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I think "How to rename a page" should stay were it is. People come to this page to see what sort of name to give an article, and I think that:
should appear clearly at the start of the article.
The simplest way to keep instructions on "How to rename a page" easily accessible for editors not familiar with this page is to place the information in the TOC near the top. Equally if it is in a section near the top, it does not clutter up the lead with what can be non important information if an editor has come to this page because they want to find out how to name a page, not to rename one. -- PBS ( talk) 10:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
From the history of the article:
user:M you made this change which reduced the size of the convention from (49,601 bytes) to (47,145 bytes). I agree with Cygnis insignis please explain the changes you have made here, not so much the re-arrangement, but any deletions or additions that you have made. -- PBS ( talk) 11:26, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
The only deletion and addition was of the flora and fauna section. The flora and fauna guidelines are highly redundant - I merged these as per WP:PG, and moved the lead there. It seems that the only potential reasons for undoing substantial work are "Revert changes made without discussion" (this is absolutely not a valid reason), 'you didn't finish it' (ok, finish it yourself instead of reverting), a 'widowing' of discussion (which is incorrect), and unverified suspicions that something was removed (see diffs). I'll be continuing my cleanup - for now, I'll replace the lead into this policy, but if nobody can provide good reasons not to merge those two pages, I'll do that again. M 19:47, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
<-- I have reverted to the version by user:M
I have looked through the changes that user:M has made as of this edit and AFAICT they are acceptable. But before they are implemented I would like to see if there are any objections to them. user:M this is a project page, and before major changes are made you should check that the changes have consensus. Before you make any more changes please allow people to catch up with your proposed changes and agree to them. Now that flora and forna are back as they were, have you made any other changes to the page, other than reordering things? -- PBS ( talk) 21:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
From my talk page
There is disagreement and you are making very big changes. Now you may only be rearanging the deck chairs, or you may be doing other things. One think is for sure, messing with flora was a mistake. Because the diffs are very large it is difficult to see what you have done, hence my question to you. As two editor reverted your edits, you have been asked some specific questions on this page, which you have stated has not made any other differences, but you are not allowing time for other editors to review what you have already done, before piling on other changes. As such you are editing without a consensus for the change and you have not discussed the changes you want to make other than in the most general terms, before making them. So before you make any more changes make sure to answer the questions put to you and wait to give others a chance to review what you have done already. In principle I am not against the page being tided up, but as can be seen in the next section you are now suggesting major changes to the core of the policy and that is another ball game. -- PBS ( talk) 21:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I think there is much to be gained by taking a new look at the flora and fauna guidelines, and I don't rule out a universe in which they can be combined. Nevertheless, debate, especially on the flora side, but also to some extent with fauna, has been highly polarized. M, the one thing you have accomplished is to unite the two sides of the debate against you, because none of us want to see the tenuously-balanced Malus domestica cart upset. I assume that is not your goal. I think it would be highly worthwhile for you to familiarize yourself with the debate, and with the players, because at this point any successful revision will be 80% politics and 20% new ideas.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 21:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Another point user:M you are removing lots of section headers, have you checked to see if any redirects or guidelines have links to those section headers that you are deleting? -- PBS ( talk) 22:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
As I've said already, the first two sections ("Use the most easily recognized name" and "Use common names...") effectively duplicate each other, and ought to be combined into one. This is my proposal for doing so: draft diff. It isn't intended to change anything materially, just simplify and eliminate duplicated wording (all the stuff about disambiguation, for example, is dealt with in the section immediately following, so doesn't need to be repeated here). The only real "change" of substance is my suggestion to add "largely" in the sentence "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what reliable sources call the subject"; this takes account of the facts that (a) at present the section on common names doesn't mention reliable sources; (b) in practice, unrestricted Google searches are not entirely discounted in naming discussions.
Thoughts please.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm hesitant about the merge... here's why. Referring to the same reliable sources for determining how well recognized a name for the general reader is, or how commonly used it is, as we use to establish basis for article content makes no sense. That "clarification" was added within the last year or so. I think it should be removed, and merging these two sections might make that more difficult.
For example, a peer-reviewed academic source is great for citing article content, even if it is virtually unknown to the general public. However, the names such a work uses to refer to subjects is not helpful to us in terms of determining recognizability for the general reader, especially if usage in it conflicts with usage that is more accessible and probably more accurately reflects usage among the general audience (like popular magazines, newspapers, and, yes, even blogs). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Kotniski I have reverted your changes. At the moment the discussions on in this section has not reached a conclusion. You write "What do you mean? These "rationale and specifics" lines (including that one) are in the policy already." yes they are but the explain common name section they do not explain "Use the most easily recognized name" which is self contained and there is no possibility of someone misunderstanding and saying "But the guideline linked in the line "Rationale and specifics" says, and arguing that the wording of the guideline means that the policy is being misunderstood. -- PBS ( talk) 11:21, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I could live with the merging of the two sections if (as I said above we either include a specific line which notes that policy takes precedence over the naming convention guidelines, or we rename this page. I know that user:Hesperian would almost certainly object to the line in the policy to make the relationship between policy and guidelines clear, because he has his own position to uphold at WP:NC (flora), so perhaps we should look again at renaming this article. -- PBS ( talk) 11:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I have added the tag because—as far as I can see—the entire page needs a language overhaul. Wherever I look, there is something to query, something that makes it hard to understand; yet editors deserve to be able to understand this policy as easily as possible.
For example, I glanced at a recent edit, of "Overview". There's a significant problem of logic:
This page sets out Wikipedia's policy on how to name articles. It is supplemented by naming guidelines. Where a naming guideline appears to conflict with this policy, the policy takes precedence (see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines).
Now, surely a guideline must do more than appear to conflict with the policy for there to be something to resolve; otherwise, it's a matter of internal resolution within the guideline. It needs to be reworded thus: "Where a naming guideline conflicts with this policy,...", surely? Tony (talk) 14:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Kotniski that the location of the advice on remaning articles was unsatisfactory.
