This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Article titles. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The policy says to use reliable sources in determining the title of an article about a person. Shouldn't this approach apply to all proper nouns (a/k/a proper names)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Finell (talk • contribs) 04:49, 4 April 2016
In a word, NO, it shouldn't. There are similarities, but don't misunderstand the grammatical sense of "proper", which is not synonymous with "correct", but rather shares etymology with "property". The proper names of people, and of animals who are the pets of their owners, are almost never matters of opinion. Initially, people's names are determined by their parents and/or guardians, and (tho your results may vary according to your culture) many children and nearly all adults become masters of those who want to make changes, especially when the bearer distinguishes one or more names from others as nicknames -- including pet names whose evocation by those beyond one, very few, or few enough clearly defined intimates (say team-mates) that the boundary is pretty clear, would range somewhere between odd and insultingly intrusive. In contrast, buildings and streets know no hurt feelings, and even names assigned by an institution's designated naming authority (even in the case of very sober and defensive institutions) are likely, without anyone taking offense, to be subject to modification into nicknames that know no clear boundary in the continuum between tacitly sanctioned nicknames and jokes that make sense only as suitable to immediate circumstances whose recurrence is implausible. For example,
are nicknames likely to be avoided during solemn ceremonies, but otherwise entail no transgression.
The point of the distinction is people are agents (loci of agent-hood) in a very organic and focused way that other agents (in many cases, having the status of "legal persons", or "artificial persons") that do not, since the others' personhood is more abstract and mediated, and less concentrated, immediate, organic, and concrete than that of natural persons, and (perhaps even more relevantly) command less far less sympathy and empathy than do artificial "person-analogues". Many things have proper names (most obviously in cases like a document, building, or named rather-than-simply-specified place), but (even if for no other reason) only people are likely to be immediately put off by being misaddressed. Supposedly, writing someone's name on the sole of one's shoe is an ancient mode of giving intentional offense, and exchanging names is a prerequisite to interaction, except where conflict is presumed or a stereotyped mode of interaction clearly applies (worker and customer, respectively, of the same business; audience and either speaker or performer; average-joe and on-duty enforcement agent). In contrast, memorials or religious taboos aside, getting the name of a place or thing wrong very seldom is disrespectful, or if it is considered so, probably reflects a perception of intent to offend (e.g. "..., or whatever you call this burg"). --Jerzy•t13:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I noticed in the bullet list under § Deciding on an article title both the words "Precision" and "Conciseness" are used. I may be being nitpicky, but shouldn't the noun forms be consistent as either "Precision" and "Concision" or "Preciseness" and "Conciseness"? User:Jacedc (talk)01:49, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
When a generic trademark is the common name
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
Frequently mis-glossed as “Assault Rifle,” the AR in “AR-15” refers to its original manufacturer, Armalite. Of course, the key patent was filed sixty years ago and has long since expired; today, “AR-15” is a trademark of Colt Defense LLC and, over the years, “AR-15” has evolved into a generic trademark, a proprietary eponym like Velcro, Kleenex, Xerox, or Tupperware. Civilian AR-style rifles encompass anywhere between four to nine million weapons used for purposes ranging from recreational target shooting to varmint and predator hunting to simply being kept under beds, in closets, or on mantles.[1]
That accurately describes the current situation. The countless clones, variants, and other copies are collectively referred to as "AR-15s" by a huge number of sources.("AR-15" -colt) = About 12,700,000 results on Google. Is there any Wikipedia policy or guideline that prevents us from using "AR-15" for the title of an article describing the these various weapons that are not necessarily made by Colt? Felsic2 (talk) 19:22, 19 October 2016 (UTC) PS: this relates to a discussion at Talk:AR-15_variant#Move_to_AR-15. Felsic2 (talk) 19:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hello I am doing an article on Auezov Theatre. However the full name of the theater is called "Kazakh State Academic Drama Theatre named after M.O. Auezov". Which name fits better for an article name. Should I call it Auezov Kazakh Drama Theatre, Kazakh State Academic Drama Theatre named after M.O. Auezov, or just Auezov Theatre?--Shadowzpaev (talk) 01:11, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
User:Paul 012 recently removed a "see also" hat note from the section on Disambiguation pointing readers to our WP:USPLACE guideline (see this diff) - with the comment that the hat was "unhelpful". I have reverted, because I think the hat is quite helpful. Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 14:25, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
OK... My revert has been reverted. Just to outline my thoughts on this... In the past we have had huge arguments (here and at RM) about whether to entitle articles on towns and cities in the US as Town name or Town name, State. The underlying issue is that so many locations in the US require disambiguation (due to the fact that there are multiple states with towns of the same name) that the need for disambiguation begins to overlap with the principle of Consistency. Disambiguated titles are preferred for articles on US places, even when disambiguation isn't actually required.
I don't insist that the link needs to placed be where it was located... but I do think a link to USPLACES should be somewhere in the section. US places are a major exception to how we usually determine what does and does not need disambiguation. Blueboar (talk) 14:54, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
It's a reasonable point. We do want to avoid clutter though. The "Disambiguation" subsection already has a hatnote "This policy section should be read in conjunction with the disambiguation guideline" pointing to WP:D and maybe any note regarding US Places should be at that page? Herostratus (talk) 15:33, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
Subpages
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Discussion about removing quote marks from Crocodile Dundee is taking place. If the title changes, a replacement should be done right away. Or a replacement might be needed beforehand? --George Ho (talk) 16:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
Articles about events
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Am I correct in thinking that Alberta Schools Athletic Association should actually be a redirect to Alberta Schools' Athletic Association rather then vice versa as it is now? I just created the Alberta Schools' Athletic Association redirect but since the association actually uses the apostrophe in its name (see http://www.asaa.ca/) it seems this should be the main target. WP:TSC is somewhat confusing on this: "apostrophe(-like) variants should generally not be used" but "a common exception is the apostrophe character (') itself" but "which should, however, be used sparingly". If the intention is to allow the use of apostrophes in titles when the correct, grammatical name actually uses an apostrophe we could just state this. No wonder this article was created without the apostrophe in the title even though it has always used the apostrophe in the association's name in the article body. Meters (talk) 00:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago11 comments4 people in discussion
I know that the title becomes the required unique part of the url to the article, and that's the technical reason titles for multiple articles can't be exactly the same, but is there any other reason? If it wasn't for this technical restriction what would be the problem with all articles about the various Mercury topics all having the same Mercury title? More to the point, given that slight differences address the technical restriction, what's wrong with titles that differ only by a slight difference, like Hawaii Five-O and Hawaii Five-0? One of those is about the original series and the other about the reboot, and most people can't tell which one refers to which from the titles alone, but so what? We can have useful/helpful disambiguated redirects to each. So, what's wrong with the two articles having virtually the same titles, differing only by a slight difference like O/0? See also: Talk:Hawaii_Five-0#Requested_move_19_November_2016. --В²C☎22:16, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
To answer your first question: Hold On. (Having all those articles at the same title would be ridiculously confusing.) There are lots of places in Wikipedia where users confront lists of articles shown by their title alone: in the search box autocomplete list, in their watchlist, in their contribution list, on category pages, etc. A list of undifferentiated titles in any of those cases would be baffling. Imagine typing "Mercury" in the search box and getting an autocomplete list suggesting Mercury, Mercury, Mercury, Mercury, Mercury, Mercury, and Mercury. :)
As for why virtually identical titles are also problematic, it's for the same reason: article titles that differ in ways so subtle that a user might easily overlook or mistake them aren't much different in practice from those that are actually identical, and would be problematic for many of the same reasons. ╠╣uw[talk]01:00, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Britannica solves basically the same issue only on the UI level – rather than having a parenthetic element in the title, they place the disambiguator in the subtitle, a concept that MediaWiki lacks. For example, article about the planet is located at https://www.britannica.com/place/Mercury-planet, with title reading "Mercury" and subtitle planet, while the one about the god is at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mercury-Roman-god, subtitled roman god. It is probably achievable in MediaWiki by some additional development, but it should achieve a broad consensus to implement first; it would require significant adjustment of editors, and it is doubtful if it would be worthwhile. I concur with Huw that our search facility, as well as wikilinking, should not be affected by that, i.e. the autocomplete should still display Mercury (planet) and Mercury (mythology). No such user (talk) 10:29, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
——————
Huwmanbeing, thanks! Let's look at each of these separately.
search box autocomplete. First, in the beginning, WP did not even have this feature, and it was good. Even today there are many situations in which it falls short and you have to go ahead and click Search and see the full list of search results, along with enough of each article to discriminate appropriately. This would be the case for identical titles and is the case for near-identical titles.
watch lists - okay, I can see this would be an issue with truly identical titles but for near-identical titles familiarity with any topic/title on one's watchlist should be sufficient to distinguish.
Contribution list - same as for watch lists.
Category pages - So Hawaii Five-O and Hawaii Five-0 (for example) are both listed at Category:Television_shows_set_in_Hawaii. A minor inconvenience, at worst.
In short, is there a big enough issue to warrant using cumbersome disambiguated titles in these cases? I don't see it. --В²C☎19:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
B2C: I don't see a need for cumbersome disambiguation either; just disambiguation that sensibly follows our guidelines. If what you mean is that all disambiguation is necessarily cumbersome, I disagree, but won't debate personal opinions on what constitutes cumbersomeness.
As for your points above, a few problems: a) even distinct titles in your watchlist can be confusing if the difference is so slight that it could be casually overlooked (e.g., 0 versus O); b) contribution lists may show you others' contributions and they yours, so one can't assume readers' familiarity with what's shown; and c) many categories would be more than minorly inconvenienced by the absence of disambiguation (e.g.). ╠╣uw[talk]20:58, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Parenthetic disambiguation, which is the normal "remedy" in these situations, is recognized by the community to be cumbersome, though not necessarily in those terms, in that natural disambiguation is normally preferred. What I don't understand is why cumbersome parenthetic disambiguation is preferred over elegant natural disambiguation in some RM decisions when the natural disambiguation is accomplished with WP:SMALLDETAILS. The recent unnecessary move of the elegant Hawaii Five-0 to the cumbersome Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series) is a case in point.
Regarding the "few problems" you cite, let's remember that the topics of the vast majority of our articles are unrecognizable to most from the titles alone. Let's hit SPECIAL:RANDOM a few times to demonstrate without cherry-picking to make the point.
Pyotr Nikolayev. Okay, obviously a Russian male. That's all I can tell from that title. Can you glean any more?
Arrhenes dschilus Presumably a plant or animal. Or maybe a ship name?
My point is this: titles from which their subjects cannot be discerned at all are commonplace on WP. They are arguably the norm. If these show up in a watchlist, category list, or contributions they would be far less recognizable than most of these supposedly problematic titles like Hawaii Five-0. So why is it a problem when a topic cannot be exactly identified from a title like Hawaii Five-0? --В²C☎21:55, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
It isn't always, and not all cases are the same. In the case of Hawaii Five-0, two titles were so similar as to be difficult to distinguish (potentially even for those familiar with one or both series), so the consensus was that it needed to be clearer. I don't see an equivalent to that in your list of random examples, but if hypothetically we had articles called (say) Elwing and Elw¡ng, similar considerations might well apply.
As to the general point, I agree that it's not our goal to make every title totally clear to every reader, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make them at least somewhat clear to some readers, or shouldn't try to avoid confusion where we can. Between total disambiguation and zero disambiguation is a happy medium, and we figure out where that medium is through discussion and consensus-building, and by considering what's sensible in particular cases. The consensus is that certain article titles are sufficiently unclear or confusing (or subject to other particular considerations) that they need to be clarified beyond what strict minimum disambiguation requires. ╠╣uw[talk]15:12, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
Being difficult to distinguish which title refers to which subject is only relevant in a context where a high priority is given to identifying subjects from titles. My point is WP titles are not such a context. I keep coming back to the same point: Yes, Hawaii Five-O/Hawaii Five-0 are difficult to distinguish. So what??? So users can't identify to which article each title refers. So what? It's the norm on Wikipedia to not be able to identify to which article a given title refers from the title alone. If that's a problem then we have to rename probably 90% of our titles. I'm glad you recognize that it's not our goal to make every title totally clear to every reader. Of course they should be somewhat clear to at some readers. And that's exactly the standard that was met by the original titles at Hawaii Five-O/Hawaii Five-0. Once you start disambiguating beyond "what strict minimum disambiguation requires", where do you stop? What is the standard? Strict minimum disambiguation is usually clear and not subject to debate. Once you loosen up on that, it becomes open to whatever the whims of any tiny group that happens to show up at a given RM proposal discussion. It's a haphazard system. Is that what we want? -В²C☎17:33, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
To answer your last question first: yes, though I wouldn't put it in quite those terms. I prefer a system that favors discussion, flexibility, and user-friendliness over one that would impose exceptionless application of rules and that would say "so what" to concerns of distinguishability and clarity. I favor the system we have because it's more likely to yield sensible results than the alternative. As for some of your other points:
Being able to distinguish articles from each other by their title (even if you don't know much about their subject) is relevant in Wikipedia, as we already discussed: it's something users have to do in many contexts.
It is not the norm on Wikipedia to be unable to distinguish between articles based on their title. That's why Hawaii Five-0 got renamed: because it was practically indistinguishable from Hawaii Five-O and so was deemed insufficiently clear. If the series creators had given it a truly unique name like American Samoa Five-0, I'm confident that any RM seeking to add the "2010 TV series" parenthetical would have been immediately shot down as unnecessary.
Where do we stop? Where we agree it's sensible to stop. What's the standard? Our guidelines. It's silly to suggest that anything beyond your preferred system of strict minimum disambiguation is open-ended or ungoverned. We've long been beyond it, and it's not.
No system is perfect, but I see nothing to suggest that our current approach to titling causes problems for readers — or certainly no problems greater than those posed by the alternatives of exceptionless minimum disambiguation or no disambiguation at all. ╠╣uw[talk]09:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
We agree no system is perfect - neither one of us is seeking perfection. Relatively speaking, we've only just started going beyond strict minimum disambiguation. Almost all titles on WP are still named according to this simple basic non-problematic principle. But once in a while an exception is made. Then another. And another. The frequency with which exceptions are made is increasing, creating more and more precedent for making even more exceptions. I'll grant that you we're not yet to the point where naming is practically ungoverned. But that's the direction we're headed. --В²C☎02:37, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Personally, I think that parenthetic disambiguation is pretty perfect, and that attempts to avoid it are often awkward and introduce ambiguity. You've been pushing for strict minimum disambiguation for many years, but the community's consensus has been much more moderate, as it should be. Dicklyon (talk) 03:41, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Methods, or consistency, of disambiguating wives of historical figures
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Do I sense inconsistency, or what am I missing? RMs at Talk:Maria (wife of Ivan Vladislav), Talk:Theodora (wife of Romanos I), and Talk:Agatha (wife of Samuel of Bulgaria) resulted in changing from comma disambiguation to parenthetical disambiguation. However, the RM at Talk:Ælfthryth, wife of Edgar resulted in retaining the comma disambiguation. I'm not sure whether using commas or parentheses for disambiguation is the major issue. However, the bigger issue is consistency of disambiguating the historical wives. I thought about the other historical wives and made some research at Google Books. Some sources use the commas for some wives; unsure about the other wives. I am almost reluctant to do another RM on another wife, so I want to discuss the consistency on using either method instead. --George Ho (talk) 08:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, there is inconsistency. Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything we can do about it. Some of our editors absolutely hate parenthetical disambiguation, others love it... and whenever we discuss the question, we get no solid consensus on the issue. So... at any specific RM discussion, a lot will depend on who shows up to give their opinion. If the RM attracts the "Parenthetical disambiguation is bad" crowd, the result will be against using a parenthetical... and if it attracts the "Parenthetical disambiguation is good" crowd, the result of the RM will be to use the parenthetical. Blueboar (talk) 14:05, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Use italics when italics would be used in running text; for example, taxonomic names, the names of ships, the titles of books, films, and other creative works, and foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles. The titles of articles that are about specific English words or phrases should also be italicized.
I agree that we don't use different formatting in running text than in article titles (other than the trivial case of capitalizing the first letter of a sentence and a title). This applies to italics just as much as to any other kind of formatting. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:24, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Oppose – the proposed wording really isn't clear enough; also, too exceptional for the over-all policy page on article titles: the policy gives a few examples of the most often occurring cases, but doesn't mention every remote possibility that is covered by duly linked subsidiary guidance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
While I would support the change in theory, it seems to be at odds with the current practice: examining the Category:Interjections or Category:English words, we can see that articles using {{italic title}} are few and far between (we can also see that many of those articles are good candidates for deleting or merging, so they aren't exactly the best examples). Whether their titles should be italicized is a matter of discussion, and this is probably a good place for it. I disagree with Francis Schonken that the addition wasn't clear or that it's too exceptional, and I find his wording of "gibberish" downright insulting: articles about "words as words" are IMO reasonably common case to be worth addressing. But we ought to discuss whether to fix the policy, the practice, or perhaps neither: in which "duly linked subsidiary guidance" is this "covered", perchance? No such user (talk) 15:29, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Re linking of subsidiary guidance: go to Wikipedia:Article titles#Italics and other formatting. Click on the first link in that section (... italics would be used in running text ...), and you arrive in the guideline that (among other things) is the main guidance for the "words as words" italicisation. Made me think of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music)#Quotation marks and partially italicized titles containing some specific guidance about partially italicised article titles (in my rough estimate maybe even more frequently occurring in article titles than the "words as words" italicisation): we don't put such detailed guidance in the overarching WP:AT policy, which is about the main thrust of article titles in Wikipedia. Back in the early days of Wikipedia there was "one" page about article titles (and before that a single page about style issues and article titles combined); then the guidance gradually became unwieldy in its detail, and then detailed naming conventions were split of per topic (the main ones ultimately linked from {{Naming conventions}} at the top of the policy page). No, cramming all that in the policy is not feasible. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:33, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Concur with User:Francis Schonken about additional guidance being found at WP:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Words as words (see the link "words or phrases" in the proposed wording above). Disagree that such cases are a "remote possibility"; Category:English phrases contains more than 400 articles. Also object to the statement "detailed naming conventions were split of[f] per topic [...] cramming all that in the policy is not feasible" – that's a non-sequitur, as no one is proposing "cramming all that" into the policy. What I am proposing is a one-sentence addition to the policy to address the specific (and evidently common) case of articles that are about words and phrases. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
To elaborate on the notion of "duly linked subsidiary guidance", to my knowledge none of the style guidelines specifically address italicizing "words as words" in article titles. But based on MOS:WORDSASWORDS, the policy statement "Use italics when italics would be used in running text" would logically also include such cases. My proposed wording is simply intended to make it explicit. If User:Francis Schonken finds that my wording isn't clear enough, perhaps they could suggest a clearer wording. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:58, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
The only example I find convincing is Orange (word). I shouldn't have written '"words as words" can not be defined for article titles' in the edit summary, while the "(word)" disambiguator can give the context needed for defining a "word as word" at article title level.
Not convincing:
Democrat Party (epithet) – grammatically incorrect: Democrat is the epithet; Democrat Party is not an epithet but an expression.
Cellar door – it would suffice to add a few images of cellar doors or write a paragraph about "Cellar door as architectural element" (or whatever) to make this a mixed content article ("words as words" + content not about the "words as words" aspect) - like many other articles. An article title should not merely by its italicising impose limits to its content.
Over 400 articles in Category:English phrases: not impressed: to claim "words as words" for all of them seems exaggerated.
So rename the article to Democrat Party (phrase) or Democrat Party (expression) – it's still about "words as words". And Cellar door already has two paragraphs and a quoted except about cellar doors as an architectural element – there's no limiting of content as a result of the title format. Cellar doorcould be rewritten in any number of ways – however, as it exists now, it's mostly about the phrase, and we are dealing with the question of whether existing articles about words and phrases should have italicized titles.
The article titles As the crow flies and Axis of evil are currently not italicised. Nor seems the content of these articles currently exclusively about the "words as words" aspect. I think there is some misapprehension about the article titles policy: something new is adopted in it only when practice shows it is applied with a wide consensus and/or there is a pressing need to get something sorted (otherwise it is just bulk not needed to be sorted at policy level). So if you want to change As the crow flies and Axis of evil to As the crow flies and Axis of evil respectively I don't think you're at the right address to try press some prescription in the policy: first show that there is a wide acceptance (broad consensus amongst Wikipedians) that these article titles should be italicised. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:31, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
As the crow flies begins: "'As the crow flies' or 'in a beeline' is an idiom for the shortest path between two points [...]".
