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The following threads were originally at WT:Naming convention draft.
Choosing between "most common" and "Self-identity"... Dispite what I have said on other talk pages, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should not favor one over the other. There are good rationals for both methods, and both are valid ways to name an article. When there is a conflict, such determinations are best left to the consensus of editors. Blueboar ( talk) 15:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
(from #Common names, re crystal balling) However common sense can be applied – if an organization changes its name, it is often reasonable to assume that sources will be switching to the new name. It is not necessary to give weight to sources which are known to be out of date.
(from #Common names, last para) When there is no common English name, use the official name (as defined in a legal context, for example, such as a national constitution), or the name that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves. (For foreign terms, see the next section.)
(from #Precision and accuracy) A name is not considered inaccurate on the grounds that it differs from an "official" or "self-identifying" name (the name by which a person or group wishes to be known). However such names are often taken into account and used when there is no clear common name. Similarly, names which are considered offensive (as confirmed by reliable sources) are normally avoided if there is a good alternative.
Is the consensus that we directly edit the proposed wording and then discuss here, or discuss here first before editing the proposed wording? patsw ( talk) 14:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
I do think the Policy should list the various project specific naming conventions, but we can do so without going into any detail (ie leaving the details to the specific project pages)... perhaps something along the lines of:
Beyond these general naming conventions, there are naming conventions relating to specific topic areas. See:
Etc, etc,
Does this make sense to people
I removed this section for the moment, since I can see pointless conflict over its wording, when I still can't see why we need it at all. Can someone explain what they feel to be missing from the draft as is (without the additional section)? (We can - and the draft does - refer to WP:NCGN for matters that relate chiefly to place names.)-- Kotniski ( talk) 17:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the statement at the top of the draft says that the sections that are already in Wikipedia:Naming conventions that are not listed in this draft are assumed to remain unchanged; and these sections in the draft are sections to be added or modified. Is that correct? -- Kraftlos ( Talk | Contrib) 11:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
The above threads were originally at WT:Naming convention draft. The remainder are from WT:Naming conventions.
"Established systematic transliterations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred."
I think this clause should be removed. All spellings should be agreed upon by agreement of the community of English speakers to which the thing in question is relevant, and the spelling conventions of English, and not the spelling conventions of another language.
When we're talking about Chinese names, bear in mind that Chinese encompasses a wide variety of spoken languages or dialects of varying mutual (un)intelligibility. Hanyu Pinyin is a representation of spoken Mandarin, which is but one of the languages of the Sinitic family (Chinese). Hanyu Pinyin being systematic in itself is not a reason for its preferred usage. Other spoken languages or dialects of Chinese have their own established systematic representations as well.
Hanyu Pinyin and romanizations of other Sinitic languages follow different sound-letter correspondences from English spelling and may be quite difficult for English speakers to make out. Historically, English representations of Chinese loan words have tended to be close approximations of the sounds in the original dialect from which the word was borrowed.
Hanyu Pinyin romanization has been employed to conceal the historical significance of names of places, by removing the psychological link between referent and signifier. Take a look at Yishun. From the town's new name, you would never have guessed that its namesake was a man who went by the name of Nee Soon. Certainly, in this case, a rose by any other name isn't as sweet. In the event all the Chinese dialects were to disappear due to the dominance of Mandarin, words like "tea" and non-Mandarin names for people, places and things would serve as a distant reminder of what once was.
On a related note, there has been a proliferation of non-English scripts in articles, where they serve no purpose of clarification as to the entity involved.
Lychee is a good example. I think steps should be taken to limit the use of foreign language scripts to when they are absolutely necessary. What do you think the conditions for allowing foreign language text should be?
Nameless123456 (
talk) 08:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
When you cut the verbage, naming articles comes down to consensus... We name articles by what the consensus of editors working on the article choose to name it. There are many factors that we should consider when reaching that consensus, including (but not limited to): Is a potential name recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, consistent, etc.? Does the article topic fall into a topic area where there is a pre-existing consensus on naming? Is there a name for the topic that a preponderance of reliable sources use? If the topic is about a person or group of people, what does the subject call himself/herself/itself? What name would readers expect to find the topic under? Could a potential name for the topic be confused with some other topic (ie do we need to disambiguate)?
All of these factors need to be considered. In any specific article, however, one or more of these factors may end up carrying more "weight" than the others. Which factors carry more "weight" will be different from topic area to topic area and even from article to article. We need to accept this. Sometimes people will disagree when trying to reach a consensus on naming... in which case they need to seek third party opinions, argue the merits and flaws of one name over another, and attempt to reach a consensus. If they really can not agree... they can use the dispute resolution process. We should not write policy in an attempt to prevent disagreements... when we try to do this, we only end up creating new things to dissagree over. Blueboar ( talk) 15:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
The whole point of having policy and guidelines is to ensure "the big picture" is being given due consideration and weight at each point. It's the role filled by the Constitution and constitutional laws in the American system of justice. Even if consensus wants to outlaw the free speech of Nazi advocates in, say, New Hampshire, they can't pass a law against it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
And here's my basic point about consistency. I recognize that we value consistency in general. I think consistency is important. In fact, that's why we have naming policy and guidelines: so articles are named consistently.
A system in which everything was named by consensus would have no need for policy or guidelines. We would just see what the consensus is in each case, and go with that.
So, the very reason we even have the principles which we document in this policy is precisely in order to have consistency in naming in Wikipedia. In that sense consistency, in general, is fundamental to Wikipedia naming. We all want our titles to be consistently recognizable, easy to find, only as precise as necessary and concise.
But consistency defined as "similar articles should have similar titles" is something that is totally different. That calls for consistency not with these other principles, but with another name that is consistent with these principles, even if those principles don't apply to the topic in question.