Philip Baird Shearer's justification (edit summary) for partially reinstating Anderson's attempt to downgrade the mention of MoS appears to be part of his objection to anything on the subject at MoS (see MoS talk page). The issue about "also" appears to be totally irrelevant. Please come up with a better reason here first. Tony (talk) 14:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I've copy-edited the opening, which was repetitive. Can I remind users that policy and style-guide pages need to get their point across in as little text as possible, and that the messages should aim to be plain, straight and simple.
This is not the case, for example, in these two prominent passages:
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 articles easy and second nature.
Newbie editors should not be flummoxed; whereas I am. What is a reasonable minimum of ambiguity? What is "reasonable"? Why, a newbie might ask, should there be ambiguity at all? Is it referring to the scenario where redirect pages are required? If so, can it be more explicit, and possibly provide a brief example? Why "easy and "second nature"?
Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.
This sentence is ambiguous; I read it the wrong way first. "Seeing" is rather loose ("determining"?): does it mean "how ... refer to the topic"? Tony (talk) 00:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I've recast the Use English section to remove all references to "native" - hopefully that will resolve the difficulty. About "with a (resonable) minimum of ambiguity", I would remove that phrase altogether (from the section it's in at the moment). It would belong under the "be precise when necessary" section - we don't want to keep repeating everything everywhere.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- Convention: Name pages in English unless a foreign form of the name is more recognizable by English-speaking readers.
Convention: Name pages in English unless a foreign form of a name is more recognizable to English-speaking readers.
It is the two words you have reverted that are wrong. Now, this blind reverting has to stop. If you object to a change, made by an experienced and skilled editor, not some fly-by newbie or vandal, then raise the matter here. Otherwise, people might think there are WP:OWNERSHIP problems on this page. Please self-revert. Tony (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Convention: Name pages in English unless a foreign form of the name has greater recognition by English-speaking readers.
Query: "The policy is supplemented and explained by the guidelines linked to this policy, which should be interpreted in conjunction with other policies, particularly the three core content policies: Verifiability, No original research and Neutral point of view." Perhaps I should be able to see it, but can someone explain why NOR is relevant to article naming?
Tony
(talk)
14:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
The following statement is currently in the Be precise when necessary section, which is supposed to apply to names of articles whose most common name is primary for some other topic:
A beneficial feature of Wikipedia is that, for the most part, the title of a given article declares the name most commonly used to refer to the topic of that article. If an article title is disambiguated with a disambiguator in parenthesis, that benefit is still achieved. However, if we use another less common name for the title in order to disambiguate, then the benefit is lost. Perhaps we could change the above to the following:
-- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:23, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME cannot contradict NC flora, because it explicitly says (at WP:UCN) to use the most common name, unless another naming convention indicates otherwise. Specific agreements that have obtained consensus supersede broad principles. - GTBacchus( talk) 12:32, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
This has been removed from the policy
There is now no mention of using common names in the policy. The convention (possibly modified) probably needs to be put back into the policy page. What do others think? -- PBS ( talk) 18:27, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
This policy page is starting to get very unstable. There are several competing long standing points of view that are not going to be resolved quickly.
I strongly suggest that we go back to the version as it has been for may months, and move the latest into Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Draft so that the interested parties (I include myself in that list) can find wording that we all can live with.
The version I suggest going back to is 17:09, 30 August 2009 With two additions:
-- PBS ( talk) 12:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I disagree that a sentence in policy gives anyone carte blache to do anything. That's because, per IAR, these policies are not laws, and I refuse to go along with a lawyerly interpretation of them as such. Editing words on policy pages does not change policy, but it might make the policy page more or less accurate. This is important to understand. - GTBacchus( talk) 12:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Should en dashes be spaced in titles? Specifically, see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox Bilateral relations. — RockMFR 00:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Let's deal with it here, please? Tony (talk) 01:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I mentioned this before but it got lost among with other issues. I don't see that "ease of searching and linking" needs to be one of the key principles (at least, not as it's currently articulated). Doesn't it just come down to the same as recognizability? Would anything be lost by leaving it out?-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
PMA, I know this is one of your pet peeves, but what exactly is the point in continually changing the wording to downgrade the significance of the Manual of Style as regards use of hyphens and dashes? Is there a case where the way we use hyphens/dashes in titles ought to differ from the way we use them in article text?-- Kotniski ( talk) 15:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
For the purposes of this page, all that matters is whether there is a situation where we would wish hyphen/dash use in a title to be different from the corresponding use in text. Personal prejudices aside, is there such a situation? If not, I don't see any problem in simply referring readers to the relevant MoS section to get the info on how dashes are used on WP. Referring them to other recommendations, however much some of us might personally wish those recommendations adopted, is just misleading.-- Kotniski ( talk) 16:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
- If dashes are used in page names, a redirect using hyphens must be provided (see also Manual of Style (dashes)).
There is a sixth basic requirement: Article names must be unique; this causes much of the problem with the others. This sequence of edits added it, and tightened the others, but no change of guidance is intended. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I really dislike the current nutshell as it stands:
I find it woolly and uninstructive: in almost the same way, the civility nutshell could be written by merely changing the first three words:
...but I find the current nutshell there much more informative on how editors should be civil.
I would like to see a brief survey of the general principles, along the lines of:
Suggestions and comments? Knepflerle ( talk) 13:22, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
How about
Hesperian 13:51, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
The common names section presently says both
"what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize—usually the most commonly used name in verifiable reliable sources in English."
and
"Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name primarily by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject."
These would be redundant to each other if they weren't subtly contradictory. As some of you know, I am too steeped in a long-standing dispute in this area, for me to be bold here. Does someone want to fix it, or shall we first thrash out what "fix" means here?
My own opinion, despite my having relied on the latter wording for many months, is that the former of these is more in the spirit of the convention. However I was not involved in the protracted disputes that resulted in the inclusion of the latter in the first place.