Axis of evil likewise begins, "The term 'axis of evil' was used by U.S. President George W. Bush [...] to describe governments that his administration accused of sponsoring terrorism [...]".
The specific pages aren't important; these are just examples. My point was: how should such titles be formatted when there is no disambiguating term? While these words and others may not be currently italicized in their respective articles, there's nothing to stop anyone from italicizing them. Given MOS:WORDSASWORDS, is there any reason not to italicize titles such as these? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:34, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Some thoughts:
an expression/phrase can also be a quote, so we have currently "Et tu, Brute?" (starting: '"Et tu, Brute?" (pronounced[ɛtˈtuːˈbruːtɛ]) is a Latin phrase meaning "and you, Brutus?", "even you, Brutus?" or "you too, Brutus?", purportedly ...'); but Veni, vidi, vici—or should it be "Veni, vidi, vici" according to the MoS—(starting: '"Veni, vidi, vici" (Latin pronunciation:[ˈweːniːˈwiːdiːˈwiːkiː]; Latin pronunciation:[ˈvɛniˈvidiˈvitʃi]; "I came; I saw; I conquered") is a Latin phrase popularly...'). I suppose a lot still needs to be sorted out at the WP:WORDSASWORDS guideline (and the straightforward application of it in mainspace) before we can come anywhere near a policy level prescription for article titles that should follow this rule.
Came across Snicklefritz – any reason why that article title would/should be italicised?
Re. "The specific pages aren't important" – indeed, however they show there's nothing near the kind of broad consensus that is needed for adopting a new policy-level rule. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Regarding Snicklefritz – why not, assuming that the content is supported by reliable sources? To quote:
[M]any larger bilingual German–English dictionaries include the word Schnickschnack, which is defined as chit-chat or tittle-tattle and nonsense [...] An informal verb, schnicken, means to jerk or seize, implying fast or choppy movements. Whether the aforementioned terms relate entirely to snicklefritz is not known [...]
Sorry to say, but I continue to oppose the proposal. "Words as words" is a context-dependent reason for italicisation. That context is seldom (OK, not "never" as I originally intimated) present in a mere article title. All these words are also used non-italicised in germane sentences, they are only italicised in particular contexts, and that context is most often absent from the article title in itself (even if the context of the first sentence of the article may require italicisation... or that of the second sentence, or that of the first section for example on etymology). So, no, this should not be a policy-level rule for article titles imho. There are a few sentences in the Snicklefritz article where the word is not (and should not be) italicised. For each sentence it is clear whether the word should be italicised or not, each sentence giving the context that is needed to determine whether the word should be italicised or not. Without context (as is most often the case for an article title) the "words as words" rationale for italicisation can not be applied: all words can be used in a "words as words" construction, e.g. "Millenium is a word deriving from mille, the Latin word for 1000." – that does not mean that the Millenium article title needs to be italicised. Anyway, at this point (without a broad consensus in support showing) too contentious to shoot it into the policy. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Dr. Livingstone, I presume (disambiguation page: any disambiguation page could be perceived to have a "words as words" topic... I would oppose italicisation for that reason for any of the article titles of such pages)
Above I said "I suppose a lot still needs to be sorted out at the WP:WORDSASWORDS guideline (and the straightforward application of it in mainspace) before we can come anywhere near a policy level prescription for article titles that should follow this rule" – a can of worms seems to have opened at Orange (word), currently no longer italicised: [2], [3] – In short, I agree with the two oppose !votes immediately below to never allow the words as words rationale for the italicisation of article titles. This should probably best be mentioned at MOS:WORDSASWORDS. Or, if the principle is inscribed in the AT policy, something like
However, context-dependent rationales for italicisation, such as the MOS:WORDSASWORDS principle, can not be applied to article titles.
Any word or phrase which usually in running prose is not italicised, can be emphasised by italicising it in certain contexts (see e.g. MOS:WORDSASWORDS): such italicisations have however no influence on the italicisation of that word or phrase when used as an article title.
Oppose the use of italics in running text is used to highlight the use of a word as a word is sometimes necessary for context, however this is entirely unnecessary in article titles because context is either established by the parenthetical disambiguator, or by the very first sentence of the lead paragraph. The lack of italics in an article title is unlikely to lead to any confusion or ambiguity, so there is no need to do so. --Jayron3215:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
How would that context be indicated when there is no parenthetical disambiguator and the title appears as a simple link in, say, a "See also" list? For example, what is there to signal to the reader that As the crow flies refers to a saying and not the flight path of an actual crow? Or that Axis of evil is a made-up phrase, and not an actual alignment of evildoers? I think that where context can be simply and immediately conveyed by title formatting, it should be; we do not presuppose that any reader is already familiar with such context. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:23, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Seems like the argumentation becomes more and more unwieldy. Non-italicised vs. italicised is not the difference between "real""literal" and "metaphorical", nor does WP:WORDSASWORDS suggest anything of the kind. If following through on such absurdities we'd soon have to write tree (data structure), while it's not a realtreein a literal sense. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC) (updated 13:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC))
My point was not about "real" vs. "metaphorical", but about distinguishing specific phrases covered in reliable sources as phrases as opposed to the literal meanings of those phrases. That is the essence of the use-mention distinction. As for the example, obviously the parenthetical term "data structure" already implies that the subject is not an actual tree. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:56, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
"Literal meaning" is nowhere a part of the use-mention distinction. We should not base article titling policy on such misapprehensions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:14, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
You are evading the point, which is that mentioning a word or phrase (talking about it directly) is different than using it in prose or speech (talking about something else). Text formatting such as italics is used to distinguish these different senses. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
No article title uses a word or phrase in the context of prose or speech. They only "mention" a word or phrase (as the title of a piece that has some content on that word or phrase). By these reasonings all article titles would need to be italicised. So no, we don't do that: that was a choice made long ago. This is not avoiding the point, it is pointing out that these reasonings don't lead to anything that is practical for adoption in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:22, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
The answer to the original questions would be that no italicisation would be used when listing As the crow flies, for "signal[ling] ... the reader that [it] refers to a saying and not the flight path of an actual crow", nor when listing Axis of evil, in order to indicate that it "is a made-up phrase, and not an actual alignment of evildoers". The questions were a total red herring, in no sense relating to the guidance proposal under discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:42, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. Aside from the issues that Jayron raises (with which I agree), italics aren't the only way to handle such words. Sometimes we put the word in quotation marks instead of in italics, e.g.:
Why dost thou use "thee" to me, O mean peasant, since I am thy overlord?
It's not that "word" is better than word or vice versa, but we shouldn't impose either one, and since we don't use quotation marks in titles (e.g. a poem article is entitled The Red Wheelbarrow, not "The Red Wheelbarrow"), we shouldn't consider "word" as needing quotation marks in the page title even if we were entirely abandoning word. Nyttend (talk) 20:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Oppose: In an article about a word, that word will often be used in italics because we are referring to that word as a word. That makes sense. I think article titles should only have the word in italics if the word would be italicized in general use. I think it would confuse the reader if the word orange, which would generally not be italicized, is in italics in the title. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 04:28, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
How are italics in titles any more confusing than italics in running text, when both indicate the mention of words as words in articles about a specific word? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:34, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
I sometimes use Wikipedia to determine if a word is considered an English word and hence whether or not it should be italicized. I look to the title of the page to determine that. For instance et cetera is English and in regular type even though it is of foreign origin but nomen nudum is in italics as a Latin word used in English. If I see orange in italics, it would seem to indicate that we should use the word in italics in normal text. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 21:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. After running across the Orange (word) page, and removing the italics (thinking it certainly wasn't something to be italicized) I was alerted to this discussion. I see no reason to italicize the title of such a page. It is not a named work of creative art, a newspaper or magazine, a named ship (a ship, plane, spacecraft, locomotives, etc, which are italicized), or the several other categories of italicized titles and names that I was aware of. "Orange" is a word like any other word, and although it has many uses (the fruit, the colour, the hair of America's president) the only italicized title use seems to be if it is the formal or informal name of a work of art (i.e., the hair of America's president), individually named transportation vehicle, or the other uses for italics. Maybe SMcClandish should be pinged on this, he seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of styles and style books. Randy Kryn13:54, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Why are we discussing this here? The decision as to whether an article title (or a phrase or word within a title) should be formatted in italics (or not) is a style issue... dealt with by our various MOS guidelines... not by this policy page. The only concern I have would be COMMONNAME situations... i.e. those rare cases where sources routinely italicize in a way that contrary to whatever we might say in our MOS guidelines... and the argument can be made that the italics are an integral part of the title. But those would be few and far between -exceptions to our MOS guidance (and the MOS guidelines all say that occasional exceptions can be made.) Blueboar (talk) 16:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Re. "Why are we discussing this here?" – because we're discussing a possible update to the AT policy page. The latest update proposal in that sense (see above) is the addition of
Any word or phrase which usually in running prose is not italicised, can be emphasised by italicising it in certain contexts (see e.g. MOS:WORDSASWORDS): such italicisations have however no influence on the italicisation of that word or phrase when used as an article title.
I'd be OK with leaving the AT policy alone and update the MoS page on text formatting instead, e.g. like this. As, however, that proposed update was not understood or not accepted thus far, I think we'd need to inscribe the principle in the policy because it seems hard to grasp for some editors that the words as words rationale for italicising is not something that applies to article titles (at least that is the way this discussion seems to be heading). --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:44, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
Um... are you saying that similar language was proposed at MOS and rejected? - And now we are considering it here? If this is the case, then I would have to Oppose... it seems like forum shopping. (if I misunderstand, correct me). Blueboar (talk) 12:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes, you misunderstand. The discussion was opened here. A pointer to the discussion here was placed on the talk page of the "text formatting" MoS page; then above I proposed to update the "text formatting" MoS page, and somewhat later I did so. It was rejected by one editor by means of a revert. So we continue to discuss here (in one place, no reason for a fragmentation of the discussion over multiple talk pages). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:22, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. I still think that this is a style issue that would be best discussed at one of our MOS pages... I don't think the AT policy should go into formatting issues, except as it relates to disambiguation and (rare) COMMONNAME considerations. But I do agree that having one centralized discussion is best. Blueboar (talk) 14:35, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
"Take it to the MoS" would be my first approach too. However,
WP:ITALICTITLE is part of the AT policy, so issues with its applicability can be clarified in that section on the policy page;
Editors seeking guidance that exclusively applies to article titles (and their formatting) would rather turn to article titling (and subsidiary naming conventions) guidance than to the MoS: such guidance would thus be less on its place in the MoS;
"Guideline" level guidance (like Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting) is easier on allowing exceptions than policy. If however, as seems to be the case here, the general tendency is to not allow exceptions for article titles that seem most suitable to accord an exception to (case in point Orange (word)), I think we're dealing with a policy-level prescription not to allow such exceptions, so it is better to inscribe the principle in a policy-level page to settle the issue once and for all, not needing to go through the motions every time such an issue turns up (e.g. Democrat (adjectival use), not Democrat (adjectival use) if that would become an article title).
Latest comment: 7 years ago97 comments10 people in discussion
I believe that what other language Wikipedias name their articles is completely irrelevant in RM discussions on English Wikipedia.
However Roman Spinner appears to think otherwise, and our disagreement on this is cluttering a discussion at Talk:Oleg Sentsov. See this diff for the latest of many such posts.
I don't want to clutter this discussion with all of the points they raise in that latest (long... 5kB) post. But I would like input as to whether the appeals to other language Wikipedias have any relevance at all, and if so, what that might be. Andrewa (talk) 23:55, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks... other views? I'm hoping to get a clear enough consensus here to make further appeals to that particular argument actionable as failing to get the point. Hopefully that action will not be necessary, and obviously the more participation here and the clearer the consensus, the better the chances of that. I even thought of an RfC but don't think it should be necessary. A good consensus here, and a notice then on the user's talk page, should do the trick. But I still could be wrong. More participation here essential IMO. TIA Andrewa (talk) 01:26, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Blueboar. What things (or people) are called in other languages is irrelevant to our English-language titling concerns. bd2412T02:11, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Roman Spinner has now clarified their position As for consultation of other Wikipedias, specifically in regard to titling, my concern is limited primarily to human name pages, rather than all pages.[4] This does not seem to me to change things in the least, but again, other views appreciated. Andrewa (talk) 01:46, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Ahem... (Oh... didn't see "other views appreciated" from above) What about Chinese-language and English-language Wikipedias? Chinese Wikipedia names persons very concisely, while English Wikipedia may vary from case to case. China/Taiwan issue has been ongoing in English Wikipedia. Meanwhile, zh wiki uses just zh:中华人民共和国 for China. zh:臺灣 doesn't have English counterpart. Geography of Taiwan's Chinese counterpart is zh:台灣地理. Taiwan's zh counterpart is zh:中華民國, which is currently fully protected there; zh:中華民國（臺灣） doesn't have its English counterpart. I already raised the issue at WT:NC-ZH, where the proposal to update is worked on. As for biographies, one example is zh:黃百鳴, whose English counterpart is Raymond Wong Pak-ming. If the naming cultures of other inter-language Wikipedias are irrelevant, how do two or more language Wikipedias work well together? --George Ho (talk) 06:02, 3 March 2017 (UTC); edited. 06:05, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
You're welcome. And yeah, Chinese Wikipedia may be a better example of how its articles are titled very differently. I'm not sure about Hindi Wikipedia as I have never been there very much. I don't know the language and specially any person who understands the language very much. Nonetheless, Hindi wiki uses hi:चीनी जनवादी गणराज्य, which is a very long, official title for China. It also uses hi:चीनी गणराज्य for Taiwan (ROC) and hi:ताइवान for Taiwan. I wonder whether I can ping one person who is a self-identified Indian national. George Ho (talk) 06:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Well, yes, it's a transliteration issue, and a political issue, and a BLP issue.
And we can't please everyone obviously. But we can please a lot more people if we have some simple, easy-to-follow rules and state plainly that we are following these to make our articles easy for readers to find and for no other reason. And the current rules say that the other Wikipedias are not reliable sources, and should not be used as such. Don't they? What am I missing?
If we're doing that in the case of Chinese Wikipedia, as you claim (I think), then we need to have a long hard look at why. Thanks for bringing it up. Andrewa (talk) 07:26, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I see... and are you are claiming that English Wikipedia follows these Wikipedias in naming articles too? I'm having great trouble finding any relevance in your examples. Andrewa (talk) 08:03, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
No, that's not what I'm claiming. Actually, sorry for not being concise, so I'll rephrase: English, Chinese, and Korean Wikipedias do their own titling styles. They may not have to follow each other very much. Their individual naming styles may depend on their own audiences, especially with the way their languages are used. The titling may be culture-based. However, I don't know the languages well, though I have been influenced by Chinese-language pop culture. I know how to write Chinese :); I have difficulties typing Chinese pinyin and zhuyin as my keyboard doesn't have either system for convenience. Even I don't know what zh:维基百科:命名常规 and zh:위키백과:제목 선택하기 say. I am using Google Translator to translate Chinese version and Korean version of titling articles. Maybe, if Google is not a very good translator, I'll notify one of participants of WP:CHINA and/or WP:KOREA as I'm not much of an expert on the languages. George Ho (talk) 08:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Then if English Wikipedia does not follow these other language Wikipedias, I do not see how the many examples you quote can have any relevance at all to this discussion. Andrewa (talk) 04:28, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
BD2412, Blueboar, sorry to bother you but I find the objections above by George Ho completely unfathomable.
Is there anything in his posts above that you think might be relevant, or might change your minds (or mine)? Andrewa (talk) 04:28, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
To attempt to explain... each of the different language Wikipedias are independent projects... and each has adopted different rules (created by their editorial communities) about how best to entitle an article. The rules at the French Wikipedia are different from the rules at the Swahili Wikipedia, which are different yet again from the Korean Wikipedia, etc. There may (or may not) be overlap (as the separate communities each consider and adopt similar ideas)... but the overlap does not negate the fact that there are differences.
Now... if one of the other WPs has a rule that you like, feel free propose it for adoption here in the WP:en policy. We will discuss it and either adopt it or reject it on its merits. But we do so independently of what has been decided at the other language WPs, just as they do things independently from us. Blueboar (talk) 12:39, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
1) Andrewa has posted on my talk page urging me to present my views on this subject. In the second sentence of their post, they believe that my "continued reference to other language Wikipedias [5] is at least bordering on failing to get the point".
2) As an initial point, if such references are to be considered as disruptive editing, that warning should be at least stated in the guidelines but, taking a wider view, do we really have so little respect and consideration for our sister/brother/fellow Wikipedia other-language projects, which now number more than 290, that we would not simply pause at the point of looking askance at their mention, but would actually go to the extreme of labeling them "disruptive editing" ?
3) In order to obtain the widest possible cultural perspective, it would seem natural to encourage consultation with other-language Wikipedias, especially regarding rendition of names, terms and other aspects unfamiliar or less than familiar within the English-speaking world. Such consultation may be limited to something as simple as this edit, referencing a subject's name in the Wikipedia of his native language, or as complex as the lengthy discussions at Talk:Carl Jung#Requested move 14 November 2016 or Talk:Oleg Sentsov#Requested move 21 October 2016.
4) Andrewa and I have had repeated exchanges at the above two discussions, especially regarding my point that Carl Gustav Jung represents the main title header of Jung's biographical entry as it exists in 67 Wikipedias, including his native-language German Wikipedia, while the form, Carl Jung appears in only 4 Wikipedias, one of those being the English Wikipedia, while they contended that "Carl Jung" was subject's WP:COMMONNAME in the English-speaking world.
5) My other exchange with Andrewa has been at the currently-revived Oleh Sentsov discussion, where I pointed out that, as in the lack of unanimity regarding the use of "Carl Jung" instead of "Carl Gustav Jung", not only are the English-language sources far from unanimous regarding use of the Russian form "Oleg" for the given name of this political prisoner, but that other Wikipedias, including the German, French, Spanish, Finnish, Polish and Czech Wikipedias, also indicate the Ukrainian form "Oleh" in their main title headers.
6) Ultimately, without contending that other Wikipedia projects are better informed or more authoritative than English Wikipedia, it would seem that referencing them is not only proper in discussions involving subjects from other languages and cultures, but also provides a wider perspective for Wikipedians from the English-speaking world, thus enabling them to make better-informed decisions. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)13:32, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
In the case of "Carl Jung" vs. "Carl Gustav Jung" - this is indeed a choice between a WP:COMMONNAME and a more formal (perhaps even "official") name. In the early days of WP:en, we discussed this choice, and made the decision to favor the COMMONNAME (as that would be he name that most of our readers would search for and use in article text - thus best meeting the goal of choosing recognizable and natural titles.) Other language WPs subsequently disagreed with our decision, and chose to favor more formal names. Given that history, the argument that we should respect their decisions falls somewhat flat - I could counter-argue that they should have respected our decision (since we made our decision first). However, seriously making that counter-argument that would be pointlessly combative. There is no real reason why different projects can't use different rules. The titles at different WPs don't actually need to be the same... they simply need to point to each other. Better to say that it is OK to disagree and allow different rules at different WPs. Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
1) Yes, I thought it was time to advise you of my thoughts on your behaviour, and such discussion must take place on your user talk page. It was not clear to me at the time of posting that whether or not you had read the discussion here, and I thought it important to get your attention, as we seemed to have a rough consensus here.
2) This is adequately covered by the existing guidelines IMO, but I would welcome any other opinions on this. No, I don't think that this shows any lack of respect and consideration for our sister/brother/fellow Wikipedia other-language projects, any more than our decision not to regard them as reliable sources in general does. (We do of course often use their material, but that is based on our using the references they provide, not on citing the other Wikipedia as a reference.)
3) Agree we should consult other language Wikipedias in general and we do (see reply to 2)), but not on matters of English. Different languages work differently.
4) The specific case of Jung is I believe adequately answered above by Blueboar.
5) Agree that other Wikipedias have made different decisions, again see reply to 2).