In other words, there is top-down consistency (or principle-driven global consistency), and bottom-up consistency (or local consistency, if you will). Often the same name results regardless of which is being followed, or global consistency does not produce a single obvious name, but local consistency does and it does not conflict with the general principles of global consistency; but we should provide clear guidance for when they do conflict. And in those cases, the only way we can adhere to consistency consistently is by giving principle-driven global consistency preference over local consistency. That's not being authoritarian, it's being authoritative. To do otherwise is to contradict the very reason we have naming policy, guidelines and principles in the first place: consistency in naming. Yet that's exactly what saying "similar articles should have similar titles", without any qualification, does. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Of course anyone can invoke WP:IAR at any time, but unless consensus agrees to do that, what we say in offering guidance and suggestions does matter. That's why the guidance and suggestions we offer should be clear and non-contradictory. What's the point of offering guidance and suggestions if it all it does is provide fodder to rationalize all kinds of names that conflict with each other? That's just guaranteeing what we say will be ignored, because there will be no way to follow it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
The fact that there are certain inconsistencies is not disputed. But that's a far cry from essentially saying that there is no consistent following of any principles. The fact that there are some exceptions is fine too, and does not mean we can't say that there are principles that are usually and normally followed, principles like choosing the most commonly used name (when applicable), names that are recognizable, etc. But the fact that sometimes titles are chosen to be similar to titles of similar articles does not justify saying that "similar articles should have similar titles", which implies much more than actually occurs in practice. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Blueboar says, "we should not make rules that go against actual practice". The rule that editors should "prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.", unqualified, is not in actual practice. This unqualified wording incorrectly implies that in most cases "titles follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles". That's just incorrect. In contrast, note that it is not wrong that in most cases titles are names that are recognizable, concise, etc. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
As for evidence, do we need to go over Hesperian's 20 again? How many of those "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles"? The only ones I see are the reasonable Illinois Route 48 (reasonable because there is no single other obvious choice, and this is one of its reasonable names) and the unfortunate BL 4 inch Mk IX naval gun (unfortunate because it is not even a name but more of a description, and it has a name), unless you consider the argument that the reason articles about people tend to use the First Last "pattern" is not to match common usage, but to "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles" to be valid, which does not explain Cher. But even if you include the people articles as examples of "follow the same pattern" (which I'm not conceding) you have less than 50% of this random sample, which is no where near as widespread as what is implied by describing consistency as ""Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." in the same context as the truly widespread principles of recognizability (which applies to all but Pelargonium), concise (all but the gun), etc. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
What does "follow the same pattern" mean to you? What are some examples of "same patterns"? In Hesperian's list, which do you believe follow the "same pattern" as other similar articles, and for each what are those patterns and how would you characterize the group of "similar articles" in that case? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
It should be easy enough to refute what I'm saying, by identifying the pattern and applicable group of similar articles for each of the 20 in your list that you believe at least implicitly "follow the pattern of titles in similar articles", and by also providing a reasonable number of examples from that group where titles are what they are obviously to follow that pattern. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 14:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
This is an exaggeration, which is not helpful: even its poster acknowledged, in the same thread, two of them were placed -over clear alternatives- where they are, for consistency.
But even if we tone it down, it's still false; Hesperian himself listed over half of them as influenced by consistency (see immediately following the list), and he omitted consistency in capitalization.
This editor has convinced himself of a falsehood. He is, as often, beyond the reach of evidence; he makes reckless statements about policy which he has not made the slightest effort to check (for they can be disproven with only the slightest effort). Enough.
If someone else agrees with these fantasies, it will be worth discussing with that hypothetical third party. But unless there is a retraction, I am not wasting more time on this editor. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Is it possible to stop having this unending circular conversation? B2C, while I tend to sympathize with your views on naming in general, surely it's time to admit that consistency has been clearly shown to have a significant influence on the way we name articles? (I mean, Adolf Hitler is surely 100 times more often referred to as just Hitler, similarly Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare... yet we include the forenames in the titles... and that's just another piece of evidence to add to the mountain already collected.)-- Kotniski ( talk) 15:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
General Wikipedia Naming Conventions start from easy principles: the name of an article should be "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things". This boils down to the two central ideas in Wikipedia article naming:
- The name that is most generally recognisable
- The name that is unambiguous with the name of other articles
Several general and specific guidelines further specify that article names preferably:
- Do not have additional qualifiers (such as "King", "Saint", "Dr.", "(person)", "(ship)"), except when this is the simplest and most neutral way to deal with disambiguation
- Are in English
- Are not insulting
For people, this often leads to an article name in the following format:
<First name> <Last name> (examples: Albert Einstein, Margaret Thatcher)
Again, I'm not saying consistency does not belong in the list. I'm saying "Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." does not belong because it does not apply explicitly or implicitly to most articles, while all the other listed principles do apply at least implicitly to almost all article titles. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
<First name> <Last name> (examples: Albert Einstein, Margaret Thatcher)
As to whether that guideline is wrong, I agree it could be improved, but I think it's essentially correct. That is, the reason we end up with so many people articles at First Last is because in almost every such case that happens to be the most common name used to refer to the person in question, and it's not because we have a convention to specifically use First Last. This is made evident by the fact that in any case where the person is clearly not well known by First Last, we don't use First Last (e.g., Cher, C. S. Forester rather than Cecil Forester, TJ Cummings, O. J. Simpson, etc.).
One might argue that entries like Albert Einstein go beyond that, because Einstein alone is "far more commonly used", but I suggest that in most if not all such cases (of which there are probably only a few dozen at most which can even be argued to be best known by surname alone, so these are very special cases anyway) these people are so well known that they are just as well known by First Last as Last alone, so either is probably appropriate and First Last just seems more encyclopedic. That's the part that can be clarified on that page, but, again, that affects only a tiny number of articles. What it says is exactly correct for the vast majority of people articles, and it supports what I've been saying.
What we're saying on this page now is going way beyond that, and incorrectly implying that "Prefer[ing] titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles" is a principle that applies much more broadly (as broadly as the other principles listed) than it actually does.
In fact, the people convention page got it right. The top part of the lede I quoted above is a much more accurate account of general principles and how they are used in actual practice (for all articles in WP, not just people articles) than what we have stated here at WP:NC now, especially with the highly misleading wording currently explaining "consistency". The fact that I had nothing to do with writing that guideline (I didn't even know about), and yet it says essentially what I've been saying all along here, further supports my case. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
The five principles which NCP states are recognizability, unambiguity, no slurs, Englishness, and no unnecessary titles.
