Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Archive 11

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. 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.

Contents

Contractions

Are articles allowed to have contractions in its title? The only guideline I found on contractions is Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Contractions. --Silver Edge 08:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Video game article naming conventions - proposal

Proposed guideline -

  • Any article on a video game originally produced under copyright in a non-English language is to be located at the official title it was originally released under, until such time as an official English title is announced, by either the copyright holder, or a representative thereof. If the language of origin uses a non-Latin alphabet, the article should be located at an appropriate transliteration.
  • If more than one official English title is announced (such as between NA and EU markets, or ports/updates), the title released first is to be used unless it is overwhelmingly recognized by a new title (as in Beastorizer vs. Bloody Roar).
  • If the game has yet to be released it should be always be known at the official working title.
  • If no official title in any language has been announced (pre-release), the article should follow standard naming conventions, even if an unofficial "working-title" exists (i.e. "The Something Project", or "Something Sequel"). Foreign-language video games not under copyright that have not been given an official English title should also follow normal naming conventions.

~ JohnnyMrNinja 10:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

It should be mentioned that sometimes cutting the subtitle of the official title can be a good solution to avoid favoring a region over the others. For instance the Bloody Roar 2 article is named that instead of Bloody Roar 2: Bringer of the New Age (JP/EU) or Bloody Roar 2: The New Breed (NA). Kariteh 11:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
All sounds good. And I support the addition of Karith's idea of cutting subtitles from game titles, especially where that will help avoid conflict over the "proper" name of the game. - X201 12:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I pretty much agree, but I have a question on copyright and translation. Does a copyright need to be registered in another language? For example, Square's old register of "Chrono Break" in the US (which has since lapsed) as opposed to their still current registration of "Chrono Brake" in Japan. If it is un-registered in another country, I have trouble getting around the concept that translation = unofficial. Translation by its definition is simply converting something into a different language (in this case English). Hypothetical example- if a game came out in japan only titled "Kage," and kage directly translates as "shadow," I don't see how calling it "Shadow" would be some form of fanon- unless the game was copyrighted in English-speaking countries as "Kage." Onikage725 15:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Last part first: Article names should not be located at translations of official names for two reasons. 1) "Direct translation" can be stretched pretty thin, and when more than one word is used in the title grammar can also come into question. Also, with translation nuance can be lost. To present a title at such variance with the official title risks presenting the game in a manner not originally intended by the company. A direct translation of "Shadow of the Colossus" would likely keep the literal meaning, but lose the figurative meaning of "shadow" (i.e. "living in someone's shadow"), as in "events caused by the very strong influence of the Colossus". 2) Most English speakers do not speak Japanese. Translation, no matter how verifiable, is at it's essence an interpretation. Somebody says that when Capcom says "A", they really mean "B". Direct and indirect translations should always be included in the opening paragraph of an article with a non-English title, but the title itself should be 100% factual, with no hint of 2nd or 3rd party interpretation.
The first part was my mistake in being unclear, and you bring up a good point. Many Japanese games are released with English titles, but have different titles in English regions. Let me clarify.
  • Above replace instances of "English title" with "title of English-language release" and "Foreign-language title" with "title of non-English-language-region release" (actually I don't know how much clearer that is...)

~ JohnnyMrNinja 04:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. And I think it's clearer. Let me just make sure I've got it. "Title of English-language release" would refer to any US/UK/AU release, essentially. "Title of non-English-language-region release" would refer original releases, regardless of the language used for the title. Right? Onikage725 09:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused what you're proposing that's different from current policy. That Japanese-exclusive game titles be translated?--SeizureDog 05:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The current guideline says to always use the most common English title for works of fiction. There is no specific video game naming policy so far. I am basically proposing that we only use official titles, not unofficial translations. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 06:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Now that you mention it, why does this pertain to video games only? What's the rationales for using different conventions than the film and novel conventions? Kariteh 14:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Take a look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books). They are not incredibly specific when it comes to unofficial translation. Also, film and book titles are more fluid, even within the same language. It is a simple matter for a publisher or distributor to change the title of a book or film with a minimum of editing. Video game titles tend not to change once they are released, as it would require reprogramming. Books and films tend to see many reissues, each can have a different title. Video games quickly become dated and are not reissued as frequently. In other words, a video game title is something much more solid and constant than a book or film title. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 16:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Also, movies from foreign countries are usually referred to as "foreign movies", which is not a term usually applied to video games. Honestly, how often do most people even think that Mario is really Japanese? ~ JohnnyMrNinja 05:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Does this apply to other region exclusive games? like this Sword of Xuan Yuan Chinese series which would thus be moved to Xuan Yuan Jian. Kariteh 22:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

It's really complicated with Chinese titles. The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3 would become Xianjian Qixia Zhuan San. Kariteh 22:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
This is what I had always believed was common practice for WP:VG (as the Fire Emblem debates imply). The point of this proposal is to hammer out the details so that people have a point of reference for future debates. As it is, people name the articles whatever they feel like. The benefit of using official titles is lack of debate as to the best title. The downside is that it may be less recognizable than an unofficial fan translation. What do you think? ~ JohnnyMrNinja 04:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I initially agreed with the proposal, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like it would be a pain in many cases (like this Chinese game). I think the current guideline should be kept after all ("the most common title should be used"). In the Fire Emblem's case, this means we'd keep Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi since it's the most common title. In that Chinese game's case, we'd also keep The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3, because it's the most common title even though it's unofficial. Sure, we might be losing a bit of nuance with translations, but isn't it better to show at least a part of the meaning, rather than using an obscure non-English title and thus not showing any meaning at all, seeing how casual readers won't understand Japanese/Chinese/etc.? Besides, as you say we will give the official title and its translation(s) in the article's lead, so this nuance point isn't a problem; it's just more convenient to use the English title in the article's name and body since the necessary naming and translation details are given in the lead. We just have to make sure the unofficial title we're using is really established (this goes for series name too). For instance Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift appears to be slightly more common than Final Fantasy Tactics A2 Fūketsu no Grimoire, but the title which should be used is probably the second one, since the first is just a trademark which (is official but) has yet to be attributed to FFTA2 in a direct, official announcement. Kariteh 08:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay... I've just realized my last sentence contradicts the rest of my post... I guess "Grimoire of the Rift" can be used after all, if we make sure to note in the article that it's what the press uses despite it not having been announced yet. Kariteh 08:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I've started rethinking it somewhat too (that's why discussions are good). Honestly though, this is the rationale that is usually brought up in WP:VG discussions, so if it's wrong we need to set down why it's wrong. The problem with unreleased games is another unwritten rule, the "No information that has not been officially confirmed". Ok, the biggest problem with using official titles that are not the most common titles (even when redirects are used), is search engine hits. Search engines regard article names far higher than article content, so a popular title is more likely to be found by people looking for the game. And while Wikipedia doesn't care about hits, it does care about presenting the information in the way most-easily-accessed by readers. Conundrum.
As far as naming conventions for unreleased games, what about the condition that if the copyright holder has registered a title, this title has been notably used as the working title by reputable sources, and this title nets a comparable number of search result hits, then this should be the appropriate title of the article. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 05:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Sounds fine. Overall, it seems that in practice this will mean that well-known non-English games will keep their non-English titles (like the Fire Emblems) while obscure non-English games will be translated (like these Chinese games or these very old Japanese PC games in List of Square Enix games). So in the end the current guidelines are actually fine; they just need to be more accurately applied/enforced. Kariteh 08:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned about the notion that all unreleased videogames should be identified as Working title, thier is no reason why a game like Halo 3 should be refered to as Halo 3 (working title) when Halo 3 is clearly the final name. Also I'll go furthur and say that thier is no reason for any article outside of titles like "untitled 3D action", to have a "working title" prefix added to them, it just looks messy. Deathawk 04:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if that was unclear, it should at the "working title" (whatever the working title is), not at Working title ~ JohnnyMrNinja 04:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh ok then I'm cool with that. Deathawk 21:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This whole proposal seems to me to be instruction creep and an attempt to bypass the existing naming conventions. In particular, some games are well-known by their Japanese title, and some are best known by an unofficial translation; in these debates some editors desperately want any English translation and some desperately want the original Japanese. Some games are released with different titles in different regions, and again some editors prefer one region's name over another. IMO, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) and other existing guidelines cover the matter well enough, and IMO Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) is approximately what should be done with these borderline cases. In the cases where Google results are close, look for mention specifically on well-known gaming sites and forums for popular consensus on the name. And in the end, it's not really that important since redirects can and will be created for every possibility. Anomie 15:49, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't know if this is commonly the case, but if some game is normally referred to by some name other than the official copyright name, then that is the name that should be used for the article title. --Serge 19:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
We should make sure we indicate clearly which name is official and which one is not though. Like:
The Portopia Serial Murder Case, officially known as Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (ポートピア連続殺人事件?), is a...
instead of:
The Portopia Serial Murder Case (ポートピア連続殺人事件 Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken?) is a...
Kariteh 09:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Fictional elements in video games

  • From Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines#Other guidelines "As per a very lengthy debate, full names should be used for video game character article namespaces when they appear in-game. Otherwise the common name should be used." The same goes for all fictional elements within game universes (Countries, religions, etc.)
  • If a fictional element needs disambiguation, it should be qualified with the name of the series it first appeared in (i.e. Ryu (Street Fighter)). A logical conclusion might also be to qualify with the name of the company that owns the element, as it might appear in more than one series (i.e. Ryu (Capcom)), but this should be avoided as the topic might appear to be non-fictional, or a video game itself.

~ JohnnyMrNinja 06:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems like it's a no consensus. Kariteh 10:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of military Titles

Looking to suggest that a guideline on the use of military titles be developed in the style guide. This should be standard and not vary. In non wiki style guides there are guidelines on this, this is needed here. 166.217.48.32 02:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about military titles in article titles? Because we don't generally do that. As far as I know, the only articles in which we allow any sort of titles or positions in the article's title are those of Roman Catholic popes and some dynasties of Chinese emperors. --Hemlock Martinis 21:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Canada, Japan, Australia

With respect to this issue of US city names, I'd just like to note that Canada moved from a naming convention similar to the current US one to one in which cities were allowed to dispense with the province name whenever the name is a primary usage. Whereas we continue to argue endlessly about US cities, so far as I can tell the Canadian cities have settled into a fairly reasonable consensus. Individual article moves can be discussed on individual article pages, and people can argue specifically about the particular issues with regard to each city. It's all fairly lovely.

Japan and Australia have, iirc, somewhat similar systems to what is being proposed here - a short list of particularly important cities get to dispense with the prefecture or state disambiguation. In this case, again, there seems to be little trouble.

The idea that the best reason for the current system for US cities, which is constantly causing arguments, is that it avoids arguments, is ridiculous. Quite clearly the current system causes arguments when compared to systems that allow for exceptions, where there is far less silly argument of this sort. john k 06:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Except the proposal is to move all of these cities at once, and essentially changing the policy in regards to the naming guidelines of these specific cities preempting the discussion and consensus building that editors at individual city pages can come to regarding their city's naming policy. In my opinion, the only compromise here is to allow/encourage the editors for each city to take up the issue of possible city name moves. I understand that each of the cities involved had a banner, but at least in the case of Denver, a few of the editors were confused about where to take up the discussion as it seemed to be telling editors to discuss it on the individual city talk pages rather than this page, which is of course where the decision will be made from. My main point is that every city has unique circumstances which in my opinion is decided best from a community consensus of the editors of the individual city pages. Vertigo700 07:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
If I can add to the mess, one must consider that many contributors to a given city article come from that city itself - this added element of "moi" does much to muddle the objectivity of any "single-name-status" debate. THEPROMENADER 07:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Correct, I prefer this way then going page to and requesting it. I pointed it out before, but I feel a misconception here is that the proposer came up with a list of cities he feels don't need to follow the comma clause. Instead each city on this list is considered to have a stand-alone name by the AP. You (vertigo) mentioned that this goes against the current guidelines, but you do realize that several US cities are already granted 'stand-alone' status on wikipedia. And of course while consensus in the past was to hold onto the comma clause for dear life, consensus can( and does) change. New England Review Me! 12:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
When Canadian policy was changed, a number of articles were moved at once. At any rate, if a change in policy is agreed upon, I don't see how any of these examples (with the possible exception of St. Louis, which is mildly ambiguous with Saint Louis) would be controversial. They are the obvious cities to move if a change is agreed upon. john k 13:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Naming of government cabinets/ministries

I think that we should come up with a consistent standard for naming articles of government cabinets/ministries. Currently there are many variants between different countries: browse Category:National cabinets to see some of the variants. Personally I think that we should use the most explanatory and descriptive form: "Cabinet of [WP article name of head of government]", eg. "Cabinet of John Major" instead of "Major Ministry" and "Cabinet of Thorbjørn Jagland" instead of "Cabinet Jagland". When the head of government has led more than one cabinet it should similarly be named as "Third cabinet of [head of government]", for example "Third cabinet of Ruud Lubbers" instead of "Netherlands cabinet Lubbers-3".

Nonetheless I think that the word "ministry" should be replaed by "cabinet", since the word "minstry" have different meanings and could be confused with government department. This is justified by the main principle that article names should be "optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists".

What are you thoughts on this? Should United States Cabinets/administrations also be included in this proposed naming standard? /Slarre 12:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

But "Cabinet" isn't synonomous with "ministry" - the Cabinet is just the central committee. A lot of the British ministry pages have all ministers listed - e.g. Labour Government 1974-1979.
Plus in some countries the "changing of the Prime Minister" is of much less significance than in others - very few posts in the Conservative Government 1922-1924 changed hands in May 1923 when Baldwin succeeded Law as Prime Minister (Baldwin even retained his existing post for three months). So we have a single list - and this follows the listings of people as distinguished as A. J. P. Taylor.
For British executives "government" or "ministry" are the only terms with any currency - hardly anyone uses "administration" (unless making a political jibe that the Prime Minister is acting like a US President, hence using US terminology).
And it's not even clear what the demarcation points for cabinets always are when the party remains in power. Sometimes there will be a significant reshuffle, which needs a new listing on the page just to allow everyone to follow it. At other times only one or two changes are made. Trying to number them as distinct and clearly delineated cabinets gets messy. Timrollpickering 13:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with keeping the word "ministry" when appropriate, but wouldn't it be better with more consistent and descriptive naming? Eg. "Ministry of John Major" instead of "Major Ministry", just as it is named "Presidency of Ronald Reagan" and not "Reagan presidency".
I also don't see the consistency in naming some British ministries after the ruling party (eg. Conservative Government 1924–1929) while others are named after the PM (Major, Thatcher, Blair, Brown Ministry etc.). /Slarre 13:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, So and so ministry articles pretty much always only list the cabinet. while Party Government beginningyear-endingyear is used for lists of the entire government. I'd say, in the event, that Slarre is right about the first set of articles. Articles which use "government," however, should remain where they are. (BTW, "administration" used to be used more commonly for British governments - I've definitely seen it in discussions of the 19th century). john k 13:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
We should use separate guidelines depending on the country. George W. Bush administration has a fixed starting point and a fixed ending point, whereas the British system is much less uniform. --Hemlock Martinis 21:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
But can we agree that it, in those cases that the ministry is named after the head of government, should be in the form "Ministry/Cabinet/Presidency of [name of head of government]"? (George W. Bush administration is a redirect to Presidency of George W. Bush) This is the main lack of consistency that I see in these articles. /Slarre 15:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
This may not be so easy for some countries, particularly those where both President & Prime Minister have an active role, or for that matter where/when there isn't a formal head of government. Great Britain/England is particularly messy pre 1721 as there were some "chief ministers" at times but a) they were really an individual court favourite - and favourites often rise and drop back - rather than a leader of a grouping and b) there are several periods where either two or more ministers in tandem were "chief ministers" or where no single minister was dominant. Would monarchs be a better point of reference here?
Even after 1721 there are periods when the government of the day was more than a one man show - Walpole in tandem with Townsend (1721-1730), Carteret (aka Granville) was the driving force in the 1742-1744 government rather than the successive First Lords of the Treasury whom history identifies as the "Prime Minister" - indeed we currently have a single page for 1742-1744 as "Carteret Ministry" rather than a 1742-1743 "Wilmington Ministry" followed by the "Broad Bottom Ministry" starting in 1744 rather than 1743; Pelham was more or less co-equal to his brother Newcastle in both said Broad Bottom Ministry (1744-1746) and what current doesn't have a page but is linked on the template as "Second Pelham", Pitt more or less really ran the Devonshire government and then was in partnership with Newcastle, the "first Portland ministry" is overwhelmingly known to history as the "Fox-North Coalition" and so forth. Trying to impose modern notions of government and Prime Minister onto 18th century politics throws up all manner of anomalies - often the key turning points were not the change in First Lord of the Treasury.
I'm not sure what the solution is though - group by monarchs up to a certain point? An ecletic mix? An arbitary use of the FLotT? Timrollpickering 22:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

And we should not speak of American "cabinets"; to do so would violate idiom, which in this case also reflects reality. Many Presidents have reorganized their cabinets; it is a rare American Secretary who lasts eight years. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Fictional characters

There is currently a naming debate going on Talk:Malcolm Wilkerson, regarding the correct article titles for each of the family members. Any input, esp. by users with experience in related disputes, is welcome. —AldeBaer 19:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Requested moves

Per much recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) it is proposed that the following articles be moved as stated.

This move is in line with consensus at the talk page to adopt a slightly different guideline with regard to article names for certain "well known" US cities. The relevant discussion is at the page linked above. Appropriate move request tags will be placed on the talk pages of each of the involved cities. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 21:40, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Look, it doesn't really make a difference since for all these cities the City name already redirects to the article. Though someone will have to a lot of link updating...--Loodog 21:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
There should be no need to update links since, as you said, the proposed name already redirects to the article. In fact, it may be preferable in most cases to leave the links as they are. --Polaron | Talk 22:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Wicked-Strong, Unconditional Support all this proposed move does is skip highly unnecessary redirects. New England Review Me! 22:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I glanced at section on the settlement talk page but did not see it. It may be farther down perhaps, but i didn't see it. Can you give me a "date of a posted comment" perhaps? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  22:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Check at the subsection entitled "New Proposal", although a lot of relevant discussion took place previously and may have become archived. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 22:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support- Eliminate redirects, yes! - Special-T 22:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support: These cities do not need qualifiers. If this is not agreeable to others, all U.S. cities should be in the form of CITY, STATE: i.e., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New York City, New York etc. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 22:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: All U.S. cities as "CITY, STATE" is my preference. Anomie 22:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support, provided that a bot does the link updating. -Nicktalk 22:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • See my comment above. There should be no need to update links. --Polaron | Talk 22:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Indifference. Again, it doesn't really make a difference, but it will make residents feel that their city hasn't been "demoted" to City, State status and robbed of its deserved notability. Of course, then everybody will want in...--Loodog 22:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose as always. Isn't five years of discussion more than enough? We have one good working rule for naming U.S. cities. So, of course, we argue thousands of pages over breaking it. If we had used a tenth of effort on the articles themselves, they could all be featured articles. Please don't add more inconsistency to Wikipedia. Rmhermen 22:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Conditional support, as part of a compromise that the overall naming guideline for communities not on the list should continue to follow the "community, state" format. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose For the third (or fourth) time. With redirects, there is no good reason to do this, none of these cities have ever been "lost" to anyone. It is not simpler, it is more complex as you take one perfectly good rule and make two rules out of it plus you add subjectivity by adding "well known" to the decision. The number of times this has been proposed and rejected is probably approaching a Wikipedia record. If the editors advocating this were to spend 50% of the effort on editing and adding content that they do working on this perennial loser, we'd have far more Featured Articles. --Paul 22:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • No objection -- I'd be just as happy if the guideline remained as it currently is, so my support for this is lukewarm. But for these particular cities, there is fairly good cause for them to be at the simple title. older ≠ wiser 23:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree with Paul, this really is adding a subjective qualifier into what should be a simple process. After this list of cities is moved to the "city only" format, what list of cities will we have to consider next? No doubt there will be unending arguments as to which cities are "well known enough" to be listed under their city names. Nothing is lost by leaving these cities where they are. --JKeene 23:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Again with the reductio ad absurdum but... since some cities have been granted exception, this already is a subjective process.--Loodog 23:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Does this mean you don't support the compromise and will push to have all city articles titled "city"? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose Subjective in nature and thus "subject" to WP:NPOV. Redirects per WP:D would be problematic to say the least. Lastly, many settlements share names (see: Springfield). Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  23:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Since all of the above city names already redirect to the mentioned articles, NPOV has already been violated as much as it would be if we sent the users to the article without redirection.--Loodog 23:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand your comment. Are you claiming that NPOV has been violated by the fact that Atlanta redirects to Atlanta, Georgia? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  23:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
No less than it would be by moving the Atlanta, Georgia article to Atlanta.--Loodog 23:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
WP:NC:CITY speaks to this. There is a convention in place and Atlanta does not follow that convention. Atlanta, Georgia does follow the convention. Operating out of the convention assumes a certain amount of "established notoriety". Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  23:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
That is indeed what this move reques timplies. Most newspaper organizations (in particular the AP from which this particular set of cities is derived) treat some U.S. city names as recognizable enough to stand on their own. The fact that there is a well-defined list from a particular source would alleviate your NPOV concerns. Ambiguous place names that are not the primary meaning for that name are not covered by this move proposal. --Polaron | Talk 00:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Though I don't agree with this take on my statement about NPOV, I have struck it since it doesn't change my stance - nor do I believe the argument for status quo is damaged by its' removal. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  00:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose While I think that these cities do all stand alone, they already have redirects going to them. My main concern is the strain of fixing the many links (and not just to the city page itself, but to related pages) that editors will have to do for consistency. Since many city page editors are local, I think this is somewhat unfair burden to them. Vertigo700 00:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Note that there is absolutely no need to fix any links per WP:REDIRECT. --Polaron | Talk 01:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Like I originally posted, my problem is mostly with related articles. An example is the 80+ articles on Seattle neighborhoods titled neighborhood, Seattle, Washington. If the city page was changes to Seattle, then wouldn't all the neighborhood pages need to be changed for consistency's sake? I don't see how redirects and/or bots really help the work that many local editors will have to do. Just noting that these types of broad changes have effects both beneficial and deleterious and in many ways I feel they should be left up to the consensus of the editors of the city pages themselves. Vertigo700 06:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that there is an ongoing discussion about how to deal with neighborhoods here. The trend seems to be away from the usage of the double comma naming style. Feel free to weigh in. --Polaron | Talk 13:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think this will lead to confusion, inconsistency and editor conflict. All US cities should be in the form city, state. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but all the only "confusion, inconsistency and especially editor conflict" has been caused by the requirement to use city, state. There are no such problems with respect to city names in countries without this artificial requirement. --Serge 00:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. To disambiguate these cities at city, state is contrary to the most fundamental rule in Wikipedia naming: use the most common name used to refer to the subject of the article. In the case of these cities, the most common name is clearly the city name alone. --Serge 00:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support, though conditional per Will Beback. Per WP:NC:CITY, there's a clear standard for inclusion in the list above: They're specified in the AP Stylebook as not needing a "state" modifier. This is a well-accepted standard throughout journalism and publishing. In addition, when you have a title like Los Angeles, California or Atlanta, Georgia, the comma and state name is just unnecessary verbiage at the top of the page. As in, "Los Angeles, California" looks odd, when "Los Angeles" alone would do. Currently, the only exceptions to the CITY, STATE rule I'm aware of are New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia. One thing the three have in common is that if someone looks up those titles, there's not much else they could be looking for. All the cities in the list above meet that standard. Throughout these debates, one of the most common "oppose" arguments I've heard is that there will be a horde of editors demanding that their preferred city be honored with a name lacking a state disambiguator. With such a clear standard, as outlined above, that won't happen ... no more than it already does, anyway. szyslak 00:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - with redirects there is no benefit to removing the state from the title, other than to make it less informative. --MattWright (talk) 00:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • How is a title without the state name less "informative"? The state name is already in the first sentence, in case people don't already know that, say, Atlanta is in Georgia. Are the titles London and Tokyo truly less informative because they're not at London, England or Tokyo, Japan? szyslak 00:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
      • The title is less informative without the state because there is less information. Furthermore, the state name doesn't detract from a user's understanding or clutter the title. Your two examples aren't even from the U.S. and include the country name, not a state name. I'm not saying it should be Denver, Colorado, United States. I see no benefit to removing the state name and would prefer all articles for U.S. cities are "City, State". --MattWright (talk) 20:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Why do we need "more information" in the title? We use the title for identification, not "informativeness". Is reading the first sentence or so of the article really too much effort for our readers? If we applied the strictest interpretation of the U.S. standard internationally, we wouldn't have titles like "London, England" or "Tokyo, Japan". They'd be more like "London, Greater London", "Tokyo, Tokyo Prefecture", "Paris, Île de France" or "Rome, Province of Rome". szyslak 21:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Among other things, it helps us determine quickly if we're looking at a settlement. "Fort Wayne" could be a military base or a city. "Fort Wayne, Indiana" is more clearly a city. The only city in this list where that is relevant is St. Louis, which we can't spell out to Saint Louis, unless we're willing to add the state name. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose Soapy 00:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Why, because you don't like it? An explanation is generally a good thing. New England Review Me! 00:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I did not feel the need to explain why as this discussion has already been gone over in the past and I don't feel we should go through this waste of time every time someone wants something different. Soapy 13:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose As always, Wikipedia articles should be named after the full and proper name of the subject. In the U.S., that's typically "city, state" and I don't care how well known the city is. Redirects hurt no one. Besides, this is a slippery slope. If we allow these cities to be moved, there will always be discussion to move other cities based on the opinion that they are well known enough. Where does it stop? Lets rename Tuscon, Jacksonville, Tulsa, Anchorage, Charlotte and Buffalo too...! Okiefromokla•talk 00:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Which would be all well and good if we didn't already have exceptions to this policy.--Loodog 00:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment Not that I agree with any of those exceptions. Okiefromokla•talk 01:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Comment But it does render a "slippery slope" argument that contends no exceptions should be made, moot so long as they exist.--Loodog 01:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Comment I dont think a slippery slope argument is moot simply because exceptions exist. We should take a stand here and not allow any more exceptions, and hopefully the current exceptions will eventually be corrected. On the other hand, we could allow these further exceptions, and then someone down the line will want more exceptions, then more. Stop the slippery slope here, and stick with the basic accepted naming practice of the real world. Okiefromokla•talk 01:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
            • Comment But that's the whole point of slippery slope: once you start down the path, there's no stopping. If, after the choice has been made, one contends that it should stop now because it can't be stopped in the future, he is arguing contrary to the events that brought him there in the first place.--Loodog 01:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
              • Comment Well, right now were on more of a low slope covered in jello. If this suggestion is approved, I think we'll be on more of a slippery mountain covered in ice. At least unless there is a guideline put in place to limit any further moves to the cities currently listed here. But, I just don't see that happening. Okiefromokla•talk 01:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
                • P.S. Don't bother to think too much into that analogy. I just wanted to mention jello. Someone was going to anyway, right? Okiefromokla•talk 01:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
                  • Comment Then we're exposing the fallacy of past arguments only to use them again.--Loodog 01:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment The purpose of this move request is simply to bring these cities in line with the wording of the guideline for U.S. cities. --Serge 01:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Note that "city, state" is not the "full and proper name" of these cities in any case. Also, there is a well-defined list of cities. It is unlikely that the AP will change their list any time soon. So, there is a well-defined stopping point. --Polaron | Talk 01:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. This is NOT a proposal to let any city argue for first name recognition, but to acknowledge those that already have it. You need not let this go any further than: all cities which already have base names redirecting to them get moved to base name'.--Loodog 02:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
But that goes much, much farther than the current proposal -- which is limited to a finite list -- the proposal is quite deliberately limited because the proposal to move all such cities has faced insurmountable opposition in the past -- the current proposal is intended to address the most prominent and examples. older ≠ wiser 02:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely true. Though my intention was to allay fears that this would create a free-for-all on locations for city articles. If this is passed, it will not mean we'll award city name status to every city that wants it or that every city will even have a window to argue it in.--Loodog 02:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I don't see this as a the "miracle answer" to end the debate and I see no reason for the "City Only" crowd to stop here. In additional to the superior benefits of the City,State convention, I just don't see the "promised peace" coming from this. It like poking holes in a dam so that a little water can get thru on the "promise" that the entire structure won't weaken and bust.AgneCheese/Wine 01:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Is there anything that would make this proposal acceptable to you? It's a well-defined set of cities and no more. I just don't see people even trying to move cities other than these given the strong comfort level of most people in the "city, state" convention. How about just give it a try. If the flood of move requests that some people arew afraid of do occur, then reverse the moves. --Polaron | Talk 03:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose "City, State" is a standard US convention for identifying any city and seems well established in Wikipedia. The more exceptions, the harder it is to deal with the process and the ore cross-checking is needed. Furthermore, while the cities proposed for this move are often known by city name alone, not all of them are unique city names. Determining that the non-unique name in one state is so impressivley prominent as to trump any other use of the name in another state seems to me to rather subjective and not appropriate for the Wikipedia. Pzavon 01:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment And yet we've already done it for all these places by having the base page redirect to them.--Loodog 01:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • This proposal is for the specific set of cities above and no more. I don't think there would be substantial support for any more. And as Loodog said, since the unqualified names already redirect to the city articles, there has already been a determination that these cities are the most common usage of these names. --Polaron | Talk 03:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly support, for reasons I've discussed umpteen times in the past (although I do have a few reservations for St. Louis). Although it doesn't look like it'll go through, sadly. john k 04:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong support for a reasonable compromise for naming well-known cities. I'm sure that other major news organizations' style guides would also concur with the AP one. --Polaron | Talk 04:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong support. The only compromise that succeeded at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements). As Rmhermen said, "Isn't five years of discussion more than enough?" I am confident that this proposal will bring the debate to a close. Λυδαcιτγ 05:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I really don't feel that adding a list of exceptions, even one based on something like the AP's guidelines, does anything to strengthen the convention and Wikipedia. -- The Bethling(Talk) 06:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • No objection. Whilst I like the simplicity of "always use comma state" for large English-speaking federations, this is the only proposal to have come up with an objective criteria for creating a limited set of exceptions to it. The settlement naming guideline has recently changed to allow these page moves (and only these page moves), so this vote is really just to ratify the change on the actual articles. Australia has the same guideline with a small number of well-defined exceptions. Canada had the same guideline, and now has a looser version with verbose but subjective exception criteria. Hopefully this set of exceptions will not be the beginning of a slippery slope, but a shift in the foundation to provide a firmer and more robust footing. --Scott Davis Talk 06:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The change that was agreed to at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) obviously only achieved consensus because of the limited number of participants. As can be seen here, once the implications of the change is made obvious to the larger Wikipedia community, there is not only no consensus for the change, there is a good deal of opposition. Accordingly, the changes made at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) to include the AP list and creating exceptions to the canonical standard should be rolled back.--Paul 21:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that if this move proposal fails, it indicates a lack of support for the change to the settlements naming guideline and it should be rolled back. Sufficient time to discuss here should be allowed before it is decided one way or another, however. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 22:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I would prefer to keep all cities in the City, State format with the exception of New York City. --Hemlock Martinis 21:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There are already at least two too many exceptions to our convention, and no good reasons to add more. —wwoods 13:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Keep the more specific article names. The Atlanta redirect can help people find whichever article is presently the most popular meaning for the term Atlanta. (SEWilco 17:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC))
  • Support. Major cities are referred to most often by their names, not their names and states. This move would also converge our interests with the convention used for Canadian cities. Soltras 18:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While this works as a compromise, to readers and editors the distinction would appear to be random. Chicago and Philadelphia should both be moved back to city, state form. NYC is probably best left as is due to its unique problems. By using the city state form, editors would stop linking to simply city which either is a dab page or can very well be the wrong city and a reader not familiar with the US states may not realize the error. Vegaswikian 06:54, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - There are too many exceptions already, and this change will create another group of exceptions that will appear to be another arbitrary list to most casual editors. --Kralizec! (talk) 19:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Support. If Wikipedia is to be a user-friendly encyclopedia, and be in line with the other great encyclopedias, these cities must be at the most common name. Also, common sense dictates this move. --- Dralwik|Have a Chat My Great Project 23:53, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Next step?

