I have read the page and what you have written seems to be correct with my relocations on what has been happening, but I have not compared your statements with those those on the AT talk page or the edits to AT so I can not verify any specific part of it. I will check any specific details of the statement if anyone makes a statement here contradicting anything you have written on User:Born2cycle/DearElen.
Although I can not speak for the motives of those who are opposing the return to the original wording that the majority of editors have expressed a preference for, it appears to me that Tony1 and Noetica are against this wording because it impairs Tony1's wish to have article names with more description in them than most people think is necessary (see Wikipedia talk:Article titles#hopelessly vague title). It might be worth mentioning this early in your statement for those who do not know why this sentence came under the microscope back in December. -- PBS ( talk) 20:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Your essay looks fine after a quick read. The only thing I would question off hand would be the numbers on each side (not that WP is a democracy anyway), because they've been fudged in the past (though of course that doesn't mean yours have been). — kwami ( talk) 22:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
To backup the 13, I listed the names and actual substantive statements made at WT:AT by each of the 13 people, except for me, all easily verifiable.
B2C, thanks for calling attention to my position for the need to take a look at WP:Title holistically. It needs all the support it can muster, even though you are on the fence about it. I think you have become a victim of your style combined with the intractable issues the so Babel we call our titling policy engenders. In this case it is the absolute lunacy that becomes associated with a criteria like Reconizability. First, its not a real word and if it were its literal meaning might be: The ability to be recognized. WP title have no abilities, they are words at the top of a page. Because titles can't have abilities, we transfer responsibility to recognize to the reader--of which there are millions from all cultures, backgrounds and education. Once we transfer responsibility, then we purport to know how millions of readers are going to react to any given title. I look at dozens of WP articles of all genre every day. I never fail to recognize the title, because its always in big, bold black letters at the top of the page. Recognizability and Naturalness are seriously flawed criteria related to WP article titles. They are essentially meaningless. And when you have meaningless ideas, where any interpretation of what they mean is thereby in itself meaningless, editors like you fall prey to them. Any WP title criteria that has created as much contentiousness as this has, is bad policy pure and simple. We have got to find a way to simply this titling policy and make it meaningful for anyone who reads it. It should be clear, concise and unequivocal. You know my stand on this: WP titles should faithfully represent the article contents. WP article titles should reflect common usage as supported by English language reliable sources. WP article title should be concise and unambiguous ++ some considerations for consistency via naming conventions and MOS. I made add more later as I am about to land and will lose Internet access shortly -- Mike Cline ( talk) 00:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
In contrast, real words like "ambiguous" can be problematic when the concept we're trying to convey is very specific, because its dictionary meaning might get conveyed instead of the specific meaning. In fact, that was the problem I was trying to address in an edit yesterday (see Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Clarifying_ambiguity). So, I don't think using jargon words (words that aren't really words, like "recognizability"), when we have a specific meaning to convey for which there is no term in standard English, is necessarily a problem, as long as we are clear about meaning. In fact, I suggest it's a good practice. So I don't see a choice but to reject any argument opposing the use of "recognizability" that is based entirely on the objection that "recognizability" is not a real word.
I think of recognizability as a quality or attribute of something, like resistance. So like resistance is the degree to which a material produces friction, recognizability is the degree to which a name achieves recognition with respect to referring to the topic of the article being titled. This concept is definitely a key consideration, with respect to those who are familiar with the topic, in deciding how to title our articles. It's probably the main reason we have such a strong predilection for using the most commonly used names of topics as our titles - for these are most likely to be recognized by our readers as referring to their respective topics.
But that doesn't mean there isn't another/better way to convey this. I don't think it's recognizability per se that has been the source of the problem in all this contention. It's the underlying idea that our titles should only reflect the name of the topic when reasonably possible (Noetica, et al think they should often be comprised of more than just the name even when the name is not ambiguous with any other use in WP, or the article's topic is primary for that name). That's the underlying issue. It just so happens that recognizabilty is one of those places that addresses this, and I tried to fix it because it was inadvertently broken in May, and, well, I think you know the rest of the story...