In order to argue that they decide between
Albert Einstein and
Einstein, Albert , one should do two things:
All B2C has done is argue that Einstein, Albert isn't the most common. That's not one of NCP's principles, and it doesn't always follow from recognizability - as B2C himself observed in protesting recognizability, which is why to have a section Use Common Name. Meither order is ambiguous, insulting, unEnglish; both equally omit needless words. Therefore, if Einstein, Albert is equivalently recognizable (and it is, or the Britannica and indices would avoid it) no logical implication exists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
An answer that might lead the way out of this bog is as follows:
Naming involves two distinct steps: choosing a name, and choosing how to render that name into an article title. "Albert Einstein" and "Einstein, Albert" are the same name rendered differently. Similarly, "Gone With The Wind", "Gone with the Wind", and "Gone with the wind" are the same name, rendered differently. We apply consistency when it comes to rendering names—title case, sentence case, First Last—but not when it comes to choosing names.
I am not endorsing this argument. I think it is impossible to draw a line between these two putative steps. However there may be something in this.
Hesperian 00:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Bit of a discussion going on at WT:WPPL#Streets in Warsaw, about to what extent street names should be translated if they don't have an established English name - has this ever been discussed before? Can anyone ccontribute?-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Why is it we're still having so much trouble finding a wording for this sentence (after Consistency - in the first section)? We've established that consistency in titles applies widely but not universally; I would have though we should just list it among the criteria for an ideal title and explain in a few words what we mean by it, not try to define when and to what extent it applies, because there's clearly no overall policy on that. That would make this point consistent (!) with the other bullet points preceding it.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, we do have consistency for the sake of consistency, but usually only when it doesn't conflict with the other fundamental principles. To address H's examples...
I can't speak for PBS, but I've never argued that consistency in general is not important. My issue is with "similar articles should be named similarly", which is a specific kind of consistency which, as far as I can tell, is followed usually (not always) only when doing so does not conflict with the other naming principles. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
See also Litter. Is that the noun or the verb? We can't know from the title in this case because the word is the same for both forms. But the article content is definitive on this point: "Litter is waste that ...". If there was a verb form of "litter" different from the noun form, it would be inconsistent with article content to use it as the title.
By the way, in the rare cases when the article content must be about the action for making it about the noun is awkward or doesn't make sense, the title follows suit. Or do you guys really think Ice skating should be at Ice skate? Too much. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Fine. I give up; the wording of titles has nothing to do with titles; things are concepts, concepts are actions, and everything is whatever Serge Issakov wants it to be. Cyclic Bore (what's his next user name, Camille Paglia?) has invented a whole new metaphysics to defend his otherwise unreasoned stylistic prejudices; there is no hope of communicating with him.
However, I continue to oppose rewording this page to suit his whims, and will join in reverting any of them that leak on to the page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
It's preposterous to point out the obvious? That Wikipedia articles are about things rather than the related actions (when there is a choice)? And that that would be the case regardless of how articles are titled, including if they were titled by random strings? The quite apparent fact that Wikipedia favors articles about things rather than actions has nothing to do with article naming in general, much less with making sure "similar articles have similar titles". To go back to your example, even if the name of Pollution was something utterly meaningless like XR290123A the topic would still be pollution rather than pollute. Since we use helpful/descriptive titles, the title simply reflects what the topic is. That's why it's Pollution rather than Pollute, not because "similar" articles like Contamination are not at Contaminate. I mean, the intro sentence for Pollution is "... is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability". That's why the title is Pollution rather than Pollute. It's not like that's the intro sentence rather than "is to introduce contaminants into an environment that causes instability" because of the title, it's the other way around. The article topic determines the title; the title does not determine the contents, including the intro. Moving Contamination to Contaminate would not be a basis to rename Pollution to Pollute; it would be a reason to move Contaminate back to Contamination (and not to be consistent with Pollution, but to be consistent with the content of the Contamination article). How is this even controversial, much less preposterous?
Anyway, even if it were true that the reason article titles tended to be nouns rather than verbs was to be consistent with all other articles (because their titles tend to be nouns), that would still not be because "similar articles should have similar titles" which refers to having (an unqualified) preference for similar titles among articles within some common category.
All I'm saying is that the undisputed fact that Wikipedia article titles tend to be nouns supports H's assertion that Wikipedia has consistency for the sake of consistency (which is why he first brought it up, above, and which I do not dispute), but does not support the assertion that "similar articles should have similar titles".
I can't believe you're even challenging me on such an obvious point, and, frankly, it makes me suspect that you tend to disagree with most things I say simply because it's me saying it. Let's focus on policy and the arguments, rather than who is making them, shall we? Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Hesperian, Zane Gray, and the drycleaners were your examples, not mine. That would be like me saying you and PMA just argued that Ice skating should be moved to Ice skate (which, for the record, you of course did not).
You still don't understand my point about Joshua trees. Oh well, this is not the appropriate place, except I'll say that when most people see, think, read, speak or write about "Joshua trees", they are not thinking about the technical definition of a species, and probably have no idea whether Joshua trees are a species, any more than most probably don't know whether Agave is technically a species. To them its merely a type of plant they know as "Joshua tree" (or "Agave").
Enough with the ad hominem arguments. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
The term "ice skate" is much more commonly used to refer to the thing you put on your foot when engaged in ice skating. And what on Earth caused you to say that I don't comprehend that actions have names too? Ice skating is the name of the action; the action is the topic, so Ice skating should be the title, not the noun Ice skate as you guys imply it should be when you argue that consistent use of nouns in titles is basis for "similar articles should have similar titles". Again, you're off on some bizarre semantic tangent, and not at all addressing my point.
I will concede that "Ice skating" is a bad example since it is a noun form, but that is no excuse for you to ignore the rest of what I said. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
The reason why we have John Dove and not Dove, John was because for years we had it covered with "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." It seem to me that we should put that wording back to explain why we use John Dove and not Dove, John.