When it comes to deciding issues of conscience and morality, we have Thoreau's "any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already." However, when discussing the proposed move of an article's main title header from Carl Jung to Carl Gustav Jung or from Oleg Sentsov to Oleh Sentsov, it would be inappropriate to withhold, from those Wikipedians who may be unaware of them, specific facts about English Wikipedia's minority standing among various language Wikipedias regarding naming of these articles as well as other articles that may surface in the future.
Other participants are, of course, free to argue that such facts are irrelevant to the discussion at hand in the English Wikipedia and present arguments as well as views, if they so wish, as to why such a disparity exists. Since it is the subject's name that is under discussion, mention of the form in which his or her name appears in subject's native-language Wikipedia as well as in other Wikipedias, should not be considered tangential since it directly impacts the key focus of the discussion.
Furthermore, it would be a restriction of argumentation and an enforced withholding of key information if the information that the English Wikipedia is in a minority of 4 against 67 in using the form "Carl Jung", rather than "Carl Gustav Jung", or in a minority (among other Wikipedias) as proponent of the form "Oleg Sentsov", rather than Oleh Sentsov.
I am deeply surprised that in a titling discussion, the presentation of uncontested facts regarding the titling forms employed by our associated projects in the very topic that is under discussion, should be met with such unfavorable response as to be labeled a behavioral problem and disruptive editing. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)00:16, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Regardless of what Thoreau might have thought (and I actually think he'd approve), our fundamental model for editorial decision-making is consensus, which is assessed by viewing arguments through the lens of policy.
I will also respond on my talk page, but since you raised the issues of both behavioral problem and disruptive editing on this talk page, I felt that it would be appropriate to also make mention of these terms here. You state "The facts are not in dispute, nor is your right to present them" and yet, my understanding of your proposal is to ban mention of other Wikipedias in discussions and to label those editors who would submit these facts in discussions as engaging in the above-mentioned problematic and disruptive behavior, thus creating a wall of censorship. I had never questioned Wikipedia's consensus-based model, but a proposal to ban and possibly penalize mention of clear-cut facts, especially as these concern our other Wikipedia projects, seems unfortunate, to say the least. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)03:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
I would just like to clearly state, as an example, that Moscow, Russian Wikipedia, is Москва, which transliterates to Moscva. There is no doubt that Russian Wikipedia has sufficient expertise to determine how the capital of Russia should be titled - in Russian, and for the benefit of Russian readers. Because we are an English-language project with an English readership, it would be to our detriment to move away from titles that English readers are most likely to understand and towards one that would only be more understandable to speakers of a different language. bd2412T02:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
The whole discussion of "Russian forms for Ukrainian names" is beside the point. The only question is, what is the most common name used to refer to the subject in English-language sources. We don't care what either Russian or Ukranian sources say about how to name Moscow or Kiev, or any person. If the English-language sources happen to favor a particular form by a ration of ten to one or better, the question is answered. bd2412T18:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree. But what if the ratio is closer? Are the other language Wikipedias even useful as a tie-breaker? ISTM that would set a very dangerous precedent. Andrewa (talk) 19:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Arbitrary break I
TL;DR. Some principles:
Language-specific transliteration guidelines are subordinate to other style and/or article titling guidance (e.g. Wikipedia:Romanization of Ukrainian), or are unofficial (e.g. Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian). In practice this means that these types of guidelines are not used if there are English-language reliable sources that Romanize the name differently.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people), the guideline that applies, is, perhaps more than other naming conventions guidelines, dependent on the WP:COMMONNAME principle, that is: follow the formatting of the name as it occurs most prominently in English-language reliable sources (Wikipedias in other languages are neither "English-language" nor "reliable sources", so they play no role whatsoever regarding the "common name" principle as it is embedded in the WP:AT policy). In this case the most prominent format of the first name in English-language reliable sources appears to be "Oleg" (in practice, The Guardian as a reliable secondary source trumps a Government primary source press release that is no longer on-line).
It would be interesting to know how the name appears in English-language releases of Sentsov's films (if any) or on his personal website (if it has English-language pages), etc... that is, rather as a comparison than as something that would unilaterally determine the formatting of the name in the English-language Wikipedia: but it can not be excluded preliminarily that WP:SPNC might apply. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree that much (not all) of the above is not worth reading. This is exactly the problem that brought me here in the first place.
Not quite sure how best to reply to you in terms of the talk page guidelines. This is the best I could come up with.
Is it fair to say that none of these principles support an appeal to article names in other Wikipedias? Andrewa (talk) 18:29, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Re. "Is it fair to say that none of these principles support an appeal to article names in other Wikipedias?" – What I said above was a bit centred around the case that was put in front of us here, i.e. Oleg Sentsov vs. Oleh Sentsov, e.g.,
first principle: if there aren't really English-language reliable sources mentioning the name (e.g. some geographical entity or local politician that have a significant national notability in another country but no English-language sources mentioning them), then the Romanization guidelines can be used – that's why we keep these guidelines anyway despite their limited stature: in that case also looking at what other language Wikipedias do may be a vantage point
→ doesn't apply to Oleg Sentsov: he's mentioned in The Guardian
second principle: WP:NCP is exceptionally centred around the common name principle (in English-language reliable sources): other naming conventions (e.g. the one about geographical settlements if I remember well) may be more centred around all five WP:CRITERIA, in which case e.g. the precision principle may dictate to keep closer to a local spelling, or other naming conventions guidelines, e.g. the naming conventions on opera, may have specific applications of the fifth criterion, such as: serialise around the local name (local language Wikipedias may contain info on that); or if English-language reliable sources may use different spellings without one spelling being discernibly more dominant than the other in these sources, then appealing to the local spelling per the local language Wikipedia may be an acceptable way out (if a WP:CONSENSUS, e.g. via WP:RM, develops around it).
→ Afaics no need for such serialized solutions (WP:NCP only steers for serializing around the "<first name> <last name>" format as much as possible), nor for hair-splitting "least bad" solutions in the Sentsov case: the reliable secondary sources (although it is only one, The Guardian) is uniform: Oleg, not Oleh.
etc... So I don't say that other-language Wikipedias never play any role (although "Wikipedia is not a reliable source" and WP:CIRCULAR should be kept in mind), but in the case of the Sentsov article title, no, I don't see why these other-language Wikipedias should play any role at all: in this case there is a straightforward reliable secondary source which wraps it up. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:27, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
TL;DR by about two-thirds at least. From what I've skimmed I agree with many general points made by @Andrewa, BD2412, and Francis Schonken:. As for the specific issue raised by the title of the section, I don't see how anything in other language Wikipedias has anything other than a curiosity-level of relevance for how to title articles in English Wikipedia. In addition to the differing naming conventions that may exist along with the language and cultural differences, Wikipedia articles in any language cannot be used as references. As BD2412 points out, the only thing that really matters is how a subject is known in reliable English-language sources (weighted towards recent usage). For subjects that do not have an abundance of current English-language sources, then there may be some value in considering national and cultural preferences in naming. But the general rule of going with reliable sources applies unless there are good reasons not to. older ≠ wiser19:16, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for addressing the question! The problem with the TL:DR approach is that it risks allowing walls of text to succeed.
This last post for me tips the balance, I'm involved of course but this is not a formal closure, and I'm calling it a strong consensus that other language Wikipedias are not relevant to English Wikipedia RMs. Andrewa (talk) 19:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
2) Regarding "Is it fair to say that none of these principles support an appeal to article names in other Wikipedias?" — in the same manner that we would not prevent a Wikipedia editor from stating in an RM (or any other) discussion that even if all the other Wikipedias indicated a subject's name in one form, the same subject's name in the English-speaking world takes a different form, so we should not censor or withhold legitimate facts in a discussion even if some Wikipedians may feel that such facts are irrelevant and therefore should not be presented. The term "appeal" is particularly relevant here since it may also suggest such other terms as "exhort" or "harangue", rather than simply "mention".
3) At the very least, an editor should not be prohibited from using neutral language in a (particularly naming) discussion, if the terms are, for instance, "although English Wikipedia has its own naming guidelines, it may also be of interest that 67 other-language Wikipedias, including subject's [own] native language Xxxxx Wikipedia…. use the form…. transliteration, etc". If any editor objects to the linguistic formulation or feels that such mention represents an "appeal" or an "exhortation", the mention can be rephrased in an even more neutral fashion. However, unless a comment is adjudged to be a blatant violation (of neutrality, civility, copyright, etc), facts directly attributed to our other Wikipedia projects, should never be subjected to a blanket ban. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)21:07, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
They are not subjected to a ban... they are simply irrelevant. We follow our own rules here at WP:en... just as the other WPs follow their own rules. Blueboar (talk) 21:38, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
What things (or people) are called in other languages is not irrelevant to our English-language titling concerns. That position betrays a philosophy of rules being a law unto themselves. In some cases, it can be the most important thing, mainly where the "other language" is the native language. An example is where all the sources, and all the coverage, is in that language, and everything in the en.wikipedia article is Wikipedian's translations. In general, it is still important, but it is not best examined as "what is the title in the native language". The question should be: "why have editors there given it that title?". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree that In general, it is still important, but it is not best examined as "what is the title in the native language". The question should be: "why have editors there given it that title?". That is exactly my point, but in different terms.
I do have some problems with the earlier bit. Of course other language sources are relevant, and particularly so in the absence of English sources, and I don't see the point of broadening the issue as you have. And this is definitely not the place to discuss the philosophy of any contributor. Andrewa (talk) 00:52, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Underlying philosophies are always appropriate for discussion of policy on policy talk pages. I don't intend to discuss any particular contributor, mine is that rules serve to support the principles, if rules are questioned, the answer is never "the rules". "Our English-language titling concerns" sounds like an implied reference to en.wikipedia policy as opposed to another language Wikipedia's policy. If there is a difference, it demands examination of differences of principles at play at different places. I don't know that that I have "broadened" so much as I object strongly to statements made by the first three posters to this section. Every use of the word "irrelevant" is incorrect and unacceptable. The truth is nuanced. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:32, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I haven't quite digested what topics Roman Spinner is talking about, but I have come across articles on foreign topics, where the most reliable sources are all in another language, the foreign language wikipedia articles are well developed, but en.Wikipedia editors have shown English language bias in preferring English language, less-reliable sources that to my reading are in pigeon-English. To say that "the foreign language title is irrelevant" causes me to choke because it is the main indicator that editors here are relying on poor sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
To call a spade a spade, SmokeyJoe, I think it's your view that is the extreme one. There are some fundamental principles or rules that are generally helpful and should very rarely be broken, see wp:correct and wp:creed#11. It's a spectrum, but the principle that other language Wikipedias are not wp:reliable sources seemed to me to be fairly strongly towards the very rarely if ever broken end of the spectrum. Not to you?
Of course we use material from other Wikipedias, but as I said above we do this by relying on their sources, not by relying on them as sources, and it's their sources that should be cited here when we do. I would expect material that cited another language Wikipedia as its source to be challenged, and unless better sources were provided (or one at least), to be removed. So if their material is unsourced, it should be used here with great caution if at all.
But I admit I'm surprised that this principle is not more clearly affirmed in the discussion so far. The discussion is an aimless mess IMO. I've learned something, but I'm still not sure exactly what. Andrewa (talk) 06:52, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Did I say a foreign wikipedia is a reliable source? I certainly didn't mean to. What I mean is that for a Bangladeshi topic, Bangladeshi editors will have decided on the best Bangladeshi sources, and used them to inform title choice. If the Bangladeshi article title is different to the English Wikipedia article title, and the English Wikipedia article is not based on good sources, that is a red flag, not "completely irrelevant". "what other language Wikipedias name their articles is completely irrelevant" is wrong. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
OK... but do you see the principle I'm trying to express? How would you express it more helpfully and/or correctly? Andrewa (talk) 07:22, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I was just here nitpicking, and now you want wisdom? How about: The titles used by other language Wikipedia's are not of direct relevance, but they may reflect insight and judgement made in a more appropriate language, and if so, you should examine the foreign language sources. For titling and expressions, be wary of sources not written in the native language of the source's author. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:47, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
My turn... let's take out the grocers' apostrophe... they may reflect insight and judgement made in a more appropriate language... more appropriate than English? Really? That will cost us a fair few fundamental assumptions I think. Andrewa (talk) 08:08, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
The reason to appeal to another language is if English has few or no reliable sources, the topic belongs to another language, and that other language has the bulk of reliable sources. It doesn't take very much effort to discount Dunglish as not a language of scholarship. My most recent example is Bangladesh Election Commission. Another example is Gangsta (manga) vs Gangsta.. For both, the English language sources are unreliable due to poor translation or production by non-proficient English authors, but to see it you have to read the native language sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for those examples. In none of them is there an appeal to another language Wikipedia, as far as I can see. Andrewa (talk) 11:08, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
To my reading, both are informed by the foreign language Wikipedia title not translating to the old English Wikipedia title. Both are characterised as belonging to a foreign language, and a lack of quality English language sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
No, I can't find anyone making the "see other-language Wikipedia" argument in these discussions. The Bangladesh Election Commission discussion is in two parts (the second part being a one-paragraph afterthought after the page had been moved somewhere else than what had been originally proposed in the WP:RM). I read it twice. No argumentation based on "see other-language Wikipedia". The Manga discussion is considerably longer and in three parts, so I might have missed something. Please provide a diff of someone using the "other-language Wikipedia" argument if I missed it. Anyway the successive closing admins did not refer to that line of argumentation in any way, so one can assume that if that argument was made somewhere in the (margin of the) discussion it didn't carry any weight.
I think that what drags the current discussion on is that someone wants it written down that the "see other-language Wikipedia" argument should be prohibited in WP:RMs. Which, from where I stand, is trying to write a WP:BEANS type of guidance (if contained on a policy or guideline page I'd remove it as rulecruft). Most participants in WP:RM debates don't need to be educated on this point: "Wikipedia is not a reliable source" extending to other-language Wikipedias, and WP:CIRCULAR being policy-level would prevent most editors to use that line of argumentation. If someone does, and no other editor remarks on it during the discussion, I suppose the closing admin would usually be clever enough to discard the "other-language" Wikipedia-based line of argumentation. If not, the outcome can be tested by move review (which in this case was successful and nearly unanimously overturned the outcome of the original WP:RM, see Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2016 November, second item). What to do next? Certainly not what happened here, endless talk page discussions without anyone starting a second RM on a cleaner & clearer premise as the first one. Then trying to put a foot down that a certain line of argumentation should never be made (not going to happen: even if the argument is used 100 times without consequences, it might hold water in the context of the 101st discussion), while the obvious thing to do would be to protest a single time against the line of argumentation (if it pops up in an actual RM), and let the closing admin weigh it on its merits. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:25, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Francis Schonken, you are reading it right. The "see other-language Wikipedia" argument is not explicit because it is not valid. It is not directly relevant. But it is not completely irrelevant. Going to the native language article is a step in looking for sources, where English language sources are poor. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:41, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe, I think you are just playing with words here. The decision that another language Wikipedia has made is irrelevant, because many of the reasons for their decision are not applicable to English Wikipedia (and that's exactly what the guidelines say too, and the rules are normally on the money, and that's why we have them). That all seems agreed, isn't it? And that is all I wanted explored here. Others are cluttering RMs with this irrelevant argument, and others. This won't solve the problem of those walls of text, but it's a small (and I once thought easy) step.
But some of the reasons for that decision may be relevant. Agreed, but I don't think there is any need to say that explicitly. You do. OK, I asked you to come up with a better phrasing (= more helpful in improving Wikipedia). And I'm still waiting. Andrewa (talk) 23:31, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
It's words, yes. Playing, no. Words are important, including how they may be misread. I object to "irrelevant", and object very strongly to "completely irrelevant". An improvement to your wording would be "not directly relevant". Some of the reasons might be relevant. For example, examination of the native language sources may highlight that the English language sources are not reliable for wording. User:BD2412's 02:11, 3 March 2017 wording carries an unfortunate misreading that non-English sources are to be ignored. That would not be generally acceptable. English language sources are preferred, but not to the degree that English language unreliable sources are used while native language reliable sources are ignored. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree words are in general important. But some more so than others. So, how would you find what other language Wikipedias name their articles is not directly relevant to RM discussions on English Wikipedia? Any objections (strong or otherwise) to that? Andrewa (talk) 00:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I think that is nicely balanced. As a negative statement, it should be preceded by a positive statement to be good guideance. Maybe ... "If reliable English language sources are lacking for a foreign language topic, consider translations of native language reliable sources, however, what other language Wikipedias name their articles is not directly relevant to RM discussions on English Wikipedia". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:52, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't think the meaning has changed at all in practice, it's just become a bit vague and it will be harder to agree on what it says. But far better than nothing.
IMO a translation has much the same status as a descriptive phrase. So how about
Ideally, the article title is the one most commonly used in reliable English sources. However, if no suitable article name can be obtained from these, then a translation of a name used in reliable sources in another language may be used. Note that as other language Wikipedias are not considered reliable sources, their choice of article name is not directly relevant to the choice of article names on English Wikipedia.
That sounds like something that could be incorporated into WP:AT. It was not my intention to change WP:AT, but just to gain consensus on what it already says, which I thought was clear enough. But at the risk of instruction creep, and in view of the controversy that this has produced, perhaps the policy needs this clarification.
But then it wasn't my intention to consider translations at all. They're not relevant to the case that brought me here, reference to them has been added in the rephrasing you requested. But if you want to go there, I guess it does no great harm. Just so long as the point about other language Wikipedias is there too. Andrewa (talk) 05:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Here's the paradox: current guidance has many nooks and crannies. People don't read them. But somehow these same people, naively optimistic, think that if they add somewhat to the bulk of existing guidance, other people will continue to ignore the other nooks and crannies, but will start reading & implementing the new remote bit of additional guidance. Doesn't work. Show you're well-aware of current guidance and only then can we start talking about updating it (funny how almost never anyone ever proposes to simplify it, but almost always wants to add complexity). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:00, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree again and that's the last thing I want to do. All I wanted was a clear reading of what the policies and guidelines already say, which I think is 100% applicable, clear, correct and helpful. So how else can we satisfy User:SmokeyJoe's desire for a positive statement, do you think? Or is it just a silly idea? Andrewa (talk) 15:42, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe: I thank you for your line of argument, but noticed that you mentioned [01:41, 6 March 2017 (UTC), above], "I haven't quite digested what topics Roman Spinner is talking about". By this point in the discussion, you may have already seen my earlier posting [13:32, 4 March 2017 (UTC), above], specifying the topics but, for the sake of reassurance, the link to it is here. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)14:47, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
@Roman Spinner: seems like you didn't catch on to what I said above: "What to do next? Certainly not what happened here, endless talk page discussions (etc.)" – Yes, we see your repeated cycles of the same line of argumentation, and not being impressed by what others say about this line of argumentation not really carrying any weight in the discussion at hand. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
@Francis Schonken: I have most assuredly caught on to the frustration inherent in this topic. Rather than my purported "repeated cycles of the same line of argumentation", the two most recent posts I submitted were specifically aimed at Smokey Joe's brief mention of me and at the emphasis placed upon The Guardian's use of "Oleg" as a putative prime example of how Oleh Sentsov's name is referenced in the English-speaking world. As for my four earlier posts on this talk page. the first one stated my position and the other three responded to specific issues. Also, speaking of specific issues, those pertaining to the naming of the entries for Jung and Sentsov, should, of course, be discussed on the concerned talk pages, rather than here, but the key issue of censorship/prohibition/restriction needs to be resolved, or at least discussed, here. It is quite reasonable for one Wikipedian to state that another Wikipedian's mention of the 67 to 4 disparity in Wikipedias using the form Carl Gustav Jung—Carl Jung is irrelevant to the discussion, but it is quite unreasonable to prohibit such mention or delete / collapse such mention and, as a further step, accuse the Wikipedian submitting, in a neutral fashion, such a fact, of a behavioral problem and engaging in disruptive editing. Censorship (other than for gross violations such as incivility, legal threats, copyright violation, etc) should never have a place on Wikipedia. Hopefully, we will ultimately arrive at a consensus that, at least, simple mention of facts regarding our fellow projects should not be censored or bowdlerized. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)16:58, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Well, I suppose that most of what you contributed to this thread can be safely ignored. Excuse my French. The approach is repetitive: you reply to several contributors individually – with stuff identical or extremely similar to stuff that you already used in your replies to others or have been writing elsewhere before. And then repeat again. The fundamentals of what you replied multiple times are most of the time refuted in similar and different wordings by multiple users. You can continue beating the dead horse but I don't see much of a likelihood that guidance will get updated, or that a future WP:RM on the Sentsov page would ultimately yield a different result (hopefully without needing to go through a move review again). There just isn't enough body to the combined reasons in favour of moving Oleg to Oleh in this case. The position of the Carl Jung page is unproblematic despite attempts to make it problematic last year. The extended discussion at Talk:Carl Jung#Discussion was just an earlier cycle of the same repetitive argumentation pattern: it didn't prevent the RM discussion being closed on a fairly unanimous "keep". I'd definitely invite you to change MO: acknowledge that these reasons you continue recycling in article titling discussions don't carry much weight on the ultimate decision, and that drawing co-editors through these repetitive cycles is rather a time-sink we can all do without. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:41, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Well said. And I apologise for bringing this time-sink here, I really thought that we could get a helpful consensus and am still at a loss to understand why (as yet at least) we didn't. Comments on that very welcome, my own talk page perhaps the best place for them. Andrewa (talk) 19:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
@Francis Schonken:. All of what I contributed to this page may, indeed, be safely ignored by you. And your French may also be eligible for pardon, but only if that is your native language. As for my replies, one size or form of reply does not fit all contributors. Accusations of WP:Wall of text notwithstanding (for the record, the accusation did not come from you), when a single line of text will do [such as my reply at 03:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC), second comment, above] then a single line will be sufficient. As for repeating the same line of argument — that reasoning can also be turned against you — it is a well-worn device used against those with whom one disagrees. I deeply regret having to personalize this discussion, but personal reflections oblige a response with the like. Only those who agree with your position will consider revivals of the Jung and Sentsov discussions as akin to "beating a dead horse". A Wikipedian has come upon the closed Sentsov discussion and decided to revive it with some very observant remarks. Also, the contention that The Guardian use of "Oleg" represents a typical reference in the English-speaking world has been refuted under section header "Arbitrary break II" below. The nearly-unanimous overturn of the Sentsov decision at move review was solely focused upon a "No consensus" decision, not in favor of keeping Sentsov as "Oleg" (although the ultimate result, of course, was the same, the difference is crucial to perception of the issue). As for the Jung naming discussion, it was not "a fairly unanimous "keep"" — there were 7 "Oppose" votes, 3 "Support" votes (including the nominator's) and one "Mild Neutral". Finally, regarding "acknowledge that these reasons you continue recycling in article titling… a time-sink we can all do without" is another form of shutting off debate. Whether Wikipedia talk pages are a form of debating society (or not) is a matter of opinion, but we are all volunteers here devoting our resources to the extent we are willing to do so. All who did not participate in this discussion were either unaware of it or did not consider it deserving of their time and effort. If you felt that the issues discussed here were of no interest to you, you would have also not joined the discussion. Censorship of information, even if it is considered "irrelevant" by some, is the key issue in this discussion and I do not see unanimity in favor of censorship. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)15:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
The Sentsov article title will probably best be settled by a new RM. That is: if someone can start it up with a clearer and cleaner OP than the previous one (see above). Probably this will not result in a page move (my prediction & intuition; please go ahead: there is no "censorship" in any direction; I find the discussions here and at Talk:Oleg Sentsov#Is it time for another move discussion?–that is: without an actual RM–counterproductive (again: opinion, without the slightest hint of censorship – do with it as you please).