Hesperian 13:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Why not consult our article on Dash, which at least has sources and citations? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
I dispute that choosing a recognisable title is the "fundamental objective" of our naming conventions. As I have said many times, we have multiple priorities here, of which accessibility is just one. Others are consistency, precision, accuracy and neutrality. One only has to look at the broad sweep of specific conventions to see that many titles are a balancing act between two or more of these priorities. To claim accessibility trumps all as our "fundamental objective" is just ridiculous. The over-emphasis on accessibility was bad enough before; now it is worse. Hesperian 23:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
A while back, I drafted a re-write of this convention, which was aimed at recognising the many priorities involved in choosing a name; but I abandoned it after Septentrionalis convinced me that all of these priorities flow from the "by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." It is all very well to assess the various options in terms of consistency, precision, accuracy, neutrality, accessibility, and so on; but ultimately a decision has to be made, and there can be no better grounds for making that decision than to do whatever reliable sources do.
This being the case, the fundamental principle here is in fact "follow reliable sources". "Use a recognisable name" stems from that, as do the other priorities.
Unfortunately, recent changes to this policy have promoted "Use the most recognisable name" to the status of fundamental objective, and removed any mention of following reliable sources from the overview section. This is unacceptable.
Hesperian 23:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
These changes to policy should not be made without community-wide consensus. I have reverted this to the original wording too.
Xan
dar
23:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
The overview section still lacks any mention of following reliable sources. Hesperian 00:25, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
It seems we're again developing into a situation where we have two opening sections both trying to say the same thing, in different (and not necessarily consistent) words. Can we make up our minds - to what extent does "recognizable" mean "used in reliable sources", and to what extent does it just mean "used"? And to what extent (and for what reasons) do to we want to allow particular specialized naming conventions to override the general principle of using the most recognizable name? I don't believe the answer to either of these questions can be 0% or 100% - can someone find a manner of phrasing that accurately expresses the balance that applies in practice?-- Kotniski ( talk) 09:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I've again restored the original wording of "Generally" to the newly added "Fundamental principle" leading sentence, and taken out the contradictory and illogical "when a guideline appears to contradict policy" new sentence. The new wording would be moving towards a doctrinaire approach that would make the general principle of recognizable/common names into a rigid rule that would replace the currently stable and effective practices codified in the various Naming Convention sections and pages. This is "fixing" something that isn't broken, in a way that would cause significant disruption across the project. The naming convention pages have grown up for good reason - because many significant issues arise for which a one-size-fits-all approach to a naming rule doesn't work. Xan dar 10:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
The fact is that we have various naming conventions operating in various domains of article-space. I say this as someone who has closed thousands of move requests over several years. Where a particular WikiProject reaches a consensus on some particular naming convention, is is de facto the case that their naming convention supersedes the general principle of WP:COMMONNAME. Changing what it says on the policy page cannot change that; it can only make the policy page more or less accurate. These are not laws, this is not court, and editing policy is not some kind of word-magic that will force reality to comply.
If you want naming conventions to change, then go about convincing people about specific cases, and once you've done that, abstract the experience to a description of what happened. This is how it works, per WP:IAR, WP:PPP, and probably lots of other pages. - GTBacchus( talk) 11:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Re: "names used in reliable sources will tend to be recognizable because of that." Yes, and where a more recognizable name is rejected by reliable sources, the principle of least surprise suggests we should reject it to. e.g. Kotniski's "shit" versus "feces" example. The principle of least surprise tells us to reject the more recognizable name in favor of the name preferred by reliable sources, because that is what our readers would expect us to do. Hesperian 13:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
It is not strictly true that "our policies are, historically and currently, descriptions of best practices, and not statutory law." because they are are part of a loop back system, whatever is said in a policy tends to be reflected in the naming and structure of articles. Hence the less a policy or guideline change the closer practice tends to be to that policy. Change a policy which is usually undertaken because of inherent conflicts within the wording of the polices and guidelines and it tends to ripple out through the talk pages of articles and hence into the content of articles. -- PBS ( talk) 12:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Ignore all rules takes itself seriously as policy, and per that policy, the other policies, in order to take themselves seriously in the same way, are not statutes, but descriptions. This is the radical notion at the heart of all Wikipedia policy. The page WP:PPP is a pretty good description of this notion. - GTBacchus( talk) 16:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
"Where a naming guideline appears to conflict with this policy, the policy takes precedence (see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines)." I don't understand what this sentence is trying to say. What does this policy say that a specific naming guideline would conflict with? Since the policy allows that specific guidelines are often adopted for the purpose of consistency, how is a contradiction possible.
In other words, policy says that specific agreements exist and hold sway, so how do these specific agreements contradict policy? Can someone provide an example of a situation that this sentence addresses? - GTBacchus( talk) 16:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm astonished that anyone would question the need for reliable sources for article names. I'm not talking about the issues over what constitutes a reliable source for an individual article, but rather the general principle.
Certainly there are no discrete states, but I see three clear modes: reliable sources, unreliable sources, and original research. It's amusing to consider the second ("Wikipedia endorses unreliable sources—film at eleven"), but I don't see it ever gaining any traction. Some of the statements that others have made, I could construe to support original research, but I'm content to assume that's not what they meant. All that is left is reliable sources.
I'm not saying that a new article can't be created unless its name can be sourced. I'm not even suggesting {{ fact}}-tagging article names (I'm not even sure the software supports it). What I'm saying is that, in any disagreement over an article name, a reliable source should always trump original research or an unreliable source, and that, in any contest between sourced names, reliability must be one of the criteria.
Is that too much to ask?-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 16:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
It is in the policy now, so asking that we decide to include it... I think we've got you covered. I agree that it's fundamental (I personally added it to the policy this evening - did your fancy-dancy "find tool" reveal that? ;) ), and anyone disagreeing seems to have the short end. Do you think it should be more emphasized than it is now? - GTBacchus( talk) 21:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
As I understand Born2cycle's argument it is not that B2C disagrees with using reliable sources, it is more to do with the relative weighting between sources. It is quite often the case that experts in a field use a term which is only used by specialists in that field—the use of specalised language jargon/slang as a group identifier is itself a well studied academic topic in its own right—and in a specialist academic journal they may well use a term that non specialists could recognise easily, (we do it here with abbreviations like WP:RM, WP:V, NPOV etc).