The current wording "Consistent – Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." still does not address the issue of when reliable sources use one name and the pattern of names in Wikipeida are different and the pattern is not supported by reliable sources. Fore example "occupation of ... by Nazi Germany" or Military of the United Kingdom instead of British Armed Forces because other articles are named the same way. -- PBS ( talk) 15:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
For a very recent example of this, consider the argument made in this discussion about renaming articles with "car" in the title to use "automobile" instead of "car" for consistency:
It's done for uniformity. We had a discussion to retain the "automobile" name for the automobile article, so why have conflicting terms? Only in a few cases should the name "car" be used, which is "less formal" word. OSX (talk • contributions) 02:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Uniformity is good, but we must not (under Wikipedia conventions) create neologisms. Kit automobile strikes me as absolutely crazy. "Kit car" is the phrase, as evinced by the phrase used throughout the article. This one should be reverted. I'd agree with the above comments on "police car" too but that one may be a cultural (US/UK) difference. Kit car just isn't. Try Googling the two, for what little that's worth. The resounding absence of "kit automobile" makes the point. – Kieran T (talk) 03:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
To be accurate WP:NC should clearly state that consistency is a primary principle in naming, meaning that all articles should be named consistently with the naming principles (that's how we get consistency) - and uniformity is a second tier principle, which means we strive for uniformity in naming within a group of articles about related topics when doing so does not conflict with the primary principles., and is usually only applicable when an article title needs to be disambiguated due to a usage conflict with its most common name. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Since no further discussion seems ongoing on the WP:Naming convention draft (see #Merge above), which would merge the separate pages for common names, Use English, precision, and naming conflict into this one, I'm going to put the merged text on this page (but without changing any of the other pages yet). Let's see if we can live with the proposed merged version or if there's anything that needs changing; once that's settled, we can think about whether there's any continuing need for the other pages involved to exist separately.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
WP:NAME#Use common names says, "...the name chosen for an article, while in common use, should be neither vulgar nor pedantic..." I find this pretty opaque. Apparently it's referring to avoiding two extremes, but I'm not sure what they are. Can someone who understands this make the wording clearer (perhaps with examples)? Ntsimp ( talk) 16:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
So WP:MOSNUM#Unit symbols suggests that if a measurement is given in an article that it be separated from its units by a non-breaking space. On the other hand, articles on types of ammunition are named without a space: 9x19mm Parabellum, 5.7x28mm et cetera. Is this right, or should they be renamed to include a space? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:18, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
This edit removed a header that is still being linked to from this subsection: Wikipedia:Summary_style#Naming_conventions_for_subarticles. Kotniski et al., could you have a look and do the necessary? -- JN 466 12:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The move of Providence, Rhode Island → Providence has been proposed in order to -- get this -- be consistent with other related articles that refer to the city of Providence as just "Providence" (not "Providence, Rhode Island") in their titles. Of course, this proposal is going down hard, showing once again that consistency in naming is usually considered to be secondary importance relative to other naming principles.
Una Smith even explicitly argues, "Consistency is less important than many other guidelines here". It's not often that Una and I agree, but when she's right, what can I do?
This naming policy should clearly state what is obviously true in practice: Consistency in naming is less important than the primary naming principles used to guide naming in Wikipedia.
I opposed this move because the principle that primary topic needs to be established for an article to use a given name (another fundamental principle that we don't have listed) is much more important than the principle of consistency in naming for related articles. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I missed Una's comment because she made it after mine, but it begs the question, why is one "more consistent" than the other? Any guideline that gives as much indication about what to do as tossing a coin is not a guideline at all. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
One more spoon stirring the pot: there are two separate questions:
So Providence, Rhode Island is currently the correct name for the article about Providence, Rhode Island, and the possible courses of action are:
-- JHunterJ ( talk) 14:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Second, Sacramento, California is unnecessary disambiguation, Providence, Rhode Island is not. See the discussion below. Sacramento alone identifies the topic of that article, as is made evident by the fact that Sacramento redirects to it. Providence alone, however, may refer to any one of several uses of that name, none of which is primary, and so each must be disambiguated for its use, including the city in Rhode Island. This is the same basic algorithm that is followed consistently to name almost every article in Wikipedia except those that don't have obvious names (like List of ... articles, highways, etc). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 03:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm not proposing to change anything here. The point of discussing this and all the other examples here is to better understand what these principles mean and how they apply in various cases.
What this example illustrates is how interpreting "consistency" to mean similar articles should have similar titles, and to give it "equal billing", leads to titles like Sacramento, California that are (ironically) inconsistent with primary principles like concise, only as precise as necessary, common name, etc. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I suppose what I am wondering about is this... if consistency is so important, why do we have one set of conventions for cities in the US, and another set of conventions for cities elsewhere? Why not one set of conventions for all cities? What makes places in the US different from places in France or some other nation? This sounds like a perfect example of where we should merge and come up with one naming convention for all cities and places. (Personally I prefer the specificity of "Sacramento, California" and "Paris, France" to just "Sacramento" or "Paris".) Blueboar ( talk) 13:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I will admit that I have not been closely following the discussions here of late, but this discussion raises a point that I don't think we have amply considered and that is, the clarity of the title. A title like Providence, Rhode Island is clearer then Providence and would be more meaningful to more people, especially if they normally associate Providence with one of the other uses. While Yaoundé may be the primary use and the most common name, what does it mean to the casual reader? No cheating on this question, but do you know what Yaoundé is? Would we really hurt anything by expanding the title to make it clearer what this is? If we wanted to argue for constancy, we would choose the most restrictive of any naming convention and use that for all other topic articles. Vegaswikian ( talk) 02:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
If we start disambiguating titles beyond most common name solely for the purpose of conveying information to the casual reader about the topic beyond its name, we're opening Pandora's box. I mean, Yaoundé, Cameroon conveys more, but why stop there? Isn't Yaoundé, Cameroon, Africa even better, and Yaoundé, capital city of Cameroon, Africa better still? Where do you draw the line, and on what rational grounds? Use the most common name, and disambiguate only when necessary (when the common name is not unique or primary), draws a very clear line, on very simple and rational grounds. There is also something very clean, elegant and utilitarian about conveying the most common name used to refer to a topic, and the title is the ideal way to do that. Doing so also makes titles more predictable, which can be very helpful.
The case for Providence is different in that Providence has many notable meanings, and none of them, including the RI city, are primary. That's why it is necessary to disambiguate.
Besides, almost all references to articles are within a context that conveys, or should convey, other information to the reader about what the topic is, because most references, especially those that are relevant to the casual reader, are within the text of other articles. So there shouldn't be much if any value in conveying more information to the reader anyway - that's the purpose of the lead in each article. If you don't know what it is, look it up. If that's not fulfilling the main purpose of an encyclopedia, what is? Here, "look it up" of course merely means click on it.
Paraphrasing Jay Leno, if I may, "Have we really become so lazy that now clicking on a link to find out what some unfamiliar name means is too much work? No wonder we're so fat!" -- Born2cycle ( talk) 14:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
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. |
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The following threads were originally at WT:Naming convention draft.