The Jung article is good where it is. I know enough of WP:NCP to have a very strong intuition that it will almost be impossible to get the middle name in at English Wikipedia. So again, as far as I'm concerned you can re-initiate a WP:RM over it every other month, but it will probably go nowhere. But there's no censorship not to attempt it. In the end people will probably get tired, !vote a moratorium, or find other ways to arrest time-sucking RMs: again, that's only intuition & prediction, go ahead if you think it wise to proceed, there is no censorship.
As for modifying guidance: probably won't happen. As far as I'm concerned (but I'm of course not the only editor) no necessity has been demonstrated for it thus far, neither in the direction of more leniency, nor in the direction of less leniency. Again, keep on talking about it as much as you please (no censorship), but ultimately, sooner or later, the discussion will be finished with or without result: I think it most likely that that endpoint will be without modification to guidance. I'll oppose changes to guidance prior to page moves and/or RMs successfully demonstrating that a new principle is widely accepted (that is, nearly unanimously accepted while we're speaking about a policy page here). Again, I'm only one of many contributors here, I only speak for myself, and my words don't imply censorship or whatever. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:53, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
I appreciate your reasonable overview of the state of affairs regarding these issues and basically agree with all you have stated (other than, it must be emphasized, the sentence, "The Jung article is good where it is", or regarding the same view of the Sentsov article).
However, even with regard to those two articles, I concede that there is little, if any, likelihood of a different outcome in the immediate future and indicated as much, regarding Sentsov, in my reply to Ymblanter.
As far as the Jung nomination is concerned which, unlike that for Sentsov, I did initiate, I noted, in my final entry in that discussion, "Ten years passed since the sole previous vote to revise the main header and another ten years may go by until another vote. It may also happen sooner. WP:Consensus can change…"
The discussion regarding the naming of Jung, who died nearly 56 years ago, can, indeed, stand as a historical record on his article's talk page for the next ten years or until someone else decides to have a go at it. The naming of Sentsov, who is still alive and in peril, may well come up sooner, although no claim is being made that the renaming of his English Wikipedia entry will in any way improve his situation.
Since the dominant point in the discussion on this talk page was intended to be the uncensored ability of editors to mention how the names of these two individuals (and others, in possible future discussions) appear in main title headers of other-language Wikipedias, I also appreciate your declaration that you will "oppose changes to guidance prior to page moves and/or RMs successfully demonstrating that a new principle is widely accepted…" Unless one claims, as I never did, that English Wikipedia is obligated to follow the others' forms, imparting such information should not be singled out for restriction. —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)18:26, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
OK... this is good... now we are finally examining the sources, the way our policy intends. So... we have X number of English language sources that use "Oleg", and Y number that use "Oleh". Now... is X significantly larger than Y? ... Is Y significantly larger than X? ... or are X and Y both basically the same size? Blueboar (talk) 01:56, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Let's do a standard Google books comparison (English-language books):
Search term: "Oleh Sentsov" -Wikipedia – result: 39 items and suggestion Did you mean: "Oleg Sentsov" -Wikipedia displaying on top of the page
(note: adding -Wikipedia to the search term implies that all Wikipedia-related results should be excluded, which is needed for avoiding WP:CIRCULAR issues)
→ the result could hardly be any clearer: "Oleg Sentsov" is far closer to WP:COMMONNAME than "Oleh Sentsov". I think it's about time to wrap this never-ending discussion up. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC) updated per comment below 08:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Umm... Thanks, Francis. However, I see only good results and page previews in the first page results. I don't see Google results using either name in other pages. George Ho (talk) 07:58, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
True, alas – should have checked beyond the first results page. Retracting my suggestion to "wrap it up" based on these results. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
And, to try to wrap this discussion up:
There is no consensus that what other language Wikipedias name their articles is completely irrelevant in RM discussions on English Wikipedia. There is some support, but no consensus.
There is a little more support for a less dogmatic wording, but the only suggestion we have so far is The titles used by other language Wikipedia's are not of direct relevance, but they may reflect insight and judgement made in a more appropriate language, and if so, you should examine the foreign language sources. For titling and expressions, be wary of sources not written in the native language of the source's author.
There is some criticism of the approaches of two particular editors, being myself and my adversary.
I thank all who have contributed, but I'm afraid I think this discussion turned out just another waste of time, and again apologise for bringing it here.
While I'd welcome any new initiative for a better wording of my initial claim (which I still believe to be true, just BTW), failing that, let us move on. Andrewa (talk) 20:39, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Re. "For titling and expressions, be wary of sources not written in the native language of the source's author" – disagree: vaguish no-good, confusing, and incorrect way of putting it. What English-language reliable sources do is far more important.
Maybe somewhat more of "let go"? State your reasons in a WP:RM discussion; state where you disagree with others. It is not necessary to "convince" any prior or later contributor to the RM discussion of your own reasonings. If they're sound and well-formulated (compactness has a certain ring too), others will support them. You don't have to worry how many of the others do or not: that's the closer's problem (who, in general, will attempt to follow the soundest reasonings, not what got most !votes). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:36, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
@Francis Schonken: if claims made in talk pages needed sourcing, I think you would find it hard to show that closers will attempt to follow the soundest reasonings, not what got most !votes. Closers should but do they in practice? One problem is that "soundest reasoning" is often precisely what is disputed. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:49, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Alas, this discussion has been already too expanded as is, so I refuse to get caught up in an argument based on misquoting what I said above (leaving out some of the context, in this case "..., in general, ..." is a particularly pernicious kind of misquoting).
For the basis of what I said, see applicable guidance, e.g. WP:!VOTE. The assumption is indeed that, in general, closers follow applicable guidance. For clarity: *not* what happened in the Sentsov RM, ergo it was quasi-unanimously overturned in the move review. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree. But I'm beginning to think that might have been more because of luck than method. And we're not going to solve that here.
As there seems no hope of a consensus here, I've withdrawn my suggestion that repeatedly appealing to other language wikipedias is disruptive. [6]
This just means that the discussion at any new RM will be even longer and more repetitive, and IMO more likely to be decided by luck than by logic. I tried. Andrewa (talk) 07:52, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Re. "...I've withdrawn my suggestion that repeatedly appealing to other language wikipedias is disruptive" – Why would you do that? It can perfectly be argued that repeatedly appealing to other language Wikipedias can be disruptive (my bolding). Appealing to other-language Wikipedias in article titling discussions is ineffective in almost any case, continuing to do so, repeatedly, with a WP:IDHT attitude towards previous advice, trying to prove the point that WP:AT guidance sucks, can, if there is an editorial pattern of lengthy frivolous talk page contributions, be experienced as being disruptive in a Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point kind of way. But that's not something that can be solved by rewriting article titling guidance: the problem with that kind of behaviour is covered in behavioural guidance such as WP:POINT. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:26, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
I've withdrawn it because it was based on the assumption that the article title choices made by other language wikis were not relevant to the proposed RM, and there is no consensus on this that I can see above. I would love to be proven wrong on this assessment. Part of the problem, certainly, is that the discussion wandered into other areas, and it proved impossible to restore the focus. But we can't call a consensus based on what we might have decided had we remained in focus (which has been the problem in a number of other discussions too, see below).
I'd be interested in whether anyone else sees a broader problem, as I do, and which is evidenced by this recent edit.
I see a lot of this sort of thing at WP:RM. ISTM that WP:AT isn't as useful as it might be.
Above (never mind where, but I can supply the diff if you like) I was accused of wanting to apply the rules in a heavy-handed manner. Nothing could be further from the truth, see wp:correct for my views on this. But we seem to be consistently failing to apply the rules at all in controversial cases, and instead we're discussing from first principles.
Sometimes I can see the reason for the controversy, as in Oleh/Oleg Sentsov where the political significance is obvious. Other times it's a mystery to me, as in the New York/New York City fiasco. But the common thread is, we have rules and while they're not set in concrete, it should be up to those who want to make an exception to justify it. Shouldn't it?
Re. "... Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, which can deal with en.wiki's article titles better" – what a nonsense. WP:RM is what can deal best with en.wiki's article titles. In the Sentsov case both Oleh and Oleg are covered by reliable sources. WP:V satisfied in either case, and end of the discussion from the WP:V angle afaics, i.e. WP:V is in itself unable to address the issue of which of both article titles would be best. There may be a WP:WEIGHT angle (which of these reliable sources should be given most weight in an article title discussion?), but that's not a WP:V issue, and also there not something to discuss on a policy talk page: WP:RM is much more suitable venue. None of these places are suitable to discuss the efficacy of the WP:RM process: go to Wikipedia talk:Requested moves (and maybe in a later stage to WP:VPP) for that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:54, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Oops... I realize WP:V (alongside WT:V) isn't the answer. However, RM deals with individual title cases, like Oleg/Oleh. How about WT:RS, which handles sources, or WT:NPOV, which handles "WEIGHT"? George Ho (talk) 09:14, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
WT:RS: no. If determining the reliability of a source is problematic one would go WP:RSN (not WT:RS, which is only for rewriting the WP:RS guidance – article titling issues would not be sorted by rewriting the WP:RS guidance, while simply that's not where an editor would look when having an unresolved article titling issue)
WT:NPOV: no. If having a WP:WEIGHT issue that needs sorting one would go to WP:NPOVN (not WT:NPOV, which is only for rewriting the WP:NPOV guidance – article titling issues would not be sorted by rewriting the WP:NPOV guidance, while simply that's not where an editor would look when having an unresolved article titling issue). --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:25, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Hmm... I don't think starting another discussion here about the same thing helps either. If we are going to use this project talk page, we must discuss a narrower issue instead, like handling Russian or Ukrainian language. Otherwise, there must be another venue to discuss the issue if WT:consensus isn't the answer. --George Ho (talk) 09:40, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Re. "... we must discuss ..." – imho we would better stop discussing this. We must stop discussing it here and we must stop discussing it elsewhere: that is how I would express my thoughts in this context. No benefit is expected from any of these discussions, anywhere. The only exception might be (as said above) launching a new WP:RM with a cleaner and clearer OP to get it started. But even that is dubious whether it will change anything (i.e. be anything more than a time-sink). --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:49, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
The broader problem is actually that people believe that different must be wrong and that my preference is by default better than all others that are different than mine. There sometimes exist multiple different names for something where none of the names has any advantage over the other. I would posit that most naming disputes arise over such matters. In those cases, it is best just to not have the dispute and leave well enough alone. --Jayron3204:20, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree with the first bit, see User:Andrewa/How not to rant. But I don't think the solution is always to leave well enough alone. That risks a deteriorating situation in which POVs (such as the political forces on both sides of the Oleg/Oleh discussion) are rewarded, and are then increasingly encouraged to use Wikipedia to promote their causes.
Seems like we're getting closer to the crux of the problem (at least Andrewa's part of that crux): guidanceitisguidanceitis. Maybe stop trying to convert everything you think worth saying into a piece of guidance (essay or otherwise)? This is without prejudice about other editors' parts of the crux, as indicated above, e.g. repeatedly filling talk pages with reasonings that under most circumstances would not hold water. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2017 (UTC); updated 12:39, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Sorry that you find my essays unhelpful. You're free to ignore them, and personally I wish people would write a few more essays in their user space, and a few less on project talk pages! But I note that you piped guidanceitus through the redirect you yourself created at WP:RULECRUFT. At what level on Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement is that, do you think? Andrewa (talk) 12:02, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Re. "...through the redirect you yourself created at WP:RULECRUFT" – nitpicky, but updated the link (through a long-standing redirect I had nothing to do with).
Re. "At what level on Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement is that, do you think?" – err? Don't understand what you're trying to say. Better to make an operational shortcut to an existing page than write additional variant guidance (whether essay or not; in whatever namespace) was kind of what I was trying to say. Anyway, I'm addressing the central point, where setting up additional guidance is seen as a solution to the problem that existing guidance "isn't as useful as it might be". Which in my view is completely counterproductive. Which is explained in Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep. Other synonym for the same: solution in search of a problem. The real problem being that all of this accessory guidance isn't read, and that the more you produce of it, the less it is read. Making guidance more compact, cutting away accessory detail, pruning variant guidance in pet essays, etc. may be a better approach if one wants to enhance the usefulness of guidance. That are thoughts I vented way up above. Oh yes, and end this thread: we're becoming way to repetitive. Every time I say that this discussion seems to be going nowhere a new ramification to continue the same discussion is offered. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:39, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree with most of this. But essays are useful, for example that one on instruction creep (which just incidentally is about policies and guidelines, not essays). I just invite you to think about it. You might also like to read wp:mixed indents, as might several others. Andrewa (talk) 20:26, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Joining this new thread, I would also agree that essays are, indeed, useful, both as a form of self-expression and as guidance suggestions. I certainly enjoy reading Andrewa's essays which are well-written and well-argued and pared down so tightly that there is not a single unnecessary word. We can accept or reject all or portions of such essays, but it would certainly be a positive contribution to Wikipedia if all or any philosophers / logicians / rhetoricians contributing to Wikipedia would likewise contribute some of their wisdom / knowledge / etc in the form of such essays, thus opening wider avenues of outlook and contemplation for those who may wish to partake of it/them.
On a more-specific note, I would like to indicate/suggest that while the Jung discussion is a historical topic which has extended through decades, the Sentsov issue is a current and relatively rare one (the closest comparison is the entry for his co-defendant Oleksandr Kolchenko, whose entry is entitled Olexandr Kolchenko, which is not proper Ukrainian transliteration but, at least, it is not the Russian form, Aleksandr Kolchenko). His article's talk page is nearly devoid of comments and, as in the case of Sentsov, unless someone else decides to start a WP:RM there, I am leaving well enough alone but, simply as point of interest and not as an irritant or a provocation, I will mention that the German Wikipedia transliterates his name as Oleksandr Koltschenko and the Swedish Wikipedia has it as Aleksandr Koltjenko.
Since I keep violating Andrewa's prescription for brevity, let me end with the suggested possibility that, due to Wikipedia's world-wide influence, even some of the reliable sources, such as The Guardian, without referencing the Wikipedia article itself as a source, may still be using our currently-existing main title header for Sentsov as one of the sources for the use of "Oleg", rather than "Oleh". —Roman Spinner(talk)(contribs)02:03, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
I hate to break this to you, but any discussion related to title-related rules in project talk pages, like this one is under discretionary sanctions. I don't want to get in trouble. Same goes for you or anyone else. If we keep this up, any of us would be at risk of receiving punitives. George Ho (talk) 04:12, 10 March 2017 (UTC); clarified. 04:28, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Discretionary sanctions only applies to disruptive behavior. If you don't intend to be disruptive, you won't be placed under sanctions. We're free to, in good faith, discuss article titling policies all day long. You cannot be sanctioned for that. --Jayron3204:54, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Can we have some wider input into this section which is now encouraging article titling by ! . & stylisms, etc, even when WP:RS sources are not consistent. There should be some anchor in external (real world, real sources, real users) reality involved in titling articles. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:50, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree that this section WP:SMALLDETAILS is useless to misleading. Sometimes small details distinguish titles, but such cases are often disapproved in RM discussions, and seem to me like a bad idea in general. The section basically says it's sometimes done, but provide little guidance on when or why. I'm generally in favor of disambiguation instead. Dicklyon (talk) 03:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
at least three alternative names
Latest comment: 7 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
From the context, it means three other names: "When this title is a name, significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article, usually in the first sentence or paragraph. If there are at least three alternative names..." Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
I don't see any huge or radical consequences... I suppose the move closure can be seen as creating a exception to a generally sound rule, but this policy is written in a way that intentionally embraces the idea that we can make occasional exceptions, if there is consensus to do so. Blueboar (talk) 00:29, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
English usage is divided, running at slightly over half in accord with French usage. There is no "standard" English usage that's being disregarded. Correct French and slim-majority English coincide. Awien (talk) 04:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks... If that's the reason for this closure, I'd have no problem with it. But ISTM that the !votes that support the hyphen appeal to French usage; If these are discounted there would be no consensus to move. That's the problem. Andrewa (talk) 05:32, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks again, and again if there's consensus that this should be an exception then I'd agree with the move. But I see no such consensus, or even discussion in those terms. The argument seems to be that we should follow correct French usage. That's what might be the thin edge of a very interesting wedge. Andrewa (talk) 05:32, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
I don't see any "wedge" here. But if there is, it would be a very limited one. I suppose there is some merit to the argument that common non-English usage might be used as a "tie breaker", in the rare situations when English usage is so mixed that we can not determine a COMMONNAME English variant. But there are going to be very few article titles where that will be the case (mixed English usage and common non-English usage). So few, that we don't need to amend the policy to account for them. Just chalk them up to "we made an exception to the norm in these cases, and exceptions to the norm do not set a precedent". Blueboar (talk) 12:06, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
Article title question relating to Formula 1 and IndyCar motorsport
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I've followed F1 for over 20 years. I used to watch the Champ Car series before the reunification with IndyCar, and watch it occasionally since. There was a recent discussion at the DYK project over an IndyCar event article and it led me to thinking about article naming and the use of corporate names of race sponsors in WP article titles.