It appears that these moves are highly controversial and though some consensus may have been established amongst a group of editors on another article talk page, it does not appear that these moves are not being met with a great deal of support. I would purpose that we "lock" the debate at this time. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  02:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There's only been a few hours of debate. Consensus rarely, if ever, emerges after such a short time. szyslak 02:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
If there is no consensus for these moves, then I would argue that there is also no consensus for retaining the current exceptions. Vegaswikian 02:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Hear, hear. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Nor is there consensus for moving them anywhere else. john k 04:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Reasonable point. :-) Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  02:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Although this particular discussion is about moving only those cities mentioned, it seems that this issue is being viewed by many people as a small part of the larger problem. Someone should offer a compromise of some sort. Some clear guideline needs to be established for U.S. Cities at some point. We need to be able to stop talking about this... It's been going on for years. Is there no compromise someone can bring up? Okiefromokla•talk 02:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"Some clear guideline needs to be established for U.S. Cities at some point." There are clear guidelines: for U.S. cities -> "City, State" --Paul 03:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Re-read those guidelines again New England Review Me! 03:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The AP Stylebook paragraph has been added since I last read the guidelines (some time in 2006). Let me guess who might have made that change? :-) The guidelines used to be clear, and could easily be made so again. --Paul 03:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Or am I just innocently naive for thinking compromise is possible on this larger issue? Okiefromokla•talk 02:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Alas, this latest proposal was some attempt at a compromise. It doesn't look like it's going to gain too much traction here, however, and really I'm wondering, if we can't come up with at least a minor compromise, how we're to come up with a broader solution. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 03:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps if there was also a guideline clearly establishing the "city, state" set up as concrete naming policy and clearly limiting the exceptions to the policy to gamma or beta world cities (I see from the previous discussion that the above this is of gamma world cities, though some might want to limit it to beta world). Okiefromokla•talk 03:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not qualified to really offer an "educated" response - i have no idea how the most other countries establish their "provinces/state". As you can tell, i'm not even sure of the proper terminology. Does Mississippi (which has it's own disambig. page), have a counterpart in say Thailand? I don't know. So on this I will abstain from "expressing an opinion." Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  03:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I meant to refer only to guidelines for American cities. Okiefromokla•talk 03:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I just want to take a moment and point out that the list of cities in question was not randomly compiled by any group of Wikipedians. The cities mentioned are all in the AP Stylebook as cities which do not require the state name to appear after them in the dateline of articles. So the AP thinks that these cities (along with several others) do not require disambiguation. New England Review Me! 03:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Speaking as an observer and not an expert - why is the AP stylebook so important? It's hard to say "This convention only applies to the AP stylebook." Does this style book have any impact on laws or regulations that determine how things are named in the first place? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  03:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
the AP is saying that there is no need to list the name of the state after any of those cities because the American public already knows which state the city is in by the name by city name alone (ie you don't need to put California after San Diego since most people know San Diego is in California). The AP has no say on what a city (or any entity) will name itself, but I'm not sure that's relevant (in theory Boston could change its name to Iraq, and I don't think Mass. can stop it) And while the legal name of a city may (or may not) be city, state, doesn't that mean that European cities should be named city, province (ie Florence, Tuscany). New England Review Me! 04:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The AP stylebook, of course, reflects general usage and general knowledge. It is a good list not because it has any authority in and of itself, but because the list was compiled by people trying to do more or less the same thing we're doing, and it came up with a relatively reasonable list. john k 04:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Here we go again. As usually, it looks as though there's no hope for a consensus. Sigh. Is there absolutely any possible compromise convention for American cities that those of you who support "City, State" would accept? If not, this will never end. john k 04:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I would like to know where this comma clause originated from. To me, it seems based on European editors' false assumption that we Americans will always use the name of a state a city is in if we are in another state (meaning I'll refer say Atlanta, Georgia since I'm in Mass.) New England Review Me! 05:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It arose out of very early discussions on wikipedia. There was a discussion between a pretty small group of people over whether or not US city names should all be pre-emptively disambiguated with the state name. A vote was held, and this policy was approved by a vote of 3 to 2. (Literally, a vote of 3 people to 2 people - not too many people were around back then). I believe most of the people involved was American, although I'm not certain of this. At this point, the Ram-Bot then went out and created an article for every single inhabited place (city, borough, town, village, township, Census-designated place) that the US Census keeps data on, all using that form (and, indeed, for a while the article on New York was at New York, New York.) By the time anyone got around to suggesting that the situation be changed, there were a lot of people (Most of them, so far as I can tell, American) who were pretty committed to the "all city, state" formulation, for whatever reason (I'm still not sure I fully understand the intensity of this commitment). So, anyway, no, you're wrong. john k 06:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The main reason that the comma convention exists in that form is that it has been the standard for U.S. language and publications since more than a century. Why it exists here: a few Wikipedians chose to override Wikipedia policy (parentheses) to bring that comfort to Wikipedia; since it was later propagated through so many articles, it was only natural that others began to copy the same method. The reason for the existence of the "city, state" method is perfectly understandable within the U.S. - because of its sheer size and shared placenames (between states) - but it assumes a foreknowledge of U.S. states. And no, it is not always used there, especially when the topic of discussion between locals is neighbouring towns.
As for the need of pre-disambiguation: it surfaced in recent discussion that 70% of all U.S. placenames will require disambiguation at one point or another - and this is without even considering repetitions of the same in other countries. It would be great to have all Wikipedia placename articles at their unique name, but unfortunately the Wikipedia technology will not permit it. I really think a larger, more world-aware method is needed for all political placename articles, otherwise the conflicts and quabbling will go on forever. THEPROMENADER 07:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
a few Wikipedians chose to override Wikipedia policy (parentheses) to bring that comfort to Wikipedia; -- an amusing misrepresentation and distortion. It is not policy to use parentheses for disambiguation. Never was, not ever. It is one method among several accepted methods. I think you may misunderstand the meaning of unique or are misstating your intended meaning. There is no technical limit to having place names that are truly unique at that name -- the problem arises precisely because so many placenames are not unique. older ≠ wiser 10:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Find me anything in WP:NAME that suggests using a comma for disambiguation. The word "comma" cannot even be found on the WP:Disambiguation guideline - there too, only parentheses are the only method suggested. The comma's first widepread use was for U.S. placenames, and was, as mentioned above, imposed by a very few on a very many articles - check the (settlements) page history if you need concrete proof of this as well. Derisory adjectives are not suited for describing statements of self-evident and quite findable fact, so save these please, as they do not help discussion any. Yes, "unique" was not the right word to use - "proper" or "base" name would better describe my meaning. THEPROMENADER 10:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, that is turning things upside down. Your claim is that using parentheses is policy -- where is that precisely? Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Specific topic lists options for naming pages to disambiguate specific topics. First on the list, as it has been for a very long time: When there is another word (such as Cheque instead of Check) or more complete name that is equally clear (such as Delta rocket), that should be used. City, state is a "more complete name that is equally clear". 148.168.127.10 12:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty twisted logic - for that to work, first you have to try to argue that "city, state" is a name in itself (that it largely is not - it is a habit that can only vaguely be considered a "name" by that select local few to who that habit belongs), and even then should we ignore the larger more evident fact ("city" is in a "state", as "beer" is in a "glass", but "glass" is not "beer"'s name) and accept this, it still seems that the reasoning was tailor-made for the cited pre-existing Wikipedia guidelines.
I've seen this "reasoning" many times already, but it is anything but: it is an attempt to give semblance of reason to a method whose origins are nothing of the kind: the "city, state" method is comfort defined for those to who use it each day - or it would not exist here. I can't put it simpler than that. THEPROMENADER 13:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Your obstinate persistence in denying that "City, State" is in fact a common alternative name is about the only thing that is twisted here. The rest of your comments have already been discused and rebutted ad infintum. Simply because you don't like the method and think it is illogical does not mean that is in fact the case. 148.168.127.10 14:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
We're getting way off track here. Saying that "city, state" is the proper name of "city" isn't even worthy of discussion - to take the "truth" of a vague interpretation and a very local few (if then) over the evidence of the phrase itself is seeking refuge in denial. I'm sure some people do think that "city, state" is a name in itself (and that if the question is phrased carefully enough), but that "truth" is akin to stating "some scientists think the world is flat". Whatever serves your purpose. THEPROMENADER 15:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, I think we are getting off topic here. Its not so much that "City, state" is the official name of the city in most city charters, but rather that "city, state" is the most accurate, proper, and formal way to address a city. In government reports, in news articles (except for certain cities according to the AP), in institutions of higher education, in any kind of official document, "city, state" is how a city is addressed. Accurate and proper are the key words there. See my proposition below. Okiefromokla•talk 16:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
All the above is great within the U.S. itself, as all the 'positives' you describe are only applicable there. How about the rest of the world? To foreign readers, "State" is but a locator, and not a name. THEPROMENADER 17:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
(As there really isn't a set guideline right now... "city, state" is just sort of the de-facto way.) I am just tired of seeing this discussion everywhere. Lets make sure it doesn't happen again, and maybe this can prevent it. Okiefromokla•talk 16:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't really understand the above - "it is because it is"? Again, that reasoning is limited to U.S. cities. If you don't either you make the comma convention standard for all countries, or find a new method that extends to there same, this discussion will always resurface. Wikipideans can limit themselves to contributing within their own knowledge (aka to articles about their own cities) using the logic of their own customs, but they cannot expect Wiki readers to to share their same origins and local knowledge, nor should they expect others to adapt to the same. The method should be suited to the media, not the contrubutors. THEPROMENADER 07:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I am a little confused now. The comment you responded to just now was actually made before your first response to my other comment, and was meant to be more of a "P.S." and not a response to your response. Indeed, it might be good to have a blanket guideline for naming all places everywhere (as one of the proposals below suggests) but I was only meaning to talk about U.S. cities and how the "city, state" way of adressing cities is the defacto way in Wikipedia and the U.S. Okiefromokla•talk 23:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about that - I wasn't sure whether your comment was an outdented reply to my own. All the same, I don't see much logic in using different "city" disambiguation methods for different countries, especially when it is not immediately clear to the reader to what country each city belongs. THEPROMENADER 06:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposition for compromise

1. Implement a guideline that clearly defines all U.S. city articles must be named "city, state". 2. This will not apply to cities listed in a specific non-wikipedian list of well known cities, so as to prevent this issue from cropping up again, and only well known cities according to this third party can drop the state. If this list should be the current AP list, or a list of official Gamma-World or Beta-World cities, it doesn't matter. Everyone gets what they way this way (with a little compromise on both sides). Okiefromokla•talk 16:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

That's essentially what the currently discussed proposal entails - having the guideline say that City, State is the preferred method, but states in the AP list can be excepted and go by just City. Discussion on the topic endorsed the AP list over the World Cities list as the latter is heavily biased toward economic significance and overlooks cities prominent for cultural or political significance. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 16:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll point up at what Arkyan said and nod my head in agreement, but I'll also add that the GaWC was ruled out because it puts quite a bit of weight in the economic impact a city has to determine where the city ranks on the Global/World city list, when the only thing we're interested in is the recognizability of the city's name without the addition of the state. As an example, the city of Seattle is fairly recognizable by its city name alone, but it only has two points on the GaWC's 1999 list and doesn't appear at all on the 2004 list. The AP list is the only one that we could find that based the list solely on the recognizability of the city name alone, so that's what we went with. --Bobblehead (rants) 17:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
But a flaw of the AP list is the vast disparity of context. The AP list is used for newspaper dateline which has the luxury of one single context-to name a location. That is certainly not the case with Wikipedia in which an editor looking for St. Louis may be looking for St. Louis, or St. Louis, or St. Louis, or St. Louis etc. In the context of an AP dateline you always know what you are getting and in that singular context the list makes sense and would serve as a fine naming convention if Wikipedia was an almanac of placenames and locations. But Wikipedia doesn't function in that singular context and a worthwhile naming convention will take into consideration that vast audience that Wikipedia appeals to and the multi-faceted reference that it aims to be.AgneCheese/Wine 17:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The usage of the AP list does not supplant the primary usage clause in WP:DAB. We've already removed several cities from the AP's list that Wikipedia has determined their city name alone is not the primary usage (Phoenix, Arizona, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Nevada) and if there are more, then those can be removed as well. The idea behind the list is that when the average user sees the city name alone the first thing that will pop to most of their minds will be the correct city.--Bobblehead (rants) 18:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
How about we consider each city on the AP list on a case-by-case basis, and see if anyone objects for any reason other than the comma convention? New England Review Me! 21:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. But let's wait and see how this works out over the next few days. Then we can start trying to move one city at a time. --Serge 23:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support but I don't trust the AP. (SEWilco 17:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC))
  • Note - this proposed guideline has been (more or less) given clear wording under proposition #4 Okiefromokla•talk 18:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for compromise 2

2. The standard for U.S. place names at WP:NC:CITY should read:

The canonical form for cities in the United States is [[City, State]] (the "comma convention"). Those cities that need additional disambiguation will include their county or parish (for example Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina and Elgin, Kershaw County, South Carolina). A United States city's article should never be titled simply "city, country" (e.g "Detroit, United States"). Nothing in this guideline mandates that U.S. cities not using the [[City, State]] standard, e.g. New York City need to be renamed to conform.

If folks are really looking for a simple and consistent solution, this is it.--Paul 20:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's much of a compromise as it seems to basically be the guideline prior to the recent change allowing for those on the AP list. I haven't seen any serious discussion about moving Chicago, Philadelphia, and NYC back to the City, State format, some have brought it up, but even they admit it's not going to happen. The problem the US convention has had is not that it is unclear, but that there is a faction that want the comma convention followed all the time, a faction that wants WP:NC(CN) followed using the parenthetical method of disambiguation (Phoenix (Arizona)), and a faction that wants to use the comma convention for disambiguation, but falls somewhere in between the other two factions as far as when to use the convention.--Bobblehead (rants) 21:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
That's not acceptable (to me, anyway.) If we have that, we need also: "Nothing in this guideline allows or encourages any U.S. city not to be listed at [[City, State]]." — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Comment Be reasonable. No one is going to support moving "New York City" to "New York City, New York." You need a grandfather clause to keep article reverse-move wars like this very one from erupting on the exception cities. --Paul 22:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
This is thoroughly confusing. Anyone have any other ideas for a compromise then? Reading the discussions since my "compromise proposal" earlier, I no longer see a way to forge some kind of agreement between those who don't want these cities to drop the state and those who do. I guess that's why the larger issue has gone on for so long. I will say one thing: having just a few exceptions on an individual basis like Chicago and Philadelphia is not good and something need to change. And I'll tell you another thing: I'm tired of participating in these discussions when its always a split down the middle with not the least bit of a hint that consensus is getting close! Okiefromokla•talk 21:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
What is confusing? Those who don't like the [[City, State]] guideline are continuously pushing to subvert the existing standard. This discussion has assumed many forms over the last few years. The changes made to WP:NC:CITY is exactly the same argument once again, a camels nose under the tent attempt to change the guideline and then get on with the article name moves. The time to have this discussion was five years ago.--Paul 22:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I was just confused because people's opinions starkly contrast with eachother and its hard to try to envision a compromise that works for everybody. I agree with you, Paul: I opposed the move for the AP list originally. In a perfect world, I would want every article to be "city, state"... Okiefromokla•talk 22:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Support - Oh yeah and not that it looks like its going to matter but I'll just go ahead and say that I support Paul's proposal for the reasons I have stated all along. Okiefromokla•talk 22:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Support consistency with grandfather clause for stability. (SEWilco 17:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC))

Third Proposal for Compromise

3 All cities worldwide should be moved to [[City, state, province, or county depending on country]]. Before you squash this, consider that the fact that European cities need no qualification leads to many of these debates on US cities. If a universal proposal were adopted, we could have harmony at last. New England Review Me! 21:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you seriously proposing we move every single city article in the world!? Okiefromokla•talk 22:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It eliminates the double-standard that causes many of these debates to pop up time and time again. New England Review Me! 22:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea but wouldn't moving so many articles cause a lot of problems and confusion, not to mention so many more redirects? Seems like such a huge change, I mean you're talking about moving every tiny town from the backwoods of Ohio to the jungles of Indonesia. Like I said, I like the idea... but... maybe hearing some more opinions about it will help. Okiefromokla•talk 22:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the number of articles to be moved as a problem. If an approach like this is taken, then articles can be moved as dab issues arise or for new articles. A sightly different take that may be more acceptable is to use [city, something] whenever there are two cities sharing the name and leave city as a dab page. This would apply if the conflict something other then a city. Vegaswikian 00:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support for consistency. Lets redirects deal with current popular terms. (SEWilco 17:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC))
  • Support for consistency (first choice). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support this would work for me, but I doubt those who wanted to drop the "state" in the first place would like it. Okiefromokla•talk 21:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support and damn glad to see the initiative. I also propose to lose the comma convention as well - City (Country, stateifneeded) would be recognisable across the board for readers the world over, and isolating disambiguation between parentheses would make for a cleaner multi-level disambiguation (if it was needed). THEPROMENADER 00:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I like the idea of common world-wide convention for disambiguating when disambiguation is required, but I don't see the point of complicating this mess by having Tokyo, London and Paris also violate the the most widely followed convention in Wikipedia by being at some convoluted names. And if you think moving New York City will be difficult, wait until you try to move Paris or London. No way. --Serge 01:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment - I think you're going to have to come to the realisation that, because of the Wiki media, and the repetitive nature of placenames, that most placenames will need disambiguation. I am (for the time being) one of Paris' largest contributors, but I wouldn't mind at all seeing it moved to Paris (France) (where it was once before) if it meant that a reader can a) find and recognise a placename article for what it is at first glance and b) expect the same technique everywhere for placename articles. As for "exceptions": For a coherent debate, it's best to make the rule first, then decide on exceptions to the same only afterwards. Cheers. THEPROMENADER 06:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
      • The rule has been made, and, again, it is the most widely followed convention in Wikipedia. So let's make a rule about how to handle the exceptions, even though in the case of placenames, the exceptions to the rule may be in the majority of applicable cases. But let's be clear that we're only talking about the exceptions, even though they may be in the majority. --Serge 20:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
        • No, "common name" was made for situations like Gdansk - it how best to choose a name that is proper to the article subject itself. Only by a lengthy stretch of the imagination, and that only with knowledge of local geography and customs, could it even be considered that "state" be even remotely considered as part of "city"'s name, and even then it is a habit more than anything. And this reasoning, and its application for foreigners: never. THEPROMENADER 22:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The inherent disruption of moving tens of thousands of pages far outweighs any benefits of "consistency". If there were a problem with the non-disambiguated titles, most of them would have been moved years ago. szyslak 09:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment - Wiki years ago was nothing near its size today, and the increasing conflict and discussion created by conflicting articles and guidelines is more disruptive than anything. First let's find a system that works, then worry about how to implement it later. No-one says we have to do it all at once, but even that would be possible with a bot - the same used to propegate "city, state", for example. THEPROMENADER 12:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
      • We do have a system that works: WP:NC(CN) and WP:D. The reason we have all this conflict is that we're not using that system. Note the relative lack of conflict in classes of articles that do not systematically violate WP:NC(CN) and WP:D. Like Canadian city names. --Serge 20:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Sorry to call a card a card, the WP:NC(CN) citation is just a stretch attempt to justify the "city, state" method (but even this trial is only accepted locally, and even then by far from all), and there is nary a mention of a comma anywhere in WP:D. Perhaps you'd be better to state "we have a justification that 'works'" - at least for you locals. THEPROMENADER 22:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Fix the problem in the only way that avoids conflicts. While everyone probably knows where Paris is, they will also know where Paris, France is and likely more will know here the second one is then the first. This also would end the move debates on what is the primary use for these settlements. The current conventions and discussions ignore the primary use criteria and instead focus on oldest, largest, first to be located at the name space, the site of some event, names derived from or other unsound arguments. Since the locals are in the majority on these discussions, the wrong articles frequently remain at the main name space. Vegaswikian 18:47, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support per Vegas and Promenader. This is easy, straight foward and consistent. Not only will this fix a mountain of current conflicts it also solidifies the settlement naming convention for the future and eliminates needless conflicts over whose city is "better". Far too often the city naming debates are tainted by the egos and pride of locals who happen to edit those page. The most fair and NPOV way is to be consistent across the board. Though I would strongly urge getting wider input from the Wikipedia community for this change. As the AP list moves shows, getting a few editors to agree on the convention page doesn't mean smooth sailing when brought to a larger forum. AgneCheese/Wine 23:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Agne, if you have any suggestions for bringing this to a wider audience, please do share. We're already near the top of the (convention) peak here! THEPROMENADER 22:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal the Fourth