Choosing between "most common" and "Self-identity"... Dispite what I have said on other talk pages, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should not favor one over the other. There are good rationals for both methods, and both are valid ways to name an article. When there is a conflict, such determinations are best left to the consensus of editors. Blueboar ( talk) 15:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
(from #Common names, re crystal balling) However common sense can be applied – if an organization changes its name, it is often reasonable to assume that sources will be switching to the new name. It is not necessary to give weight to sources which are known to be out of date.
(from #Common names, last para) When there is no common English name, use the official name (as defined in a legal context, for example, such as a national constitution), or the name that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves. (For foreign terms, see the next section.)
(from #Precision and accuracy) A name is not considered inaccurate on the grounds that it differs from an "official" or "self-identifying" name (the name by which a person or group wishes to be known). However such names are often taken into account and used when there is no clear common name. Similarly, names which are considered offensive (as confirmed by reliable sources) are normally avoided if there is a good alternative.
Is the consensus that we directly edit the proposed wording and then discuss here, or discuss here first before editing the proposed wording? patsw ( talk) 14:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
I do think the Policy should list the various project specific naming conventions, but we can do so without going into any detail (ie leaving the details to the specific project pages)... perhaps something along the lines of:
Beyond these general naming conventions, there are naming conventions relating to specific topic areas. See:
Etc, etc,
Does this make sense to people
I removed this section for the moment, since I can see pointless conflict over its wording, when I still can't see why we need it at all. Can someone explain what they feel to be missing from the draft as is (without the additional section)? (We can - and the draft does - refer to WP:NCGN for matters that relate chiefly to place names.)-- Kotniski ( talk) 17:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the statement at the top of the draft says that the sections that are already in Wikipedia:Naming conventions that are not listed in this draft are assumed to remain unchanged; and these sections in the draft are sections to be added or modified. Is that correct? -- Kraftlos ( Talk | Contrib) 11:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
The above threads were originally at WT:Naming convention draft. The remainder are from WT:Naming conventions.
"Established systematic transliterations, such as Hanyu Pinyin, are preferred."
I think this clause should be removed. All spellings should be agreed upon by agreement of the community of English speakers to which the thing in question is relevant, and the spelling conventions of English, and not the spelling conventions of another language.
When we're talking about Chinese names, bear in mind that Chinese encompasses a wide variety of spoken languages or dialects of varying mutual (un)intelligibility. Hanyu Pinyin is a representation of spoken Mandarin, which is but one of the languages of the Sinitic family (Chinese). Hanyu Pinyin being systematic in itself is not a reason for its preferred usage. Other spoken languages or dialects of Chinese have their own established systematic representations as well.
Hanyu Pinyin and romanizations of other Sinitic languages follow different sound-letter correspondences from English spelling and may be quite difficult for English speakers to make out. Historically, English representations of Chinese loan words have tended to be close approximations of the sounds in the original dialect from which the word was borrowed.
Hanyu Pinyin romanization has been employed to conceal the historical significance of names of places, by removing the psychological link between referent and signifier. Take a look at Yishun. From the town's new name, you would never have guessed that its namesake was a man who went by the name of Nee Soon. Certainly, in this case, a rose by any other name isn't as sweet. In the event all the Chinese dialects were to disappear due to the dominance of Mandarin, words like "tea" and non-Mandarin names for people, places and things would serve as a distant reminder of what once was.
On a related note, there has been a proliferation of non-English scripts in articles, where they serve no purpose of clarification as to the entity involved.
Lychee is a good example. I think steps should be taken to limit the use of foreign language scripts to when they are absolutely necessary. What do you think the conditions for allowing foreign language text should be?
Nameless123456 (
talk) 08:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
When you cut the verbage, naming articles comes down to consensus... We name articles by what the consensus of editors working on the article choose to name it. There are many factors that we should consider when reaching that consensus, including (but not limited to): Is a potential name recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, consistent, etc.? Does the article topic fall into a topic area where there is a pre-existing consensus on naming? Is there a name for the topic that a preponderance of reliable sources use? If the topic is about a person or group of people, what does the subject call himself/herself/itself? What name would readers expect to find the topic under? Could a potential name for the topic be confused with some other topic (ie do we need to disambiguate)?
All of these factors need to be considered. In any specific article, however, one or more of these factors may end up carrying more "weight" than the others. Which factors carry more "weight" will be different from topic area to topic area and even from article to article. We need to accept this. Sometimes people will disagree when trying to reach a consensus on naming... in which case they need to seek third party opinions, argue the merits and flaws of one name over another, and attempt to reach a consensus. If they really can not agree... they can use the dispute resolution process. We should not write policy in an attempt to prevent disagreements... when we try to do this, we only end up creating new things to dissagree over. Blueboar ( talk) 15:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
The whole point of having policy and guidelines is to ensure "the big picture" is being given due consideration and weight at each point. It's the role filled by the Constitution and constitutional laws in the American system of justice. Even if consensus wants to outlaw the free speech of Nazi advocates in, say, New Hampshire, they can't pass a law against it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
And here's my basic point about consistency. I recognize that we value consistency in general. I think consistency is important. In fact, that's why we have naming policy and guidelines: so articles are named consistently.
A system in which everything was named by consensus would have no need for policy or guidelines. We would just see what the consensus is in each case, and go with that.
So, the very reason we even have the principles which we document in this policy is precisely in order to have consistency in naming in Wikipedia. In that sense consistency, in general, is fundamental to Wikipedia naming. We all want our titles to be consistently recognizable, easy to find, only as precise as necessary and concise.
But consistency defined as "similar articles should have similar titles" is something that is totally different. That calls for consistency not with these other principles, but with another name that is consistent with these principles, even if those principles don't apply to the topic in question.