If for some reason such a topic comes up in widely read newspaper, just one article in a popular newspaper using a different name is more likely to be the name known to more people than the name used in the specalised academic source with a small readership. For this reason B2C argues that widely read or broadcast sources, are more reliable for naming an article than academic journals — the reverse of what WP:SOURCES suggests.
Last year when added the rule about use the reliable sources to WP:NC, we could have written a separate set for WP:NC, and I considered this at the time and rejected it, because
So I came to the conclusion that although I could fully understand B2C's argument, I could not see a simple way to implement it and editorial maintenance would be considerable, so using the KISS principle linking to WP:SOURCES was the best solution, although I could see that following the reliable sources as defined in WP:V occasionally an article would end up at a name that was not the common name, in that case I would hope that a local consensus would form to WP:IAR when naming it. -- PBS ( talk) 09:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm wondering about the following issues:
Taking you second point yes precision works both ways we have discussed that before which is why I think that "reasonable" should be in front of "reasonable minimum of ambiguity,".
Taking your third point that is what is say now because the sections have been combined but if we go back to a previous wording:
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article (making the title unique when necessary as described in the following section and in the disambiguation guideline. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded.
I have repeatedly argued that the conventions were only contained in this policy document the rest are guidelines to the policy not conventions. -- PBS ( talk) 17:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree that "except whether other accepted naming conventions give a different indication, do this:" is a relic of the trumping model. We've moved away from that. It doesn't need to be rephrased. It needs to be removed. But the main problem there is that "Use the most recognised name" is still big-noting itself. Hesperian 23:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Kotinski, PBS is correct in that your concern (3), The "Use the most recognized name" section says "except where other Wikipedia naming conventions say otherwise", did not apply prior to your recent merge. Prior to the recent merge there was no mention of "except where other Wikipedia naming conventions say otherwise" in that section. As I said above, I believe this in and of itself is grounds for reverting that merge, unless that limitation is removed from the current version. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:48, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm totally confused now - you're all telling me that a phrase we have now wasn't there before, then quoting a passage that shows that it was there before. And you're all talking about merges when what happened in the end wasn't a merge, but a rewriting of two sections (the first one more so than the second). Perhaps we could stop looking at the history and look at what we have on the page now - what is illogical or inaccurate about it and therefore needs to be changed? In particular, what can we say about the actual order of precedence in which the various "rules" are applied? Do people accept GTB's statement that specific conventions tend to take precedence over more general ones?-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:27, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I have again restored the important passage that Kotniski is so desperate to remove from this policy without consensus.
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article...
It is important and quite clear - even though it interferes with some people's intentions for the Wikpedia:Naming conflict and other pages. Such a major policy change requires community wide consensus. Xan dar 11:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
At the moment this conversation is yet converging on an agreed solution. In the mean time people are editing in and out their preferred wording. I have resisted joining into that process, but as my comments should have made clear I am not at all happy with some of them. So I think it is better that we go back to an earlier version which reflects the consensus as it has been for many months with all the ambiguity that it has.
I have placed the latest changes to the text into Tony's Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Draft policy rewrite and reverted the page as I suggested above. 17:09, 30 August 2009 With two additions:
I hope that is a reasonable compromise as we attempt to reach a consensus on a new version. To begin with I suggest that we copy this section to another talk page and continue the conversation there (perhapse Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Draft policy rewrite/Talk but some one else who is more familiar with such things may be able to suggest a better name).
The editing and conversations over the last few days have shown that at least among the few editors who have been editing here that there are great tensions over the best way forward and I hope that with good will we can come up with wording that will satisfy everyone. But I would ask people to refrain from editing the Policy Page until we have a consensus for a clear change. And I suggest that we salami slice the problem as it will make it easier to reach a consensus. For example I think that the change Tony made to the lead paragraph should be reinstated into policy. That could be done if no one objects to the change. We can then move onto other areas and see if there is consensus. -- PBS ( talk) 11:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
How can mention of "common name" be worked into the Draft version of General principles? -- PBS ( talk) 12:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
PBS, hi! This conversation moves fast, so I may have missed it, but I still haven't seen an example of what the hell the contentious sentence is actually about. Can anyone tell me about a specific article whose title would change depending on whether that sentence is considered to be "in effect"? Please? - GTBacchus( talk) 15:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I note that you still fail to provide any practical upshot of this sentence that seems so important to you. Is this because you are unable, or because you are ignoring the question, or is it something else? - GTBacchus( talk) 20:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
The idea that you're not edit warring if your reverts resemble the past is asinine. Reverting anything repeatedly is edit warring even if consensus is on your side, which in this case is not at all clear. In an edit war, both sides are edit warring. This is trivial stuff; where have you been, man?
The stupid anxiety that you ask about comes from people believing in the stupid superstition that editing these pages is a form of stupid word-magic that changes reality. It's cancer if you say it, and it's cancer if anyone else says it. If you think I'm just picking on you, then you're not paying attention. I've made this same point tonight to a half-dozen different people. - GTBacchus( talk) 21:06, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Dude, if you don't want the general convention to be able to overrule specific conventions, you've already won. That is, we've already won. The general convention has been largely rewritten over the last few days. Before, it was a set of rules that the specific conventions must conform to or be damned. Now it is a set of principles that the specific conventions embody. This means far more freedom and flexibility for the specific conventions.
So you're actually bidding against yourself by continually reinstating that sentence. By removing it, we are demoting "use the most easily recognized name" from a rule that cannot be broken by a specific convention without good reason, to merely one of several principles that the specific conventions should take into account. In restoring it, you strengthen that clause, making it more binding on specific conventions, not less. I know that sounds odd; please, think upon it.
Hesperian 11:20, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I have made this edit, because this is the naming conventions page (and policy) The others are guidelines to the policy. There is no point have a set of conventions which lay out the policy, and then having wording that will allow any guideline to completely contradict the policy page. I strongly suggest that we put back the wording based on WP:policies and guidelines that "Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are standards that all users should follow. Where a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, the policy takes precedence." -- PBS ( talk) 14:04, 10 September 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. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | → | Archive 20 |
I think "How to rename a page" should stay were it is. People come to this page to see what sort of name to give an article, and I think that:
should appear clearly at the start of the article.