How about this, we all go over the AP list, and write our objections to each city individually (outside of ones relating to the comma clause) Then, we move all the cities with few or little objections. New England Review Me! 22:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this one doesn't address the concern that there needs to be a clear guideline for naming U.S. cities. Okiefromokla•talk 22:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. It makes more sense to come to some kind of general consensus regarding a guideline, and then individual problems/exceptions can be discussed as they come up, rather than trying to figure out all the concievable problems and then write a guideline around them. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 22:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Okay how about the knew guideline is this: "All US cities should be under the article name CITY, STATE (unless further disambiguation is needed). However, a city that appears on the Associated Press list of 'stand alone cities' may be listed under the article name CITY if and only if it can be established that the city's name has no other major meaning" I've never written guidelines before, but I must admit I like it (wording may be changed if needed to clarify) New England Review Me! 22:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
This is just like the "sub proposal" for proposal #2 I just made. I think its wording is better. I don't know what were doing here with all these proposals but maybe we can just put that sub propsal I made under this heading instead. I would feel more comfortable with User:New England doing that since he/she is the one making these proposals. Okiefromokla•talk 22:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
One major difference is that yours automatically has cities on the AP list get moved, while mine says they can be moved only if they are on the AP list and if there is no other major meaning (yours seemingly makes moves for Pheonix(AZ) and Washington (DC) a sure thing if the guideline passes, while mine doesn't) New England Review Me! 23:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I think the real compromise is to say the cities listed above are well-known enough that they can be moved to just the city name IF there is a consensus of editors at each city's talk page. The guideline stays the same generally except for the above cities who will now have the option of changing their name. Vertigo700 23:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I would accept that too, but in my experience (failed attempts to move Boston and Atlanta) most people opposed to the moves opposed only because of the guidelines in place currently, so I think debates should be about most common usage. New England Review Me! 23:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
But if we agreed to a change of policy where the above cities could be left alone, that type of debate would become moot. It would only be about whether the editors themselves think the city name should be stateless based on their own opinions and circumstances. The main thing I would like to avoid is any sort of mass migration of city names without consideration of the consensus of editors who work on the pages and therefore going to have to do some work sorting out links and related pages. Vertigo700 00:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
You misunderstand, New England. My proposal does not mean if the guideline passes the cities on the AP list automatically get moved. My proposal says the AP city articles "can be named on an individual basis" ... meaning editors can determine the status of each city on the list individually. Okiefromokla•talk 00:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems that this one just perpetuates our problem of inconsistency and no set standard, so I disagree with this one. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Why? It doesn't create inconsistency. We cap the number of cities that can appear under CITY by using a list produced by an independent third party. New England Review Me! 01:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Rewritten Version
  • Note: Another possible wording for this proposed guideline would be something like this:
    • ""The canonical form for cities in the United States is [[City, State]] (the "comma convention"). Those cities that need additional disambiguation will include their county or parish (for example Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina and Elgin, Kershaw County, South Carolina). The only exceptions to this guideline are the articles belonging to those cities chosen by the Associated Press in its list of city names that can be used without a corresponding state; these articles should be named on an individual basis, with consensus for naming to be determined on each city's talk page."
This allows all cities on the AP list to be decided on an individual basis whether they should drop the "state" part. This is due to the fact that St. Louis is highly ambiguous, for example. It also sets a limit on further exceptions to this rule. In other words, cities on the AP list would be allowed to decide if the article should drop the "state" from the name, but all other cities would be limited to the "city, state" traditional approach. Wording for the guideline can be further changed to make it clear that the cities on the AP list should be moved to "CITY" but can opt out of doing so if it creates DAB problems or something else. The main point is that we unite behind some kind of compromise and I believe this is, by far, the best solution that has ever been proposed on this topic. If we don't agree on this, this discussion will go on for another 5 years, and the current cities proposed to be moved will not pass any time soon. Okiefromokla•talk 03:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support full-heartedly. Its a good compromise and I think the best hope to uniting us on this subject. Okiefromokla•talk 03:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I prefer the wording of this over the wording of my proposal. New England Review Me! 15:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support examining each item in the AP list in Wikipedia's wider context. (SEWilco 17:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC))
  • Support third choice. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Support #7; pages should not be moved here. Each city has its own reasons, and should be considered separately. (For example, Baltimore and Cleveland have the same questions as St. Louis). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Please note that I've clarified that the discussions should take place on each cities talk page just now in response to your comment. New England Review Me! 19:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it was never intended to imply that each city would be decided here. In fact, it was always the intention that each city decide on its own talk page. Okiefromokla•talk 21:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Then I will support. The objection that we must have it here so it can be found seems frivolous; anyone who feels that strongly need only watchlist the pages; and we can even link to them from here as moved, so we can use Recentchanges. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Moves don't show up in a watchlist, do they? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Moves will show up on your watchlist. That is, of course, assuming you check out your watchlist before someone else performs an edit on the article.--Bobblehead (rants) 21:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • (ec)They should; they show up in User contributions and history. But I meant the move discussion, which has to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
A move does not appear to be a triggering event causing the page to appear on the watchlist, at least in User-space. If the page is edited before or after the move, it would show up under the new name, and if you'd look at your complete watchlist, you'd see the new page name, but my (small) watchlist is only about 1300, so I might not notice it. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
That's because you're the one that made the move. Your own contributions do not show up on your watchlist. If you'd like, I could move the page you just moved and it will show up on your watchlist. --Bobblehead (rants) 22:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
My actual edits show up on my watchlist; there are options to ignore (1) your own edits, (2) minor edits, and (3) bot edits. I have them all off. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. I continue to support this compromise. It's straighforward, logical, and non-disruptive. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. I think this addresses my concerns. Whatever intentions of the original move were they were not clear. This is, and therefore I feel it is fair. Vertigo700 02:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong support. This solution simply makes sense. It addresses flaws both in the status quo (the presence of unnecessary ambiguities) and in the initial move proposal (a mass move without consensus from the various pages' regular editors). szyslak 09:45, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support found a link to this discussion at the village pump, and this idea makes sense. Sasha Callahan 16:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Although, would a list of the cities or a link to a list of the cities be beneficial? I see "What cities are on the list" as being the #1 question if this new wording is approved. --Bobblehead (rants) 18:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I may be able to get my hand on the text version of the stylebook, which might give me access to the online edition. And I should mention you were the one who listed the cities on the AP list (see here) and I don't know where you got it. But I assume those are the cities on the list. New England Review Me! 21:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Heh. Yeah. I was the one that made the list you linked to, but I copied it from this discussion[1] when I failed to find a free version of it online.--Bobblehead (rants) 18:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. What does this accomplish? How is this much different from the current wording of the guideline? --Serge 20:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Substantively, nothing. It just moves the move requests off this page and on to the talk pages for the cities. So instead of one move discussion, there's 27. --Bobblehead (rants) 20:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, this allows all cities on the AP list to be moved with consensus, but the current revision specified which cities were to be moved (Phoenix AZ and Washington DC are both on the AP list, but not mentioned by the current guidelines). And of course, if the AP changes their list, the guideline won't need to be changed (a reason why guidelines shouldn't specify articles). But yes, the major difference is that discussions would take place on each article's talk page. This is due to some sentiments that this is the wrong venue. Plus, IMHO its not a great idea to discuss all these at once, since I think if an editor were opposed to moving one city (St. Louis) he would oppose all the moves. New England Review Me! 21:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
        • It sets a clear (or more clear) guideline to follow for naming U.S. city articles - and what New England said. Okiefromokla•talk 02:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I'm still not following. The current guideline allows separate move requests on each city page as well as having one that moves all of them, doesn't it? I don't see anything in the current wording that would inhibit that. --Serge 20:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
        • That is my interpretation as well. All in all, the rewording just prohibits mass move requests or to have the move discussion on a talk page other than the city's talk page, while the old wording allowed for mass move requests and allowed the move discussion to take place on a talk page other than the city's talk page. So nothing too major. --Bobblehead (rants) 20:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Right, its not much of a difference. But some people objected to the mass request that started this debate, and others felt each cities talk page is the proper venue. This proposal reflects those views. (I should say I wasn't too happy all these requests were en masse here---mainly because objections to individual cities may cause objections to the whole list) New England Review Me! 20:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
            • Well, keep in mind that with this new guideline no city will be allowed to drop the state in its name unless it is on the AP list. So you could not propose to move Omaha, NE or St. Paul, MN, for example. I think that in this way and the ways mentioned by some other editors here, the guideline provides more stability in the ongoing argument for naming U.S. city articles. Though I would love to see an addition to this guideline, now that it has conjured up some support (see below) Okiefromokla•talk 00:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
              • Possible addition to the guideline? - For years proposals for moving city articles have rarely seen consensus, and I don't see this changing when it is discussed on individual talk pages. I propose that we specify in the guideline the valid reasons to object to moving these AP articles when discussion occurs on indivudual talk pages. That is, to show that this naming convention already approved the AP cities to be moved - unless certain issues are present, like DAB issues, etc. This would ensure that this guideline establishes unity among U.S. city article names, and not a complete free-for-all among the AP cities. I would hate to see (for example) Atlanta, Georgia to be moved while Los Angeles, California is not, for no other reason than simply there were more believers that all articles should be "city, state" during the L.A. discussion than there were on the Atlanta talk page. Keep in mind, I am a "city, state" believer myself, but I am only giving up about 25 cities for a unifying U.S. naming guideline that will hopefully stop this discussion that has exhuasted all of us over the years. Okiefromokla•talk 00:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I take this period of silence as a lack of intrest for such addition. Perhaps it is better to keep this as simple as possible. Okiefromokla•talk 18:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it's a lack of interest in the addition. The lack of discussion since Friday could be that it is the weekend, which is generally a slow time anyways, weariness from the amount of discussion that has gone on, or a general acceptance. One of the issues that has always confronted altering the convention is that many of the participants of grown tired of going over the same ground over and over and over and etc again. Due to this, some tend to ignore/not contribute to the discussions until the very end or after the end to voice their opposition. At this point, the only people that have voiced their opinion have supported it in some manner, so I'd say we go with the rewritten version and then send a couple of the "obviously unambiguous" cities as a test run. A couple of cities that I don't see any real problems with are Seattle, Honolulu, and Milwaukee. I'd propose doing move requests for those three, if they fail, then don't continue the move requests, if they succeed, start sending the rest of the list through. --Bobblehead (rants) 18:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • This is premature. Changes to the policy at Naming conventions (settlements) needs to be discussed and agreed to there. The voting above shows that there is insufficient consensus for the current policy. You need to build a consensus for a new on AT THE RIGHT PLACE.--Paul 19:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
The rewritten version is only a minor modification to what was already agreed upon at the naming convention article and all of the participants from settlements page also participated in this discussion. So I'm not sure there is any benefit to repeating the discussion there. The only real change between the original version and the rewritten version is that it prevents the mass move requests that was a major source of problems in the move request that took place here. --Bobblehead (rants) 20:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to disagree, but what was previously agreed on did not have broad consensus agreement (see above votes for the moves), and should be rolled back and replaced with this current proposal and discussed on the correct policy page. Additionally, to ensure that the right population of editors is involved in the discussion, notices should be placed on the talk pages of all of the cities that would affected by the change in naming policy. THEN, if there is really consensus (as there well may be) the Naming convention policy can be changed again, and actions can be proposed. --Paul 20:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
What you're saying is confusing me. We should undo the recent changes to the guideline, and replace it with this one. That makes sense to me. What doesn't is that you say we then need to open a discussion on this on the settlements subpage. There seems to be no opposition to this proposal (except from you maybe) and this is the naming conventions talk page. I don't see the point of discussing it again. New England Review Me!/Go Red Sox! 21:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree with New England and Bobblehead on this particular issue. Hmm... that was funny sounding. Okiefromokla•talk 01:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - perfect. Λυδαcιτγ 21:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - This idea serves as a good compromise that allows for much needed consistency, but still lets exceptions be made at the individual article level for certain, notable, unique cities. --Kralizec! (talk) 19:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - A solution should be best adapted to the media we are publishing in, not the system of another organisation with another self-defined purpose. Wikipedia is open to readers the world over, and not a select few aware of the local traditions (best defined by the chosen "local" organsation). Best start thinking outside of this narrow box - it is both permissible and possible. THEPROMENADER 21:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Update? - So, where is this going? Okiefromokla•talk 19:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose this and all other endless proposals to change the current naming scheme. Phiwum 20:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal Number Five

All U.S. city article titles must be at [[City, State]], with no exceptions whatsoever. That means New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia would be moved to New York, New York, Chicago, Illinois and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, respectively. szyslak 22:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, if we cannot come to a reasonable compromise in terms of exceptions to the City, State format then it must be strictly observed with no exceptions. How is it even remotely objective to allow only New York City to drop the state? If exceptions are to be allowed then a logical, objective method of determining reasonable exceptions must be found - not just "Because it already is". ɑʀкʏɑɴ 22:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
What's the problem with a "grandfather clause?" Our goal should be to provide an easily understood standard, and to stop the continual proposed move wars that we have now. It's all a complete waste of time, and adds no value to Wikipedia.--Paul 01:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the problem is the same for New York City as it is for Las Vegas, Nevada, although a different solution was taken. New York, New York is technically Manhattan, so New York City, in common usage, is taken as the entire "city". Las Vegas was set as a disambiguation page, as most of what is referred to as Las Vegas is not in the city. Chicago and Philadelphia would not be exceptions under this proposal, but New York City is. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
You'd never get NY to revert.--Loodog 23:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. We're trying to fix it, not make it worse. --Serge 23:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't like this one, but I find it substantially preferable to the status quo. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly Reject saying all US cities need to follow a different rule than European cities creates a double-standard. New England Review Me! 01:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Do they speak the same language in Europe as the U.S.? Do they have the same currency? Does Europe use the same units of measure as the U.S.? Are there as many cities in any European country as there are in the U.S.? Sometimes a double standard isn't a double standard, it's reality.--Paul 02:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm fairly certain they speak English in England, and why does their use of the metric system and the Euro have to do with the names of cities. New England Review Me! 02:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually they speak British English and not American English. Very different. As far as place names go, they have a very different set of issues given the much longer history and may changes from what I recall seeing in discussions. Vegaswikian 18:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Support for consistency. Redirects for popular terms would still point at the articles themselves...Until Mr. York's philosophical movie "New York" takes over the language and the article by that name. (SEWilco 17:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC))
  • Support, although New York City appears to be a rational exception in that New York, New York refers primarily to Manhattan. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment While I agree with this, it seems to go against the spirit of compromise intended by these "proposals". The point was so those who want "city, state" get something and those who want well known cities to be simply "city" also get something. I only mention this because for the past 5 years there has never been consensus, hense these compromise proposals, so it seems a little counter-productive to bring it up again. Okiefromokla•talk 21:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal Number Six

United States cities with names that are not clearly the primary topic for that name are disambiguated at [[City, State]] (the "comma convention"). Those cities that need additional disambiguation include their county or parish (for example Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina and Elgin, Kershaw County, South Carolina).

Simple. Clear. Consistent with the rest of Wikipedia. Done. --Serge 23:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Not achieving consensus is now strongly rejected? --Serge 00:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Twice in the past month achieving a supermajority against seems like strongly rejected to me. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I still believe that additional dab example uses the wrong solution. If you are using city, state, as the convntion, then two conflicts within a state need to be dabbed so we should be using Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County) and Elgin, South Carolina (Kershaw County). So the primary name follows convention and is dabbed if needed. Vegaswikian 00:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose As Arthur Rubin, with the addition that it has never obtained a majority. It will produce a patchwork of small communities which happen to be unique this year, among the 77% which don't. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal Number Six (a)

United States cities with names that are not clearly the primary topic for that name are disambiguated at [[City, State]] (the "comma convention"). Those cities that need additional disambiguation include their county or parish (for example Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County) and Elgin, South Carolina (Kershaw County)).

Same as Number Six, but dabs county in parens instead of double-comma method per Vegaswikian. Still simple. Still clear. This is even more consistent with the rest of Wikipedia than is Proposal Six. Opposition to this (or any other proposal) solely on the grounds that it has been rejected before is ridiculous and should be ignored. As far as the "patchwork" of small communities that will be created which happen to be unique this year, this is no different from any other topic in Wikipedia created with a name that at least initially does not require dabbing. The number of U.S. communities per year with names that have to be changed from being a redirect to a dab page is tiny, the same tiny that would be affected by adopting this proposal. This silly "justification" for opposition should also be ignored. What's left to oppose this? Nothing rational. --Serge 20:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal Number Seven

US cities whose names are listed above (the AP guide list?) can be moved from city, state to city as they are deemed to be the primary topic for those names via the consensus of this proposal. However, the actual moving of the city pages as stated about should occur only through the consensus of the editors on each individual city's talk page to take into considerations the effects of such a move would have on the city's pages and people seeking information on Wikipedia. Vertigo700 00:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Lets nix this proposal - for all of us who want this very similar proposal to pass, I suggest we limit all our efforts to the one. We shouldn't confuse people by having several similar proposals (its like if one political party had all the support but spread its votes between 3 candidates, and the less-popular political party voted for one candidate, then the less-popular one would win). Proposal 4 is too similar to this one, so I think we should limit our focus to that. Its all about compromise. Okiefromokla•talk 03:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand the need for compromise, but I cannot accept a proposal that would take away the decision from the editors at the city pages themselves, which is essentially the main difference (as I understand it between this and four). I (and I believe some others) are against any sort of mass move without any consensus from the editors at the city pages. To me that is a big difference. Vertigo700 06:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Then is there some way to bring the editors of those city pages into this discussion? This could prove useful. THEPROMENADER 08:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This requires isolation of the vote discussion within the article's talk page, so only people actively monitoring that specific city will be aware of the discussion. (SEWilco 17:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC))
I'll tell you what, while I think the city's talk pages are the most appropriate place for moving discussions, I'd be willing to support proposal four if and only if each city's move was discussed (and voted) separately, and new more intuitive banners were placed on each city's talk page directing them to the official discussion. That way the city editors and anyone else could put in their input. So basically there would have to be a single proposal simply giving the option for the above cities to lose the state and then separate proposals for every city move. I really think that is the only fair way to do this, even if it requires a lot of extra voting. It can all be on the same page so as to not take a massive amount of room, but there really needs to be consensus for every city in my opinion. Vertigo700 17:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The intent of number four is too have them voted on separately (but these votes would likely run concurrently). New England Review Me! 18:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Mild Oppose. Seems to be a clarification of #4, but some editors don't agree. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Dispite some assurances otherwise, it still seems to me that this is the same as #4. Also, there seems to have been confusion that proposal #4 meant each AP city was to be decided during this convention or at another; when, in fact, it always intended for the AP list to decide on each individual talk page. The wording has since been clarified, but I stand by my statement that proposal 4 has always been the same as proposal #7 with some wiggle room. And I still believe its pointless to have two of the same proposals. We should focus on the original version. Okiefromokla•talk 21:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal number eight

Can we have some actual discussion here rather than voting support/oppose on proposals? I see too many votes with simply "I like it" or "I don't like it" attached, neither of which is a valid argument. m:voting is evil, and people here should be aware that Wikipedia policy and guidelines are not created through majority vote. >Radiant< 10:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I would certainly love to see some more constructive discussion rather than the oft-repeated "Something like this was rejected before, so let's reject it again". The current state of affairs, ie. using the [[City, State]] convention with only an ill-defined "There are a few exceptions" is really not useful to editors. There really ought to be something more objective and concrete to follow. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 15:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal number nine- city, state disambiguation when needed

If there is agreement on city, state, then we also need to correctly choose a method for disambiguation when needed. Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina and Elgin, Kershaw County, South Carolina are completely wrong following a city, state convention. They should be city, state (disambiguation) as in Elgin, South Carolina (Lancaster County) and Elgin, South Carolina (Kershaw County). The same applies to Poughkeepsie (city), New York and Poughkeepsie (town), New York which should be Poughkeepsie, New York (city) and Poughkeepsie, New York (town). This totally follows the city, state format and adds the disambiguation at the end of the article name when it is needed. I don't see the double commas as being helpful or consistent with a city, state guideline. I also don't see parenthetical disambiguation in the middle of the article name as being consistent with any guideline. Vegaswikian 00:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer the parenthetical method after City, State in both instances as the current layout is rather wikipedia centric from what I can tell. It looks like the current method of disambiguation for settlements with the same name within the same state is not used outside of Wikipedia. --Bobblehead (rants) 16:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Consensus can change

  • A reminder to all that consensus can change. I am of the opinion that this means that any arguments consisting solely of such phrases as "this has been rejected before" or "why waste our time with this again?" are invalid. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 00:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
However, "this was rejected last week" is still reason not to bring it up again. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that one different. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

How to Proceed

I note that editors are removing the "proposed moved" tag templates from the affected cities on the AP list. Bearing in mind the following

::The change that was agreed to at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) obviously only achieved consensus because of the limited number of participants. As can be seen here, once the implications of the change is made obvious to the larger Wikipedia community, there is not only no consensus for the change, there is a good deal of opposition. Accordingly, the changes made at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) to include the AP list and creating exceptions to the canonical standard should be rolled back.--Paul 21:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that if this move proposal fails, it indicates a lack of support for the change to the settlements naming guideline and it should be rolled back. Sufficient time to discuss here should be allowed before it is decided one way or another, however. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 22:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I think a new discussion should be opened on the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) page to discuss a new standard. This is not the correct place to discuss or get agreement on a change to Naming conventions (settlements). In order to build a true consensus, and not have the same result this move proposal had, it seems to me that a new tag should be constructed announcing the important naming convention discussion, and it should be posted on the talk pages of the cities that will potentially be affected.--Paul 18:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems there was some kind of discussion at that page regarding this very same move, at it seems to have ended around August 19 rather abruptly and incompletely. I don't think we need to go back there with this. Perhaps we could put another notice on each city's talk page - but I think its important to remember that the discussion has somewhat evolved into proposals for clear guidelines including the move of these cities rather than only the move of these cities (which seems to have overwhelmingly failed). It may be prudent to make a new template to put on those talk pages specifying this change in the discussion, but also keep in mind that a notice was on those pages for some time, so those watching those pages were certainly aware of this proposal. But as of right now, all discussion on the subject seems to have stopped. It seems that apparently, everyone who wants to chime in has. I'm not sure how to proceed from here, unless it seems like a consensus has been reached for something... Proposal 4 has by far gotten the most attention and support... Okiefromokla•talk 02:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Still.. it hasn't been that long since discussion stopped here. Maybe a little more time in addition to new templates... Okiefromokla•talk 02:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that a new round of templates would certainly be a good thing, but perhaps the leading proposals should be summarized somewhere with a link back to this discussion?--Paul 03:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
You know, I'm actually up for anything that could get this discussion rolling again or to see some conclusion to it. So I agree. Okiefromokla•talk 21:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Proper name for article which is out of its best place due to ambiguity

Given the fact that the Harry Potter article is about a series of books/movies/games about a character whose full name is Harry James Potter[HP5], should the article about the character be at Harry James Potter or at Harry Potter (character)? Note that the full name isn't a spoiler - the middle name is identical to the character's father's first name, which we are introduced to at the beginning. Od Mishehu 11:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It should be disambiguated with a word in brackets. The name itself should be the most common one and adding in middle names, maiden names and the like has a tendency to create name forms that don't meet that. Timrollpickering 11:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Timrollpickering --Serge 23:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Bratley Langenhoven/Bradley Langenhoven

What is the favoured way of spelling Mr. Langenhoven's name - Google searches favour Bratley, MSN.com searches favour Bradley, Metacrawler has roughly the same, Yahoo massively favours Bradley, Official RWC site Bratley, scrum.com Bradley, Namibian RU Bradley. Which way does it go? --Montchav 12:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Conjunctions

WP:NAME#Album and song titles and band names says to uncapitalise conjunctions such as "and", "but", "or" etc. Does this also apply to abbrevations of conjunctions such as the "N" in Guns N' Roses and Chicken-N-Beer? Or should they be left capitalised as a pronoun? Spellcast 05:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say they are conjunctions, so it does apply. That's what I argued when I moved of Sweet Child O' Mine to Sweet Child o' Mine (see Talk:Sweet Child o' Mine#Why has the page been moved?). For reference, there is a discussion about changing the current capitalization scheme at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD#capitalisation of band names. --PEJL 05:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Reworded the "Controversial names" section

I felt the tone of the paragraph was too aggressive (or something), so I rewrote some parts of it. I think it's more instructive now, and more clearly reflects policy. Please note that this is just drive-by copyediting; I'm not currently involved in any controversial name argument anywhere or any such. :) Eaglizard 01:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Commercial renaming

Is there a guideline for how to handle the names of commercial products when the producer decides to change the name of the product? In some cases it seems justified in order to unify past and present; in other cases it seems like WP is being used to extend corporate marketing. Some specific examples to highlight the complexity of the situation:

  • id Software's renaming of the Quake engine series to the id Tech series, arguably for the sake of lending credence to their engine technology. Here I think there is a case that the original name should not be changed. In this case, the rationale is that it is anachronistic -- the Quake engines that fall under this naming scheme have no modern context, and nothing from their respective historical periods refers to them as "id Tech". For example, games built with the Quake engine themselves use the phrase "Quake engine". However, some editors have taken it upon themselves to go through articles of that period and replace the phrase "Quake engine" with "id Tech". In actuality, the only engine to actually bear the "id Tech" label from its beginning is the yet-to-be-released id Tech 5.
  • Games Workshop's renaming of Warhammer Fantasy Battle to Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles. Here it is essentially the same product, but with newer editions bearing the revised title. While the established customer base uses the old name, new players may only recognize the newer title. I can go either way on this one.
  • The GNU Project's re-definition of GCC from GNU C Compiler to GNU Compiler Collection. In this case, the full title and function of the product has changed, but the common name (GCC) is being overloaded to mean two different things: the original product AND the newer, inclusive product. Here, I would lean toward favoring the renaming because it is more inclusive, but at the same time I also have some reservations because, from a notability standpoint, the original meaning has more historical influence and current real-world usage (that is, when most people talk about GCC, they still mean the C Compiler specifically).