F1-related article names do not include the corporate names of race sponsors. For example, we have an article on the Chinese Grand Prix covering the race and its history, as well as individual articles for each event, such as:
My point is not the inconsistency within the IndyCar naming, which is a topic for the American Open Wheel Racing WikiProject), or the inconsistent redirects (which can simply be created) or that F1 and IndyCar / Champ Car have different approaches {a topic bringing in the Motorsport and F1 WikiProjects). To me, these are secondary considerations that follow after the policy issue about including corporate names in article titles. It is my intention, following this discussion, to post to the WikiProjects and not to make any unilateral changes, but my posting here is seeking an objective and outsider view from a policy perspective. (Of course, anyone may comment / respond, I am just explaining why I am posting this question here.)
My inter-related questions are: From the perspective of wiki-policy and neutral / non-promotional editing:
Is it not a policy issue and so should be left up to individual WikiProjects and local consensus so it is consistent within sports?
Is the application of WP:COMMONNAME leading to a different preferred name for F1 and IndyCar (title sponsors are mentioned much less often in F1, in my experience, but that is purely anecdotal) the natural outcome?
Article title for cases with specified acceptable terms.
Latest comment: 7 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
It appears that the move request I made for the NIU Huskies page was the inappropriate place for my request, since my request challenges Wikipedia's policy. I hope this is the appropriate place for such a challenge, and if not, that someone directs me to the actual appropriate page. Thank you.
From the link above: In cases where many terms are official/acceptable and correct than "commonname" has a place. It can be argued that in cases where there isn't a policy explicitly naming acceptable terms that "commonname" has a place since a term has not been excluded/deemed as incorrect, therefore it can be inferred that it can be correct. However, in specific cases, such as this one, where there is an EXPLICIT policy detailing what terms are acceptable and limiting acceptable terms to those explicitly named, then "commonname" has no place because at that point "commonname" is WRONG.
Please note that "Northern Illinois" or any such variant is not included. As pointed out above, since in this SPECIFIC CASE the acceptable terms are EXPLICITLY stated that means that any other variant is wrong, making (in this specific case) Wikipedia's "commonname" policy null and void. Wikipedia is currently using an erroneous article title. Please, let's make this correction. AnneMorgan88 (talk) 20:44, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, first of all User:PamDUser:AnneMorgan88 the move request you made for the NIU Huskies page was perfectly appropriate. It was fine. You just didn't win your point, is all (actually I guess it was closed early, which I hate to see, but the person figured you were not going to win your point and was probably right.)
In order to win your point, you have to prove your case from a practical point of view and/or from a Wikipedia policy/guideline point of view.
For the practical point of view, you need to explain "The title I have proposed will better serve the reader because _______". You need to have something compelling to put in that blank. Article titles serve the reader in two way: mainly, by letting the reader know as efficiently as possible what the article is about when she opens it up. Secondarily, to help the reader find the article (the second point is less important only because we have redirects).
For instance, if a person is searching for the NIU football program, and maybe she types "huskies football" or something, and she gets her search results list (Google, or our search box, or whatever). Well, depending on our article title, it will show "Northern Illinois Huskies football" or "NIU Huskies football". Which title is most likely to cause most number of readers to say "Oh, that's the one I want!"? Which title is mostly likely to cause the fewest number of readers to say "Um, is that it? Not sure..."? I don't know the answer to that, because I haven't researched the matter. Maybe it is "Northern Illinois Huskies football" or maybe it is "NIU Huskies football" or maybe something else. But whatever the answer is, that has a very heavy bearing on what we will title the article. That is reasoning behind our valorization of WP:COMMONNAME.
The same reasoning applies to when the readers encounters the actual article. She needs the most efficient signal telling her what the article is about. Anyway, the touchstone here is the reader. We could actually not care less about the thoughts, feelings, and desires of Northern Illinois University itself. Sorry. That is why we don't care much about legal names and official names (we consider them, and it's a data point, but a minor one).
As to policy, what I've just said is also enshrined in policy, specifically Recognizability being one of the Five Virtues of article titles (it's all explained on this page). However, there are the other virtues for titles. One is Conciseness, and your favored "NIU Huskies football" is shorter (and thus arguably more concise) than "Northern Illinois Huskies football". There are editors who strongly believe that the shortest name humanly possible is the best title for any article, so you could find allies there. Another virtue is Consistency (how similar articles are titled here). Just doing a quick random look, I see that we have Boston University Terriers and not BU Terriers, Boston College Eagles football and not BC Eagles football. But look what happens when we get to colleges that have three-part names: SIU Edwardsville Cougars and not Southern Illinois Edwardsville Cougars. UTEP Miners football. BYU Cougars football. UNLV Runnin' Rebels basketball. USC Trojans football.
It looks like you have a very strong policy case, based on Conciseness and Consistency, for your campaign to change "Northern Illinois Huskies football" (etc.) to "NIU Huskies football" (etc.). You're just going about the wrong way. Stop with the "official name" and "trademark" angle. Nobody cares. And for goodness' sake lay off the "this is just correct, period" stuff. You can't lecture people here. You have to convince us.
Bone up on Conciseness and Consistency, and get some more examples. As to WP:COMMONNAME, who knows what it is? Quite possibly "NIU Huskies", I don't know. Dig up some newspaper articles where they use the term "NIU Huskies" and assert that that's how it is usually done. But if it's not true, you'll have some heavy lifting.
As to changing the policy, I'd forget it. You can try if you want to. You probably should formulate what you want to change, exactly. Read WP:AT and figure out what you want. Add another virtue to the Five Virtues -- Official or whatever. But any change you propose, you are going to have to convince the community that it is an improvement for the average reader. That's who we care about, only. Herostratus (talk) 23:52, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Oops, sorry, corrected. The interesting thing about all this is that the editor might have a Consistency case (Conciseness, too, probably). Those are part of the policy too. I would be interested to know why people commonly say/write "Northern Illinois" but "SIU" (Southern Illinois University) -- and it it's really true. Maybe its a Chicago vs. downstate thing. But almost all institutions of the form "Word Word University" are called "WWU" and not "Word Word". What makes northern Illinois an exception, I wonder? Herostratus (talk) 00:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
So your Consistency argument is in tatters, maybe. And apparently over at the requested move you referenced, there are in fact good WP:COMMONNAME reasons for going with the longer name -- people have actually looked that up. All you have left is Conciseness, just one of the Five Virtues -- and there's more to concision than just "fewer words/letters". It's arguable that "NIU Huskies" is actually less concise than "Northern Illinois Huskies", since "NIU" unpacks to "Northern Illinois University" which is actually an additional word.
So that's an argument I think you can't win.
And as a practical matter, there is zero percent chance we are going to change our policy on this. So, checkmate, I'm sorry to have to say. Herostratus (talk) 02:19, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
There are quite a few people at that discussion indicating that BOLD should apply to moves just like it applies to edits. Well, if that's the case, then we need to update WP:TITLECHANGES and WP:RM accordingly so the guidance is consistent. --В²C☎21:56, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't know; but it certainly applied when you rashly pushed through a pet first-come-first-served methodology for naming (it's called primary topic). Tony(talk)
B2c... I don't see any inconsistency between BOLD and TITLECHANGES... could you elaborate on what you think is inconsistent? Blueboar (talk) 10:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Non-judgmental descriptive titles
Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The section currently reads, in part:
"Avoid judgmental and non-neutral words; for example, allegation implies wrongdoing, and so should be avoided in a descriptive title. (Exception: :articles where the topic is an actual accusation of illegality under law, discussed as such by reliable sources even if not yet proven in a court of :law. These are appropriately described as "allegations".)"
I'd like to add the following:
"Avoid judgmental and non-neutral words; for example, allegationandallegedimply wrongdoing, conversely, in a non-criminal context, they have a secondary definitions of assertions "made with little or no proof"[7] or that are "doubtful; suspect"[8], and so should be avoided in a descriptive title. (Exception: :articles where the topic is an actual accusation of illegality under law, discussed as such by reliable sources even if not yet proven in a court of :law. These are appropriately described as "allegations".)"
I think this makes clearer the various problems with the term "allegation" (as well as "alleged") in an article title since if we simply cite the wrongdoing definition there may be editors who would argue that the term is justified in a non-criminal context. Hungarian Phrasebook (talk) 16:45, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
Um... Before we decide, I would like to see if the proposed change is actually needed (or whether it is unnecessary instruction creep)... How many article titles actually include the word "alleged"? Could we explore some actual examples? Blueboar (talk) 11:16, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
I share that concern, and am also mindful of not treating our editors like they're brain damaged. Anyone who understands that "allegation" implies wrongdoing will also understand that other grammatical forms of the same word, like "alleged", do so as well. We do not need here to list a bunch of judgemental and non-neutral words; we have a whole guideline about that at MOS:WTW. If it's not linked from here, then link it (I'll go check). — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:32, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Standard keyboard characters
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
This article suggests there may exist any single «standard keyboard characters». This is wrong as keyboard standards may be in number or in characters comparable to the number of nations or the number of languages.
Additionally, you cannot expect from the reader being in one country to know what are the characters available on your specific keyboard and you cannot expect him to imagine what standard keyboard characters can be.
For instance, Many US keyboards sold do not have the extra US-International characters or AltGr engraved on the keys, although € (AltGr+5) always is; nevertheless, the keys work as expected even if not marked. (QWERTY). This means that € is an acceptable character? Correct?
Or also, the United Kingdom and Ireland use a keyboard layout (...) very similar to that of the United States, but (...) includes £ and € signs, that is the currency of United Kingdom and Ireland.
So I suggest to replace standard keyboard characters by English keyboard characters which might be less vague, if we mean English keyboard characters or by any keyboard characters if we mean any keyboard characters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.199.96.122 (talk) 20:56, 12 July 2016
No one else seems to have trouble with this wording. This is not a "US English only" site, so of course any characters that are standard on British or US International Extended keyboards are "standard keyboard characters". — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:34, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Error in the common name section.
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
In the section where it mentions common names, which are names used mostly for a certain thing instead of the full name. I found this on the people part a list of common names compared to list:
John F. Kennedy (not: Jack Kennedy)
This is wrong. John F. Kennedy is the full name (not to mention middle name). Jack Kennedy is his nickname. Also, the article's name is "John F. Kennedy", so I don't think it would be necessary to put "Jack Kennedy (not: John F. Kennedy)".
no... the example is accurate. "John F. Kennedy" is used more often than "Jack Kennedy". It is a counter point to the "Bill Clinton" example (where "Bill" is more commonly used than "William"). What that example illustrates is that (sometimes) a full name can be more commonly used than a nick name. The section is not about whether to use "nicknames" or "full names"... it's about using whichever is more commonly used. Blueboar (talk) 21:49, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
RfC regarding the WP:Lead guideline -- the first sentence
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Agreed. "Jack" is something that Kennedy's friends called him, and some journalists did in an over-familiar manner. My grandparents and parents were around for that administration would not have called him that, and we don't call him that today. But no one refers to Clinton as "William" unless they're writing something unusually formal. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 01:55, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
(Without acknowledging the fact on this page, User:Izno made, at 13:02, 28 August 2017, a clearly friendly modifying-edit to the signed contribution just above, making it more readable, without interfering with anything User:Primergrey would have intended to communicate. IMO there would be no benefit to restoring it to its original form. For anyone concerned with verifying that, evidence exists on a relevant edit-history comparison page.) An IMO more proper rendition would have been signed; in any case, it could fruitfully have included the following:
Our colleague Primergrey has called our attention to a talk section elsewhere, entitled "BL article naming".
To see if a title containing "and" is discussing a real connection (appropriate), or is making a POV connection (inappropriate)... ask if the article would have to change dramatically if the two parts were reversed... from "X and Y" to "Y and X". If the answer is yes... it is a red flag that the connection being made is POV. Blueboar (talk) 11:19, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago12 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, everyone. We really need your help on sorting out the following issue: Talk:Sex characteristics#RfC: Should the article be merged? If so, should it be the destination point for the merge?. A permalink for it is here. This issue concerns one Wikipedia article being titled "Sexual characteristics" and the other being titled "Sex characteristics." Because of this, a merge has been proposed to address confusion. At the moment, the thing that somewhat distinguishes the latter article is the inclusion of intersex/legal material. Some editors have opposed merging the article, stating that we should not be mixing the legal terminology about sex characteristics (which is mainly about intersex people) with the purely biological material about sex characteristics, and that two separate articles are therefore reasonable. Titles for renaming the latter article have been proposed. Other editors have stated that the latter article already mixes the two aspects, that one article can adequately cover both since the legal material also concerns biology, and that there are already existing intersex articles for the intersex/legal material; these can be used to address all of the intersex/legal material currently in the article, with nothing but a summary of the issues in the Sex characteristics article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:59, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
When participants are not taking the time to thoroughly assess the issue and are misinterpreting matters (whether it's about what we do with articles on Wikipedia and/or what the text is about), it is reasonable to address them on this. I have tailored my responses to each individual. I don't believe that allowing editors to believe something without all the facts is the better route to take in a debate, especially in the case of RfCs, where editors commonly vote and then move on. As for the one initiating the RfC, if you mean summarizing the issue here, I have found that a simple "please weigh in" note is often less effective than summarizing the issue at hand. And in this case, there has already been substantial commentary, which is another reason why summarizing the dispute is important. I summarized both sides. And if I didn't believe that this discussion is important, I would not taken the time to do so. If you mean participating in the RfC, it is common for the one who initiated the RfC to be one of the debaters in the RfC. Perhaps I should have responded to each of them in the Discussion section, but that section was started days after the RfC and sometimes it's best to respond to a vote in the Survey section since that vote is more readily visible. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:01, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Conversely, the supporters of the merge might have barely scratched the surface of the issue. So, your "summary" that only the opponents are apparently too stupid or too whatever to "thoroughly assess the issue" is, let's say, somewhat less opportune. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
One of the supporters was clear that he had analyzed both articles. The other supporter engaged in discussion before offering his support vote. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:28, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
And a relatively new Wikipedia account stating that we should not be "mixing" the material, when the material is already mixed and when we merge material in this way all the time, is not about being "too stupid." It's about being less informed. And, again, editors come in and vote in RfCs without all of the facts all the time; that's not about being too stupid either. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:45, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
imho the RfC was started too soon: its OP pretends to be "neutral" on which way the merge should go in the event a merge would be decided. Yet, at the same time, the merge proposal tags on both articles ({{Merge to}} on one article and {{Merge from}} on the other) suggest a merge in a specific direction. A more thorough RfC preparation could possibly have noticed that disparity, and avoided it, so I do think the RfC was launched a bit early before properly preparing it. Do think about the editor who might be closing this (thus far it might still be me on a blue Monday): such disparities are very difficult to solve by an RfC closer while they somewhat prevent to give proper weight to the participant's comments (did the participants that didn't comment on the merge direction take for granted that the merge is supposed to go in a particular direction, per the merge tags, or don't they care as long as the articles are merged/not merged?). --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Francis Schonken, I know that you and I hardly agree on anything, but the RfC was started because there was already a previous discussion (an initial discussion) about overlapping material, and that discussion led nowhere, and it looked like the second discussion, which had become tense, was not going to lead anywhere either. The article in question is not well-watched (neither of the articles are), and this is partly why I alerted WP:Med and WP:Anatomy to the discussion. There are few WP:Anatomy editors, and I'm one of them. A person starting an RfC in a neutral manner when that person has one point of view on the matter is not about pretending to be neutral; it's about following RfC protocol. I had already proposed the merge before starting an RfC on the merge. And it's clear that the merge tags on the articles have not affected voters when it comes to deciding which article should be the merge target; in fact, only two voters (the aforementioned supporters) thus far have focused on which article should be the merge target. And I have made it clear that I don't have a strong opinion on which article is the merge target as long as the issue of having two titles that usually mean the same thing is resolved. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:28, 17 September 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:59, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Re "... I know that you and I hardly agree on anything, but the RfC was started because ..." (emphasis added) – don't know how the second half of that sentence has a "but" relation to its first half: the two statements of the two halves of the sentence seem completely unrelated. Can't confirm the first half of the sentence either, sorry for being totally ignorant of these issues: I don't keep tabs on people I may have agreed and/or disagreed with in the past. Your entire reply also doesn't connect on any level to the procedural suggestion I gave: the {{Merge to}} and {{Merge from}} tags could have been changed to more neutral {{merge}} tags at any time before the launch of the RfC proper, which would have made an assessment of the RfC easier for a future closer. Don't see how well-watched vs. not well-watched relates at any level to what I suggested above, nor how it relates to seeking input from Med and Anatomy projects. I have no clue what you were replying to, but certainly not my suggestion. In sum, I maintain both of my procedural remarks. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
That we hardly agree and have been in heated discussion with each other before is relevant because it is not surprising that you decided to unleash unsubstantiated criticism. As for the merge tags, if I had thought about removing them because of any bias they may cause, I would have. But, again, that they are there has not mattered whatsoever. As for "well-watched," it is obviously connected because you went on about this RfC being premature; I explained that it, in fact, was not premature; there was no point in discussing the matter any further with the same small group, and, since the article is not well-watched, there was no point in waiting for others to weigh in. If an outside editor had weighed in, it would have been a year or more later. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:58, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Resolving an old MoS / NC conflict
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Usage on ar.wikipedia.org بلوس ون
Usage on ca.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on de.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on en.wikipedia.org PLOS One
Usage on fa.wikipedia.org پلاس وان
Usage on fr.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on it.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on ja.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on ko.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on oc.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on pl.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on pt.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
Usage on uk.wikipedia.org PLOS One
Usage on zh.wikipedia.org PLOS ONE
so apart from ourselves, only Ukrainian Wikipedia uses lower case in the second word. (And I confess that we only do because of an RM I just closed, but I think it was a valid close and move.)
That's not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it might even be a good example of the way languages work each in their own way, and each language Wikipedia reflects its own language and culture. Perhaps it could even be used as an example in the policy? Andrewa (talk) 08:43, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
The appropriate section in the AT policy would be WP:TITLETM I suppose. I don't think we would need more examples there: a short section with a few examples, mainly a hub to go visit WP:MOSTM for these issues seems excellent, as to not double the same guidance in two places.
No idea whether it might be a useful addition to WP:MOSTM: if you think so, maybe propose on the talk page of that guidance?
In general the WP:RM at the article's talk page seemed unproblematic, the OP's proposal to apply MOSTM was soon accepted, so the current guidance seems to be working, which may seem sufficient as a reason for not burdening that guidance with further examples --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:57, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, I had no problem with the close, it seemed a good policy-based consensus to move, but the review is appreciated. As I often say, we are all learners here.
I am not so much interested in the trademark issues as the more general one, that other language Wikipedias relate to other cultures (and of course languages but the two are inseperable) and can (and do) have significantly different policies and guidelines to ours. Andrewa (talk) 10:52, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
Other-language Wikipedias have a much greater tendency to imitate the appearance of logos, because they lack the equivalent of MOS:TM. — SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 01:16, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains#RfC: UK railway station disambiguation. The RfC provides 5 options for disambiguating station names, only one of which appears to comply with WP:ATDAB in preferring alternatives to the last choice, parenthetic disambiguation. The one option that does something more natural is the option no one in that wikiproject wants, because it doesn't agree with their preferences. While their WP:SSF misnaming practices have been cleaned up a little at a time at WP:RM, at some point it has to sink in that AT policy actually applies to their pet topic. It's really not okay to keep making up fake article titling conventions for their subject fiefdom that conflict with site-wide policy. I question the legitimacy of an RfC, held on a wikiproject page where almost no one's going to participate but the regular, that provides 4 anti-policy options and lobbies hard for a choice among those. — SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 07:22, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME applicability
Latest comment: 6 years ago14 comments6 people in discussion
I have run into situations when some editors insist that COMMONNAME must be used in texts of other articles, not only in the article title. Therefore IMO this issue must be clarified in the guideline, to avoid "Gdansk-Danzig wars" Staszek Lem (talk) 19:51, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Of course, if there are obsolete usages, we agree that they are OK to be used in the corresponding contexts.
If there are rarely used synonyms, then of course their usage must be discouraged, unless in direct quotation.
If the non-common variant is ambiguous, we must be very careful when replacing with "COMMONNAME". I've run into a couple cases of such brainless "disambiguation".
Here is the problem I am talking about: The terms are 100% synonymous or COMMONAME was established after a tedious deliberation, indicating that both usages are most probably correct.