The simplest way to keep instructions on "How to rename a page" easily accessible for editors not familiar with this page is to place the information in the TOC near the top. Equally if it is in a section near the top, it does not clutter up the lead with what can be non important information if an editor has come to this page because they want to find out how to name a page, not to rename one. -- PBS ( talk) 10:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
From the history of the article:
user:M you made this change which reduced the size of the convention from (49,601 bytes) to (47,145 bytes). I agree with Cygnis insignis please explain the changes you have made here, not so much the re-arrangement, but any deletions or additions that you have made. -- PBS ( talk) 11:26, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
The only deletion and addition was of the flora and fauna section. The flora and fauna guidelines are highly redundant - I merged these as per WP:PG, and moved the lead there. It seems that the only potential reasons for undoing substantial work are "Revert changes made without discussion" (this is absolutely not a valid reason), 'you didn't finish it' (ok, finish it yourself instead of reverting), a 'widowing' of discussion (which is incorrect), and unverified suspicions that something was removed (see diffs). I'll be continuing my cleanup - for now, I'll replace the lead into this policy, but if nobody can provide good reasons not to merge those two pages, I'll do that again. M 19:47, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
<-- I have reverted to the version by user:M
I have looked through the changes that user:M has made as of this edit and AFAICT they are acceptable. But before they are implemented I would like to see if there are any objections to them. user:M this is a project page, and before major changes are made you should check that the changes have consensus. Before you make any more changes please allow people to catch up with your proposed changes and agree to them. Now that flora and forna are back as they were, have you made any other changes to the page, other than reordering things? -- PBS ( talk) 21:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
From my talk page
There is disagreement and you are making very big changes. Now you may only be rearanging the deck chairs, or you may be doing other things. One think is for sure, messing with flora was a mistake. Because the diffs are very large it is difficult to see what you have done, hence my question to you. As two editor reverted your edits, you have been asked some specific questions on this page, which you have stated has not made any other differences, but you are not allowing time for other editors to review what you have already done, before piling on other changes. As such you are editing without a consensus for the change and you have not discussed the changes you want to make other than in the most general terms, before making them. So before you make any more changes make sure to answer the questions put to you and wait to give others a chance to review what you have done already. In principle I am not against the page being tided up, but as can be seen in the next section you are now suggesting major changes to the core of the policy and that is another ball game. -- PBS ( talk) 21:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I think there is much to be gained by taking a new look at the flora and fauna guidelines, and I don't rule out a universe in which they can be combined. Nevertheless, debate, especially on the flora side, but also to some extent with fauna, has been highly polarized. M, the one thing you have accomplished is to unite the two sides of the debate against you, because none of us want to see the tenuously-balanced Malus domestica cart upset. I assume that is not your goal. I think it would be highly worthwhile for you to familiarize yourself with the debate, and with the players, because at this point any successful revision will be 80% politics and 20% new ideas.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 21:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Another point user:M you are removing lots of section headers, have you checked to see if any redirects or guidelines have links to those section headers that you are deleting? -- PBS ( talk) 22:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
As I've said already, the first two sections ("Use the most easily recognized name" and "Use common names...") effectively duplicate each other, and ought to be combined into one. This is my proposal for doing so: draft diff. It isn't intended to change anything materially, just simplify and eliminate duplicated wording (all the stuff about disambiguation, for example, is dealt with in the section immediately following, so doesn't need to be repeated here). The only real "change" of substance is my suggestion to add "largely" in the sentence "Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what reliable sources call the subject"; this takes account of the facts that (a) at present the section on common names doesn't mention reliable sources; (b) in practice, unrestricted Google searches are not entirely discounted in naming discussions.
Thoughts please.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm hesitant about the merge... here's why. Referring to the same reliable sources for determining how well recognized a name for the general reader is, or how commonly used it is, as we use to establish basis for article content makes no sense. That "clarification" was added within the last year or so. I think it should be removed, and merging these two sections might make that more difficult.
For example, a peer-reviewed academic source is great for citing article content, even if it is virtually unknown to the general public. However, the names such a work uses to refer to subjects is not helpful to us in terms of determining recognizability for the general reader, especially if usage in it conflicts with usage that is more accessible and probably more accurately reflects usage among the general audience (like popular magazines, newspapers, and, yes, even blogs). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Kotniski I have reverted your changes. At the moment the discussions on in this section has not reached a conclusion. You write "What do you mean? These "rationale and specifics" lines (including that one) are in the policy already." yes they are but the explain common name section they do not explain "Use the most easily recognized name" which is self contained and there is no possibility of someone misunderstanding and saying "But the guideline linked in the line "Rationale and specifics" says, and arguing that the wording of the guideline means that the policy is being misunderstood. -- PBS ( talk) 11:21, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I could live with the merging of the two sections if (as I said above we either include a specific line which notes that policy takes precedence over the naming convention guidelines, or we rename this page. I know that user:Hesperian would almost certainly object to the line in the policy to make the relationship between policy and guidelines clear, because he has his own position to uphold at WP:NC (flora), so perhaps we should look again at renaming this article. -- PBS ( talk) 11:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I have added the tag because—as far as I can see—the entire page needs a language overhaul. Wherever I look, there is something to query, something that makes it hard to understand; yet editors deserve to be able to understand this policy as easily as possible.
For example, I glanced at a recent edit, of "Overview". There's a significant problem of logic:
This page sets out Wikipedia's policy on how to name articles. It is supplemented by naming guidelines. Where a naming guideline appears to conflict with this policy, the policy takes precedence (see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines).
Now, surely a guideline must do more than appear to conflict with the policy for there to be something to resolve; otherwise, it's a matter of internal resolution within the guideline. It needs to be reworded thus: "Where a naming guideline conflicts with this policy,...", surely? Tony (talk) 14:01, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Kotniski that the location of the advice on remaning articles was unsatisfactory.