While perhaps it is best to handle these on a case-by-case basis, there will inevitably be some controversial subject that prompts irreconcilable differences. Some comments on how to handle such cases would be appreciated. Ham Pastrami 09:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting situation. I agree with you on the case-by-case basis, but in general, I think articles should only be renamed if/when the new name starts being used more. -Rocket000 04:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization of titles

I know there is no single "correct" way, but for Wikipedia's sake we should follow a clear set of rules. We have WP:NAME (also stated here) and WP:MUSTARD, which contradict each other by what one excludes. I know this has been discussed before, and I'm not looking for a new discussion. I would just like some clarification.

The following is the conclusion I've reach as to the most agreed-upon set of rules:

Words that are not capitalized:

  1. Conjunctions
  2. Articles
  3. The word to in infinitives
  4. Prepositions that are four or less letters and not part of a two-word phrasal verb

Exception:

  1. The first word and last word in the title (or parentheses inside the title) are always capitalized (overrides previous rules)


Am I correct - is this something we all agree to use on Wikipedia? (Again, I am not asking what's the correct way, but the way we do things here.) Please tell me if I'm wrong, if not, (and here's where I do want discussion) we should make all the "policies" say the same or, better yet, have one policy.

I don't think the problem is we can't agree on one set of rules, no, the problem is a bigger than that... This issue has been discussed on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters), and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums along with this page. I post this here, because this is where it belong. We need centralized discussion so we're all on the same page. Capitalization of titles is just one example. (All other naming conventions apply.) I also think pages like WikiProject Music's MUSTARD page should have notice at the top saying how it's not an official policy (even though I agree with them) because their rules clash with WP:NAME and can lead to confusion and edit wars. I even see people citing WP:MUSTARD in revert edit summaries or arguments like it's the consensus of all of Wikipedia. Maybe it is, but it's not the current policy. Anytime WikiProjects talk about rules that pertain to all of Wikipedia they should copy directly or provide a link to the policy as it is here.

I guess what I'm proposing is a new policy (or just an collaborative effort) to merge all similar sets of rules, so that every WikiProject or whatever doesn't have it's own "policy". If there's disagreement, it should be dealt with here or wherever the official policy's talk page is.

Your thoughts? - Rocket000 03:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

How do I disambiguate the same name in the same field?

I'm thinking about creating a page for a college (American) football player named Kevin Smith.

Kevin Smith currently links to the article about the director. No problem, right? I just create an article with a less ambiguous name. Trouble is, there's already an article Kevin Smith (American football) about a different American football player.

So, how should I disambiguate this further? Cogswobbletalk 19:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Middle name/initial is usually the next step.--Bobblehead (rants) 19:37, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I haven't been able to find his middle name :-/ Cogswobbletalk 19:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Year the enter the NFL is usually another option, but since he hasn't done that yet, you could always go with (College American football). But that would require an article name change if/when he enters the NFL. --Bobblehead (rants) 20:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I didn't want to use "College" for that reason. I took a look at John Smith, and there are a couple of baseball players of that name disambiguated by their position. So I think I'll try Kevin Smith (American football running back) Cogswobbletalk 20:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
That's a good solution. Adding middle names that aren't normally used is not ideal. Another option would be to add the team, but since players nowadays play for more than one team that could be confusing. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Unclear naming conventions for country names

Very recently, the Myanmar page was moved to Burma, without any attempt to obtain consensus for the move. This move is being discussed after-the-fact here and here. I think that naming conventions for country-name articles could be clearer. -- Boracay Bill 01:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The move from "Myanmar" to "Burma" might lead to calls for moving "People's Republic of China" to "China" as the exact same reasons that were used to justify the move would apply in this case as well. A clearer policy on country names should definitely be discussed. --Polaron | Talk 04:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Naming of Albums: concerning disambiguation

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Naming:_concerning_disambiguation

Dyaimz 21:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Can the word 'notable' be included in the name of a list?

As Will Beback points out at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists, "Wikipedia has scores of embedded lists that include a criterion, implicitly or explicitly, of notability. "Notable residents", "notable alumni", or "notable contributors" are typical examples." In lists which select notable people from a much larger group, I have found it very useful to include 'notable', as it helps to exclude the non-notable. However, there's a convention at WP:MOSLIST here that "The name or title of the list should simply be List of _ _ (for example list of Xs). Do not use a title like: Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of notable Xs, nor list of all Xs."

This convention seems to me to make best sense for lists in which the word 'notable' can be inferred, such as List of Presidents of the United States. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't believe the WP:MOSLIST convention amounts to a strict rule that 'notable' must always be removed from a name.

We have a user whose edits consist largely of removing the word 'notable' from lists all over Wikipedia, stating if anyone objects that he is correct. I have discussed it with him here and here. Can other people please give this matter some thought? Is there room for 'notable' in the name of a list, or am I wrong and it should always be expunged? Xn4 17:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:MOSLIST covers this adequately. Inclusion criteria, for example notability, should be clearly stated in the lead section. List titles should be very simple.
"Notability", however that is determined, doesn't seem like a very good criterion to state on its own, anyway. Everything in Wikipedia is implied to be notable, since we are noting it here. I think better criteria would be more concrete, like things which had articles published about them, or things listed in some type of reference. "Notable" doesn't really mean anything beyond someone's opinion. See Wikipedia:Notability.
(I don't see how "notable" can be inferred in the List of Presidents of the United States—it is a list of all presidents, not just the notable ones.)
Of course I can't comment on particular examples which I haven't seen, but there is no point in adding "notable" to the title List of Old Gowers, unless you foresee another list of non-notable Old Gowers, or all Old Gowers, neither of which would be suitable for inclusion in this encyclopedia. —Michael Z. 2007-10-10 17:49 Z

Awards and prizes naming conventions - proposal

Since awards and prizes are awarded by someone they should have a name to them by the person/organisation/company/whatever awarding the prize. The naming convention should reflect this. // Liftarn

I think this runs deeper than awards and prizes, it goes for institutions, organizations, products, works of art, almost anything that has an official name. Most of the time when something has an official name in English, we use that on Wikipedia in place of the more common name (Academy Award, not Oscar; The Beatles (album), not The white album; etc.). Countries would be an exception (and should be an exception, as long as there's a non-controversial conventional short form to use). But there's not much support for this in policy, and sometimes (as has happened at Talk:Nobel Prize in Economics) people use WP:NC(CN) to trump the official name. It's just that this is done very arbitrarily. I think the whole official name vs. common name issue should be stated clearly somewhere, after due discussion of course. -- Jao 09:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, editors have used the excuse that since the title of the article is a common name, then other articles in WP should use the common name in the content of those articles. This argument then supports completely removing the official name of an award/prize/etc in WP, except for the one article about it, thanks to WP:NAME and WP:NC(CN). Something seems wrong here. –panda 17:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the title in the article and what is used in the text body is quite different and that should also be pointed out. // Liftarn

Seeing how no one has objected, does it need further peer review, should we create an article with the proposed changes and link to it, or should we just add this to the article? –panda 16:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

avoiding offensive names

I am all for basing WP editorial decisions on use in reputable sources, but shouldn't WP:NAME policy also include something about "the avoidance of forms of expression… that are perceived to exclude, marginalize or insult groups of people". I realise that this is a possible definition of political correctness and that the term is a red flag to some WP editors, but i feel we should take the bull by the horns and clarify the big difference between political activism, which should not be a part of WP, and political correctness, which definitely should be mentioned by that name and made a basis of WP policies. If too many object to the term, we could of course simply use older terms previously used to describe this concept, for example good manners. Quoted from a NYT discussion:

It seems sensible to me for us to use the same thought process to decide on the place names we use. There is no clamor among Italians for Rome to become Roma, nor among the British for Londres to be banned in favor of London. However, it would be understandable if a Zimbabwean objected to being called a Rhodesian, given that Cecil Rhodes was a Victorian imperialist who appropriated the land from that Zimbabwean’s ancestors.

It may be that the Burma/Myanmar issue is especially complicated because of the acceptability of those who did the renaming and the extent to which the local population supports the change. But generally speaking, we should try to respect people’s wishes when it comes to what we call them and their homes. It’s just good manners. --Espoo 09:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice quote, but I don't understand your proposal. Tempshill 22:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I thought i said it in the first sentence. :-) I suggest adding a requirement similar to the following to the WP:NAME policy:
Articles and their names should avoid forms of expression that are perceived to exclude, marginalise, insult, or oppress groups of people. This should not be confused with political activism, which does not belong in WP. Simply said, WP should try to respect people’s wishes when it comes to what we call them and their homes. It’s just good manners.
Applied to a concrete case like Burma, this principle explains clearly why WP should respect the wishes of the majority of Burmese and of the elected government (kept in opposition by the military) and call the country Burma in English instead of using the term imposed by the junta, Myanmar. This is an especially clear case since there is no strong preference for M in current English usage worldwide. (US news outlets prefer M, but experts on Burma use B much more often than M in both speech and writing, and these sources should have precedence over news sources in WP.) This principle also explains why choosing B is not political activism, and it indirectly explains why WP would in fact be making a political statement in choosing M.
There are of course other naming disputes in which most English speakers use X and many or most of the people themselves would prefer Y, and in these cases WP editors should use reputable sources to determine if the people described simply prefer Y or consider X rude or oppressive. If Y is unknown to most English speakers, WP will have to compromise between the current policy and my suggested addition by, for example, having the article at X but using X only once in the article if it is objected to strongly by many of the people described. --Espoo 07:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Surely any attempt to avoid offensive terms in titles of articles is a form of censorship, and Wikipedia is not censored. A particular case in point is the British Isles. A vocal group of Irish editors hate the name, yet there is no alternative name that is used anywhere near as consistently or frequently. Changing the name of an article because some editors find it offensive (or claim to) brings their point of view into play, instead of being totally neutral.-- Waggers 13:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
WP should describe reality, not shape it. WP:NAME isn't perfect, but adding a PC standard would open a pandora's box of disagreement over what is deemed offensive (ultimately subjective) and this would in *most* (IMHO) cases overwhelm discussion of any given naming issue (e.g. Burma/Myanmar). It can be challenging enough to establish the first criteria of WP:NAME, i.e. to measure which name is more common (ultimately objective). Although politics cannot be completely excluded, WP will function better with a minimum of them, and it's best to avoid explicit political standards. István 17:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. WP follows the NPOV policy and thus the proposal is not needed. A name that is controversial but neutral will remain but a name that is insulting or subjective has no place in WP - WP:NPOV does prevent that anyway. As the Burma-example shows, we already use the neutral name over the political "official" name, anyway. So where is the need to have a new policy? --SoWhy Talk 14:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Note also there is absolutely no evidence that Burma is preferred by the majority of Burmese. We know that most members of the prodemocracy movement tend to prefer Burma and we know that the majority or Burmese appear to support the prodemocracy movement. However this doesn't mean that most Burmese prefer Burma. Nil Einne 01:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Consistancy of special characters in article names

Someone has pointed out that there's an inconsistency through different consensus of what the appropriate use of special characters in page names should be. The two prime examples are We Love Katamari and I ♥ Huckabees. In the former case, it was decided that the heart symbol can be replaced with the word "love" and that while in the body of the text, the title was referred to as "We ♥ Katamari", the page name, for accessibility reasons should be kept without special characters. In the case of Huckabees, the consensus came to the conclusion that the trade name of the movie is with the heart symbol, and thus it should stay at the heart symbol version. (Of course, the alternative version of both have redirects, so its not a matter of finding the information).

While the current scheme does suggest that symbols like that should be replaced per "use English", the fact that we have at least two articles that vary is causing some people to use one as the rule to adjust the other, or so on.

Should there be a more consistent approach to this? --MASEM 17:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Changing the format of the page

I think that this page has become too long to be really useful. Would you think about changing the layout of the page, for example taking out all the summaries (except for the general NC guidelines) and grouping the subNCs by subject rather than alphabetically, maybe in a table format or in a more clean and aerated format such as in Help:Contents? Thank you. CG 19:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Names of former countries in biographical articles

Is there a convention on what country name to put as person's place of birth? Two conflicting examples are: George Washington (having historic name: Westmoreland County, Colony and Dominion of Virginia, British America) and Constantine Karamanlis (having current name Proti, Serres, Greece (historic would be Ottoman Empire)). Is there a naming convention about this? --78.1.98.197 14:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Y-Xers vs X people in Y vs ???

There are many pages about ethic groups in non-indigious place, e.g.

From time to time, on a one-off basis, these pages are proposed for renaming (e.g. Talk:Vietnamese Czechs#Requested move). Is there a standard for this kind of page? If not, could we start creating a standard for this kind of page? Ewlyahoocom 05:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-special but non alpha/numeric character in trademark title

There is a recent video game called "skate." (without quotes, that's the trademarked title). The page for it has seen a series of moves from skate. to "Skate." to "skate (video game)" to "skate. (video game)" and I think a couple other variations on those. It's not obvious from the NC which version is most appropriate: if the period and lowercase lettering are to be avoided, then "Skate (video game)" would make the most sense, while if those are allowed the current location skate. is appropriate. Obviously we can redir from other variations to the main one but it would be best to have a bit of assurance which is the correct way to go with it. --MASEM 15:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for (neutral) advice

Just looking for some neutral advice on the following case. Ok, to sum up what I am asking:

"Ireland" is the name of an island in Western Europe, previously part of the UK, now only a portion is.
The same name ("Ireland") is used to refer to the now-independant State. It is therefore located at Republic of Ireland (an official description, but just "Ireland" is very often used)

My interpretation of WP:NC is that this dictates "Ireland" should be a disambig, by policy. However most (or certainly, too many) views on the discussion of naming are based on general opinions (such as things like "Ireland has been used as a name for the island, for longer than the state has existed. So the island should have precedence" - clearly wouldn't be backed up by policy) so I would like to see what others think, who are basing their opinions entirely on the policy. I'll also just point out there are hundreds (possibly thousands) of links to "Ireland" which refer to the State (and so should link to "Republic of Ireland") since novice users may not be aware of where the articles are located.

The reason I'm posting here, is because anyone on this page, has presumably just looked at the actual policy (and are hopefully approaching it with a NPOV since they may be unaware of the problem). - EstoyAquí(t • c • e) 00:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

You may find a discussion with a similar theme at Talk:Newfoundland_(island)#Newfoundland_redirect:_Island_vs_Province and Talk:Newfoundland_and_Labrador#redirection. Ewlyahoocom 03:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Movepagetext

Could anybody tell me please, what is this moving warning about "This can be a drastic and unexpected change for a popular page; please be sure you understand the consequences of this before proceeding." Please explain me exactly, what drastic and unexpected change(or changes) might accur with such a popular page? Toasker (talk) 18:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

See, for example, Burma and Talk:Burma -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Sports teams

As indicated by Prolog (talk · contribs) at Talk:FC Steaua Bucureşti#Requested move and by MTC (talk · contribs) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#Naming conventions and club names, the naming convention for sports teams was added by Mjefm (talk · contribs) back in June. It appears that this occurred without prior discussion, that no consensus had been sought or formed. Because of my own involvement in this discussion/dispute, I obviously won't touch the section myself. But in view of the discussions, should the section be hidden from view until a consensus has been formed? AecisBrievenbus 00:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

This should defenetly be removed if it was added without the community's consensus. Everything added should be discussed and be approved by the community's consensus not unilaterally by one user's decision. —dima/talk/ 04:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
It should be deleted immediately while we come up with a more comprehensive policy. As the recent moves of FC Dynamo Kyiv to FC Dynamo Kiev and FK Crvena Zvezda to Red Star Belgrade demonstrate, unfortunately some over-zealous admins are taking advantage of this irrational statement and using it to bypass the consensus of editors. The statement is factually incorrect from the get go. It reads, "For example, Sporting Clube de Portugal are always called Sporting Lisbon in the English-speaking world." Well during the Manchester United FC-Sporting CP Champions League match the English ESPN announcers (Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth) had no problem calling the Portugese side, "Sporting", "Sporting Clube", or "Sporting Clube de Portugal". They actually made a point in the broadcast that Sporting doesn't like being called Sporting Lisbon and that that particular term is outdated. --Tocino 04:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Right, here's my proposal for this issue. I suggest that if the club's official website has an English language version, we should entitle any Wikipedia articles about that club using whatever name is used on the English version of their website. In the event that the club does not have an English language website, we should use the name that the club goes by most commonly in other English language media. Under this proposal, the article that is currently at FC Dynamo Kiev would be located at FC Dynamo Kyiv and FC Bayern Munich would remain where it is, as would FC Steaua Bucureşti, while FC Red Star Belgrade would be at FC Red Star or Red Star Belgrade. For the sake of consistency, in the case of FC Arsenal Kiev, that article should be located at FC Arsenal Kyiv, per FC Dynamo Kyiv. - PeeJay 17:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

An event with no name

I've come across this really bad maritime disaster that befell the Royal Navy in 1707 - one of the worst in the RN's history.

What happened is that a fleet of RN ships commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell sailed at night into the rocks around the Scilly Isles. Four capital ships were sunk, three of them going down with all hands, for the loss of somewhere between 1500 and 2000 men.

But here's the weird bit - the event has no name! Because it happened in 1707 when there were few newspapers, and because it was at then end of the day a relatively minor event compared to the continental war that was then raging, it seems never to have been "christened".

There are a couple of Wiki articles on the individual ship sinkings, but it seems to me the obvious thing to do is treat this as a single event. Trouble is, since the event doesn't have a name, any name I give it - like for example the Shovell squadron disaster - is effectively a neologism.

Anyone have a solution to this? Gatoclass 11:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep, WP:COMMONSENSE. However, I assume you do have some sources to extract the material from (otherwise, it would be like User:Ned Scott/Upper Peninsula War, see the context). I assume that the sources refer to it somehow. However, I see that the event is, at least partly, covered in HMS Association — why not expand it there rather than making up a title? Duja► 11:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The sources probably describe it with long, half-sentence descriptors. But why not call it Shovell and the Scilly Isles until you find a better term? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Copy-edit tag

I've posted one because this page is not in good shape and needs an overhaul. I see even a section with a link back to itself. Tony (talk) 00:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm wondering why it has the policy template and not the usual styleguide template at the top, if this is part of the MOS. Tony (talk) 00:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
The reason is very simple: This is a policy while most parts of the MOS are guidelines. That's also the reason it was such a bad idea for you to edit the page as you did without first attempting to come to some consensus here. As you commented below, the result was that some of your hard work was a waste of your time. It wasted other people's time too fixing it up. Andrewa (talk) 01:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
    • The whole of the naming conventions part of the MOS is chaotically organised. Why is it that we have in the (central) page sections for:

"2.34 People

  • 2.34.1 Monarchs and nobility
  • 2.34.2 Ancient Romans
  • 2.34.3 Western clergy

and Mormons, and Old Norse, and Legistlation in the UK;

yet much more significant aspects are cordoned off into subpages? Doesn't make sense. Tony (talk) 01:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


Not a good start to have someone here revert my hard work in trying to fix up the opening. Please explain why it wasn't a significant improvement in the organisation of the material. Tony (talk) 06:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

For one thing, I wasn't too enthused about:

Linking conventions are also important. Following consistent conventions in both naming and linking makes it more likely that links will lead to the right place. A redirect should be created for articles that may reasonably be found under two or more names (such as different spellings or former names). Conversely, a term that may be used to describe several different search terms may require a disambiguation page.

Yeah, sure a lot of things are "also important", Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Article names for instance. The previous version was clearer about why some things are mentioned in the intro, and why others aren't.
Re. "my hard work" argument. Believe me, a lot of people's hard work has gone in the present formulation of the page and its intro (not only speaking for myself here). "my hard work" just isn't an argument in this context. --Francis Schonken 09:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

And nor was your non-edit summary. Now, this whole paragraph—what is the problem? How is it different in substantive meaning from the previous sloppy version? Methinks there's ownership going on here. Tony (talk) 10:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Removing the tag

Ridiculous. I suggest we remove this unhelpful tag from this key policy immediately, revert to the version before it was added, and discuss the proposed changes here. Andrewa (talk) 19:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

In that nobody speaks, I'm removing the tag. We seem to be back to the previous version of the intro already.

Before putting it back, please discuss it here. What exactly is needed, in your opinion? Andrewa (talk) 01:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't you dare remove that tag. I'm still fuming at Shonken's reversion of my copy-editing of the lead. It that's the way it will be, the copy-edit tag stays. YOU copy-edit the text. Tony (talk) 04:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I've started copy-editing again. Do not revert unless you have a good reason to believe that the edits are not an improvement. This should be stated here. I have made no substantive changes to meaning. Tony (talk) 04:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

NB, BKonrad, please note WP's policy on personal attacks. Accusing me in your edit summary of having "a fit of pique" is bordering on just that. Please do not personalise what should be a simple and collaborative process. Tony (talk) 04:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't "accuse" you of anything--I supplied an admittedly colorful description based on your statements here. Dramatic statements like Don't you dare remove that tag. I'm still fuming at Shonken's [sic] reversion of my copy-editing of the lead. YOU copy-edit the text. looks to me quite fairly described as a fit of pique. Sorry if you have such thin skin and are so easily offended. Thing is, while you accused Francis Schonken of "ownership", I suggest that your threat to hold the page hostage with a copy-edit tag while expecting some "YOU" to make the edits is also symptomatic of ownership. Yeah, I agree about editing being collaborative, but holding pages hostage without discussion is not very collaborative though. WP:BRD applies -- you boldly tried making some edits without discussion, which in principle is fine, but, the edits were reverted indicating a lack of consensus support. The subsequent discussion stalled without your preferred edits being made. You made some dramatic statements implying you were holding the page hostage. I didn't think that was a good enough reason for adding the tag. I'm glad you tried making your "copy-edits" again rather than waiting for some "YOU" to do so on your behalf. The edits were mostly reverted (again), so perhaps some substantive discussion about the edits would be appropriate. older ≠ wiser 13:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Collaboration on a key policy page such as this one means discussing changes before they are made, and going with the consensus. This is what I'm asking you to do.
My suggestion is that you stop making unilateral changes, revert what you've done without consensus (including I suggest the copyedit notice), and let's talk. Andrewa (talk) 06:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
This really sounds like what Tony says at WT:MOS; does the kettle wish to continue arguing about the blackness of the pot? At least one of the "copyedits" is a change of policy. I have tweaked the original in restoring it, since some of our article topics are unknown to a majority of English-speakers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm unsure what this means... are you meaning I'm the kettle, or the pot? Anyway, agree that at least some of these "copyedits" need further discussion. Can you be more specific about what Tony says elsewhere? It might save me reinventing the wheel here. Andrewa (talk) 07:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
You are making the same argument that Tony makes about WP:MOS, that changes should be made only after being proposed (see its talk page, and those of its subpages, passim), except that WP:MOS is a guideline, and its guidance is often the crochet of one or two editors, and that he objects to every change, no matter how minor or well-justified. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
As you say, this is Wikipedia policy while most of the MOS (perhaps all of it, I'd need to check) is guideline. I think that is important. I actually think that the way he is making changes here would be inappropriate on any project namespace page, whether policy, guideline or other. But applied to official policy, it's just not on.
I came into this discussion because I was trying to reach consensus at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Ancient Egyptian). This is a draft for a new naming convention which has largely come out of a renaming conflict. Many of those involved are fairly new to Wikipedia, and aren't following policy partly because they haven't yet read it. It's most unhelpful when they can point to WP:NC and say, hey, that's flagged as policy but it's also flagged as needing an update, and it changes daily. Andrewa (talk) 00:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Tony has now added the tag three times in all, twice today after two different editors removed it (I was one of them). There seems to be a rough consensus to remove it, so we could keep removing it until he's stopped by the 3RR I guess, or escalate the issue along Wikipedia:dispute resolution if he persists. But I personally obey a 1RR, and I hope it won't go further.