In other words, there is top-down consistency (or principle-driven global consistency), and bottom-up consistency (or local consistency, if you will). Often the same name results regardless of which is being followed, or global consistency does not produce a single obvious name, but local consistency does and it does not conflict with the general principles of global consistency; but we should provide clear guidance for when they do conflict. And in those cases, the only way we can adhere to consistency consistently is by giving principle-driven global consistency preference over local consistency. That's not being authoritarian, it's being authoritative. To do otherwise is to contradict the very reason we have naming policy, guidelines and principles in the first place: consistency in naming. Yet that's exactly what saying "similar articles should have similar titles", without any qualification, does. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 21:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Of course anyone can invoke WP:IAR at any time, but unless consensus agrees to do that, what we say in offering guidance and suggestions does matter. That's why the guidance and suggestions we offer should be clear and non-contradictory. What's the point of offering guidance and suggestions if it all it does is provide fodder to rationalize all kinds of names that conflict with each other? That's just guaranteeing what we say will be ignored, because there will be no way to follow it. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
The fact that there are certain inconsistencies is not disputed. But that's a far cry from essentially saying that there is no consistent following of any principles. The fact that there are some exceptions is fine too, and does not mean we can't say that there are principles that are usually and normally followed, principles like choosing the most commonly used name (when applicable), names that are recognizable, etc. But the fact that sometimes titles are chosen to be similar to titles of similar articles does not justify saying that "similar articles should have similar titles", which implies much more than actually occurs in practice. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Blueboar says, "we should not make rules that go against actual practice". The rule that editors should "prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles.", unqualified, is not in actual practice. This unqualified wording incorrectly implies that in most cases "titles follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles". That's just incorrect. In contrast, note that it is not wrong that in most cases titles are names that are recognizable, concise, etc. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
As for evidence, do we need to go over Hesperian's 20 again? How many of those "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles"? The only ones I see are the reasonable Illinois Route 48 (reasonable because there is no single other obvious choice, and this is one of its reasonable names) and the unfortunate BL 4 inch Mk IX naval gun (unfortunate because it is not even a name but more of a description, and it has a name), unless you consider the argument that the reason articles about people tend to use the First Last "pattern" is not to match common usage, but to "follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles" to be valid, which does not explain Cher. But even if you include the people articles as examples of "follow the same pattern" (which I'm not conceding) you have less than 50% of this random sample, which is no where near as widespread as what is implied by describing consistency as ""Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." in the same context as the truly widespread principles of recognizability (which applies to all but Pelargonium), concise (all but the gun), etc. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
What does "follow the same pattern" mean to you? What are some examples of "same patterns"? In Hesperian's list, which do you believe follow the "same pattern" as other similar articles, and for each what are those patterns and how would you characterize the group of "similar articles" in that case? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
It should be easy enough to refute what I'm saying, by identifying the pattern and applicable group of similar articles for each of the 20 in your list that you believe at least implicitly "follow the pattern of titles in similar articles", and by also providing a reasonable number of examples from that group where titles are what they are obviously to follow that pattern. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 14:56, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
This is an exaggeration, which is not helpful: even its poster acknowledged, in the same thread, two of them were placed -over clear alternatives- where they are, for consistency.
But even if we tone it down, it's still false; Hesperian himself listed over half of them as influenced by consistency (see immediately following the list), and he omitted consistency in capitalization.
This editor has convinced himself of a falsehood. He is, as often, beyond the reach of evidence; he makes reckless statements about policy which he has not made the slightest effort to check (for they can be disproven with only the slightest effort). Enough.
If someone else agrees with these fantasies, it will be worth discussing with that hypothetical third party. But unless there is a retraction, I am not wasting more time on this editor. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Is it possible to stop having this unending circular conversation? B2C, while I tend to sympathize with your views on naming in general, surely it's time to admit that consistency has been clearly shown to have a significant influence on the way we name articles? (I mean, Adolf Hitler is surely 100 times more often referred to as just Hitler, similarly Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare... yet we include the forenames in the titles... and that's just another piece of evidence to add to the mountain already collected.)-- Kotniski ( talk) 15:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
General Wikipedia Naming Conventions start from easy principles: the name of an article should be "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things". This boils down to the two central ideas in Wikipedia article naming:
- The name that is most generally recognisable
- The name that is unambiguous with the name of other articles
Several general and specific guidelines further specify that article names preferably:
- Do not have additional qualifiers (such as "King", "Saint", "Dr.", "(person)", "(ship)"), except when this is the simplest and most neutral way to deal with disambiguation
- Are in English
- Are not insulting
For people, this often leads to an article name in the following format:
<First name> <Last name> (examples: Albert Einstein, Margaret Thatcher)
Again, I'm not saying consistency does not belong in the list. I'm saying "Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." does not belong because it does not apply explicitly or implicitly to most articles, while all the other listed principles do apply at least implicitly to almost all article titles. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
<First name> <Last name> (examples: Albert Einstein, Margaret Thatcher)
As to whether that guideline is wrong, I agree it could be improved, but I think it's essentially correct. That is, the reason we end up with so many people articles at First Last is because in almost every such case that happens to be the most common name used to refer to the person in question, and it's not because we have a convention to specifically use First Last. This is made evident by the fact that in any case where the person is clearly not well known by First Last, we don't use First Last (e.g., Cher, C. S. Forester rather than Cecil Forester, TJ Cummings, O. J. Simpson, etc.).
One might argue that entries like Albert Einstein go beyond that, because Einstein alone is "far more commonly used", but I suggest that in most if not all such cases (of which there are probably only a few dozen at most which can even be argued to be best known by surname alone, so these are very special cases anyway) these people are so well known that they are just as well known by First Last as Last alone, so either is probably appropriate and First Last just seems more encyclopedic. That's the part that can be clarified on that page, but, again, that affects only a tiny number of articles. What it says is exactly correct for the vast majority of people articles, and it supports what I've been saying.
What we're saying on this page now is going way beyond that, and incorrectly implying that "Prefer[ing] titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles" is a principle that applies much more broadly (as broadly as the other principles listed) than it actually does.
In fact, the people convention page got it right. The top part of the lede I quoted above is a much more accurate account of general principles and how they are used in actual practice (for all articles in WP, not just people articles) than what we have stated here at WP:NC now, especially with the highly misleading wording currently explaining "consistency". The fact that I had nothing to do with writing that guideline (I didn't even know about), and yet it says essentially what I've been saying all along here, further supports my case. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
The five principles which NCP states are recognizability, unambiguity, no slurs, Englishness, and no unnecessary titles.
