading, since Google n-grams are based on data from books, mostly scanned and OCR'd by a technology that does not see diacriticals. Go into the book search previews (not the snippets) and count some yourself to see... For example, how many of these books omit the accent from Renée Fleming? Dicklyon (talk) 15:38, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Ah, many thanks for pointing this out! There's nothing so pointless as a discussion based on false data. I ought to have known, since I regularly see how poor is Google's digital version of old botany sources. Scientific names, since they are in italics, are usually among the least likely words to be correctly recognized, and yet they are the very words I want to find. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The section of "Modified letters" in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) has warning on this; "Search engines are problematic unless their verdict is overwhelming; modified letters have the additional difficulties that some search engines will not distinguish between the original and modified forms, and others fail to recognize the modified letter because of optical character recognition errors". -- PBS (talk) 09:25, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Iio can you prove this statement: "..., but our guidelines are written (or rather edit-warred) to push the idea that we should value a majority majority of populist/cheap/old/low-MOS sources other a minority of correct/expensive/accurate/academic/high-MOS sources", because it seems to me that you a using a old rhetoric trick of omne trium perfectum so beloved of Winston Churchill "we shall fight them on the beaches...". Actually the move was away from using all sources to determine names and towards using reliable sources as defined by WP:SOURCE, (but we do have a specific prohibition of using names that are found only in specialist journals ("Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject will recognize")). Iio you often ignore the guidance given by reliable sources by arguing that any source that does not fit your preconceived perception of what is correct, is incorrect. I think that your attitude to this issue is extremely damaging to the project. This is apply demonstrated by your answer to Blueboar's reasonable question "Blueboar, sure, answer my questions to you and I'll be happy to answer your latest set of questions to me". So let me repeat the reasonable question: Iio when you use words like "correct" and "accurate" and "wrong" according to whom? -- PBS (talk) 09:25, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

PBS, as it happens I think that your attitude to this issue is extremely damaging to the project - and specifically your view that sources which don't carry French accents at all count as reliable sources for whether an accent should be used or not.

But I have agreed with your suggestion to add Charlotte Brontë, let's not mess around further and lets get on with it.

As for Blueboar and my conversation, that is Blueboar and my dialogue, I'm sure if Blueboar wants to answer my question, he will do so for himself.

DickLyon, yes. "none of these article titles are more common in Google Ngrams" doesn't account for OCR errors in Google Books. It is possible that Charlotte Brontë may appear in more books with high MOS than low MOS, but if Google Ngrams include html then that is unlikely. Someone can check if they wish. But overall I agree with you.

Peter, yes, I agree with you. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:22, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

"and specifically your view that sources which don't carry French accents at all count as reliable sources for whether an accent should be used or not." Of course all reliable sources should be weighed in the balance, because while it can be argued that educated English speakers ought to have an understanding of French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, and that accents for those languages can be included, the majority of educated English speakers can not be expected to understand accents in all languages (this is the guidance given in Economist Style Guide), the simple solution to this, and the one which Wikipedia follows, is to follow usage in reliable English language sources, which automatically takes care of the issue without the need for a complicated rule or arbitrary cut-offs which tends work most of the time but does not cater for exceptions which the simple rule automatically does. If in your question to Blueboar you mean continental European names you should say that is what you mean, or do you include Britain and Ireland in your grouping of Europe? To answer you question you put to Blueboar about European usage. I have no idea how many, but what I do know there would be a more if those moves you have participated in were to follow usage in reliable English language sources. I think you lack of good faith in this area in not following usage in reliable English language sources has damaged the Wikiepdia project. -- PBS (talk) 16:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

PBS,

Thank you, but I am familiar with Economist Style Guide having contributed to various of their publications. As far as your "To answer you question you put to Blueboar about European usage. I have no idea how many,..." then it is good that I asked Blueboar, seeing as the discussion relates to Blueboar's comments.

Now as below. We need to add Charlotte. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:07, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi... Sorry, but I can't find a question for me to answer. However, I may have missed it in all the verbiage, so would you please ask it again? In the mean time, I will ask my question again... "when you use words like "correct" and "accurate" and "wrong"... according to whom?" Blueboar (talk) 13:16, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Blueboar the question above is " However as a aside, you know that of the circa 2-300,000, European accentable titles on en.wp 99.999% are in fact accented yes? (I'm just checking, some editors will deny this, but I wouldn't expect you would/do). If you don't deny that, then are there none of those 99.999% of possible titles which are in line with WP:COMMONNAME? If you were asked to cite an en.wp non-basic-ASCII article title which is in line with WP:COMMONNAME which article would you cite? (I would cite Noël Coward FWIW). In ictu oculi (talk) 19:41, 28 May 2013 (UTC)" In ictu oculi (talk) 15:08, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Iio what definition do you use for a "high-MOS" and what is your definition for a "low-MOS" and accept in cases where there is a specific published MOS how does notone ascertain which MOS a particular publication falls into without using the sort of tautological argument you usually present? -- PBS (talk) 16:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