It's not doing too much damage I guess, but it does make it much harder to persuade relative newbies that Wikipedia has policies and that we should abide by them. Andrewa (talk) 07:51, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

In fact, all of our pages welcome copyediting; that's what a wiki's for. As for his war on also, see if the brevity is worth the slight change in emphasis: it may be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
There is a big difference between proposing substantive changes to policy and merely improving the wording of the existing policy. If I have inadvertantly changed the substantive meaning, please point this out—except for trivial changes of meaning that, frankly, need to be expunged. I don't mind Anderson's further change, but why, for example, does the text now refer to "the greatest number of English speakers" rather than merely "most readers"? It seems redundant to talk of English speakers here, and why "the greatest number" of E s? Seems clumsy.
This is my complaint about the page. The wording should be as plain and brief as possible to get across the detail, and it should be simply formatted. Not verbose gobbledygook that makes the policy is less accessible to WPians.
People here seem to have become complacent about the need to overhaul a text that has grown by committee. The language of such pages as MOS and NFC—the most sensitive policy page of all—have been rigorously overhauled. In the case of MOS, there were substantive changes in meaning; in the case of NFC, the overhaul I performed early this year changed the meaning only marginally in a few places (by consensus). Tony (talk) 11:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Why English speakers? Because it is important, and all too often ignored, that this Wikipedia is intended for anglophones; the preferences of Foolanders are reflected in the Fooish WP, not here. Changing this is changing policy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but why does this need stating, for heaven's sake. Should we also add "for those who can read", and "for those who have an Internet connection"? These are in the background meaning and clutter the text when stated. Tony (talk) 00:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Disagree. These examples are just more straw man arguments. Andrewa (talk) 00:40, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
In reply to Septentrionalis In fact, all of our pages welcome copyediting; that's what a wiki's for, I can only say "Hear, Hear". Of course if we do go further down WP:DR, one possible outcome is to protect this page. But that's a last resort. Andrewa (talk) 00:40, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
OMG, why are you talking of dispute resolution—because someone is daring to improve the language of the page. That is ownership. Now, rather than say just "Disagree", can I hear why we need to specify "English speakers" on the English-language WP? It's like linking the English language, an equally ridiculous notion. It seems that you're arguing for the sake of arguing, just to protect your page. Tony (talk) 00:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm talking WP:DR because someone was daring to say things like Don't you dare remove that tag and, more important, daring to restore the tag in the face of rough but clear consensus to remove it.
Agree it's not my page.
I suggest we start a new section below to discuss your specific proposals for improvement. Andrewa (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The tag is gone, removed for a third time by a third different editor. Hopefully now it will stay gone unless critical problems are raised. And by critical, I mean ones that are so important that the page is more use to the project with the tag in place than without it. That's the important thing. We're not here to build pretty project pages, we're here to build pretty articles. This tag might not be intended to suspend the authority of the policy, but there's a sense in which it does lessen it, especially with relative newcomers reading it for the first time. This is an important page. Andrewa (talk) 01:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

"Important" sounds perilously close to "self-important". Why are you still talking about the tag? It remained on MOS for a month, and people were only too happy because it marshalled forces to improve the language. But I don't care, if the tage was such a big deal—as long as the language of the page is improved significantly. But all I see is resistance to even the most obvious improvements, rather than collaboration. I'm sick of spending time on meta-issues. Tony (talk) 01:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Oh, and I see that someone here has labelled the presence of the tag as my "holding hostage" to the page. That again is a symptom of a culture of ownership that appears to have grown here. Tony (talk) 01:12, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I seem self-important to you. I'm glad that the issue of the tag seems settled.
IMO collaboration on policy pages means discussion first on all but the most trivial changes, and when in any doubt, or where there is opposition, changes made without discussion should be reverted and then discussed. I think this is the view of Wikipedia:policy. I can't see why it should not apply to the copy-edit tag.
I don't know why others didn't object to the tag before. Perhaps they've had the experience of being called self-important simply because they dared to revert some other change you made previously, and you were fuming at them too?
But I repeat, Tony, I'm really glad you care so much about Wikipedia. Let's get on. Andrewa (talk) 01:29, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Fumed because Shonken, who reverted, provided no substantive reasons or alternative improvement, where the text was clearly wanting. I started a section at the bottom for specific issues; there's no need to create a second section. Tony (talk) 01:32, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Problems in the text

The clumsiest sentence at the top is this, with following follow following in quick succession: "In addition to following the naming conventions, it is important to follow the linking conventions. Following consistent conventions in both naming and linking makes it more likely that links will lead to the right place." There is a redundant word, "consistent". What is an "inconsistent convention"?

An inconsistent convention is one that is self-contradictory, but that's not the only meaning here. Note the plural. Two conventions are inconsistent if they lead to two different, incompatible results. If our conventions are not consistent (perhaps owing to instruction creep) then we have a problem. Andrewa (talk) 00:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
And a "convention followed consistently," as implied by the language Tony removed, produces predictable names: an advantage to editor and reader alike. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is one possible solution. Does anyone have a better one? "Following linking conventions as well as naming conventions will ensure that links are more likely to lead to the right place. Tony (talk) 11:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with that change. I think a little has been lost, but it's not important IMO. But it solves a non-problem. Is that really the worst problem you see? If so, can we remove the copy-edit tag? Andrewa (talk) 00:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Have you noticed that it has been removed? Not through my doing. There's a big problem if you think that rubbishy text is a "non-problem". The policy pages need to be written in professiona-standard text, not amateurish dawdlings. I'd like to hear your appraisal of a film with constant little editing glitches. Tony (talk) 00:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, so it has, and without any of us having to break my 1RR (except you of course). Third time lucky I hope, perhaps it will now stay removed.
I certainly don't think rubbishy text is a non-problem. But I think I demonstrated that one of your quibbles, the specific one that you raised as a key problem to be addressed first, was just that.
I'm sure you add great value to Wikipedia. You have passion for the project and outstanding skill in English. But please, you need to obey the rules too. Nobody is right all the time. Consensus is important here, even (perhaps especially) when you think your opponents are unworthy. See User:Andrewa/creed for more on this. Andrewa (talk) 00:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Again, don't personalise the issue. Who said I think you're "unworthy". I do, however, think that you're taking an unconstructive approach to improving the text. Am I going to have to fight tooth-and-nail to make any improvements to the text, even obvious ones? It's all too tedious, and perhaps the strategy is that I'll just go away. I won't. Tony (talk) 01:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Discussion doesn't need to be a fight. But your perception of obvious seems different to many, possibly because you are more perceptive (seriously) but in any case that makes discussion important.
At the risk of speaking out of turn, I think it would also help if you avoided the imperative mood in your advice to others. That was one thing that motivated me to speak of attitudes to others. Imperative mood is useful in military situations, and I use it a lot whenever I skipper a racing yacht. But it's not good here IMO, and you use it quite a lot.
I'm glad you're not going away. I've taken a few Wikibreaks myself, but generally by doing something else rather than withdrawing completely... I'm currently on a long one from AfD for example and I thought I was on one from policy pages, but I'm back obviously. Perhaps I won't ever get re-involved in new policy pages however, that has not been my area of greatest success over the years! Andrewa (talk) 01:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Specific problems

Any to suggest? Andrewa (talk) 01:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. "This page in a nutshell: Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."

Just what subtle nuance is provided by "the majority of" versus "most"? And by "English speakers" versus "readers"? (Here, I don't want non-native speakers to feel excluded, which may be the result, although I accept that it was not the intention.) Why "would"? I don't understand what this clause is adding: "with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity". Why "while" and "at the same time" (which mean the same thing)? Tony (talk) 02:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I like it as it is.

"The majority of" seems quite acceptable phrasing to me, I don't see any advantage in changing it to "most", I don't see any subtle nuance but it sounds fine as is. It would be worth looking at the history and talk page archives to see whether there was previous discussion before potentially wasting lots of time over such a seemingly trivial issue on a key policy page.

There is one problem with "majority of": many topics are things of which no majority ever speaks. I propose "greatest number", as below, as better-defined than "most". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Good point. I like that change. Andrewa (talk) 09:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

"English speakers" is the correct term; We don't mean "native speakers", English Wikipedia is for all English speakers and many of our editors are not native speakers themselves.

"Would" is subjunctive mood. It's good grammar.

"With a reasonable mimimum of ambiguity" is there to cover cases where there are several possible titles but one that's arguably more common is compromised by some ambiguity, so we prefer the unambiguous title. It sounds quite clear to me, and I suspect any rephrasing will just complicate matters. But have a go if you like. My advice is to do it here, not on the page.~

I concur; this is substantive policy: Names must be unambiguous, but we are not required to pursue disambiguation to deal with unreasonable shadows. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

"While at the same time" is good English IMO. Shorter is not always better.

Emphasis. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Well put. Andrewa (talk) 09:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Really, are these the sort of things you described so disparagingly above? It's certainly neither rubbishy text nor amateurish dawdlings. If that's the best you can do, I think you owe the previous editors of this page an apology.

They've worked hard and produced an excellent outcome. Give us a break. Andrewa (talk) 03:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Response to Andrewa: Give me a break, too. My experience was a high-handed, resistant attitude here, and I probably overreacted; I apologise if you were offended. I thank you for your kind comments earlier, but you continue to personalise the discussion. Asserting that you've "produced an excellent outcome" is a defensive statement that appears to rule out improvements and suggests an attitude of ownership. Allow others to judge your excellence rather than asserting it yourself. As you say above, you don't own the page, but this suggests that you do. Can we keep this just to the task of improving the language?

Agree you overreacted. I think you can hardly throw stones regarding personalising issues, or for being high-handed, or for an attitude of ownership.
No, I haven't produced an excellent outcome, or claimed to. I don't even remember making any edits to this particular page. The section we were discussing (the in a nutshell box) is not my work. I will indeed allow others to judge my work, that's good advice.
Now, may I please judge theirs? My judgement is that the in a nutshell section is excellent. That's not to say it can't be improved. But it certainly suggests to me that we'd be better spending our time on looking at other sections for improvement. Andrewa (talk) 20:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

"Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: John Wayne and Art Nouveau, but not Video Games)."

I had to read this twice, carefully, to get it. Can "almost always" be changed to something simpler, such as "normally"?

I think the problem is otherwise. This involves a sudden shift in (apparent) syntax. Recasting the sentencee.

Response to Anderson: You assert that two items are "correct" and "good grammar", respectively. I agree, in isolation, but that's beside the point: why use five correct/grammatical words when one will do. The more words, the less likely Wikipedians—particularly newbies—are likely to persist in reading the page and to comprehend its details. Neither "English speakers" nor "would" is necessary to the relevant meaning (it's conditional, not subjunctive mood). Same for "reasonable"—it actually weakens the statement. Read it without, and see. "Shorter is not always better", true, but often it is, as here, I argue. On "most", "majority", "greatest number"—why use any of these troublesome items? They're simply not necessary. "that readers most easily recognize" is stronger, neater and simpler. Isn't that what the policy means? On "consistent", the readers will justifiably wonder what on earth it refers to. Why complicate matters? Perhaps if you can explain why it's relevant, we might determine the best wording. Tony (talk) 13:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Disagree with many points here. I'll just take one which I think is the core issue: The more words, the less likely Wikipedians—particularly newbies—are likely to persist in reading the page and to comprehend its details. No. Shorter is not always better.
I suggest you give us a new sub-heading when raising a new specific issue. Andrewa (talk) 20:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm still on vacation; but for now:
  • Correctness and good grammar were Andrew's words, not mine; please follow the indentations. But since you (and I) agree with him, why the scare quotes ?
  • Laconism is not the only test of good style; it's one technique. When five words will be better understood than one, they should be used. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

On the matter of wordiness, I think this whole WP:NAME is ridiculously overblown. I agree with Tony: the more words they have, the less our guidelines will draw serious attention, and the less they will compel respect. Now, of course "shorter is not always better". But that detracts not a whit from Tony's point. What we need is a proper balance, to include the crucial details but to remain readable and therefore usable.

I, like Tony, am a centralist. I want Wikipedia's style guidelines to be accessible in one well-organised page, with as few appendages as possible. The hub should be WP:MOS; subsidiaries to that page should be few, and merely serve to amplify and detail that hard core of key recommendations. All style pages should be kept in well-regimented harmony. The present situation is chaotic; and, more worryingly, there is little appreciation of this over-arching problem, and little will to work together in a sustained way to fix it. I see no broad mechanisms for change, nor dialogue beyond the cohort of editors working on style guides – though clearly we need to collaborate with developers and the wider community to effect some quite pressing reforms.

Meanwhile, this page needs re-structuring, rationalising, and editing for consistency and clarity. I probably will stay away, since I don't want to waste my time, given the larger concern that I mention above.

– Noetica♬♩ Talk 00:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm as willing as anyone to work together with anyone who will come to the party, and as passionate as anyone about quality. So, let's get started. As this is a key policy, I suggest that re-structuring, rationalising, and editing for consistency and clarity represents a complete refactor, and should be performed on a temporary copy. Slapping a tag that means under construction on a key policy is just making the chaotic situation worse (and putting it back twice in the face of consensus to remove it... words fail me... but that's past). Agreed? Supported? Other comments? Andrewa (talk) 03:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, if it's in the past, why do you keep drumming on about it? Please keep the personal out of it. Anderson, what are "scare quotes"? Tony (talk) 07:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Basically because I was responding to a personalised post... I, like Tony.... I look forward to your non-personalised answers to the non-personal questions I asked: Agreed? Supported? Andrewa (talk) 08:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • As the OED says online: under scare n2: scare quotes n. "quotation marks used to foreground a particular word or phrase, esp. with the intention of disassociating the user from the expression or from some implied connotation it carries." Our article, Scare quotes, expands beyond the central, minatory, sense. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Academic titles

Is there a place where usage of academic titles is discussed? I'm asking because I just came across the article Matthias Rath, which mentions his title as M.D.. In Germany, writing a non-obligatory doctoral thesis is a requirement of acquiring the right to carry the title "Dr. med.", i.e. people can complete their medical studies and work as fully approved medical practitioners without having acquired the additional academic title. So, my question is, is there a rule on how to treat cases like this example of the German medical doctor vs. medical practitioners without a doctoral level? It seems a bit inappropriate to simply "interpolate" it into the US system, neglecting the specifics of other countries. I dorftrottel I talk I 04:10, November 24, 2007 04:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Matthias Rath is probably the place to discuss this particular case... and wow, it's a scary place...!
Or, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography would be a good place to raise the more general question of such titles.
I notice that the M.D. article says It varies between countries, from being a first professional degree (medical diploma), to being a relatively rare higher doctoral academic research degree. Andrewa (talk) 12:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
The important thing is (especially when dealing with a status different than that in most English-speaking countries) is to make this clear in the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Agree. But I'm not sure there's any lattitude to be less careful when dealing with the status common to most English-speaking countries. In Australia, medicine is such a prestigious occupation that the opinions of people who have, in academic terms, only two first degrees (admittedly degrees that have both high standards and high entrance standards) are often treated with more deference than that given to the views of those who have (academic) doctoral degrees - even when the subject under discussion is in the field of the (academic) doctorates in question! Andrewa (talk) 16:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Then we may need to provide guidance (not here, I think): medicine is prestigious in the United States; but M.D. is in practice an invariably postgraduate degree. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Not so in Aust; There's a sense in which MD correctly applies only to a true doctoral degree, but it has also traditionally been used as a less formal way of saying what is formally designated MB BS. The Universities are trying to change this but old habits die hard... see the banner of http://www.helencaldicott.com/ for an example. Andrewa (talk) 10:53, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery links to Dr, where it says "Medical Doctor, Dentist or a Physician, a person who holds a MBBS, BDS or DDS degree." I can confirm that something similar happens in Germany, albeit very informal and definitely not academically correct, insofar as patients usually refer to physicians as "Dr.", no matter if the person in question "only" successfully completed the medical degrees, or whether he/she also produced a postgraduate doctoral thesis. I asked mainly as a matter of accuracy. I dorftrottel I talk I 11:27, November 30, 2007
Use of the honorific Dr is a different issue to having the letters MD after the name, although the parallels are considerable and I think obvious. In Australia, even a dentist with only a pass degree in dental surgery is entittled to use the title Dr, and most now do when acting in a professional capacity, but this was not the case forty years ago and so some older people still find it strange. Most doctors of medicine use it, the main exception being qualified surgeons, who then become Mr again (or for the first time if female), unless and until they take a higher degree (what I've called an academic doctorate above) in which case they become Dr again. Lots going on! Andrewa 00:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
"Earned" doctorate is what some people use, to distinguish it from "honorary" doctorate. It's originally an American term, and a useful one. I don't like "academic" doctorate. Tony (talk) 00:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
There's even room for doubt as to what constitutes an earned doctorate. There are four possible types of doctorate (some would say three):
  • The normal sort of PhD, which is an earned academic doctorate. You enrol for this, study for it and apply to be granted it.
  • Merit degress such as the Doctor of Science granted by the University of Sydney. You don't apply for one of these, it's granted for outstanding contributions to science. But these are arguably earned degrees, reviewed and refereed according to similar (but higher) criteria to a PhD, and is for specific work.
  • Courtesy titles such as the Dr honorific and MD titles sometimes used by MB BS holders.
  • The fourth is honorary degrees such as those granted to some prime ministers as a matter of course just by virtue of their office. Some would lump these in with merit degrees, and the line can be hard to draw, but at least some of these are more like courtesy titles than they are like earned degrees.
Lots going on! Andrewa 20:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

album art & WP:RS

I was editing the album article ...And Everything Reminds Me, just doing some citing, cleanup, etc. In my spartan search for reliable sources for the album, I came across its listing at Amazon.de, whereupon it's listed with the title all in lowercase. I thought that odd, especially since other albums at Amazon.de were capitalized expectedly (i.e. it wasn't just a German language thing), so I took a close look at the album art itself--it too had the lowercase titling. So in addition to working out the article, I moved it from ...And Everything Reminds Me to ...and everything reminds me with an edit summary of "proper capitalization per sourcing". I was undone in this move by Akrabbim (talk · contribs) who moved it back citing WP:NAME#Album and song titles and band names. We spoke, and he's well in the right per the guideline: I hold no animosity. But shouldn't specific reliable sourcing coupled with the album itself be considered prevalent? The redirect would catch any people searching with capitalization, and as far as I can tell, per reliable sourcing the lowercased version is the most common usage. Thoughts? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 04:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. One of the purposes to a house style is so people know where to look for articles. Someone looking for ...And Everything Reminds who knows the style will go to ...And Everything Reminds Me; someone who doesn't know the style is likely to go to one of ...And Everything Reminds Me or And Everything Reminds Me. Only someone who doesn't know the style and does know how the text appears on the album would go to ...and everything reminds me — and this case could be handled by a redirect. (This all assumes the current state of affairs in the house style, of course.) And how far do things go? The movie poster for 10 Things I Hate about You is printed as 10 things I hate about you — should the article's title reflect that? Should the band whose name often appears as "KoЯn" have their article under KoЯn (instead of Korn)? Should we try to match fonts as well? I think your suggestion and concern are perfectly understandable and reasonable, even though I disagree with your suggestion that there is need for change. Basically, I think the current state of affairs is both simple and minimizes people being unable to find articles that they are looking for. Alan smithee (talk) 19:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Why then are there exceptions, such as I ♥ Huckabees? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 18:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
The poster lists the film as i ♥ huckabees; the Wikipedia page for the film is I ♥ Huckabees. Are you suggesting that, because "♥" is not in the English alphabet, that the page should be titled I Heart Huckabees? Should the article about the Icelandic singer be titled Bjork (instead of Björk)? Perhaps I'm missing your point ... Alan smithee (talk) 09:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed naming convention change

There is a current proposal to change a naming convention, which directly effects the the Manual of Style guideline, and the naming conventions policy. If you are interested, your input would be appreciated. Justin chat 06:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Use of Numero Sign in article titles

The following articles use the "Numero Sign" character in their titles:

This symbol does not render correctly for me in the article text on my Mac (except when editing the article), but does render on my PC. Seems like it would be good idea to use "No." instead. Kaldari (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Just noting that WP:MOS#Article_titles says: "Special characters such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), curly brackets ({ }) and square brackets ([ ]) are avoided; the ampersand (&) is replaced by and, unless it is part of a formal name." -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

General audience vs specialists

The naming policy says that the names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for "a general audience over specialists." Can anyone show me where this subject has been discussed? I'd like to know the rationale behind such a preference. Personally I'd rather have the article named according to what specialists consider to be the correct name of that topic, not to what most people think. For example, in my mother tongue, UK is most often referred to as "England" (Anglia), although this term is obviously incorrect since it actually has a different meaning. Now, if I follow the naming policy I would have to put the article on UK under the name "England", and solve the ambiguity some other way. Is this really the best solution?

I'm asking this following a naming dispute on the Romanian Wikipedia. The particular dispute is about naming the article on the Dutch language: The general public knows this language under the name "olandeză", but for linguists this name means a sub-group of the Dutch dialects (namely, the Hollandic), while for the whole language the linguists prefer the name "neerlandeză". This more politically-correct term is not unheard of, on the contrary, it is used in more than half of the reliable sources available on the subject, the only drawback being that the general public had less contact with it. The ultimate question is whether Wikipedia should learn from its readers, or the readers should learn from Wikipedia. Can anyone help us with some advice? — AdiJapan ☎ 10:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

  1. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Archive 7#Proposed overall policy
  2. Please, (assuming that ro: is the Wikipedia you're talking about) discuss at ro:Wikipedia:Titluri (or rather: ro:Discuţie Wikipedia:Titluri, or an appropriate related page):
    • The article naming principles might be slightly different at Romanian Wikipedia. Depends on whether Romanian Wikipedians choose to follow exactly the same principles or provide a different set of exceptions/particularities adapted to the Romanian language;
    • I'm a Dutch speaker myself, living in Belgium: in general native English speakers and even Dutch speakers that have no acquaintance with Romanian language have no clue about connotations of "olandeză" or "neerlandeză" in Romanian. Even connotations of "nederlands/Nederlands" and "hollands/Hollands" in Dutch (not even speaking about the use of "nen 'ollander" in Flemish) are not necessarily the same as the connotations of their English-language equivalents ("hollandic" and "Dutch/from the Netherlands") in English. Sorry about not being able to be more helpful than that. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for directing me to the right archive. I agree that may be better to write "black widow spider" than "Latrodectus mactans". I don't feel, however, that the rule can extend to all situations. In particular I wouldn't move, for example, the article Penis to some other name, otherwise very frequent and popular. There are no particular conotations for "olandeză" and "neerlandeză" in Romanian, so as far as I know this is not a concern. The only concern is that "olandeză" has two meanings: in usual speech it means Dutch, and this use is considered improper by linguists, while for them it means Hollandic.

As for the particular policies on the Romanian Wikipedia, we normally translate and use the en.wp policies --- there are very few exceptions, and they only pertain to the particularities of the language or to the smaller number of contributors. The policies related to content are identical to those on en.wp, that's why I came here to ask.

Now the bottom-line question is: Is there any solid argument for preferring those terms generally used by the general audience? Doesn't this go against the NPOV policy where in the specialists' works those terms are less used or even blamed as improper? — AdiJapan ☎ 13:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Re. translation of en:wp rules to other languages: here is one I don't think you translated: WP:MoS#National varieties of English. Nonetheless that MoS section resulted in Fixed-wing aircraft, which is in no way conforming to the overall-principle of naming conventions at en:wp. So there are multiple exceptions for the WP:NC policy principle at en:wp too.
Re. NPOV angle: see Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Article names, which links foremost to the WP:NC policy. Historically, I think naming conventions rather derived from the Manual of Style (so they're probably rather style recommendations than content recommendations), but nonetheless when it comes down to NPOV, the overall principle (which is in fact the only "policy" part of the NC policy - the rest are conventions/guidelines, see first sentence of the WP:NC page) is conceived as the NPOV principle applied to article names. There are two formulations for that principle, which for all intents and purposes are identical:
  1. first formulation (which is on fact the oldest): "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."
  2. second formulation of the same principle (younger and easier to understand): "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists."
Answering your question: "Is there any solid argument for preferring those terms generally used by the general audience?" - yes there is: NPOV. recognisability (by the largest fraction of en:wikipedia's target audience) is the key word. So, Sea cucumber (no relation with the vegetable) and not Holothurian.
Re. "Doesn't this go against the NPOV policy where in the specialists' works those terms are less used or even blamed as improper?": no, for article naming a scientist's POV can be vastly more limited than the POV of the public at large. There's no POV in calling a sea cucumber... a sea cucumber. "Holothurian" is probably a bit more posh, which makes it less neutral. The scientist's POV should be explained in the article: article titles are too short to apply NPOV in the sense of reporting on all the major viewpoints. So, recognisability is the principle that most easily implements NPOV for article names (...and use redirects for the other POVs on how the topic of the article should be named). --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, something is wrong here. The NPOV policy talks about the points of view expressed in reliable sources, not those of the general public. Recognizability is not a policy at Wikipedia. Verifiability is.
When two names are synonyms it's perfectly okay to choose the one that is more easily recognizable by the public. But only then --- and I think this should be clearly stated in the policy. Indeed, "Holothurian" should be a redirect to the Sea cucumber, and I agree this is a question of style. However, when the two names have more or less different meanings we have to take those meanings into account, and the whole thing becomes a question of content. For example, people prefer to say "America" when they mean the United States, but does it mean we should have that article unde the name "America"? Definitely no, because "America" actually means something else. Also, we must consider conotations, political correctness, acceptable language, NPOV issues, etc. Blindly choosing the most frequent term is definitely not the solution. And practice proves my point: nobody says "fixed-wing aircraft" in everyday speech, and yet that is the name of the article on planes.
I'm not sure what the phrase "reasonable minimum of ambiguity" is supposed to mean (it's too... ambiguous). Maybe that is the hidden answer to my objections?
(About ro.wp: We actually have an equivalent of WP:MoS#National varieties of English adapted for Romanian: ro:Wikipedia:Versiuni de ortografie română, and this is one of the exceptions I was referring to in my previous post. Moreover, while MoS is a guideline, ours is a policy, to avoid spelling switching edit wars. But this is not the point here.) — AdiJapan ☎ 03:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be easier to explain the dilemma by building upon Mr. Schonken's "sea cucumber" example: what would you call the article about holothurians if "sea cucumber" was the scientific name for... say... algae. (Of course my example is absurd because we already know that "sea cucumber" is unambiguous, but I wanted to introduce the same ambiguity we were encountering, for the sake of the argument.) --Gutza T T+ 16:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Gutza, I don't think your hypothetical example clarifies much. Here's one that might be a better analogy at en:wp: Arabic numerals. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Re. "The NPOV policy talks about the points of view expressed in reliable sources, not those of the general public." - that's what NPOV policy says about article content (also assuming that points of view of the general public will at least be mentioned in reliable sources - otherwise these sources wouldn't be all that reliable would they?). NPOV applied to article titles is described in Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Article names, which refers to the *policy* Wikipedia:Naming conventions. That are the rules for article names at en:wp, none other. The NPOV policy regulations about article content can't be applied just like that to article titles, for example because at en:wp only "one" point of view is allowed per page name. Multiple points of view, like for instance Bozen-Bolzano have been experimented with in page names (and are still accepted in redirects), but for the page where the content is only "one" point of view is allowed for the page title (otherwise we'd indeed have had Airplane-aeroplane or Aeroplane-airplane or A(e)(i)r(o)plane instead of Fixed-wing aircraft). Simplistically said, for article names generally the "majority POV" rules at en:wp, which is not a litteral application of the NPOV policy. Note that the issue would have been easier if all scientists would always agree on all points, but they don't. Anyway, WP:SPOV ("Scientific point of view"), proposed as a replacement of NPOV is a *rejected* proposal. Only in the domain of pseudo-science the scientific point of view takes precedence, even for those remote pseudoscientific views where hardly a scientist even took the trouble to examine the pseudoscientist's allegations.