In order to argue that they decide between
Albert Einstein and
Einstein, Albert , one should do two things:
All B2C has done is argue that Einstein, Albert isn't the most common. That's not one of NCP's principles, and it doesn't always follow from recognizability - as B2C himself observed in protesting recognizability, which is why to have a section Use Common Name. Meither order is ambiguous, insulting, unEnglish; both equally omit needless words. Therefore, if Einstein, Albert is equivalently recognizable (and it is, or the Britannica and indices would avoid it) no logical implication exists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
An answer that might lead the way out of this bog is as follows:
Naming involves two distinct steps: choosing a name, and choosing how to render that name into an article title. "Albert Einstein" and "Einstein, Albert" are the same name rendered differently. Similarly, "Gone With The Wind", "Gone with the Wind", and "Gone with the wind" are the same name, rendered differently. We apply consistency when it comes to rendering names—title case, sentence case, First Last—but not when it comes to choosing names.
I am not endorsing this argument. I think it is impossible to draw a line between these two putative steps. However there may be something in this.
Hesperian 00:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Bit of a discussion going on at WT:WPPL#Streets in Warsaw, about to what extent street names should be translated if they don't have an established English name - has this ever been discussed before? Can anyone ccontribute?-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Why is it we're still having so much trouble finding a wording for this sentence (after Consistency - in the first section)? We've established that consistency in titles applies widely but not universally; I would have though we should just list it among the criteria for an ideal title and explain in a few words what we mean by it, not try to define when and to what extent it applies, because there's clearly no overall policy on that. That would make this point consistent (!) with the other bullet points preceding it.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, we do have consistency for the sake of consistency, but usually only when it doesn't conflict with the other fundamental principles. To address H's examples...
I can't speak for PBS, but I've never argued that consistency in general is not important. My issue is with "similar articles should be named similarly", which is a specific kind of consistency which, as far as I can tell, is followed usually (not always) only when doing so does not conflict with the other naming principles. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
See also Litter. Is that the noun or the verb? We can't know from the title in this case because the word is the same for both forms. But the article content is definitive on this point: "Litter is waste that ...". If there was a verb form of "litter" different from the noun form, it would be inconsistent with article content to use it as the title.
By the way, in the rare cases when the article content must be about the action for making it about the noun is awkward or doesn't make sense, the title follows suit. Or do you guys really think Ice skating should be at Ice skate? Too much. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Fine. I give up; the wording of titles has nothing to do with titles; things are concepts, concepts are actions, and everything is whatever Serge Issakov wants it to be. Cyclic Bore (what's his next user name, Camille Paglia?) has invented a whole new metaphysics to defend his otherwise unreasoned stylistic prejudices; there is no hope of communicating with him.
However, I continue to oppose rewording this page to suit his whims, and will join in reverting any of them that leak on to the page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
It's preposterous to point out the obvious? That Wikipedia articles are about things rather than the related actions (when there is a choice)? And that that would be the case regardless of how articles are titled, including if they were titled by random strings? The quite apparent fact that Wikipedia favors articles about things rather than actions has nothing to do with article naming in general, much less with making sure "similar articles have similar titles". To go back to your example, even if the name of Pollution was something utterly meaningless like XR290123A the topic would still be pollution rather than pollute. Since we use helpful/descriptive titles, the title simply reflects what the topic is. That's why it's Pollution rather than Pollute, not because "similar" articles like Contamination are not at Contaminate. I mean, the intro sentence for Pollution is "... is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability". That's why the title is Pollution rather than Pollute. It's not like that's the intro sentence rather than "is to introduce contaminants into an environment that causes instability" because of the title, it's the other way around. The article topic determines the title; the title does not determine the contents, including the intro. Moving Contamination to Contaminate would not be a basis to rename Pollution to Pollute; it would be a reason to move Contaminate back to Contamination (and not to be consistent with Pollution, but to be consistent with the content of the Contamination article). How is this even controversial, much less preposterous?
Anyway, even if it were true that the reason article titles tended to be nouns rather than verbs was to be consistent with all other articles (because their titles tend to be nouns), that would still not be because "similar articles should have similar titles" which refers to having (an unqualified) preference for similar titles among articles within some common category.
All I'm saying is that the undisputed fact that Wikipedia article titles tend to be nouns supports H's assertion that Wikipedia has consistency for the sake of consistency (which is why he first brought it up, above, and which I do not dispute), but does not support the assertion that "similar articles should have similar titles".
I can't believe you're even challenging me on such an obvious point, and, frankly, it makes me suspect that you tend to disagree with most things I say simply because it's me saying it. Let's focus on policy and the arguments, rather than who is making them, shall we? Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Hesperian, Zane Gray, and the drycleaners were your examples, not mine. That would be like me saying you and PMA just argued that Ice skating should be moved to Ice skate (which, for the record, you of course did not).
You still don't understand my point about Joshua trees. Oh well, this is not the appropriate place, except I'll say that when most people see, think, read, speak or write about "Joshua trees", they are not thinking about the technical definition of a species, and probably have no idea whether Joshua trees are a species, any more than most probably don't know whether Agave is technically a species. To them its merely a type of plant they know as "Joshua tree" (or "Agave").
Enough with the ad hominem arguments. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 02:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
The term "ice skate" is much more commonly used to refer to the thing you put on your foot when engaged in ice skating. And what on Earth caused you to say that I don't comprehend that actions have names too? Ice skating is the name of the action; the action is the topic, so Ice skating should be the title, not the noun Ice skate as you guys imply it should be when you argue that consistent use of nouns in titles is basis for "similar articles should have similar titles". Again, you're off on some bizarre semantic tangent, and not at all addressing my point.
I will concede that "Ice skating" is a bad example since it is a noun form, but that is no excuse for you to ignore the rest of what I said. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
The reason why we have John Dove and not Dove, John was because for years we had it covered with "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." It seem to me that we should put that wording back to explain why we use John Dove and not Dove, John.