Philip Baird Shearer's justification (edit summary) for partially reinstating Anderson's attempt to downgrade the mention of MoS appears to be part of his objection to anything on the subject at MoS (see MoS talk page). The issue about "also" appears to be totally irrelevant. Please come up with a better reason here first. Tony (talk) 14:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
I've copy-edited the opening, which was repetitive. Can I remind users that policy and style-guide pages need to get their point across in as little text as possible, and that the messages should aim to be plain, straight and simple.
This is not the case, for example, in these two prominent passages:
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 articles easy and second nature.
Newbie editors should not be flummoxed; whereas I am. What is a reasonable minimum of ambiguity? What is "reasonable"? Why, a newbie might ask, should there be ambiguity at all? Is it referring to the scenario where redirect pages are required? If so, can it be more explicit, and possibly provide a brief example? Why "easy and "second nature"?
Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject.
This sentence is ambiguous; I read it the wrong way first. "Seeing" is rather loose ("determining"?): does it mean "how ... refer to the topic"? Tony (talk) 00:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I've recast the Use English section to remove all references to "native" - hopefully that will resolve the difficulty. About "with a (resonable) minimum of ambiguity", I would remove that phrase altogether (from the section it's in at the moment). It would belong under the "be precise when necessary" section - we don't want to keep repeating everything everywhere.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
- Convention: Name pages in English unless a foreign form of the name is more recognizable by English-speaking readers.
Convention: Name pages in English unless a foreign form of a name is more recognizable to English-speaking readers.
It is the two words you have reverted that are wrong. Now, this blind reverting has to stop. If you object to a change, made by an experienced and skilled editor, not some fly-by newbie or vandal, then raise the matter here. Otherwise, people might think there are WP:OWNERSHIP problems on this page. Please self-revert. Tony (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Convention: Name pages in English unless a foreign form of the name has greater recognition by English-speaking readers.
Query: "The policy is supplemented and explained by the guidelines linked to this policy, which should be interpreted in conjunction with other policies, particularly the three core content policies: Verifiability, No original research and Neutral point of view." Perhaps I should be able to see it, but can someone explain why NOR is relevant to article naming?
Tony
(talk)
14:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
The following statement is currently in the Be precise when necessary section, which is supposed to apply to names of articles whose most common name is primary for some other topic:
A beneficial feature of Wikipedia is that, for the most part, the title of a given article declares the name most commonly used to refer to the topic of that article. If an article title is disambiguated with a disambiguator in parenthesis, that benefit is still achieved. However, if we use another less common name for the title in order to disambiguate, then the benefit is lost. Perhaps we could change the above to the following:
-- Born2cycle ( talk) 15:23, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME cannot contradict NC flora, because it explicitly says (at WP:UCN) to use the most common name, unless another naming convention indicates otherwise. Specific agreements that have obtained consensus supersede broad principles. - GTBacchus( talk) 12:32, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
This has been removed from the policy
There is now no mention of using common names in the policy. The convention (possibly modified) probably needs to be put back into the policy page. What do others think? -- PBS ( talk) 18:27, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
This policy page is starting to get very unstable. There are several competing long standing points of view that are not going to be resolved quickly.
I strongly suggest that we go back to the version as it has been for may months, and move the latest into Wikipedia:Naming conventions/Draft so that the interested parties (I include myself in that list) can find wording that we all can live with.
The version I suggest going back to is 17:09, 30 August 2009 With two additions:
-- PBS ( talk) 12:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I disagree that a sentence in policy gives anyone carte blache to do anything. That's because, per IAR, these policies are not laws, and I refuse to go along with a lawyerly interpretation of them as such. Editing words on policy pages does not change policy, but it might make the policy page more or less accurate. This is important to understand. - GTBacchus( talk) 12:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Should en dashes be spaced in titles? Specifically, see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox Bilateral relations. — RockMFR 00:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Let's deal with it here, please? Tony (talk) 01:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I mentioned this before but it got lost among with other issues. I don't see that "ease of searching and linking" needs to be one of the key principles (at least, not as it's currently articulated). Doesn't it just come down to the same as recognizability? Would anything be lost by leaving it out?-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
PMA, I know this is one of your pet peeves, but what exactly is the point in continually changing the wording to downgrade the significance of the Manual of Style as regards use of hyphens and dashes? Is there a case where the way we use hyphens/dashes in titles ought to differ from the way we use them in article text?-- Kotniski ( talk) 15:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
For the purposes of this page, all that matters is whether there is a situation where we would wish hyphen/dash use in a title to be different from the corresponding use in text. Personal prejudices aside, is there such a situation? If not, I don't see any problem in simply referring readers to the relevant MoS section to get the info on how dashes are used on WP. Referring them to other recommendations, however much some of us might personally wish those recommendations adopted, is just misleading.-- Kotniski ( talk) 16:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
- If dashes are used in page names, a redirect using hyphens must be provided (see also Manual of Style (dashes)).
There is a sixth basic requirement: Article names must be unique; this causes much of the problem with the others. This sequence of edits added it, and tightened the others, but no change of guidance is intended. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I really dislike the current nutshell as it stands:
I find it woolly and uninstructive: in almost the same way, the civility nutshell could be written by merely changing the first three words:
...but I find the current nutshell there much more informative on how editors should be civil.
I would like to see a brief survey of the general principles, along the lines of:
Suggestions and comments? Knepflerle ( talk) 13:22, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
How about
Hesperian 13:51, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
The common names section presently says both
"what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize—usually the most commonly used name in verifiable reliable sources in English."
and
"Wikipedia determines the recognizability of a name primarily by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject."
These would be redundant to each other if they weren't subtly contradictory. As some of you know, I am too steeped in a long-standing dispute in this area, for me to be bold here. Does someone want to fix it, or shall we first thrash out what "fix" means here?
My own opinion, despite my having relied on the latter wording for many months, is that the former of these is more in the spirit of the convention. However I was not involved in the protracted disputes that resulted in the inclusion of the latter in the first place.