My basic position that in the cases above WP:COMMONNAME argument is of limited validity, because the policy was deliberated and established for article titles. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:24, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Again... we can’t really answer the question in the abstract. We need to look at specific articles, and even specific sections or paragraphs within the article. We need to know specifically what you are concerned about. Blueboar (talk) 12:11, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Your own context notes work against your position, Staszek Lem. "If there are rarely used synonyms, then of course their usage must be discouraged, unless in direct quotation." Czechia IS a rarely used synonym, thus, by your own admission, its usage "must be discouraged, unless in direct quotation."--Khajidha (talk) 12:25, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
As Blueboar says, it all depends on the context and can't be answered in the abstract. Consider an article about a species that is at the English name because this meets the criteria of WP:AT. When the taxonomy of the species is discussed, then of course the scientific name will be used, because that's what taxonomy is about. When the uses of the species are discussed, then the English name will be used. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:08, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Given Khajidha's comment, I have to ask... is this about when to use "Chechia" (vs some other name) in various articles? Blueboar (talk) 15:09, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
it all depends on the context ... - This is a reasonabe answer in the abstract. When I need an answer in a specific case, I am usin the specific article talk page. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Yes, the UCRN policy does not inherently apply to article text. That being said, it sure seems like this is an attempt to hijack policy in order to achieve a preferred result in a contentious discussion. James (talk/contribs) 16:42, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
re: attempt to hijack - Please WP:AGF/WP:NPA here. Please discuss the issue,not the wikipedian. That said, It is an attempt to find a place for a centralized discussion. And I am not triyng to insert anything into the policy myself. I formulated my question in a neutral way. I am asking for clarification in this page, due to the repeated occurrence of the disputes of this kind. And Czechia just happened to be last case for me. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:20, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
I recently removed an example listed at Wikipedia:Article titles#When a spelling variant indicates a distinct topic, but was reverted shortly afterwards by Blueboar so I'm bringing the issue here for discussion. The reason I want to remove it is simple – the decision to have the singer's article at Pink (singer) (rather than P!nk) has nothing to do with the supposed ambiguity between Pink and P!nk. Note that P!nk has always (uncontroversially) redirected to the singer's article, it is not ambiguous. The decision to have the article at Pink (singer) rather than P!nk was an issue primarily related to MOS:TM (is "P!nk" used so often as to override our recommendation not to use characters like that) with a little of natural dab vs parenthetical dab thrown in. It had nothing to do with small details, which was not brought up at any of the discussions about that title.
If it's felt that another example is needed there please feel free to suggest another, but the current one is inaccurate and misleading. Jenks24 (talk) 11:16, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
I disagree... if you look at the multiple move discussions on the Pink (singer) talk pages (remember to check the archives) the issue of disambiguation was a major topic of discussion. Yes, MOS:TM was also discussed, but it was hardly the deciding factor... it was just one of several policy and guidelines that influenced the closures. Blueboar (talk) 12:01, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
I read through every previous RM before making this post just to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Natural disambiguation vs parenthetical disambiguation is mentioned, but small details or the supposed ambiguity of "P!nk" was never mentioned from what I saw. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Jenks24 (talk) 14:30, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
I concur with Jenks24; "P!nk" is one of the canonical examples we use of the application of MOS:TM at RM, and there clearly isn't a real ambiguity problem, or P!nk would not redirect to Pink (singer). Surely we can pick a better example that is all about the ambiguity issue. — SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 07:25, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
The issue with P!nk -> Pink (singer) is that it ignores an intermediate step... first we have the transition P!nk -> Pink ... that shift is not where disambiguation comes into play... but the next step is Pink -> Pink (singer)... and that does involve disambiguation, since Pink (on its own) is ambiguous. So what we really need to note should the entire chain: P!nk -> Pink -> Pink (singer) Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 13 November 2017 (UTC) Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
But that has nothing to do with the section in question. P!nk -> Pink is not a small details issue, it is simple common name/MOS:TM. And then Pink -> Pink (singer) is just standard disambiguation, once again nothing to do with small details. It is by using your initial contraction that it can be confused as a small details issue when that really has nothing to do with how we have reached that title. Jenks24 (talk) 07:40, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
It looks like the consensus was that the differences wasn't sufficient for this TV series incarnations, since the readers would not be expected to know which was was Hawaii 5-0 and which was Hawaii 5-O. That doesn't indicate that the two are not sufficient in other cases, such as NO and N0 or H2O and H20, etc. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:54, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
Excellent point. The difference seems to be, H20 for example is AFAIK never pronounced aitch two oh or even aitch two zero... our DAB even says as much. While for example triple 0 is often pronounced triple oh... hmmm, we're not consistent in following that however. Andrewa (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
Sometimes. Other times they're reliable. People search by typing, and the homoglyphs are at different positions on keyboards. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:01, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Please see Talk:The Players Championship#Requested move 23 November 2017. At issue is whether a capitalized "The" should be retained in the title and in running prose when one is favored by many (perhaps a majority) of specialized (in this case golf) sources, but not reflected across reliable sources more generally. Various pro and con arguments are presented including traditionalism versus WP:THE, disambiguation, consistency, whether special rules for publication titles and band names (subject to distinct guidelines) can be extrapolated to other topics, what is and isn't a "proper name", and most of the other stuff we come to expect of one of the louder rows at WP:RM. The outcome of this RM will probably affect two other golf event articles with similar "The" names. — SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 08:41, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
Pseudonyms, stage names, nicknames, hypocorisms, and common names
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#telenovelas regarding the use of (telenovela) as a disambiguator for that specific sub-genre. Current guideline has one disambiguator for all genre of episodic, narrative television shows - that being (TV series). No other television series genre has such an exception, and genres are not used as diambiguators in WP:NCFILM, WP:NCBOOK, or WP:NCMUSIC. Please direct comments to that talk page. -- Netoholic@17:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Proposal to create a divergent naming convention for animal breeds
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Please see: WT:WikiProject Dogs#Domestic animal breed page names, an informal RfC of sorts, in response to a WP:RM discussion the (entirely routine) outcome of which someone objects to. The proposal would reverse over two years of RM discussions to apply natural disambiguation to animal breed article titles, and instead impose not just parenthetic, but multi-word parenthetic, plus allow it to be variable by wikiproject. Perhaps this is a good idea, perhaps not.
I think broader input is needed specifically because a) it's an attempt overturn long-standing and many-times-confirmed consensus (which is possible but unlikely without a strong site-wide showing of agreement), yet b) the discussion has not been "advertised" anywhere but wikiprojects about animal breeds (i.e., the only editors who've ever favored parenthetic disambiguation in such cases, because it matches breeder jargon better, have effectively been directly canvassed, though I doubt that was the intent). — SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 09:39, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
Including years in titles of events
Latest comment: 6 years ago48 comments12 people in discussion
Surtsicna has raised a question about whether we should include years in the article titles of particular events, if the name used for the event itself is already unambiguous. For example:
It seems to me that applying WP:CRITERIA should mean that we always use the shorter form, because they satisfy WP:PRECISE (given that these are all unambiguous titles), and also are better than the versions with the years through WP:CONCISE. I wonder if we should actually add some text to this effect to the policy, so that we can achieve some consensus that the shorter form is the community's preference. RMs more often than not confirm this, as in Talk:Manchester Arena bombing, but sometimes there is opposition, for example at Talk:2015 Thalys train attack. What do people think about adding a new example to the WP:CONCISE section for these cases? Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 15:27, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
The year serves as a disambiguator only. If there is only one "X", then specifying "The X that happened in year Y" is unecessary disambiguation. The year should only be used to distinguish between multiple events that would otherwise have the same name. --Jayron3216:01, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Exactly. But we're not being entirely consistent in this, and we're often seeing RM proposals and !votes that want the date included even when no disambiguation is necessary. The policy and guidelines seem quite clear to me, but they are obviously not clear to many, and tweaking them might save a lot of time. Andrewa (talk) 16:41, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
This !vote, by a well respected RM regular, particularly concerns me as I said at the RM in question (and I pinged them there but there's been no response). Is it true that the year is standard format for events? That is part of the question here. Andrewa (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
I believe the best reading of CONCISE is that years should be considered disambiguatory unless the majority of sources describe the name of the event as including the year. James (talk/contribs) 19:27, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree with James Allison, and I think they meant to say that WP:CONCISE and WP:COMMONNAME can be in conflict here. Notwithstanding unnecessary disambiguation, I think we ought to prefer common names. If we go purely by conciseness the title need only be "Tenerife disaster" as there are no other disasters that occurred in Tenerife which have Wikipedia articles. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:49, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
I think that's exactly the issue here. What exactly do we mean by recognisable? We can't put the entire lead paragraph in the title and don't want to. So, where do we draw the line? Andrewa (talk) 21:42, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
An increasing number of our articles are based on news coverage (inc. many cited here). No news source is EVER going to refer to the year iro an event that occurred in the same year as the news source. Many will however refer to the year once two or three years have passed. Therefore only if commonname uses year isn't going to work for recent events. Pincrete (talk) 22:11, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Re: if the name used for the event itself is already unambiguous. Actually, ALL names are always to a degree ambiguous. What those who object to years mean is not "unambiguous", simply "unique". This works fine for 'major' historical events (ie no need to clarify Pearl Harbour attack), much less well for relatively trivial 'news' events. Does "Normandy church attack" refer to an event in 1944? An event in 900 AD? or a recent event? There have been innumerable attacks at Westminster in history, but only one has that as commonname. Outlawing year as a valid identifier is counter-productive IMO. Pincrete (talk) 22:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Who said outlaw? There's no police or courts involved. We're talking proper guidance for naming articles. No one is going to jail or having to pay a fine here. Just hammering out some guidance which is helpful in reducing unneeded conflict. I'm not just saying this to split hairs. We're not setting rules for people to follow lest they be punished. We're making recommendations to reduce confusion. Very different sorts of things. It's the attitude that guidance is law that leads to most of the unnecessary rudeness and deadlocks at Wikipedia. --Jayron3222:38, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Very well said. That is also the problem with any attempt to reinstate wp:NPA. Many people assume that as soon as you raise NPA, you want the offenders punished. Nope. That shouldn't be necessary, most often no sort of sanction is necessary, and the whole concept of punishment is contrary to long-standing Wikipedia policy in any case. Andrewa (talk) 01:28, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Re: Who said outlaw? This discussion has arisen because an editor was unilaterally mass-removing dates from the titles of recent event articles, giving every time the same reason, that CONCISE did not require the year. Two of those articles were on my watchlist and I knew the naming to have been the result of thought and discussion - so de facto - the renamer was outlawing the use of the year whenever it was not strictly necessary for disambig purposes alone. IMO it is an inevitable consequence of 'news' articles that many of them never have time to acquire a COMMONNAME, therefore 'year' is a useful 'memory nudge'. Pincrete (talk) 20:54, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Including the year should standard for event articles. It will improve the reader experience. It makes it so much easier to find the right article from a listing of articles. It adds to recognisability. It reduces mis-reconognisability. The year of an event is extremely information for the topic, and so belongs. Others pointing the the "concise" criteria over-read what concise means. Something does not become more concise by discarding important information, that is called brevity. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:34, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Lots of things are extremely important. It isn't strictly necessary to include all of them in the title. Creating a recommendation to include the year in all cases leads to ridiculous titles like "1066 Norman Conquest" or "1942-1943 Battle of Stalingrad". If the name of the event is unique without the year, it isn't more recognizable with it.--Jayron3222:43, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
No, not all events. I suggest this, wanting the year included, applies to events of less than one day's duration. Events of war, like you introduce, are probably better tied to their wars than to their years. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:49, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
"1066 Norman Conquest" is not ridiculous, if it were the title, but it would be a bad title. Did the conquest complete within the year? Norman conquest of England suggests 1072 as the end date. "Battle of Hastings" is a fair contender for PRIMARYTOPIC for "1066", I think it is to exaggerate to call "Battle of Hastings, 1066" "ridiculous". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:58, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
So I think we are nearly all in nearly complete agreement? Norman conquest of England has an appropriate degree of helpfulness over Norman Conquest to justify the longer title. Many Normans had conquests. The year in Battle of Hastings (1066) does not add much, Hastings only has one super famous battle, and anyone how cares already knows when it was. Amakuru's examples are good cases to argue that the year is appreciably helpful. 2009 Lakanal House fire definitely helps place the article, removing the need to download the page to read the lede. I think the year should be added, undecided whether upfront or parenthetical (Wikipedia loves the parenthetical titling).
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)? Actually, I am in favour of this and always have been. Add birth and death years parenthetically to the title of all dead people. "We've opted for brevity"? Who did the opting? "for good reasons IMO"? What, may I ask are these good reasons? As best I can surmise from reading the earliest archives, it was an on-the-run decision by the earliest editors, and the main reason was to enable the simplest of wiki-linking. Use the title that will be most often wikilinked. This would be to avoid the need for editors to pipe. That's a reason that puts a small editor's convenience above the convenience for the readers. Albert Einstein is trivially easy wiki markup, giving the desired flowing text while allowing increased precision and recognizability in the hovertext and any articles listings like when browsing categories. Albert Einstein is unusually both prominent and unique, but there are very many cases more like Robert Peel. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:00, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Add birth and death years parenthetically to the title of all dead people. That would be logical, but is currently contrary to policy/guidelines IMO. We could have an RfC on it; Meantime we should follow the guidelines, wp:5P5 notwithstanding, otherwise why have them?
Who did the opting? The community who adopted the current guidelines. What, may I ask are these good reasons? Well, for example, Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) is not as trivially easy to wikilink as Albert Einstein, even with the pipe trick. He's one of my heroes, but I'd still need to look up the article to get the dates. Not you?
...it was an on-the-run decision by the earliest editors... Yes, just like our pathological and baseless aversion to capitalisation. I hope you'll help me to change that in the fullness of time!
...while allowing increased precision and recognizability in the hovertext and any articles listings like when browsing categories...Agree that this is an upside.
The big argument against is wiki-linking. WP:AT's five criteria help to ensure that where disambiguation isn't an issue, article titles are predictable and as short as necessary. If we agreed to add text that wasn't necessary for disambiguation, we might just as well have gone over to Wikidata's style of using arbitrary numbers as identifiers for articles. (Think of the time spent on arguing over titles that would have been saved! And no, I'm not advocating it.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:43, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, time spent on arguing over titles could be saved if we just applied WP:NOTHERE consistently and in the small details, and no, I'm not saying we should block those who do (I might well be one of them on occasions) I'm just saying we should all try to discuss rather than argue. Andrewa (talk) 16:04, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
In that this is not a formal discussion it won't get a closer, but I'm seeing no new consensus above so IMO the existing guideline should remain, and so dates should only be added when needed for disambiguation. (I am of course involved.)
Very good point! How I wish others would apply this logic to NPA and simply abide by its very clear instructions. But I agree with the post to which you link. It's not appropriate at this time to boldly remove dates, for example, even though the CONCISE guideline justifies it. When this discussion concludes (unless there's consensus to change the guideline) it will again be appropriate, hopefully! Andrewa (talk) 20:01, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
A point of particular concern, for me at least, which has not been mentioned here yet is that including the year when not necessary leads to misleading titles. It suggests that there was, say, another Thalys train attack besides the one in 2015. It prompts users, misled by the title, to waste time looking up such events. Worse yet, the unnecessary disambiguation comes across as blatantly morbid when users argue that we should disambiguate massacres from similar future events! This is indeed becoming a common practice in spite of common sense and the guidelines. People blindly follow bad examples; Grenfell Tower fire was once moved to 2017 Grenfell Tower fire for this very reason. Surtsicna (talk) 00:23, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
That is the most extreme argument for minimalist titling. Absurd. Circular logic. It assumes readers expect titles to be minimalist, and that anything above minimalist implies other topics exist. It completely misunderstands the purpose of a title on any document. No realistic reader would do this. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:11, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
No, it's not about minimalism. Thalys train mass shooting attempt is more complex than 2015 Thalys train attack but would not imply that other topics exist. Since the most common (and natural) name nearly always excludes the date, the date is understood as disambiguation by realistic readers. And yes, there have been cases of users arguing for disambiguating attacks from future attacks. Surtsicna (talk) 12:56, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
Just to point out that the accused on the Thalys train denies attempting a terrorist attack, and still hasn't been tried, therefore we are constrained against titles like Thalys train mass shooting attempt. This is often the case with 'news' articles, "what it probably is/what the person is suspected of doing" cannot be said plainly in the article title for NPOV and BLP reasons. Pincrete (talk) 21:11, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
The Grenfell Tower example is a good one, and certainly not absurd or circular logic that I can see. It's unfortunate that moves often overwrite article history that isn't needed for attribution but can be very useful in discussions such as this one. In this case, the move that we can still see reads 12:23, 14 June 2017 StillWaitingForConnection (talk | contribs | block) . . (50 bytes) (+50) . . (StillWaitingForConnection moved page 2017 Grenfell Tower fire to Grenfell Tower fire over redirect: Moving back to original location (undiscussed move). Consistent with Ronan Point.)
What are we arguing about here? "mass shooting attempt" versus "attack"? Attack is much more concise, I would go for that. A violent attack. Do we need "mass"? Do we need to specify the style of violence? I think those are nuanced details, features, not central to the story, debatable. The year, 2015, is a precise, objective fact. "Mass shooting" may become subject to numbers definitions in 20 years, but 2015 will always be 2015, and everone remembering it and looking for it will be assisted by 2015 in the title.
Circular logic? Arguing that titles must be minimalist because people expect them to be minimalist is circular logic.
2017 Grenfell Tower fire is a good example of what? Of flawed circular logic, of thinking that it means that there have or will be other Grenfell Tower fires? It's hard to appreciate to benefit in include "2017" while it is 2017. I think everything about Wikipedia is best understood if it viewed as a massive document of historiography, as opposed to a news feed for a collection of articles for popular reading. In 2050, when you have trouble remembering, "2017 Grenfell Tower fire" will be helpful, correct, and concise. More than likely, the main thing you will want to check is the year. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:50, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
What are we arguing about here? Nothing I hope, it's a discussion. I asked whether you thought that the date 2017 was an improvement in the article title. I think it would not be, and you seem to agree.
Circular logic? Arguing that titles must be minimalist because people expect them to be minimalist is circular logic. No, that would be valid, but not the only consideration. But nobody is suggesting that titles should be minimalist, just concise. Andrewa (talk) 08:44, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
I think you demonstrate over-minimalistism in titles being detrimental to recognizability. I think you demonstrate that you just don't like titles that are concise as Wikipedia uses the term.
I think it would be better with the date in the title. OK, thanks for clarifying that, why? Perhaps we should clarify consensus on this with an RM Grenfell Tower fire -> 2017 Grenfell Tower fire? It sounds like it could be a good test case.
Do you differentiate between concision and brevity? I avoid the term concision as not sufficiently recognisable to many English speakers, but I think I know what you mean and yes, certainly I differentiate. As does Wikipedia policy. Andrewa (talk) 13:34, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Andrew, on the demonstration of over-minimalist, did you really mean to link to that redirect. I took it as an obvious mistake, we are not talking about architecture.
I think many titles would be improved by including years. More people seem to prefer title minimalism, even at the expense of three of the other four listed titling criteria. I am ok with the wording of policy on this, but I find many others misread “concise” as “brief” and skip over recognisability, precision and consistency. And the ones who do this have trouble answering questions about concision verses brevity. You evaded the question, which I didn’t expect. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:56, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
I mean minimalist as in wikt:minimalist. There has been a history of overt minimalists around here, mostly beaten back by concensus, but occaisonally a non-regular RM-er (plausibly unaware of the history) will enact the minimalist titling philosophy with quiet bold moves.