Re. "Recognizability is not a policy at Wikipedia." - No, you're wrong: "recognisability" is a part of the *policy* formulation of Wikipedia:Naming conventions: "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." (bolding added)

Re. "Verifiability is [a policy at Wikipedia]." - yes, but as such the en:wp Verifiability policy (like other en:wp core content policies) is not applicable to page names, for instance, it is not possible to apply the {{fact}} tag (as explained in Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence) in an article title. If in doubt over the suitability of a en:wp page name, other mechanisms (not explained at Wikipedia:Verifiability) have been developed, most notably (for instance) WP:RM. But again, solve these issues as you think most fit at ro:wp - for instance for a WP:RM type system one needs enough editors (at least some of which need to be admins) to involve themselves in the system. For en:wp however these are the rules, these are the systems, and we're not going to change them for a problem you can't get solved at ro:wp. Note that the *idea* of verifiability is however applied to page naming at en:wp too: it is usually easier to verify (via Wikipedia:Google test for instance) which is the most used name, than to "verify" which scientist's POV is the most "neutral", in the case scientists don't agree on the name of a topic. And many of the dozens of specific naming convention guidelines would also lean on some *verifiable* and *NPOV* solution to address particular issues, e.g. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#When the title version "best known in English" can't be determined proposes such solution founded on verifiability and neutrality.

Re. "For example, people prefer to say 'America' when they mean the United States, but does it mean we should have that article unde the name 'America'?" - at en:wp this is treated as a page naming issue anyhow, for which naming conventions offer guidance. And there have been discussions in this sense: e.g. "American", as for example in American football, is allowed but American foreign policy redirects to Foreign relations of the United States, etc. At en:wp these are treated as page naming issues under naming conventions, not for instance at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.

Re. "[...] because 'America' actually means something else." - covered by the Wikipedia:Naming conventions basic principle: "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." (bolding added). Yes, this is part of the answer to your objections. "reasonable minimum of ambiguity" is the sharpest this can be put in a policy-level formulation, while disambiguating is a complex field with many ifs and buts, treated at a guideline: Wikipedia:disambiguation. A general principle can't elaborate on these details.

Re. "Also, we must consider co[n]notations [...]" - covered for instance by Wikipedia:disambiguation, but by none of the core content policies afaik, at least not for article naming. For example because of connotations depending on context William of Orange is a disambig-type page and not a redirect to William III of Orange (as UK and Irish people would most easily assume), nor to William the Silent (as Dutch people, even when speaking English, would most easily assume).

Re. "[Also, we must consider] political correctness [...]" - at en:wp NPOV outdoes PC (political correctness), though it must be said that e.g. Mormons wringled in a foot at a naming convention: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)#Do not overdo it. Apart from that, for the political correctness of article names en:wp guidance does not go further than what is explained at Wikipedia:Naming conflict.

Re. "[Also, we must consider] acceptable language [...]" - I'm referring you to the same naming convention, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)#Do not overdo it. And to WP:NOT#CENSORED, resulting in e.g. "Stupid White Men" as a page name and not "Stupid White Men (book)", as explained at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Precision.

Re. "Blindly choosing the most frequent term is definitely not the solution." - Who said so? Did you really think we needed dozens of specific naming conventions if we could do things "blindly" in any way?

Re. "And practice proves my point: nobody says "fixed-wing aircraft" in everyday speech, and yet that is the name of the article on planes." - covered by "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." (bolding added) - the use of "generally" indicates exceptions; no, practice does not prove your point.

re. "We actually have an equivalent of WP:MoS#National varieties of English adapted for Romanian: ro:Wikipedia:Versiuni de ortografie română" - so you translated "English" by "română"? That doen't seem like a "translation" to me...

Resuming, three points:

  • Article naming issues are covered by naming conventions at en:wp;
  • Although naming conventions use language adapted to "page naming" issues, they are not subverting core content policies in any way, they only show the way how to implement the ideas of these content policies (and style guidance) in a page naming context.
  • Solve ro:wp problems at ro:wp. Especially for language-dependent exceptions translation is a questionable technique. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the links, a couple of them are useful indeed. So, in the end, the short answer is "Choose the most frequent name, but do that without creating ambiguity or violating other policies, and allow exceptions where reasonable." (I won't comment on details, I'm afraid your reply will be even longer.) — AdiJapan ☎ 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Policy Reconsideration? Official name versus the most easily recognizable when it comes to the names of PEOPLE

In the case of the James D. Watson page, it has become a matter of debate whether the most popular name versus the official name should be used when it comes to a page name. Currently, Wikipedia's policy states that "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. This is justified by the following principle: The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." This may be fine for terms or amimals, or inanimage objects, but when it comes to the names of individuals, shouldn't the legally recognizable name of the individual be used? I have copied a portion of the debate from the Watson page, which is beginning to sound more like an issue that has wider implications for Wikipedia policy than simply the James D. Watson page alone. The debate started when someone suggested a page move from "James D. Watson" to "James Watson" based on Google results. I thought that the contributors to this page might find the debate (below) interesting:

Requested move

_ _ IMO James D. Watson should be renamed to James Watson, with a ToP Dab to James Watson (disambiguation) that begins "This is about the DNA researcher; ....". (This would of course be preceded by a move of the existing James Watson Dab to James Watson (disambiguation).) _ _ James D. Watson is precluded as the title for his article by WP:UCN: Googling produces

about 30,200 for "James D. Watson" OR "James Dewey Watson" DNA vs.

about 474,000 for "James Watson" DNA showing a ratio of about 16:1 favoring the shortest form. _ _ And he also appears to be the primary person meant by "James Watson":

Googling "James Watson" actor gives 1/4 the hits that "James Watson" DNA does, even tho the 2nd misses the "James D. Watson" refs, and even tho presumably many of the actor's lks are for minor roles in non-notable films (while JW's mentions in articles that mention DNA are probably at least strong "supporting roles"); and "James Watson" 1922 judge and "James Lopez Watson" are both in the low 4 figures. IMO the other James Watsons are less likely to be sought: they are very short, in most case perfunctory, bios, and are linked to by very few other articles. (Note that the many lks to the Calgary mayor are in fact multiple copies, from all the other Calgary mayors, of the lk to him in a templated list of Calgary mayors.) Altho Googling "James Watson" DNA produces just under half the hits of "James Watson" -DNA most of those more numerous hits fail to bear against the move: Of the first 10 hits, 3 are for the actor, 3 for James D. Watson (including one purporting to be a page created by him!), 1 for the 20th-cent. pol, 1 for a "James Watson Cronin", and 2 for James Watsons not appearing on the James Watson Dab. In the next few Google pages, the proportion of James D. Watson hits increases, and no new James Watson-Dab-page people appear. _ _ IMO, i am being overcautious in accepting the advice of a colleague to pursue this via Wikipedia:Requested moves rather than treating it as uncontroversial. --Jerzy•t 03:35 & 03:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


agree. I think this is a very good idea, for the reasons stated by Jerzy. I'd been thinking along the same lines myself, but didn't have enough enthusiasm to start it. --TJRC (talk) 03:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I am totally opposed to this change. First of all, why are Google results driving what a person's name is in Wikipedia? Why not just have a redirect page from "James Watson" to this existing page? There are several reasons why I am opposed to the proposed change.

1. First of all, the name in Wikipedia should be the name the individual being written about actually goes by. That would be either "Dr. Watson" or "Dr. James D. Watson" (formal), "James D. Watson" (normal), or "Jim" (familiar). Examples of these useages are documented in the archives at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Also, the way the individual signs their name--in book signings for example, is also important. That would be "James D. Watson".

2. The name the individual publishes under is the most formally recognized name. That would be "James D. Watson"

3. There already exists a naming system for individuals in instances like this. It is not a new concept, especially for librarians. Librarians use the LCNAF or the Library of Congress Name Authority File when determining the correct author name when cataloging books. Any author name can be searched in the LCNAF which is freely available online: http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First. Dr. Watson is listed in the LCNAF as "Watson, James D., 1928- ". The closest and therefore the best choice to use here is "James D. Watson" (reversed and without the birth date). When a new individual publishes a book, it is up to NACO members to establish the formal name used by the Library of Congress. (About NACO: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/naco/naco.html). Birth and death dates (when applicable) are only used when there is already someone by that name who is in their system. The name is then added to the LCNAF. Writers are encouraged to stick to the name they are assigned so that all of their works can be easily grouped (collocated) together under the same unique name. This also prevents publications by different authors sharing similar names from being confused with one another. As Wikipedia expands, it might be a good idea to keep this concept in mind and to refer on a regular basis to the usage of the individual's name in the LCNAF. How do the Wikipedia administrators plan to disambiguate when there are multiple people sharing the same name? Is there a standards policy about this to help with consistency throughout the Wikipedia project? If not, maybe there should be. It is not really that difficult to look up an individual and find their authorized name. In the case of "James Watson" there are actually 17 different entries in the LCNAF--that is potentially 17 or so future disambiguations needed down the road as Wikipedia expands and people write new articles. There are 11 LCNAF entries just under "Watson, James D." (or middle name that begins with "D") alone.

4. On a selfish note, as an individual who has significantly contributed to this article, I am left wondering what will happen to the history of my contributions, my discussions on talk pages, etc. if this page is moved? Will all of these be moved as well? If not, I would have a personal objection as well as the above professional objections.

Shannon bohle (talk) 09:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree that Google should not have the final word in this. As to your contribution history, yes that will be preserved, we are very particular about this. Andrewa (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC) If the page "moves" then everything will move with it, I would think that this page should stay the way it is - and maybe a disambiguation page could be made for 'James Watson' but I have no strong feelings about the issue. Hardyplants (talk) 09 48, 16 December 2007 (UTC) A disambig page exists already. Also oppose any move. Nothing worse than trying to find one person and Wikipedia trying to give you the answer it thinks you're after.--Koncorde (talk) 16:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC) Oppose: if you Google just "Watson DNA" you get 636,000 hits. Of course if you use fewer terms you get more hits. So does that mean we should move the article to just Watson? He signs his books as James D. Watson. So that's his official name. Eubulide (talk) 17:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I too oppose the idea of shortening the name of the article to James Watson. What we should try to advocate is that Wikipedia get a much better search engine, not renaming people with common names and making Non NPOV assumptions about what "most" people want to see. I mean this is a silly request that should not be acted upon. My hope is that the number of opposition need not be in the majority to prove there is no consensus. By the way consensus means EVERYONE agrees not just the majority. James D Watson is more accurate and simply the right thing to do when there are multiple James Watson's in the world. Let's be fair and not pander do the lowest common denominator. Remember wikipedia is NOT google. It is an encyclopedia. Wikipedia should arrange a deal with Google to provide modern search capabilities for the site. Editors should not try generalize articles to suit searching. Period.Landerman56 (talk) 01:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

No, what we are after here is rough consensus, which doesn't need to be unanimous. As to pandering to the lowest common denominator, that's an emotive way of rephrasing Wikipedia official policy, but it is exactly what the policy says we should do in the case of article names (but not neccessarily content), and for good reasons. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC) There seems to be very strong oppostition to this move. James D Watson is the name used on every article in scientific journals written by the subject of this article. There is simply no reason to change his name. And the reason for it is as inane as any reason I could imagine. To think that wikipedia needs to tailor content to suit search engines is a terrible terrible idea. It is very good indeed to see others share my view. Certainly there is no consensus and any attempt to declare one will meet stiff opposition. --Landerman56 (talk) 01:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, consensus at WP means neither majority nor unanimity, bcz those responsible for detecting consensus are counseled to give more weight to the quality of arguments than to number of advocates. At this point, each arguments that have been made against the move is compatible with at least one well-established WP guideline. Those opposed should study WP:MOS, WP:NC, WP:UCN, WP:DAB, and/or WP:GT, and accordingly revise either their position, or their arguments for it. (There is one argument that specifically invites browsing a list of articles whose titles begin with "Dr."; consult WP:RDR if necessary.) This is not so urgent that it needs immediate decision, but if nothing to the point is said against the move in a few days, i will declare it decided, and make the move myself (which requires admin status, last time i checked). --Jerzy•t 04:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree, but I caution against the nominator performing the move... better to leave it to another admin. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC) Agree that James D Watson is a more common official name, but simply James Watson satisifes the policy at WP:NC, the more specific guideline at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) and the others quoted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography#Guidelines. The shorter name is more commonly recognised, and with reasonable lack of ambiguity as he's by far the most famous. Those who think the official name should take precedence might like to contribute to the discussion at User talk:Andrewa/systematic names. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC) Support the move, but IMO it's good that it went through WP:RM so this discussion could take place... it would have ended up here anyway. See arguments above. Andrewa (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC) Oppose wholeheartedly Just in case previous comment is glossed over. The idea of having James Watson here then an apologetic "Sorry, isn't this the guy we thought you were after? - try clicking here and looking through the list.." sounds a bit silly. A fine example of that kind of lunatic re-routing logic is John F Kennedy. When you type in John Kennedy, it redirects to his page (regardless of the number of people listed in the John Kennedy disambiguation page). Is he the most famous John Kennedy around? Well yes if you're a west-o-centric politics follower who thinks John F Kennedy is the same as John Kennedy. Less so if you're after the Celtic football player and don't even know who JFK is. In a case like JFK's it seems to make more sense to redirect to the disambiguate if someone types in "John Kennedy" (because you'd presume most people realise the 'F' is quite important) and let people select the correct person first - rather than having circular logic try to predict which page they wanted. "James Watson" googled incidentally draws up the James D. Watson article here first anyways. I feel the name James D. Watson is accurate on the basis of WP:NPC. Notably that it is:

A - the name that is most generally recognisable B - the name that is unambiguous with the name of other articles (of which there are a dozen other James Watsons). If you rename this topic you will have to rename it James Watson (genetecist) or similar. And then if you hi-jack the name James Watson to route directly to him, then you'll have to have a link to a seperate disambig page.

In the end you're second guessing what people are looking for, how they will look for it, and what results they're after. Really don't understand the logic of it when by removing the "unambiguous" 'D' you make him ambiguous, then have to unambiguate him through a job title.--Koncorde (talk) 00:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The logic is that (supporters of the move claim that) this James Watson is sufficiently famous that when people say James Watson this is normally who they mean, and when they want a name for him they normally say James Watson and leave out the D. Certainly there are other James Watsons, and other James D Watsons, so neither name is strictly unambiguous. Andrewa (talk) 00:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC) If you use that logic wouldn't we be naming the article Jim Watson? That's what most scientists I know say. David D. (Talk) 04:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC) No, or at least not unless these scientists are representative of the English-speaking population in general. Good question. Now that you mention it, I have heard him called that too, particularly by scientists in his particular field. But I don't think it's a suitable name for the article, as it's not generally recognised. Andrewa (talk) 12:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC) The argument to rename the page does not hold water. To take someone's name and shorten it does a disservice to the namesake of the article. Dr James D. Watson is how he himself signs his name. That is fact and should be the most compelling reason to leave the article as is. Again moving the article will result in more opposition. There is NO consensue and those in support of a move have not brought forth enough compelling benefit. The definition of consensus is that an agreement is made not that the majority agrees. It means that it is acceptable. It seems to me there really isn't much room here to compromise since it's such a black and white issue. Leave the article as is and move onto something more productive. There are no less than 12 James Watson's in Wikipedia. It is surely not up to a few editors to decide for the world which page should get the most "HITS". Wikipedia is not about hits. And please address this fact and what I have said before about the separation of search engine from an encyclopedia. Keep this conversation about the facts. That is how you build consensus. This move cannot be done without addressing the very points I among others have made. Declaring a consensus would run afoul of acting in good faith. So please read our carefully drafted thoughts and address our concerns. And please do so without throwing up so called wikipedia acronyms. That proves nothing. Make us believe in your arguments and we just might come to see the world as you do. Landerman56 (talk) 04:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The editor who began this discussion last stated the following:

"This is not so urgent that it needs immediate decision, but if nothing to the point is said against the move in a few days, i will declare it decided, and make the move myself (which requires admin status, last time i checked)."

My opinion is of course this is not urgent and my argument is it is also very unnecessary. Furthermore, a large percentage of readers are enjoying the holiday season so putting up your own ultimatum is really just disingenous. I agree with the other editor who wrote above that perhaps the one advocating the move should not be the one to perform it. I propose to table this discussion until perhaps we get evidence that there is indeed a problem here with the name as it currently stands. Where is the proof that anyone is confused by the full accurate name used as the title. Does anyone have network click data or has any user complained on these pages about difficulty in finding this article. I mean at the very least there should be evidence that there exist a problem to which the proposed solution would address. I think I've said enough for now on this topic. Again I propose we table this ill-conceived idea until further evidence and discussion is had. Let's also refrain from making deadlines. I am watching among other contributors and wikipedia does not operate and should not operate by fiat. Landerman56 (talk) 04:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I'd oppose such a move. This is his publication name that makes more sense for its home. We can have redirects to this page from other options. David D. (Talk) 04:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC) Oppose move, but support redirecting James Watson here. We do try to make it as likely as possible that people will find what they expect when they type a name in the search bar and hit "Go", and I believe that this is indeed the James Watson that most people would have in mind when they do that. --Itub (talk) 09:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC) Jerzy motivated the proposed move by: "James D. Watson is precluded as the title for his article by WP:UCN". I couldn't find anything in it that precludes James D. Watson. Could you be more precise and quote the passage where this is stated? Eubulide (talk) 17:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:James_D._Watson"

All comments are welcome.

Shannon bohle (talk) 18:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Russian patronymic

Is there a specific guideline somewhere on whether to use the Russian patronymic in a title of an article?

Or is just "use the common English name"? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Also disambiguation. Alexander Pushkin, with Sergeyevich in the first line; but Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy as opposed to Pyotr Aleksandrovich Tolstoy. (We should probably use Peter in both cases; but that's another question.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Using patronymics just for disambiguity is certainly wrong; we could do this with obscure middle names for English etc people, but think of the chaos that would result! Both of these should have a disam note in my view. Johnbod (talk) 19:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
We don't have an explicit guideline, but, contrary to what Johnbod says above, we do in fact prefer to use patronymics in practice when ambiguity exists; i.e., articles about people with the same first name/last name should be disambiguated using patronymics (e.g., Valentin Kozmich Ivanov vs. Valentin Valentinovich Ivanov), but unique first/last name combinations should not be disambiguated (Konstantin Ivanov). If you have two people with the same first/last name and don't know the patronymic, only then you should disambiguate by occupation (Vladimir Ivanov (footballer)). While you'll find that in practice these guidelines are not always enforced, it is a good practice to follow.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
And most writing in English does follow the Russian practice of using patronymics (or initials) to distinguish people of the same first and last name; so we are following English practice here. The Russian patronymic is more commonly used than most English middle names. (In any case, read the two articles: disambiguation by occupation is going to be difficult and unpredictable, as in this example; both Peter Tolstoys were statesmen and ambassadors.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Valentin Ivanov has a disam page, so that is ok. In that case, where they are father & son in the same field, it is true to say "most writing in English does follow the Russian practice of using patronymics (or initials) to distinguish people of the same first and last name", but that is clearly not the case when for example a modern scientist and a 19th century politician share the same first and last name. What I am saying is that such articles should not be set up with patronymics & left as a job done. At the least a redirect, or disam page where there are two, should be set up for the simple name without patronymic. Should we add to the page on this? Johnbod (talk) 23:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the answers.
I asked it, because there is a discussion in the new Hebrew article about Maria Vladimirovna, Grand Duchess of Russia - should the article title include the patronymic? Following the practice from the Russian Wikipedia is not so good, because they write the patronymic always and without exception, and it is not so practical for other languages.
I am a Russian speaker, and it seems intuitive to me that in Russian for a member of the royal family the patronymic is more important to mention than the surname, and that this rule may be carried to other languages. However, that's just my intuition, and i am not really sure whether this actually is a rule. Any help with finding sources for rules in this matter will be appreciated. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 22:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Our naming conventions for nobility are documented, more or less, at WP:NCNT; they include considerations, like pre-emptive disambiguation, in which the Hebrew WP may or may not wish to copy us. For what it is worth, we do not use Romanov; we do use patronymics - in this case, because of all the other people listed at Grand Duchess Maria. (Note the difference in order; in part because we do not give pretenders the titles to which they pretend until they acquire them. On this, I would do whatever the Hebrew WP does for the present Count of Paris: we use Henri, comte de Paris, duc de France.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Padan Plain

In case anybody is wondering where this is, it is the valley of the Po River; the present title is a calque of the Italian pianura Padana. Would people here mind wieghing in, or we reconsider having article names what English speakers would "most easily recognize"? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Need Supplementary Manuals on Israel and Palestine

Happened to discover these manuals today (blue box on right of this article) and that there were several with information about how to write about a certain countries. In my experience, all hell breaks lose whenever one writes anything perceived as too critical about Israel (and perhaps too nice about Palestinians, or any reference to original names of any land that Israel confiscated from them). Of course, coming up with such a manual would be hell too, but Wikipedians rush in where angels fear to tread?? My only personal run in with that process was in editing Samson Option and I confess I lost my temper at first. Since then I've run into a lot of articles and certain users whose talk pages illustrated a lot of abuses on this topic.

I noticed the Islam Manuel had a note on not using word "terrorism" freely, so there certainly is a precedent there for some relevant notes. Also maybe some warnings against canvassing and other strange things that seem to happen when one is foolish enough to try to edit articles with sourced, reliable information that some don't like. Starting with a warning one is likely to get wikilawyering up the butt if one edits on these topics might be a good, so at least people won't get ticked off immediately or stop editing wikipedia all together in total disgust (which I almost did at one point, and from personal experience with just one article). Carol Moore 02:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

Robert A Wild, S.J.

Do we include titles or post-nomials in titles? Mbisanz (talk) 07:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Newspapers

Are there any guidelines for namimg/disambiguating articles about newspapers? I'm guessing not:

Many use Name (Place) (The Star (London), The Star (South Africa)) but there's also plenty which use "(newspaper") (Helix (newspaper), The Post (Pakistani newspaper)). --kingboyk (talk) 22:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Hirohito#RFC:_Appropriate_Emperor_Name

An RFC on content related to this convention has been opened, comments are welcome. MBisanz talk 01:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

RfC on naming issue

A Request for Comment about a conflicted name has been opened here: Talk:Scharnhorst_class_battlecruiser#Request_for_Comment:_Battleships_or_Battlecruisers.3F. Views from editors involved with naming guidelines and uninvolved with the dispute are encouraged. The Land (talk) 15:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

All Blacks

The New Zealand national rugby union team are almost always referred to as the All Blacks in New Zealand Where are they not almost always referred to as the All Blacks? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

churches?