Hesperian 13:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Why not consult our article on Dash, which at least has sources and citations? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
I dispute that choosing a recognisable title is the "fundamental objective" of our naming conventions. As I have said many times, we have multiple priorities here, of which accessibility is just one. Others are consistency, precision, accuracy and neutrality. One only has to look at the broad sweep of specific conventions to see that many titles are a balancing act between two or more of these priorities. To claim accessibility trumps all as our "fundamental objective" is just ridiculous. The over-emphasis on accessibility was bad enough before; now it is worse. Hesperian 23:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
A while back, I drafted a re-write of this convention, which was aimed at recognising the many priorities involved in choosing a name; but I abandoned it after Septentrionalis convinced me that all of these priorities flow from the "by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." It is all very well to assess the various options in terms of consistency, precision, accuracy, neutrality, accessibility, and so on; but ultimately a decision has to be made, and there can be no better grounds for making that decision than to do whatever reliable sources do.
This being the case, the fundamental principle here is in fact "follow reliable sources". "Use a recognisable name" stems from that, as do the other priorities.
Unfortunately, recent changes to this policy have promoted "Use the most recognisable name" to the status of fundamental objective, and removed any mention of following reliable sources from the overview section. This is unacceptable.
Hesperian 23:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
These changes to policy should not be made without community-wide consensus. I have reverted this to the original wording too.
Xan
dar
23:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
The overview section still lacks any mention of following reliable sources. Hesperian 00:25, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
It seems we're again developing into a situation where we have two opening sections both trying to say the same thing, in different (and not necessarily consistent) words. Can we make up our minds - to what extent does "recognizable" mean "used in reliable sources", and to what extent does it just mean "used"? And to what extent (and for what reasons) do to we want to allow particular specialized naming conventions to override the general principle of using the most recognizable name? I don't believe the answer to either of these questions can be 0% or 100% - can someone find a manner of phrasing that accurately expresses the balance that applies in practice?-- Kotniski ( talk) 09:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I've again restored the original wording of "Generally" to the newly added "Fundamental principle" leading sentence, and taken out the contradictory and illogical "when a guideline appears to contradict policy" new sentence. The new wording would be moving towards a doctrinaire approach that would make the general principle of recognizable/common names into a rigid rule that would replace the currently stable and effective practices codified in the various Naming Convention sections and pages. This is "fixing" something that isn't broken, in a way that would cause significant disruption across the project. The naming convention pages have grown up for good reason - because many significant issues arise for which a one-size-fits-all approach to a naming rule doesn't work. Xan dar 10:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
The fact is that we have various naming conventions operating in various domains of article-space. I say this as someone who has closed thousands of move requests over several years. Where a particular WikiProject reaches a consensus on some particular naming convention, is is de facto the case that their naming convention supersedes the general principle of WP:COMMONNAME. Changing what it says on the policy page cannot change that; it can only make the policy page more or less accurate. These are not laws, this is not court, and editing policy is not some kind of word-magic that will force reality to comply.
If you want naming conventions to change, then go about convincing people about specific cases, and once you've done that, abstract the experience to a description of what happened. This is how it works, per WP:IAR, WP:PPP, and probably lots of other pages. - GTBacchus( talk) 11:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Re: "names used in reliable sources will tend to be recognizable because of that." Yes, and where a more recognizable name is rejected by reliable sources, the principle of least surprise suggests we should reject it to. e.g. Kotniski's "shit" versus "feces" example. The principle of least surprise tells us to reject the more recognizable name in favor of the name preferred by reliable sources, because that is what our readers would expect us to do. Hesperian 13:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
It is not strictly true that "our policies are, historically and currently, descriptions of best practices, and not statutory law." because they are are part of a loop back system, whatever is said in a policy tends to be reflected in the naming and structure of articles. Hence the less a policy or guideline change the closer practice tends to be to that policy. Change a policy which is usually undertaken because of inherent conflicts within the wording of the polices and guidelines and it tends to ripple out through the talk pages of articles and hence into the content of articles. -- PBS ( talk) 12:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Ignore all rules takes itself seriously as policy, and per that policy, the other policies, in order to take themselves seriously in the same way, are not statutes, but descriptions. This is the radical notion at the heart of all Wikipedia policy. The page WP:PPP is a pretty good description of this notion. - GTBacchus( talk) 16:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
"Where a naming guideline appears to conflict with this policy, the policy takes precedence (see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines)." I don't understand what this sentence is trying to say. What does this policy say that a specific naming guideline would conflict with? Since the policy allows that specific guidelines are often adopted for the purpose of consistency, how is a contradiction possible.
In other words, policy says that specific agreements exist and hold sway, so how do these specific agreements contradict policy? Can someone provide an example of a situation that this sentence addresses? - GTBacchus( talk) 16:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm astonished that anyone would question the need for reliable sources for article names. I'm not talking about the issues over what constitutes a reliable source for an individual article, but rather the general principle.
Certainly there are no discrete states, but I see three clear modes: reliable sources, unreliable sources, and original research. It's amusing to consider the second ("Wikipedia endorses unreliable sources—film at eleven"), but I don't see it ever gaining any traction. Some of the statements that others have made, I could construe to support original research, but I'm content to assume that's not what they meant. All that is left is reliable sources.
I'm not saying that a new article can't be created unless its name can be sourced. I'm not even suggesting {{ fact}}-tagging article names (I'm not even sure the software supports it). What I'm saying is that, in any disagreement over an article name, a reliable source should always trump original research or an unreliable source, and that, in any contest between sourced names, reliability must be one of the criteria.
Is that too much to ask?-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 16:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
It is in the policy now, so asking that we decide to include it... I think we've got you covered. I agree that it's fundamental (I personally added it to the policy this evening - did your fancy-dancy "find tool" reveal that? ;) ), and anyone disagreeing seems to have the short end. Do you think it should be more emphasized than it is now? - GTBacchus( talk) 21:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
As I understand Born2cycle's argument it is not that B2C disagrees with using reliable sources, it is more to do with the relative weighting between sources. It is quite often the case that experts in a field use a term which is only used by specialists in that field—the use of specalised language jargon/slang as a group identifier is itself a well studied academic topic in its own right—and in a specialist academic journal they may well use a term that non specialists could recognise easily, (we do it here with abbreviations like WP:RM, WP:V, NPOV etc).