Grenfell Tower fire -> 2017 Grenfell Tower fire is something that I would support, but it falls way short of WP:TITLECHANGES for me to consider nominating. I also consider it probably an unimportant uphill battle. It is also also probably an unwise battle to fight for the notion that dates in titles are helpful, because it is part of Wikipedia's bigger problem with covering current affairs. As 2017 receded into history, the set of sources will need to be almost entirely updated. 2017 sources will become re-classified as primary sources. Future sources looking back at 2017 will more likely include the year in every introduction to the topic. No source from 2017 is likely to introduce the topic with explicit reference to the year it occurred. It would be more productive to talk about the title 1977 Tenerife airport disaster, although difficult because that event is superfamous. It is easier to see the recognisability and consistency advantages by looking at Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in 1977 and Category:Pan American World Airways accidents and incidents. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:01, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
2017 Buckingham Palace incident? Mostly, I would prefer to not obsess over recent event articles. I confessed years ago to preferring authorism over communalism, and I think this applies most strongly to new articles. Backroom style-nazis jumping all over newcomers writing new articles is toxic and destructive to the project. Instead of bossing, experienced Wikipedians should guide the newcomers regarding what experience has shown to be a good way to do things. This message is slightly complicated by the fact that experienced Wikipedians have to delete and reject nonsuitable crap so much, but those are reviewing and deletion discussions, not titling discussions. Having said that, (let current events live and settle until the sources mature), I personally find dates in titles mentally gentle, as the dates of events are right at the top level of thinking for me. I think the encyclopedia is best considered as historiography, even if it does current events better than modern newspapers. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
April 1999 Albania–Yugoslav border incident? Wars, campaigns, battles, skirmishes? I am not sure that these are well considered as "events". This incident is part of the Kosovo war (February 1998 – 11 June 1999). Although similar, the arguments for title-dating wars is not the same as title-dating single day isolated incidents. If the border incident needs disambiguation, I would look first to disambiguating by the war it is part of. Should the war include dates in the titles? Well, there are not nearly as many wars as events, the call for improved recognisability is weaker. I suggest "yes", for wars before 1900. Or maybe just for wars involving nations that don't currently exist. Title-dating the American Civil War would be to invite ridicule. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Comment While I don't necessarily agree with everything said by SmokeyJoe, I endorse his main point that there is IMO a tendency to value brevity over precision in article titles. While Cuban thaw may be the COMMONNAME in US, as might Unite the Right rally, I would have no idea what either of these articles was about if I were not a WP editor. The first looks like a weather phenomenon and the second tells me nothing about where, when or what happened. Similarly while Columbine school is notorious for one event, many lesser events, the place name alone fails to remind me of what happened there. One of the silliest renaming discussions I ever took part in, editors objected that nobody ever referred to 'Cheddar cheese', insisting that the article must be called 'Cheddar', because that is what everyone asked for at the supermarket! Pincrete (talk) 22:03, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
I hope few agree necessarily with everything I say, because that would mean I am being very boring. Espousing motherhood statements. Going to AfD and !voting per the majority opinion above. Also, Andrewa tempted me into discussion, not argument, which means we are to be more relaxed, speculative, and open to fresh ideas. Much of what you say here relates to what I call headlinese in passable sources, and not looking for phrases of introduction for the wider audience. No one asks for cheddar *cheese* in while in the cheese section, or few have reason to ask if elsewhere. The sort of place one might ask about cheddar cheese far from a grocer is in a library. Wikipedia is a bit like a library. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:16, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Comment:Conciseness doesn't trump clarity and benefit to the user. I've already voted for "2015 Thalys train attack" at the Talk page Rfc for reasons I've explained there. And I reject WP:CONCISE in these cases, in favor of usability and clarity for the reader. If WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISION are the major persuaders for you, then logically speaking the second article must be renamed Thalys attack, as a simple Google search will immediately prove to you. I don't doubt there are some who might even go for that (it's currently a redirect), but for me, that would merely make a useful title obscure. Mathglot (talk) 10:23, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Is there convention for using starting year in date range as disambiguation?
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I just came across Philadelphia Wings (2018–), a soon to be sports team and thought the dangling endash in the parenthetical seemed odd. I see there are some other teams that use similar convention. e.g., Harrisburg Heat (2012–) to distinguish a new team from older teams that used the same name. In other cases, the current team is presumed to be the primary topic (e.g., Cincinnati Bengals vs Cincinnati Bengals (1937–41)). Perhaps there are no concerns here, but I know in analogous cases for living persons, the disambiguation takes a form something like John Doe, born 1941 rather than John Doe (1941–). Just wondering if this convention for teams strikes others as odd. For one thing, the dangling endash has an implication that there will be an as yet unknown end date (whereas these teams could be ongoing in perpetuity, at least in theory). older ≠ wiser12:40, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Personally I think the present team ought to be presumed to be the primary topic for disambiguation purposes, unless there's a good reason for that not to be the case, just because an open range like this is a maintenance issue. Say if a minor league hockey team was to be started called the Hartford Whalers, then we would need to disambiguate it from the former NHL team. But then again, per my first point, I think it would be better to use a disambiguator like (founded 2018) rather than the open dash. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
RfC on CONSISTENCY and USEENGLISH (and dashes and capital letters) in Russian train station article titles
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
After multiple discussions with people I feel it's time I brought this Common Name situation to light. Because of WP:COMMONNAME There are pages on Wikipedia that have Actors pages named after their most popular character that they portrayed from a tv series and I feel that needs to change. They should be named after the actor who portrays the character. If anyone agrees or disagrees with that please let me know JMichael22 (talk) 23:14, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Okay User:AngusWOOF a wrestler by the name of Edge (wrestler) retired in 2011 and has since gone on. To focus on an Acting career and I purposed a name change to his actual name he uses to act and people are still telling me he isn't a credit enough actor to have the title of his page to change to his actual name. I strongly disagree with that Edge is the character he played it isn't his name he is legitimate actor now and his page should reflect that. JMichael22 (talk) 02:43, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Edge (wrestler) is a stage name or pseudonym rather than a true character. So long as his notability is primarily tied to his wrestling persona, that is likely where his article should be located per WP:COMMONNAME. Unfortunately, Wikipedia tends to be slow to change and even if he gains some degree of notability under his own name independent of his wrestling identity, it will likely take some time for the change to gain sufficient recognition to rename the article. older ≠ wiser11:32, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
See but I feel it shouldn't be that way he hasn't been Edge for 6 years he retired in 2011, he has acted under his real name for years. He has broken away from his character he isn't a wrestler anymore so why should we continue labeling his page as such. Dwayne Johnson is an actor who still wrestles yet the title of his page doesn't show it because his acting over shadows it? Adam Copeland is an actor who retired from wrestling yet his page still states his wrestling characters name over his own. Copeland has had a successful acting career and should have it changed. JMichael22 (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
This is something that comes up occasionally in professional boxing articles, particularly fight record tables displaying the location of fights. If the name of an arena changes—to use Manchester Arena as an example—I firmly believe it should be acceptable to use a redirect to how it was named at the time. So for Chris Eubank, in his 1998 outing, a redirect to NYNEX Arena should be fine; or for Ricky Hatton in the 2000s, it would be MEN Arena.
To me it seems ludicrous to go around retroactively changing something like this, each time a venue's name happens to change. I see WP:COMMONNAME being cited, but I very much disagree with its application with regards to past events, especially since redirects will work just as they are supposed to. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 18:39, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
If Manchester Arena has been the non-sponsored name the whole time, I think it's preferable to use that as its name everywhere rather than whatever its sponsor name was at the time. Number5722:11, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion
This section at the moment is one-sided and actually promoting depending on small details. It gives some famous exceptions such as Airplane!, but no examples of the more common situations where we don't distinguish by small details - which is typically when WP:RS sources don't consistently maintain a small details distinction. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
I think terminal punctuation is not good enough. Never a period (.), or a comma (,), rarely a. ! Or ? Rarely homoglyphs. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:20, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Any better examples? I think everyone would be happy if we could replace the former P!NK example (which wasn't an all-too-clear "counter"-example) by something better. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:35, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Remember there's a difference between what we do for disambiguation and what we do for article titles. Those examples were primarily about article titles. Although everyone in the final RM discussion agreed that the title of the article about the manga should be at Gangsta (manga), not Gangsta. or Gangsta. (manga), the destination of Gangsta. is still about the manga, since people presumably wouldn't include the full stop unless they were looking for the manga. However, I completely agree that the current wording of WP:SMALLDETAILS is inappropriately encouraging dependence on small details without mentioning that sometimes the details are too small to be sufficient for disambiguation purposes. I seem to recall the wording being more balanced some time ago. Was it changed substantially in the last couple of years? —BarrelProof (talk) 23:15, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Does common name support using personal names in scandal article titles?
The Weinstein Effect, is this also just simply an informal name, and not just a common name, and what disservice to journalism does using the informal name not do here? --04:49, 11 January 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.250.191.158 (talk)
Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion
I've detected a pattern for city names, but I'm not sure if there's a policy or guideline that dictates it. I've detected that for cities, at least completely within the United States, that the title does not include the state name if it is the primary topic by an overwhelming margin (e.g. Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Cincinnati, San Francisco, San Diego, St. Louis, etc. However, when there is a city that is still the primary topic by a huge margin, but not "overwhelmingly," we use the city with the state name, with the name by itself as a primary redirect (e.g. Memphis, Tennessee, Louisville, Kentucky, Huntsville, Alabama, Austin, Texas, Jacksonville, Florida, Dayton, Ohio, Orlando, Florida, Raleigh, North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, etc. (not "Memphis", "Louisville", "Huntsville", "Austin", "Jacksonville", "Dayton", "Orlando", "Raleigh", "Charlotte"; those are primary redirects). Although there are several cases I've noticed, the main reason I bring this up is because I feel that Cleveland should be moved to "Cleveland, Ohio", with the latter as a primary redirect, because the city in Ohio is not overwhelmingly primary compared the other cities I mentioned that share this naming. characteristic. This is mainly so because of the significance and size of the cities of Cleveland, Tennessee and Cleveland, Mississippi, the former of which has some statistics which are usually characteristic of cities the size of the city in Ohio, not to mention the significance of the surname Cleveland. Before I open any move requests, I'd like for someone to direct me and let me know if there are any guidelines I am missing. Bneu2013 (talk) 03:41, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Cities listed in the AP Stylebook[1] as not requiring the state modifier in newspaper articles have their articles named City unless they are not the primary or only topic for that name.[2] In other cases, this guideline recommends following the "comma convention" as described above.[3]
^Primary topic should be judged against all encyclopedic usages of a name; thus, for example, Phoenix is considered not primary because of the mythological Phoenix, and Washington is not because of George Washington and the state.
^Using disambiguation by state in cases where it is not necessary has the advantage of providing consistent article titles for United States places (a majority of which are ambiguous and so require disambiguation anyway), but the disadvantage of inconsistency with titles used for articles on places in most other countries (where redundant disambiguation is not used), as well as a loss of conciseness. Current convention is to omit the state only with the well-known cities which the Associated Press lists as not requiring the state qualifier in a journalistic context, unless they, like Phoenix, conflict with another non-geographic article; the Associated Press Stylebook is a reliable source, written in American English.
The USPLACE convention enjoys majority support with a minority steadfastly opposed. A similar practice in Australia South Africa and Canada city names is much more unsteady. Different people consistently say the same different things when remote battlefronts open up. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:00, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Right, neither a policy nor a guideline, but a convention, the main advantage of which is to avoid all the discussions that would otherwise go on indefinitely about which cities should be considered primarytopics. Ironically, the most vocal opposition is from an editor whose main shtick is title stability. Dicklyon (talk) 06:11, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe, Dicklyon I'm confused, does this mean that the recommended comma convention in section 3 should be used even for some cities in the AP Stylebook, or does it mean that some of the PT cities with the state modifier that I mentioned above (e.g. Dayton, OH, Orlando, FL, Memphis, TN, etc., as well as others) should be moved to just City without the modifier? Bneu2013 (talk) 06:40, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Something fewer than the 30 AP-listed cities should appear in WP titles without their states -- fewer because Phoenix is considered too ambiguous. Everything else in the US should have the comma and state. It's unlikely that there's anything to be moved, as enough editors are well aware of the convention. As for Cleveland, I agree with you that's it's too ambiguous, too, but I lost that argument at Talk:Cleveland_(disambiguation)#Requested_move_10_December_2016 already. Personally, I would prefer to amend USPLACE to say to always use the comma and state on city names, rather than use the AP list for exceptions, but that's a compromise that's not likely to be overturned ever. Dicklyon (talk) 07:09, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: I'll note that on the Cleveland move requests, no one seemed to mention the cities in Tennessee or Mississippi as reasons for why this is too ambiguous. That would probably be a better argument than the US president, since a similar situation exists with Houston and Denver, just to name a few. The city in Tennessee, ranked 14th in population and 5th industrially, gets 10% as many daily views as the city in Ohio. Bneu2013 (talk) 07:46, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
Hashtags at article titles
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
There's an ongoing requested move discussion at Talk:Me Too (hashtag). Currently the idea is being floated that since the # character can't be used in article naming for technical reasons, perhaps an alternative might be to use the "sharp" character (♯) which doesn't trip the technical restrictions. As it is more and more likely that eventually some hashtags will be deemed sufficiently notable for inclusion, is there previous discussion on this? I couldn't find anything in the archives of this talk page. BusterD (talk) 02:58, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
Splitting LGB and T and renaming LGB articles Sexual Orientation rights
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
There is an increasing move on Wikiepdia for separate articles in Transgender rights, and intersex rights. There is though no equivalent separate title for articles on sexual orientation rights.I have been advised that before making any bold moves, and for a wide ranging discussion this should be discussed here.
The use of LGBT while some will claim is common name, is not entirely accurate for the purposes of Wikiepdia. There is a move toward splitting articles down due to the sheer volume of information contained within the articles. There are articles on Same Sex Marriage rights, Intersex rights, and Transgender rights. Sexual Orientation rights need to be covered in the same way. The bulk of articles titled LGBT rights covers sexual orientation, and it would be simplest to simply split the whole lot, lock stock and barrel.
I hope to have a civil discussion on the issue and hope that there is no move to simply shit down the discussion before it has been allowed to take place. In my opinion it is inevitable that LGBT article will be renamed and split out. Why not bite the bullet and focus the articles down now, and have separate good quality articles. Sport and politics (talk) 00:31, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Also agree with Sarek and Flyer. That said, there are conditions where you can legitimately split an article in a neutral fashion, although not for the reasons you propose. In particular, if a given LGBT articaale is becoming too big, it would be perfectly okay to convert the article to summary style, spinning off most of the body text into several, separate, full-sized subarticles ("child" articles) consistent with due weight and NPOV, and summarizing the child articles' content at the parent, per WP:SS. But attempting to do this with two child articles, one with LGB and the other with T, would very likely be rejected by the community, imho. See WP:SPLIT for legitmate reasons to split an article. Mathglot (talk) 04:28, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
I think what is being missed here is Wikipeidia is evolving in the way it covers the issues. LGBT and everything to do with the community can be covered. There are though distinct areas Wikipeidia is covering separately Intersex, Same-Sex Marriage and Transgender rights are all covered separately. I cannot see why Sexual orientation this cannot also be covered in the same way. Child articles yes. I cannot though see how LGBT rights is accurate for what wikiepidia is doing in covering legal developments. LGBT is a community, not a set of rights. For example where are opposite sex civil partnerships in the UK covered. there are not an LGBT right, but at the moment there is nowhere else to put this legal development. Sexual Orientation rights are not always the same as being gay lesbian or bisexual. LGBT does not cover in the title anything outside Lesbian Gay Bisexual or Transgender. There are a lot more issues being covered here. LGBT should be left for covering the community and activists who stay in that area. Wikipedia should be more accurate in the way it titles articles. I think splitting the acronym isn't going to fly, seeing the current ill-conceived comparisons to trying to leading and following. those comments are missing the point Wikipedia is being inaccurate in its titles. There are wider issues which are difficult to cover under the current article titles. Sport and politics (talk) 12:34, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
WP:SMALLDETAILS
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
I agree that this section WP:SMALLDETAILS is useless to misleading. Sometimes small details distinguish titles, but such cases are often disapproved in RM discussions, and seem to me like a bad idea in general. The section basically says it's sometimes done, but provide little guidance on when or why. I'm generally in favor of disambiguation instead. Dicklyon (talk) 03:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC) — Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 55#WP:SMALLDETAILS
@Dicklyon: Sorry I didn't see that reply as it scrolled up and was archived. Could we at least at a bare minimum think of some examples of smalldetails which don't work. I'm thinking ABC vs A.B.C. for example. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:40, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
The content of the WP:SMALLDETAILS guidance has changed since Dicklyon placed their talk page comment in April 2017: I would be wary to consider it as applying to the policy as it is today. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:46, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
I think terminal punctuation with the period or comma is always too small. Other terminal punctuation is usually too small, Airplane! is an exception not an exemplar demonstrating that terminal exclamation is good. I’ve also argued somewhere that a terminal “s”, due to WP:PLURAL imposing a Wikipedia style on titles confusing some readers should be rest of the examples seem ok, but could use examples where the community has set a limit. I know Gangsta., but it had other driving factors as well. I also argue that homoglyphs, eg O0Il1, but also the many non-standard characters, should be avoided probably completely. I think no one has ever argue for allowing disambiguation by alternative white space characters, and policy silence in that reflects that common sense is still expected. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:37, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
"List of"
Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I know it is very common to make any list article have a title "List of X" , but frequently, I believe that the "List of" can be dropped to simply leave the title at "X" in most cases (though a redirect could still be provided from "List of X" since people will search on that. For example, "List of Star Wars characters" could simply be "Star Wars characters" which still remains precises and less clunky.
There are clear exceptions, such as if we have an article that is not a list about X, and then for size concerns the full list at "List of X". But I'd think we'd like to see if we can get more editors to drop the redundant "List of" just because an article happens to be a list form. --Masem (t) 16:35, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
Why is "List of" bad? (Being redundant isn't bad in itself, but in this case, it doesn't even seem redundant -- and article about "Star Wars characters" would be different than "List of Star Wars characters", regardless of the length of the article about "X". -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:58, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
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.
Reflexively using a term coined in the celebrity news media is bad form, and naming an article with a person'a name in it is not as good as using a general term, and repeating the naming of an invididual a the mascot for a wave of negative behavior by many others is also bad form. Suggest renaming this article to something encyclopedic, like 2017-18 Sexual abuse scandals, as is Wikipedia's normal form, and request help in educating people about good encyclopedic and journalism form. -Inowen (talk) 05:48, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Um... this talk page is for discussing our WP:AT policy, not for discussing individual articles. Is there a policy change being considered? Blueboar (talk) 11:51, 9 February 2018 (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.
"Henry" versus "Henri" for historical French figures
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Should WP:COMMONNAME be updated to reflect that WP does not merely follow usage in reliable sources, but imposes its editors' own sense of what is the politically correct title?