Hope you had a good landing! -- Born2cycle ( talk) 01:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I have read the page and what you have written seems to be correct with my relocations on what has been happening, but I have not compared your statements with those those on the AT talk page or the edits to AT so I can not verify any specific part of it. I will check any specific details of the statement if anyone makes a statement here contradicting anything you have written on User:Born2cycle/DearElen.
Although I can not speak for the motives of those who are opposing the return to the original wording that the majority of editors have expressed a preference for, it appears to me that Tony1 and Noetica are against this wording because it impairs Tony1's wish to have article names with more description in them than most people think is necessary (see Wikipedia talk:Article titles#hopelessly vague title). It might be worth mentioning this early in your statement for those who do not know why this sentence came under the microscope back in December. -- PBS ( talk) 20:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Your essay looks fine after a quick read. The only thing I would question off hand would be the numbers on each side (not that WP is a democracy anyway), because they've been fudged in the past (though of course that doesn't mean yours have been). — kwami ( talk) 22:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
To backup the 13, I listed the names and actual substantive statements made at WT:AT by each of the 13 people, except for me, all easily verifiable.
B2C, thanks for calling attention to my position for the need to take a look at WP:Title holistically. It needs all the support it can muster, even though you are on the fence about it. I think you have become a victim of your style combined with the intractable issues the so Babel we call our titling policy engenders. In this case it is the absolute lunacy that becomes associated with a criteria like Reconizability. First, its not a real word and if it were its literal meaning might be: The ability to be recognized. WP title have no abilities, they are words at the top of a page. Because titles can't have abilities, we transfer responsibility to recognize to the reader--of which there are millions from all cultures, backgrounds and education. Once we transfer responsibility, then we purport to know how millions of readers are going to react to any given title. I look at dozens of WP articles of all genre every day. I never fail to recognize the title, because its always in big, bold black letters at the top of the page. Recognizability and Naturalness are seriously flawed criteria related to WP article titles. They are essentially meaningless. And when you have meaningless ideas, where any interpretation of what they mean is thereby in itself meaningless, editors like you fall prey to them. Any WP title criteria that has created as much contentiousness as this has, is bad policy pure and simple. We have got to find a way to simply this titling policy and make it meaningful for anyone who reads it. It should be clear, concise and unequivocal. You know my stand on this: WP titles should faithfully represent the article contents. WP article titles should reflect common usage as supported by English language reliable sources. WP article title should be concise and unambiguous ++ some considerations for consistency via naming conventions and MOS. I made add more later as I am about to land and will lose Internet access shortly -- Mike Cline ( talk) 00:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
In contrast, real words like "ambiguous" can be problematic when the concept we're trying to convey is very specific, because its dictionary meaning might get conveyed instead of the specific meaning. In fact, that was the problem I was trying to address in an edit yesterday (see Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Clarifying_ambiguity). So, I don't think using jargon words (words that aren't really words, like "recognizability"), when we have a specific meaning to convey for which there is no term in standard English, is necessarily a problem, as long as we are clear about meaning. In fact, I suggest it's a good practice. So I don't see a choice but to reject any argument opposing the use of "recognizability" that is based entirely on the objection that "recognizability" is not a real word.
I think of recognizability as a quality or attribute of something, like resistance. So like resistance is the degree to which a material produces friction, recognizability is the degree to which a name achieves recognition with respect to referring to the topic of the article being titled. This concept is definitely a key consideration, with respect to those who are familiar with the topic, in deciding how to title our articles. It's probably the main reason we have such a strong predilection for using the most commonly used names of topics as our titles - for these are most likely to be recognized by our readers as referring to their respective topics.
But that doesn't mean there isn't another/better way to convey this. I don't think it's recognizability per se that has been the source of the problem in all this contention. It's the underlying idea that our titles should only reflect the name of the topic when reasonably possible (Noetica, et al think they should often be comprised of more than just the name even when the name is not ambiguous with any other use in WP, or the article's topic is primary for that name). That's the underlying issue. It just so happens that recognizabilty is one of those places that addresses this, and I tried to fix it because it was inadvertently broken in May, and, well, I think you know the rest of the story...
Hope you had a good landing! -- Born2cycle ( talk) 01:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)