If for some reason such a topic comes up in widely read newspaper, just one article in a popular newspaper using a different name is more likely to be the name known to more people than the name used in the specalised academic source with a small readership. For this reason B2C argues that widely read or broadcast sources, are more reliable for naming an article than academic journals — the reverse of what WP:SOURCES suggests.
Last year when added the rule about use the reliable sources to WP:NC, we could have written a separate set for WP:NC, and I considered this at the time and rejected it, because
So I came to the conclusion that although I could fully understand B2C's argument, I could not see a simple way to implement it and editorial maintenance would be considerable, so using the KISS principle linking to WP:SOURCES was the best solution, although I could see that following the reliable sources as defined in WP:V occasionally an article would end up at a name that was not the common name, in that case I would hope that a local consensus would form to WP:IAR when naming it. -- PBS ( talk) 09:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm wondering about the following issues:
Taking you second point yes precision works both ways we have discussed that before which is why I think that "reasonable" should be in front of "reasonable minimum of ambiguity,".
Taking your third point that is what is say now because the sections have been combined but if we go back to a previous wording:
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article (making the title unique when necessary as described in the following section and in the disambiguation guideline. Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded.
I have repeatedly argued that the conventions were only contained in this policy document the rest are guidelines to the policy not conventions. -- PBS ( talk) 17:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree that "except whether other accepted naming conventions give a different indication, do this:" is a relic of the trumping model. We've moved away from that. It doesn't need to be rephrased. It needs to be removed. But the main problem there is that "Use the most recognised name" is still big-noting itself. Hesperian 23:39, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Kotinski, PBS is correct in that your concern (3), The "Use the most recognized name" section says "except where other Wikipedia naming conventions say otherwise", did not apply prior to your recent merge. Prior to the recent merge there was no mention of "except where other Wikipedia naming conventions say otherwise" in that section. As I said above, I believe this in and of itself is grounds for reverting that merge, unless that limitation is removed from the current version. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:48, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm totally confused now - you're all telling me that a phrase we have now wasn't there before, then quoting a passage that shows that it was there before. And you're all talking about merges when what happened in the end wasn't a merge, but a rewriting of two sections (the first one more so than the second). Perhaps we could stop looking at the history and look at what we have on the page now - what is illogical or inaccurate about it and therefore needs to be changed? In particular, what can we say about the actual order of precedence in which the various "rules" are applied? Do people accept GTB's statement that specific conventions tend to take precedence over more general ones?-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:27, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I have again restored the important passage that Kotniski is so desperate to remove from this policy without consensus.
Convention: Except where other accepted Wikipedia naming conventions give a different indication, title an article using the most common name of the person or thing that is the subject of the article...
It is important and quite clear - even though it interferes with some people's intentions for the Wikpedia:Naming conflict and other pages. Such a major policy change requires community wide consensus. Xan dar 11:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
At the moment this conversation is yet converging on an agreed solution. In the mean time people are editing in and out their preferred wording. I have resisted joining into that process, but as my comments should have made clear I am not at all happy with some of them. So I think it is better that we go back to an earlier version which reflects the consensus as it has been for many months with all the ambiguity that it has.
I have placed the latest changes to the text into Tony's Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Draft policy rewrite and reverted the page as I suggested above. 17:09, 30 August 2009 With two additions:
I hope that is a reasonable compromise as we attempt to reach a consensus on a new version. To begin with I suggest that we copy this section to another talk page and continue the conversation there (perhapse Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/Draft policy rewrite/Talk but some one else who is more familiar with such things may be able to suggest a better name).
The editing and conversations over the last few days have shown that at least among the few editors who have been editing here that there are great tensions over the best way forward and I hope that with good will we can come up with wording that will satisfy everyone. But I would ask people to refrain from editing the Policy Page until we have a consensus for a clear change. And I suggest that we salami slice the problem as it will make it easier to reach a consensus. For example I think that the change Tony made to the lead paragraph should be reinstated into policy. That could be done if no one objects to the change. We can then move onto other areas and see if there is consensus. -- PBS ( talk) 11:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
How can mention of "common name" be worked into the Draft version of General principles? -- PBS ( talk) 12:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
PBS, hi! This conversation moves fast, so I may have missed it, but I still haven't seen an example of what the hell the contentious sentence is actually about. Can anyone tell me about a specific article whose title would change depending on whether that sentence is considered to be "in effect"? Please? - GTBacchus( talk) 15:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I note that you still fail to provide any practical upshot of this sentence that seems so important to you. Is this because you are unable, or because you are ignoring the question, or is it something else? - GTBacchus( talk) 20:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
The idea that you're not edit warring if your reverts resemble the past is asinine. Reverting anything repeatedly is edit warring even if consensus is on your side, which in this case is not at all clear. In an edit war, both sides are edit warring. This is trivial stuff; where have you been, man?
The stupid anxiety that you ask about comes from people believing in the stupid superstition that editing these pages is a form of stupid word-magic that changes reality. It's cancer if you say it, and it's cancer if anyone else says it. If you think I'm just picking on you, then you're not paying attention. I've made this same point tonight to a half-dozen different people. - GTBacchus( talk) 21:06, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Dude, if you don't want the general convention to be able to overrule specific conventions, you've already won. That is, we've already won. The general convention has been largely rewritten over the last few days. Before, it was a set of rules that the specific conventions must conform to or be damned. Now it is a set of principles that the specific conventions embody. This means far more freedom and flexibility for the specific conventions.
So you're actually bidding against yourself by continually reinstating that sentence. By removing it, we are demoting "use the most easily recognized name" from a rule that cannot be broken by a specific convention without good reason, to merely one of several principles that the specific conventions should take into account. In restoring it, you strengthen that clause, making it more binding on specific conventions, not less. I know that sounds odd; please, think upon it.
Hesperian 11:20, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I have made this edit, because this is the naming conventions page (and policy) The others are guidelines to the policy. There is no point have a set of conventions which lay out the policy, and then having wording that will allow any guideline to completely contradict the policy page. I strongly suggest that we put back the wording based on WP:policies and guidelines that "Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are standards that all users should follow. Where a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, the policy takes precedence." -- PBS ( talk) 14:04, 10 September 2009 (UTC)