No need to amend COMMONNAME... we just need to accept that for every “rule”, there will be the occasional exception (and, no, those occasional exceptions DON’T need to be specified in the “rules”... It is OK to simply let them be.) Blueboar (talk) 00:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Nobody is even citing IAR much less explaining how the encyclopedia is improved by making these exceptions. --В²C☎00:43, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
In a society that has figured out rules and algorithms for driving a car in traffic without conflicts, I don't understand the reluctance to determine and specify the rules and algorithms for deciding article titles objectively without conflict, which should be much much simpler than driving a car in traffic. --В²C☎00:46, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Yes. In driving a car the objectives are clear and can be spelt out in sufficient detail to be programmed. The process of achieving the objectives is complex, but is an engineering problem, backed by physical science and mathematics. Choosing an article title is a problem in natural language, which is inherently fuzzy, context dependent and value ridden. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:01, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
B2C, you're comparing two entirely different activities. Look at the mess at Sarah Jane Brown. Would you ever expect such a discussion regarding the right of way at an intersection, or the speed limit on a particular road, or when passing is allowed? There are clearly-defined rules governing driving and the scope is limited. Yes, it's complex, but it's well-defined. Wikipedia is a whole different arena. You frequently promote IAR, but there's no such concept in driving. You might as well say, "We can send a man to the moon but we can't agree on an article title." True but irrelevant. Omnedon (talk) 17:06, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
The article cannot have its COMMONNAME because she is not it’s primarytopic. WP:UCRM should not be read as a rule, but as a preference. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:39, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe: why did you attack the natural language requirement in the policy ([10])? Afaik article titles being in natural language always applies, at least I've seen no exceptions to it: so if there are exceptions to that, discuss them instead of reverting to a version that implies that natural language doesn't always apply. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:41, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Attack? The problem is that a parenthetically disambiguated COMMONNAME is not “Natural language. I have read the section (UCRN) as requiring/encouraging a WP:Natural COMMONNAME title, if possible. Perhaps you are saying it should be read as speaking to the non-parenthetical part of disambiguated titles? In either case, I think the wording can be tidied. B2C is right in that the current wording can be read in conjunction with a title such as Sarah Jane Brown as an assertion by Wikipedia that that name is her COMMONNAME. An absurd reading, but I think that policy should be more carefully written so as not be misreadable. Sarah Jane Brown is not her COMMONNAME, but it is the article title. Mercury (element) is neither the COMMONNAME nor natural language. And regardless, policy should in principle state what is done, or what is preferred, not what “is”. The current wording is objectionable as asserting a fact by fiat. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:57, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Parenthetical qualifiers appear in (written) natural language. That's not an argument against the natural language policy for article titles. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:04, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
That’s not natural language. It’s a weird affection in some forms of technical writing. Normal people don’t speak or write with parenthetical clauses, they do it with commas. I made several other points, are you going to ignore them? Diluting the preference for natural language is not what this is about. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:21, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I definitely disagree with you Station1. Parenthetical clauses for disambigation is done deliberately, with conscious planning and premeditation. It is not naturally done. It is an affection in some forms of not quite formal technical writing. Wikipedia does it only for technical reasons. Apart from titles, parenthetical clausing is almost never seen on Wikipedia. Wikipedia titles are frequently not natural language, not, every time there is a parenthetical suffix. What is true is that the non-parenthetical part is always natural language. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:40, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
You and Francis are both deliberately, predmeditatively, using parenthetical clauses in your responses to attempt to contrive a point. No. It is weird, contrived, deliberate, not natural. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:43, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Respectfully, I think you might just be using a different definition of "natural language" than the one that is linked on the policy page. If you haven't already done so, you might want to take a look at the articles at natural language, constructed language and formal language. I'm very much in favor of natural disambiguation of article titles wherever practical, but "natural language" really is something altogether different. Station1 (talk) 09:57, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I was already familiar with “natural language”, and reviewed the article, and matched my points to the language in its lede. Wikipedia’s unusual penchant for parenthical titling is deliberate, not natural. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:03, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I disagree that parentheses (or brackets, as I was taught to call them) are forbidden in written prose. They definitely have their place. However, SmokeyJoe is correct that their use in disambiguated titles is not to be interpreted as part of written text. It is a descriptor which qualifies the rest of the title. Basically like the subtitles used at Britannica. Like this one, "album by Reed". [11] Some people have this view that parenthetical disambiguation is bad, and I totally disagree with that. I think it's great, and much better than using obscure or unrecognisable names just because they like happen to be unique. — Amakuru (talk) 10:04, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
There is no reason to consider parentheses as not "natural language". They are no more unnatural than written language itself. Or spoken language, for that matter. They are a typographic convention denoting phrases that provide supplemental or clarifying information. To say they are "unnatural" is to say that any need to express such a meaning in written language is "unnatural". Parenthesized phrases are used in writing all the time, not just in "technical" writing. They're used in essays of all sorts. They're even used in fiction. Read the fine article.
SmokeyJoe, if you aren't aware of this, maybe you need to read more widely. Or maybe you have just been unaware of the parentheses you've been encountering because the writing is that "natural"-seeming and you haven't been stumbling over them. Jeh (talk) 10:21, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
Please don't be pedantic and condescending. WP:NATURAL and WP:NATURALDIS do not mean by "natural" what you what you're making of the term here. They mean whether the construction being considered for the title is something we'd likely encounter in plain-English in a reliable source. That is, "Tonkinese cat" [in a work where it wasn't already understood that cats were the referent] would be very likely to be encountered, while "Tonkinese (cat)" would almost never occur. WP:AT has us prefer natural disambiguation over parenthetic when the former is available, and prefer natural names, absent any disambiguation, over awkward WP-invented constructions, because it's easier on the readership. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 07:36, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Born2cycle, I agree with the concern, but this is a pointy way to raise it. Obviously we're not going to edit WP:AT to say anything like that anywhere. How we "account" for P.C. problems is simply understanding that not every editor follows WP:NPOV and WP:NPOVNAME perfectly 100% of the time, and WP:FALSECONSENSUS can happen (usually short-term) when a cluster of people suffering a similar neutrality failure happen to show up at once in the same place. It's a real problem, but it's a problem of enforcing already extant policy (e.g. closers rejecting majority "votes" that are clearly invalid under policy, even if people will vent about it unsuccessfully at WP:RMTR). The answer isn't mangle this policy. (Not that I believe you want to; you're clearly being sarcastic.) — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 07:36, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. I hadn't realized, or forgot, that what's really going is a violation of NPOV. We're not supposed to judge whether "wife of" is appropriate or not - we're supposed to look at usage in reliable sources to see if it is. That's what NPOV means. Thank you. No wonder people are getting so worked up about this. I wish somebody (definitely not me) would bring that up there. --В²C☎16:58, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
Need assistance explaining COMMONNAME
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
There is an issue at Talk:Family Force 5#Requested move 2 March 2018. The band has been reduced to a duo, and they are going by "FF5" now. One editor, with fewer than 500 edits decided to move the article to FF5 (duo), and I pointed to COMMONNAME when restoring it. A new editor, whose only edits have been to that discussion, has sided with the original editor, but they don't seem to have the same understanding of COMMONNAME as I do. Could someone please clarify what it means there? Walter Görlitz (talk) 08:04, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
NYC subway station naming convention
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 6 years ago46 comments28 people in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
SNOW OPPOSE/WITHDRAWAL BY NOMINATOR Pretty obvious, only one other supporter, in any event, this was a worthwhile endeavor as it got the pulse of the community in regards to this issue. Non-admin closure. Safiel (talk) 00:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Support as proposer After watching the battle unfold regarding the Duchess of Sussex, it is absolutely clear that the problem arises out of Wikipedia naming policies and we need to solve this problem at the root, not just at the branches. The solution to me seems clear and obvious. Change WP:COMMONNAME as proposed above. Safiel (talk) 18:33, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Note Apologies in advance if this RfC is not set up ideally. Please feel free to correct any issues with it. Safiel (talk) 18:33, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose: WP:COMMONNAME is a policy (and a guideline), while Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) is a guideline, but not a policy. If they are in conflict, specific conflicts and their resolutions can be brought up to convince the broader community that the policy should be updated (which is good, and the way to go, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS), but there should not be a generic change to the policy that says the other guideline overrides it in all cases. Because the guideline will be edited later and the broader community may not agree with its applicability to policy. IMO, this RFC should be about correcting, updating, or extending something specific in WP:COMMONNAME to remove the contradiction, not about giving the guideline precedence over policy. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:20, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Comment I quote the relevant naming convention in full: "Articles on the wives of hereditary peers are generally headed {First name} {Married name}, {Title}, as Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire; using her maiden name and so calling her Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire would be anachronism. If the husband is a member of the Royal family, his article will usually have no surname; neither should hers: Diana, Princess of Wales. If a cognomen or maiden name is clearly most commonly used for the subject, and is unambiguous, use it for the title: Bess of Hardwick; make a redirect from the standard form; if a peeress has had several styles, redirects will be useful." PatGallacher (talk) 20:23, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. Fancruft stuff and the in-universe views of its authors don't override one of the most important core Wikipedia policies. This is like a municipal council voting on whether to arrest the President of France. Editors in a specific niche area simply cannot "decide to ignore" WP:COMMONNAME (or WP:NPOV or other core policies). --Tataral (talk) 00:08, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose as per JHunterJ and Tataral above. WP:COMMONNAME is one of our most important policies. Yes, there can be exceptions, and where the common name is not so very common, inter-article consistency has some value. But where there is a widely and frequently used common name, particularly when a person is notable for other reasons, and the common name persists or endures in spite of the existing royal title, COMMONNAME should be followed. This is an example of the all too common WP:OFFICIALNAMES fallacy. If we need to make any changes to these two pages, it should be to say that a clearly established COMMONNAME will normally override any royal title or naming convention for royalty. DES(talk)DESiegel Contribs00:19, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose The raw emotion of the discussion being conducted regarding the naming of the article mentioned above would not have occurred had the article's name remained as it was before a unilateral change was implemented. The discussion that ensued was anticipated and measures were put into place that were apparently and sadly ignored. This led to the heat of the argument. The key to Wikipedia's 'COMMONNAME' policy is to allow the general populace easy access to information. Common names are not meant to be definitive or even correct. So long as the article itself explains matters clearly, comprehensively, and correctly, I think the COMMONNAME policy is best in nearly all cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:BFC0:21:1432:4CB9:846A:C1B8 (talk) 01:07, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose - WP:COMMONNAME is one of the most useful, logical and agreed-upon policies we have. There is no good rationale for overriding it for this particular set of cases. -- Fuzheado | Talk01:53, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Nonsense – COMMONNAME is not a policy or something that needs to be superceded or not; it's just a strategy for RECOGNIZABILITY, one of the 5 core titling criteria. It would be foolish to try to encode rigid rules for naming into WP:AT. Where criteria and conventions conflict, they need to be discussed for a consensus to emerge. Dicklyon (talk) 02:11, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Actually, if you look at the page, WP:COMMONNAME is in fact a policy, and has been one for years. Like all Wikipedia policies, there can be exceptions and these can be discussed in individual cases. But an automatic override of COMMONNAME in favor of a much less general convention stikes me as a very poor idea. DES(talk)DESiegel Contribs04:01, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
What's going on at the Rfcs in the articles of the current Duke & Duchess of Sussex, is COMMONNAME being pushed 'too far'. GoodDay (talk) 02:48, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
So, Charles, Prince of Wales is more commonly known as Prince Charles. Does that mean we should change that article title. When he succeeds the British throne, do we hold off from changing his article title, until his new status & name become more common? GoodDay (talk) 10:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Well, we do hold off, but in the case of him succeeding to the British Throne sources will instantly switch to the new name, so we can also switch instantly. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:13, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
No, because Prince Eddy is not his most common name. I refuse to believe that you cannot grasp the point here. Surtsicna (talk) 12:04, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Strong OpposeWP:COMMONNAME is one of the most basic and standard of our policies. It is also one of the most sensible. This is in contrast to the Royalty/nobility naming guideline, which is just that - a guideline. As a guideline, it is not written in stone. It seems some editors are intent on using Wikipedia to conduct ideological battles over the British monarchy. We are an international project, with servers and offices in the United States. We are not the Court Circular obliged to follow every decree issued on-high from Buckingham Palace like minions. No editor, whatever their views or emotions, can decide to ignore our most basic of principles. The carry-on at Meghan Markle's article has been nothing short of cringeworthy. AusLondonder (talk) 03:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose royalty and nobility tends towards WP:PEACOCK, especially with very minor nobles, and pretenders centuries out of jurisdictions that were eliminated centuries ago. -- 65.94.42.219 (talk) 04:32, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Strong Oppose the adoption of a Lèse-majesté policy for Wikipedia (as per the excellent reasoning put forward by AusLondonder and DESiegel). It seems to be a sad reality that topics of royalty - while they attract persons with a legitimate academic interest in the subject - are also equally likely to attract the coterie of mad housewives on which many modern monarchies rely on for support. While anyone should be welcome to contribute to WP, if we extend a special carte blanche to override our basic policies to this happy band of lunatics we're going to see article after article deluged with the type of SPA !votes seen in the Meghan Markle RFC: "The Duchess has risen above the ranks of the plethora of female actresses." and "any arguments about WP policy and even user consensus, frankly, are irrelevant when faced with ... the Queen's vote", etc., etc. Chetsford (talk) 05:48, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose any automatic deference to the whim of any government, organization or individual. The King of Swaziland renamed his country, yet we were sensible enough not to immediately start calling it eSwatini. But screw Africa and their royalty, right? They don't get to decide what they call themselves. It's the European royalty that should be catered to. Sigh. Surtsicna (talk) 10:24, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose as it stands, but I would support a proposal to make it back into a general rule with few exceptions - as it was for the first ten years or so. Deb (talk) 12:09, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose on logic grounds. If I wish to search for an article on the subject, what am I going to enter in the search box? 'Meghan' is an obviously good starting word and the article required pops up as the third offering as soon as you have entered as little as 'Me'. What else could you enter to get to the article so easily. "Duchess" doesn't offer you the correct article (via a redirect) until you have entered as much as 'Duchess of Sus'. 'Princess Henry' offers the right article via Princess Henry of Wales, but only those in the know would think to enter that. Having said that, I do believe that her correct title should be in the lede of the article. After all, this is an encyclopedia (allegedly) TheVicarsCat (talk) 12:44, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
I opposed, too, but have to say that JHunterJ's claim that COMMONNAME is a policy is complete nonsense. Just because a section with a shortcut appears on a policy page doesn't make it a policy. COMMONNAME is one general strategy for achieving recognizability; that's all. Dicklyon (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
The entirety of WP:AT is policy. Yes, being included in a policy does indeed make something a policy; the complete nonsense is suggesting that there's another possible interpretation. If being in the policy isn't policy, what possibly would be? Only the lede paragraph? -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose On the grounds that I think that this is an oversimplification of what the current dispute about Meghan is about, there are also some other issues like WP:CONSISTENCY. PatGallacher (talk) 14:40, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Sometimes it should, and sometimes it shouldn't, and as there are individual cases to be made either way, individual discussions should happen on individual talk pages where individual article titles are in dispute. --Jayron3215:03, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
oppose particulary as it is then used as a big stick in what should be discussed at individual talk pages that are an issue. MilborneOne (talk) 15:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose on the grounds that the title should be what is most likely to get a reader to the article they're looking for, which generally = WP:COMMONNAME rather than the official title. From the foregoing we're headed in any case for the typical Wikipedia solution where the end title will be neither the actual common name nor the correct official title.Eustachiusz (talk) 15:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Comment In my opinion, "policy trumps guideline" is a pretty lame argument. Especially with regards to COMMONNAME; there was never any consensus to make it a policy. Until 2009, COMMONNAME existed as a stand-alone GUIDELINE (see last revision); it was then merged into Article titles following this discussion. The merge was a well-intended effort to clean-up some redundant pages on title guidance, but there's nothing in that discussion that suggests a referendum to upgrade the then existing COMMONNAME GUIDELINE to POLICY. Plantdrew (talk) 16:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, I was wondering when it became a policy. Certainly didn't remember having a say in that change. GoodDay (talk) 16:38, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
It became policy in that discussion. Updating the policy was done with consensus in this discussion, which was announced at the village pump here. The discussion explicitly discusses updating the policy with consensus. That's how it's supposed to work, and how it worked in this instance. If you didn't have a say in that discussion, it's because you didn't take part in the discussion, not that the discussion wasn't a discussion about this policy and done with consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:30, 23 May 2018 (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.
noun noun vs. adjective noun titles
Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Hi there,
"Styling guide" or "Style guide"?
Here it's clear what the difference (fashion vs manual of style) but in many other cases it's clear-cut but also maybe not (not great examples for ambiguity though):
National debt and not nation debt
Nation capital and not necessarily National Capital
Defense spending and not Defensive Spending
Academic journal not academy* journal, while also scholarly journal would work better than scholar journal (sounds like a Lord of Rings meme).
I'm sure this question popped up here before, but is there any logic? I'm even afraid to ask, as I'm sure it's something like with Greek root use x and with a latin root of the word use y!
If it's not a purely case by case thing, I looked for it and couldn't find it in the article, so maybe add whether if there is a(n unspoken) convention to use "nominal adjective +noun" (or "adjectival noun + noun") rather than "noun noun" as titles... if so, when the latter doesn't have an established meaning by itself. --AufdieSocks (talk) 16:02, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Follow majority usage in RS. English doesn't have hard-and-fast rules about such things, and current English is very flexible in "nouning", "verbing", and "adjectiving" words from other categories (e.g. "a big download", "go Google it", "the Madagascar team", etc.). We definitely wouldn't use a rare and ambiguous construction like "styling guide" (which would probably refer to a guide for doing fancy hairdos) when the RS about style guides use "style guide" (and alternatives in the same format: "style sheet", "style book", "style manual", and some others like "manual of style" and "guide to style", but not "styling *"). — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 20:54, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Guideline clarification proposal to curtail MOS:TM vs WP:TITLETM gaming
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Depends on how the book is referred to in (English language) sources that discuss the book (per WP:COMMONNAME). If those sources mostly use the translated book title, so should we... but if they continue to use the original language title, we should do that. This said, when evaluating usage in the sources that discuss the book, you should give more weight those written after the English version came out (per WP:Name change).
In other words, we don’t automatically use the translated book title OR the original language title. We use whichever is most recognizable to an English speaking reader. Blueboar (talk) 11:25, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Request to end discretionary sanctions that pertain to AT
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 6 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
The COMMONNAME part is quite frustrating to me. It was the core of the lawn drawn out dispute over Burma/Myanmar & is the reason why Czech Republic hasn't been changed to Czechia & likely won't be for quite some time to come. The COMMONNAME part, is also the thing that caused the 'once' neat consistency in the monarchial bios to be shook up. I've no proposals for a change here, just airing my frustrations. GoodDay (talk) 15:41, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
OTOH: There are a lot of consistencies that are "neat" only to non-general audiences. For the audience for a general encyclopedia, consistency of using the common name is neater. (This runs close to my frustrations with the various WP:LOCALCONSENSUSes in using artificial disambiguation on titles that aren't ambiguous in the name of "consistency" with project articles that are ambiguous. That's the wrong consistency to pursue.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:01, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
This is because reality isn’t always consistent. WP:Article titles is intentionally written to give our editors flexibility. indeed it is probably the single most flexible policy we have created. We intentionally say that choosing the best titles involves finding a balance between multiple goals. While Consistency is one of those goals, it is often outweighed by the others (especially by the goal of Recognizability, or COMMONNAME) Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Would like to butt in to vent some frustration too following the massive discussions over the change of name of Swaziland to Eswatini. I am totally in support of the COMMONNAME policy, but it just seems wrong that when a country wishes to be known by a new name, for whatever reason, the change to the title of the page is held back by the policy. Of course this does not apply to countries which accept or are ambivalent over the English names of their countries (Germany vs Deutschland, Thailand vs Prathet Thai). But when a country declares that they do not want to be known in a particular way anymore, shouldn't the change take place in Wikipedia immediately? Ignoring it seems to suggest being ill-informed, or even inaccurate. We know that the acceptance of the new name will be inevitable, so why not make the change sooner than later? Wikipedia, with its dynamism and its role in imparting knowledge as an encyclopedia, should be leading or at least aiding this change rather than holding it back. Not calling for the scrapping of COMMONNAME, but an exception to the policy for such cases. I don't think we will run into inconsistency problems here. A country's name is not about a popularity contest, it is about an assertion of identity. Slleong (talk) 02:46, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
The key text here is should be leading or at least aiding this change. No, Wikipedia reflects, it does not lead. If the name becomes widely used in English sources, then we will change. Until then, we should not. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:52, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
Seems to me that COMMONNAME is being extremely useful in all of these mentioned cases by making sure that articles are where the majority of readers would most likely look for them. --16:02, 24 June 2018 (UTC)\
Thanks for the policy explanation. Permit me one last attempt and I won't waste anyone's time anymore. No chance for Wikipedia to even "reflect" the wish of the people of a country or the decision of the government of a country to be known by a new name? And I presume this applies also to names of cities, states, provinces, districts, neighbourhoods, street name changes? What about companies eg Andersen Consulting -> Accenture? All these to be decided by Google searches (can't think of how else worldwide majority of sources views are to be effectively determined)? I believe looking for articles under new title names shouldn't pose a problem as any former names will certainly appear within the article. Cheers. Slleong (talk) 16:47, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Not sure on all the different cases you listed there, many factors come into play. Among them are 1) entities in English speaking areas are more likely to change than those from areas where other languages are dominant (the change from Bombay to Mumbai vs Kiev to Kyiv) and 2) entities that are rarely mentioned in English are more likely to change (Kishinev to Chisinau vs Kiev to Kyiv). And all such changes are mentioned prominently in the articles regardless of whether the article is moved. --Khajidha (talk) 16:59, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Hypen minus "-" after the word "most"
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Not sure on this, but I am thinking that it might be a case where BOTH are correct ... depending on the WP:ENGVAR (where correct usage depends on which variety of English is being used in the article). Check at WP:Manual of style. Blueboar (talk) 10:59, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Done L293D (☎ • ✎) 12:11, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress#Capitals. —GoldRingChip 19:51, 29 May 2018 (UTC)