Is there a naming convention for churches (buildings, rather than denominations)? Or even, more specifically, for UK (anglican) (parish) churches? Looking at Category:United Kingdom church stubs (OK, so it's stubs rather than established articles, but shows a wider range than other cats I could find) shows a nightmare. "Church of" or not? "St" or "St."? "St Name" or "St Name's"? "St Name Town" or "St Name, Town"? The "DEFSORT"s for those churches must be a wide variety too, seeing how it sorts. I can't find a naming convention, but it seems unlikely that this hasn't been thrashed out somewhere. Any ideas? PamD (talk) 09:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd say call the church what it calls itself; for example, a few I know of (just for examples, they may or may not be notable):
  • St. Pius X Church (no possessive)
  • St. Peter's Church (possessive)
  • Church of St. Mary The Virgin
  • Mary Queen of Peace Church
  • Church of the Good Thief
  • St. Peter's Basilica
  • Basilica of St. John the Baptist
  • Gower Street United Church
As for St. vs St vs Saint, they should follow the usage by that church, as they are proper names, just like that of a sainted city (St. John's, NL, vs Saint John, NB; never St for either).
"St" is common UK usage, as is acknowledged in the historic/inactive Wikipedia:Naming conventions (architecture)! PamD (talk) 16:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
If you re-read what I said, I am in agreementg with you (altho' perhaps I should have been more explicit). I said follow the usage of the particular church. I used two examples of Canadian cities named for saints, where the spelling of "Saint" is actually a touchy subject. As for the abjuration of the un-perioded "St", that applies only to that particular example; if a church actually used "St", then that's where the article title should be. Hope that clears up my position. --SigPig |SEND - OVER 17:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I'd only use a town name as a disambig as necessary: Basilica of St. John the Baptist; St. John's Church (Podunk); etc.
As for DEFSORTING, tho', that is indeed one for thrashing. I know that a lot of church parish listings sort by name, including the honorific "St." -- thus all the saints are listed under "S", but that seems a bit unwieldy to me. My suggestions:
  • Article title at the church's proper name: St, St., Saint as applicable.
  • Sort by namesake, ignoring "st." honorific, church type (chapel, cathedral, etc), or denom (RC, United, etc). Church types and denoms are covered in other categories and need a sort method.
  • For saints with two names, sort by forename ("Francis Xavier" under "F", next to "Francis of Assisi")
I'd therefore sort my above examples thus:
  • Church of the Good Thief
  • Gower Street United Church
  • Basilica of St. John the Baptist
  • Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
  • Mary Queen of Peace Church
  • Church of St. Mary The Virgin
  • St. Peter's Basilica
  • St. Peter's Church
  • St. Pius X Church
Thoughts, anyone? --SigPig |SEND - OVER 11:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Tech. articles with numbers

Should the number be written in words, or left as is? cf. 3G, 4G 3CCD. My intuition is to use the most common name, but I got into a debate with another editor over this, so I want to know what the guidelines say.--Adoniscik (talk) 17:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Comma convention for places outside the US (and perhaps a few other countries)

Forgive me for bringing this up again, but there seems to be a lack of clarity in our guidelines regarding the use or non-use of the Paris, Texas style for place names. I often come across references to London, England or Paris, France and suchlike. Such usage is highly inappropriate for places in countries where it is not customary. I have read much of the endless debates about the question, but there does not seem to be a clear statement that this practice should be limited to place names in the US (and perhaps Australia, if I am not mistaken). Do we have any policy/style guide/whatever to govern that practice? Kosebamse (talk) 11:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It's apparently common in Canada and Mexico, as well. I also don't think it should be discouraged in other countries where the local disambiguation methods are more ambiguous, such as Great Britain. But the local diambiguation should be preferred. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
The guideline is in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, that had escaped my attention. Kosebamse (talk) 18:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
My view on this is that local disambiguation (or lack thereof) should always be preferred. For example, the U.S. "comma convention" arose because those of us here in the States use the "city, state" form to describe cities, especially when they're not universally well-known. For example, we'd say "I have to go to a business meeting in Chicago" or "I have to go to a business meeting in Redding, California". We say "Chicago, Illinois" when we have reason to believe the other person we're talking to doesn't know where Chicago is, and we just say "Redding" if the other person likely knows where that is. In the U.K., they disambiguate by county rather than by constituent country, so an English person might say "Blackburn, Lancashire", but not "Blackburn, England". That's one of many reasons I don't think the U.S.-specific form should be used everywhere. szyslak 02:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Naming Conventions: Monarchs

The naming convention for monarchs has previously been an exception to Wikipedia's general naming conventions. Efforts are now being made to bring them in line, with a propoasl for the most common name for a monarch to take precedence. (eg. William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mary, Queen of Scots.) Please consider the proposals at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)#Proposals to change Monarchal naming conventions so we can get wide consensus on this matter. Thanks. Gwinva (talk) 22:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Legal name change(anglicised names)

How would you label an article about a person who has changed their name legally, such as Paul Neumann to Paul Newman? Would you use Paul Newman (Neumann)? Many persons (both living and dead) in America have anglicised names. What is the proper use on Wikipedia?DavidPickett (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

See WP:MOSBIO. It pretty well covers how the lead paragraph handles names.--Bobblehead (rants) 01:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Currency name guidelines

Current guidelines at WP:WikiProject Numismatics that call for currency articles to be at their native rather than English names appear to be an attempt to supersede WP:UE and WP:UCN. Please discuss proposed changes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics/Style#Guidelines change proposal. — AjaxSmack 23:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Should titles of article on units of the form "X per Y" be singular or plural?

Should articles of the form "X per Y" be singular (e.g. metre per second) for consistency with articles such as metre, kilogram, etc., or plural (e.g. kilometres per hour) to reflect common usage? Oli Filth(talk) 23:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

NOTE: This discussion was originally at Talk:Kilometres per hour; I've moved it here in the hope that it would elicit a few more opinions (currently only have me, an opposing editor and anon. IP).

Comments

I posted this RfC not about this article in particular, but a whole range of articles, of which there is some discrepancy in style, e.g. metre per second, cycle per second, kilometres per hour, miles per hour, etc. In my opinion, in each case, when talking about the unit, we're talking about one unit, so the title should be singular. At the very least, this leads to consistency with the simpler units, such as metre, pound, which are obviously all singular.

However, not everyone agrees; e.g. the first comment on Talk:Kilometres per hour, or Talk:Cycle per second#Why it is "cycles-", not "cycle-", per second. Oli Filth(talk) 23:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I support plural, where that's how it's colloquially said. Here's how I see it: X per Y (let's say Kilometers per Hour, for example) is a unit -- a quantifiable noun. Therefore, one says "How many?". And you would say "How many kilometers per hour?", not "How many kilometer per hour?". Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 00:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Your argument could be applied to e.g. metres ("How many metres?"), or apples ("How many apples?"). But both those articles are entitled in the singular (metre, apple), because the subject is a/an/the metre/apple (i.e. a single entity). Oli Filth(talk) 01:04, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Who maintains your logic train, Amtrak?. The article title here isn't [A] cycle, or [A] kilometer. It's in the form of "X's per Y". Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 01:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
As a UK resident, I have to assume there's some US in-joke in the Amtrak reference!
To the point in hand, what I'm postulating is that the current article title is inconsistent (and in this particular case, the lead is incorrect). "Kilometres per hour is a unit..." is inconsistent with "A kilometre is a unit..." (see kilometre); one is plural, the other singular. For grammatical equivalence, the second example would have to be "Kilometres is a unit...".
In fact, after a little digging just now, I may have answered my RfC concern myself. From Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Prefer singular nouns: "In general only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English". I don't think this falls into the exceptions listed there, as they are all sets or collective plurals. Oli Filth(talk) 01:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understood what you just said. In an article about kilometers, the appropriate title would be "Kilometer", and the article might start with "A kilometer is a unit of distance equal to 1000 meters" or something like that. In an article about kilometers per hour -- where, except in the rare case of 1 kilometer per hour, the plural is always used -- it would seem/feel appropriate to go with "Kilometers per hour" as the article title. Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 02:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
What I was attempting to get at was that the language and titles were inconsistent between two articles that ought to be fairly similar, and that the grammar of the lead to Kilometres per hour is incorrect.
By what metric do you consider "1 kilometre per hour" to be rarer than "x kilometres per hour" (where x is plural), but "x kilometres" (for example) to be rarer than "1 kilometre"? # of Google hits is certainly not it, for example:
(similar ratios appear if you US-ify the spellings).
Even if the Google counts had shown differently, I think the Wiki style guide I cited above is fairly explicit on the matter. If I'd known it existed beforehand, I don't think I'd even have started this RfC! Oli Filth(talk) 23:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Use plural, it is the most common usage, and used in the generic case. In 0 mph, it is not "mile" but "miles", only for the unit measurement is the singular form used, and thus it is a special case. We should not use special cases for article titles. 70.51.10.115 (talk) 14:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
That logic applies to pretty much every noun in the English language. Are you suggesting we also change all article titles accordingly? Besides which, the Wiki guideline cited above is quite clear about what to do. Oli Filth(talk) 16:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
(A) No, he said nothing about changing all articles. He was talking about THIS article, and others related to it -- articles about a VECTOR unit (X per Y; Amount per Time). And he's correct -- "kilometer per hour" is grammatically incorrect. (B) You're misunderstanding the Wikipedia policy. Also, in light of what you've been told repeatedly, perhaps it's time to consider WP:IAR. Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 00:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Whilst that's what he said directly, by applying his logic elsewhere, it would imply that all noun-based article titles ought to be changed. My whole argument all along has been that there's nothing special about nouns of the form "X per Y". By what grammatical rule is "kilometer per hour" incorrect? (e.g. "I eat one chocolate bar per day", "In all states except Utah, there is one wife per husband", "Every marking on my speedometer denotes an increase of a single kilometre per hour".) And how am I misunderstanding the policy?
IAR isn't a carte blanche reason (on its own) for doing something that contradicts Wiki policies, guidelines or standard practice; see WP:IAR?#What ignore all rules does not mean. Neither you nor the anonymous IP editor have convinced me of any rationale as to why "X per Y" is gramatically/syntactically/semantically different from other noun forms, such that we should "ignore the rules" and:
  1. Have titles whose form is inconsistent with the vast majority of other article titles.
  2. Declare a special case exempt from Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Prefer singular nouns.
Oli Filth(talk) 01:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Listen, Oil Filth, I understand what you're saying -- but you don't seem to get what I'm saying. We're talking about language here, and the ultimate trump card when it comes to language is "what the majority uses". I already addressed the "one chocolate bar per day" thing -- the ONLY time when an X per Y (vector quantity) is singular is in the case of one, or less than one (i.e. "half a chocolate bar per day"). Let me give you an example of how this works: if I asked you what units the speedometers in cars in the UK use, what would you answer? You'd say "kilometers per hour", not "kilometer per hour". And if you asked me what unit they use in the USA, I'd say "miles per hour", nor "mile per hour". The fuel efficiency of vehicles is measured in "miles per gallon" (or "kilometeres per liter"). The plural is used, NOT the singular. This is mostly a grammatical thing; if you have X per Y, it is assumed that you have more than one X per Y (hence you're using that as a basis of measurement) -- and, of course, more than one = plural. However, it's also a colloquial thing -- it's what we use; it's how we commonly speak. And ultimately, that makes it correct. I'm citing WP:IAR for you because I'm getting the impression you won't be able to sleep at night until/unless you can reconcile this with the singular/plural policy. If your reading of a WP policy would direct you to do something in a way which is incorrect (as outlined previously), then either (a) your reading of that policy is incorrect, or (b) the policy should not be applied to the case in question. Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 07:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm getting the impression we're going round in circles here. "the ONLY time when an X per Y (vector quantity) is singular is in the case of one" of course applies to any noun. Your new example still doesn't hold sway, because it holds for any unit: "What units does your ruler measure in?" "Inches". (Incidentally, "X per Y" doesn't make it a vector unit or quantity.)
If you can come up with an example which I can't immediately turn around and apply to any noun (and specifically, non-compound units), then maybe we'd get somewhere!
I originally thought it would be a fairly uncontentious matter to update some article titles for consistency (and as I know now, matching an established guideline). The only reason I've given such elongated responses is because you've exhibited a fair amount of resistance to the idea, using arguments which, at least as far as I'm concerned, are erroneous (although I get the impression you'd say the same about mine!). Oli Filth(talk) 13:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
What I'm saying is that your perverse desire to enforce absolute homogeneity with this issue is preventing you from realizing the fact that logically, and -- more importantly -- colloquially, the plural is used in X per Y quantities...and therefore should be the format used for naming articles about X per Y units. You completely ignored my very logical argument about cars, which I will repeat for you: "Let me give you an example of how this works: if I asked you what units the speedometers in cars in the UK use, what would you answer? You'd say "kilometers per hour", not "kilometer per hour". And if you asked me what unit they use in the USA, I'd say "miles per hour", nor "mile per hour". The fuel efficiency of vehicles is measured in "miles per gallon" (or "kilometeres per liter"). The plural is used, NOT the singular." WE'RE NOT TALKING about any old noun here -- there's a big difference between "inch" and "miles per hour". As I've said about eighty billion times now, X per Y values (i.e. miles per hour) are DIFFERENT than simple X values (i.e. inches). Again: "If you have X per Y, it is assumed that you have more than one X per Y (hence you're using that as a basis of measurement) -- and, of course, more than one = plural." What about this do you find confusing? Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 14:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Call it "perverse" if you like; I don't think there's anything wrong with upholding consistency where appropriate; indeed that's the whole point of the WP:MOS series.
I didn't ignore your argument; I showed how it was flawed because it applies equally to any unit. My counterexample was inches; here's another: "My weighing scales measure in pounds".
However, let's ignore the examples, as I think they're not the crux of your argument at all; instead, it's that the use of "per" is the key point, because it implies plural by default. I don't agree with that, because I see no reason or precedent to suggest that "per" implies plurality, and certainly not to the extent that we can reasonably classify it as exempt from "unless that noun is always in a plural form".
Plural usage will be more common, of course, but that's because there's many more (infinitely more, in fact) examples of multiple things than singular things in the real world. (If you're into maths, singular examples occur almost nowhere!) Oli Filth(talk) 16:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Your perverse desire to enforce absolute homogeneity with this issue is preventing you from realizing the fact that logically, and -- more importantly -- colloquially, the plural is used in X per Y quantities...and therefore should be the format used for naming articles about X per Y units (refer to WP:IAR). I will happily repeat the solid argument here for you: "Let me give you an example of how this works: if I asked you what units the speedometers in cars in the UK use, what would you answer? You'd say "kilometers per hour", not "kilometer per hour". And if you asked me what unit they use in the USA, I'd say "miles per hour", nor "mile per hour". The fuel efficiency of vehicles is measured in "miles per gallon" (or "kilometeres per liter"). The plural is used, NOT the singular." We're not talking about any old noun here -- there's a big difference between "inch" and "miles per hour". As I've said about eighty billion times now, X per Y values (i.e. miles per hour) are DIFFERENT than simple X values (i.e. inches) -- therefore the naming conventions are different. Again: "If you have X per Y, it is assumed that you have more than one X per Y (hence you're using that as a basis of measurement) -- and, of course, more than one = plural." Google searches, and basic (if-you-have-a-pulse-and-could-not-star-in-a-remake-of-Deliverance) logic, bear out that X per Y units are overwhelmingly put in the plural form -- in everything from everyday laymans' work, to respected scientific publications, to pretty much everything else. Not much else can be said; you're simply incorrect here. Thanks for RfC'ing though, it's good to discuss these things and ask for explanations when you're not sure. Mr. P. S. Phillips (talk) 17:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Not sure what your point is here. You've basically repeated your previous post verbatim, which doesn't lend it any more weight. And then you've echoed what I've already said I'm sure is the case, that in general the plural is more common (although interestingly, the crude Google searches I pointed out earlier disagree on this particular example). Oli Filth(talk) 19:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
It's very simple: the form of the question governs the form of the answer. If you ask "What units does your speedometer use?" or "What units does your bathroom scale use?", then appropriate answers are "miles per hour" and "pounds." If, on the other hand, you start the question with "What unit," then the answer is naturally singular, for instance "the mile per hour" or "the pound." --Reuben (talk) 06:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Despite Mr. Phillips's rather emphatic comments, units such as "kilometers per hour" are no different from simpler cases like "kilometers." It is perfectly appropriate for them to follow the same style. You can verify this in lists of units from authoritative sources like NIST [2], where they're all in the singular. There's no problem with this at all. --Reuben (talk) 06:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Things are pretty obvious:
  1. The title of the article should be the name of that unit.
  2. The name of the unit is what you say when you measure one unit of that quantity.
Hence, the title should be the singular "Kilometer per hour". It is, indeed, mostly used in the plural, but then again all units are mostly used in the plural. The word per has no special relevance; it just shows that the composed unit (kilometer per hour) is understood as the distribution of one simple type of units (kilometers) over another simple type of units (hours). In fact, many derived units are defined as the ratio of some other units --- the newton, the watt, the ohm, etc. --- such that their underlying meaning is in the form "something per something", and yet their names are in the singular.
There is no reason why the plural should be preferred in the case of km/h that could not equally apply in the case of simple units such as the meter. — AdiJapan ☎ 07:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Why this is a particularly awkward question

The issue here is that very rarely do people talk about compound units in isolation. Unlike the metre or the second, the only time you ever see these units being discussed is in reference to an actual measurement. Since there is uniquely one measurement that is singular and an uncountably infinite number of measurements that are not, it is extremely rare for one to see the singular measurement in common use.

However, here at Wikipedia we are charged with writing some rather bizarre articles, including articles about subjects that usually people do not consider "subjects" in the proper sense. I know of no other encyclopedia that has tried to write an article on the common units used for measuring speed on a speedometer, for example. Here we are, however, at the largest encyclopedia in the world and for whatever reason articles on such subjects are deemed necessary for inclusion.

We are basically breaking new ground here so we need to be very careful with how we look at precedent. The question is, what is the subject of the article? Is it "what units are most often seen?" or is it "what is the name of the unit?" If the question we are trying to answer with our articles is the former, then the plural unit should be used. If the question is the latter than the singular unit should be used.

I am of the opinion that the latter is the question with which Wikipedia is most concerned. I give as example other compound units that may or may not see articles in the future. Let's take the compound unit of measurement of momentum. If we were going to write an article about this unit would we write about the kilogram meter per second or kilogram meters per second. Oddly enough, adding that extra unit multiplier seems to muddy the issue (as well, this unit isn't often seen). People may still argue over what "sounds" more appropriate, but here's the clincher: the Newton second is another name for this unit. Now would we prefer to call this Newton seconds or, worse, Newtons second (as in attorneys general)? Of course not. The singular unit in this case makes the most sense, probably because the lack of the mathematical operation of division makes us "feel" like this is closer to the metre, kilogram, or pound article titles.

Since the compound units that multiply base units would have singular titles, it seems logical that compound units that divide base units would also use singular titles.

I recognize that this is a rather hard pill to swallow. Who has ever heard of the "mile per hour"? Well, as I stated in the beginning of this post, Wikipedia is in a bizarre situation of having to write articles about subjects that haven't been handled in a consistent way up until this point. I think, however, that carefully considering the logic of the situation will convince some to come over to the dark-side, as it were, and accept the singular form for these units.

ScienceApologist (talk) 08:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, so in that case we henceforth say the speed of sound is 344 "metre per second" or "1230 kilometre per hour", or "770 mile per hour" , or "1130 foot per second". The question is not nearly as awkward as the suggestion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.72.191 (talk) 22:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
No, you've entirely missed the point of what myself and 3 other editors have said. In summary: Each of the articles is about the corresponding unit (singular), and so the corresponding titles should each be in singular form (just like any other article on WP). This doesn't impinge in any way on the usage of said unit in a plural sense in the way that you seem to have suggested it would above. Yet again, the same argument applies to apples or metres ("1000 metre in a kilometre"!). Oli Filth(talk) 22:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Most people that I have heard here in Britain say "miles per hour" in the plural. The singular sounds unnatural. I suppose it depends on whether the unit per time unit is more often met asd a value over two or as a fraction less than one. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The article name is not supposed to reflect the form most frequently found in use, but the name of the topic. For example, there is no object 1 light-year away from the Earth and there are very few objects known to be about 1 light-year in size, so almost without exception we find this unit in the plural form "X light-years". And yet, the name of this unit is light-year, in the singular.
In fact, article names in the plural are justified only when the concept described has full meaning as a group of objects, but not as individual objects. Take for example: Italians, Mayan languages, Maxwell's equations, Objectivist poets and so on. Measurement units are certainly not among these. — AdiJapan ☎ 11:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
The article name is not supposed to reflect the form most frequently found in use, but the name of the topic. See WP:COMMON WP:COMMONNAMES. If the name being proposed is rarely if ever used in natural language, it should not be used as the title of the article. older ≠ wiser 16:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
This has already been discussed (way up, though). From WP:Naming conventions: "In general only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English" (emphasis not mine). "Kilometres per hour" vs. "kilometre per hour" is no less rare (as a proportion) than, say, "kilometres" vs. "kilometre". Any time we want to talk about one of something, we need the singular. And as pointed out by another editor, even NIST lists them in the singular. Oli Filth(talk) 17:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
So you're suggesting that one specific provision of the naming conventions guideline overrides another. I don't agree that that make much sense when it results in article titles that are rarely if ever used in natural language. older ≠ wiser 18:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Which specific guideline are you suggesting it overrides? The generic WP:COMMON "Use common sense"? (Which, to be an anal Wikilawyer for a second, is neither a policy nor a guideline.) Yes, a specific policy overrides a general-purpose ethos, unless there's a good reason not to (see WP:IAR?#What "Ignore all rules" does not mean.
As I've said several times, "kilometres per hour" (for example's sake) is proportionally no less common than "kilometres". Why does this idea of "we should use plural" magically apply here, but not there? In other words, why is this a special case versus any other unit of measure, or any other noun? Unless this can be answered, I see no "common sense" rationale that could potentially take precedence in this sort of case. Oli Filth(talk) 18:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, that should have been WP:COMMONNAMES. To address your second point, "kilometre" (or "kilometer") is a commonly used word and is not in any way unfamiliar to a fluent speaker of English. On the other hand, "kilometer per hour" would be regarded an extremely odd construct to most speakers. older ≠ wiser 20:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure most English speakers would be comfortable with "an ant moves at one kilometre per hour" (or similar). Oli Filth(talk) 14:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Restating the question: RfC: Should titles of article on units of the form "X per Y" be singular or plural? I see that NIST Guide to SI Units uses the singular when speaking of to the units themselves (e.g., mile per ..., liter per ..., meter per ..., etc.), and optionally pluralizes the unit name according to gramattical conventions when applying the unit — e.g., (paraphrased from tabular information) "To convert from mile per gallon (U.S.) (mpg) (mi/gal) to liter per 100 kilometer (L/100 km), divide 235.215 by number of miles per gallon").
In keeping with this, IMHO, the titles of articles on the subject of the units themselves should use the singular. Also IMHO, it would be a good idea for such articles be wikilinked to the pluralized form of their name.
IMHO, it would be irritatingly pedantic include in each unit-of-measure article an explanatory statement along the lines of (e.g.) The Mile per hour is a unit of speed, expressing the number of international miles covered per hour. When referring to the unit itself, its name is generally expressed in the singular. When using the unit to express a quantity, the name of a unit is commonly pluralized according to grammatical conventions (e.g., "A 55 mile per hour speed limit restricts speed to a maximum of 55 miles per hour." (using the singular when speaking of 55 of the mile per hour units, and pluralizing the unit mile when speaking of traveling 55 of those units over the timespan of a (singular) hour. Another example might be, "One mile per hour and one-half mile per hour are both slower than two miles per hour.". A statement along these lines should, however, probably appear somewhere in the MOS (perhaps Wikipedia:Manual of Style (units of measure)).
Also see, for example, 55-Mile-per-Hour Speed Limit Statement Urging Compliance With the Limit., which speaks of (1) "... the national 55-mile per-hour speed limit ...", and of (2) "... better gas mileage at 55 miles per hour than at 70 ...". -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you and the others saying that there is no difference between having an article at "mile" or at "mile per hour" when it comes to any logical distinction. We still use the singular form for numbers greater than zero and less than or equal to one, 1 mile per hour just like 1 mile.
There is one difference for Wikipedia purposes. If you want to link the plural form of miles, you can use [[mile]]s to accomplish that. However, you cannot create a link to the proper plural form by using [[mile per hours]]s. The pluralizing "s" goes in the middle of what is being used for the article name.
However, that problem is solved quite nicely by the redirects, which should always exist in these cases and probably already do for all of them. Using [[miles per hour]] will link you to the proper article, even when the article is at "Mile per hour". So there is no reason not to just use the normal naming conventions, the singular form of the names of these units. Gene Nygaard (talk) 19:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

This is the wrong question

All the articles are talking about the same thing - measurement of velocity. We shouldn't have separate articles on them. Where would it end? Inches by day? Lightyears by millennium? Snail's pace. All these "articles" should be redirected to Speed where the measurements can be discussed in context and compared with each other without forking and duplication. Build the one brilliant article rather than a series of isolated and trivial stubs. SilkTork *What's YOUR point? 19:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

We don't just put all the weight units as redirects to Mass. Why should speed be any different. In any case, it isn't just "speed"; there are many such units of density, various kinds of flow rates, etc. Gene Nygaard (talk) 20:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Please don't forget nanoparsec per microfortnight. --Reuben (talk) 17:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
And if it was too much to merge it, a general article like units of velocity, units of pressure etc should be enough. Not sure that it will resolve every case though. Richard001 (talk) 05:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the "Miles per hour" discussion page in a moment of frivolous curiosity and never did I imagine I would find a link to this lengthy discussion here. I am very used to Wikipedia's "use the singular in an article title" policy, and I still instinctively typed in "miles per hour" to find the page. I have to say that it would have seemed bizarre to be redirected to a page entitled "Mile per hour" - I would have done a double-take and wondered "Why is it called that?" I have to agree that in the particular case of a rate the article title should be in the plural, because that is the overwhelming (if not quite the only) usage of the term. In fact, seeing an article entitled "Mile per hour" might have made me wonder whether it were an article solely about the speed "1 m.p.h." until I had read the definition, because that is the singular's only usage.GSTQ (talk) 04:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I think there is a fair case for a separate article for "miles per hour", although I don't think it would be a bad idea to merge the articles into a "units of velocity" article either. Just because there are many units of speed not deserving of their own article doesn't address the issue for significant units.GSTQ (talk) 05:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

In reply to your deleted post: Indeed, we don't seem to have reached a consensus. As far as I can see, there are those editors who would like to name the article using the most frequent grammatical form, and those who prefer the actual name of the unit. I believe that the frequency can be considered only in cases where you compare different names for the same concept, such as Canis lupus familiaris and Dog, when the readers are more familiar with one than with the other. Frequency is thus relevant in terms of familiarity or recognizability. But in the case of the "mile per hour" unit, recognizability is not an issue. In fact, as others pointed out, the singular is used in the NIST Guide to SI units. I would also add that the SI official brochure (see page 117, for example) makes the same clear distinction between the use of units with numbers, and the proper unit name. There is a difference between expressing quantities and naming a unit.
And sure thing, if you were to choose one of the wording variants below, as an introduction,
  • "The miles per hour are units of speed."
  • "The mile per hour is a unit of speed."
you'd obviously choose the second. Besides, since we're talking about a unit --- that is, one of something, an elementary part --- it would be quite hard to talk about a unit called miles per hour. — AdiJapan ☎ 07:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I just noticed this discussion. There seem to be people in this conversation who believe that articles on units with "per" in their name should have the articles named as plural, but not otherwise. This seems bizarre if you follow the progression:
The last two are the same thing, but people seem to want to nme one plural and the other singular. They should all be named in the singular form. --Scott Davis Talk 22:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It may seem bizarre, but that doesn't change what seems natural to English-speakers. The difference between "miles per hour" and "knot" is that the first has "per" in its name. It is explicitly a ratio. "Knot" is not obviously a ratio, therefore it does not seem counter-intuitive to use it in the singular. And for the time being, it appears likely that things will stay that way. It might be frustrating for logicians, but that doesn't mean we should ignore linguistic norms.GSTQ (talk) 01:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

As for the introduction:

  • "Miles per hour is a measurement of speed."

seems perfectly natural to me although there could be a better. Deliberately ridiculous constructions don't prove anything.GSTQ (talk) 01:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What's deliberately ridiculous? I'm a native English speaker, and "The mile per hour is a unit of speed" sounds entirely natural to me. Your suggestion, though, immediately strikes me as incorrect because it doesn't respect subject-verb agreement. So far, I haven't seen any evidence presented to show that units that are expressed as ratios are used any differently from other units, just repeated assertions. --Reuben (talk) 02:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The deliberately ridiculous construction (O.K., I used the wrong grammatical number. How ironic.) I was referring to was "The miles per hour..." As for whether the subject in my example disagrees with the number of the verb, I don't think it's as simple as "miles" equals "are". You can say "Werewolves of London is a song". And I know this is not quite the same as that, but it shows that a concept which looks like a plural can be treated as a singular noun in English. You could avoid the issue by saying something like: "The ratio miles per hour is used to measure speed...", which is actually a long version of my example "Miles per hour is a..." As for evidence, this is a stylistic argument, not an article. Evidence helps no doubt, but in the end it's a judgement call based on what looks or sounds best in the context. I'm not sure what evidence you had in mind to satisfy yourself. A poll? An excerpt from a thesis on the use of grammatical number in expressing ratios? I'm not sure there is any evidence out there we can rely on other than our own grammatical intuition. As for the title of the article, it's looking like a better idea all the time to remove the individual articles and replace them with a section in the "Speed" article, as suggested above.GSTQ (talk) 04:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The evidence is from the NIST web site and other documents that discuss units themselves, which put them all uniformly in the singular. --Reuben (talk) 05:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the evidence you've cited does put them all uniformly in the singular. As does this website:[3], except when it uses these "units" in an actual sentence, it describes them in the plural: "Common Speed Conversions A few of the more common speed and velocity units. Such as miles/hour (mph), kilometers/hour (kph), meters/second, etc." The N.I.S.T. evidence is evidence, but I don't believe it is the sort of evidence that is determinative of a style dispute.GSTQ (talk) 05:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The web site you mentioned also says "A few of the more common length and distance units. Such as feet, meters, inches, centimeters, miles, kilometers, etc." In other words, it treats miles per hour no differently from any other units, which is exactly my point. Questions of style can point to actual usage, and I still haven't seen any evidence that usage of "miles per hour" is any different from usage of "miles." There is evidence against such a distinction, and in fact your link doesn't support any distinction. --Reuben (talk) 09:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Specific different target for Pounds per square inch

The pounds per square inch article is one of those included in the WP:RM proposal, with a notice on its talk page. But if you look at Talk:Pounds per square inch this article has already been improperly moved in a cut and paste move from Pound-force per square inch. That is the singular form to which that specific article should now be moved, not pound per square inch. With the normal cleanup merging the histories from the previous improper cut and paste move.