PBS, you suggested we add Charlotte, lets get on and add Charlotte. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:41, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

@Iio - Re: "of the circa 2-300,000, European accentable titles on en.wp 99.999% are in fact accented yes?" - I don't know whether that is true or not. But for the sake of the discussion, I am willing to assume that it might be true. There are several explanations as to why it might be true... 1) Some of them may be about subjects/topics that are not covered in English Language sources. When this occurs the instruction in WP:COMMONNAME to follow the most commonly used variant found in English Language sources would not apply, and we would follow the common usage in non-English Language sources instead. 2) Some of the articles may have been unthinkingly copied over from other versions of WP... without checking to see if the title needed to be changed to conform to en.WP policy. 3) There are editors on both sides of the "Diacritics debate" who POV push... and either add or subtract diacritics inappropriately.

My objection isn't to titles having diacritics... The reality is that in some titles diacritics are appropriate (and in other titles they are not). What I object to is using a title with a diacritic as an example in the WP:COMMONNAME section of this policy. My objection is because the use of diacritics in titles is both complex to understand and an issue that is likely to lead to arguments and debate. Including a title that has a diacritic this section distracts editors from understanding the basic concept we are attempting to convey through the examples. The reader will focus on the use/non-use of the diacritic and not on the issue of commonality. Blueboar (talk) 12:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

User:Blueboar - the question I asked was "If you were asked to cite an en.wp non-basic-ASCII article title which is in line with WP:COMMONNAME which article would you cite?" - forgive me but I cannot see where you have answered the question? In ictu oculi (talk) 23:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

There are several good ones at Andre (given name). Blueboar (talk) 01:53, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

If people think we must include an example with a diacritic... may I suggest one that unequivocally has the diacritic in both options. Something like:

• René Foobar (not "René Middlename Foobar de Unrecognizable")

This would take the issue of diacritics out of the example. Blueboar (talk) 13:29, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Then Charlotte Brontë as PBS proposal, or François Mitterrand whom we already use in WP:OPENPARA or Antoni Gaudí whom we already use in WP:NCP. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... what would be the "not" for François Mitterrand? Blueboar (talk) 01:53, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, please move the cursor to the bluelink in "François Mitterrand whom we already use in WP:OPENPARA" and click. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

So the proposed example would be:

• François Mitterand (not: François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand}

Hmmm... I suppose that might work... Although it seems to be more an application of WP:OFFICIALNAME than an application of WP:COMMONNAME (on the other hand, the two policy points are directly related and overlap... COMMONNAME being why we don't use the OFFICIALNAME). What do others think? Blueboar (talk) 11:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Charlotte Brontë as an example

I don't think she is a good example (and have removed her)... in this case, the WP:COMMONAME point we are trying to highlight is that her maiden name is more commonly used (and thus more recognizable) than her various married names. This has nothing to do with diacritics. HOWEVER, because there is a diacritic in her maiden name, editors may misunderstand the point we are actually trying to make... they will focus on the diacritic in her maiden name - and miss the whole maiden name/married name point entirely. We can find a different example of maiden vs married name recognizably - one that does not involve the side question of diacritics. Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Karen Blixen maybe? Has pen-name and maiden name. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... that is a somewhat complex example... it could be written as:

• Karen Blixen (not "Karen von Blixen-Finecke", "Karen Christenze Dinesen", "Isak Dinesen", "Osceola" or "Pierre Andrézel").

The problem is that she has more than one pen name on top of her a maiden name and married name. The question is whether it is overly complex. I am thinking that each example should clearly illustrate a different (and distinct) recognizably issue. Indeed, it may be helpful to be more explicit as to why each example was chosen... I am wondering whether we should include some text to tell readers exactly what the point of each example actually is. Something like:

• Nicknames that are more recognizable than full names - Ex: Bill Clinton (not William Jefferson Clinton)
• Stage names that are more recognizable than real names - Ex: Lady Gaga (not: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta)
• Places that are more recognizable under an English Language name than a non-English name - Ex: The Hague (not: 's-Gravenhage)

etc. What do people think about this idea? Blueboar (talk) 14:03, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, I think it is pointless, a bad idea, and not listening to the problem. What we need is to add an example with a diacritic to prevent WP:COMMONNAME being misread by readers unable to scroll down, or add a link to help scroll down. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:04, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

No... I am listening to you... I just don't agree with you. I do understand what you want: an example that goes

• Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Bronte).