The current wording "Consistent – Prefer titles that follow the same pattern as those of other similar articles." still does not address the issue of when reliable sources use one name and the pattern of names in Wikipeida are different and the pattern is not supported by reliable sources. Fore example "occupation of ... by Nazi Germany" or Military of the United Kingdom instead of British Armed Forces because other articles are named the same way. -- PBS ( talk) 15:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
For a very recent example of this, consider the argument made in this discussion about renaming articles with "car" in the title to use "automobile" instead of "car" for consistency:
It's done for uniformity. We had a discussion to retain the "automobile" name for the automobile article, so why have conflicting terms? Only in a few cases should the name "car" be used, which is "less formal" word. OSX (talk • contributions) 02:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Uniformity is good, but we must not (under Wikipedia conventions) create neologisms. Kit automobile strikes me as absolutely crazy. "Kit car" is the phrase, as evinced by the phrase used throughout the article. This one should be reverted. I'd agree with the above comments on "police car" too but that one may be a cultural (US/UK) difference. Kit car just isn't. Try Googling the two, for what little that's worth. The resounding absence of "kit automobile" makes the point. – Kieran T (talk) 03:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
To be accurate WP:NC should clearly state that consistency is a primary principle in naming, meaning that all articles should be named consistently with the naming principles (that's how we get consistency) - and uniformity is a second tier principle, which means we strive for uniformity in naming within a group of articles about related topics when doing so does not conflict with the primary principles., and is usually only applicable when an article title needs to be disambiguated due to a usage conflict with its most common name. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Since no further discussion seems ongoing on the WP:Naming convention draft (see #Merge above), which would merge the separate pages for common names, Use English, precision, and naming conflict into this one, I'm going to put the merged text on this page (but without changing any of the other pages yet). Let's see if we can live with the proposed merged version or if there's anything that needs changing; once that's settled, we can think about whether there's any continuing need for the other pages involved to exist separately.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
WP:NAME#Use common names says, "...the name chosen for an article, while in common use, should be neither vulgar nor pedantic..." I find this pretty opaque. Apparently it's referring to avoiding two extremes, but I'm not sure what they are. Can someone who understands this make the wording clearer (perhaps with examples)? Ntsimp ( talk) 16:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
So WP:MOSNUM#Unit symbols suggests that if a measurement is given in an article that it be separated from its units by a non-breaking space. On the other hand, articles on types of ammunition are named without a space: 9x19mm Parabellum, 5.7x28mm et cetera. Is this right, or should they be renamed to include a space? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:18, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
This edit removed a header that is still being linked to from this subsection: Wikipedia:Summary_style#Naming_conventions_for_subarticles. Kotniski et al., could you have a look and do the necessary? -- JN 466 12:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The move of Providence, Rhode Island → Providence has been proposed in order to -- get this -- be consistent with other related articles that refer to the city of Providence as just "Providence" (not "Providence, Rhode Island") in their titles. Of course, this proposal is going down hard, showing once again that consistency in naming is usually considered to be secondary importance relative to other naming principles.
Una Smith even explicitly argues, "Consistency is less important than many other guidelines here". It's not often that Una and I agree, but when she's right, what can I do?
This naming policy should clearly state what is obviously true in practice: Consistency in naming is less important than the primary naming principles used to guide naming in Wikipedia.
I opposed this move because the principle that primary topic needs to be established for an article to use a given name (another fundamental principle that we don't have listed) is much more important than the principle of consistency in naming for related articles. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:54, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I missed Una's comment because she made it after mine, but it begs the question, why is one "more consistent" than the other? Any guideline that gives as much indication about what to do as tossing a coin is not a guideline at all. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
One more spoon stirring the pot: there are two separate questions:
So Providence, Rhode Island is currently the correct name for the article about Providence, Rhode Island, and the possible courses of action are:
-- JHunterJ ( talk) 14:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Second, Sacramento, California is unnecessary disambiguation, Providence, Rhode Island is not. See the discussion below. Sacramento alone identifies the topic of that article, as is made evident by the fact that Sacramento redirects to it. Providence alone, however, may refer to any one of several uses of that name, none of which is primary, and so each must be disambiguated for its use, including the city in Rhode Island. This is the same basic algorithm that is followed consistently to name almost every article in Wikipedia except those that don't have obvious names (like List of ... articles, highways, etc). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 03:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm not proposing to change anything here. The point of discussing this and all the other examples here is to better understand what these principles mean and how they apply in various cases.
What this example illustrates is how interpreting "consistency" to mean similar articles should have similar titles, and to give it "equal billing", leads to titles like Sacramento, California that are (ironically) inconsistent with primary principles like concise, only as precise as necessary, common name, etc. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I suppose what I am wondering about is this... if consistency is so important, why do we have one set of conventions for cities in the US, and another set of conventions for cities elsewhere? Why not one set of conventions for all cities? What makes places in the US different from places in France or some other nation? This sounds like a perfect example of where we should merge and come up with one naming convention for all cities and places. (Personally I prefer the specificity of "Sacramento, California" and "Paris, France" to just "Sacramento" or "Paris".) Blueboar ( talk) 13:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I will admit that I have not been closely following the discussions here of late, but this discussion raises a point that I don't think we have amply considered and that is, the clarity of the title. A title like Providence, Rhode Island is clearer then Providence and would be more meaningful to more people, especially if they normally associate Providence with one of the other uses. While Yaoundé may be the primary use and the most common name, what does it mean to the casual reader? No cheating on this question, but do you know what Yaoundé is? Would we really hurt anything by expanding the title to make it clearer what this is? If we wanted to argue for constancy, we would choose the most restrictive of any naming convention and use that for all other topic articles. Vegaswikian ( talk) 02:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
If we start disambiguating titles beyond most common name solely for the purpose of conveying information to the casual reader about the topic beyond its name, we're opening Pandora's box. I mean, Yaoundé, Cameroon conveys more, but why stop there? Isn't Yaoundé, Cameroon, Africa even better, and Yaoundé, capital city of Cameroon, Africa better still? Where do you draw the line, and on what rational grounds? Use the most common name, and disambiguate only when necessary (when the common name is not unique or primary), draws a very clear line, on very simple and rational grounds. There is also something very clean, elegant and utilitarian about conveying the most common name used to refer to a topic, and the title is the ideal way to do that. Doing so also makes titles more predictable, which can be very helpful.
The case for Providence is different in that Providence has many notable meanings, and none of them, including the RI city, are primary. That's why it is necessary to disambiguate.
Besides, almost all references to articles are within a context that conveys, or should convey, other information to the reader about what the topic is, because most references, especially those that are relevant to the casual reader, are within the text of other articles. So there shouldn't be much if any value in conveying more information to the reader anyway - that's the purpose of the lead in each article. If you don't know what it is, look it up. If that's not fulfilling the main purpose of an encyclopedia, what is? Here, "look it up" of course merely means click on it.
Paraphrasing Jay Leno, if I may, "Have we really become so lazy that now clicking on a link to find out what some unfamiliar name means is too much work? No wonder we're so fat!" -- Born2cycle ( talk) 14:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)