Note that there are two different units. This article is about lbf/in² (also called psi), where the pounds are units of force. But the unit lb/in² where pounds are the normal mass units are also used. Not as often as the pressure or stress units of lbf/in² are, but they are still different units and need to be disambiguated. Those lb/in², distinct and different "pounds per square inch" which are not and should not be covered in this pressure unit article, are used, for example, in ballistic coefficient. Gene Nygaard (talk) 10:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Just butting in here to comment that the NIST Guide to SI Units has this as "pound-force per square inch". -- Boracay Bill (talk) 10:18, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there a way to move it back to its proper location and merge the two histories? If not I would suggest simply doing a new copy-paste move with a note in the talkpage where to look for the new information. I still don't see how people get this wrong, there's a damn button that says move at the top of every article.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 17:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Update the guideline

Since the letter of the policy seems to be the thorn that keeps the mile-per-hour folks from sleeping at night, why not re-word the policy to something more reasonable? Just add the word "almost" in front of "always". After all, "always" is a big conditional; where did consensus for that come from? Ham Pastrami (talk) 04:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Sponsored names

Does Wikipedia have a policy on what should be done with a stadium, sports league or team which sells/leases its naming rights to a corporate entity? I believe that Wikipedia should use the "regular name" (if the entity actually has one) and sponsored names should be redirects - as this way, should the naming rights pass on to another company, we do not have to change hundreds of links. Where would be the best place to discuss this? -- Chuq (talk) 07:03, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Futurology or Futures studies?

There's an argument at talk:Futurology over what that article should be called, and whether this policy applies. Your opinion there would be appreciated. The Transhumanist 03:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Use technical names set by standards organizations

I'd like to propose that names set by standards organizations, such as NIST, be used as article titles, rather than officially discarded names, regardless of their common use. In particular, the names electric constant and magnetic constant have been adopted by standards organizations world-wide as replacements for a multitude of common terms, including vacuum permeability and vacuum permittivity (which are the presently used titles in Wikipedia).

The adoption of these names by the standards organizations reflect that these terms are defined quantities, rather than experimentally measured ones, and the names are chosen to avoid the implication of a materials property that could be measured.

Whatever the reasoning of the standards organizations, I'd suggest that the deliberations of standards organizations are likely to be more subtle and nuanced than any arguments that could be offered by Wikipedians. By not adopting these names selected by these standards organizations Wiki simply exhibits a combination of hubris and fuddy-duddyness.

Any worry that a reader of Wiki would become lost or confused by articles unfamiliarly named is allayed by automatic redirection from the familiar to the standards term. The lead-in first line of the article can read, for example: Electric constant, variously known as vacuum permittivity, permittivity of free space and permittivity of empty space, means....

In my view, a reader so redirected will immediately pick out the name they know, and be reassured that it is the term they have in mind. They also will notice that the article has a different title, with the implication that the title is a preferred designation. Thus, ease of use by the reader and education of the reader are beautifully combined, and the reader is left recognizing that Wikipedia is indeed on top of things.

To repeat: I'd like to propose that names set by standards organizations, such as NIST, be used as article titles, rather than officially discarded names.


Brews ohare (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. If the "technical names set by standards organizations" are not actually used, then it shouldn't be used. (Also, electric constant is not exactly a defined term; it is measured. The measurement defines the Ampere, but accurate measurements of the "constant" are still required.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Arthur: You are mistaken on this one. See NIST where you will find the "uncertainty" in electric constant is zero because it is defined, not measured. As for "not used" of course that is not the case, although it is not the most commonly used term. The issue is not really just a popularity contest. Is it not a service to the reader to emphasize the correct term? Is it not a reflection on Wikipedia to stay in the middle ages? Brews ohare (talk) 20:34, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Arthur: it depends on what name is used. If the standards body has succeeded in changing usage, we should follow. If they haven't, it's not our job to help. So let's consider these on a case by case basis. I haven't look at the case at hand. Dicklyon (talk) 01:30, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

What constitutes success? Biggest google count? Endorsement by the standards body? Endorsement by eminent scientists? Citation in preeminent texts and reference works? Good sense? Best three of five?

What is the basis for delay in following the committee? Fear that the term never will be adopted? Fear of being too far out front? Fear of annoying readership?

Is there reasoning involved here?

Brews ohare (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Please take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conflict#Proper_nouns, which states:
If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name except for conflicting scientific names
A number of objective criteria can be used to determine common or official usage:
* Is the name in common usage in English? (check Google, other reference works, websites of media, government and international organizations)
* Is it the official current name of the subject? (check if the name is used in a legal context, e.g. a constitution)
The fact that the posted value for ε0 at NIST is under electric constant and that metrology and standards organizations in the UK. France and British commonwealth countries all link back to this NIST site for the value indicates official use. It is a bit silly to use Google hits to establish technical vocabulary instead of using international expert opinion. After all, electric constant is a scientific technical term, not a term of everyday English.

A user of Wikipedia that ends up looking for vacuum permittivity at NIST will be redirected to electric constant. That will occasion the thought that Wikipedia is a bit out of it. If they inquire why, they will find that the failure of Wikipedia to be current stems from (i) failure to identify scientific terms, (ii) failure to recognize international expert bodies and (iii) reliance on a Google hit mentality, regardless of appropriateness. Brews ohare (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to add to the above Wikipedia quotations:
Scientific nomenclature. Check usage by international bodies like CIPM, IUPAP, IUPAC, and other scientific bodies concerned with nomenclature; consider also the national standards agencies NIST and NPL. Consult style guides of scientific journals.
Notice NIST in there??

Brews ohare (talk) 19:01, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(please don't put your signature on a new line. It makes it difficult to see who wrote what. This isn't a policy or guideline, just a personal observation. The guideline is that you should indent your signature to the same level as the text.)
We all know that the product of the electric constant and the magnetic constant is 4 π c2. Hence, their being "constant" is a function of special relativity, and should not be presumed. All serious researchers accept special relativity, but we wouldn't want physical definitions to make it impossible to think of violations. (Or perhaps the meter is now defined in terms of the second so that the speed of light is "constant". Never mind.)
It further follows that your statement that they are "constant" (rather than defining Ampere) needs a source, as it's clearly not true.
Nonetheless, our standard should not be what the standards committees accept, but what is actually used by the scientists. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Arthur: As a source, how about NIST? є0 provides є0 exactly μ0 provides μ0 exactly and c provides c exactly. In short, all three are defined quantities, so your speculation about the meter is right on the money. All three parameters є0, μ0 and c are now only numbers and completely separate from any conceivable experimental alteration. See also Physical_constant#Table_of_universal_constants.
To return to our standard, the standards associations are talking here about technical terms, not standard English, and so technical considerations went into their choices. Moreover, these associations do not operate in isolation: they are populated by and talk with scientists about these matters, so the results are the deliberated decisions of the technical community. The adoption of new terminology is not an overnight thing, there are always those out of the swim, but there is no doubt about the ultimate wide adoption of this terminology. In the meantime, the web sites of all international metrology organizations link to NIST for these values. For Wikipedia to opt out of this arrangement is just unfathomable. It brands the encyclopedia as second rate, behind the times and unable to understand the situation in which it is found. Brews ohare (talk) 00:16, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
We should not "opt out." We should link to NIST for the value like everyone else, and we should say what they call it. But that's really an independent question from whether we should move the article at this point from the traditional name to the new standard name. The case you need to make is that the new standard name is the one most commonly used, known, or searched for; then maybe we'll be convinced; the arguments you've made so far don't do that, and that's what we responded to. Dicklyon (talk) 03:06, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
According to google book search, books published in the 21st century use "vacuum permittivity" overwhelmingly more than "electric constant". So it seems that the new term has not really caught on much. As I said, our job is to follow, not to lead, on such things. Dicklyon (talk) 03:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I got the "follow, not lead" message. I didn't get why to follow Google instead of the international standards organizations (or, I presume any other group of savants, however distinguished, e.g. the Royal Society or the IEEE). I understand the Google thing if you are documenting the thoughts of the popular mind, and the goal strictly is to document the popular mind, that your version of heliocentric theory and evolution would differ from scientific use, but I thought the charge was a little different. I haven't heard any argument supporting the Google or popular mind view except "that's how we do it". What about value, what about fact, what about solid presentation, eh? What about the Wiki policy quotes about scientific terms? How about some rationale? Brews ohare (talk) 05:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Google has no usage or opinion to follow; it's just one way to survey what's out there. I find google book search to provide a pretty decent sample of reliable sources (as opposed to web search, which finds way too much other junk). But other ways of assessing what's out there are also valid. International standards organizations, on the other hand, provide only their own narrow view, not a sampling of actual usage. Dicklyon (talk) 01:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Whatever the answer is to the question of how technical terms fit into the "actual usage" criterion, how does this sound as a compromise approach: let us suppose the commonly used term is abc and the technical standards organizations world-wide use the term cde. Could the article lead not read:
ABC, termed CDE by international standards organizations, is defined as...
How does that sound? Brews ohare (talk) 18:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Reasonable for this case, but even that isn't appropriate for Kibibyte, etc., as different standards organizations have different standards. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
To follow up on this example, the lead there states:
A kibibyte (a contraction of kilo binary byte) is a unit of information or computer storage, established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 2000.
Correspondingly, let us suppose the commonly used term is abc and NIST and International Bureau of Weights and Measures uses the term cde. Could the article lead not read:
ABC, termed CDE by NIST and BIPM, is defined as...
How does that sound? Of course, in some cases the term may be defined by only a narrow technical body, so maybe an issue arises as to where the line is drawn. The cases of electric constant and magnetic constant are not like that. Brews ohare (talk) 20:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

English (common?) name v. official foreign name

I've requested a page move of Associação Académica de Coimbra to the English "common" translation Coimbra Academic Association in line with e.g. National Alliance of Student Organizations in Romania and Uppsala Student Union, adding a series of sub-page moves to reflect the move of the principal article (such as Associação Académica de Coimbra - Secção de Voleibol → Coimbra Academic Association - volleyball section.

The responses I've got (from Portuguese editors) has been that e.g. Associação Académica de Coimbra - Secção de Voleibol is the official and "correct" name. Now, the problem is that I'm not sure if the AAC student union has an English common name. Coimbra Academic Association get 12700 english hits and "Coimbra Academic Association" get only 240 english hits on Google , while "Associação Académica de Coimbra" get 540 english hits (even though one might suspect that a large portion of these are about the football club). Does this mean that the AAC doesn't have an English common name or that the common name should be interpreted as "What word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine?" (from WP:COMMON). Don't forget to also comment on the move page! Sebisthlm (talk) 14:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo, the newborn state

Names according to the official languages and order

I have one or two suggestions to make, regarding the names related to the Republic of Kosovo, which recently declared independence from Serbia.

First of all, it has been agreed that the two official languages are Albanian and Serbian. You could verify this. You could also verify that Albanians make up the majority of the population (some 92 or 93%). Therefore, it has been agreed that Albanian language be the primary language. For this reason, all names related to Kosovo should be reflected in the Albanian language, and optionally followed by the Serbian language. While I am aware that the English-speaking world may be most acquainted with the non-diacritic Serbian version of the names, Wikipedia should respect both official languages in the order: Albanian/Serbian.

Respecting the aforementioned suggestion has several advantages. First, it will characterize the (English) Wikipedia as a neutral system. That is, neither Albanians, nor Serbians would cause confusion and trouble by editing articles according to subjective points of view. In the end, everybody will be satisfied because that is the reality. Second, it will allow us, the users, to focus more on developing articles, rather than spending a lot of time discussing whether the nomenclature should be in Serbian or in Albanian and in what order. For instance, if you compare the "Article Page" of a particular Kosovo-related article with the respective "Discussion Page", then you will immediately notice that the latter is much longer than the former, which shows that users spend much more time talking than actually being interested in results.

All in all, using the two official languages, Albanian and Serbian, and in the official order: Albanian names followed by Serbian names, would bring neutrality to Kosovo-related articles along with several advantages.--Arbër 09:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Names of the URL's are ONLY in Serbian language - this is wrong

In addition to the suggestion I made above, I have another important suggestion related to the URL's of Wikipedia. Let's take an example of a Kosovo-related page, which has the following URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pe%C4%87_District. As you may notice, the name "Peć", which appears as "Pe%C4%87" in the URL, is the Serbian name for the Kosovan city of "Pejë", the Albanian name. At this point, Wikipedia is not respecting Albanian as the primary and official language, given that Serbian is the second official language of the Republic of Kosovo. I believe a drastic change has to be made to all Wikipedia URL's which use a Serbian nomenclature instead of an Albanian one. Because Albanian is the primary language of Kosovo, all Wikipedia URL's should be in the Albanian language.--Arbër 09:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Please refer to WP:NCON. Basic rule is still: WP:USEENGLISH. Where there is a clearly dominant usage in the English language, that takes precedence. Only if that fails does the question of native and official names kick in. If and when English usage outside Wikipedia is going to change because of the independence, then Wikipedia will follow suit, but not earlier. For instance, all the media still talk about Kosovo, not Kosova. They might change that at some later point, but we won't take a step ahead of them in anticipation. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
From your answer, I understand that Wikipedia is prepared for such changes :) - that's quite important to learn.--Arbër (Let's Talk) 11:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Value judgments are preferred in article names?

I find the outcome of this AfD to be counter to everything suggested in WP:NPOV. It basically states that having words like "important" in the title of an article is not only acceptable, but preferred. IMO there should be an explicit naming policy against this. The relevance of "importance" is already covered against WP:N. The article should have been given either a keep or delete, the rename was a really lame copout in contradiction of fundamental policies. And it's being used as precedent. See the justification for the renaming of List of publications in computer science. Ham Pastrami (talk) 10:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Þjóðleikhúsið

Is the title of the article compliant with the naming conventions? I don't think so, but can't move the article. --Blueredsky (talk) 14:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the theatre's own website uses the English name National Theatre of Iceland rather than "Thodleikhusid" — and, for the record, a ð in Icelandic is a lowercase thorn, not a d. I suspect, consequently, that the article should most appropriately be at National Theatre of Iceland. Bearcat (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

IAST?

Is IAST spelling allowed as an article name or is the English spelling prefered? --Redtigerxyz (talk) 14:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Inasmuch as this is the English Wikipedia, English is preferred; the IAST spelling should be given parenthetically in the first introductory paragraph. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Band name

This manual of style has been misused to move Bone Thugs-N-Harmony to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. It may be also interpreted as suggesting to rename Guns N' Roses to Guns and Roses and Tha Dogg Pound to The Dog Pound. Please consider adding a special note to the article to make it clear that this manual does not suggest changing excplicit (mis-)spelling in band and album names to fit English grammar. Netrat_msk (talk) 11:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

There's no meaningful difference to be had between a capital N or a lowercase n in Bone Thugs-n-Harmony; it's purely a difference in how familiar an individual writer is with standard English capitalization rules. You're making a false comparison here to two moves that virtually nobody would ever even try to implement, and that wouldn't last three seconds even if somebody did. Bearcat (talk) 02:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Naming Convention Not Clear

The idea to maximise hits (on search engines) should be a part of the "first article" page. It may not refer to a lot of first articles any more but it would clear up a lot of thinking for newer users.
ThisMunkey (talk) 21:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Military operational names

Hello.

At WP:Military history we've run into a snag that we were hoping could be resolved here. It revolves around operational names and how we should present them as the pagename of the article. We basically have four alternatives:

Original name Transliteration Partial translation Full translation Notes
Fall Weiß Fall Weiss Case Weiss Case White
Unternehmen Frühlingserwachen Unternehmen Fruhlingserwachen Operation Fruhlingserwachen Operation Spring Awakening
Операция Искра Operatsia Iskra Operation Iskra Operation Spark
捷号作戦 Sho-gō sakusen Operation Sho-Go Operation Victory
ケ号作戦 Ke-gō sakusen Operation Ke-Go Operation Ke Uses a simple katakana letter, so no meaning to translate.
Unternehmen Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa Being named after a proper noun (Frederick Barbarossa)
this wouldn't be translated

|)

Right now we're all over the map so we really need some standardization. Since we can't come to agreement amongst ourselves, it has been requested that we leave the decision primarily to here. Thoughts? Oberiko (talk) 16:32, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Quite a "snag". I read as far as the first break and didn't have the energy to continue. My choice is a full translation unless it is well-known as a partial translation (e.g. Operation Barbarossa). I assume that there would be redirects from other names and that the article would mention other names. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I vote for the "partial" translation, though I think we will need redirects from the transliterated version. As this is the English Wikipedia I am opposed to articles in non-Latin alphabets anyway. A bit of checking seems to show that the partial version is more common; however there is sure to be some hardhead searching under the transliteration. Mangoe (talk) 03:17, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
English Wikipedia, so use as full a translation as possible for the article title. Other names can be listed in the article. If the translation is wrong, someone will fix it. If you can't get it translated then start with what you've got. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
You may want to read Talk:Iaşi-Chişinău Offensive before making any suggestions.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I would have suggested the partial translation, for instance keep 'Operation' in English (or whatever the corresponding first word is, battle or, or whatever) but have the actual name in the original language, often they are named for places or so on that have the biggest impact in the original language. SGGH speak! 11:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Having looked at the case mentioned, there's a strong note of Romanian partisans trying to own an article about a Russian offensive. If it has to be in the original language, that original language is Russian in this case, since it was after all their offensive; the Romanian should be dismissed out of hand. However, the other problem is that the transliteration from Russian into Latin characters is a little uncertain. The whole Yassy/Jassy ambiguity arises because of a longstanding Latinism that is wont to use an initial "J" to represent a "Y" consonant sound. I personally think this is an archaism and that we should stick to the phonetically obvious "Yassy", redirecting from "Jassy". As for Iassy", that's for the Italian Wikipedia. Mangoe (talk) 14:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Not quite enough input here to call it one way or another, anyone object if I take it to the Village Pump instead? Oberiko (talk) 14:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(Coming from the Village Pump) If you can find a standard English-language reference to the operation, I would go for that. For non-Roman alphabets, my inclination would go for the full translation. For the Roman alphabet, it's more tricky... Bluap (talk) 04:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the full thread to VP. Please respond here. Oberiko (talk) 11:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there a convention on trademarked product names?

For example, Frisbee redirect to Flying disc, the former being the common but trademarked name; but Moka pot redirects to Moka Express, where the latter is trademarked and arguably more common. Seems that the non-trademarked name should be used when there is one but I couldn't find a rule for that.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The article isn't clear about where the word "Moka" comes from. Is it simply derived from the brand, as with "Xerox machine"? If so, it should be changed to a truly generic phrase like photocopier. If "Moka pot" is a term that existed prior to the "Moka Express", then yes, change it. Ham Pastrami (talk) 04:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
It isn't clear to me either, I haven't found anything to suggest that there was a coffee pot called a moka or a moka pot before the Moka Express - nor that there was a pot called something else and the term moka pot is not a term that Bialetti uses to describe their product. The only dictionary reference to the word I can find is in an online Italian dictionary, here. I can't read Italian, and it doesn't give an etymology, so I don't know that it would matter. After all, Frisbee is in Webster's, that doesn't stop it from being trademarked.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Lists of Breeds

It has come up on several agriculture article talk pages from time to time, as well as at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Agriculture, that the name "List of breeds of x" or "List of x breeds" (where "x" is a species of domestic animal) is cumbersome. A better naming convention would be "Breeds of x" or "X breeds". Any thoughts on this?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

An example of the one that I'm aware of that has implemented this is Guinea_pig_breed which is written more like an article than a list (partly because there aren't that many breeds). This could be a model for the other species, though with only the lead for each breed.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
There is further discussion on this topic at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Agriculture#Breed_lists and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Agriculture#More_about_Breed_Lists.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. One additional advantage of removing the word "list" from the title is being able to add additional content, particularly if the individual breed in question doesn't have much related content. John Carter (talk) 16:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
So, should the articles be named in the style Breeds of goats or Goat breeds.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Policy "of" the United States or Policy "in" the United States

Question- I'm looking at all of the US policy articles (Fiscal policy in the United States, Energy policy in the United States, United States trade policy, Monetary policy of the United States), and I'm planning on making a template for them all and at least one more article I plan on making (Agricultural policy). What is the naming convention for these types of articles? Should I make them consistent or leave them as they are? johnpseudo 17:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Philippine radio stations naming

I removed the Phillipines section [4] because it appears to be an action from a WP:SOCK sockpupeteer to override this policy, including naming one of his socks as authority on the naming convention [5]. For more information, see Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Pinoybandwagon --Enric Naval (talk) 14:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Which rules to use?

Which rules do we use for the name of an ethnic group , like that of Assyrian people? I found Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Widely_accepted_name helpful, but it says this method is used for geographical identification. Can we use those rules for the proper naming of an ethnic group? Chaldean (talk) 15:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Araw ng Kagitingan

How about the Araw ng Kagitingan article, in view of the WP:MOS#Foreign terms style guideline? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 07:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It's sometimes called "Day of Valor" (see Public holidays in the Philippines). Officially, it's "Araw ng Kagitingan - (Bataaan and Corregidor Day)" (see this). For a partial list of english-language Philippine newspapers, see this. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposed naming convention for articles about individual mills

I've been advised to come here for advice. I'm trying to create a WikiProject for Mills, and want to establish a format for article names. With many mills sharing the same name, I'd prefer the style of the title to be [Mill Name, Location], thus Beacon Mill, Benenden and not St. Martin's Mill, which I originally named as St. Martin's Windmill, Canterbury. What do other editors think about this proposal? Mjroots (talk) 12:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Which one?

Which one of these pages is titled correctly (if either)? : List of minor Foundation universe characters and List of minor Foundation-universe planets? —ScouterSig 04:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say the former. Plrk (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Building names

I'm trying to find a guideline on how to name buildings. Current usage (at least when it comes to cathedrals) is a bit confused:

Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 17:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

What we have (not really much) is at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (architecture).
Always possible to revive that page (replace {{historical}} on top of that page by {{proposal}} when you start).
That page is still linked from Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Proposed guidelines and guidelines under construction. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)