But that isn't what the example I removed said... Look again at the exact language of the example...

• Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell)

This is a bad example for what you want, because we are not presenting the choice between Brontë and Bronte... we are presenting the choice between Brontë and Nichols (or Bell). And the reason why we prefer "Brontë" has nothing to do with whether her name has a diacritic or not... yet because it does contain a diacritic, editors may get confused and think that the diacritic is the issue (when it isn't). Blueboar (talk) 23:47, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, with respect if you are listening then can you please show where I asked for something "presenting the choice between Brontë and Bronte..." - we do not need any such thing, what we need is to add an example with a diacritic to prevent WP:COMMONNAME being misread by readers unable to scroll down, or add a link to help scroll down. "Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell)" does that job more than adequately. The original example "Pelé (not "Edson Arantes do Nascimento")" also did the job well.

re "I do understand what you want: an example that goes Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Bronte).

I do not "want" any such thing and cannot understand how you could possibly have misread that. PBS, Peter coxhead and DickLyon all managed to understand this clearly. May I respectfully suggest reading more carefully. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:17, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Pele is a bad example and was the reason I deleted it in the first case. Given the evidence presented by Peter coxhead, I tend to agree with Blueboar that Charlotte Brontë is not such a good example to use. I think if we are to use an example with an accent mark it should be one where it is clear that it is one where the use in reliable English language sources is unequivocal, or at the very least meets two and a half of the three tests (eg sources in the article and used by modern encyclopaedias (and common even if not the most common in a book search). It may be that Charlotte Brontë meets these requirements. -- PBS (talk) 12:43, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

OK... I will take your word for it. However, I don't think the inability of editors to scroll down is a realistic problem. And if it is a problem, it isn't one that relates to WP:COMMONNAME. I think what you are asking for is nothing more than necessary instruction creep that is more harmful than helpful. So... it seems it comes down to this... I believe that including an example with a diacritic will cause people to misunderstand WP:COMMONNAME, while you think that not including an example with a diacritic will cause people to misunderstand WP:COMMONNAME. We are at an impass. I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree, and see what other editors have to say on the matter. Blueboar (talk) 01:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I would not have expected "OK... I will take your word for it." in regard to such an obvious case of not reading. Anyway can you please be more specific than "There are several good ones at Andre (given name)." above, thanks. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Sure... but not yet... I have answered several questions you have asked me (perhaps not to your satisfaction, but I have answered)... it's your turn to answer a question I have asked... you use words like "correct" and "accurate" and "wrong" in several of your comments throughout our discussion on diacritics in the examples... and I have now asked you several times... according to whom?" Blueboar (talk) 11:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Whether it is or isn't my turn we'll leave. When I said "sources other a minority of correct/expensive/accurate/academic/high-MOS sources, and consequently all our en.wp titles are actually wrong according to the guidelines." "correct/expensive/accurate/academic/high-MOS" would be "correct-according-to-orthography-rules/expensive-according-to-my-experience-in-university-and-business-publishing/accurate-according-to-primary(yes French, German)-sources/academic-according-to-usual-meaning-of-the-word/high-MOS-according-to-general-use-of-"high/low"-in-style-discussions." And "actually wrong according to the guidelines" means according to current ambiguous wording of WP:DIACRITICS to favour number of sources over WP:RS reliablity of source "for the statement being made". So anyway, which André were you suggesting? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

@PBS: Blueboar has correctly debunked the data I presented purporting to show how common the form "Charlotte Bronte" is – it's almost certainly due to digitization of old books which misses diacritics. So I think that "Charlotte Brontë (not Charlotte Nichols or Currer Bell)" is a good example to add. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:46, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

@Several editors: please let's not get bogged down in "who said what" (or "who asked what question") discussions and try to keep to the issues (a) finding a good example with a diacritic in it (b) deciding whether the example should be added. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Peter, what is your take on

• François Mitterand (not: François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand}

I think that is the closest anyone has come (so far) to finding an example with a diacritic that I could live with. Blueboar (talk) 02:02, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

As before I prefer both Pelé for article history consistency, but we already use François Mitterand in WP:MOSPN and it seems that no editor has repeated this edit (which contributed to a topic block). So I'd support François Mitterand or Charlotte Brontë, whichever. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

OK... having thought about it more... I have added Mitterand. I think it is overkill, but not worth arguing about any further. Blueboar (talk) 14:21, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

It does the needed job, thank you. I see not Jack Kennedy has been added, that's also okay. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:53, 7 June 2013 (UTC)